Ramming Speed!

[Esckey]

I have never been able to find a good damage table or system for a spaceship ramming another one. Got any hints or ideas?

[KLM]

I have never been able to find a good damage table or system for a spaceship ramming another one. Got any hints or ideas?

Idea: DMB3, page 88-89. Arcane Mk II ship, death cloud canon.

However, since such an ice boulder is way less solid (remember water in vacuum
boils away - leaving bubbles in the ice, and also such iceberg formed in zero gravity
is rather fragile) that MDC starship hulls, one can multiply the damage.

Maybe even up to 10 times.

Adios
KLM

[drewkitty ~..~]

Both ships are destroyed.
That is the real world outcome of a spaceship ramming another.

[Aramanthus]

I agree with KLM's ideas on the subject. Although I'd top off the multipiler by 10 at most. But then you'd have systems going out and if a ships acceleration compensator waas damaged or destroyed there goes your crew and maybe even the volatile weapons and fuels of the ship. I.e. anti-matter.

[KLM]

Both ships are destroyed.
That is the real world outcome of a spaceship ramming another.

Disagree. Mind you, it could happen, that a mere 1 ton space fighter (battlepod more like)
rams a Dominator Star Fortress (whichever size we choose for Dominator ships).

The fighter is destroyed all right, but would it affect the Star Fortress? Yepp, like "minor cosmetic damage".

But take it to the number-crunching:

A fighter (a few tons - ie. "first category" in DMB3) playing kamikaze, it overstrains its engines, making
it to M20.

If it rams another fighter (flying at M5) from 6 o'clock - relative speed is M15. Multiply it with a
damage multiplier, say 5x -> both craft taking 15*5*4d6 MD, which is 300d6 MD ie. 3d6 * 100.
Ouch, but survivable.

A head on ramming of these vessels would result at a relative M25 - 5d6*100. Both vessel going down
(usually).

But a Star Cruiser (and up) getting this kind of attention probably is just shaken, provided the kamikaze
does not hit the bridge.

Adios
KLM

[Rallan]

Both ships are destroyed.
That is the real world outcome of a spaceship ramming another.

Invoke the Rule Of Awesome and forget about real world outcomes. Fleet engagements in Phase World are already portrayed as being way more about awesomeness than about realistic applications of fancy technology: you've got huge space battleships duking it out with close range broadsides while entire fleets of fighters dogfight each other and strafe the capital ships, and marines in power armor are sent out in boarding parties to do daring commando raids. It's all the cool bits of WWII carrier battles, WWI battleship duels, and Age Of Sail melees all mixed into one glorious package. So why not go the whole hog and have ram ships, vessels specially designed to smash into enemy vessels for maximum damage and spew out a horde of marines to wipe out the survivors and destroy the crippled target? Lord knows it's no sillier than what's already going on.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Both ships are destroyed.
That is the real world outcome of a spaceship ramming another.

Disagree. Mind you, it could happen, that a mere 1 ton space fighter (battlepod more like)
rams a Dominator Star Fortress (whichever size we choose for Dominator ships).

...snip

I said real world, not game-tech worlds.

Real world scales would have the smallest warship massing close to 100,000 tons. But then again Rws would have the weapons ranges in the thousands of km. range. and speeds closer to 1000's kph, and up, then a mach number.

So more honorvers the star trek/wars.

[Esckey]

volatile weapons and fuels of the ship. I.e. anti-matter

For the anti-matter going bye-bye I've used the explosive damage listed under the asterix for the Main Body of the ship(hunter does 2D6X1000 after -1,500 MDC) Which is fine till you get to the bigger stuff and the fighters( they don't have a listed damage), but every other ship seems to do a max damage equal to half its main body MDC. Except for a Smasher which will take out another smasher provided you do max damage and it has no sheilds.

But what of missiles, wouldn't they have safties to prevent them from going off prematurely

[glitterboy2098]

for ramming, remember;
"something hitting at 3 km/sec (kips) delivers kinetic energy broadly equal to its mass in TNT." (Robinson's First Law of space combat)

so basically, for every 10 mach your travelling, you inflict roughly 1D6x10 M.D. per ton...

[Esckey]

for ramming, remember;
"something hitting at 3 km/sec (kips) delivers kinetic energy broadly equal to its mass in TNT." (Robinson's First Law of space combat)

so basically, for every 10 mach your travelling, you inflict roughly 1D6x10 M.D. per ton...

