Update at version 0.4
The current work in progress is at version 0.4 now,
High Guard mod4.pdf.
The issues I've identified with HG '80 are as follows:
1) The cheap nigh-invulnerable planetoid battlerider
2) Crew codes (again.. still..)
3) Ordnance
4) Armor values for smaller vessels
5) Barbarian horde ineffectiveness at higher tech levels
6) Prevention of breakthrough by exploiting systemic flaws
7) External mounts for smaller vessels
8) The role of sandcasters
9) Overwhelming superiority of meson guns
All of the above issues, to one degree or another, cause canon design theory for fleets, ships, and small craft to be ridiculous in actual play. I'm attempting the following approach to address the issues in the linked work in progress pdf file:
1) Back in the late '70's and earlier, the asteroid belt was commonly thought to be full of riches, in the past 30 years we've found naught but disappointment with each new related scientific discovery. I won't rehash the discussions I've read on this matter elsewhere but they do serve to raise one approach to solving issue #1. However, rightly or wrongly, the idea of planetoid hulled warships is embedded in canon so a solution must tread carefully.
In a discussion elsewhere on these forums I read a number of suggestions and decided to adopt many of them and add in an idea of my own, namely:
- There is no such thing as a standard planetoid hull design, each planetoid is different not only in shape but in composition and defects. Thus each such ship constructed incurs architect fees, an additional four weeks of construction time, and absolutely no class or volume discounts.
- There is no support in canon for planetoid battleriders, although there is mention of relocation of a planetoid monitor using a battlerider tender. This implies that planetoids are difficult to safely attach to such a tender and the process of moving them requires significant time - days instead of minutes.
- While TCS tells us explicitly that the added value of inherent planetoid armor does not count towards armor limits, there is plenty of reason to believe that it would require more volume and mass to add armor to a planetoid than normal. Not only are they irregular shapes, but also likely require additional structural reinforcement to support the armor and distribute the anticipated stresses involved in combat and maneuver.
2) The original HG crew code was logarithmic - a power series. However it had too large of a grain. The canon solution, adopting the JTAS#14 solution, is a linear solution and has been noted to have too small of a grain. Of the various solutions proposed, I liked Dean's the best but at the upper end of the scale it becomes linear and perhaps too fine grained. In the process of looking at this issue however, I noticed that while the original power of 10 solution in HG was a bad fit, a power of 3 solution fit pretty close to the first half of Dean's solution.
3) Ordnance; imagine my surprise when I found magazines missing from my replacement copy of HG. I've seen a number of good solutions, both here and elsewhere, but they didn't take all of my concerns into account. I've always been a big fan of Striker and there I found three pieces of information: the warhead sizes for turret and bay missiles, the number of launchers per bay, and the two different methods of shipping nuclear warheads.
Following up on that information and rechecking LBB2 and SS3, I decided to make the bay launchers a larger copy of the turret launchers. So far so good, but in the process of automating the loading process, Matt123 spotted a flaw - when I halved the gunnery crew to reflect the automation, there weren't enough crewmen left to fire the batteries! Having calculated the mass of a bay missile at 250kg, I was then left with trying to imagine in the absence of autoloading, two guys in radiation suits trying to move 12.5 metric tons of missiles in twenty minutes under combat conditions and still have time to plot targets, and then turn right around and do it again.
My conclusion is that autoloading is already presumed to be built in to both HG warship missile launchers and whatever cargo area is set aside for magazines. This, then, raised another question - the magazine type launchers installed are quite capable of firing at Striker combat speeds, fast enough that a battery launch over HG engagement distances could easily allow for 'intensive fire'. (If I recall correctly there was something like that in HG '79).
However, having already added the intensive fire option in an earlier revision, Matt123 in his response above noted that it would always be used and invariably overwhelm the defenses. So, reasoning one step further, assuming the launchers are capable of firing at a higher rate of speed and that auto loading is built in to the launchers and magazines, the normal missile attack sequence in HG must *already* assume that ROF in the combat tables.
Yeah I know, a fancy bit of circular reasoning, but bear with me a bit. To make bookkeeping simpler, I created the idea of a 'unit of ordnance' for turrets and bays containing sufficient munitions (3 assuming the above) for one turn's fire. The magazine design supplied with the mod has the capacity per DT given in units of ordnance (or turns of fire per launcher) for both standard and nuclear turret and bay missiles and for sandcasters as well.
4) Surface area vs volume raises its ugly head. I've seen the solutions in later works and I once had a starship design system based on Striker that took that into consideration but when using any such system I find myself *really* missing the simplicity of the HG approach.
Reexamining the issue and reading a few different solutions in various posts, I decided that the important case to solve was the armor value for smaller vessels (and a related external ordnance issue I'll discuss below). For large vessels it's a bit easier to handwave the problem away (reinforced internal structure, etc). The simplest solution I could find was to simply limit the armor value to half the sum of technological level and size code.
5) Barbarian horde strategy has always been a favorite option of mine in some games, but with HG, it just doesn't work at all. As in, not that its not cost effective, but that it just doesn't work. Along with that, canonical gunships and fighters die in droves to properly designed large high tech craft without even scratching the paint. I've seen various solutions suggested for this and my first instinct was to adopt a combination of squadron barrage fire and squadron missions (ala JTAS #14), but not only was I adding complexity, I couldn't answer the question one poster raised in another thread. Namely, "If fighters, why not for gunships, if gunships, why not for destroyers,..."
The best solution I could find was one I read in a post I wish I'd saved a link to so I could attribute it to its author. I call my version of it "Close Attack", a Pre-combat Decision Step option that can be chosen in certain circumstances that gives bonuses to hit and penetration to both sides.
6) Breakthrough is a great concept in the abstract but there's too many exploitable edge cases. It is simply too easy to hold the line with ships that really pose no threat at all to the enemy. Trying to prevent all the edge cases by outlawing them... well seems pointless and heavy handed. Instead I decided to add another Pre-combat Decision Step: "Flank Attack" which under certain circumstances allows a missile only attack (with negative DM's) on the reserve even if 'Breakthrough' is not achieved.
7) Surface area vs volume revisited, this time in the context of small craft weapon mounts. I've always assumed that missile weapons at least were externally mounted on small craft. When I came up with the ordnance solution, I noted that a loaded standard turret missile magazine launcher and ready storage was similar in mass and volume to a larger number of loaded launch rails. Stretching that out a bit, I've allowed small craft missile launchers to hold three times the number of missiles as their turret mount brethrens and added the option for small craft to engage in triple fire, exhausting their entire payload in one attack.
8) Sandcasters - The laser experts seem to be in agreement that the idea of sandcasters as a defense against lasers just doesn't work. Worse, the schizophrenic role assigned to sandcasters means that they don't get optimized for the case where they do - the anti-missile role. So I've turned sandcasters into giant missile seeking RAM grenade launchers that have the same rate of fire as turret missile launchers. Effective as a point defense against missiles, completely useless against beams of any kind.
9) Meson guns.. I like meson guns, I also like peanut butter, but I don't want to eat peanut butter all the time I want some choices! Sadly, especially at high tech levels, meson guns rule without challenge. The problem isn't meson guns, the problem is meson screens.
Meson screens in HG are treated exactly like nuclear dampers but the two technologies are completely different. Nuclear dampers are much more like an repulsors, they have to be aimed. It makes sense that either they have full effect or none - either you hit or you missed.
Meson screens are a passive defense, an omnidirectional screen, much like armor but only against meson guns. So why aren't meson screens treated like armor against meson gun fire? Never could answer that and using the same basic idea I've read elsewhere, I won't have to again.
Comments, suggestions, and critiques are welcomed.