Gazelle Close Escort, Steps 3 and 4: Jump Field and Armor

[robject]

Jump Field (p. 317; formulas on p. 335)

After the hull is designed, we need to select the Jump Field (p. 317, table on p. 335). There are three types of Jump Field. The Gazelle will have the Jump Bubble, so that we won’t have to put jump grids on its drop tanks.

Once we know the characteristics of the Jump Drive, we can calculate the minimum safe jump distance, and the chance for misjump if the ship attempts to jump within this distance (p. 335).

	EC (Gazelle-class Close Escort) TL 14

	Vol  Component                 MCr  Notes
	400  Hull D, Unstreamlined     14   -1 Agility
	-    Charged                   14   AV 28
	4    Landing Legs, Pads         4   Wilderness Landing OK
	-    Jump Bubble                -   Field Strength = 120

Armor (p. 317; tables on p. 336)

For increased survivability and protection against damage, we add a second layer of armor to the Gazelle. Consulting Table A on page 336, we see that two total layers of armor in a 400 ton hull displaces 16 tons. Since the Gazelle uses Charged armor, each layer adds TL x 2 = 28 to the ship’s AV. Including the original AV28 from the outer hull, the total AV is 28 (hull) + 28 (layer 2) = AV 56. Armor has no cost, other than taking up precious volume in the ship.

	EC (Gazelle-class Close Escort) TL 14

	Vol  Component                 MCr  Notes
	400  Hull D, Unstreamlined     14   -1 Agility
	-    Charged                   14   AV 28
	4    Landing Legs, Pads         4   Wilderness Landing OK
	-    Jump Bubble                -   Field Strength = 120
	16   Armor                      -   AV 56 (TOTAL)

 

[pendragonman]

Armor has no cost except volume? That must be an error...

 

[robject]

Nope! It's free. Free!!

And you know, cost almost never stopped me from armoring up a ship.

Consider slapping on one layer of armor to a TL10 Free Trader.

Requirement: 4% x 200t hull = 8 tons of volume. AV = 2 layers x TL 10 = 20.

It's only worth it if your ship is going to be in pirate-infested waters. And, even then, a layer of armor may not make a difference (if that pirate has nukes, you're sunk). So you've wasted 8 precious tons of hull on metal plates.

Say you bend the rules (only slightly) and install a half-layer. 4 tons. AV 15. Is it worth it? I don't know. Depends.

See? Cost never comes into the equation.

 

[pendragonman]

Nope! It's free. Free!!

And you know, cost almost never stopped me from armoring up a ship.

Cost is usually no object for me, but free armor seems ludicrous. Is there an upper limit to the AV?


Edit: I got my tracking number today, so soon I can use my dead forest to look this up myself...

 

[robject]

Cost is usually no object for me, but free armor seems ludicrous. Is there an upper limit to the AV?

Yes, there is a theoretical upper AV limit, implied rather than explicit:

ASSUME a TL33 craft.
ASSUME a Charged hull.
ASSUME 26 total layers of armor (leaving no space for anything else).

AV = TL 33 x 2 (Charged) x 26 Layers (1 free + 25 add'l layers) = AV 1,716.

...breachable by three craft with Particle Accelerator Main guns, slaved into a battery with a CommCaster.

...or, breachable by a meson gun, of course.

 

[Murdoc]

Yes, it seems ludicrous to me as well, just from a realism standpoint. I know there has to be sacrifices in the balance between realism and playability, but I don't think that the 'problems' caused by using cost instead of volume as a deterrent outweigh the bizarre idea that 16+ tons of metal is somehow free of charge. As I said in the centralized vs. decentralized thread, military ships are supposed to be expensive, and commercial ships will always try to be as cheap as possible. This might be forgiveable if we were just talking about a board game like TCS or something, and you have to keep the sides "fair" or whatever, but it's a role-playing game, and verisimilitude is important to the immersion experience. At least it is for me. I'm most likely going to be house-ruling this.

 

[robject]

It's not unreasonable for you to attach a cost to armor. I figure that other costs that go into a ship make up for it, and then some.

As a thought experiment, design the 2,000 ton Zhodani Strike Cruiser in HG and T5, and see what the total differences are. Because in the big scheme of things, verisimilitude also applies to the end result, rather than just to a particular step.

 

[Murdoc]

Ok, let's see if I can get the same result with a little less work. If not, I'll give your suggestion a try. Looking in HG at the example of the Unicorn (p50), Hull strength 3, if my calculations are correct, make the armor cost about MCr120, while the whole ship costs about MCr356, which I'd call a significant portion of the price. So are you saying that if I were to make this ship in T5, everything else would just cost more to make the prices between them similar, leaving out a cost for armor? If so, then that doesn't really work for verisimilitude for me. The reason why is because when I am designing a ship I can raise or lower the armor value of the design and in HG get a significant change in price, but in T5 not so much. I'm not so worried about established designs, because I can ignore the component costs, but that's harder to do when I'm designing a ship, especially on a commercial or PC budget, and you're trying to save money wherever you can.

