Pulsed Disruptors
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
(D) Weapons:
Pulsed Disruptors
It has been mentioned that Disruptors, unlike plasma torpedoes or even Photon torpedoes, don't have a lot of options when firing, beyond the their accuracy enhancements and overloads... Is this needed? Probably not, but it fits well with the idea of the disruptor being the 'jab' to the photon or plasma torpedo's 'hook'.
Pulsed Disruptors
Background: In Y1xx, the Klingons (or Lyrans or Kzinti. Heck, maybe even the Tholians....) discovered that it was possible to modulate the power output of disruptors while firing, creating a pulsed beam that fired over a much longer duration. While the damage output was not increased, it allowed for several new tactical options and increased the disruptors ability to combat numerous small targets.
Arming: Pulsed is a mode of fire. The Disruptor is armed as either a standard or overload as normal and can be overloaded with reserved power, etc.
Firing: Firing in pulsed mode is declared at the time of firing. A disruptor fired in pulsed mode may not be fired until 12 impulses after the last pulse was fired. If the disruptor pulses across the turn break, it may still be fired after the 12 impulse delay on that turn. Disruptors in pulsed mode may not benefit from DERFACS or UIM. Pulsed moded disruptors may not fire beyond range 15 in any case.
Effect: Pulsed mode breaks the damage done by disruptors into 2 or 1 point pulses. The disruptor fires one pulse on the initial impulse and one on every impulse there after until it either runs out of pulses or voluntarily ceases firing. A new to hit roll is made for each pulse and the firing ship may switch targets each impulse, declaring the new target during the fire declaration. Overloaded pulsed disruptors do not cause feedback at range 0 as the strength of any individual pulse is too weak for feedback to damage the firing ship. Pulsed disruptors fire 3 pulses if a standard load, 5 pulses is overloaded.
| Range | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3-4 | 5-8 | 9-15 |
| Hit(Standard) | NA | 1-5 | 1-5 | 1-4 | 1-4 | 1-4 |
| Hit(Overload) | 1-6 | 1-5 | 1-5 | 1-4 | 1-4 | NA |
| Damage(Standard) | NA | 2/2/1 | 2/2/0 | 2/2/0 | 2/1/0 | 2/1/0 |
| Damage(Overload) | 2/2/2/2/2 | 2/2/2/2/2 | 2/2/2/2/0 | 2/2/2/2/0 | 2/2/2/0/0 | NA |
The damage listed is for the first pulse/second pulse/etc.
Range and Movement: If the firing or target ship's movement changes the range, or if the firing ship switches to a new target at a different range, compare the pulses fired to the pulses available at the new range in order to determine the damage/availability of a pulse. For example, if the firing ship (firing a standard load disruptor) had fired 2 pulses at range 2 and then moved to range 1, it would have one last 1 point pulse available to fire. Alternately, if it had fired two pulses at range 1, it could not fire its last pulse at any target not at range 1, since it would do 0 damage at range 3 and can't fire at range 0. The firing ship can always fire at nothing if it wishes to keep pulsing and doesn't have a valid target, anticipating having a valid target on the next impulse.
Stephen: Who said you could get a Disr. & PPD to interbreed
I believe that they would only produce a mule If they could crossbreed at allSeriously though: What would happen if a Pulsed OV Disr started firing and then the target moved back out past R8? Would the disr loose any more pulses even if it fired only 1 inside R8? Or would it continue to fire as a regular and the firing ship give up the extra OV pulses. Judging from the PPD it would loose all the rest of the pulses. Unless the target moved back into R8. Also the PPD can not switch targets voluntarily. So i dont think the Pdisr should be able to either.
Stephen,
Interesting. For my money, I wouldn't use it, and here's why. In the time the pulses are firing, a target ship could turn, taking the damage somewhere else. I'd want to deliver as much punch as I could in one shot, with hopes of knocking down a shield. With a firing rate of once per turn, the disruptor is already the fastest firing heavy weapon out there. That's enough of an advantage, to me. This is interesting, and well thought out...I just personally wouldn't use it. The nice part about PPD's is the splash...they hit multiple shields at once. The pulse disruptos wouldn't have that option.
Mike, the pulses can hit different ships......
Scott,
Yeah, I saw that. I still wouldn't want it, though. I like to have some punch. In large groups, this might be okay. But in a duel, I don't think I'd like it. Again, that's my gut reaction, not having played it.
