Fixing Phase World Spacecraft Combat

[Warshield73]

So I have been reading several of the recent forum post on cruise missiles and it got me thinking about some problems I have always had with Phase World. Now first, Rifts in and of itself has a lot of combat problems with weapons like rail guns, p-beams and missiles but I want to focus on Phase World as I feel it's spacecraft combat is more broken than most.

Second, I know several people have created starship creation rules for PW, I have copies of many of these. What I am thinking about here is how much you change and why you change it and maybe what were some of your influences.

When I started playing Phase World with only the first two books all I did originally was add ships and create a few house rules for sensors (largely based on the old West End Star Wars games), ECM, version of chaff and flares, and stealth. I also adjusted stats on ships (the size of the Hunter destroyer or the crew of the Berserker). The new books have made this even more difficult with the usual power creep and ships that have to be cooler and tougher than anything that came before.

Over time though I have made more and more changes to the point that each one needed an additional 2 or 3 pages in addition to what's in the book. I was hesitant to make wholesale changes (for instance I never changed ship speeds or made serious changes to weapons ranges except missiles) as I didn't want to make the books too useless or confuse my players with their own books.

I was also unsure of how complicated I wanted to make this for a pen and paper game.
- -
Influences: As already mentioned the old West End Star Wars was a big one but just for sensors, later the Honor Harrington books got me thinking about proper fleet construction and tactical vs. strategic ship uses. Recently the Expanse and they YouTube channel Spacedock have given me a lot of ideas for new ships and systems.

Big changes:
Sensors, as mentioned.
Defined CG - acceleration/deceleration, effects on sensors/stealth, and the strategic impact of planets gravity well restricting FTL.
Increase Missile Speeds. If fighters can move at Mach 16 to 24 then missiles needed to move faster.

I also made big changes to missiles and gave some tactical notes:
- Mini Missiles - Totally useless in space. I removed them from most ships and replaced them with a slightly smaller number of SRM. Given speeds of missiles and fighters a mini-missile simply couldn't hit anything within their pathetic 2 mile range.
- SRM - On fighters these were anti-fighter or power armor missiles. On capital ships they were dedicated anti-missile systems and I created dedicated "interceptor" missile with greater speed, greater blast radius, but reduced damage.
- etc. etc.

I wanted to do some sort of energy transfer rules, sort of inspired by the old X-Wing video game but it just felt too complicated.

Just a few thoughts and wanted to see if anyone else wanted to chime in.

[eliakon]

I will go into full details later.
But right now as written the ships are basically 18th century galleons run by 17th century admirals who have never heard of the word 'tactics'
Strategy? What's that?
They put better point defense on their tanks then their space ships for example, and only put the neat tech on their power armor.

Just for starters you should be putting stealth on your cruise missiles. Which for hecks sake should have MORE range than a LRM not LESS

And why do the orbitals have better counter missile tech?
An no one is using stealth systems, like at all?
Or using any of the dozen or so other drive options for the amazing options they add?
And why is no one using disruptors or Pin point defense shields
The list of idiot balls is so long that I suspect that is what they make the hulls out of

Add in how absurdly powerful space magic is, and how absurdly short range things are (even for Palladium)… I mean seriously, has no one heard of 'glide bombs'?


You should be seeing stuff like a "Escort cruiser" which is a CLE with nothing but point defense that exists solely to shoot down incoming missiles and fighters that threaten a fleet.
Enough ranting right now, I'll write up and post some stuff.

[Warshield73]

I agree with everything you say here. To be fair to PB and Carella this is a common problem in sci-fi. I mean Star Trek, what on EARTH is a Galaxy class ship doing flying around without escort. Also Star Wars and BSG what's with space fighters, they make no sense. In more grounded hard sci-fi like the Expanse or Honor Harrington attrition units are basically gunboats or destroyers. LACs, the smallest combat units of the Honorverse, are in the 20,000 ton range.

The problem is this is a game, you want something for the players to use so you have to give them something. Ultimately something KS said to people about putting support equipment for the CS in the books he said something like "if a player isn't going to use it then you need a really good reason to put it in the book". I created a large number of escort and support vessels but the only purpose they served was to blow them up, the players will never actually use one.

I will go into full details later.
But right now as written the ships are basically 18th century galleons run by 17th century admirals who have never heard of the word 'tactics'
Strategy? What's that?
They put better point defense on their tanks then their space ships for example, and only put the neat tech on their power armor.

This is a point. The power armors and thanks in Phase World are way cooler. After the Silver Hawk, which is a completely ridiculous PA even by Carella's standards, the most beloved vehicle by all of my players is the Maniple IFV. That vehicle is just a beast.

The shield disruptors are a game breaking, neigh that is not strong enough, game obliterating technology. My players actually helped me come up with reason why that tech could not be used by large fighters or cruise missiles just to not break the game too badly.

I would argue though that active defenses are missing from most Rifts vehicles. Chaff launchers and missile jamming tech are rare, the best example being the sidewinder SAMAS. I don't know if this is done to keep it simple or what but it is real omission. But it was also missing from popular sci-fi in the '80's and '90's. Star Wars, Star Trek, original BSG all you see for defenses in energy shields and armor. The Klingons fire a proton torpedo at you and all you can do is dodge or tank the damage. We have lightspeed weapons and computers that can calculate FTL travel but you can't shoot one down? They even say in the canon that the reason fighters aren't really a thing is that with advanced computer targeting fighters are just individual coffins but you can't shoot down torpedoes. No decoys either?

Just for starters you should be putting stealth on your cruise missiles. Which for hecks sake should have MORE range than a LRM not LESS

See here is an aspect of not explaining the technology. Maybe anything that puts out that much heat can not be stealthed at close range. This is the case in both Mass Effect and Honor Harington.

When we started playing PW it listed the Runner ship and I think the Black Eagle as having stealth but it was never really explained. We ended up taking dual approach passive stealth (absorbing materials and angled hulls things like that) and active (jammers, etc.). Until Mass Effect came out none of us even thought about thermal emissions and internal heatsinks.

And why do the orbitals have better counter missile tech?
An no one is using stealth systems, like at all?
Or using any of the dozen or so other drive options for the amazing options they add?
And why is no one using disruptors or Pin point defense shields
The list of idiot balls is so long that I suspect that is what they make the hulls out of

Again this is where it comes down to I don't know the reason. Rifts in general doesn't have differing effects by weapons types. I mean if you think about it if you are in body armor and someone hits with a Plasma ejector you should be baking like a potato but no it's the same effects as a laser. It would be interesting to have like ion weapons do more damage to shields and electronic systems while plasma does less to shields but more to the hull. But, does this make it too complicated?

As for the engines, we just don't have enough detail on CG works and how ships are built.

Add in how absurdly powerful space magic is, and how absurdly short range things are (even for Palladium)… I mean seriously, has no one heard of 'glide bombs'?

