I think the tipping point is 2 or 3 extra engines depending on if they are recessed or open. More, but not a lot more.
A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)
- Location
- Somewhere Beyond the Sea
Easiest answer to the number disparity is to just... not fight a conventional war, Eldar tactics of hit and run, mindgames and stealth worked well enough for the OTL (barring plot armour) so we can just take a leaf out of their book and fight dirty.
Yep.
But this is a strategy that rewards high firepower over heavy armor.
- Pronouns
- Reader
we won't be doing another chassis build for quite some time since we need to wait for fata morgana to finish so the options which were experimental loss that designation and likely are more effective in a refined variation. given how many experimental models there are, it'll probably take about 5 more turns minimum. any planning at this stage is very premature. better to focus on the coming light cruiser design.
high firepower and speed. this is why I do like the idea of a vibration bombard superheavy weapon. it literally can literally melt or vaporize everything in short range in a minute or two that isn't a Superheavy, and then fly away.
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- Location
- Germany
Looking at potential long indirect fire options for SH we have it's currently Sun-cannons/fusion mortar and I think the spike cannon for mass deployment.
None of the grav weapons really do indirect fire long, las weapons are all direct fire by design.
Fate weaponry costs exotics.
Sun-cannons/fusion mortar seem to be more the aoe weapon due to almost all plasma weapons here seemingly having blast:
Meanwhile, the SH spike cannon seems to be more the thing to use against single targets with heavy armor (super heavy vehicles, bunkers etc.) to break through said armor.
There are also missiles, but we haven't seen the cost/effects there yet, and I am worried about logistics cost there.
None of the grav weapons really do indirect fire long, las weapons are all direct fire by design.
Fate weaponry costs exotics.
Sun-cannons/fusion mortar seem to be more the aoe weapon due to almost all plasma weapons here seemingly having blast:
Meanwhile, the SH spike cannon seems to be more the thing to use against single targets with heavy armor (super heavy vehicles, bunkers etc.) to break through said armor.
There are also missiles, but we haven't seen the cost/effects there yet, and I am worried about logistics cost there.
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The superheavy grav thruster is direct fire, but being able to fire through terrain probably counts for something.
Basic Missiles is likely to be researched within a few turns, but that only gets Heavy and Vehicle weapons; how long it'd take to create a Superheavy variant is unknown. Would probably make for a very nice artillery piece.
So yeah, Fusion Mortar and Spike Cannon are currently it, and the Spike Cannon might take development work to make it do that.
It helps that a lot of factions in 40k aren't big fans of massed artillery. Our main two threats that we will need to deal in the next few centuries are Orks and Chaos.
Indirect fire artillery is one of the few types of dakka the Orks aren't enamored with. I'm not confident that the Orks even have indirect fire artillery aside from catapults used by Feral Orks (their other unit is noted to have come after the Legions were split into Chapters), which we had better be able to outrange.
As for Chaos, Khorne and Slaanesh are more likely to attempt to counter artillery via attacking them in melee, while Tzeentch's guys usually prefer sorcery, which tends to be limited by line-of-sight. That just leaves the Nurglites, and if our plan to handle any Nurglite unit is to use our equivalents to get into a slugging match, we need a new plan.
Well, both have their place. For an assault transport, like the one you designed a couple of pages back, you do want heavy armour, because, for example, sometimes you do need to charge right up to the enemy headquarters and drop a unit of melee monsters on top of their commanders and kill them all, as the risk is worth the reward.
For others, I think speed is the way to go. An indirect fire SPG is likely to be best served by this approach.
I think missile launchers will be capable of indirect fire.
Well, it's really going to need to be a Caravel as we have 64 of them in need of refitting. I know people have talked up the idea of torpedoes before, but I'm still unclear that the costs of these are (in Rogue Trader they're priced like strikecraft, so they're expensive).
If we want a ship optimised to fight at closer ranges, I like the idea of grav weapons.
Sadly, orks do use Lobbas, which are indirect fire artillery.
I think some of Khorne's daemon-engines are artillery.
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- Location
- Germany
Long range fire means about being 40+km away from the target.
