Book 2 v5

[robject]

This is not official, nor is it from Marc.

Marc has expressed appreciation for the satisfaction and enjoyment in Book 2, but has not suggested any particular route to take for getting it into T5. For all I know, he may prefer to simply use High Guard 5 (or FFS5, or whatever the technical design stuff is going to be called).

Anyway, I've been puttering (along with Sigg and others) with Book 2, and I've decided I want to keep the best parts, while expanding it slightly. I'd like to include just enough features to make it possible to do small military craft, and replace High Guard-like design for craft up to 1000 or 2000 or 3000 (or whatever) tons.

More later. Comments?

Initially, I assume:
</font>

• The computer takes up no extra volume (it's included with the bridge)</font>
• The bridge is "free" (i.e. subsumed in the cost of the ship)</font>
• Drives from A through W or V are kept as-is</font>
• Keep the trivially simple 1 hardpoint per 100 tons</font>
• Keep the trivially simple thrust-by-volume</font>
• Basic, cost-effective hull shapes</font>
• Computer program rules tuned to interwork with HG-style combat.</font>

For military craft, provide these nonessential extras:
</font>

• include "mission bays" and barbettes</font>
• add armoring rules</font>
• include hull configuration as it relates to price, targetting, and streamlining</font>

In fact, most of the extras will simply be parts of High Guard 5 or FFS5 which will be interchangeably useful with Book 2 v5.

The Book 2 v5 combat system will probably remain the small lightly armed ship - versus - small lightly armed ship rules. Larger, more heavily armed ships would use conveinent Mass Fire rules similar to the ones bantered about on COTI elsewhere.

Here's a bit that Dalton once suggested: he things that some sort of naming conventions would be nice to add color as well as descriptiveness to components of a ship.

For example, a hull might be identified by the company that produced at and the volume. So instead of saying a "100 ton hull", you'd say "General Products Type 100".

Similarly, drive components, weapons, and computers would be identified by manufacturer. Any bits that might contain useful meta-information or quality information. I suppose the primary requirement is that the company be known to produce a certain type of component. Or maybe it's fine just to say "Type B jump drive" -- I suppose sometimes it just doesn't matter who built it.

Finally, the ship itself could be identified by type and yard, for example a "Glisten Yards Type S".

Combat

For combat, I'd use a simplification of Sigg's mass fire table: fire weapons in groups and roll for each group:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">die total attack strength
roll 1 2 3 4 6 8 10 12 15 18 21 24 27 30

2 - - - - - - - - - - - 1 1 1
3 - - - - - - 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2
4 - - - - 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5
5 - - 1 1 1 2 3 3 4 5 5 6 7 8
6 - 1 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12
7 - 1 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 10 12 13 15 17
8 1 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 10 12 14 16 18 21
9 1 1 2 3 5 6 8 9 12 14 17 19 21 24
10 1 2 2 3 5 7 9 10 13 16 18 21 24 26
11 1 2 3 4 5 7 9 11 14 17 19 22 25 28
12 1 2 3 4 6 8 10 12 15 18 21 24 27 30</pre>[/QUOTE]"Surface" damage could then be allocated in groups of 12 hits, using Oz' mass damage table:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">2d6 Hits Scored
Roll Hull Hold Fuel Computer Drive Special
2 1 1 4 1 4 1
3 2 1 3 1 4 1
4 2 1 3 1 3 2
5 3 1 2 1 3 2
6 3 2 2 1 2 2
7 4 2 1 1 2 2
8 3 3 1 1 2 2
9 2 3 1 2 2 2
10 2 2 1 2 2 3
11 1 3 1 3 1 3
12 1 2 1 3 1 4</pre>[/QUOTE]

 

[mike wightman]

OK then, this is what I would do with LBB2.

