Shooting down missiles

[Snuffy]

Question on Pg 364 RUE

There are three different percentages given for when you shoot a missile with a gun/cannon/laser, etc:
01-30%, 31-60%, and 61-00%

I'm argueing with my players that if 2 missiles are fired and the player shoots at the volley and is successful at hitting one (and depletes the MDC); then they should roll to see if the second missile is destroyed.

My players are of the opinion that in a volley of two, per how it is written, they both always explode.

I think I am right in thinking the 01-30% is miswritten or needs some clarification. I'm not writing the entire rule because I am not certain that is within the board rules.

I think there should always be a chance the second missile will escape detonation, hence a 30% chance and the way it is written is for larger volleys.

Some feedback would be appreciated, maybe I'm just looking at this incorrectly.


.....seems this would make it more effective to fire a gun than a missile at the volley according to my players opinions.

BTW - my players will go with my ruling, I just want to make sure I'm being fair.

[MASTERMIND]

I kinda think your players are right. Isn't this one of those hard/fast rules? To keep game play fun and interesting the dice roll affects the volley, not just the individual missiles. I'm not much of a rules lawyer though so I can't give you a stronger argument than that.

[Nightshade37]

Page 364 of RUE, under Missile Terms:

Missile Volley: Two or more missiles fired simultaneously at the same target...

[Kesslan]

Personally I allways give it a chance to destroy the entire voley, but never a guarantee. The bigger the volley comming at yout the less likely you are to get them all.

Eventually of course you reach a satuartion point where no matter how many you shoot down your gonig to get obliterated anyway but that number will differ a great deal from target to target.

One of the tables somewhere in the Palladium books gave a percentile chance to see if a shot down missile actually exploded in the air instead, thus in effect giving you a chacne to destroy the rest of the missiles around it.

In the end though if you want to go quick and loose, then succesfully shooting down one missile in the volley is the same as shooting down the entire volley. If you want to do it with a greater degree of 'realism' then really you'd have to roll for every single missile in the volley or some similar such system.

And you'd also have to take into account missile speed vs distance and thus travel time. At short range you wouldnt even get the chance to shoot it down, and say, for an LRM volley comming from max range you could infact (potentially) get several actions to try and shoot them down before they actually hit.

[Snuffy]

Thank you for your inputs. I'm still not convinced yet.

I guess this is where my dilemma stems from that the detonation of the volley is from the initial missile exploding. Let me explain further with a bit extreme scenario.

Someone fires two mini-missiles at me and all I have left to intercept is a medium range missile. There's enough time that I can fire and I make my rolls to hit one missile. There's only a 75% chance that I will detonate the second missile even with the blast radius of the medium warhead (pg 364). Yet, if I had fired laser rifle I would have a 100% chance. There's no blast radius other than the initial mini-missile to catch the second.

Let's look at this another way, someone shoots three missiles and you try to detonate the volley. You'll always get two the way it is written, but you're down to a 30% chance of getting them all (61-00%).

[zor_prime1]

I don't have the RUE book in front of me. But what might help make sense is to look at the original rule and see if the RUE is a remake of that rule. In the original book, you could shoot down a missile volley with either a gun or another missile/missile volley. A volley being defined as two or more missiles. (you can't have a volley of 1 )

Now, if the MDC of the missile was depleted, then the missile would explode. But, if a gun was used to attack the enemy missile volley and successfully detonated the one missile, there was a 1-45% chance to detonate the whole volley. If a missile or volley of missiles was used to shoot down the enemies volley then there was a 1-75% chance to detonate them all. This makes sense to me because the missiles you fired would give added damage and increase the blast radius whereas a gun/laser/cannon wouldn't. So you'd have to rely on the blast radius of the one missile. This 45% takes into account variables like how far apart the missiles are in the volley at the point of detonation since they can spread because of winding, turbulence, different launching points, etc.

I'm thinking that it's possible that the RUE rules are saying that a laser/cannon/laser have a 30% (instead of the old 45%) to detonate to add to the reality or difficulty.

This is how I would look at it: the new rule is as an upgrate/modification to the original.

[jedi078]

Two or missiles are considered a volley. I would say that per the rules if a 01-30% is rolled only one missile is shot down if the volley is comprised of 2 missiles.

Furthermore I think a single laser blast has an even lower chance (IMO impossible) of shooting down a missile. Missiles fly at you at extreme speeds, how are you going to lift a rifle and shoot the missiles without any sort of radar or guidance systems to tell you the exact direction the missiles are coming from?

I used to use the old rules from the Robotech and the RMB. But never did my players try to shoot down a volley of missiles with anything other then an auto cannon or missiles (both of which were guided by weapon systems). It was just unspoken that you don't try to use a rifle or something non-guided to shoot missiles down in my game back in the day.

Anyhow in my games I don’t make rolls to see if all the missiles in the volley are destroyed, because I have a nasty rule where it’s -10 (before strike bonuses are brought into play) to shoot down missiles. That and missiles are quite deadly in my Robotech games.

[Kesslan]

Yeah personally I get around the whole gun thing for the most part the same way it seems Jedi does. I... just dont allow it unless it's actually got some sort of guidance system. Like point defence lasers etc that are specifically calibrated to be able to track and shoot down missiles etc.

