Personally, I'd prefer to see both types of torpedoes - flat damage (photon) and decreasing damage (plasma).

The trade-off becomes range vs damage potential. Energy consumption can be based on potential damage at some intervals, meaning longer range or higher potential damage both increase power requirement.

Speed of both should be a design factor as well. Trade speed vs range vs damage vs accuracy. Add in a factor for damage fall off rate (maybe based on square of max damage?) to allow for differentiation - have this affect power consumption.

  Speed and range effect launcher size, damage effects power required and maybe size to a lesser extent.

Well I'm rather fond of them as they are now and so none of the above options really appeals to me.

Why not just look at making the concept of improving the torpedoe itself more useful.  That would involve changing the existing non-thermal torpedoes to do more damage basically.  Also you could add in that they increase the basic range of the torpedoe itself as a bonus above the technology that modifies that.  Essentially make each new generation of torpedoe more effective.

Making the range increases so they outrange a standard beam weapon by about 50% would seem like a reasonable start, so that they are clearly superior then lasers which I don't think is the case at the moment.  I don't think you want to have them even begin to approach missiles in range because frankly they are unguided which means your real chance to hit is nil.  Also there is nothing stopping someone from making short range "close assault missiles" that do exactly what you are trying to do to the torpedoe so if you go that route I'd just remove them from the game.  I have to admit that the thought of high speed, short range (same as counter missiles), high damage missiles has crossed my mind on a few occasions.  Ideal for fighters and FACs or last ditch planetary defence.

There is nothing stopping you from using torpedoes to shoot down inbound missiles either that I can see.  It's not particularily effective but it is possible, so they are not solely offensive weapons or at least no more so then plasma carronades.  Also they require reactors and that is a substantial mass penalty already to the ship, plus a seperate (generally speaking longer ranged) guidance system from any other beam weapon you might have on board.

The SFB plasma weapon is the plasma caronade with its fairly steep decrease over range.  I treat the torpedoe as the klingon disrupter more than anything else.  Low damage, even over all ranges but long range (for an energy weapon).

A further suggestion would be to make the designs increasingly energy efficient as you increase the tech level.

You cold also give them a square or triangluar (for odd damage) armour penetration pattern. 2 pts does x-x, 3 points does x/x-x, 4 points does x-x/x-x, 5 points does x/x-x/x-x, 6 does x-x/x-x/x-x and so forth.   You could also limit the penetration to say 3 levels of armour and then make it spread so 7 would then be x-x/x-x/x-x-x and 10 would be x-x-x/x-x-x/x-x-x-x or x-x/x-x-x/x-x-x-x-x depending on how you imagine these things work.  It is worth pointing out that a weapon that does the same damage but with a completely different penetration patern is very much a different weapon.

Fundamentally if you are going to have different weapons they should each be unique and there is no real need to balance them at all points.  Both of these things killed 4E where the weapons became totally generic and so balanced they were dull and boring.  Not to mention the goof of the capital energy beam doing less damage then a non-capital flavour and a few other things which don't stick in my head enough to remember the details over.  Giving the weapons break points where you get changes in the slope of the improvement with generation is a good way to add interesting effects to the game system.

In StarsWars are some idea for Torpedo tech,effort,etcetc?

Anywhere,am intriguing in some change,i love torpedoes primary for JP def use,but are interesting for "high Tech" level Races (use of them).
Give a High Tech level,i think some races are more like use Torp than "old iron head" missiles:)

I think you may have opened another can of worms here Steve  
Personally, I'd like to see an increase in range to 30% of comaprable missile range.  

Yes, I think that is a good ball-park figure

Keep the launchers roughly the same size but require some kind of fire control.  Definately up the power requirements by up to 50%. I would keep the rate of fire about the same as a comparable missile launcher.

All that sounds reasonable

If it's possible I really like the idea of reducing the warhead strength due to intercepts.  As mentioned above by Erik call it something like conatainment or cohernece and as the warhead takes hits its coherence decreases down to 0.  

It is possible. The main issue would be tracking salvos of torpedoes where one has suffered damage but not the others. I can see a few ways around that though. One is to split off damaged torpedoes into separate salvos, although that would complicate things for point defence. A second is to always damage the same torpedo so I would keep track of only one damaged torpedo per salvo, but that would break the simultaneous nature of combat as weapons would have to fire in sequence to achieve the effect. A third, which might be fun, is to make torpedoes much bigger and scarier, along the lines of a Type-R from SFB, and track them individually rather than as salvos. With missiles, having very large ones is less effective as they can be taken out more easily but if anti-torpedo damage reduces the warhead instead then if doesn't matter if it is several small torps or one huge scary torpedo.