Hull - have standard hulls and custom hulls

Streamlining - optional extra

Bridge - size depends upon command crew requirement

basic bridge 4t, up to 2 crew

standard bridge 10t, 2-4 crew

large bridge 20t, ships with 5 or more bridge crew

Add CIC

Computer - ignore size, keep program capacity

Add Sensors - size similar to existing computer models

Drives - keep revised drive table but allow extrapolation (or use extended version I did )

make power plant fuel formula 1% of hull x power plant number

[I personally would like a return to power plant size must equal or exceed maneuver drive only (no requirement for it to match jump drive)]

Staterooms etc. - add sickbays, workshops etc.

Weapons - 1 hardpoint per 100t

Add barbette - 5t, no hardpoint limit, can mount up to a triple turret

Energy weapons - require 1 ton of fire control and 1 ton of ammo loading machinery

50t bay - costs 5 hardpoints

100t bay - costs 10 hardpoints

A bay weapon may be spinal mounted in which case its hardpoint requirement is halved

Add nuclear dampers

Add meson screens

Add black globes

Add armour (use High Guard formulae)

Vehicles/small craft - as per LBB2

Crew - as per LBB2 but add crew for CIC

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
OK then, this is what I would do with LBB2.

Streamlining - optional extra


Of course!


Add Sensors - size similar to existing computer models

Naturally. Actually, I'm tempted to subsume sensors into the computer.


make power plant fuel formula 1% of hull x power plant number

[I personally would like a return to power plant size must equal or exceed maneuver drive only (no requirement for it to match jump drive)]


Agreed. HG fuel usage, and Book2v1 drive dependency.


Staterooms etc. - add sickbays, workshops etc.

Weapons - 1 hardpoint per 100t

Add barbette - 5t, no hardpoint limit, can mount up to a triple turret


Sure. Or, rather, no. Being able to mount barbettes should convey advantage enough. And I like barbettes being able to hold up to 5 weapons.

Interesting bits for weapons. Sound okay to me.

What is CIC? In my telephony parlance, I think that was Caller ID Code.

 

[mike wightman]

Combat Information Centre - it co-ordinates sensors and computers to enable weapons and fighters to be used against for than the four targets that multi-target allows

CIC

Jame's posting of LBB2 designs a few weeks ago got me thinking about warships in the LBB2 paradigm again.
His "dreadnought" carried so many fighters it got me thinking about how combat works between the "big ships" in the LBB2 paradigm. Notice that with multitarget the most fighters you can engage is 4.
So if a 5000t warship launches 80-100 fighters at you, and you haven't got a similar fighter screen available, you are

(especially if using the special supplement missile rules ).

Here is a possible balancing option.

Install more computers to allow turrets to be directed at x targets per computer multi-target4 program running, and one CIC module (4tons, 1MCr, 1 crew required) per additional computer installed

Example, a 2000t destroyer with a model 7 computer and 20 turrets can only engage up to 4 separate targets. To make it more effective versus fighters and the like, the architect opts to install a 16t CIC and 4 model 5 computers (to run target, multi-target 4, predict 4, gunner interact, and return fire). The destroyer may now fire each turret at a separate target.

 

[robject]

Perhaps CIC is simply a computer on steroids, then. Especially if the sensors are part of the computer... This is where Book 2 has to meet High Guard -- in the realm of military ops.

I assume HGv2 doesn't have this restriction? Then perhaps HGv5 ought to assume CIC when HGv2 says Computer.

To think this out a little more simply, perhaps this is just the difference between a military computer and a civilian one.

 

[mike wightman]

The CIC is one way to explain the much larger bridges of warships over 1000 tons

Look at the example of the new Battlestar Galactica...

 

[robject]

Well, that's a good point.

Hm. That's a great point.

Although, even small military ships ought to be able to attack as many targets as it has weapons or emplacements.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by robject:
Although, even small military ships ought to be able to attack as many targets as it has weapons or emplacements.

Not in LBB2 combat
Every turret has to fire on the same target, unless a multi-target program is in operation.

The CIC above is one way around the restriction, another is to install a dedicated "computer" (sensor suite?) for each turret.

Either of these may also mitigate the shipfting fire penalty.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by robject:
Although, even small military ships ought to be able to attack as many targets as it has weapons or emplacements.