See for Rifts Earth and other settings I understand why ranges are kept shorter. It's the same reason in comics why people with power armors and high tech weapons end up in hand to hand combat. It's more visceral and more fun to play. But in a space game the ranges have to be more. But, this comes down to why I made this post. Do we really want a game system like Honor Harrington or the Expanse where most battles take place at the 10,000 km to Astronomical Units range. I'm not sure how fun that would be especially if you wanted to pilot a fighter or power armor.

Speed too. A maximum speed in space combat makes no sense. Rate of acceleration or deceleration should really be all we look at but who wants to sit there and do the math during a game.

You should be seeing stuff like a "Escort cruiser" which is a CLE with nothing but point defense that exists solely to shoot down incoming missiles and fighters that threaten a fleet.
Enough ranting right now, I'll write up and post some stuff.

Before you put in a CLE or destroyers or corvettes you have to really define the weapons and what they can do. Why on earth does a Hunter Destroyer have a single shot cruise missile launcher? Why does the Packmaster carrier have CMs at all?

[The Beast]

I'm voting other for now because IMO you'd have to overhaul Palladium's combat system in general to get it to work better with modern combat, and then you'd likely have to overhaul the different weapons to reflect better what their purposes were.

[glitterboy2098]

*Whistles non-chalantly*

[Warshield73]

I'm voting other for now because IMO you'd have to overhaul Palladium's combat system in general to get it to work better with modern combat, and then you'd likely have to overhaul the different weapons to reflect better what their purposes were.

I understand this but for me the best parts of PB system is combat and skill systems. Admittedly I do make a very small alteration to it but it has always worked for me.

I have always just tried to make the fewest changes I can so that I can add the features I like without breaking the system. The problem is each new book breaks the system just a little bit more than it was before.

*Whistles non-chalantly*

Yeah I saw this, even ran it through a few quick tries a while ago to see how it works but this system really reduces the strategic importance of gravity wells in TGs (the time from the FTL limit to the planet surface is drastically reduced) as well as magic and power armors / robot vehicles.

It also still has a lot of things to work out. Like how much you can accelerate while still dodging or can you dodge at 0.6c. Now I do like some of the basics of the movement but the weapon stuff just didn't do what I wanted.

[glitterboy2098]

*Whistles non-chalantly*

Yeah I saw this, even ran it through a few quick tries a while ago to see how it works but this system really reduces the strategic importance of gravity wells in TGs (the time from the FTL limit to the planet surface is drastically reduced) as well as magic and power armors / robot vehicles.

It also still has a lot of things to work out. Like how much you can accelerate while still dodging or can you dodge at 0.6c. Now I do like some of the basics of the movement but the weapon stuff just didn't do what I wanted.

i don't have to address that because relative speeds being what it is, if you are going the same speed as your opponent, it doesn't matter if you are going orbital speed of .6c. the same rules for dodging would apply (pg 106 of DB3 phase world sourcebook. sort version, big ships can't dodge, just roll with impact ['maneuver for a glancing blow'] to reduce the damage)

if the ships involved are not going pretty close to the same velocity, you don't spend enough time within range (even with the range boosts i added) to react, either for launching an attack or to dodge. i should not need to spell this out because it should be immediately obvious to anyone.

[Warshield73]

*Whistles non-chalantly*

Yeah I saw this, even ran it through a few quick tries a while ago to see how it works but this system really reduces the strategic importance of gravity wells in TGs (the time from the FTL limit to the planet surface is drastically reduced) as well as magic and power armors / robot vehicles.

It also still has a lot of things to work out. Like how much you can accelerate while still dodging or can you dodge at 0.6c. Now I do like some of the basics of the movement but the weapon stuff just didn't do what I wanted.

i don't have to address that because relative speeds being what it is, if you are going the same speed as your opponent, it doesn't matter if you are going orbital speed of .6c. the same rules for dodging would apply (pg 106 of DB3 phase world sourcebook. sort version, big ships can't dodge, just roll with impact ['maneuver for a glancing blow'] to reduce the damage)

if the ships involved are not going pretty close to the same velocity, you don't spend enough time within range (even with the range boosts i added) to react, either for launching an attack or to dodge. i should not need to spell this out because it should be immediately obvious to anyone.

I would think so too but I guess it isn't. If you are buzzing an orbital platform at 0.6c why couldn't you deploy weapons, especially speed of light weapons like lasers, but even missiles to hit that target. Likewise if I am the defender and I have lasers why can't I take a shot at you as you pass. Granted no human being could do it but then no human being could fly a ship through space at those speeds either, computers would have to do both. This is done all the time in hard sci-fi settings so why is it so obvious that you can't here?

Additionally, how much time would say a cruiser need to change course if it detected something in it's way like a mine or missile barrage? Tiny changes in course would make for big changes in range but the thrust needed to make those changes goes up substantially. Also, if your in a ship doing 0.6c relative to the object you impact wouldn't the damage from just the impact exceed that of the actual explosive in most missiles? If you don't have the computer power to target a ship while moving at these speeds it does seem unlikely that you could navigate at those speeds.

Another question that occurred to me, and I apologize if I missed it on the page, just out of curiosity in your set up do ships have to do a flip and burn to reduce speed or do you assume some sort of retrorockets or allow the CG field to do it?

To be honest as much as I love Honor Harrington and the Expanse a in my opinion a Star Wars Sci-fantasy setting fits the feel of PW better than those settings do.

[ShadowLogan]

An no one is using stealth systems, like at all?

Stealth exists in the setting, even in DB2.

The thing is with things like gravitational wave sensors, your ability to "hide" is much harder than from other sensors (IR/heat sensors might also be difficult to "stealth"). So it might be prohibitively expensive.

Or using any of the dozen or so other drive options for the amazing options they add

MiO's other drives do get a mention in DB2, they make up 20% of the other drives.

And why is no one using disruptors or Pin point defense shields

Disrupters are in Fot3G, which are a type of laser IIRC. If you are referring to something else specifically (like RT's shield disrupters licensing might be a factor)...

Point defense shields could be achieved with variable force fields directing all their shield power to one side. Various powers just may not see the utility, or force fields can't be layered.

One other thing to remember is that some technology might be out of reach for the 3G, we see this with the Intruders (DB3) and their "space fold" system (and solid energy technology).

I mean Star Trek, what on EARTH is a Galaxy class ship doing flying around without escort. Also Star Wars and BSG what's with space fighters, they make no sense.

In Star Trek's defense, most ships go around solo in peace time. We do see it operating with escort when engaging in military operations (DS9's wars IIRC), so it might be a situational thing.

Re: Fighters.
It depends on how they came about originally (in their respective settings) and what factors might have influenced their evolution over the years to the state we see. While a case(s) exists that makes them impractical, given the right circumstances they might still be a "practical" necessity.

[Warshield73]

An no one is using stealth systems, like at all?

Stealth exists in the setting, even in DB2.

