Hehe, I type too slowly when I'm eating lunch, tjoneslo beat me to the posting though I started before he finished, very similar answers so we must be right. Right?
Originally posted by Rover:
I have been trying to desing ships over the past couple of days and I have a few questions. Maybe I was up too late last night working on this, but if you can point me to a reference page that would be great.
Hi Rover, hope I can help with some unofficial but imo reasoned responses based on my own designing...
1) What is the benifit of joining my turrets into a battery? Do we get a + to hit or damage?
When weapons are grouped as a battery you get to add the weapons of all the turrets/barbettes when calculating the USP (p 278). There are a couple provisios and benefits besides.
First, all the weapons and turrets must be the same. i.e. four triple turrets of missile racks (12 total) can be grouped as a single battery of USP 4 before TL bonus. Its up to the designer to decide if a single attack of USP 4 is better than four seperate attacks of USP 2. Naturally a battery may only designate one target.
Second, except when acting as a squadron (p 178), all the weapons must be on the same vessel.
Third, you only require one Gunner to fire the battery, rather than one Gunner for each turret. IMTU each turret/barbette already includes a local fire control station and if you want to organize battery fire you need a seperate gunnery workstation (as Small Craft Couch) for each battery, usually on the bridge or in its own fire control center. Also, the way I play hits to batteries is you lose battery control of those turrets but each turret is still capable (barring other damage) of independant local fire if you can man it.
Just as a note, the way I read T20's mixed weapon turrets each weapon in the turret is a seperate battery, requiring its own Gunner and workstation if you expect to fire each weapon each turn. The Gunner may of course fire any one weapon of his choice in the turret each turn, but to fire all three if a triple mixed turret will require 2 more Gunners and workstations. My basic bridge designs (the 20dT minimum) come with 5 workstations (4 on the "bridge" and one in engineering), any of which may be switched to fire control if not needed for other tasks.
I think that covers that question but if its not clear say where and I'll attempt to expand on it.
2) The rules seem to indicate that a barbette may only house a partical accelerator but not that a PA can be used in a regular turret. So why use one?
Correct, the difference is the barbette version is available at one TL earlier. You could think of it as the testbed design, while the turret version is the final production model.
Lastly, since the ton in Trarveller represents a volume and not a weight. Why do hardpoints and turrets not take up any volume, but the weapons in them do? Will a ship magically gain cargo space if the turret is removed? It would make more sense to me to say that a hardpoint takes 3 or 5 tons of space and then not worry about the tonnage of turret weapons.
Yep, the way I cover this little issue is when building the design, since you have to designate hardpoints when the vessel is built and they can't be added after (by the strictest rules). I go one step further and say you also have to designate the type of installation. i.e. Light Turret (1dT), Medium Turret (2dT), Heavy Turret (3dT), or Barbette (5dT). When you chose your installation you have to reserve the desired displacement (subtract it from the hull) and it is treated as lost volume. When the installation is actually purchased it adds the appropriate amount to the ship displacement, and if no weapons are installed it could be put to other uses, like cargo.
You can install a lighter turret on a heavier hardpoint, but not the other way around, and you can't install a turret on a barbette hardpoint or vice-versa.
Popup turrets are a special case. Any turret may be converted to popup by taking displacement equal to the turret being hidden from directly adjacent to the hardpoint. This is the space for the turret to sit in till it pops up. When popped it is treated as a normal turret for hits etc. but when hidden it is counted as a magazine for damage and hits. Also while popped the space below is available for other use, though it is cramped by struts and cables (one-half usable displacement) and you have to empty it to hide or use the turret again. The cost of x5 covers the installation of all the required gear.
Hope that all helps.