I mean even fighter jets far as I know cant do this. And only the PD weapons on things like friggates and such actually can.

I would also personally tend to give a better chance for say an MRM to shoot down a volley of mini missiles than just a gun or something. Simply becasue of that blast radius. I still however roll the damage on the intercepting missile etc to see if it's high enough to actually deplete the MDC of the incomming missiles.

It usually is, but epsecially with things like LRMs that isnt allways the case.

[Snuffy]

I don't have the RUE book in front of me. But what might help make sense is to look at the original rule and see if the RUE is a remake of that rule. In the original book, you could shoot down a missile volley with either a gun or another missile/missile volley. A volley being defined as two or more missiles. (you can't have a volley of 1 )

Now, if the MDC of the missile was depleted, then the missile would explode. But, if a gun was used to attack the enemy missile volley and successfully detonated the one missile, there was a 1-45% chance to detonate the whole volley. If a missile or volley of missiles was used to shoot down the enemies volley then there was a 1-75% chance to detonate them all. This makes sense to me because the missiles you fired would give added damage and increase the blast radius whereas a gun/laser/cannon wouldn't. So you'd have to rely on the blast radius of the one missile. This 45% takes into account variables like how far apart the missiles are in the volley at the point of detonation since they can spread because of winding, turbulence, different launching points, etc.

I'm thinking that it's possible that the RUE rules are saying that a laser/cannon/laser have a 30% (instead of the old 45%) to detonate to add to the reality or difficulty.

This is how I would look at it: the new rule is as an upgrate/modification to the original.

I'm used to the 45%/75% rule too. The new rule actually bumps the percentage to 70% for detonating the entire volley of 2 missiles (or if your my players, 100%).

Mastermind - The new RUE rule actually adds more book keeping than the original 45/75%. Although it does add some fun stuff that you only get a partial of the large missile volley.

[demos606]

Honestly, as a player I find it safer (and less expensive) to just dodge missiles if there are less than 4 in play.

[MASTERMIND]

Honestly, as a player I find it safer (and less expensive) to just dodge missiles if there are less than 4 in play.

Which works too but shooting the missiles out of the air makes you feel like a stud.

[demos606]

Unless I'm playing RT, I don't need to shoot missiles down to "feel like a stud". Might have something to do with a hefty preference for magical OCCs though TK barriers, elemental walls, tornados etc etc etc; all much better odds than shooting missiles

[jedi078]

I have to agree the rules for individuals shooting missiles down only applies to 4+ volleys. Why? In my mind an ordinary person can't hit a small volley because the target isn't big enough. If there is power armor with radar and smart mini-missiles different story. Besides you can't dodge a 4+ missile volley can you? So you can either dodge the volley or try and shoot it down depending on the size of the volley.

I have a house rule where a player can dodge 3+their level in missiles.

[Kesslan]

PErsonally I've never agreed with that 'cant dodge a volley' rule. At least.. not in whole. In RT it makes sense because their all guided and especially if you get into macross with those hyper missiles etc their -really- freaking smart.

But then in the shows/movies etc they still manage to dodge/shoot down some 100+ 'hyper manuverabilty missiles' for example. Course that was really really good pilots in state of the art prototypes but still.

Depends on the setting reall and the situation. Infantry for example. I still have the mroll dodge, but al lthat really serves is to see if ti's a direct hit or blast radius hit.

Especially with rifts where supposedly and magically missiles have this pin point accuracy capability yet also are 'unguided'. Course I also ignore that unguided part since it makes no sense for half the stuff you can do with missiles especialy once you get into LRMs etc.

Course thats in part because I also apply explosion damage to the whole body when it makes sense. So yeah they can try to 'dodge' the volley, make it, take half from blast, roll with impact for 1/4th damage. But thats 1/4th of the volley damage to their entire body because it's effectively one really big explosion and most of the damage reduction can be considered to be thanks to terrain etc.

I've personally never let PCs just take rifles to fire at a missile volley like i've seen some GMs do. Because it makes for some... well really retarded scenes in my opinion unless your allready doing this 100% off the wall crazy adventure type thing to begin with.

[Snuffy]

We've gotten a little bit off topic, but I agree I wouldn't allow someone with a rifle to shoot down missiles unless the person was a 'Borg and even then I would still be hesitant (and I was). My above example is just an example of applying the shooting down missiles from the rule RUE page 364. Change the person shooting the missiles down to a person inside a robot with a cannon shooting down a volley of 2 missiles. Depending on how you read the 01-30%, you would have a 100% chance of shooting down the entire "volley". I think the word "other" should be omitted from the book under 01-30%. ie, if one missile is hit and depleted of MDC and the percentile roll is equal or less than 30%, only the one missile is detonated, not the second missile.

[Kesslan]

Eh but if they were fired off at the same time tehy could be in close enough proximity that the detonation of one could cause the detonation of the other, allt he more so when they have a large blast radius.

So I think it's still somewhat fitting. Though I wouldnt make it a 100% chance. Afterall just because you shoot down a missile doesnt necessarily mean it blew up mid air. But it might. And in such situations it probably would at the very least damage the other Missile(s)

[Glistam]

I think we should just use the old RMB rules. We're still using those combat rules for WP's instead of the RUE rules, why change our convention for missles too?