Thank you, Wildstar, for all the info on using regular shipboard
missiles against ground targets. I am sure it will come in very
useful...
Wildstar goes on to say:
>I don't know about your campaign, but in mine, any ship which had nuclear
>anti-ship munitions on board is hardly an "average merchant ship". The best
>designation they could hope for would be "privateer", with "pirate",
>"corsair", and even "terrorist" and "criminal" being strong possibilities.
Yes, I'd agree. It is the case, however, that the "Anastasia,"
registered at Spirelle as a Merchant Cruiser, does have quite a large
nuclear arsenal on board. The missiles were in the magazine when they
found the ship, and thanks to some clever fraternising with the Scout
Base the vessel was not inspected in detail when they registered it
under salvage law. Since then, the ship has been used about
half-and-half for speculative merchant trading and for deep military
reconnaisance; in spirit, though, it is definitely being run as a free
trader.
(Actually, the ship was the original Kinunir, upgraded to fit MT
design rules. This makes it 2kt displacement, with some high-tech
stuff in engineering, including some really funky jump drives. It had
crash-landed on Spirelle some 30 years ago, and the characters ran
into it while vacationing at a posh resort. Baling out of a stricken
scout/courier at several thousand feet was not their idea of a
vacation, however...)
They have never used nukes inside the Imperium (very wise!),
although they have launched quite a few in the year and a half they
have been outside its boundaries. As I recall, being good Imperial
citizens, they used conventional missiles until nukes were used
against them first. They did use a few salvos against enemy ground
forces when they rescued some stranded marines, but as it was a
parting shot on the way out of orbit the detailed effects were not too
important at the time. They do have a good Forward Observer in the
crew.
Mild efforts to obtain replacement missiles have failed so far,
but since they only have two of the four missile turrets operational
(and those are patched heavily after a very brief encounter with a
50kt battleship) they are not really running out yet. Now that they
are intending to return to the Imperium for at least a visit, they
will have less opportunity to use them anyway. They are actually far
more concerned with keeping the jump drives together, as the annual
maintenance is long overdue and there are no suitable shipyards in
this backward area. They do, however, seem to be considering coming
back out here later on...
(Sometime I might consider uploading the log of my campaign, which has
just completed 2 game years -- the last session covered the New Years
Eve party as they welcomed in 1119 (long live Strephon!). Some of you
might be interested.)
Martyn
- --------------sasmjw@unx.sas.com----(Martyn Wheeler)----DoD #293--------------
SAS Institute, Inc: [phone removed] H: [phone removed] (Raleigh, NC)