[TML] Expanding the turret selection.

[Grimmund]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Evyn MacDude <infojunky at ceecom.net> wrote:
>
> On Jul 9, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Grimmund wrote:
>
>> Of note from the SRD:
>>
>> "Fixed Mounting weapons cannot move, are limited to firing in one
>> direction (normally straight ahead), and are found mainly on fighters.
>> A fixed mounting costs half as much as a turret of the same type, so a
>> single fixed mounting costs 0.1 MCr., a double fixed mounting costs
>> 0.25 MCr., and a triple fixed mounting costs 0.5 MCr."
>
> Did you notice that there is no tonnage requirement? Beyond the Fire
> control?

You could argue that fire control tonnage is not required, either.

 "If a turret is installed, then one ton of space must be allocated to
fire control systems."

Since a fixed mounting is clearly not a turret, you could argue that a
fixed mount does not require fire control tonnage.  If we follow that
path, then fixed mounts are at no cost to weight or to displacement,
making them MUCH more attractive, especially on smaller ships where
tonnage and weight are at a premium.


Now, I'm thinking of fixed mounts as LITERALLY fixed in place.  The
gun mounts on a B5 Starfury type fighter, or cannon/machine guns in
fixed wing or chin mounts on modern aircraft, where the cannon is
absolutely fixed in place on the airframe, and you aim it at the
target by maneuvering the airframe.

There's an intermediate step between fixed mounts to turrets, a weapon
mount with a limited arc of fire, equivalent to the waist/tail guns on
a WW2 bomber, or the door guns on a helicopter, or WW2 German
jagpanzer anti-tank weapons, where you have SOME limited ability to
aim the weapon without moving the vehicle, resulting in less of a
firing arc than the full 360 arc / up to 90 elevation of a "perfect"
turret, but more than the 0 arc/0 elevation of a fixed mount.

My suspicion would be that most "fixed" mounts for starship weapons
are actually some sort of limited firing arc mount, with stabilization
and allowing precision aiming control of the weapon at distant or
small targets.

I would suggest that a truly "fixed" mount for anything other than
missiles would have some sort of accuracy penalty based on the size
and agility of the ship it's mounted on and range to target.  The
bigger the ship, the harder it's going to be to maneuver it around so
the laser points at the target, and more so as the range increases.

(Missiles, being guided, can steer themselves into the target, so I
don't see literal fixed mounts being as much of a problem for
missiles.  There might be some sort of penalty if they're initially
launched into the wrong arc of sky.  I suspect that would depend on
whether they hard launch at full thrust, or soft launch from the
hardpoint, get a little distance from the launcher, orient themselves,
and then kick in full thrust.)



Dan



-- 

Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal. -Cory Doctorow, Little
Brother, 2008