Rejected Submission [DRv3] Missile Rules Addendum

[FrostJaeger]

• Submission Type: DRv3 Rules Addition
• Submission URL: Linky
  
• Faction: N/A
• FM Approved Yet: I honestly have no idea what to put here.
• Faction requires art: N/A
  
• Contains unapproved sub-articles? Nope.
• Contains new art? Nope.
• Previously submitted? Nope.
  
  So, I was going to write a massive rebuttal post to everything @Zack has been saying in his missile thread - but then it occurred to me:
  
  Why not simply make my own?
  
  Anyhoo, here's the result - and I apologize for the poor formatting; I'm really, really tired at the moment due to it being 1:25 AM at the time of writing this.

 

[Zack]

I don't think you're getting any sympathy from me for admitting there is a problem that we pointed out a long time ago. Doubly so if the only reason you're admitting there is a problem is because it now affects you.

Rules changes probably aren't going to happen, so the fix seems to be to work around them.

 

[Syaoran]

@Fred That problem is kind of why I wanted to separate torpedoes/missiles by 'use'. For instance, when you look at power armor and mechs any missiles they use pretty much come in a salvo launcher, they pretty much don't even try to use single mounted missiles. However they also tend to use their missiles in actual combat, and not as a weapon they can fire out of their other weapons effective range. Only with 'ship' shaped things do we tend to try that.

The point though is that multi tube missile systems exist, so counting multiple tubes as a single system makes sense. I would personally say only specific types of torpedoes/missiles should be 1 tube per weapon slot. If we separate the missiles into classes we can give some benefit to the more restricted types, to go with their down side to balance it out. Personally all I care about is the 'fire rate' of missiles. But for some reason instead of using mutli tube systems people insist on self launched single use systems and then complain about the ammo @.@

If only someone had seen this problem coming during the DRv3 approval thread!

It also looks like there is 0 chance of getting the rules changed.

So the solution seems to he the Arieg style workaround. We classify Fred's 8 torpedo tubes as a multi-barrel torpedo launcher. Just have the submission read 'Miharu Torpedo System' or some such and give the entire system a single combined Rate of Fire and shared ammunition pool

It is really no different than having twin-linked weapons 40k style. Treat two guns as a single weapon system.

As for probe launchers... I mean just fire them from the torpedo tubes instead. I think the guideline so far is that a weapon has to be treated as firing the most powerful thing it can so if the probe launchers can fire torpedoes they'd count as Tier 12 weapons. If they can't then you don't have to count them as weapons.

Lot of good your 'vision' did when you couldn't even present an actual solution. Doesn't matter if you can see into the future, if you can't do more than muster a "Don't do that" it means nothing for everyone else.

 

[Fred]

Yeah, but DRv3 isn't supposed to be dealing with rate-of-fire. Rate of fire should only be a fluff element of the article.

It's that damnable section in DRv3 that pretends to tell you how much you should be packing that's getting in the way. DRv3 was never supposed to be a subject of balance; it was each submission that was supposed to be, under the scrutinery of the NTSE mods.

 

[Zack]

That is the system you made, and it is the system we are now using.

Is doing the combined-weapon-thing a great solution? No.

Does it fit with SARP's current rule system? Yes.

Its literally just a different way of writing down your weapon systems to get around the per-weapon limitations of DRv3.

 

[Wes]

Maybe it's not about the amount you can carry. I mean, any ship with space, like a cargo ship, could physically carry a huge amount of torpedoes. Instead, maybe it's about the amount you can put out at once in battle that matters most.

 

[Syaoran]

Yeah, but DRv3 isn't supposed to be dealing with rate-of-fire. Rate of fire should only be a fluff element of the article.

It's that damnable section in DRv3 that pretends to tell you how much you should be packing that's getting in the way. DRv3 was never supposed to be a subject of balance; it was each submission that was supposed to be, under the scrutinery of the NTSE mods.

