Inquisitor Kard wrote:"In the shooting phase, your ships get to unleash their weaponry against the enemy. The attacks that ships make are divided into two sorts; direct firing and ordnance attacks. Direct fire attacks include weapons such as lasers, fusion beams and plasma launchers which when fired hit almost immediately, even across tens of thousands of kilometres."
Inquisitor Kard, post: 7394747, member: 101437 wrote:
Inquisitor Kard, post: 7394747, member: 101437 wrote:
Instead you used a paragraph of game mechanics...
"Enemies at close range pose a much greater threat than those thousands of kilometres away, so a ship will normally target the nearest enemy ship or squadron. However a ship can always fire at whatever targets you like if it takes and passes a leadership test on a 2D6 first."
But I have no particular objection with that, my own calcs are based off of the game mechanics and their statements within reason..
Namely
"Once a torpedo is launched, the plasma drive propels the torpedo forward at high speed, whilst beginning a buildup which will culminate in its detonation. Torpedoes have a limited ability to detect a target and will alter course to intercept if they pass within a few thousand kilometres of a vessel."
followed by
"If the Torpedo marker contacts a ship's base (friend or foe) it attacks"
This makes it clear, a Ships base represents an area several thousand kilometres around the vessel. (Which is what I recall the White Dwarf saying as well.
Thus whether you like it or not, Short Range (Say 10cm gameplay wise) equals no less than ten thousand kilometres, and may be as high as twenty thousand kilometres or more.
Extreme ranges of 60'000 Kilometres to 120'000 Kilometres or more.
Then we have the Blackstone Fortresses for more range, specifically 75'000 Leagues, which translates to 360'000 Kilometres for a League on Land to 420'000 Kilometres if we use a Nautical Mile.
Using the Nautical figure.
60cm Ranged weapons would have a range of 280'000 Kilometres.
45cm Ranged weapons would have a range of 210'000 Kilometres.
30cm Ranged weapons would have a range of 140'000 Kilometres. (Which is also consequently, the speed of Torpedoes and faster ships per turn)
All of which puts 1cm at 4'666 kilometres.
Using the land figures.
60cm Ranged weapons would have a range of 240'000 Kilometres.
45cm Ranged weapons would have a range of 180'000 Kilometres.
30cm Ranged weapons would have a range of 120'000 Kilometres. (Which is also consequently, the speed of Torpedoes and faster ships per turn)
All of which puts 1cm at 4'000 kilometres.
(Note: Blackstones have a range of 90cm. As do Nova Cannons)
I hereby close my case. :p
Quoting my own Calcs on Imperium weapon ranges.
But here is an addendum with Rogue Trader Figures thrown into the mix for a low end. It has long being established that 1 Void Unit in Rogue Trader = roughly 10'000 Kilometres.
Thunderstrike Macrocannons: Range 4 VU, = 40'000 Kilometres (Weak Obsolete Civilian grade Macrocannons)
Mars Pattern Macrocannons: Range 6 VU, = 60'000 Kilometres
Sunsear Laser Battery: Range 9 VU, = 90'000 Kilometres
Ryza Pattern Plasma Battery: Range 5 VU, = 50'000 Kilometres
Starbreaker Lance: Range 5 VU, = 50'000 Kilometres
Titanforge Lance: Range 6 VU, = 60'000 Kilometres
Jovian Missile Battery: Range 6 VU, = 60'000 Kilometres
Lathe Grav-Culverin: Range 5 VU, = 50'000 KM
Mezoa Macrocannons: Range 5 VU, = 50'000 KM
Pyros Melta-Cannons: Range 4 VU, = 40'000 KM
Sunhammer Lance: Range 9 VU, = 90'000 KM
Bombardment Cannons: Range 4 VU,= 40'000 KM
Disruption Macrocannons: Range 5 VU, = 50'000 KM
Hecutor Patterns Plasma Battery: Range 11 VU,= 110'000 KM
Stygies Pattern Macrocannon: Range 5 VU,= 50'000 KM
Godsbane Lance: Range 12 VU,= 120'000 KM
Las-Burner: Range 3 VU,= 30'000 KM
Mezoa Lance: Range 4 VU,= 40'000 KM
Voidsunder Lance: Range 6 VU,= 60'000 KM
Mars Pattern Nova Cannon: Range 6-40 VU,= Minimum 60'000 KM range to maximum 400'000 KM range.
Ryza Pattern Nova Cannon: Range 6-36 VU,= Minimum 60'000 KM range to maximum 360'000 KM range.
Normal Torpedo: Speed 10 VUs, 100'000km for 30m (55.6 km/s)
Fast-Burn Torpedo: Speed 15 VUs, 150'000km for 30m (83.3 kps)
Speed of Imperial Strike Craft:
Fury Interceptors: 10 VU (100'000 Kilometres) For a 30 minute turn indicated that's a speed of 55.6 kilometres per second.
Starhawk Bomber: 6 VU (60'000 Kilometres) 33.3 Kilometres per second.
Shark Assault Boat: AS FURY.
Captain Hat wrote:Space Hulks turn more slowly but they're not exactly normal ships. Last I checked we didn't have an accurate figure for how long a turn in BFG is though- the only indicator I know of that explicitly states the flank speed of an Imperial warship said something about 0.75C, which always struck me as being rather OTT.
The Gothic rulebook DOES explicitly state in the section about measuring distances for range purposes etc that the base of a ship is, in BFG scale, "a few thousand kilometres" from the stem to the edge. So if you're going to use game mechanics that puts the scale at anywhere from 2cm to 3,000 kilometres up to 2cm to just under 10,000 kilometres for the scale of the game.
At 2cm:3,000km, that gives the shortest-ranged Imperial ships in the game (30cm) a range of 45,000 kilometres and a movement distance per turn (however long a "turn" is) of 37,500km for most capital ships (25cm). Torpedoes actually move at 90,000km per turn because they move in BOTH Ordnance phases. The longest-ranged conventional batteries (60cm) then have a range of 90,000km and the Planet Killer, Nova cannons and Blackstone Fortresses can reliably strike targets out to 135,000km.
At 2cm:9,000km (still in the range of "a few thousand") that puts the shortest weapon ranges at 135,000km and the longest at 270,000km (conventional) and 405,000km (special).
These figures are strikingly similar to the high end and low end produced by Kard's analysis based on (at high end) a fluff reference to the range of the Blackstones and (at low end) another set of game mechanics.