Originally posted by Scott Martin:
Is your purpose to simply mangle the rules framework as far as it can go? If so I'd reccomend a buffered planetoid with F-15 hull armour (+6 for the buffered planetoid, for a total AF of 21) and a meson screen, which will basically ignore anything other than a meson gun (including a spinal PAW)
For good measure, why not make it a fighter (skip the meson screen) with a really crappy computer since the only thing that can hit "Elly the fighter" and inflict damage is Meson guns (bays will have trouble with the configuration, and due to HG UPP limittions, anything with a spinal meson gun can't *have* bays) so why bother dodging? (clearly agility is also optional) With a sub-Kton hull you can't actually mount a weapon that will hit a cap ship, so why bother paying for the screens and the computer? You seem to essentially want something that can sit there and not be damaged, and buoilding this as a fighter gives you a really cheap "unkillable rock". Of course if you wanted this to be able to retreat along with you, perhaps building it at ~200 dTons so you can put a jump drive in would be a good idea.
Perhaps a better question would be "What the heck is this for?" If you put this in a line of battle I'd gleefully ignore it until I had eliminated any vessels that were actually a threat, and then point spinal mounts at it.
I could maybe maybe see something like this intended to hold the line while my fleet disengaged, but in Traveller-the-RPG as distinct from HG-the-war-game where the heck could I find crews for these? "I just want some guys to pilot this so that if things really go south you'll sacrifice yourself to cover my retreat." Hmmm... small escorts against the line of battle, now there's a job I'm sure there will be a long line-up for
I realize that I didn't actually address your third question, so I'll take a stab at it: The corsair, patrol cruiser and brioadsword all have roles to fulfill, and those roles are not "sit here and be a damage sponge". Both a broadsword and a corsair would avoid "Elly" like the pimple on a planets butt that they would prefer that she would be, and insert their strike group (or run away with their booty) regardless. The Patrol cruiser would probably send a message like "if you see a merc unit or a corsair running this way can you try to slow them down for me?" as it tried to get a handle on the rampant piracy in the system.
You could make "Ely" attack capable against smaller ships by making her larger, putting big drives in and a large computer, but is one "Ely" class really as useful for customs and patrol duty as 3-4 patrol cruisers? and it's still useless against ships of the line, so perhaps a destroyer instead of a couple of these is a better investment...
(Overanalysis our specialty)
Scott Martin
Thanks for the commentary, It made me revise my warship conception a bit.
My purpose was not to mangle the rules further, but to check to see if the rules system was really as mangled as I thought it was.
I don't think my ship would be useless, but as you said, a little armored fighter would be just as good for many purposes, or a smaller gunboat (if I was worried about nukes, mobility, or critical hits from USP-8/USP-9 batteries).
My design intention
Yes, I knew that the armadillo boat would be incapable of hurting capships. It would be a light gunboat, capable of killing the broadswords, corsairs, and gazelles of the universe.
Yes, pirates could certainly avoid Elly, but that would entail passing up any convoys she is guarding. Mercenaries might be able to run past her and drop troops on a planet, but they'd get beat up while flying through and would ultimately be dropping troops under fire.
Role of Other Ships
I probably shouldn't have asked my third question so extreme - of course corsairs and broadswords have distinct roll to fill that a ship loaded with armor can't do.
What I meant to say is, a small vessel designed primarily to fight other small vessels (what I presume a gazelle was made to do) should include armor, just like an 1860s gunship should have iron plating.
Where I was trying to go...
At the very least, the usefullness of armor should be factored into the logic of small ship combat. For example - a convoy of subsidized merchants could just carry an armored fighter or two to chase off pirates, rather than hiring a larger, thin-skinned warship.
That does seem to have the annoying side effect of making the whole notion of small ship combat seem slightly absurd...
Originally posted by Anthony:
As for the Elly: it can also theoretically be damaged by pulse lasers, though they'd need to roll a 2 on 2d6 and that would just result in a weapon-1 hit, or by meson bays, though meson bays suck so you don't need to worry too much about that.
Okay, pulse lasers can hurt it... if they're lucky! Really, really lucky...