The thing is with things like gravitational wave sensors, your ability to "hide" is much harder than from other sensors (IR/heat sensors might also be difficult to "stealth"). So it might be prohibitively expensive.

I think the point is that we don't have very good rules for stealth and only a few, largely non-military, ships that are equipped with it. There are no stealthed corvettes or cruisers to fill the role of recon or special warfare.

Or using any of the dozen or so other drive options for the amazing options they add

MiO's other drives do get a mention in DB2, they make up 20% of the other drives.

It is mentioned but again no examples of them or even any specifics of where they are used and by whom. We also don't have a lot of information on how they compare to ships with CG drives.

And why is no one using disruptors or Pin point defense shields

Disrupters are in Fot3G, which are a type of laser IIRC. If you are referring to something else specifically (like RT's shield disrupters licensing might be a factor)...

Point defense shields could be achieved with variable force fields directing all their shield power to one side. Various powers just may not see the utility, or force fields can't be layered.

One other thing to remember is that some technology might be out of reach for the 3G, we see this with the Intruders (DB3) and their "space fold" system (and solid energy technology).

I covered this in another post but the way point defense is listed in the books are completely ineffective largely due to ranges. Anything with a range of just 2 miles is pointless, pardon the pun, as it has no time to react. Now you can make short rang PDCs, The Expanse for instance has PDCs with a range of about 5 km but they put out an incredible field of fire to increase the chance of hitting something. We see weapons that can do this in PW, the P-beam cannons on the CAF troop shuttle, but for some reason they are not used in point defense. There are also no dedicated anti-missiles which you think you would see in a missile heavy threat environment like this.

Also, pure defenses like decoys and jammers are just largely absent as are specialized weapons. There are examples in Rifts of weapons like this. The lightning guns in the NGR or the Arkohns tribeam weapons but very little in Phase World.

I mean Star Trek, what on EARTH is a Galaxy class ship doing flying around without escort. Also Star Wars and BSG what's with space fighters, they make no sense.

In Star Trek's defense, most ships go around solo in peace time. We do see it operating with escort when engaging in military operations (DS9's wars IIRC), so it might be a situational thing.

Re: Fighters.
It depends on how they came about originally (in their respective settings) and what factors might have influenced their evolution over the years to the state we see. While a case(s) exists that makes them impractical, given the right circumstances they might still be a "practical" necessity.

If you read the post I was just pointing out that in a real world setting this makes no sense. The very idea of space fighters is laughable and really have to work hard to make them work in a setting. Also even in peace time a ship the size and importance of a Galaxy class would never be on its own. But even is DS9, which is my favorite Trek by far, we still only see the most elementary of fleet structures.

[ShadowLogan]

I think the point is that we don't have very good rules for stealth and only a few, largely non-military, ships that are equipped with it. There are no stealthed corvettes or cruisers to fill the role of recon or special warfare.

I agree the rules for Stealth (and ECM and alot of other things) aren't necessarily very good, though stealth itself is a broad term.

As far as Stealth Ships, checkout Fleets of the 3 Galaxies (Etherium GMD pg82, Raider Shuttle pg71, both Naruni ships). Oni have a Stealth Shuttle (pg138 DB6).

It is mentioned but again no examples of them or even any specifics of where they are used and by whom. We also don't have a lot of information on how they compare to ships with CG drives.

True, though given PB's C&P use I don't think stat wise much will change between MiO and PW users of those systems. Who uses said hardware, well that's on the writers.

Also, pure defenses like decoys and jammers are just largely absent as are specialized weapons. There are examples in Rifts of weapons like this. The lightning guns in the NGR or the Arkohns tribeam weapons but very little in Phase World.

I agree there are examples megaversally, and they aren't used as much as one would think they should be used. Every combat flying vehicle should have some type of decoy system to ward off missiles (but that is a very short list, and with a tiny payload). Jammers, PB makes it available via rules to repurpose existing hardware (though I agree dedicated systems should be more prevelant).

I covered this in another post but the way point defense is listed in the books are completely ineffective largely due to ranges.(...)

Point Defense Guns/Missiles might have given way to force fields (which are plentiful).

Missiles might actually be a "dumb" weapon to use if you think about it. If you shoot down a missile, the debris from the missile can still hit you (albiet for less damage) when you fly through the debris (in atmosphere it "sinks", in space it will just "float" there).

If you read the post I was just pointing out that in a real world setting this makes no sense. The very idea of space fighters is laughable and really have to work hard to make them work in a setting. Also even in peace time a ship the size and importance of a Galaxy class would never be on its own. But even is DS9, which is my favorite Trek by far, we still only see the most elementary of fleet structures.

Space "Fighters" can make sense in the real world, but it is going to be a matter of what drives their evolution in how they are used/designed.

You might have "fighters" that are basically anti-capital ship in mission (think WWII torpedo bomber), one might not be a danger but a number of them will be. For the cost of 1 Bindas-Class Cruiser (Fot3G pg56) you could purchase 130 Scorpion Fighters of the B model (PW pg157-8), which IINM could kill a Bindas with a missile barrage (on minimum damage and with the weaker cruise missile) or given enough time chew it up with cannon fire (130 fighters vs 11 guns, only 4 of which are anti-fighter that they can stay out of range of). Naruni Corporate Fire-eater fighter (Fot3G costs less than a Scorpion and carries far more missiles). So if your enemy is deploying small attack vehicles (ie fighters) that carry weapons that can kill your big capital ship (albeit in numbers) you either need to deploy smaller vehicles of your own or missiles (which those small craft could shoot down or otherwise defend themselves against).

Re: Star Trek
I think with Star Trek we have to remember that Star Fleet is not strictly a military organization, which could influence deployments and structures. The Defiant-class is one of the few "warship" first designs Star Fleet uses, even if it uses "warship" classifications.

[Warshield73]

I think the point is that we don't have very good rules for stealth and only a few, largely non-military, ships that are equipped with it. There are no stealthed corvettes or cruisers to fill the role of recon or special warfare.

I agree the rules for Stealth (and ECM and alot of other things) aren't necessarily very good, though stealth itself is a broad term.

As far as Stealth Ships, checkout Fleets of the 3 Galaxies (Etherium GMD pg82, Raider Shuttle pg71, both Naruni ships). Oni have a Stealth Shuttle (pg138 DB6).

Yes stealth itself can be very broad, just like ECM, so I have taken a page from Honor Harrington and really broken it down into active measures, like jammers, and passive, like energy absorbing hull materials and design. Not the most complete system but simple enough to run.

I have read all the ships you mention and the problem is that the way stealth is described is inconsistent and incomplete. Without having good info on sensors how stealth works is incomplete. Actually the Etherium has the best description of how its stealth works but without a firm breakdown of sensors its still just house rules.

It is mentioned but again no examples of them or even any specifics of where they are used and by whom. We also don't have a lot of information on how they compare to ships with CG drives.

True, though given PB's C&P use I don't think stat wise much will change between MiO and PW users of those systems. Who uses said hardware, well that's on the writers.

