Our gaming group has played a few games of BR now, We've had some fun, but have also found that nuke-det missiles are the main ship killers in the game and that battles are dominated by cruisers (and bigger ships) launching great flocks of missiles that eviscerate everyone.
Just spotting the missiles while in flight is hard. In BR target size is a universal modifier that applies to detection and shooting tasks. And regardless of the size of the swarm of missiles coming at you, you still roll to spot as if it was only one missile incoming (if you do manage to spot it, of course, you are assumed to spot all the incoming missiles so there is that). Because missiles get a +2 size Diff Mod then the base chance to spot them (even at shortest range) is 3 (i.e. a normal quality crew has a 60% chance of not detecting them).
Even worse, once you've detected a target missile swarm, in BR you then have to successfully detect it again (at one better difficulty level) in order to "lock on" and be able to engage with defensive lasers. There is the special final defensive fire rule on page 13 allowing unspotted missiles to be locked onto by the target ship as they come in, but without the bonus Diff Mod for having already detected them so the ship only has a 40% chance to lockon. And if you fail that, the whole missile swarm sails in and wreaks havoc unmolested.
It is unclear to me whether a vessels' fire control system allows it to obviate the difficulty-increasing size modifier to hit a missile target that has been detected and locked on. The rules on page 10 say that "...when calculating increased difficulty levels due to absolute target range and evasion, the fire director allows the gunner to ignore a certain number of + Diff Mods." Yet to me it would make sense that better fire control would allow you to hit smaller targets better as well.
Then we come to the problem that in TNE it seems that nuke dampers no longer have an area effect. Or at least in the published TNE space combat games they do not. Nuke dampers are just a point defence weapon against individual incoming missiles in BR/BL.
Missiles in BR do 1-6 crits. That is each missile. A swarm of 20 are sure to eviscerate a cruiser that doesn't spot them, even with the ship's Size+Armour meaning you remove hits of 1-4.
Just spotting the missiles while in flight is hard. In BR target size is a universal modifier that applies to detection and shooting tasks. And regardless of the size of the swarm of missiles coming at you, you still roll to spot as if it was only one missile incoming (if you do manage to spot it, of course, you are assumed to spot all the incoming missiles so there is that). Because missiles get a +2 size Diff Mod then the base chance to spot them (even at shortest range) is 3 (i.e. a normal quality crew has a 60% chance of not detecting them).
Even worse, once you've detected a target missile swarm, in BR you then have to successfully detect it again (at one better difficulty level) in order to "lock on" and be able to engage with defensive lasers. There is the special final defensive fire rule on page 13 allowing unspotted missiles to be locked onto by the target ship as they come in, but without the bonus Diff Mod for having already detected them so the ship only has a 40% chance to lockon. And if you fail that, the whole missile swarm sails in and wreaks havoc unmolested.
It is unclear to me whether a vessels' fire control system allows it to obviate the difficulty-increasing size modifier to hit a missile target that has been detected and locked on. The rules on page 10 say that "...when calculating increased difficulty levels due to absolute target range and evasion, the fire director allows the gunner to ignore a certain number of + Diff Mods." Yet to me it would make sense that better fire control would allow you to hit smaller targets better as well.
Then we come to the problem that in TNE it seems that nuke dampers no longer have an area effect. Or at least in the published TNE space combat games they do not. Nuke dampers are just a point defence weapon against individual incoming missiles in BR/BL.
Missiles in BR do 1-6 crits. That is each missile. A swarm of 20 are sure to eviscerate a cruiser that doesn't spot them, even with the ship's Size+Armour meaning you remove hits of 1-4.