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Blaster Array System
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:48 pm    Post subject: Blaster Array System Reply with quote

A long time ago, on an AOL ListServ Far, Far Away...

I wrote up stats for something I called the Blaster Array that could be fitted to a starship. Basically, it's an auto-synchronized system of blaster cannon place at equidistant points around a ship's hull, all controlled through a single gunner's station. The idea is to provide full weapons coverage in any direction on a ship with only 1 or 2 crew (as in, not enough to man two turrets and fly the ship).

I've come back around to it because I really like Frank Bonura's Loronar SkyBlind, and wanted to figure out a way to mount energy weapons on it without mucking up the awesome deck plan. But, while it is ideally suited to the design of the SkyBlind, it could potentially be fit to any light freighter, so long as the shape isn't too bizarre.

Anyway, here's the stats, as best as I can remember:
    Blaster Array
    This weapon system was developed to provide effective all-around defense coverage for small ships with minimal crew. It consists of eight blaster cannon mounted in automated, retractable turrets placed at equidistant points around the ship, all linked and controlled by a single central firing station. The placement of the cannon is such that at least four weapons can bear on any target, regardless of the target's location relative to the ship. The gunner designates a target and the system fires the four cannon with the best firing angle on the selected target. Current technology limits the array to a single target at a time, with the turrets whose fire arcs are masked by the body of the ship holding their fire until a target enter their field of view. However, there is an optional point defense mode where the individual cannon can engage small targets within their line of fire, such as meteorites or space mines. This mode can also be used for surface defense when the ship has landed.
    Fire Arc: Turret
    Scale: Starship (+6D)
    Crew: 1
    Fire Control: 3D
    Range:
    --Space: 1-5/10/17
    --Atmosphere: 100m-500m/1km/1.7km
    Rate of Fire: 2D Auto-Fire
    Damage: 4D
    Special: INDEPENDENT MODE
    In this mode, each cannon is independently controlled by its own integrated gunnery droid brain (skill equivalent 3D) and will automatically engage any target within its arc of fire. Ship's crew can be equipped with an IFF transponder that will keep the cannon from firing on them.
    Note: If one or more guns are damaged or destroyed, reduce the Damage in that Fire Arc by 1D per gun affected.

The only thing I don't have is a Cost and Availability. Obviously, the system is going to be more expensive than normal weapons emplacements, but coming up with realistic prices has never been my strong suit. I'd appreciate any suggestions, as well as your reasoning for why you picked the number you did.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 11:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TL;DR:
Cost: 33.2kc to buy, 43.16kc including permits
Availability: at least 2R, up to 3X depending on your mood. 4X is possible, but you can claim that for anything.

***

Start with Kuat Vonak Light Laser Cannon, 1.5kc each; 12kc total. Damage and Fire Control are 2D each. Fire linkage and two control stations for each is going to add 1.6kc to each, to 13.6kc. Fire Control is now 2D; damage is 4D (since 3 can fire-linked on any given target). Since 3 guns can coordinate on any single target, we can call Fire Control effectively 3D, but you don't just lose damage per damaged gun, you also lose 1 pip of Fire Control.

Now, the droid brains. We need 8 with Starship Gunnery at 3D, and they should likely have some Sensors as well (to interface with the ship's sensors). There are a few options, but it is cheaper to buy TraitWare (attributes) than it is to increase skills (Skillware). Crazy world. Cheapest is to use 2nd degree Droids, and buy them 3D in Mechanical and 3D in Perception, plus 1D in all other attributes (they don't NEED Dex, Str, Kno, or Tech, but I'm including them in the cost). That's 2450 per brain, or 19,600 all told (10,800 if you don't agree they need those other attributes). If you go 1D in all attributes and Starship Gunnery and Sensors at 3D, it's actually more expensive, because of Skillware multipliers, and they have 1D Perception to determine initiative. Going to be 4th Degree droids would be 300 more per brain. There's some fancy tricks we could pull, like Improved Coordination Circuitry, which would improve your skill, but that costs 1000 each brain while only saving you 150, and damaging your Sensors skill, to boot. Not worth it.

