It makes references to plasma bolts because it is a variant form of directing the energy in the weapon as a direct fire weapon - and even describes it as using a wider firing aperture to produce a short-ranged blast effect compared to the standard plasma bolt. It is essentially a shotgun shot. And this is all in the introductory flavor text.

There is no confusion because standard bolts are not half damage, they are half the *warhead's strength* (FP1.5). Carronades don't use the warhead strength and are not a warhead strength so that rule regarding plasma bolts literally cannot apply.

By wayne douglas power (Wayne) on Sunday, April 04, 2021 - 09:18 pm: Edit

The carronade is another direct fire weapon option for the plasma F, with a max range of 0-5 always uses true range rather than effective range, handy vs cloaked targets.

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Monday, April 05, 2021 - 08:20 am: Edit

Charles,

When the rules say the carronade "is fired in the same manner and under the same restrictions as a plasma bolt", I think they are referring to a couple of things.

Firing Arcs: Note that per (FP8.35) FIRING ARCS, if the launcher has a 120° arc, the plasma bolt has the same arc. But if the launcher has the 180° "swivel" mount, the plasma bolt still only has a 120° firing arc. I believe the carronade has the same 120° arc as the bolt, even from a "swivel" mount. This is one of the "same restrictions" from the description.

Destroyed Launchers: Note that per (FP1.71) FIRING AFTER DAMAGE, a plasma torpedo that has completed arming can still be launched as a seeking weapon up to 8 impulses after the launcher was destroyed. But per (FP8.25) DESTROYED LAUNCHERS, it cannot be bolted from a destroyed launcher. I think this is another of those "same restrictions" the description refers to. Only an intact launcher can fire a carronade.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, April 05, 2021 - 10:25 am: Edit

Note that (FP14.37) defines the carronade firing arcs based on the launcher’s.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, April 05, 2021 - 06:27 pm: Edit

I have been sick, and buried under reports for Module R4J, I will try to address this issue (questions in general) on the morrow.

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Alex I certainly agree with you. Firing arcs are important and the ability to launch a totp should be considered differently as bolt is.

But as you mentioned. This is simply how you think it is based on your interpretation. Which realistically is all I have said. We have a rule that some of what a bolt is and does is followed. But the rest of what a bolt is and does without it actually being addressed we ignore because we are deciding it was not meant to be done that way. Not because the rule says so. But because of the table/chart that lists the damage.

Certainly I believe this to be the correct interpretation. Which I have always believed. But because of the use of the word bolt without any examples or direct application, it simply leaves a lot open to each players interpretation.

But an excellent series of replies supporting your points which as stated are mine as well.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, April 06, 2021 - 01:18 pm: Edit

I am not deciding it, I am applying the rules as written. (FP1.5) defines what warhead strength is and how it is calculated. (FP8.43) specifically refers to warhead strength - which is already a defined term. (FP14.3) doesn't refer to warhead strength nor does it define the listed damage as warhead strength - there simply is nothing for (FP8.43) to interact with and halve.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 03:38 pm: Edit

Charles Carroll asked on Tuesday, March 30, 2021: Looking over the Gorn Carronade. Something I have never used since I rarely play Gorn. I am trying to figure out what it means when it says treat it like a Bolt. Obviously...to me that means at the least, When fired it is a 1-4 to hit. Since 5 is the max range and it always treats any shot as if it at the actual range.

Ok so far. But...we have a chart. Which states the damage done is such and such. Ok...but is that half damage dropping all fractions? Such as happens when you bolt a torpedo? Or is this the actual damage scored if you hit?

Assuming you treat a Carronade exactly like a bolt, then you never do more than 4 points if you have 5 points of power in the shot. 8 to 7 which is 3.5 to 4. Or is it actually 8 to 7?

Anyway, Just want clarification since there is a chance I will be playing Gorn some time soon as I am trying to expand my knowledge base.

