Missile Questions

[lawdog1700]

Hi all,

Fairly new player here.  I have played several games of Naval Thunder and my group and I just started a pretty large campaign (6 players) of Colonial Battlefleet.  In any case, we have all noticed while playing how powerful missiles seem to be, as compared to beams and other direct fire weapons.  So, I thought I would come directly to all of you to ask some questions, because I'm afraid we are doing it wrong somehow.  Anyway, without further ado:

1.  When a ship launches a missile, it is placed in an adjacent hex.  Does the "tail" of the missile have to point towards the firing ship?

2.  When conducting point defense, do you roll one die against one die rather than roll a group of die and match up the high rollers, as you to with a dogfight?

3.  Are missiles really a "10" to hit, when they are targeted?  (This seems to make missiles almost impossible for fighters and gatling-type weapons to stop.)

4.  Do missiles ever run out of fuel?

5.  Why would anyone ever take torpedoes of any type over a missile tube?

6.  What am I doing wrong in the game that is making missiles so dominant?  (I don't really expect an answer to this...)

Great game, I just fear that missiles may be broken.  A couple of players in my campaign have designed BBBs loaded with 8 missile tubes and 5 missiles per tube in the magazines.  As shields don't stop them, and point defense seems fairly ineffective, it seems like these ships will defeat any comparable BB-class ship armed with beams.  Am I wrong?

[TheDreadnought]

1. Yes.

2. I'm not sure about your question here. You roll one-die for each attacking missile. It's opposed by the point defense die roll. High roll wins. If you allocate more than 1 PD die roll to a missile, you roll all of them.

3. Per page 44, missiles have a defense value of 9

4. No.

5. Remember that the game allows for technology progression and simulation of multiple sci-fi settings. Some weapons are better than others. Torpedoes cannot be shot down, and do not have to physically hit the ship on the table top.

6. A couple things you might want to take a look at is the missile movement rules. Hitting with missiles is actually pretty tough outside point blank range. Its pretty easy to get inside their turning radius. Many people in the past have complained that it was too hard to hit with missiles and they were useless except up close. If you can't avoid them, it might be because you're not putting enough delta on your ships. If you're building only slow, lumbering battlestations, then yes, you'll probably get eaten by missiles. You might also want to make sure you're allocating enough tonnage. Remember, those ASGMs are 5 tons per shot. So 8x5 missile tubes is 64 tons of weapons if I'm doing my math right.

Not sure if either one of those things is something you're missing, but that's where I would start.

[lawdog1700]

Dreadnaught,

Thanks for the prompt response. Looks like we have been doing a couple of things wrong. Let me look at your answers:

1. Makes sense, that helps a lot actually. We have been doing some strange angle-off shots. That clarification makes it much harder to hit.

2. Your answer clears it up. So I allocate as many PD dice as I have available and roll them, as allocated, against each missile. Each missile only getting one die and having to beat the PD roll to hit.

3. Defense of "9", but since I have to beat the defense, isn't it a "10" to hit, or are they like fighters and the firing ship adds the range to the defense and then applies FC to hit?  Therefore, at range 2 I would need an "11" to hit and I would roll Attack + FC to beat an "11".  Still, makes it hard for fighters to shoot them down.

4.  Got it.

5.  Understood.

6.  Yup, that's correct.  Those BBBs are delta 1, light armor and shields and no other weapons.  Just missile boats...big ones, built with the Excel spreadsheet that came with the game.

[lawdog1700]

Oh, one other question:

7. It appears to me that missiles are like fighters, in that they can ONLY be engaged by weapons with the "Anti-Fighter" capability. Is that correct?

[TheDreadnought]

It is tough for fighter to shoot down missiles. You may want to consider using some Cluster Missiles for missile defense.

If they are building a bunch of lightly armored Delta 1 ships, you should be able to exploit that.

I'm also struggling with how they are hitting so much with their missiles. You should be dodging more. Often, missiles are used more to constrain the enemy's movement through area denial, rather than direct attacks.

Fighters just need a flat 10 to shoot them down. Although not specifically called out, shooting down missiles and fighters with gatling autocannons wouild follow the rules under GAs for engaging fighters. This is one of a great many reasons you want a high FC rating on your ships.

Colonial Battlefleet is a deceptively simple game. Its easy to learn the basic mechanics. . . but like Othello. . . "Minutes to learn, a lifetime to master."




Finally. . . if after playing a while, something just isn't working for your particular group. Feel free to house rule it. We encourage that. . . but just urge caution that people stand ready to reverse their house rules if find they break something. The House Rules board is full of ideas. Some better than others. LOL

[captainquirk]

Most of the CBF weapons have some form of counter to them. As Harry says, you need more than delta 1 to stand any decent chance of moving out of their way. You should maybe also consider deploying some ships with counter-missile cluster missiles to defend the task force. Escorts with the Screen role can also assist with PDF systems on other friendly ships.

Missiles aren't actually the ship killers they are sometimes perceived to be. Sometimes they only serve to make you get out of the area they are in. However, if you don't have a reasonable delta to get out of the way, then they will kill you if there are enough of them.



EDIT: Oops, Harry posted much the same thing while I was still writing! Only rather more clearly and eloquently!

[TheDreadnought]

Appreciate it anyway.

[captainquirk]

You're welcome


The guy I play against tends to like the biggest possible ships with the most armour and heavy railguns that he can cram into the hull. For some reason he seems to resent spending much capacity on delta, and upon stuff like PDFs. Now THOSE kind of ships are simply bricks in space, and are sitting ducks for missiles, and I'll admit that I've shredded him several times. He can't turn or burn to get away from a missile attack, and he's given himself virtually no capacity to pick them off and stop them impacting either. And of course he doesn't touch me with all those heavy railguns if I can make sure that there is a wave of missiles inbound which stop him closing. Plus because he likes to take the biggest possible ships, there aren't many of them so it becomes easier to concentrate on one ship as a target.

There's a whole world within the CBF design system. There are lots of trade-offs, and it is pretty much impossible to build the absolute 'perfect ship' as there are always compromises which have to be made between weapons, protection, and speed. It's one of the best things about CBF. So if you find that your ships are especially vulnerable to one particular form of attack then you might want to review the designs and see if you need to make some adjustments. It may not be the weapon the other guy is using being over-powerful; it might be that your ships are just very vulnerable and open to that particular weapon.

It's also not just the individual ships which matter, but the way various ship types interact within a task force. My friend might get away with the bricks in space if he gave them some effective escorts. But if he skimps on those too and doesn't have capability to intercept some of the missiles further out as a zone defence, then yeah, the missiles will truly be ship killers.

Conversely though... if/when he DOES get through to my missile ships, they suffer! As Harry pointed out, a substantial salvo missile capacity really takes up space. So the missile ships are eggshells armed with sledgehammers. Which is a good illustration of how what appears to be a strength suddenly turns in to a vulnerability when the circumstances change.

[toaster]

Also note the ecm rule. If you can finish your move next to the missiles you auto kill a number equal to your pds. I've used this by running a screen of fast destroyers with a pair of screening cruisers to boost their pds, completely destroyed my opponents first wave of missiles. The second wave took out half the destroyers but by then my battleships were in railgun range and still untouched.

Robert

[TheDreadnought]

Good point Toaster.