Okay tables are working for single weapons now.  (This increases the damage light cruiser carrier does over what I stated, because the Prow Ryza does more damage than originally calculated).

To answer Hygric, for a single Sunsear Broadside with the standard armour rules you get the following values against different armours (A) and voidshields (V) at BS 40:

A15V1 A17V1 A20V2
RAW 0.93 0.67 0.02
+20 4.68 4.02 1.38
Storm/HS 5.26 4.68 2.04

With my armour rules you get:

A3V1 A5V1 A8V2
RAW 2.70 1.68 0.30
+20 6.75 4.20 1.00
Storm/HS 6.30 3.92 1.00

Thanks for that number crunching.  Interesting results.  I'm liking your mods more and more.  :-)

Looking over other races ships, I can't see too many problems implementing your changes, Orks are fine, Chaos is fine, Eldar go *splat* if you can catch them with a broadside (good luck with that!).  A bonus for Eldar, lances really are a poor weapon choice against them.  With only 2 or 3 points of armour, a lance is really not worth it against those tricksy elveses.

Rak'Gol, not so good.  Without the ability to combine shots, howler cannons are useless versus any imperial cruiser, and quite a few frigates even. 1d5+3 averages to 6 damage per hit, maybe changing them to a flat 1d10 damage? roughly the same average damage, but at least they have a chance to score damage against heavy Imperial armour.

Ork and reinforced Imperial frontal armour might be a tad problematic though. If we substract 12 points from 23 and 24 bow armour, we have a hefty 11 and 12 points remaining, implying that macrobatteries will hardly stand a chance against it. While I do like the fact that frontal armour will again really mean something, near invulnerability might be too much of a good thing.

                                                                                               FvR

van Riebeeck said:

Depends. How close to BFG do you want to be?

Prow armour halved all damage from the front (Unless its a lance). So near invulnerability is ok, maybe it gets reduced to 3? 2 is a minimum though.

How would you change Lance batteries around? I really like your idea for broadsides, works even without changing the armour rules! And how would you modify the Sun-flare lance and the Voidsunder lance(useless as it is right now)? Storm is too much (everything or nothing). How about reducing the DoS needed for hits to occur by one? This is gut feeling though.

Maybe I don't get it, but...why lower the ships' armour ratings to give an 'adventage' to lance weapons?

Aren't, at base, lance supposed to ignore armour, making this whole exercise a little..redundant and more work for GMs?

'course there might be something I miss in all this...

Braddoc, the base rules have the flaw that one can stack all battery hits together, in essence making the armour redundant against a stacked salvo once the armour value has been beaten. A simple example, if you manage to do 21 points of damage against an armour 20 ship with your first sunsear battery, the second sunsear battery stacked with it will not be hindered by armour at all, which makes lance weapons almost completely useless. That second stacked sunsear can do its full four hits without the armour coming into the equation at all, as if it were a STR 4 lance, but then one with a fraction of the power cost and far easier to mount on a ship. The idea here is to ensure that armour is dealing with each individual hit, so that lances are getting efficiency back, especially against well armoured ships.

                                                                                                            FvR

I don't really see an issue with having some ridiculously tough prows, as long as the whole ship isn't too tough.  That just makes maneuvering to get the right shot more important, and if you are equipped with the right weapons, like lances, bombers, nova cannons, or torpedoes, you don't even need to do that.

Admittedly Orks have an advantage here since they still mount weapons with their armoured prows, but I think these rules accentuate flavor and tactical nuance that is already present.

I've been trying to think about what to do with Rak'Gol, but for the life of me I can't determine what the design intent for their weapons is.

Under the original rules they are effective against void shields and deal a fair amount of damage.  I don't know exactly how much, because the mechanic of 1 hit + 2 hit per DoS makes them a pain to calculate.

Is there something I should strive for in the mechanic?  Where should the Howler fall in comparison to other Macros?

Using lance batteries as they are works okay.  It's benefit is pretty dependent on BS, so NPC crew don't get much out of lance batteries vs. lances.  Here we have Dual Ryzas (DR), Titanforge Lance + Ryza (L+R), and Titanforge Battery + Mars Macro (LB+M) against a cruiser.  

DR L+R LB+M 2DoS 1DoS
30% 0.67 0.78 0.67 0.96 1.24
40% 1.76 1.77 1.72 2.10 2.48
50% 2.94 2.95 3.15 3.63 4.10
60% 4.20 4.32 4.96 5.53 6.10
70% 5.54 5.60 7.15 7.83 8.48

As you can see, you don't get much benefit out of the lance battery, but it's better once you get past a BS of 50.  Reducing the required degrees of success for additional lance hits to two (2DoS) lowers the barrier of entry to gain benefit from a battery without increase damage unduly.  Dropping it all the way to one DoS per additional hit (1DoS) doesn't make the damage too ridiculous, but does make them a better choice than dual Ryzas against moderate armour for NPC crews.

Reducing DoS needed to hit to two, makes the Voidsunder and Starflare lances (down to 1 DoS with pinpoint accuracy) pretty impressive.  The Voidsunder only really benefits from it once you reach PC level BS though.

Cool stuff you have there. Thanks for the calculation.

Hrmm seems like dropping it to 2 DoS seems like a fun idea then. Helping NPCs aint too bad...

 Mo' math mo' problems...

Okay, Howler cannons under the original rules are ridonculous.  The 7 strength cannons outdamage every Imperial macro.  The 5 Strength Howlers are somewhere between Mezoas and Ryzas, but still way up there.