ANSWER: The chart provides the damage if the plasma carronade had one (1) point of power in it. It would do from 2 (if shifted by electronic warfare) to 4 points of damage. If the plasma-F torpedo launcher were armed with two points of power (in its second turn of arming when it was decided to carronade fire it) it would score from (because it is "reinforced" shot) 3 (again being shifted by electronic warfare) to five points of damage. If the plasma-F launcher were in its third turn of arming, or held from a previous turn, when it was fired as a carronade (again, a reinforced shot) it would score from 6 (that shift from electronic warfare) to 8 points of damage. There is no halving of damage, the reference to "plasma bolts" has to do with the detonating of the energy in the plasma-tube. Note that the damage is affected by (G13.37), but (G13.37) is applied to the damage as produced and again, you DO NOT halve the damage of the (FP14.33) because it was bolted. (FP14.33), adding any reinforcement energy(from the normal loading of the carronade) is the result.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 04:09 pm: Edit

Marcel Trahan asked on Sunday, April 04, 2021: I have a question regarding enveloping HB fired at a hexside of planet for general damage purpose.

Do the HB try to envelop the planet and does that damage to all 6 side or is the P2.733 become in use for a specific side, or the full HB damage is used for that specific hex?

ANSWER: The hellbore damage, after any reduction due to atmosphere {(P2.525) Sometimes the objective is "general destruction," simply bombarding the planet to destroy buildings, settlements, roads, crops, and other "infrastructure" that are not specific units in the SFB sense. In this case fire is resolved as within these rules (P2.52) for purposes of atmosphere, EW, and other effects that may reduce weapons efficiency.] [(P2.542) For photon torpedoes, hellbores, plasmatic pulsar devic-es, plasma bolts, web fists, maulers, and anti-matter probes, reduce the strength by 25% (of the original strength) for each hex of atmosphere. The 25% loss for a second (or subsequent) hex of atmosphere is cumulative with previous hexes, i.e., deduct 50% for two hexes, 75% for three, and 100% for four or more. Round fractions down when calculating the loss (strength 6, 25% loss is 1.5, drop the .5, result is 5, loss is 1).] and of course possible offensive electronic warfare (G24.219) will be scored as general destruction on the hexside of the planet because they cannot envelop the planet [(P2.7331) Hellbores and enveloping plasma torpe-does try to envelop the base, but obviously cannot envelop the entire planet.]

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:23 pm: Edit

John M. Williams asked on 27 Jan 21:
In rule (M2.47), there is an example in which six mines are in the same hex, with mine #1 set to trigger for target #1, mine #2 set for target #2, mine #3 for target #3, etc. It then says six ships enter the hex at sufficient speed to trigger the mines.
Am I correct that the discussion in the example about which ship triggered which mine is primarily relevant to captor mines so you know which mine fired at which ship? It would seem that if all six mines are explosive, determining which ship triggered which mine is irrelevant. Is this correct or am I missing something?
Also, if I understand this example correctly, since the six ships triggered all six mines, this means that one way to ensure a stack of ships entering the range of a stack of T-bombs will trigger multiple bombs is to have the bombs sequenced for T(target)#1, T#2, etc. (assuming other criteria met). Is this correct? Otherwise, there is a chance that all the ships could trigger the same bomb and only one explodes.

SVC REPLIED: The confusion is that the instruction to the mine is not written as "detonate on the second target" it is written as "ignore the first target" which means ALL subsequent targets are valid. You do not "set the mine for target #2 and no other target". You set it for "ignore target #1."
Thus, the first ship detonates the first mine (which had no "delay" instruction).
The second ship then might trigger the already detonated first mine or it might trigger the second mine (and detonate it).
The third ship might trigger the first or second or third mine (but only one of them) and if it triggers a mine already detonated then that’s just the way it works.
I.e., it is possible to trigger a mine without detonating it if it already detonated. It is possible for six ships to enter the hex and detonate only one of the mines, or all six, or anything in between.
Part of the confusion stems from the idea that the ships are entering in sequence, when in fact they all enter at the same time and the generated order is just for purposes of the sequence in which they are resolved. Mines are machines and some machines are more sensitive than others and some ships have slightly more "warp field" (or whatever the mine is detecting) than others, so even if your six ships are one inch apart nose to tail, any given mine might trigger on any of the six or several of them.
Captor mines or explosive mines make no difference. A mine is a mine and you trigger it or you do not. Trigger it one time, two times, or six times, it detonates once.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 06:24 pm: Edit