The drives in MiO aren't described in the same way as PW so compatibility is an issue, but for the most part you are correct. Writers could always use these drives for any low tech world.

The biggest problem is we don't know how CG works for the most part so it is hard to compare.

Also, pure defenses like decoys and jammers are just largely absent as are specialized weapons. There are examples in Rifts of weapons like this. The lightning guns in the NGR or the Arkohns tribeam weapons but very little in Phase World.

I agree there are examples megaversally, and they aren't used as much as one would think they should be used. Every combat flying vehicle should have some type of decoy system to ward off missiles (but that is a very short list, and with a tiny payload). Jammers, PB makes it available via rules to repurpose existing hardware (though I agree dedicated systems should be more prevelant).

Yeah, this was actually the very first thing I added to PW ships. Again some set of specific systems, not all of which would be carried by every ship, that are used for missile defense. In space combat some of these would have to be things that work in forward aspect to protect the ship during attack runs on large ships.

I covered this in another post but the way point defense is listed in the books are completely ineffective largely due to ranges.(...)

Point Defense Guns/Missiles might have given way to force fields (which are plentiful).

Missiles might actually be a "dumb" weapon to use if you think about it. If you shoot down a missile, the debris from the missile can still hit you (albiet for less damage) when you fly through the debris (in atmosphere it "sinks", in space it will just "float" there).

No, I have to disagree on this. Given the way PB missiles work the best defense against missiles is missiles.

As for the debris, in an MDC setting floating pieces of small missiles won't do much and actually a missile, with its own explosive warhead, is going to eliminate far more of the potential debris than directed energy or rail guns.

As for force fields, they can soak up some damage but AM CMs can tear them up in short order. Active defenses are something that has been overlooked in sci-fi for a long time but we have seen it more even as early as Andromeda and of course Honor Harrington and the Expanse.

If you read the post I was just pointing out that in a real world setting this makes no sense. The very idea of space fighters is laughable and really have to work hard to make them work in a setting. Also even in peace time a ship the size and importance of a Galaxy class would never be on its own. But even is DS9, which is my favorite Trek by far, we still only see the most elementary of fleet structures.

Space "Fighters" can make sense in the real world, but it is going to be a matter of what drives their evolution in how they are used/designed.

You might have "fighters" that are basically anti-capital ship in mission (think WWII torpedo bomber), one might not be a danger but a number of them will be. For the cost of 1 Bindas-Class Cruiser (Fot3G pg56) you could purchase 130 Scorpion Fighters of the B model (PW pg157-8), which IINM could kill a Bindas with a missile barrage (on minimum damage and with the weaker cruise missile) or given enough time chew it up with cannon fire (130 fighters vs 11 guns, only 4 of which are anti-fighter that they can stay out of range of). Naruni Corporate Fire-eater fighter (Fot3G costs less than a Scorpion and carries far more missiles). So if your enemy is deploying small attack vehicles (ie fighters) that carry weapons that can kill your big capital ship (albeit in numbers) you either need to deploy smaller vehicles of your own or missiles (which those small craft could shoot down or otherwise defend themselves against).

Re: Star Trek
I think with Star Trek we have to remember that Star Fleet is not strictly a military organization, which could influence deployments and structures. The Defiant-class is one of the few "warship" first designs Star Fleet uses, even if it uses "warship" classifications.

Again I agree with all of this but it is something you are not likely to see in a "real" situation. And it's not just the federation, Romulan D'deridex class ships are almost always alone to say nothing of Klingons. The only time we see actual fleets is the Dominion war.

[ShadowLogan]

The biggest problem is we don't know how CG works for the most part so it is hard to compare.

At a certain level this is true, but at the same time I think there is enough information provided to work with. We know CG drives operate at the basic level (manipulate gravitational interaction), essentially they are reaction-less drives. Operationally they are probably closer to the MiO Traction Drive (itself an example of reaction-less drive) than the other MiO Drives.

Its probably also worth considering that a significant portion of the target audience probably doesn't care for this level of technical detail when it comes to various technologies involved in the setting.

No, I have to disagree on this. Given the way PB missiles work the best defense against missiles is missiles.

Depends on what you consider the best defense. If the choice is Missile (70%) vs Gun (40%) counter attack only, then a missile is the better choice...

But other options exist like blocking with a force field (100%), or Dodging (assuming # is less than 4) or Piloting Maneuver: Evasive Action (this one requires porting piloting rules from other lines as Rifts doesn't really do this like HU or 1E RT). Chaff/Flares are also an option (if present, 75% chance), missile jamming is also possible (if present).

As for the debris, in an MDC setting floating pieces of small missiles won't do much and actually a missile, with its own explosive warhead, is going to eliminate far more of the potential debris than directed energy or rail guns.

While hitting a field of missile debris isn't going to do as much damage as getting hit by the missile's explosive warhead, it can still add-up in the long run (especially if you have 100s of missiles in debris form to contend with).

I don't think I've seen a debris table for Rifts/PW, but I know such a table for space debris can be found in a few places in 1E RT (RDF Accelerated Training Program OR Ghost Ship modules). Damage for missile shrapnel isn't great, but some of that shrapnel from its destruction should impact its original target (if it is intercepted to close, or you don't change course).

As for force fields, they can soak up some damage but AM CMs can tear them up in short order. Active defenses are something that has been overlooked in sci-fi for a long time but we have seen it more even as early as Andromeda and of course Honor Harrington and the Expanse.

It would make sense that settings without force fields (like Andromeda) would develop active defense though.

[The Beast]

I just want to point out that in space debris from a missile won't "float" unless something forces it to slow down and eventually stop. Until then it'll keep expanding outward from its point of origin.

[drewkitty ~..~]

snip...
Second, I know several people have created starship creation rules for PW, I have copies of many of these. What I am thinking about here is how much you change and why you change it and maybe what were some of your influences.

When I started playing Phase World with only the first two books all I did originally was add ships and create a few house rules for sensors (largely based on the old West End Star Wars games), ECM, version of chaff and flares, and stealth. I also adjusted stats on ships (the size of the Hunter destroyer or the crew of the Berserker). The new books have made this even more difficult with the usual power creep and ships that have to be cooler and tougher than anything that came before.
....snip

When looking for building a spaceship or starship the last place I would look at are the PW "Guidelines" for ships.
For ship (space- or star-) creation I look to the rules set down in the Aliens Unlimited: Galaxy Guide (AA:GG) from the Heroes Unlimited Setting game-books. Here is the why... the ship construction rules set out how much space the ship has for internal systems and what it costs to build that hull, and the cost of the systems themselves and how much. Thus a more 'real world' considerations about what to include in building a ship.

While there are some rules about combat in the AA:GG, they are also, but in other ways, to be lacking in the combat rules.
The acceleration/deceleration rules are....have a lot of words in them. However, in places they are self contradictory. Like two people were writing two sections of them and nether was coordinated with the other. There are also rules about crash landings within the space-star-ship text concerning movement.