Not in LBB2 combat
Every turret has to fire on the same target, unless a multi-target program is in operation.

The CIC above is one way around the restriction, another is to install a dedicated "computer" (sensor suite?) for each turret.

Either of these may also mitigate the shipfting fire penalty. </font>[/QUOTE]Yep, makes sense. I'd lean toward the CIC replacing the ship's standard computer, or else requiring a computer for every 4 turrets or so. Currently, I prefer the replacement option -- it's simpler and quite obviously puts the enhancement in the 'military' category.

ADDENDUM

Regarding damage, I'm thinking about alternates.

* Fire grouped weapons in numbers as designated below. On a hit, roll for damage and record two hits of that weapon type for that location.

* For a group of 2 weapons, roll 10+ to hit.
* For a group of 5 weapons, roll 7+ to hit.
* For a group of 12 weapons, roll 4+ to hit.

This type of rule can be extended to cover increasingly devastating damage, and used neatly with armor for absorbing damage.

Questions.

(1) Does the above imply that 50 weapons can inflict 20 points of damage on a roll of 7+?

(2) Does the above imply that 24 weapons can inflict either 4 points of damage on a roll of 4+, or 12 points of damage on a roll of 10+, depending on what the attacker announces?

OR

How about simply awarding 2 x the one-gun damage if a full, homogenous (3 gun) turret is fired with one roll? That would make turret construction interesting.

To make it more interesting, an additional hit or +DM can be given for slaving multiple homogenous turrets together.

These rules might encourage groupings more naturally.

 

[Tekrat04]

One thing that must be corrected is the volume that internal hangar for sub-craft take up.

Having a hangar that is the same volume as the sub-craft is pure stupidity. The box is alway bigger than the object that will be put into it.

Even FFS 1 and 2 got it wrong. The numbers are way to low.

The simple solution is to dobble the volume from FFS Vehicle Service Facilities table.

Internal Hangar (minimal) x4
Internal Hangar (spacious) x8
Dockingr Ring x2
Launch Tube x50
External Grapple (USL) x0.2
External Grapple (SL) x0.6
External Grapple (AF) x1

 

[parmasson]

Simple hull armor.
Drive tables are good whatever they say.
I like the simple Hit Table in book 2 as well.
KISS design sequences.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Tekrat04:
One thing that must be corrected is the volume that internal hangar for sub-craft take up.

The simple solution is to dobble the volume from FFS Vehicle Service Facilities table.

Internal Hangar (minimal) x4
Internal Hangar (spacious) x8
Dockingr Ring x2
Launch Tube x50
External Grapple (USL) x0.2
External Grapple (SL) x0.6
External Grapple (AF) x1

I think you're right, Tek.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Kurega Gikur:
Simple hull armor.
Drive tables are good whatever they say.
I like the simple Hit Table in book 2 as well.
KISS design sequences.

Kurt, you're right. In fact, the drive tables define Book 2.

And I agree with simple hull armor. In fact, for civilian ships I'm of the opinion that what you get is what you get: only military & special ships are up-armored.

I'm even tempted to simplify HG's armoring rules to a binary choice: either the ship is up-armored to the best possible at that TL, or it isn't armored at all. But that's too extreme.

At any rate, it's likely that things like armoring rules will be in the "High Guard" section. At any rate, components, armoring, and weapons should be freely transferable between Book 2 and High Guard.

 

[robject]

Weapons - The Situation

Book 2 combat was designed for encounters between two small starships: an A2 and a Corsair, for instance. If you own an A2, you usually have one gun, two guns, four, or maybe six.

Six to-hit rolls generally yields an additional three rolls on the damage table. But the average number of rolls is around five or six, or fewer -- very manageable.

The Problem

Beefier ships are going to give players and referees Dice-Rolling Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A Mercenary Cruiser may have sixteen guns, and a foll-out encounter may generate 24 rolls of the dice. That's too much.

