Traveller Tuesday: Missile Missive

So, a funny thing happened on the way to the space battle...

I was writing down the stats for various missiles (with them spread between the Core Book, High Guard, and Trillion Credit Squadron, I needed them all in one place) when I noticed a curious and troubling fact on p. 147:

Yes yes, I am aware that High Guard changed default missile thrust to 10 G.They also changed the chart. Roll with me a moment. 

Huh. "Can be tracked as additional craft in the battle."  That's interesting, considering this chart from earlier in the section on space combat...

Take a look at that "thrust to change" column. Interesting.  And now, people's exhibit three:

So... if I'm tracking missiles like ships... and missiles move at Thrust 5... and I'm shooting at a distant target... then according to the rules.... wait. Go back to that example. Why does it cost 5 thrust to go both 1 kilometer AND 8750 km from Medium range? Shouldn't it cost more thrust to, y'know, go a further distance?

OK, so let's ignore this range band nonsense, because otherwise you'd never use the 50 in the Distant category... unless you were closing in combat, or returning fire... in which case whoever got pegged as the "Distant Party" would be at a significant disadvantage, having to pay (50+25+10+5+2+1+1=) 93 thrust, whereas the "Adjacent Party" would only have to pay (1+1+2+5+10+25=) 44 thrust.  That's half price for exactly the same distance.  Woo, home team advantage!

Of course, this also means that the chart I listed at the beginning is wrong, because

1. It doesn't factor in the "Home Team" advantage, and
2. The numbers are wrong anyway. 

Think about it. According to the chart, a thrust 5 missile shooting at a distant target would hit that target in 10 turns, but if we tracked it according to the rules of the game regarding thrust, it would hit in either 5 or 10 turns, depending on position. 

The refrain of "WTF, Mongoose?" is often heard in my game. 

All right, so let's make things simpler and more logical. We will just assume that all distances coming and going are the same, and the best way to calculate needed thrust is to add up the thrust cost from the range you're at (which is always Adjacent, because your missiles always launch from your ship and you're always at adjacent range to yourself) to the range you're trying to hit. And, of course, we completely throw out that useless missile chart.

Here, then, is the master chart I constructed for each missile in Mongoose Traveller Canon. (High Guard people, rejoice!  The boost of missile thrust to 10 G per the rules has now been added in!)

So there you go. Now missiles in Mongoose Traveller make sense.