In conclusion there is more text concerning the details about movement in the AA:GG book than in the rifts books.

P.S. I did write up an expation for the AA:GG text. Expanding the number of diiferent systems, weapons and missiles, while also updating some of the system rules for previus systems in the AA:GG book where they were awkward.

[Warshield73]

Its probably also worth considering that a significant portion of the target audience probably doesn't care for this level of technical detail when it comes to various technologies involved in the setting.

This is kind of the point of the post and the poll to see what people would like. I ran Phase World for so long with just 2 books and added so much of my own stuff that I sometimes often forget what is canon and what is mine. I just wanted a sense of detail people what some people may want.

The biggest problem is we don't know how CG works for the most part so it is hard to compare.

At a certain level this is true, but at the same time I think there is enough information provided to work with. We know CG drives operate at the basic level (manipulate gravitational interaction), essentially they are reaction-less drives. Operationally they are probably closer to the MiO Traction Drive (itself an example of reaction-less drive) than the other MiO Drives.

The problem with all of this is that it doesn't fit many of the descriptions or artwork and that the descriptions are inconsistent. Artwork and many describes ships as having actual thrust systems. Fleets of the Three Galaxies describes many of its ships as having capital thrusters or plasma engines. There is a lot of inconsistencies in how CG is described

My biggest problem is how fast can a ship move with just a CG field and for a ship that has thrusters how fast can it move without it. This has real implications when you are shutting down a CG field to avoid detection. Also how long does it take to jump to FTL? This makes a real difference when approaching another ship and is actually one of the very first things I had to house rule in Phase World during my first session.

No, I have to disagree on this. Given the way PB missiles work the best defense against missiles is missiles.

Depends on what you consider the best defense. If the choice is Missile (70%) vs Gun (40%) counter attack only, then a missile is the better choice...

Best isn't just about percentage chance to destroy an entire volley, which is what you are saying, it is about preventing damage. Active defenses like counter missiles and point defense, as well as electronic warfare, are used to stop the damage. Your hope is to stop missiles from ever hitting your shields so that those shields can be as close to full power as possible for when your enemy gets into energy weapons range as those can not be stopped by active defenses.

But other options exist like blocking with a force field (100%), or Dodging (assuming # is less than 4) or Piloting Maneuver: Evasive Action (this one requires porting piloting rules from other lines as Rifts doesn't really do this like HU or 1E RT). Chaff/Flares are also an option (if present, 75% chance), missile jamming is also possible (if present)

Force fields will always be limited in power and as I've said you want to use active defenses where you can. Now PW SB has rules for ships dodging but that is limited for anything bigger than a destroyer. Not sure where you get the chaff and flare percentage as PW doesn't have those. If you are using a percentage from another Rifts book you have to remember that chaff is far less effective against smart missiles than guided but that is true of all active defenses. In some ways this makes active defenses even more important as it saves shield strength for those weapons that can't be dodged.

As for the debris, in an MDC setting floating pieces of small missiles won't do much and actually a missile, with its own explosive warhead, is going to eliminate far more of the potential debris than directed energy or rail guns.

While hitting a field of missile debris isn't going to do as much damage as getting hit by the missile's explosive warhead, it can still add-up in the long run (especially if you have 100s of missiles in debris form to contend with).

I don't think I've seen a debris table for Rifts/PW, but I know such a table for space debris can be found in a few places in 1E RT (RDF Accelerated Training Program OR Ghost Ship modules). Damage for missile shrapnel isn't great, but some of that shrapnel from its destruction should impact its original target (if it is intercepted to close, or you don't change course).

I just want to point out that in space debris from a missile won't "float" unless something forces it to slow down and eventually stop. Until then it'll keep expanding outward from its point of origin.

If combat takes place out in open space, like is described in Fleets then only debris of the largest ships would make any difference as it will be moving out of the engagement zone at its previous speed until it hits something.

Now, my house rule is that most battles actually take place in a gravity well. This is something I've had in place since the first book since in a battle between 2 FTL capable ships out in open space would end as soon as one ship starts to loose. You just jump out. Now in a gravity well debris would be more of an issue with debris but still not even close to enough to make letting a missile hit you worth it. Small debris burning up your shields or scratching up your hull will NEVER be as bad as a single AM cruise missile.

As for force fields, they can soak up some damage but AM CMs can tear them up in short order. Active defenses are something that has been overlooked in sci-fi for a long time but we have seen it more even as early as Andromeda and of course Honor Harrington and the Expanse.

It would make sense that settings without force fields (like Andromeda) would develop active defense though.

Again force fields have limited durability. BB vs BB or DD vs DD a single launch of AM missiles can obliterate the shields of the other ship. Even systems with force fields have active defenses. Honor Harrington is a great example of this in that more than half the ship is protected by impenetrable grav wedge and the rest by force walls still has counter missiles, EW and point defense.

Force Fields are defenses of last resort and missiles are day ruining, life ending weapons. You want to do everything you can to stop them before they get to you.

When looking for building a spaceship or starship the last place I would look at are the PW "Guidelines" for ships.
For ship (space- or star-) creation I look to the rules set down in the Aliens Unlimited: Galaxy Guide (AA:GG) from the Heroes Unlimited Setting game-books. Here is the why... the ship construction rules set out how much space the ship has for internal systems and what it costs to build that hull, and the cost of the systems themselves and how much. Thus a more 'real world' considerations about what to include in building a ship.

While there are some rules about combat in the AA:GG, they are also, but in other ways, to be lacking in the combat rules.
The acceleration/deceleration rules are....have a lot of words in them. However, in places they are self contradictory. Like two people were writing two sections of them and nether was coordinated with the other. There are also rules about crash landings within the space-star-ship text concerning movement.

In conclusion there is more text concerning the details about movement in the AA:GG book than in the rifts books.

P.S. I did write up an expation for the AA:GG text. Expanding the number of diiferent systems, weapons and missiles, while also updating some of the system rules for previus systems in the AA:GG book where they were awkward.

I have barrowed from these sources heavily for my own games but AU and AU GG have as many problems and omissions as PW. Some of those problems and omissions are different but it still has them.

Again I plugged most of these holes in my own games but as I look at my house rules they are extensive. I am just trying to get a feel for what people want so I can evaluate those rules.

[ShadowLogan]

The problem with all of this is that it doesn't fit many of the descriptions or artwork and that the descriptions are inconsistent. Artwork and many describes ships as having actual thrust systems. Fleets of the Three Galaxies describes many of its ships as having capital thrusters or plasma engines. There is a lot of inconsistencies in how CG is described

My biggest problem is how fast can a ship move with just a CG field and for a ship that has thrusters how fast can it move without it. This has real implications when you are shutting down a CG field to avoid detection. Also how long does it take to jump to FTL? This makes a real difference when approaching another ship and is actually one of the very first things I had to house rule in Phase World during my first session.