OK once again people forget the fastest firing heavy weapon is not the disr. The PC can fire 4x in 2T making it twice as fast and about as accurate as the Disr. Bug's get no respect. No respect at all.
Oh, and one other thing. In the photon tracer thread, SPP mentioned that disruptors are bolts...not beams. I'm wondering how you could pulse a bolt? Maybe a series of rapid-fire "mini" bolts?
If you're looking for a fix for the disruptor, accuracy to me isn't the way to go. It's already extremely accurate, especially with UIM. I'd go for maybe increasing the damage in some way, stopping it from falling off so quickly. Maybe something along the lines of DERFACS, but that keeps the bolt concentrated longer, increasing the damage at range.
Just woolgathering, Stephen. Don't take any of this as criticism...I'm all for new and creative rules. I just really like the disruptor as it is, except for that damage degradation.
I created a thing called a Hyperspace lens. Was way too powerful. What it dose is it forms a wormhole right in front of the firing ship and the output end up to eight hexs away. You fire through it. The hexs inbetween don't count for range. Takes care of the accuracy thing for everything.
Not trying start anything. So lets not.
On topic, Yes I could a multi-bolt disruptor, but the damage thing needs to be refined. Not sure how that would be done. I'll try to be more constructive in another post.
Am I reading this right?
If it's an OL at range 0, it does 5 pulses.
But if the target moves out to range 2, the 5th pulse is lost?
How does the weapon know?
If a bolt does ten damage at range 0, and it weakens with range so it does 8 at range two, perhaps 2/1/2/1/2 better accounts for the reduced damage.
Here's an idea:
Disruptors fired in standard pulsed mode get four 1 point shots.
OL disrupters get four 2 point shots.
If fired on impulse 22, the four pulses are fired on 22,23,24,25, and is the latest in a turn it can be fired and be ready to fire on impulse 1.
In fleets, I'm not sure if this would be any better than having some ships wait a couple impulses before firing.
In duels, this would be a deadly Mizia weapon.
For which I have to ask, was this intended to be a Mizia-weapon or just another firing option for Disruptors? I thought of a similar concept for X2 photons but was concerned that it would merely be a Mizia-weapon hack.
And Mizia is a game tactic not a historical one (I think). So a weapon should not be designed to Mizia.
I have no doubt that sensor logs from countless battles have been analyzed to pieces by all races' fleet commands. Such analysis would surely indicate that short, controlled, successive bursts of fire tend to pull more weapons and power systems and avoid "inefficient" damage to crew areas. While not doing more actual damage to the enemy ship, the hits tend to be better at reducing overall enemy combat effectiveness.
At some point this is BOUND to become part of combat doctrine. I imagine there would be even be courses at the academy with entire class sections devoted to the most effective use of weapons fire in damaging enemy units. With the appropriate point/counterpoint of "pulsing" the damage in vs. taking the risk of fresh shields coming to bear.
Ergo, I see no reason whatsoever why a race wouldn't design weapon(s) to exploit this phenomenon.
Still doesn't mean I care for the pulsed disruptor, but I see no technical argument against it. Merely a game-balance issue.
for 'pulsed disrupters' replace each disrupter on a ship with a pair of 'light disrupters' 1 power to arm, 1/2 damage (rounded down), max range 1/2 normal (so 15 hexes for a cruiser), 2 points to overload, max OL range 4)
the slightly decreased damage and shorter range may make up for the increased durability (as there are twice as many disrupter boxes)
Loren, yes, Mizia is a game tactic. On the other hand, those TOS episodes that I can recall do tend to show the Photons being fired one-at-a-time (about one per impulse, at a guess).
Maybe that is why photon fire in the series tended to leave disarmed opponents?
Rationale/Tactics: The pulsing is designed to allow three basic options:
- Continuous Damage through a weakened shield (Mizia), but also useful for keeping a shield down over a turn break for transporter operations.
- Shield Probing, to detect shield reinforcement, allowing the ship to either maneuver (if on a shield boundary) to bring the rest of the pulses to bear on a unreinforced shield, or (in a multiship engagement) switch to a secondary target where the pulses are more likely to cause permanent damage.
- Multiple small craft engagement, instead of wasting full powered disruptor shots on fighters, it can fire enough pulses to cripple a fighter then switch to the next fighter and so on, cleaning up the cripples later.
