My problem (among many) is that missiles SHOULD be superior to beam weapons. Throughout the history of weaponry superiority fell to the weapons with the greatest range. And what has always been one of the most important features of new technological development in weapons? The seeking to increase range over your enemy's weapons. Superior Range almost always equals victory.
People whining about how missiles are too superior to missiles sound like battleship admirals complaining about naval aricraft and aircraft carriers, and trying to fudge the wargames to make them look inferior. (Sort of like as DW presented it a parallel situation in one of his HH books.)
Also, it's exactly proper that older missile launchers should be able to fire newer weapons. Old guns are perfectly capable of firing newer ammunition, as long as the ammo's fitted to the old gun's calibre. I'm not a gun person, but there's no reason I know of that you can't take an old 1910-something Colt 45 pistol and put the latest teflon coated bullets in it and use it as it. This crap about requiring a new missile launcher for every missile upgrade is a bunch of bullpucky.
As someone who had played a lot of tactical battles in the Rigellian campaign, I thought the missile rules in 3rdR were fine. Yes, capital missiles were a big advantage in deep space against a non-CM opponent but try assaulting a warp point with them or fighting a close action against gunboats. Below are several currently in service Rigellian designs using different weapon types. If the game was unbalanced toward certain weapon types then why would I be using different weapons on different ships. Answer, because the usefulness of a weapon depends on the intended role of a ship and the situation at any given time. Some ships are designed for long range missile action, some are designed for close or point blank warp point defence and other are designed as mid-range fighter and gunboat killers. I do think that the introduction of the Wc at TL11 swings things toward the missile-equipped ships because capital missile ships suddenly gain a powerful short range capability as well.
I agree that the Wc is a very potent weapon, but it just seems so completely logical, given the existance of the W and Wa, that not including would feel somehow wrong. (BTW, I really dislike how the GML was taken out of Ultra altogether. Just another thing about 4e that I don't like.)
And relative to how ships get used relative to how they're armed, I fully agree. Some people (and historical SF navies) go for balanced fleets while others go for specialized fleets. The TFN designs tended towards the balanced approach, although there were BCR designs in the TFN (the BCR is just too good a combination of speed and missile power to not use), while the Bugs tended towards the highly, highly specialized. (God, I should know. I designed every friggin' one of those designs from scratch, using Dave's general guidelines, i.e. highly specialized designs, commercial engines, etc.)
I suppose that one could say that with balanced designs you can use them in most any battle without fear that you won't have at least some weapons that can engage an enemy at any range. OTOH, certain specialized designs can be more efficient at specific tasks (such as WP assaults), but at the expense of being vulnerable in other circumstances. And if you are playing in a low money campaign, cay you really afford the luxury of specialized designs? Who's to say? I suppose it depends on the circumstances, how much income you have at the time, how tough the WP defenses are or are expected to be, and so on...
I'm going off on a bit of a tangent...
Regarding Capital missiles, I suppose that it could be argued that maybe giving them the penaids ECM with the initial missile design might be a bit much, although with the UTM or 3rdR, the penaid ECM was heavily nerfed to just -1 on PD rolls, which makes CM's seem far less nasty in that regard.
Regardless, I agree with you about balance. But I also have the belief that some weapons should be imbalanced due to their very nature. I believe that greater range is tantamount to victory in battle. However, Marvin seems more concerned with balance and skill uber alles. I find this very wrong. I find nothing wrong with the idea of a technologically superior, though perhaps tactically inferior player/ship/side being able to defeat the tech inferior, but superior side/ship/player most of the time, if the technology of the weapon in question is sufficently superior. A weapon like the capital missile should provide such an edge. I guess that the problem is that 4e-ish players find that galling, but my response to them would be tough bleeping crap. That's the way "history" is. Warfare ain't chess.
If you have a technologically inferior race that runs across someone with cap missiles, your reaction shouldn't be to pray for divine (i.e. game designer) intervention. Your reaction should be, when your ships are blowing up around you, outside of your own missile range, ... "holy (bleeping) ..." (boom) "crap!" (boom), while your captains are peeing their pants and trying to either run for the proverbial hills or trying to close on the CM armed ships ASAP to engage at closer range. The inferior (non-CM) side should be trying to create situations where they can use things like terrain (i.e. WPs, etc.) to reduce or nullify their enemy's range advantage.
However, a simple way to give missile ships a more realistic balancing effect in 3rdR would be to remove their magical ability to reload their magazines whenever they like (thanks to the omnipotent Missile Fund and CFN). In the original 3rd rules, those missiles had to be built and moved to the ships, which gave missile ships a logistical tail that the beam ships didn't need to worry about. I have added this logistical element to missiles in Aurora and you really need to think about manufacture and supply if you want to use a lot of missile ships and/or carriers. The gutting of missile weapons in 4th was using a sledgehammer to crack a nut (a nut that Marvin added in the first place with the CFN and the Missile Fund).
I fully understand what you're saying, Steve. The problem is that you run into divergent, but legitimate goals of simplicity/reduced paperwork vs game balance/perceived realism. On one hand, attempting to reduce paperwork and create overall simplicity tends to favor pushing towards not having to buy, move, and track individual missiles and hiding all of that under some layers of abstraction. OTOH, the desire for game balance and a perception of realism tends to push towards paying attention to all of those individual missiles.
Personally, I've always been enough of an accountant at heart in my campaigns that I never minded paying attention to those details, but I can understand that some might not want to do so.
I suppose that it also comes down to how much of the detail of various things should players have to pay attention to and how much should be subsumed into the game's abstractions. For example, we don't have to worry about paying for food or specific spare parts or whatever. All that stuff is assumed to be a part of the maintenance abstraction. Of course, it's safe to say that those things don't exactly have a direct impact on combat.
