Battle-Class Ships: Design and Combat Discussion

[AnotherDilbert]

Batteries are figured exactly as in Bk5.

If a twice as large ship has twice the batteries (each doing the same damage), but much less than twice the hit points, aren't large ships automatically losing to several smaller ships?

 

[aramis]

If a twice as large ship has twice the batteries (each doing the same damage), but much less than twice the hit points, aren't large ships automatically losing to several smaller ships?

It's still bigger, and more likely to have thicker armor. It's a good compromise for playability. Crits are usually the killer for big ships, SI loss for smaller ones.

Every sim has its flaws...

 

[whartung]

It's still bigger, and more likely to have thicker armor.

If it has more armor, then while it may have less hit points, it's harder to do damage to consume those hit points, so it may net out.

 

[robject]

... once the ships spot each other, it's game on, lasers flying, shoot shoot shoot until you can't shoot no more. Only through practice, I think, can you get the nuance of the ECM game that underlies everything. But, in the end, they all feel to me, to get washed out. That in the end, as I've mentioned several times before, it's riflemen in a bull ring with no cover shooting at each other.

And that just reduces the game to range and firepower and who gets the lucky hit first.

When reduced to that, High Guard is perfect. It's just washes away all of those other mostly irrelevant details, lines the ships up against each other and blast away. Simply, it's not clear to me that all of the ECM and lock ons and scanners and such affect the outcome enough to be worth the trouble, especially in a larger engagement. One on one? Maybe. BatRon on BatRon, probably not.

That's a really good observation, and in fact that helps me test out various rules ideas. Because... yeah... irrelevant detail becomes noise, or (better) washes away.

Which makes Traveller combat high level, and strategic, at the FFW level. Now the individual ships matter less and less compared to the overall force. Bringing my 10 Factors Of Combat against your 7 Factors of Combat, roll the dice and see who wins. Basically, a Risk style system. Abstract combatants vying for territory.

I think there's wiggle room for some detail; after all, High Guard is relatively high detail (and Don McKinney argued for _even more detail_).

But I don't think we have to go all the way down to High Guard to get at some of the usefulness of High Guard, or even the key distinctiveness of ship designs.

As suggested by my simple example of the 10 battle riders against the Tigress, what matters most in the game is the number of spinals you bring, not so much the ships that bring them. It was pretty shocking how little the Tigress itself "mattered". In fact, those BR would have a harder time killing each other than the Tigress, just because of its size.

Obviously that's a contrived situation, made explicit due to the combat system, the absolute advantages of TL15 and armor, etc. At TL14, the game changes dramatically. All of a sudden a zillion missiles are meaningful. They don't "kill" ships, they just make them combat ineffective.

The Tech Level divide is ... strange and, it seems to me, a little inconsistent. But I get the point: special capabilities work better at their "home" tech level.

The locations are simple: the main worlds and the gas giants. I think that simply changing FFW instead of a system per hex, you have a destination box for each gas giant, and the main world. "Points of interest", essentially. Because, in the large, realistically, a fleet can move between the boxes in a weeks time. It's close enough to a week to get from Earth to Jupiter using an M-Drive. The rules would simply be (with perhaps special rules for some systems as a call out) but basically that movement between boxes within a system takes "a turn" (i.e. a week), but costs "no fuel" (because you can run a 6G M-drive with a 9 volt battery). But if you want to go from hex to hex, that costs a turn AND fuel. Combat is within the "boxes". At that point, the combatants can line up their "line" and "reserve", and let fly.

In short, operational combat is like FFW on a smaller map. It could be done with HG ships and ship combat, except that's soooo slow. Or you can pick something in between... which is what I want to try.


Your whole post has a lot of good points and good ideas, whartung.

 

[kilemall]

I disagree with the wash away crowd, because they don’t maneuver.

 

[robject]

I disagree with the wash away crowd, because they don’t maneuver.

There's no movement, no "real" fog of war, no momentum or orbit rules. It's definitely more abstract than Battle Rider or Mayday.

 

[kilemall]

There's no movement, no "real" fog of war, no momentum or orbit rules. It's definitely more abstract than Battle Rider or Mayday.

Shrug, an entertainment choice and not necessarily invalid depending on how accessible and fun game vs monster Europa scale or sim type thing.

But these games can devolve into demolition derby blazing away because they are built that way intentionally. They don’t have to.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

There's no movement, no "real" fog of war, no momentum or orbit rules. It's definitely more abstract than Battle Rider or Mayday.

Shrug, an entertainment choice and not necessarily invalid depending on how accessible and fun game vs monster Europa scale or sim type thing.

Movement and combat can be simplified into two different systems. First you manoeuvre to get into range or get away, then when within range combat ensues.

Of course the movement system can be simplified to highest acceleration wins...

 

[robject]

And just to mention the other side of things, just last year I started playing Thunder Road, and found it to be immensely enjoyable. Its movement rules are half of the fun of the game.

 

[kilemall]

Movement and combat can be simplified into two different systems. First you manoeuvre to get into range or get away, then when within range combat ensues.

Of course the movement system can be simplified to highest acceleration wins...

Love Imperium style shoot em up abstract range break off simplicity in the context of a multigenerational struggle for survival.

Hate that same simplicity in the context of the unique terrain space affords at the player level, especially with vector movement.

 

[jec10]

There's no movement, no "real" fog of war, no momentum or orbit rules. It's definitely more abstract than Battle Rider or Mayday.

Invasion: Earth had "Close Orbit", "Far Orbit" and "Deep Space" boxes. Luna was in Far Orbit. You couldn't jump directly into Close Orbit or Far Orbit from out-system.
In-system you could move from box-to-box, but an enemy naval unit in a box prevented you moving further (unless they were declared to be "hiding" naval units in the Deep Space box).
SDBs could operate from "hides" planetside, including underwater.
Combat between naval units in the same box was mandatory (unless one side's units were in hiding).
At the end of every round of combat each side had the option to disengage and go into hiding in the Deep Space box (taking passing fire from any enemy naval units in any intervening box). SDBs fighting in the Close/Far Orbit boxes could also disengage and go into hiding planetside.

 

[robject]

Invasion: Earth had "Close Orbit", "Far Orbit" and "Deep Space" boxes. Luna was in Far Orbit. You couldn't jump directly into Close Orbit or Far Orbit from out-system.
In-system you could move from box-to-box, but an enemy naval unit in a box prevented you moving further (unless they were declared to be "hiding" naval units in the Deep Space box).
SDBs could operate from "hides" planetside, including underwater.
Combat between naval units in the same box was mandatory (unless one side's units were in hiding).
At the end of every round of combat each side had the option to disengage and go into hiding in the Deep Space box (taking passing fire from any enemy naval units in any intervening box). SDBs fighting in the Close/Far Orbit boxes could also disengage and go into hiding planetside.

Thanks for that. Okay, yes, I do want to add Operational Movement rules on top of the combat system, so that we can position our units across a solar system. Then the combat rules engage when units meet.

And if anyone's seen it, I think Marc's "subway map" for solar systems is a great starting point.