Wow. That means a Protector going all out would do 150 Million MDC, if you roll low. Granted you also have to boost the speed a bit since its top speed is Mach 9(or just going by percent it would do 135 million)

[Aramanthus]

The problem with that little thing again you take it into the realm of the cinematic. I use that I admit most of the time. But I also know that during WW2 kamikazes were never really successful against US or UK Battleships. Against destroyers and our soft decked carriers they were a terror that nothing could match. So against a capitol ship I think collosions are only of limited capabilities, even in Phase World setting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

[Esckey]

Well in my case its not a fighter vs a capital ship its escort ship vs capital ship. Like a Hunter vs a Warsheild. They just want to make a diversion by setting one ship to crash into another one

[Aramanthus]

Well a hunter might be able to do some serious damage. Unless the intended target turns to the bow on. Therwe have been many cases where larger ships have rammed smaller ones. The first link is special, Look down in the WW2 history of this ship. She cut a light cruiser in half by accidentially ram her. For the case of the cruiser ramming a larger ship. It might actually destroy each other. How is this actually going to happen in the game? That will help explain the situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramming

[Rallan]

Well in my case its not a fighter vs a capital ship its escort ship vs capital ship. Like a Hunter vs a Warsheild. They just want to make a diversion by setting one ship to crash into another one

I assume you mean setting it up so they do it by accident, rather than a suicide mission by the Hunter. In which case the lack of ramming rules* is the least of your problems. You've also got the almost complete lack of rules for spaceship combat maneuvres, unless one of the more recent Phase World books has covered that.

* the first Phase World book had ramming rules. But only for one robot that was specifically designed for ramming ships in combat, and it had no notes on how to apply that to other robots or ships that tried to ram stuff

[The Beast]

Isn't ramming covered in either N&S or HU?

[Esckey]

Well the situation is(just a summary actually) is that the characters got caught in the middle of a TGE CCW battle, well its the aftermath the TGE have fled and the CCW are picking up the peices. Due to the area close range sensors suck, so the PCs are safe for now but they can't jump away or they get picked up on the long range sensors from the war sheild, so they want to hop on board this derlict hunter that is being stripped for parts(to get a couple of other hunters in working condition again) and program the nav computer to fly into the warsheild. Then the EVA back to the ship and get the heck outta dodge

The FFs of both ships would probably be off so I can skip that little problem and go straight to the blunt force trauma

[glitterboy2098]

The problem with that little thing again you take it into the realm of the cinematic. I use that I admit most of the time. But I also know that during WW2 kamikazes were never really successful against US or UK Battleships. Against destroyers and our soft decked carriers they were a terror that nothing could match. So against a capitol ship I think collosions are only of limited capabilities, even in Phase World setting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze

on one hand, your right. historically kamikai's didn't have much effect. (though early on they did a lot of damage. it was mainly that they lost surprise and AA teams got better..)

but look at the physics. a kamikazi would be travelling at best, 500mph. the ship they'd be hitting was moving at best 70mph. a few hundred MPH (under 1km/s) differance isn't much. not to mention the planes were usually only a ton or so, while the ships were thousands of tons.

but in space battles, where ships travel around at incredible speeds and mass large amounts, the kinetic energy of a hit is very high. when a locomotive moving at 60mph hits with the impact force of an atomic bomb, what of a ship of the same mass moving at 6000mph? and most phase world fighter mass more than that and fly faster than that!

[Aramanthus]

That is true GB2098. But again someone else (Apollo) mentioned shields. And there is the difference. If the shields are working then the impact never occurs. Especially if they can be angled to deflect the impact. And if they are strong enough the smaller impacting ship might just be consumed in the impact. And those shields are suppopsed to be able to deal with those forces that are equal to atomic bombs.

[glitterboy2098]

actually, both the rammer and the ramee would take similar amounts of damage. so unless the reletive speeds are pretty low, a fighter hitting a ship's shields will end up confetti.

thus ramming is a very effective, but suicidal, tactic in space. which is why the priciple is usually only used with inert projectiles like railgun slugs...no need for pilots.

of course, the real fun comes when you get to reletivistic speeds. E=1/2MV^2 is the formula for kinetic impact....when that V gets close to "C", it looks rather more like E=1/2MC^2. which is close enough to E=MC^2 to make the issue moot....

[Aramanthus]

I can see the fighter becoming confetti on inpacting on shields. I agree about Ramming being suicidal and most MIlitaries would seriously frown on any such practices unless it was a truly desperate situation. Such as maybe a frightening threat such as a Dominator star fortress.