This though is par for Palladium though to leave gaps in (or provide contradictory) information coverage, and is hardly limited to just the PW setting. Ex. (megaversally): what type of nuclear is in use by 'bots/pa/vehicles (it generally only lists "nuclear" for power source), or SLMH fuel capacity values in 2E RT (can also adapt to other vehicles with "range", but no fuel tank size), or how much thrust any flying unit can generate or acceleration profiles of every vehicle (exceptions exist for some in RT/Mac2 or real world vehicles), some powers contradict in the amount of MD energy in a car battery, etc.

Best isn't just about percentage chance to destroy an entire volley, which is what you are saying, it is about preventing damage.

in order to prevent damage from a missile you have to either avoid it or destroy it. Active defenses like guns or missiles require one to destroy it, ECM (in known examples megaversally) works by avoiding it (usually via penalties). ECM tends to be more variable (in megaversal RAW examples I can think of) than countering with gun/missile (variance here is in damage of weapon vs protective damage it can take, but generally favors the weapon damage). Which leads me to say that counter attacks are more reliable than ECM (when its available since one can always do a counter attack with a regular gun/missile). ECM use also requires a skill roll IINM (in RAW), and skill chances aren't the best.

Not sure where you get the chaff and flare percentage as PW doesn't have those. If you are using a percentage from another Rifts book you have to remember that chaff is far less effective against smart missiles than guided but that is true of all active defenses.

Rifts WB5, various RT2E VFs gives a value of 75%. MiO lists 50%, but that is one source and one entry (IINM) vs multiple books with 75% leading toward thinking the higher value is the current megaversal standard. If its different elsewhere I don't know (HU2E has the option, but no percentage or mechanic on use).

[glitterboy2098]

i've personally been chalking up the rocket looking things in much of the art as being not thrusters, but rather radiator systems. thus killing two birds with one stone.. explaining what those are on reactionless drive craft, and explaining how the ships vent their excess heat.

[Warshield73]

The problem with all of this is that it doesn't fit many of the descriptions or artwork and that the descriptions are inconsistent. Artwork and many describes ships as having actual thrust systems. Fleets of the Three Galaxies describes many of its ships as having capital thrusters or plasma engines. There is a lot of inconsistencies in how CG is described

My biggest problem is how fast can a ship move with just a CG field and for a ship that has thrusters how fast can it move without it. This has real implications when you are shutting down a CG field to avoid detection. Also how long does it take to jump to FTL? This makes a real difference when approaching another ship and is actually one of the very first things I had to house rule in Phase World during my first session.

This though is par for Palladium though to leave gaps in (or provide contradictory) information coverage, and is hardly limited to just the PW setting. Ex. (megaversally): what type of nuclear is in use by 'bots/pa/vehicles (it generally only lists "nuclear" for power source), or SLMH fuel capacity values in 2E RT (can also adapt to other vehicles with "range", but no fuel tank size), or how much thrust any flying unit can generate or acceleration profiles of every vehicle (exceptions exist for some in RT/Mac2 or real world vehicles), some powers contradict in the amount of MD energy in a car battery, etc.

The type of nuclear is something that I have thought about from time to time but it really has not been an issue for me. Now the size of fuel tanks that is something that I have had to work out and have even posted about on these boards.

Acceleration and deceleration in atmosphere has not been a problem for me. Relative to the speeds in space (sub light or FTL) the speeds in atmosphere are so slow and you can look at the acceleration of existing aircraft or ground vehicles for that. What I'm talking about with FTL would be the equivalent of not knowing how legs work on a robot vehicle, it is fundamental for making a consistent setting.

Best isn't just about percentage chance to destroy an entire volley, which is what you are saying, it is about preventing damage.

in order to prevent damage from a missile you have to either avoid it or destroy it. Active defenses like guns or missiles require one to destroy it, ECM (in known examples megaversally) works by avoiding it (usually via penalties). ECM tends to be more variable (in megaversal RAW examples I can think of) than countering with gun/missile (variance here is in damage of weapon vs protective damage it can take, but generally favors the weapon damage). Which leads me to say that counter attacks are more reliable than ECM (when its available since one can always do a counter attack with a regular gun/missile). ECM use also requires a skill roll IINM (in RAW), and skill chances aren't the best.

I agree with everything up here. One of the reason I did this post is I have been feeling that the defenses I have developed for PW, both active and passive, are too complicated. My payers and I developed a system for EW before the PW SB came out. It has evolved over the decades to include things from shows like Andromeda or books like Honor Harrington or to include new settings like Robotech 2e (truthfully this was probably the single biggest overhaul I did for my system was when Macross and Southern Cross came out).

I have always treated it in terms of defense zones
- Use ECM and jamming to stop the attack from being launched
- use counter missiles to hit the missiles at range
- Use drones and decoys to lure missiles away
- Use Point Defense Cannons (energy or ballistic) as last attempt
- Last is shields then armor

Not sure where you get the chaff and flare percentage as PW doesn't have those. If you are using a percentage from another Rifts book you have to remember that chaff is far less effective against smart missiles than guided but that is true of all active defenses.

Rifts WB5, various RT2E VFs gives a value of 75%. MiO lists 50%, but that is one source and one entry (IINM) vs multiple books with 75% leading toward thinking the higher value is the current megaversal standard. If its different elsewhere I don't know (HU2E has the option, but no percentage or mechanic on use).

OK, as you say there isn't a lot of consistency so I just couldn't figure out which one you were referencing. When PW originally came out I used the NGR chaff system but we switched over to the chaff from the Wild Weasel SAMAS in the New West book for a while. Really I haven't used chaff in PW for more than a decade as it makes very little sense for space combat. I have an active defense that performs like chaff but I call it something else.

i've personally been chalking up the rocket looking things in much of the art as being not thrusters, but rather radiator systems. thus killing two birds with one stone.. explaining what those are on reactionless drive craft, and explaining how the ships vent their excess heat.

The problem with this is that almost every piece of artwork has some sort of thrust producing engines and multiple vehicles have descriptions of some sort of booster system. There are also the descriptions in Fleets which describe some sort of thrusters for several ships.

It is pretty clear that CG simply eliminates the effect of gravity and allows thruster systems to work more effectively but hey I've changed most of the system too so who cares at this point.

[ShadowLogan]

The type of nuclear is something that I have thought about from time to time but it really has not been an issue for me.

For Atmospheric Flight that can turn the ambient air into reaction mass, not much of an issue but in space, well they have to be expelling something and a Fission system just isn't friendly to this situation without some other type of remass unlike fusion (dump waste plasma). It can also determine how "radioactive" a destroyed/damaged unit could be potentially. It determines required fuel and fuel storage requirements. It changes the impact/viability of a "fuel leak". It could change the meaning of the endurance of the system (fission not much change, but fusion system could change it to mean the reactor's lifespan and not fuel capacity). There are several ways that it could be useful form a story point.