The Target

So the key is reducing the number of rolls without really damaging the system, whatever that means. Either by arbitrarily grouping weapons into batteries (which is the HG way) or by encouraging homogenous turrets, or by outfitting ships with pre-fab batteries (which is the T4 way), the number of rolls can be reduced.

The HG way is the most flexible, requiring rules additions only. Guns are allocated into batteries from a pool when combat begins. This way also tends to be the most complicated rules-wise.

The turret solution is the simplest and least flexible solution, requiring a lighter rules change, and forcing the ship designer to potentially weaken his defense by putting like weapons together.

The T4 solution is the least flexible, since batteries are pre-configured. On the other hand, this method encourages shopping and purpose-oriented weapon design, and forces designers to further mission-design their ships, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by robject:
The Problem

Beefier ships are going to give players and referees Dice-Rolling Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A Mercenary Cruiser may have sixteen guns, and a foll-out encounter may generate 24 rolls of the dice. That's too much.

This is the reason I've gone over to HG - LBB2 combat was nearly impossible for anything above 400-600 dtons - too many to-hit rolls.

The HG battery system is a good solution to this - and it deals with armor penetration, too, in the same "factor" system. And with the HGS software, HG isn't THAT bad - the problem is that HG doesn't fit small PC-size ships.

What I'd like is a system that could build a wide variety of ships below 5,000-10,000 dtons with "nifty details", and to later refit and otfit them and add 'nifty toys' to them that could be a good sink for the PCs' money. Later additions could detail TL7-TL9 drives and power plants (fission, fusion, chemical, MPD, mass-drivers an so on) and pre-gravitic takeoff from planets, but keep it simple, "drop-in" and modular.

Weapons should be "drop-in" too.

 

[robject]

The nice bit about T4's system over HG was that there weren't pages and pages of combat tables, so I tend to prefer it to High Guard, even though it's a bit less flexible.

MT and T4 solved personal combat by making armor absorb damage. I like that, although neither extended the concept to starships. T4 had armor that got chipped off like hit points, and MT simply re-used HG tables, where armor affected to-hit.

Using damage-absorption, an unarmored ship would take 1 point of damage for every point inflicted. A ship with armor = 1 would be impervious to any single gun, but a multiple damage strike at one location will inflict damage.

Armor will have to be balanced based on what attacking batteries can do, but I think it can be made to work.

 

[robject]

FFS2 Notation

FFS2 could specify weapons by their range and damage. And in fact, this is what Book 2 did, but there were only two types of "batteries": the single beam laser and the single pulse laser. They were either medium or long range, if I recall correctly (?). Assuming five ranges corresponding to combat distances, the lasers might look like this:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Beam Laser/1 1-1-1-0-0
Pulse Laser/1 2-2-2-0-0</pre>[/QUOTE]Thus, the pulse laser "battery" consisted of 1 gun, and inflicted 2 points of damage at Close, Short, and Medium ranges, but did not reach past Medium range. Issue: how to deal with the fact that beam lasers get a bonus to hit? I suppose that if "Beam" is in the name it gets the +1.

By stealing the FFS2 notational system, we can describe Book 2 weapons in a way that's easy to understand, and flexible enough to represent large and complex weapon batteries in a simple, abstract way.

Whether or not it's a good idea is yet to be seen. For the time being I'm assuming it'll do for now.

This presumes an understanding of Book 2 weapons that lets us design new ones. I lack that understanding, but I'll throw up some trash examples to fuel the imagination.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">*WARNING* Untested and TOTALLY FAKE

Beam lasers

Beam laser 1-1-1-0-0
Beam-1 2-2-2-0-0
Beam-10 3-3-3-2-0
Beam-100 4-4-4-3-0
Beam-1k 5-5-5-4-0
Beam-10k 6-6-6-5-0
Beam-100k 7-7-7-6-0

Pulse lasers

Pulse laser 2-2-2-0-0
Pulse-1 3-3-3-0-0
Pulse-10 4-4-4-3-0
Pulse-100 5-5-5-4-0
Pulse-1k 6-6-6-5-0
Pulse-10k 7-7-7-6-0
Pulse-100k 8-8-8-7-0

*Warning* TOTALLY CONTRIVED</pre>[/QUOTE]So, for example, an Oberlindes 1000t liner could bear a handful of batteries instead of thirty guns.