Changing them Rak'Gol macros to 1d5+6 per hit make the 5 strength ones comparable to Mezoas, and quite a bit better on the NPC side of the spectrum.  But 1d5+6 doesn't make the Strength 7 howlers as good as they are in the RAW, where they fill you full of tiny little holes.  Still pretty good though.  Here's how the 1d5+6 strength 5 (+6H5) and strength 7 (+6H7) Howlers stack up at Armour 17 (5):

Mezoa +6H5 +6H7
30% 2.48 3.56 4.36
40% 4.90 5.44 7.04
50% 7.38 7.40 9.80
60% 9.936 9.44 12.64
70% 12.564 11.56 15.56

There are a few more problem children in the arsenal that don't function quite as they should under these rules.

Stygies cannons should probably deal 1d10 damage and reduce armour by 2 for the turn when they get at least one successful hit.  It makes them interesting to combine with other weapons in order to punch through armour, without being overpowered by themselves.

Jovians do too little damage with the armour for each hit (AfEH) rule.  Giving them a strength of 2 and Storm, makes them fun but not overpowered with their drawback.  It changes the function of them though.  Jovians used to be better than some other macros at really high BS especially against multi-void shielded targets, as the poor man's broadside.  This rule change makes them good for NPCs against light targets, great for transports that want to fire and escape from raiders.

van Riebeeck said:

Ah, I see; but by reducing the armour and not adding battery damage together, would that invert the problem?  Meaning that if you sunsear does 1d10+3 (average of 5+3=8 damage) vs armour of 6, it still makes an average of 2 damage per hit, times 4-7 (using the idea that the single void shield blocks a single blast from the volley) you get around 8-16 damage per 'shot'.  Comprated to a lance that does 1d10+2 (so 8 damage) with..what another hit every 1/2 DoS, averaging 8-24 damage, not counting the void shield.  Now you have a decent lance damage output, yet the batteries have lost their offensive capabilitites to really bomb the hell out of the other ship, and seems (to me) with that method they are only used as a way to drop the other ship's void shield to make sure that Lance doesn't get blocked by it.

Volley after volley, the batteries will do respectable damage, yet the critical rating for batteries are 5+DoS while lances are 3+DoS; still mkaing the lance a more heavy hitter to me, as the crit rating is way more obtainable with a lance than batteries.  Mt PCs got plasma broadside, and score cits every other hit, thanks to the low DoS requirement; I'm certain that if they were using a lance (plasma broadside, one on each side) they will be using it everytime as their show-stopper.

Braddoc, a lance will still be STR 1, so do an average of 7,5 to 9,5 damage with a hit. For an investment of 9 power and 4 space, that is still not that much. Same for a lance battery, that soaks power, which will at at most do 24 to 28 damage with an average of 15 to 19 damage. Very impressive, but not overpowering considering the power needed. And shields still have a far greater effect on lances then on batteries. With this idea, 2 DoS on a Macro hit will give a Macro a chance to inflict damage, the lance hit is completely negated.

                                                                                          FvR

van Riebeeck said:

((Wait, when you crit with a lance, doesn't it 'crit' or if it,s stopped by the sheild, forget doing a crit?))

True; but a macro salvo before going Lance will make the shields a non-issue and will land direct damage, which will not be stopped by armour.

So Lance max damage is 24-28, yet a Sunsear makes (with 4 hits, 1 negated) Max 36 damage, which will be stopped by 15-20 armour, for 21-16 'real' damage.

Of course, that's using the classic battery/lance c-c-c-c-combo, a hammer and a scalpel.

BUT, I admit than when we move to double sunsear, damage becomes way more important. BUT, so is the power/space that goes behond the lance's requirements: double sunsears are 12 power, 8 space, 2 SP; quite an investment that's worth it, but it will make for a rather barren ship; good for fighting and little else.  Cannons are like mortar shells; used to bombard, they do lots of damage, yet the bolt-action rifle is more precises, and can fire through that bunker slit.

Braddoc,

 If a crit is stopped by void shields or armour it still does 1 point of damage and has the crit effect.  I don't factor that 1 point into my damage numbers, but it wouldn't make very much difference if I did.  Lances ARE more likely to crit than most macros, but crit rating of 3 vs 4 only makes a lot of difference for a narrow range of Ballistic Skills (31-60).

With your 8-16 damage estimate for macros you aren't factoring in that getting multiple hits requires multiple degrees of success.  In actuality you deal anywhere between 0 and 42 damage on successful hit, but I've done all the math and at 50% BS against armour 6 dual sunsears deal an average of only 4.31 damage.  Sure that's down from the Rules As Written's 5.37, but not so much that a lance becomes a better choice.  A Titanforge lance and Mars Cannon does 3.85 under those conditions.  At higher armour the lance is a better choice in terms of average damage with my rules as opposed to the original rules, where the macros still have a higher average damage.

I choose to compare Dual Sunsears to Titanforge Lances and Mars Cannons, because they have approximately the same cost in power and space.

I suppose you can compare Maximum damages, in which case the macros will probably be better, but that doesn't really reflect how the two will play in the game.

Moribund said:

Ah, All right; I thought you never did any damage when you critted (in case when the void shields stops the lance shot), just the crit effect.

Yeah- I worked with the base that you get max DoS with a volley or with a lance for the damage; and i admit it would make space battles last longer than a couple of rounds of volley with a crit every turn from the PCs.

But, if you'd like, I would like your opinion on the other trademark Naval weapon; torpedoes.  your armour ruels are good against cannons and lance, but your average plasma torpedo does 2d10+14 damage; then having thick armour would be good, while haivng 6 might..be difficult to survive.

how can it be done? Lower damage to 1d10+4, as it will still be sucked it by armour, and not being super killer.

He already touched that subject. Simply reduce torpedo damage by 12, exluding vortex torps though, since they ignore armour.

Basically Plasmas do 2d10+2 (minus enemy armour), and vortex still does 2d10+5 against every enemy.

Nova cannons also remain unchanged.