Rifts Triangluar Defense System Vs. LRMs

[eliakon]

Its pretty much a given that LRMs can easily do the 100+ MD needed to punch a temporary hole in this spell. That said, would the resulting 1d4 second hole be exploitable? Especially by follow on missiles, or would they be blown up in a fratricide?

Edit, I realized I put this on the wrong board, this should probably be on the Rifts or Magic forums. My mistake.

[Alrik Vas]

I'd rule that they blow up. Though there's nothing stopping more than one source from firing missiles at the same area.

[Nekira Sudacne]

It says the opening allows for one large vessle to pass through per 2 seconds it remains open, so I'd rule each missle counts as a large vessle. thus, assuming a seqential launch of 3 missile, you have a 50% chance of one missle getting through and a smaller chance of two.

[glitterboy2098]

the question is whether the fireball of the first missile remains during those 2 seconds. missiles are fairly fragile, even reduced damage from passing through the blast radius will knock them out. so if the damaging effects of the explosion remain, even if in reduced form, following missiles might be immolated before they can pass through the hole.

[Alrik Vas]

Unless it's been changed, yes, missiles have a 45%-75% fratricide rate.

[eliakon]

So using one missile to punch a hole for a second missile might not be the best plan.
What about using synchronized fire? I.e. an array of energy weapons blasts a hole the second before the missile hits the field.
The problems are two fold: Timing (this is not something that you do on the fly, I see specialists, and their specialized gear), and Accuracy (even if you do hit where you need, if that 10' hole is not lined up JUST RIGHT your missile is still going to smack into the force field.)
thoughts?

[Alrik Vas]

I'm unaware of any actual rules for this sort of thing. However, i would probably do it with skill rolls. One group has the massed gun fire, or something like a Glitterboy. In any case, a weapon with a huge punch that could make a hole. They coordinate with the missile salvo. Both groups, on their initiative, make Weapon System skill rolls (-10, with an additional -10 for each missile over 3). If they can succeed, the missiles would get through. Off the top of my head, that's how i would do it. Just have to make sure they wait until the cannon/massed fire has completed it's turn.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Unless it's been changed, yes, missiles have a 45%-75% fratricide rate.

Only for missiles in the same volley. all you have to do is launch them from seperate platforms and they are not the same volley and have no fratricide.

[Tor]

Its pretty much a given that LRMs can easily do the 100+ MD needed to punch a temporary hole in this spell. That said, would the resulting 1d4 second hole be exploitable? Especially by follow on missiles, or would they be blown up in a fratricide?

The whole volley would blow up together, but I imagine 1-4 seconds would give you a melee attack (possibly more if you had a LOT of attacks) to launch a second volley through the whole. I'm not clear on how much space a volley needs though. Long-range missiles are pretty big (just look at that NGR platform, although it's a bit inconsistent with other LRM launchers which are smaller...) and would need some breathing space to avoid bumping into each other, as I get the impression they're not in congo line formation.

Part of the timing also depends on distance, too. If you're firing LRMs from their maximum range, it can take a while (depending on their speeds) for them to reach their targets. So in the case of long-range bombing, you'd actually have to fire the second volley before the first one made contact. This means you'd have to commit your main volley before knowing whether or not the first volley (which you might have made small, to conserve ammo) got through, potentially wasting a huge second volley finishing the hole.

missiles have a 45%-75% fratricide rate.

Only for missiles in the same volley.

Anyone else dislike the blanket "add 30%" rule? You'd think the type (damage/radius) of missile used to counter the volley, as well as the damage/radius of the target missile which was destroyed would somehow weigh into the chances.

I think a good house rule might be "add the blast radius of whichever missile is higher to the 30 base". Most missiles have a blast radius of 30 or under so this would only increase the chances of a volley being destroyed if a fragmentation one is involved.

Factoring damage in might also be good though. Especially in relation to whatever MDC the other missiles in the volley have.

In most cases I think missiles all have to be the same type (launchers fire a specific kind) though some launchers can fire either long OR medium range missiles, plus even in the same category there's MDC differences.