On the extreme example, a Sloan-class escort would have fifty hardpoints, but perhaps only five to ten batteries -- and those would be nasty batteries for any Far Trader to encounter.

Logarithmic Scaling

I suspect that damage ratings would not be linear with battery size, since damage from a battery is applied to a single location. Rather, damage would probably increase logarithmically.

Why bother buying one of those space-consuming monsters? Two reasons: (1) noone will want to play with you if you roll a thousand to-hit rolls, and (2) in order to penetrate your opponent's armor and kill his ship faster, you need the extra punch with each single attack.

As I said, this needs tuning.

Implications

If this works, it means that weapons and weapon damage scales up indefinitely, and therefore there is a single, unified combat rule for all space combat, which would be nice. A squadron of Ramparts could take on a Tigress with no rules adjustment. (Of course, they'd lose that fight, but the point is they all use the same rules).

Energy Use

Don't ask me how much energy they take... this is going to be a job for a hardened gearhead. I have very few data points. For instance, I know single lasers take 1 EP. I also know that Ditzie's custom 5t "hunting laser" uses 4 EP and outputs 1000 megajoules to a range of 20,000km, whatever that means. Plus, it costs MCr25.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by robject:
And I agree with simple hull armor. In fact, for civilian ships I'm of the opinion that what you get is what you get: only military & special ships are up-armored.

I'm even tempted to simplify HG's armoring rules to a binary choice: either the ship is up-armored to the best possible at that TL, or it isn't armored at all. But that's too extreme.

At any rate, it's likely that things like armoring rules will be in the "High Guard" section. At any rate, components, armoring, and weapons should be freely transferable between Book 2 and High Guard.

How about light medium and heavy armour which varies in its armour value by TL?

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by robject:
Weapons - The Situation

Book 2 combat was designed for encounters between two small starships: an A2 and a Corsair, for instance. If you own an A2, you usually have one gun, two guns, four, or maybe six.

Six to-hit rolls generally yields an additional three rolls on the damage table. But the average number of rolls is around five or six, or fewer -- very manageable.

The Problem

Beefier ships are going to give players and referees Dice-Rolling Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A Mercenary Cruiser may have sixteen guns, and a foll-out encounter may generate 24 rolls of the dice. That's too much.

The Target

So the key is reducing the number of rolls without really damaging the system, whatever that means. Either by arbitrarily grouping weapons into batteries (which is the HG way) or by encouraging homogenous turrets, or by outfitting ships with pre-fab batteries (which is the T4 way), the number of rolls can be reduced.

The HG way is the most flexible, requiring rules additions only. Guns are allocated into batteries from a pool when combat begins. This way also tends to be the most complicated rules-wise.

The turret solution is the simplest and least flexible solution, requiring a lighter rules change, and forcing the ship designer to potentially weaken his defense by putting like weapons together.

The T4 solution is the least flexible, since batteries are pre-configured. On the other hand, this method encourages shopping and purpose-oriented weapon design, and forces designers to further mission-design their ships, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

First only roll to hit per turret rather than per weapon.
Next, for each additional turret grant a +1 to hit and damage.

How would people feel about changing the weapon damage from fixed points to dice?

making ship combat damage resolution a bit more like personal combat might make things easier, and provide a better system for armour and screen effects.

 

[mike wightman]

Light laser/single laser 1d6
Medium laser/double laser 2d6
Heavy laser/triple laser 3d6

Pulse laser -1 to hit, +1 damage per die.

light plasma gun/single mount 2d6+2
heavy plasma gun/double mount 4d6+4

light fusion gun/single mount 3d6+3
heavy fusion gun/double mount 6d6+6

particle accelerator 5d6+10

Armour could then provide damage reduction like in T4 or T20