The question for missiles then seems to become what's more important, the simplicity/reduction in paperwork aspect or the balance/realism aspect? One point that I'd make is that I think that the "balance" question is debateable. People may feel differently about how out of balance missiles may be. OTOH, I would like to think that most people would think that the value of simplicity and paperwork reductions are good things... which in the end, is why I'd probably tend to lean in favor of the simplicity side of the argument, just because its value seems unquestioned, while the balance side of the argument seems much more up in the air. Of course, as they say, your mileage may vary.
I suppose if one was playing a low money, low number of ships type of campaign, paying attention to ammo would be far less of a concern. But at the fleet sizes in ISF, paying attention to ammo at any level of detail could be nasty if you didn't have the soul of an accountant.
Examples of Current Rigellian Designs
BATTLE MOD 5 class BC AM2 10 XOg Racks 80 Hull TL 12
[2]S2x20Al2Ac2x4Al2Ac2x4Al2Ac2x4Al2Ac2x4Al2Ac2x4Al2Ac2x4H(BbS)Q(III)Q(II)Q(III)(II)(III)Wax6M5?j!2DczWaWaXrsLhQDcz?3DczWaZ2(II)Mgx3[6]
80 RCP 20 MCP 100 FCP Trg:6 Bmp +6 Tem -2 Cost = 3039/ 455.8
HTK 93 S2x20 Al2x6 Ac2x24 Dczx3 Wax9 Mgx3
350x SM-b, 120x AFM, 160x fR-b, 40x fL, 320x fM3-b
CATACLYSM MOD 2 class SD AM2 26 XO Racks 130 Hull TL 10
[3]S1x30AiAcx30ZHs(BbM)H(IIII-It)Q(IIII-It)(IIII-It)(IIII-It)XrFcQ?jDcxFcFcDcxFcMi1FcDcxFc!2LhQFcDcx?Dcx(IIII-It)Fc[5]
130 RCP 20 MCP Trg:9 Atk +1 Def -3 Tem -2 Cost = 3964/ 594.6
HTK 112 S1x30 Aix1 Acx30 Dcxx5 Fcx8
HARBINGER MOD 3 class SD AM2 16 XOg Racks 130 Hull TL 12
[3]S2x40Al2Ac2x8Al2Ac2x8Al2Ac2x8Al2Ac2x8Al2Ac2x8Al2Ac2x14H(BbS)H(IIII-It)QLhQ(IIII-It)Q(IIII-It)Q(IIII-It)QWcx4Dcz!2Wcx3Mi1DczLhXrsQWcWcDcz?3DczZ2(IIII-It)Mgx4[5]
130 RCP 160 FCP Trg:9 Atk +1 Bmp +6 Tem -2 Cost = 4915/ 737.2
HTK 158 S2x40 Al2x6 Ac2x54 Dczx4 Wcx9 Mgx4
150x CBM-b, 36x CAM2-b, 18x AMBAM2, 90x AFM, 192x fR-b, 64x fL, 526x fM3-b
TRIBAL MOD 11 class DD AM2 6 XO Racks 30 Hull TL 12
[1] S2x5Al2Ac2x5Al2Ac2x5Al2Ac2x5ZHsQsM4(I)(I)(I)(I)(I)(I)!2WaWaQs?3WaDcx(I)Mg [7]
30 RCP 20 MCP Trg:5 Bmp +6 Tem -2 Cost = 1040/ 156
HTK 42 S2x5 Al2x3 Ac2x15 Dcxx1 Wax3 Mgx1
80x SM-b, 80x AFM
VALHALLA MOD 6 class CA AM2 12 XO Racks 60 Hull TL 9
[1] S0x3Acx12ZHs(BbS)Q(II)(II)(II)(II)(II)Pgx9?jM5DzPgPgLhQPgDz?DzPg(II)Pg [6]
60 RCP 40 MCP Trg:6 Def -3 Cost = 1615/ 242.2
HTK 53 S0x3 Acx12 Dzx3 Pgx14
BS3H-M class BS3 17 XO Racks 85 Hull TL 7
[0] S0x18Aix18ZH(BbS)Q(MCS)(HET)x4Dc(HET)M6(HET)LhQDc(HET)?Dc(HET) [0]
85 RCP 15 MCP Trg:7 Def -3 Cost = 1552/ 77.6
HTK 56 S0x18 Aix18 Dcx3 (HET)x8
SWORDSMAN MOD 6 class BC AM2 10 XOg Racks 80 Hull TL 12
[2]S2x30Al2Ac2x6Al2Ac2x6Al2Ac2x6Al2Ac2x6Al2Ac2x6Al2Ac2x6H(BbS)Q(III)Q(II)Q(III)(II)(III)WcWcDczWcM5!2DczWcLhQ?3WcXrDczZ2(II)MgMg[6]
80 RCP 20 MCP 100 FCP Trg:6 Bmp +6 Tem -2 Cost = 2997/ 449.5
HTK 109 S2x30 Al2x6 Ac2x36 Dczx3 Wcx5 Mgx2
81x CBM-b, 15x CAM2-b, 40x AFM, 120x fR-b, 40x fL, 320x fM3-b
Steve
Steve, there are a few Modifiers (?) that I am confused about in the designs above. What's Bmp? And what's Tem? (I know that Trg, Atk, and Def are; they're pretty obvious.)
I notice that you're still calling 130 hs ships "Super"dreadnoughts, instead of the updated UTM (?) term of just "dreadnought".