I apologize for the delay in answering John M. Williams' question.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 08:47 pm: Edit

Hey SVC,

I have a question. For purposes of this example, if two of the six ships trigger the same captor mine, which ship does the captor mine shoot/launch at?

SVC SEZ: You ask SPP not me. He asks me if he needs to.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 09:06 pm: Edit

That is actually covered in the rules. When I get to the office tomorrow I will point it out.

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Thanks, SPP. Hope you're feeling better.

That makes sense; I just want to walk through an example to be sure I understand how this will play out (reducing the number of ships and mines to 4 to simplify it).

Suppose we have ships 1, 2, 3 and 4 entering a hex with mines A, B, C and D. Mine A will trigger on any ship, mine B will skip the first ship, mine C will skip the first two ships, and mine D will skip the first three ships. For purposes of determining which mines are triggered, the ships are in order 1, 2, 3 then 4.

Ship 1 will trigger mine A (since mines B, C and D all skip the first target). Ship 2 will trigger either A or B (since mines C and D skip the first two targets). Ship 3 will trigger mine A, B or C (since mine D skips 3 targets). Finally, ship 4 can trigger any of the four mines. Then, for each ship, roll to see which of the possible mines it triggered. Correct?

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Wednesday, April 07, 2021 - 11:12 pm: Edit

If I did the calculations correctly (no guarantees so please feel free to double check), to maximize the number of mines exploding in my example above, you are better off not skipping any targets.

If all four mines accept any target:
One exploding: 2%
Two exploding: 33%
Three exploding: 56%
Four exploding: 9%

Using the skipping described in the example above:
One exploding: 7%
Two exploding: 42%
Three exploding: 45%
Four exploding: 7%

By John M. Williams (Jay) on Thursday, April 08, 2021 - 07:45 am: Edit

After additional pondering, I figured out what I was doing wrong in the second set of calculations. Here are the corrected percentages for the skipping example.

One exploding: 4%
Two exploding: 46%
Three exploding: 46%
Four exploding: 4%

However, the conclusion is the same: letting the mines trigger off of any target has a slightly better chance of producing a larger number of explosions.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, April 08, 2021 - 11:31 am: Edit

Question: When a ship going 12 or faster hits a 12 power web hex it rolls for breakdown or uses the free HET bonus. Roger that. Does it also lose the ability to perform a HET for a quarter of a turn?

I am thinking yes but could not find a rule to confirm.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 08, 2021 - 12:25 pm: Edit

John L. Stiff:

Last paragraph of (M2.443):Sensor mines (M4.5) and captor mines (M4.4) are treated separately. If one or more of each type are in position, group them into categories (sensor, explosive, captor), put the members of each category into a random order, and roll for each mine in each category until one mine in that group triggers or all mines in that category have been rolled for.

Then (M2.444): While mines can be rigged (in Advanced Missions) to trigger each other or might be triggered simultaneously by various means, each mine is a separate explosion. They are not combined together [see, for example (G10.76)], and each is resolved as a separate volley (M2.502).

Basically the ships that are acceptable to the captor mine (and perhaps to explosive mines) are put into a random selection pool that is separate from the one for explosive mines (Pool A is explosive mines that might be triggered by the moving ships where more than one moving ships and one mine might be triggered, Pool B is captor mines). Then within each category but separately, determine if the mines are triggered.

Note the overlap. If ship a could trigger both a explosive mine (or two or three or etc.) and could also trigger a captor mine (or two or three or etc), and so could ships B, C, (etc.) all are in separate pools, but all roll against the total of each pool.

