Notes on TNE Turret Weapons
The TNE rules on ship's weapons depart from the Classic Traveller rules in an effort to be more realistic.
A shipboard turreted laser has an emitter dish that is about 3m in diameter, or nearly as large as the turret itself (3.6m dia x 4.2m tall). This emitter not only generates the laser pulse, but it also features a powerful grav generator that creates an intense field at a tiny point just ahead of the emitter. This field focuses the outgoing laser beam to a pencil-sized pulse, which then spreads out again under the inverse square law. This is what gives the beam it's range and penetrating power. So, while a larger installation might have multiple emitters, a standard turret only has one. That said, the emitter fires multiple times to generate hits at combat ranges of a quarter million kilometers or greater.
High tech Imperial ship killer missiles carry a bomb-pumped X-ray laser warhead. For Wanderer's small missiles, a 100kt nuclear charge is coupled with three lasing rods. These rods deploy when the weapon is ready to detonate, lining up on the target. When the charge detonates, the rods produce powerful X-ray laser beams that strike the target. While these beams last less than a millisecond, they are incredibly destructive. The missile is a stand-off weapon with a range of 3000km. They are fire-and-forget capable; they can be guided using the ship's sensors, and they can also function as mines. Each missile weighs 3 tons, and is .75m dia x 3m long.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:42, Mon 01 Apr.