I low-key expect at least the ranges of semi-modern mobile artillery here.
I don't think the superheavy grav thruster is able to go through that much terrain.
For the spike Cannon the spike is pretty much a physical shell, it pretty much just an angle shot like we do RL and work with gravity.
- Location
- Utrecht
Anything in mind?
I think we need to do the battle Caravels. They're laughabky easy to mobility kill, and are just armed with Las weapons.
We could go with something like this
Nu caravel
-heavy naval Grav Thruster Lance
-4x Naval suncannon
-lascannon point defence
-holo field
-grav shield
-plasma drive
-2x aethersails
Yep! I've no doubt it can be used as an indirect-fire weapon.
Whether the current version has the mountings and targeting support to do that well is a different question. This is one of the places where the "Peaceful" flaw might bite us.
The problem with using the Spike Cannon like this is that it's a kinetic energy weapon, so it's probably not that good as an indirect fire artillery weapon as it needs to directly hit what it's shooting at, and most enemies can probably move while it's in flight.
I think we might want to consider something like a mixture of Naval Amplifiers and Imploders rather than Suncannons, or something like that to take advantage of the synergistic effects of these grav weapons. Similarly, we might want to experiment with something like graviton sheer point defences, as there range isn't a problem, but their ability to cut through anything makes them great for cutting down strike craft and torpedoes.
Basically:
Grav caravel
-Heavy Naval Graviton Thruster Lance
-2x Naval Amplifier Bombard
-2x Naval Macro-Imploder
-Graviton Sheer point defence
-holo field
-grav shield
-plasma drive
-2x aethersails
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Is there anywhere in military development where that flaw isn't biting us, at least indirectly and/or behind the scenes?
I strongly doubt it.
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- Pronouns
- Reader
I'm sure we'll have cheap torpedo options. expensive ones probably come with a wealth of option and our current ones are very basic. however, refitting light cruisers isn't cheap, and area denial tactic that is all people have been thus far willing to go with requires more than a few ships. so probably we should do something else for our light cruisers.
I'd kind of like a fusion mortar weapon battery or two, but I wouldn't be stubborn about it.
Even Zahr-Tann doesn't use all grav weapons on any of their ships models.
I'd say put a heavy graviton thruster lance, an amplifier Imploder combo, two fusion mortars for some naval AOE.
- Location
- Germany
There is a reason why I set the weapon mounting to turret in my design and if they have problems mountings and targeting support I would be very worried about the state of our spaceships.
That is the case for every indirect artillery piece we build.
Every shot will have some significant travel time to that.
Pretty much anything that isn't a las type of weapon or grav one will have large amounts of travel time as the distance goes up.
As said the Spike Cannon is what you use to bust a bunker or something very heavily armored but slow.
If you want to clean up infantry or light vehicles use the AOE weapons (fusion mortar).
Different uses cases here.
Sadly the big thing we don't have info here is the range of the SH indirect fire capable systems.
Because being able to fire at stuff and them not being able to fire back is pretty massive.
- Location
- Utrecht
So... stupid question perhaps, but how does the fusion mortar's indirect fire even work in space?
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
It doesn't, I think in space its basically a plasma gun that trades range for firepower
The exception would be guided missiles that can course correct to follow a moving target. The challenge with these is that they could be logistically costly and risky.
- Location
- Utrecht
in that case, we probably want the regular suncannon, rather than the fusion mortar. Range is better for us than more damage.
- Pronouns
- Reader
@IronFist the weapon can be fired like a conventional weapon. it fires, hits the enemy, and detonates.
- Location
- Utrecht
Yeah, but if you're unable to use the indirect fire option, are you paying 1 extra NEP for nothing? Or is there a tradeoff somewhere?
- Pronouns
- Reader
it's not. it's still firing a plasma shell rather than typical plasma bolt or whatever you call it.
read the description, please. it fires a concentrated shell of plasma. instead of just catching something with a brief blast of plasma you likely battering a good third to half of it's exposed side with a violent detonation of plasma energy.
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- Location
- Utrecht
Hmmm... If we wanted to keep costs low, 2 Macro spike canons only cost 1 more than a single Las Lance.