Yeah but that section is pretty important. Because even before DRv3 we had people arguing with the NTSE over ships that were considered OP, because the only rule was how much DR you could aim at a single ship at once. But some ships with excessive guns were still a problem, and since there was no rule against them it was difficult for the NTSE to maintain reputation and put down those ships.

I think maybe a way that we can kinda get around this is. Within reason all tubes that fire the same casing(warhead can change) in the same direction could count as a single weapon system for the purposes of DR. That's not too much of a stretch, and you'd likely use all those tubes in the same 'style' any way.

 

[Fred]

It's true that we don't exactly have any limitation put for turrets. Each turret so far counts as a weapon, but we have quad and dual turrets on some Star Army ships. In my Miharu-related dilemma above, the fore/aft launchers could be construed as two weapons, each with an increased rate of fire to account for the four tubes. 2sec per tube sounded pretty ridiculous when I was looking at the older KFY ships, but it's not that outlandish when you're dealing with four tubes.

It doesn't diffuse the Arieg situation, though. he has fifty-ish times 8-missile packs that essentially don't have a reload rate. We all know there's stuff like that in the real world so we can't exactly dismiss it. In a way, Arieg's chosen method could even be ascribed to as a superior distribution method. Denying him that under the umbrella of being overpowered could actually be demeaning what could be construed as good engineering.

I actually contemplated the VLS system myself early on my ship design concepts because I thought it might be effective. I saw no reason why the torpedoes couldn't just turn around in midflight to go for thier targets. The reason I dropped it was because if I changed too much stuff around, the Miharu refit wouldn't have looked much like it was in the same ship lineage. That said, there must be a way to give it some merit, while making it stand out from the more common dedicated launcher system that's more common in SARP.

 

[Zack]

The solution here is defining a projectile speed, which has been asked for in the past but sidestepped because the NTSE doesn't want to set something they will be held to later.

Namely, if you want to use a torpedo-thrower then you should be able to count the torpedoes as projectiles and give them a higher speed. In that sense the weapon would just be a rail-gun that shoots torpedoes as far as DRv3 goes.

 

[Syaoran]

Defining a projectile speed is not the solution here. Literally knowing how fast they go wont solve any of Fred's problems.

Fred as for the thing with Arieg's design. Yes it's possible in real life, there are some design sacrifices that end up being made for something that focused. However because of only loose applications of physics in the setting, a lot of those issues don't show up. The reason why it's considered 'over powered' is not because of it's impossibility, but because if it's allowed, what reason is there for the other stuff if not simply "I'm choosing intentionally to use the worse method" That is why Arieg's design causes so much apprehension(at least that's what I can grasp) that it would make there be no other reason to use stuff.

It's kinda the same reason why our energy attacks do not vastly out perform nonenergy attacks and we have some rather unrealistic combinations of 'specs' on things. So that energy weapons are not better in every way then solid projectiles. Technology is so far advanced that a lot of the problems we know to exist with things are negated, and if there are problems that would come about from doing things they're something out of our current level of comprehension because most of us do not have a deep understanding of physics.

So some things have to be limited unrealistically to avoid things that are wholly superior from showing up and there being no reason not to do things that way, protecting that variety is important, because 'factions' have become such an important thing to the setting. If there was clearly a single best way to do a tech, player companies that weren't the first to come up with that idea, would likely just not make anything in that group, and slowly the number of companies would drop, then likely factions as well.

 

[FrostJaeger]

It's true that we don't exactly have any limitation put for turrets. Each turret so far counts as a weapon, but we have quad and dual turrets on some Star Army ships. In my Miharu-related dilemma above, the fore/aft launchers could be construed as two weapons, each with an increased rate of fire to account for the four tubes. 2sec per tube sounded pretty ridiculous when I was looking at the older KFY ships, but it's not that outlandish when you're dealing with four tubes.