Thus ship A (randomly chose as the first ship) rolls against the Explosive Mines (it might be rolling against the captor mines first, it does not matter, as all valid mines must be rolled against). it evades Mine #1 (slow speed) but rolls a "1' against mine #2 (bad luck). and so does not roll against Mine #3 (having triggered a mine, it cannot trigger another explosive mine). It then rolls on the captor mine pool and triggers Captor #1 (a vary bad day), but at that point stops rolling (having triggered one mine in each pool). Ship #2 then rolls for explosive mines (does not really matter which pool it starts with) and also "triggers" Mine #2 (which has already gone off, so it is safe and does not have to roll against Mine $3) then rolls against the Captor mines, and triggers Captor #1, but as ship #1 had also previously triggered that captor, it stops rolling. Both ship #1 and #2 are damaged by Explosive Mine #2, but are not further damaged by explosive mines (so far) and ship #2 is safe from any Captor Mines (for the time being), but now we move on to ship #3 (and so it goes, ship #4 has its own Explosive Mines to roll against, but is in the same pool of Captor mines as ships #1, #2, and #3.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Thursday, April 08, 2021 - 02:53 pm: Edit

John M. Williams:

Looks right to me.

Jack Taylor:

There is no effect on when the ship can attempt a high energy turn. It has simply lost the bonus (or one of the bonuses if it had more than one).

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Thursday, April 08, 2021 - 04:29 pm: Edit

Thanks Steve

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Thursday, April 08, 2021 - 06:15 pm: Edit

Hi Steve,

Two pools eh? OK. It is nice to know that a ship can trigger both an explosive mine and captor mine. I did not know that.

In your example, both ship 1 and ship 2 rolled and happened to set off captor mine 1. This is the crux of my question. I.E. which ship does captor mine 1 target?

For this example, I am assuming that ships 3 and 4 do not set off captor mine 1. They could of course, but the question would remain the same - which ship does captor mine 1 target?

I am tempted to say "the first ship that set the captor mine off" but I suspect that is not the correct answer.

Thanks,

John

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Friday, April 09, 2021 - 11:46 am: Edit

John L. Stiff:

That is answered by (M4.49) MULTIPLE ENGAGEMENTS: In the event that one moving unit triggers more than one captor mine (M2.47), the closest captor will fire. If two or more captor mines are equally close, select the one to fire by a die roll. Any captor mine which, for whatever reason, cannot fire (out of ammunition, blocked line of fire, etc.) is ignored for this purpose. In the event that a given automatic captor mine is triggered by more than one unit, that captor mine will fire at the closest unit at which it legally can fire. If two (or more) are equally close, select a target by die roll. Use a procedure similar to (J1.413).

By Charles Carroll (Nosferatu) on Friday, April 09, 2021 - 12:10 pm: Edit

Thanks Steve.

Was pretty sure the Carronage worked purely off the chart. The usage of Bolt just naturally brought the half damage as a possibility to mind. Glad that has been cleared up. Thank you.

By John L Stiff (Tarkin22180) on Saturday, April 10, 2021 - 09:47 am: Edit

Ok, got it.

I will assume that this procedure applies to a sensor mine that is controlling six captor mines.

The original premise was to have 6 explosive mines (in the same hex) all explode if 6 ships moved into the detection range at the same time. The conditions were identical except for the unique number of passes of the mines to ignore targets. We now know that this is not allowed. Simultaneous entry results in random die rolls.

Never-the-less, it was a fun thought experiment! A lot of players came up with different results. It had to be ultimately settled by SVC.

By Jack Taylor (Jtaylor) on Sunday, April 11, 2021 - 03:22 pm: Edit

Question on scanners - Let's say a Kzinti has scanner damage and has to add 1 to the range when firing disruptors and is sitting at range 1 from his opponent.

So now the firing range is range equal to 2 instead of 1 and disruptors still hit on a 1-5.

Question: do those disruptors if they hit do damage as though sitting at range 2? So 8 instead of 10?