At last a subject to sink my teeth into, if I had the time. But anyhow
this is my .02cr worth.
Impact missiles? Naaah forget it. I must agree with GDW in FF&S that the
change in rules and how the "real" world works you can't expect to get a
missile within impact range of a starship if it is armed with a laser.
Saturate the defenses? No way, if that should be pssible we must see
launchers with a ROF of at least 10 a minute, and the missile must have
more than 4Gh to spend of fuel. With the volume of the missiles and
magazine limit on the turrets and barbettes I find this unlikely.
But I can think of other types of missiles that can be of use. They
don't need to impact, but has to get real close to the target. I can
think of two types of missiles.
- Antimatter missile
- Black hole missile
Both missiles need small warheads compared to the missiles in TNE. One
gram of antimatter should be enough to fry a starship at a decent range.
The antimatter is held in a gravitic bottle and mixed with matter when
the missile is close enough to hurt the target.
Black hole missles can function in a similar way. When the missile is
close enough, the black hole can be released and "shot" at the target
with a gaussrifle thingie or something similar. A weapon like this will
be expensive, and thus only useable against battlecruisers or larger to
justify the cost.
I haven't given the starship design a full test to date. I'm tinkering
with a ramscope ship for one of the alien races in Gvurrdon. The race is
not able to utilize jumpships due to a phenomenom that kills them during
jump. The reason I have made them vulnerable to jumpspace is that their
world is a TL 16 world, and that would put them in a position to quickly
conquer much of Gvurrdon before thay are stopped.
Anyway I think we will meet limitations in the designs as we put on
armor, drives and weapons. A fighting ship should have a decent Gh
rating or else it will run out of fuel mighty fast. And that is the
worst limitation of them all. Even a decent merchant get problems with
fuel, and a merchant in a brawl? He's in big trouble. Ten to twenty Gh
will run out pretty soon, and much of it has been spended to reach orbit
and jump point. I find it unlikely that merchants will refuel at a gas
giant, unless the mainworld orbits a gas giant, or the 100 diameter
limit of the star is far outside the habitable zone of the system, and
that the gas giant is in a favourable position for a route from jump
point to the world.
Roger "StarWolf" Myhre