ecm/eccm rules?

[spank]

Are there any ECM/ECCM rules for traveller?

 

[aramis]

I think there are rules in Brilliant Lances...

 

[deniable]

There are. There's also rules to build area jammers in FF&S1. If memory serves, T4 also had some rules for jamming capability.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

LBB Book 2 has an ECM program you can buy for your ship's computer. Like everything in the LBB's, it's pretty basic: when the program is active, all incoming missiles are destroyed on a roll of 7+.

I've also argued in other forums that the High Guard combat rule that applies a +/- to-hit DM based on the relative difference between the ratings of opposing ship's computers must be a highly abstracted version of ECM activity.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Having an ecm/eccm ruleset that's fairly robust against missiles would add some balance to ship combat if I've been reading posts correctly. In the cruiser thread atpollard suggests that a swarm of missiles could trump most anything else.

This would force ships with missile-based offensive weaponry to heavily invest in eccm in addition to ecm. Might make the good ol' fashioned meson spinal mount look good again.

 

[boomslang]

LBB Book 2 has an ECM program you can buy for your ship's computer. Like everything in the LBB's, it's pretty basic: when the program is active, all incoming missiles are destroyed on a roll of 7+.

I've also argued in other forums that the High Guard combat rule that applies a +/- to-hit DM based on the relative difference between the ratings of opposing ship's computers must be a highly abstracted version of ECM activity.

Your point is well-taken. Indeed, EW is perhaps a little too abstracted in HG2 given the overwhelming advantage bringing the biggest computer to a HG2 battle yields.

As for regular old B2, in addition to the optional rules in Special Supplement 3: Missiles (which I haven't made much use for, and which describe some targeting and sensor systems which are effectively immune to ECM), building on the idea that Tactics skill (and importing from HG2, Ship Tactics skill) is available as a floating DM to pretty much any one roll during each round of combat, I have also allowed enterprising PCs to hack up a version of Gunner Interact that adds skill-based DMs (typically Navigation, but also perhaps Sensor Ops) to a defender's ECM roll when running the ECM program. This would then invite someone to code a B2 ECCM program to offset the base or modified ECM roll, but no player of mine has suggested trying that yet.

(Many players and refs overlook the fact that B2 encourages coding your own custom software; quickly finding and fixing those pesky flaws is trivial if you open-source things, I would expect.)

However, I also allow a second type of missile, the IR Flare, that does a very good job of pulling incoming salvoes off of a defender, and that tends to be a more-reliable option that trusting your luck to an ECM dice-roll -- so long as the magazine holds out... there's a pleasingly realistic symmetry there: if you rationalize that by default space-combat missiles are IR-homing, as opposed to radar-guided, in order to make them much more resistant to ECM, then they become vulnerable to spoofing via hot decoys.

And thus a sort of balance is maintained.

 

[jrmapes]

There is an article/ruleset,

Electronic Countermeasures in Traveller
by Ken Pick

FLoating around on one (or maybe more) of the Traveller websites. I have a copy if your google-fu is weak.

For the life of me I can't remember were I came across it. Most likely sources I can think of would be either Freelance Traveller or Children of Earth.

If you can't find it and want it, PM me your email and I will send it to you. It's not very big, just a couple pages. I have it in MS Word but I can PDF if you prefer.

Jerry

 

[Gadrin]

according to Windows explorer

CT G07 Game 07a Striker Book1.pdf
CT G07 Game 07b Striker Book2.pdf
CT G07 Game 07c Striker Book3.pdf

all have references to "ECM" and looks like several rules as well.

The string "ECM" also shows up in:

CT The Traveller Book.pdf
CT Traveller Starter Edition.pdf
CT B00 Book 00 An Introduction to Traveller.pdf
CT B02 Book 02 Starships 1981.pdf
CT B06 Book 06 Scouts.pdf
CT B08 Book 08 Robots.pdf
CT A07 Adventure 07 Broadsword.pdf
CT A10 Adventure 10 Safari Ship.pdf
CT A11 Adventure 11 Murder on Arcturus Station.pdf
CT M03 Module 03 Spinward Marches Campaign.pdf
CT S12 Supplement 12 Forms & Charts.pdf
CT SS3 Special Supplement 3 Missiles.pdf

 

[jec10]

Yes, ECM is a fundamental part of CT/Striker. It appears in many guises and many rules...vehicles can be fitted with basic or extensive ECM which makes them harder/near impossible to detect with radar/thermals/IR or to target with homing missiles. There are radar/radio jammers and direction finders. Various aerosols to foil TL13- lasers, etc