Meson screens as armor

[Carlobrand]

This isn't new. It's pretty much the stock modification. I'm examining it statistically to see what we end up with.

Under current game rules, meson spinals are lethal to the point that even light cruiser weapons tend to be 1-hit kill weapons. The result makes the battleship an obsolete weapons platform by roughly TL 13: the little cruiser-sized factor E meson spinal has a statistical probability of delivering a crippling fuel result in about 1 out of 2 successful hits and a crippling critical result in about 70% of successful hits. To avert this (assuming one wants dreadnoughts to remain prominent), enhance the power of the meson screen.

The meson screen causes the premature decay of mesons interacting with it. Because of this, if the meson weapon penetrates the screen, the screen is treated as armor against meson fire, reducing the number of additional rolls by one for each level of the screen and giving a penalty to the damage roll equal to the screen rating, but a weapon always gets one roll if it hits.

ANALYSIS:

• TL 11: no screen, A gets 2 rolls, B gets 3 rolls.
• TL 12: F1 screen, C gets 4-1=3 rolls, D gets 5-1=4 rolls, K gets 11-1=10 rolls.
• TL 13: F3 screen, E gets 6-3=3 rolls, F gets 7-3=4 rolls, L gets 12-3=9 rolls, P gets 15-3=12 rolls.
• TL 14: F6 screen, G gets 8-6=2 rolls, H gets 9-6=3 rolls, M gets 13-6=7 rolls, Q gets 16-6=10 rolls, S gets 18-6=12 rolls.
• TL 15: F9 screen, J gets 10-9=1 roll, N gets 14-9=5 rolls, R gets 17-9=8 rolls, T gets 19-9=10 rolls.

Note that the E/G/J spinals tend to be light cruiser weapons, the C/F/H/N spinals tend to be heavy cruiser weapons, the A/D/L/M/R spinals tend to be battlecruiser weapons, and the B/K/P/Q/S/T spinals tend to be dreadnought weapons. In effect, cruisers will tend to get between 1 and 5 rolls depending on size and tech level, while dreadnoughts get 10-12 rolls except at TL 11, when the meson spinal is introduced.

Lethality decreases as the screens improve:

At TL 11, the B-meson has a 6/36 chance of an internal critical and a 1/36 chance of a radiation critical on each roll, about a 47% chance overall. There is a 30% chance of a fuel-tanks-shattered result and of course the lesser hits.

At TL 12 (assuming fibre optic computer):

• The cruiser C meson has about a 23% critical chance overall with a 23% chance of a fuel-tanks-shattered result, and on average will also inflict about 1 jump drive hit, 1 power plant hit, 1-2 screen hits, 58% chance of a computer hit, 2 weapon hits, and will kill 1 crew section.
• The dreadnought K meson has about a 58% critical chance overall with a 58% chance of a fuel-tanks-shattered result, and on average will also inflict about 3-4 jump drive hits, 3 power plant hits, 5 screen hits, 2 computer hits, 6 weapon hits, and kill 3-4 crew sections.

At TL 13:

• The cruiser E meson does not do criticals, has an 8% chance of a fuel-tanks-shattered result, and on average will also inflict about 1 jump drive hit, 1 power plant hit, 1-2 screen hits, 2/3 chance of a computer hit, 3 weapon hits, and kill 1 crew section.
• The dreadnought P meson does not do criticals, has a 29% chance of a fuel-tanks-shattered result, and on average will also inflict about 3-4 jump drive hits, 4 power plant hits, 5-6 screen hits, 2-3 computer hits, 13 weapon hits, and kill 3 crew sections.

At TL 14:

• The cruiser G meson does not do fuel-tanks-shattered results. On average it has a 56% chance of a jump drive hit, a 56% chance of a power plant hit, a 72% chance of a screen hit, a 44% chance of a computer hit, will inflict 2-3 weapon hits, and has a 17% chance of a crew section kill.
• The dreadnought S meson does not do fuel-tanks-shattered results. On average it will inflict about 3 jump drive hits, 3 power plant hits, 4 screen hits, 2-3 computer hits, 15 weapon hits, and kill 1 crew section.

At TL 15:

• The cruiser J meson on average has a 33% chance of a jump drive hit, a 36% chance of a power plant hit, a 36% chance of a screen hit, a 16% chance of a computer hit, will inflict 1-2 weapon hit, and has an 8% chance of a crew section kill.
• The dreadnought T meson on average will inflict about 4 jump drive hits, 4 power plant hits, 4 screen hits, 2 computer hits, 17-18 weapon hits, and kill 1 crew section.

The net here is the meson remains lethal, but it's no longer devastating. A cruiser's light spinal isn't wrecking dreadnoughts the way it had been, while the dreadnought spinal is hitting hard. The light cruiser is not a slouch - it's getting in and doing more damage than a destroyer could do - but it's, well, being a light cruiser rather than the deadly force that the current rules create.

