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"Crusty"
Mystery Fleet
"Crusty" ground forces have been encountered for
a while but their starships have just started to show up. Maybe they
have been drawn to this arm of the galaxy due to the Xeno War. Maybe
they were already here.
For now their background and goals are just a mystery.
Design Philosophy: Crusty ships resemble insects or
crustaceans, with a hard outer shell but a soft squishy inside. They
use 20% of mass for hull and a full 10% of mass for regular armor.
This results in 30% of the hull used for damage point which is normal for
human ships, but the large amount of armour make them susceptible to
armour piercing weapons.
For weapons they use Rocket Cannons (see below) instead of
beams and other rocket based weaponry, Submunition Packs and Salvo Missile
Racks. They don't use screens as they are useless against Rocket
Cannons, but high thrust is the best defense against these weapons so
nearly all of their ships have a thrust value of 5 or greater.
Design Notes: Jon T from GZG reviewed this
version of the Crusties and approves of the codenames and designations and
is OK with the ships BUT, he envisions the Crusties use 'arc rifles' and
'plasma projectors' for their ground forces so that suggests
energy-discharge weapons and not rocket based weaponry. So we might
go back and revise the PSB and make Rocket Cannons into Plasma Projectors
and such shooting slow moving balls of plasma but for now, play around
with these ships and weapons and let us know how they all work.
 Rocket Cannon - a family of weapon systems firing
semi-guided rocket-propelled explosive projectiles. Their shots are small
enough to bypass point defense fire and at closer ranges unused fuel adds
to their damage, but their low speed (compared to a beam or hypervelocity
K-Gun round) makes hitting rapidly-maneuvering targets difficult. The
intent here is to model "naval artillery" style weapons as well
as to introduce another weapon that directly rewards high-thrust designs
(at least as long as they're using that thrust, anyway).
Cannons come in variety of graded classes just like beams
do with the same mass, cost, arcs and range bands as a beam battery of the
same size. Level 1 Rocket Cannons can target fighters the same way a
beam battery does.
Rocket cannons roll to attack the same way the beam
batteries do and are not effected by screens, but the die rolls are
modified by the amount of thrust the target ship used during that turn:
| Target's Thrust |
Result Modification |
Roll Results |
| 0-2 |
+1 results |
1-2: 0 dmg, 3-5: 1 dmg, 6:
2 dmg + reroll |
| 3-4 |
None |
1-3: 0 dmg, 4-5: 1 dmg, 6:
2 dmg + reroll |
| 5-6 |
Same as Lvl 1 screens |
1-4: 0 dmg, 5: 1 dmg, 6:
2 dmg + reroll |
| 7+ |
Same as Lvl 2 screens |
1-4: 0 dmg, 5: 1 dmg, 6:
1 dmg + reroll |
Any roll of 6 results in a reroll with the same
modifications, representing a lucky hit with the potential to do more
damage.
"Target 's Thrust" refers to the amount of
thrust used by the the target in the current turn's movement plot, which
may be less than the ship's current main drive thrust rating.
Ships with
Advanced Drives treat their effective thrust as being 1 point higher for
purposes of cannon fire, making them noticeably harder to hit.
Damage is scored against armor first, then hull, but (as
with beams) any damage resulting from a reroll penetrates armor and
strikes the hull instead (or the next layer of a Phalon shell, if any).
If using optional rules that allow ships to temporarily
increase thrust (eg Emergency Thrust) the enemy can boost their defenses
versus cannons briefly, at the risk of crippling themselves in the future.
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