OK, as you say there isn't a lot of consistency so I just couldn't figure out which one you were referencing. When PW originally came out I used the NGR chaff system but we switched over to the chaff from the Wild Weasel SAMAS in the New West book for a while. Really I haven't used chaff in PW for more than a decade as it makes very little sense for space combat. I have an active defense that performs like chaff but I call it something els

Forgot about The WW-SAMAS in NW, though I could see it using a different size package considering other examples have room for a lot more (but actually get a smaller number, or maybe they auto fire off multiple smaller packages? who knows).

Mutants in Orbit sort of tries to give a reasons to use chaff in space (MiO pg83, pg84's Sandcaster is limited to #3 and #4):
1. counter missile (given)
2. temporary change radar signature of the vehicle
3. Diffuse (reduce damage) Lasers for period of time (personally I'd probably reduce the time for highly agile platforms like "fighters" or 'bots or pa types)
4. provide an offensive weapon (does damage if you fly into the cloud)

Chaff use #4 is likely not to come up as much (though could fall under #1, but damage is so weak limiting it to low end missile types), but #3 can be a useful feature since IINM lasers are a common weapon. #3 couldn't be done in an atmosphere, but in space it might as the stuff will "linger" (or "float") longer before it spreads out due to motion.

[Fenris2020]

I'd also increase the automation on everything. For instance, the show Andromeda has basically a PC group tooling around in a rather large vessel; granted the ship has some problems, since it's not fully crewed, but they get by,

[-TLR-]

One of the key problems I see in all Palladium Space-Combat is a misunderstanding of the power, range, and tactical usage of missiles. First, nobody is wasting money and design effort on a "long-range" or "cruise" missile that doesn't support either multiple boost-stages, or continuous guided acceleration! We (20th/21st century humans) already have multistage missiles. For Phase-World tech, strap a limited-life (an hour would be plenty) throw-away CG drive on a pocket-nuke or large bomb with even a primitive guidance-system, and nobody is credibly dodging these things when fired en mass. More importantly, dump a swarm out at your current velocity (but not "fired up"), and let them coast near your target(s) before they come "on line" at relatively close range with seeker guidance warheads at high G's. 20th-century Nike Sprint missiles accelerated off of a warship deck at such high speeds they literally incandesced from the air friction! Surely CCW/Phase-World can match primitive 20th century tech!

The other glaring problem is ranges and distances in space. If your sublight drive are capable of any meaningful percentage of light-speed, then even lasers (and similar directed-energy weapons) start having problems hitting. If a ship can change velocity by 0.1% of light-speed in a combat-round, then there is a real good chance that it is effectively no longer where you are aiming (that image you are seeing is already old before you shoot at it, and nobody in "space-fighter" combat flies in easily-predicted trajectories). Automatically-randomized thrust-vectoring is bound to be de-rigeur.

That means various area-effect attacks will be most-common, The inverse-square law makes these energy-prohibitive for directed-energy weapons (even Plasma), but a "gravitic shotgun" that launches hundreds, thousands, or even myriads of projectiles capable of short-range terminal-guidance (e.g. micro-missiles with simple target-recognition abilities) might be quite effective. Enough titanium ball-bearings launched at 0.5c from out-of-sensor ranges, followed by tactical maneuvers to lure the foe "into position", could be devastating.

[Warshield73]

The type of nuclear is something that I have thought about from time to time but it really has not been an issue for me.

For Atmospheric Flight that can turn the ambient air into reaction mass, not much of an issue but in space, well they have to be expelling something and a Fission system just isn't friendly to this situation without some other type of remass unlike fusion (dump waste plasma). It can also determine how "radioactive" a destroyed/damaged unit could be potentially. It determines required fuel and fuel storage requirements. It changes the impact/viability of a "fuel leak". It could change the meaning of the endurance of the system (fission not much change, but fusion system could change it to mean the reactor's lifespan and not fuel capacity). There are several ways that it could be useful form a story point.

I agree with this and I actually think I talked about it in another thread years ago where an “out of Gas” scenario could really drive a narrative the way other resource shortages couldn’t.

The best examples of this are, IMO:
The Pilot episode of Firefly where not having the money needed to refuel leads Mal to agree to meet Patience for a deal even though he knows it’s a trap. Wackiness and comedy gold (his I took a job monologue is still a favorite of mine that I can quote from memory) ensue.

The second is what I think might be the second or third best episode of a series that I really didn’t like much but RDMs Battlestar Galactica episode Hand of God where a badly outnumbered Galactica had to take a Cylon fuel depot.

Even food and water don’t give you the kind of chances people need to take to avoid ending up on the drift.

Apart from the story decision I would do all of this but it doesn’t really fit with Rifts. Somehow on both Earth and in the Three Galaxies we have Robots, aircraft, even power armors that have decades of fuel onboard so limiting the fuel of giant starships seems out of place. If I was doing a complete reboot of Rifts entirely this would be one of the first things I would change but I’m not going that far.

OK, as you say there isn't a lot of consistency so I just couldn't figure out which one you were referencing. When PW originally came out I used the NGR chaff system but we switched over to the chaff from the Wild Weasel SAMAS in the New West book for a while. Really I haven't used chaff in PW for more than a decade as it makes very little sense for space combat. I have an active defense that performs like chaff but I call it something els

Forgot about The WW-SAMAS in NW, though I could see it using a different size package considering other examples have room for a lot more (but actually get a smaller number, or maybe they auto fire off multiple smaller packages? who knows).

Until the Robotech 2e Macross and Especially Southern Cross books came out the WW SAMAS was the best EW platform we had. Jamming, C&C capabilities, comms, SigInt, and chaff this PA had everything the setting was missing. One of my big complaints is that we don’t see any real EW platforms being created by the major powers like CS, Triax or NG. At least not that I remember.

Mutants in Orbit sort of tries to give a reasons to use chaff in space (MiO pg83, pg84's Sandcaster is limited to #3 and #4):
1. counter missile (given)
2. temporary change radar signature of the vehicle
3. Diffuse (reduce damage) Lasers for period of time (personally I'd probably reduce the time for highly agile platforms like "fighters" or 'bots or pa types)
4. provide an offensive weapon (does damage if you fly into the cloud)

Chaff use #4 is likely not to come up as much (though could fall under #1, but damage is so weak limiting it to low end missile types), but #3 can be a useful feature since IINM lasers are a common weapon. #3 couldn't be done in an atmosphere, but in space it might as the stuff will "linger" (or "float") longer before it spreads out due to motion.

When this book came out my friends and I were still playing the old Nighthawks game, part of the old TSR Star Frontiers game. It had a similar defense but it was mainly water vapor, even in that game it was kind of useless.