Instead of a silly percentile, I think the best way to go about it would be to roll the damage of the missile that got destroyed (and divide it by two, since other missiles in the volley are not being directly hit) to see if they surpass the MDC of the missiles in the volley. Mediums can do as low as 10dmg and longs as low as 20, so that means if you destroy a high-explosive (light) medium in a volley otherwise composed of long-ranged that they could survive, or if you destroyed a high explosive (medium) or armor piercing (medium) in a volley where the rest are Proton or Nuclear-Multis, they could plausibly survive.

We just need something like... rules relating to the spacing of volleys. Players should have to decide how big they fire the volley. If they space it out widely, it would reduce (or prevent) the chance of a 1 missile's death ending the others, but perhaps incur a strike penalty or make it so only 1 missile could directly hit a target and the others could only 1/2dmg radius the primary target due to the spread. Wide volleys would also interfere with firing through small holes (like gaps of fixed width in force fields, like the TDS). Larger targets could be directly hit with more missiles in larger spreads, while smaller targets could be hit with fewer missiles in bigger spreads.

[The Beast]

Its pretty much a given that LRMs can easily do the 100+ MD needed to punch a temporary hole in this spell. That said, would the resulting 1d4 second hole be exploitable? Especially by follow on missiles, or would they be blown up in a fratricide?

The whole volley would blow up together, but I imagine 1-4 seconds would give you a melee attack (possibly more if you had a LOT of attacks) to launch a second volley through the whole. I'm not clear on how much space a volley needs though. Long-range missiles are pretty big (just look at that NGR platform, although it's a bit inconsistent with other LRM launchers which are smaller...) and would need some breathing space to avoid bumping into each other, as I get the impression they're not in congo line formation.

Part of the timing also depends on distance, too. If you're firing LRMs from their maximum range, it can take a while (depending on their speeds) for them to reach their targets. So in the case of long-range bombing, you'd actually have to fire the second volley before the first one made contact. This means you'd have to commit your main volley before knowing whether or not the first volley (which you might have made small, to conserve ammo) got through, potentially wasting a huge second volley finishing the hole.

missiles have a 45%-75% fratricide rate.

Only for missiles in the same volley.

Anyone else dislike the blanket "add 30%" rule? You'd think the type (damage/radius) of missile used to counter the volley, as well as the damage/radius of the target missile which was destroyed would somehow weigh into the chances.

I think a good house rule might be "add the blast radius of whichever missile is higher to the 30 base". Most missiles have a blast radius of 30 or under so this would only increase the chances of a volley being destroyed if a fragmentation one is involved.

Factoring damage in might also be good though. Especially in relation to whatever MDC the other missiles in the volley have.

In most cases I think missiles all have to be the same type (launchers fire a specific kind) though some launchers can fire either long OR medium range missiles, plus even in the same category there's MDC differences.

Instead of a silly percentile, I think the best way to go about it would be to roll the damage of the missile that got destroyed (and divide it by two, since other missiles in the volley are not being directly hit) to see if they surpass the MDC of the missiles in the volley. Mediums can do as low as 10dmg and longs as low as 20, so that means if you destroy a high-explosive (light) medium in a volley otherwise composed of long-ranged that they could survive, or if you destroyed a high explosive (medium) or armor piercing (medium) in a volley where the rest are Proton or Nuclear-Multis, they could plausibly survive.

We just need something like... rules relating to the spacing of volleys. Players should have to decide how big they fire the volley. If they space it out widely, it would reduce (or prevent) the chance of a 1 missile's death ending the others, but perhaps incur a strike penalty or make it so only 1 missile could directly hit a target and the others could only 1/2dmg radius the primary target due to the spread. Wide volleys would also interfere with firing through small holes (like gaps of fixed width in force fields, like the TDS). Larger targets could be directly hit with more missiles in larger spreads, while smaller targets could be hit with fewer missiles in bigger spreads.

I agree.

I would also like to add, last time I checked, missile MDC ratings were usually low enough that most could be destroyed by one or two missiles.

[Tor]

I think TWs should modify missiles to give them force fields that dissapate upon impact, shouldn't be that hard. Could be expensive in terms of gems, but well worth it for LRMs which are expensive anyway.