Jeff Tonglet:
The fifth pulse isn't "lost" per se, it simply does 0 damage at that range, so in general a pulsed overloaded disruptor will really only get 4 pulses on average, unless it can find a target at range 0 when the fifth pulse is fired.
General Comment:
With the pulsed mode disruptor, I'm trying for a system/firing mode that is internally balanced in terms of tradeoffs vs. benefits (ideally a 0 BPV modification), but makes disruptor ships a little more interesting by giving them a new option.
In order to insert some historical perspective:
The ISC used the PPD as their primary heavy weapon due to the Mizia effect. This stripped a ship of weapons so that they could be "pacified" rather than destroyed outright.
The Feds had the off-the-scale photon torpedo to compensate for the lousy hit rate of NVC (even though no one uses those rules...), and the durability in the forward hull to protect those weapons in order to get that disabling shot.
The Klinks, on the other hand, were all about the glory of combat. They designed their ships to be offensive (as opposed to defensive... not the other meaning of the word), with saber dancing and knife fighting tailored to the quick-firing disruptor.
What if, instead of pulsing, the disruptor established a carrier lock on one impulse, and then, several impulses later, if the carrier lock wasn't broken, it hits for increased damage?
It would avoid the pulsing phenomenon (which I tend to think of as a PPD-only type thing), and allow a Klingon captain to show how good he really was in combat. Why fire disruptors now when I can establish wavelocks and show you I'm good enough to hang with you until the weapon triggers?
Today is a good day to discus.
-Francois
francois@purdue.edu
Hold on a moment. Statistically, there's negligible difference between the Mizia done by a 6-point hit (say, an OL Disr at R8) and three 2-point hits. The threshold only comes in at around 10-15.
So unless you have one OL Disr at very short range (such that the 2+2+2+2+2 does noticeably more mizia than the 10), you're much better off firing each of your weapons individually for the same effect. For example, an F5 would fire OL, OL, P2, P2, P2 on 5 successive impulses.
If you're at very short range, you probably can't keep the shots on the same shield anyway, so much of your damage will hit shields and be wasted.
Add to that the fact that this can't use a UIM, and you're probably doing less damage anyway. The only advantage would be that you could pepper a few targets with odd points of damage from a single weapon, but why would you want to?
Summary - looks pretty useless. Difficult to invent, doesn't fix a problem.
Generally in duels (peace time) your trying to drive your opponents ship off. In fleet battles (war time) your trying to kill his ships. Massive volleys is the way to kill because (IIRC) they will kill power faster than weapons. Which is the main way to kill a ship instead of driving it off.
Agreed. It doesn't make them more powerful, with perhaps the exception of firing at drones or shuttles (the non-scatterpack variety anyway), but then, that's what the phaser's are for.
Here's an idea.
Get all your Pulses Disruptors on say 2 Cruisers ( 8 pulses diruptors ) and start splatering stinger Fs from R8.
2/3 or 8 x 3 x 2 is 32 points of damage or 4 stinger Fs; 16 points
Wasted damage not counting misses 0 points.
Wated Damage including misses,
But 8 O/L diruptors at R8 would be ( assuming one wouldn't waster UIM on fighters ) if fired on say 4 fighters, 4/9 of destroyed plus 4/9 of crippled ( 6 of their 9 points ) and 1/9 of no hit.
Uneffected: 0.444 fighters
Crippled: 1.777 fighters
Destroyed: 1.777 fighters
Wasted Damage not counting misses; 7.111 points.
Wasted Damage including misses; 26.666 points of damage.
The ability to met out each point or pair of points of damage, to the target fighters, causes the Pulses diruptor to becoem an R8 FA ESG.
It's just far too powerful and radically increases the ability of disruptor fleets to protect themslves against fighters.
With the Hydrans boarded by the Lyrans and the Klingons, they'll soon get wiped out by both sides getting this new anti-fighter weapon.
What you could do is make it a special weapon in and of itself...like a Ph-G.
It would make it a little easier to balance, and the Hydran's might be able to counter it, i.e. you have one pulsed Disruptor on a C-7 variant, not 4.
I think it's salvagable, it looks quite well thought out to my eye.
But maybe I'm nuts.
Adam
Treat it like a Mauler, restricted firing arc, special power source, etc. Otherwise it's a full-bore Disruptor that can pulse.
There's a good idea!
It also gives an easy way to upgrade to X-tech(if this is already X1, then X1.5 or X2), that being widening the arc and removing the power source limitation(not all at once of course :p)
This is looking better every day,
Adam