Availability would be at LEAST 2R (the legality of a droid capable of Starship Gunnery), but I'd lean towards 3R or 3X... this is a highly specialized system, needing ship, droid, and weapons facilities to put together and install. I don't think it would be necessarily illegal, but it's definitely going to require registration, since both the droid skills and the weapons do.

So, we get to 13.6+19.6kc, for a total of 33.2kc. Add in the permit and fees (30% of purchase price), and you have 43.16kc. This is pretty close to what you were looking for.

It's also going to be 16 tons (the weight of the guns; I'm assuming the other weight is negligible).
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:

It's also going to be 16 tons (the weight of the guns; I'm assuming the other weight is negligible).


You load 16 tons
What do you get?
A weapon system
To make a tech wet
Oh, Force, don't you call me 'cause I can't goooooo
Jabba holds my debt, like Han Solo
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
TL;DR:
Cost: 33.2kc to buy, 43.16kc including permits
Availability: at least 2R, up to 3X depending on your mood. 4X is possible, but you can claim that for anything.

What system did you use for this?

Quote:
Start with Kuat Vonak Light Laser Cannon

What's the price for Blaster Cannon? I know the GG6 chart only lists Light Blaster Cannon, but Heavy Blaster Cannon and "regular" Blaster Cannon do make an appearance in other stats?

Quote:
Fire linkage and two control stations for each

Fire linkage for sure, but why two control stations? These are all going to be remote-operated turrets, all linked to a single, central firing station. Or is it a requirement that the droid gunner has to have a firing station as opposed to be hard-wired into the gun?

Quote:
Fire Control is now 2D; damage is 4D (since 3 can fire-linked on any given target).

I know GG6 capped fire-linking at 3, but that can't be right since at least two ships in the films have quad-linked guns. And my write-up specifically said that up to four guns at a time can be fire-linked


Quote:
we can call Fire Control effectively 3D, but you don't just lose damage per damaged gun, you also lose 1 pip of Fire Control.

That's fair, but what's the source?

Quote:
Now, the droid brains. We need 8 with Starship Gunnery at 3D, and they should likely have some Sensors as well (to interface with the ship's sensors). There are a few options, but it is cheaper to buy TraitWare (attributes) than it is to increase skills (Skillware). Crazy world. Cheapest is to use 2nd degree Droids, and buy them 3D in Mechanical and 3D in Perception, plus 1D in all other attributes (they don't NEED Dex, Str, Kno, or Tech, but I'm including them in the cost).

That right there is an indictment of the droid design system itself. Why it would be more expensive to design a droid brain that can just spot targets using Search than it would to design a brain that can also Gamble, Con, Sneak, Persuade and Hide is beyond me.

Quote:
That's 2450 per brain, or 19,600 all told (10,800 if you don't agree they need those other attributes). If you go 1D in all attributes and Starship Gunnery and Sensors at 3D, it's actually more expensive, because of Skillware multipliers, and they have 1D Perception to determine initiative. Going to be 4th Degree droids would be 300 more per brain. There's some fancy tricks we could pull, like Improved Coordination Circuitry, which would improve your skill, but that costs 1000 each brain while only saving you 150, and damaging your Sensors skill, to boot. Not worth it.

Be nice if there was a way to build one droid brain that could multi-task on all eight guns...

Quote:
Availability would be at LEAST 2R (the legality of a droid capable of Starship Gunnery), but I'd lean towards 3R or 3X... this is a highly specialized system, needing ship, droid, and weapons facilities to put together and install. I don't think it would be necessarily illegal, but it's definitely going to require registration, since both the droid skills and the weapons do.

So, we get to 13.6+19.6kc, for a total of 33.2kc. Add in the permit and fees (30% of purchase price), and you have 43.16kc. This is pretty close to what you were looking for.

It's also going to be 16 tons (the weight of the guns; I'm assuming the other weight is negligible).

I'm okay with the Availability and the Weight, but I'd like to see how the cost shifts once my above points are factored in...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
MrNexx wrote:
TL;DR:
Cost: 33.2kc to buy, 43.16kc including permits
Availability: at least 2R, up to 3X depending on your mood. 4X is possible, but you can claim that for anything.

