Bonuses and the means of making Called Shots with Missiles

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Tor
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Bonuses and the means of making Called Shots with Missiles

Unread post by Tor »

HU2p80 under 'Shooting Missiles' mentions under section 2 that a Called Shot (with an added strike penalty) is necessary to hit a missile.

It also says that you can use your own missiles to shoot down a missile volley.

This seems to me to be absolute proof, in HU at least, that you can make a Called Shot using a missile.

What I wonder though, is what bonuses we can apply when doing this.

If most mini-missiles are unguided then we can't count on a +3 or +5. It mentions you can benefit from the Weapon Systems skill for a +1.

Do you think a WP Heavy would add a +3 to strike when using unguided minis?

For the most part I think minis are the defense we would see when using missiles defensively. A HE/frag will always do enough to destroy a mini/short while a plasma/AP will always do enough to destroy a medium. Only for cases of long-range missiles would you really have to use a higher grade of missile. Any short-range missile would destroy most LRMs, with the exception of Protons and Nuclear-multis, in which case a medium AP or plasma could get the job done...

Not everyone has access to those bigger missiles though, which makes me wonder... could you use MULTIPLE mini-missiles defensively to destroy a volley?

Like say for example an LRM is headed your way, could you fire a pair of mini-plasma or a pair of mini-AP to improve your odds?

I can't see anything preventing it, but I do wonder about the bonuses if WP skills come up...

I know Rifts originally said 1-2 missiles was aimed and 3+ was a burst, which determined if you got a +3 or a +1, but if the aimed/burst bonuses apply in HU I don't know if this applies. Would using a pair reduce your 3 to 1?

Another major benefit in using volleys defensively would be against incoming smart missiles. Since smart-bombs have the ability to dodge, trying to shoot down a smart-missile with a volley of 4 would prevent it from doing that, so all you would have to do is hit the required 12 for called shots in spite of the -3 (or 15 to strike overall)

I did find it odd that the Called Shot strike penalty against missiles is the same... you'd think larger missiles would be bigger and easier-to-hit targets. It can be sort of explained by larger missiles having faster speeds, but it still doesn't answer everything. A medium-range AP missile goes faster than a long-range frag or plasma missile, for example, so being smaller AND faster it should be harder to hit, IMO...

I think maybe something like -1 to hit medium, -2 to hit short, -3 to hit mini, might be better. Then maybe another -1 to strike per 500mph the missile is travelling at?
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