Keep the speed down to maybe 70% of a comparable AMM (making them slightly faster than a comparable ASM if I've done my sums correctly).  I see my suggestion as a mix of SFB photon topedo and plasma torpedo.  Something that can make a mess of an opponent but can be handled using the correct tactics.  Improvements available for research would be rate of fire, warhead strength and speed.

Yes, the trick is going to be creating something that is good in the right situation but can be handled by a suitable defence, while not making it substantially better or worse than any other system - missiles in particular.

Steve

Maybe allow AMM or railgun fire to completely eliminate the torpedo, but energy weapon fire will just degrade the destructive energy of the torpedo point for point.  This will allow both types of point defense work against the new torpedo.  I agree with the concept that torpedoes should be faster, yet shorter ranged than missiles, and longer ranged than beam weapons.  As far as fire control, maybe the torpedo should be targeted on the thermal signature of the contact.  To-hit percentages would be based on the thermal signature of the contact compared to that which the fire control is rated for.  The ability to fire would still require the active sensors, but use the thermal as the tracking means, since the torpedo will not have electronics to communicate with the fire control.  Also, maybe just modify the missile fire control design for optional torpedo, missile, or both.

With regard to the idea that torpedoes could be shorter and faster versions of missiles, don't forget that torpedoes would have no ammunition requirement and therefore no requirement for magazine space and no logistical chain. That is a huge advantage. They would probably become a better option than missiles if they were also faster (which means they would have a better chance to hit) as well as not requiring ammo. That was why I suggested shorter-ranged and slower. Although they would be less effective on a per-shot basis, you would likely carry more torpedo launchers than missile launchers and you can keep firing them for ever. Perhaps one option is to make torpedoes faster and shorter ranged but have an ammunition component, such as in the Star Trek movies as opposed to SFB. Although in that case, they wouldn't be much different than simply having a short-ranged but fast missile.

I think having a torpedo-specific fire control but based on the missile fire control is a good idea. The problem with targeting them on a thermal contact is that ships could avoid torpedoes by stopping. Perhaps simply locking the target at launch with no ability to retarget would be the way to go (i.e. no onboard sensors).

Steve

Maybe allow AMM or railgun fire to completely eliminate the torpedo, but energy weapon fire will just degrade the destructive energy of the torpedo point for point.  This will allow both types of point defense work against the new torpedo.  I agree with the concept that torpedoes should be faster, yet shorter ranged than missiles, and longer ranged than beam weapons.  As far as fire control, maybe the torpedo should be targeted on the thermal signature of the contact.  To-hit percentages would be based on the thermal signature of the contact compared to that which the fire control is rated for.  The ability to fire would still require the active sensors, but use the thermal as the tracking means, since the torpedo will not have electronics to communicate with the fire control.  Also, maybe just modify the missile fire control design for optional torpedo, missile, or both.

Adam.

How about reducing damage by any defensive fire e.g. A 1 point AM hit reduces damage by 1 pt.

I'm in favor of a weapon system that outreaches current beams (1.5m km), but not necessarily having the range of missiles.

Why not have customizable energy torpedoes? Research areas like damage output, capacitors, max range and speed. Put a limit on them, or make them similar to missiles in construction. For faster torps, you need smaller (less damage). Bigger, more damaging torps move slower. This would almost feel like the SFB plasma torps to me. Maybe have the launchers a separate item like missiles also. Give the launchers the capacitor and maybe a maximum torp size. Again, bigger torps require more energy and fire slower.

Since their range would be lower than missiles, I'd prefer to see an equivalent e-torp fire about 2x as fast as a missile. Size 1, Cap 1 e-torp is 15 ROF instead of the missile 30 ROF.

As for damage, make it a constant. But also have the torps be interceptable. Given they'd have a speed, current AM systems should be able to work on them. Call the torp's hits something like coherency, and make it research upgradable too (which in turn makes the torp slower, etc).

To offset the lack of magazine, I'd make the torp launchers ~ 50% larger than the equivalent missile launcher.