Ok, so maybe some people are happy with it this way and can ignore it, that's fine. I just don't see the benefit of it considering the "cost" of having to accept a greater level of unrealism. What is the benefit supposed to be anyway?

 

[robject]

[...] that doesn't really work for verisimilitude for me. The reason why is because when I am designing a ship I can raise or lower the armor value of the design and in HG get a significant change in price, but in T5 not so much. [...]

Please know that I'm mainly playing devil's advocate. I understand what you mean, and it's bizarre. An earlier draft of T5 had a price per ton of armor. But it still wasn't up in the High Guard cost range.

See, it seems to me that this rule is making a point about armor: namely, it doesn't matter if it requires a price formula or not, if armor has to go on, it has to go on. It seems to me that, in High Guard, there are specific optimized levels of armor and weaponry, and survivability requires designing to those levels, costs be damned. So there is little freedom in HG to back off armor to save a budget, except for the unacceptable Eurisko strategy.

Now I do think that the "appearance of reality" is in how a military design stacks up against a commercial design, both price and performance wise. I agree that a Subsidized Liner should be much cheaper than a Shivva-class Patrol Frigate -- both are 600 tons, and if I recall both are Jump-3. If T5 can do that without armor costs, then I'm fine with it. But I haven't done a lot of ships with this incarnation yet.

A few years ago, I ported 83 (!) classic, canonical Traveller ships to an early draft of T5's ship design rules, which did have armor cost. But even then, the cost was (relatively) low.

 

[Dagrill]

Cost is usually no object for me, but free armor seems ludicrous. Is there an upper limit to the AV?


Edit: I got my tracking number today, so soon I can use my dead forest to look this up myself...

Hi,

'Free' armour actually made sense to me as you lose the room it takes up for other things, my first attempt at designing a ship under this system with 4 levels of armour ended with a huge minus to crew comfort, so I had to go back and strip a couple of levels.

Kind Regards

David

 

[atpollard]

From an old CT source, Iron can be removed from a meteorite at 1000 credits per dTon. If we assume that the spray deposit of Steel to build up an armored hull costs a similar 1000 Cr per dTon, then adding armor at 1000 credit per dTon to a base structure that costs 100,000 credits per dTon (again from CT) may not be a significant enough cost to be worth tracking. It is even conceivable that the cost to spray metal could be less than 1000 credits per dTon.

Not advocating either way, just pointing out that the cost doesn't necessarily NEED to be a high percentage of the total cost.

[Personally, I would have assigned a percentage of hull cost per point of armor.]

 

[pendragonman]

Hi,

'Free' armour actually made sense to me as you lose the room it takes up for other things, my first attempt at designing a ship under this system with 4 levels of armour ended with a huge minus to crew comfort, so I had to go back and strip a couple of levels.

Kind Regards

David

In all versions where there has been armor, it has always taken up volume. In all editions besides this one, it also had a cost in credits as well.

Then there is the logic issue. Say I am building the Bismark today. Am I really going to pay nothing for the inches of armor belt? All that plate steel costs money.

 

[McPerth]

16+ tons of metal is somehow free of charge.

As I'm not involved as now in T5, perhaps what I say is rubish, but if those are displacement tons, it's quite more tan 16 metric tons of metal, that uses to be how its price is calculated.

In all versions where there has been armor, it has always taken up volume. In all editions besides this one, it also had a cost in credits as well.

Not in all versions. In MT armor needed no volume, but added quite a lot in cost (and so CPs too) and mass (making agility something really rare among most ships).

 

[Dagrill]

Then there is the logic issue. Say I am building the Bismark today. Am I really going to pay nothing for the inches of armor belt? All that plate steel costs money.

Hi,

but this is ACS, it's more like sticking armour on a yacht, tramp steamer or a River class Frigate & maybe at TL9+ when you are building starships steel is dirt cheap...

It does make you wonder if T5 High Guard will charge for armour though...

Kind Regards

David

 

[pendragonman]

Hi,

but this is ACS, it's more like sticking armour on a yacht, tramp steamer or a River class Frigate & maybe at TL9+ when you are building starships steel is dirt cheap...

It does make you wonder if T5 High Guard will charge for armour though...

Kind Regards

David

Even river gunboats come with armor standard. Also, there is a BCS supplement in the works.

 

[robject]

It does make you wonder if T5 High Guard will charge for armour though...

That is a subject which has been on my mind for some time now. All the details of BCS, will they come together in an elegant splash of wargaming material?