[Rallan]

actually, both the rammer and the ramee would take similar amounts of damage. so unless the reletive speeds are pretty low, a fighter hitting a ship's shields will end up confetti.

thus ramming is a very effective, but suicidal, tactic in space. which is why the priciple is usually only used with inert projectiles like railgun slugs...no need for pilots.

of course, the real fun comes when you get to reletivistic speeds. E=1/2MV^2 is the formula for kinetic impact....when that V gets close to "C", it looks rather more like E=1/2MC^2. which is close enough to E=MC^2 to make the issue moot....

It's only suicidal if you do it with something that's not designed for use as a ram. Which is why you should pilot something like, oh I dunno, the BATTLERAM ATTACK ROBOT.

Seriously, how did we get this far into a thread about ramming in Phase World without mentioning that puppy?

[Greyaxe]

for ramming, remember;
"something hitting at 3 km/sec (kips) delivers kinetic energy broadly equal to its mass in TNT." (Robinson's First Law of space combat)

so basically, for every 10 mach your travelling, you inflict roughly 1D6x10 M.D. per ton...

Wow. That means a Protector going all out would do 150 Million MDC, if you roll low. Granted you also have to boost the speed a bit since its top speed is Mach 9(or just going by percent it would do 135 million)

I once took an Ikazukie command carrier and slammed into Dolzas command center at maximum sub light speed, (20% i think) and infliced over a trillion points of damage, destroying the facility and causing a catastrophic crash on the moon. AH those were the days.

[Spinachcat]

I had this issue pop up the last time I ran Mechanoids.

To keep things simple and dangerous, I said that both ships would do their Hull Points to each other. AKA, the 300 MDC fighter does 300 damage to the 40000 MDC capital ship which does 40000 damage to the fighter in return.

As for speed issues, I assumed the attacker was doing a full burn on his way to paradise.

[Xar]

Invoke the Rule Of Awesome and forget about real world outcomes. Fleet engagements in Phase World are already portrayed as being way more about awesomeness than about realistic applications of fancy technology: you've got huge space battleships duking it out with close range broadsides while entire fleets of fighters dogfight each other and strafe the capital ships, and marines in power armor are sent out in boarding parties to do daring commando raids. It's all the cool bits of WWII carrier battles, WWI battleship duels, and Age Of Sail melees all mixed into one glorious package. So why not go the whole hog and have ram ships, vessels specially designed to smash into enemy vessels for maximum damage and spew out a horde of marines to wipe out the survivors and destroy the crippled target? Lord knows it's no sillier than what's already going on.

Extremely well said!

[Nekira Sudacne]

Invoke the Rule Of Awesome and forget about real world outcomes. Fleet engagements in Phase World are already portrayed as being way more about awesomeness than about realistic applications of fancy technology: you've got huge space battleships duking it out with close range broadsides while entire fleets of fighters dogfight each other and strafe the capital ships, and marines in power armor are sent out in boarding parties to do daring commando raids. It's all the cool bits of WWII carrier battles, WWI battleship duels, and Age Of Sail melees all mixed into one glorious package. So why not go the whole hog and have ram ships, vessels specially designed to smash into enemy vessels for maximum damage and spew out a horde of marines to wipe out the survivors and destroy the crippled target? Lord knows it's no sillier than what's already going on.

Extremely well said!

Are you sure about that? take a look at the missle payloads on the Battlesheild, Protector and Packmaster. There's enough antimatter warheads on those to take out a small fleet without ever closing into energy weapon range.

[Greyaxe]

Invoke the Rule Of Awesome and forget about real world outcomes. Fleet engagements in Phase World are already portrayed as being way more about awesomeness than about realistic applications of fancy technology: you've got huge space battleships duking it out with close range broadsides while entire fleets of fighters dogfight each other and strafe the capital ships, and marines in power armor are sent out in boarding parties to do daring commando raids. It's all the cool bits of WWII carrier battles, WWI battleship duels, and Age Of Sail melees all mixed into one glorious package. So why not go the whole hog and have ram ships, vessels specially designed to smash into enemy vessels for maximum damage and spew out a horde of marines to wipe out the survivors and destroy the crippled target? Lord knows it's no sillier than what's already going on.

Extremely well said!

Are you sure about that? take a look at the missle payloads on the Battlesheild, Protector and Packmaster. There's enough antimatter warheads on those to take out a small fleet without ever closing into energy weapon range.

Your picket line will shoot them down at that range. Most fighters are faster than cruise missiles.