I took the idea of chaff and flares from the CS and Triax jets, added in some of the effect of the MiO chaff and called them Dazzlers. Basically it was a small EMP device combined with a massive burst of light in all ranges from IR through visual into the UV that could blind sensors, vehicle and missile, in both directions along a straight line. So if you are being tailed by another fighter and it launches missiles these have a chance of stopping the missile and disrupting the weapons system lock of the hostile on you but also you on the hostile. It, however, did nothing to the weapons lock from the guy diving in on any other vector. These also worked as distractions so you blind pursue, cut engines, flip your fighter and fire before they see it coming. Of course if you lose your weapons lock you have to fire blind. Big ships, Light Cruisers and up, had no use for these. Even most Frigates and destroyers weren’t fast or maneuverable enough to get much use out of them so I gave them a EMP beams along with jamming arrays and decoys to do the same job.

To me something like this felt more a part of a sci-fi environment than cans of sand, bottles of water, or burning strips of magnesium.

I'd also increase the automation on everything. For instance, the show Andromeda has basically a PC group tooling around in a rather large vessel; granted the ship has some problems, since it's not fully crewed, but they get by,

My original PW group had a cruiser class vessel that could be crewed by just one person with the help of an AI and crew bots. The problem for a canon game though is supposedly people hate AI and don’t use them much. I ignore this in my game reducing crew numbers by 20% to up 75% depending on the size and purpose of the vessel. One of the largest uses of space on these ships is going to be air, food and water for a living crew so I have to imagine that no matter what phobia they have they are going to automate.

This is covered in some of the middle books of the Honor Harrington series. For a long time the Manticorian Navy had a real manpower problem even going so far as to decommission still useful ships to crew newer, more powerful units. When they really started to develop heavy automation they managed to really expand the force.

This makes sense. Even just one star system with Phase World level technology would have the resources to field thousands of ships and with automated construction you could really crank them out. The problem is where do you get the crew? Even Starfleet with all of its heavily populated worlds had a significant manpower shortage during the Dominion War so yeah I think this would be included in any rewrite as well.

One of the key problems I see in all Palladium Space-Combat is a misunderstanding of the power, range, and tactical usage of missiles. First, nobody is wasting money and design effort on a "long-range" or "cruise" missile that doesn't support either multiple boost-stages, or continuous guided acceleration! We (20th/21st century humans) already have multistage missiles. For Phase-World tech, strap a limited-life (an hour would be plenty) throw-away CG drive on a pocket-nuke or large bomb with even a primitive guidance-system, and nobody is credibly dodging these things when fired en mass.

While I agree with all of this, like everything else in a game, the space combat system has to serve the story you are telling. In this case you need a system that makes room for robots & power armors, space fighters, and especially magic and other abilities.

Once your missile speeds, ranges and numbers get to a certain point fighters and PAs are useless, mages never get a shot and I don’t care how tough that cosmo-knight is once he has 50 nukes at 10 times his speed flying up his @$$ is done. I do really increase missile ranges and speed in my game but I have kept much lower than in most sci-fi just to keep all these things in play. Especially magic and super powers as that is supposed to be a huge part of the setting.

More importantly, dump a swarm out at your current velocity (but not "fired up"), and let them coast near your target(s) before they come "on line" at relatively close range with seeker guidance warheads at high G's. 20th-century Nike Sprint missiles accelerated off of a warship deck at such high speeds they literally incandesced from the air friction! Surely CCW/Phase-World can match primitive 20th century tech!

The MiO book had a type of smart missile that was basically two missiles together that could be dropped like a mine and activated by remote, timer, or set situation. We eventually replaced these with pods similar to the SAWS in Rifts Mercs but I think that is definitely something you need and of course this needs to be wrapped in the best stealth tech.

The other glaring problem is ranges and distances in space. If your sublight drive are capable of any meaningful percentage of light-speed, then even lasers (and similar directed-energy weapons) start having problems hitting. If a ship can change velocity by 0.1% of light-speed in a combat-round, then there is a real good chance that it is effectively no longer where you are aiming (that image you are seeing is already old before you shoot at it, and nobody in "space-fighter" combat flies in easily-predicted trajectories). Automatically-randomized thrust-vectoring is bound to be de-rigeur.

This is where I go back to Star Wars vs harder sci-fi like the expanse or Honor Harrington. Phase World is science fantasy so while I do want to increase sub-light speeds and already have increased weapons ranges it has to be limited by the elements of the game.

One idea I had for increasing speeds was limiting maneuverability the faster you go. Yes if a ship is moving at 0.1c they are not going to be in the spot they were when you fired, but if they can’t do much more than go in a straight line well even a modern computer could hit that with a lightspeed weapon or another fast ship could cross your “T” deploy a spread of missiles, or you could fly write into a “minefield” of stealth missile pods. This, and giving defenses a huge advantage against missiles at range, i think we give you good reason why most battles would take place at lower speeds where everything can take part, but the speeds need to increase a little and sub-light cruise needs to be a thing for interplant stuff.

That means various area-effect attacks will be most-common, The inverse-square law makes these energy-prohibitive for directed-energy weapons (even Plasma), but a "gravitic shotgun" that launches hundreds, thousands, or even myriads of projectiles capable of short-range terminal-guidance (e.g. micro-missiles with simple target-recognition abilities) might be quite effective. Enough titanium ball-bearings launched at 0.5c from out-of-sensor ranges, followed by tactical maneuvers to lure the foe "into position", could be devastating.

[/quote]
It would actually be game ending. The weapons used need to have a tactical and even strategic use but as I said you still want battles to last.

[Fenris2020]

Here's how I see it:
Star Trek: TNG and DS9 had remarkably good sensors (sooo much better than anything in Star Wars, to the point there's no comparison), and yet Romulan and even some of the older Klingon ships were able to avoid detection, at least until they were VERY close (within a few kilometers).
I really don't see the sensors in PW as being more advanced (given the listed ranges of sensors and weapons, probably less so... though still better than Star Wars). I'd think some sort of stealth/ cloaking tech should still be viable.

[Warshield73]

Here's how I see it:
Star Trek: TNG and DS9 had remarkably good sensors (sooo much better than anything in Star Wars, to the point there's no comparison), and yet Romulan and even some of the older Klingon ships were able to avoid detection, at least until they were VERY close (within a few kilometers).
I really don't see the sensors in PW as being more advanced (given the listed ranges of sensors and weapons, probably less so... though still better than Star Wars). I'd think some sort of stealth/ cloaking tech should still be viable.

I agree with this 100%

I think PW has a great deal of Star Trek in it but I think it skews heavily toward Star Wars, again just because of elements like magic, space fighters and power armor. I think Corella's intention was to keep spacecraft operating at speeds and ranges so that mages and smaller vehicle could still take part in the battles.

Star Trek is a lot like the Honor Harrington books, small fighters aren't really a thing with the smallest ships really being things like runabouts. Star Wars has a lot more room for fighters and small craft so while I think the tech in PW is going to be better than Star Wars I still think it is going to lean in that direction more.

[Rogerd]

I{ recommend Dark Matter 5e which has some good space combat rules, and also uses Mega-Damage.