It doesn't diffuse the Arieg situation, though. he has fifty-ish times 8-missile packs that essentially don't have a reload rate. We all know there's stuff like that in the real world so we can't exactly dismiss it. In a way, Arieg's chosen method could even be ascribed to as a superior distribution method. Denying him that under the umbrella of being overpowered could actually be demeaning what could be construed as good engineering.

I actually contemplated the VLS system myself early on my ship design concepts because I thought it might be effective. I saw no reason why the torpedoes couldn't just turn around in midflight to go for thier targets. The reason I dropped it was because if I changed too much stuff around, the Miharu refit wouldn't have looked much like it was in the same ship lineage. That said, there must be a way to give it some merit, while making it stand out from the more common dedicated launcher system that's more common in SARP.

Not to be rude @Fred, but in its current revision the Indigo-class Escort has the following...



...and although construable as good engineering or superior ammunition distribution, isn't the ability to launch 108 Tier 10 (or greater!) missiles every second (the launch system doesn't provide an exact value, so I only have my own worst-case estimates to go off of) just a tad bit overpowered compared to anything else within the setting, particulary when each missile has barriers and armor equivalent to a light mecha?

(...and I got ninja'd by @Syaoran >.<)

Maybe it's not about the amount you can carry. I mean, any ship with space, like a cargo ship, could physically carry a huge amount of torpedoes. Instead, maybe it's about the amount you can put out at once in battle that matters most.

[...]

I think maybe a way that we can kinda get around this is. Within reason all tubes that fire the same casing(warhead can change) in the same direction could count as a single weapon system for the purposes of DR. That's not too much of a stretch, and you'd likely use all those tubes in the same 'style' any way.

@Fred perfectly explains my complaint with the above solutions...

Yeah, but DRv3 isn't supposed to be dealing with rate-of-fire. Rate of fire should only be a fluff element of the article.

[...]

...and furthermore, unless we want to lay down some hard rules regarding precisely how many tubes each "facing" could have - something DRv3 wasn't really meant to do, in my humble opinion - there will always be efforts to stretch the definition of "within reason" to the breaking point and beyond by simply arguing the issue to death or claiming "moderator bias" or something moronic like that. Also, how would such a rule deal with the fact that in SARP it's completely feasible to have "off-bore" missile launchers?

 

[Fred]

All I know is that I can look over tihs wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_launching_system

And see this picture:

To then conclude: "Yeah, it should probably be doable."

Looking at the ship class with such an armament:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser

It seems pretty much able to pack this much heat. I'm not justifying the amount of missiles Arieg is going for, but on some level, that kind of weapon system needs to be relatable too.

 

[Syaoran]

Well I think everyone feels such a weapon system needs to be possible. But going to the high extreme in a system that didn't account for it in one shot, isn't the way to do it.

 

[Navian]

By 'mitigating factors', I meant damage mitigation. DRv3 only covers damage inflicted on successful hits, it doesn't concern itself with the frequency of successful attacks, or point defense. A tier 14 attack vs. a tier 12 target is the same whether it has a 0% chance to hit or a 100% chance.

It pains me a bit to bring it up again, but with the chance of an attack succeeding being such an important factor, it seems a bit odd to be concerned exclusively with the number of missiles being fired, the number of point defense weapons in use against them, and the tiers of the weapons and targets involved.

If we rated these weapons systems for their effectiveness, and allowed that effectiveness to be broken down into various categories, it'd solve Fred's problem and many others. If a design worked out so that the appearance or layout seemed to indicate it would be unbalanced--too weak, or too strong--we could balance it out in less tangible categories.

We'd still want to make sure the baseline is plausible, but I don't see a problem with allowing someone to have a ship with 32 weapons, even weapon the same size as those on a ship with 8, and yet still have both ships be equally effective in combat, due to the ship with more weapons being less accurate, slower to fire, easy to fool with countermeasures, or less effective in some other way.

It's not all about the weapons systems, either. A ship's fire control systems, sensors, and basic agility might all have a major impact on how effective its weapons are, even with all the same turrets installed.