What system did you use for this?


Sorry; this wound up being edited after I realized my first version was a lot more expensive. I used the REUP system to handle all of this. Ship cannon rules on pg 450-451, droid rules mostly 382-386, with options going to 397.

Quote:
Quote:
Start with Kuat Vonak Light Laser Cannon

What's the price for Blaster Cannon? I know the GG6 chart only lists Light Blaster Cannon, but Heavy Blaster Cannon and "regular" Blaster Cannon do make an appearance in other stats?


There were a few options. Next step up is a Heavy Laser Cannon; 3kc, 4t, 2D Fire Control and 5D damage. Above that is a turbolaser; 9kc, 5t, 3D FC and 7D damage. The Heavy Laser Cannon was in my initial calculations, and put the total price around 60kc.

Take a step down, and you're at a light blaster cannon... 1kc, 1t, 1D FC and 1D damage. Not, IMO, worth the savings on something that's going to be expensive, anyway.

You could get a slight damage boost and weight savings by switching to ion cannons... medium ion cannon costs as much as the light laser cannon in my numbers above, but weighs only 1 ton and does 3D damage.

Quote:
Quote:
Fire linkage and two control stations for each

Fire linkage for sure, but why two control stations? These are all going to be remote-operated turrets, all linked to a single, central firing station. Or is it a requirement that the droid gunner has to have a firing station as opposed to be hard-wired into the gun?


No particular requirement, but I figured that being able to swap control mechanisms would qualify. In essence, the control station would be one firing station, each droid brain would be its own firing station. It's not a huge factor in the cost, however.

Quote:
Quote:
Fire Control is now 2D; damage is 4D (since 3 can fire-linked on any given target).

I know GG6 capped fire-linking at 3, but that can't be right since at least two ships in the films have quad-linked guns. And my write-up specifically said that up to four guns at a time can be fire-linked


*shrug* Works for me. I'm just pounding the numbers.

Personally, I view fire-linking as multiple, individual, cannons tracking the same target, each from their own location. Something like the quad-cannons, where all four muzzles from from a single turret? That's one weapon, and there's no option to unlink them.

Adding in a fourth cannon, I would not give it another 1D damage; another pip or two. Eventually, there's only so much damage that you can do to a single point.

Quote:

Quote:
we can call Fire Control effectively 3D, but you don't just lose damage per damaged gun, you also lose 1 pip of Fire Control.

That's fair, but what's the source?


Combined action rules; basically, I'm saying that no one needs Command, but they can coordinate.

Quote:
Quote:
Now, the droid brains. We need 8 with Starship Gunnery at 3D, and they should likely have some Sensors as well (to interface with the ship's sensors). There are a few options, but it is cheaper to buy TraitWare (attributes) than it is to increase skills (Skillware). Crazy world. Cheapest is to use 2nd degree Droids, and buy them 3D in Mechanical and 3D in Perception, plus 1D in all other attributes (they don't NEED Dex, Str, Kno, or Tech, but I'm including them in the cost).

That right there is an indictment of the droid design system itself. Why it would be more expensive to design a droid brain that can just spot targets using Search than it would to design a brain that can also Gamble, Con, Sneak, Persuade and Hide is beyond me.


I agree completely. They made Traitware too cheap, Skillware too expensive, even if it's being layered on top of Traitware.

Quote:
Quote:
That's 2450 per brain, or 19,600 all told (10,800 if you don't agree they need those other attributes). If you go 1D in all attributes and Starship Gunnery and Sensors at 3D, it's actually more expensive, because of Skillware multipliers, and they have 1D Perception to determine initiative. Going to be 4th Degree droids would be 300 more per brain. There's some fancy tricks we could pull, like Improved Coordination Circuitry, which would improve your skill, but that costs 1000 each brain while only saving you 150, and damaging your Sensors skill, to boot. Not worth it.

Be nice if there was a way to build one droid brain that could multi-task on all eight guns...