 

[aramis]

Hunter's solution (in T20) was in fact to treat meson screens exactly like armor, except affecting mesons. It made them considerably less deadly with the smaller spinals, as a factor 9 meson screen meant 9 dice went away... mesons still remained the queens of battle, but Battleships could suck up a few hits... while 20 Ktd's died from major spinals on BB's.

 

[Carlobrand]

Hunter's solution (in T20) was in fact to treat meson screens exactly like armor, except affecting mesons. It made them considerably less deadly with the smaller spinals, as a factor 9 meson screen meant 9 dice went away... mesons still remained the queens of battle, but Battleships could suck up a few hits... while 20 Ktd's died from major spinals on BB's.

I'm still trying to make sense of Mongoose, but it looks like they do something vaguely similar there.

Even without killing ships, battleship meson spinals remain wicked. Jump drives are getting thoroughly mangled, and in a lot of cases the target ends up both unable to escape by jump and seriously compromised with computer and power damage if it has to battle another round. Targets don't tend to be combat worthy after a couple of hits, so while this does make dreadnoughts superior, they still go down pretty fast.

About the only issue is that the target takes the same damage whether it's a battleship or a cruiser, but the critical rule means the smaller ships get pretty badly criticalled. Occurs to me belatedly that the meson screen needs to influence the critical rule - doesn't help a lot, at best a reduction of 4, but it does help a bit.

 

[mike wightman]

Many years ago I also came to the conclusion for my house rules for HG'80 that meson screens should act as armour in addition to the penetration rolls.

My solution was to reduce the number of extra hits by the meson screen rating, reduce the number of auto crits by half the meson screen rating, and use the screen rating as a +DM on the damage tables - i.e. a meson screen acts on a meson gun the same way armour affects a PA spinal.

A meson screen 9 will push crew hits, criticals and the fuel tank shattered off the potential damage results, but you are highly likely to suffer a couple of screen hits that are going to make you a lot more vulnerable next turn.

Other house rules:
adding more blocks to the USP so that spinals, bays and turrets can be differentiated
turret beam weapons and missiles do not suffer the agility DM to hit (as per original HG 80 pre errata)
bay energy weapons suffer the agility DM but do not suffer the +6DM on the damage tables
ships of hull size L-P require two hits to reduce a drive rating or crew result (keep track using tally marks above USP)
ships of hull size Q+ require three hits to reduce a drive rating or crew result.

The Oz had a brilliant idea which I adopted which allows big ships to carry more spinal mounts in especially large bays - divide hull size by 1000 to determine the maximum size of the secondary spinals.

 

[Carlobrand]

...A meson screen 9 will push crew hits, criticals and the fuel tank shattered off the potential damage results, but you are highly likely to suffer a couple of screen hits that are going to make you a lot more vulnerable next turn. ...

Yes, the statistical analysis showed that. Averaged from 1 to 2 on the light cruiser sized spinals to 4 to 5 for the dreadnought sized spinals. Also power plant hits that will rob the target of agility in the next round, computer damage that will place it at a computer disadvantage, and damage to the jump drive that will limit the target's ability to escape.

...Other house rules:
adding more blocks to the USP so that spinals, bays and turrets can be differentiated ...

How did this work?

...turret beam weapons and missiles do not suffer the agility DM to hit (as per original HG 80 pre errata) ...

What original HG 80 pre-errata? I've never heard that one. Sounds like an interesting option, though I'm not sure I'd apply it to missiles.

...ships of hull size L-P require two hits to reduce a drive rating or crew result (keep track using tally marks above USP)
ships of hull size Q+ require three hits to reduce a drive rating or crew result...

Ooh, I like this!

 

[mike wightman]

Instead of having one offensive weapons block you have three of them - either in a string or underneath the USP:

BB - T136AJ4-F99949-0T-9999-99999-2
or
BB - T136AJ4-F99949-0T-2

................................9999

................................99999

I prefer the extended string.

When HG'80 was first released the DM to apply agility as a universal -DM to hit was missing from page 45, it was added as errata in TCS and made it into later print runs of HG'80. It was also missing from the free insert in JTAS7 to upgrade HG'79 to HG'80.
The game plays very different if it is only spinals affected by target agility

 

[Carlobrand]

Instead of having one offensive weapons block you have three of them - either in a string or underneath the USP:

BB - T136AJ4-F99949-0T-9999-99999-2
or
BB - T136AJ4-F99949-0T-2

................................9999

................................99999

I prefer the extended string. ...

What do you do with it?

...When HG'80 was first released the DM to apply agility as a universal -DM to hit was missing from page 45, it was added as errata in TCS and made it into later print runs of HG'80. It was also missing from the free insert in JTAS7 to upgrade HG'79 to HG'80.
The game plays very different if it is only spinals affected by target agility

Well, yeah, that plays a lot more like Book 2 combat.