[Xar]

Invoke the Rule Of Awesome and forget about real world outcomes. Fleet engagements in Phase World are already portrayed as being way more about awesomeness than about realistic applications of fancy technology: you've got huge space battleships duking it out with close range broadsides while entire fleets of fighters dogfight each other and strafe the capital ships, and marines in power armor are sent out in boarding parties to do daring commando raids. It's all the cool bits of WWII carrier battles, WWI battleship duels, and Age Of Sail melees all mixed into one glorious package. So why not go the whole hog and have ram ships, vessels specially designed to smash into enemy vessels for maximum damage and spew out a horde of marines to wipe out the survivors and destroy the crippled target? Lord knows it's no sillier than what's already going on.

Extremely well said!

Are you sure about that? take a look at the missle payloads on the Battlesheild, Protector and Packmaster. There's enough antimatter warheads on those to take out a small fleet without ever closing into energy weapon range.

Yes, I'm sure. I'll take awesome over realism every time.

If I wanted more realism, I'd play a game about my job.

[KLM]

Hi there!

Before starting to calculate kinetic energy in the name or realism, pay attention to the
fact, that starship stats aren't calculated with reality in mind - not in terms of MDC, weapon
range and damage and of course speed.

Of course, if we would recalculate starships (and every piece of hardware for that matter)
"realistically", it would give us MBTs with tens of thousands MDCs and with main guns that
is designed to kill such a beast in a couple of shots and not from rock throwing range.

That is one thing.

Another thing is, that if we "invent" ramming as a successfull - albeit suicidal - attack tactics,
we open a big can of worms. It would make most ship designs obsolete, to start with.

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

That is a cool way to look at it, KLM. Now if I remember somewhere in SciFi by Fred Saberhagen he developed ships specifically for killing Beserkers. Not only did they have the C-plus cannon , but they have some ships called "Ram ships which were designed and built for ramming beserkers.

[Rallan]

Hi there!

Before starting to calculate kinetic energy in the name or realism, pay attention to the
fact, that starship stats aren't calculated with reality in mind - not in terms of MDC, weapon
range and damage and of course speed.

Yeah you can say that again. Pound for pound that big Kreeghor Doombringer dreadnought is the flimsiest structure in the known universe. It has 350,000 MDC, and a weight of "100 million tons fully loaded". If we're extra generous and assume that only 10% of that is the ship's own weight, it's still 350,000 MDC among 10 million tons. Which works out at 0.035 MDC (or three and a half SDC) per ton.

And I'm sure if anyone could be bothered working out a guesstimate of that thing's surface area and figuring out how many square metres of hull there are per MDC point, it'd be even more depressingly silly

[Aramanthus]

Looks like we are in need of some shrinkage like what another game company did to another series of popular SciFi ships. Those ships had the density of tissue paper. With the reduction in size they regained their toughness. Well maybe they are in need of both loosing weight and gain MDC to bring those number back to something like parady.

[KLM]

I disagree.

Their size and weight is about right - after all, for a planetary D-day, the 40 mTons
cargo of the Doombringer is about OK. Also, its size is "within accepted parameters"
for the mass.

That said, Palladium stuff begins to go wrong statwise if we leave "character scale"
stuff... EBA is way better than PA weight for weight, same for infantry guns compared
to PA guns, tanks are outright puny, and so on...

Maybe the easiest - and rather dirty - solution would be a "scale" system.

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

Well that would be the easiest to start and maintain. It would also be the easiest to establish this trend. And maintain it across the systems. I was only stating how they settled the problem with the Honor Harrington ships.

[Rallan]

Looks like we are in need of some shrinkage like what another game company did to another series of popular SciFi ships. Those ships had the density of tissue paper. With the reduction in size they regained their toughness. Well maybe they are in need of both loosing weight and gain MDC to bring those number back to something like parady.

Dude, you could divide the Doombringer's dimensions by 10 (which would make its volume and mass a thousand times smaller), and it'd still only have 35MDC per ton and some insanely low MDC per square metre of surface area.

[Aramanthus]

Personally I'm not really going to worry about this small problem. It is only a technical glitch. As a GM it's not a big deal.

[Spinachcat]

If you need some extra justification, just make the x1 MDC lost = ship disabled and x10 MDC lost = ship vaporized. This way you will have a lot of floating hulks in space for later salvage.

Think of it like a car. A decent collision will stop a car from being drivable. It takes an amazing collision to turn the car into scrap. I've been in both so I know this firsthand.

[Aramanthus]

Personally I'm not going to worry about this small problem. BUt it's going to be up to each GM as to how to handle it.