I toyed with that. If you want to break the RAW in REUP, you can with a single brain for 2450, and then 7-8 specialized subprocessors (I'd go with 8, and have the brain located somewhere other than a single cannon), each costing 1000. A specialized sub-processor lets them take an additional action each round without a MAP, so they could coordinate all 8 guns. Normally, droids are only supposed to have no more than 1 specialized sub-processor. That would cut your cost to 10,450... one brain and 8 processors.

At that cost, you could also add in a Tactician's Battle Computer (5000), which would give another 1D to firing after the first round (basically, taking data from all the guns to help them aim better). Or another 8000 to add Improved Coordination Circuitry to each of them, which would give +1D+1, but that would require considering each of the droid's cannons to be another droid. Both options still come out under the 19.6kc that the 8 brain model does.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
Sorry; this wound up being edited after I realized my first version was a lot more expensive. I used the REUP system to handle all of this. Ship cannon rules on pg 450-451, droid rules mostly 382-386, with options going to 397.

I have to say, I'm not fond of REUP. There's a lot of stuff in there that got included without taking the opportunity to clean up any of WEG's mistakes. I respect the team for the effort they put in, and the book is visually impressive, but I really wish they'd put more effort into the "Revised" and "Updated", not just the "Expanded".

Quote:
There were a few options.

Yeah. Just thinking that, if we're going to have Light, Medium and Heavy options under Laser and Ion Cannon, we should have a Medium and Heavy option for Blaster Cannon, too. Honestly, that whole GG6 weapon chart needs to be updated.

Quote:
Personally, I view fire-linking as multiple, individual, cannons tracking the same target, each from their own location. Something like the quad-cannons, where all four muzzles from from a single turret? That's one weapon, and there's no option to unlink them.

That still leaves ships like the X-Wing and the TIE Interceptor, though.

I had an idea on this a while back that incorporated the GG6 Fire-Linking limits by allowing you to daisy-chain the fire-links. So, for something like the X-Wing, what's actually going on is that that there are two sets of dual-linked laser cannon, which are then treated as individual weapons for the next set of fire-links up the chain. However, every layer of fire-linking cost double the layer below it. There's at least one ship out there that may have octuple-fire-linking.



Quote:
I agree completely. They made Traitware too cheap, Skillware too expensive, even if it's being layered on top of Traitware.

One alternative would be to give the Droid Brains 3D in Mech, then use Sensors in place of Search.

Quote:
If you want to break the RAW in REUP, you can with a single brain for 2450, and then 7-8 specialized subprocessors (I'd go with 8, and have the brain located somewhere other than a single cannon), each costing 1000. A specialized sub-processor lets them take an additional action each round without a MAP, so they could coordinate all 8 guns. Normally, droids are only supposed to have no more than 1 specialized sub-processor. That would cut your cost to 10,450... one brain and 8 processors.

I like the idea of having the brain co-located with the central firing station, so having a sub-processor at each gun works for me. Considering the projected cost of the ship I'd like to put this on, the price isn't exactly a huge issue.

Quote:
At that cost, you could also add in a Tactician's Battle Computer (5000), which would give another 1D to firing after the first round (basically, taking data from all the guns to help them aim better). Or another 8000 to add Improved Coordination Circuitry to each of them, which would give +1D+1, but that would require considering each of the droid's cannons to be another droid. Both options still come out under the 19.6kc that the 8 brain model does.

Are those two bits of tech from REUP?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
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Joined: 25 Mar 2016
Posts: 2248
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 07, 2021 1:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
MrNexx wrote:

At that cost, you could also add in a Tactician's Battle Computer (5000), which would give another 1D to firing after the first round (basically, taking data from all the guns to help them aim better). Or another 8000 to add Improved Coordination Circuitry to each of them, which would give +1D+1, but that would require considering each of the droid's cannons to be another droid. Both options still come out under the 19.6kc that the 8 brain model does.

Are those two bits of tech from REUP?


Yup. And I went with REUP because it's what I had easy access to; a file on my Drive, rather than digging through sourcebooks that I don't have at work.
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