High Guard, not perfect, but good enough

[Murph]

I would like to defend the High Guard ship design system. Using it, I could crank out a decent starship for a party, or the opposition within 30 minutes or less. While it was not perfect, it was GOOD ENOUGH.

Some quibbles:

Fuel tankage: We reduced it from 10%/JN to 5%/Jn and all of a sudden interstellar economics became possible for ships larger than 400 tons.

Computers: We reduced the weight of computers to one ton, regardless of the mark, and that represented both CPU, Storage, and Sensor nodes.

Weapons: I would like to have seen detonation missiles ala 2300ad as an option for bay missiles.

Better lasers and PBWs.

Other than that, High Guard was not bad.

 

[Murph]

No one agrees/disagrees? Wow.

 

[fury]

I rather liked the High Guard system too. In fact, for small ships, I don't mind Book 2.

Can't say I ever took to MegaTraveller ships, though. They were too powerful. I could never design an X-Boat without Jump 6 and a maneuver drive.

 

[DrSkull]

I completely agree with you about High Guard. That's all the ship design rules I need. When I think of all the time I spent with MT ships, and what a breeze High Guard ships are, it boggles the mind. FOr that matter how much better "Fighting Ships" was than "Fighting SHips of the Shatttered Imperium" (and when I think about T4 "Starships" I just have to shudder).

------------------
Dave "Dr. Skull" Nelson

 

[Skoo]

Ditto here on your comment, Murph.

I could knock out a design under HG in about 40 minutes or so (a little over an hour if I felt like optimizing the design). I *tried* to get into MT, but it just didn't work. I originally thought that the ship design system couldn't possibly become any more cumbersome, formula intensive, or excessively detailed.

Then I saw TNE... and realized that I was wrong. The design system looked great, and was wonderful reading (in the can... like I had time anywhere else to read it), but after my first design (a 500 ton custom SDB) I just decided that the 3 hours I spent on it could've been put to better use.

Went back to CT. Never looked back.

I'll revisit that decision when T5 hits the shelves, tho.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Well, Murph, you know I agree. You might quibble about some of the parameters, but the complexity is just about right. I also prefer CT Striker for vehcle design to FFS.

I doubt if anyone could use Trillion Credit Squadron to refine designs made wih MT. At least, not and still have a life

[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 05 May 2001).]

 

[Tanuki]

High Guard is still my system of choice. MegaTraveller and later complicated the design process enormously for no real gain that I could see. Not to mention the fact that there always seemed to be something that you needed the errata for if you wanted a vague chance of your designs actually working out. -- Brook

 

[Murph]

High Guard had a certain simple elegance. When they went to kiloliters the system became unusable without a computer. The MT system was adding complexity where none was needed. High Guard needed a little updating, but not the drastic make-over it got. I think the decline started with the introduction of the Striker build system.

We didn't use it much since why should I build a 900 ton tank/APC when I could build and use a 60 ton specifically designed ships boat or cutter for the same purpose, mounting a much, much more powerful weapon.

I looked at FFS/TNE and was completely turned off. The simple elegance was gone, and instead you had to delight in numbers, and setting up spreadsheets to build any ships at all.

No, High Guard did it right, and did it well enough.

 

[Vargas]

Quick sanity check: What parts of HG need/ed updating?

Computers immediately leap to mind. What else?

 

[Gatsby]

Yeah, much fun is poked at the computers...but the advantage (and curse) of an abstract system is how the abstract is generalized.

A computer that weighs tons?!?!? No, not really. A HG computer is a computer that has a large volume (the actual representation of a HG ton is a displacement of ~14 cubic meters, not a function of weight). For a computer to integrate with a ship, it requires a minimum amount of space for it's input panels, sensor arrays, integration, power and information transmitall, output devices, etc...you're not just plugging a notebook into the wall to run a starship. Even with our relatively 'good' computers, what is the size of the 'computer' on a US destroyer...or, for the fictional world: is the USS Enterprise from Star Trek run from a Tricorder?
No, my friends, the Traveller computer is not made of vacuum tubes - but as with all things CT, the abstract has to be understood...for 'the devil is in the details'...and the 'angel', too.

Gats'

 

[Skoo]

Yes, computers were always a fun one to comment on... however, Gat's is right about how they should be thought of. Having been on a few destroyers (as a guest, not as a member of any armed forces) and seen a few communication operations rooms, a "ton" for a computer terminal is not terribly off the mark. Those things were had displays, controls, power conduits, channel feeds, redundancies, etc, plus the requirements of the central comm panel for routing, and the computer rooms (which were *very* heavily armored). No, a "ton" per terminal is not off at all.

Where the "ton" concept *might* slip up is on commercial vessels, and certainly pleasure crafts. However, it wouldn't be too hard to rationalize that, although the interface and terminal may appear simple and small, the computing power behind the scenes would not. All that hardware that would normally be exposed on a military vessel would most likely be hidden on a commercial one (for aesthetics, I would think).

 

[Murph]

Okay, updating:

MISSILES!!!! The CT missile is the 57th Century equivalent of a TOW missile. I LIKE lots the detonation lasers introduced in 2300AD. I would like to see these as bay missiles, and the turret missiles as the counter missiles.

Computers: We made all computers weigh one ton. All other tonnage was in sensor arrays, consoles, etc.

Update ship weapons so that you can have greater than level 9 lasers.

And my pet peeve, lower fuel tankage requirements to 5% rather than 10% per jump number.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Computers . . . you do realize that most Navy ship's electronics are 1970s technology, the same as CT?

Actually, the "big ships computer" model is based on 1960s-70s mainframe design, where computer cycles were precious and software cheap. This has changed, a lot, and today it is cheaper to optimise a processors design for it's purpose (i.e. different processors to do jump calculations than the image processors for the sensors) than to write software for generic machines. The "ships computer" will be primarily a networking hub to distribute information among the functional computers and to display it to the command crew. It will only need to be particularly powerful if it has extra functions, say the artificial intelligence to be a crewperson by itself. A starship will have specialized computers distributed as part of the appropriate systems. Rather than running a navigation program on the ships computer, the flight controls will have a dedicated Navcomp built in. Putting a new battery of lasers on board? "Do you want +1, +2, or +3 targeting computers built in? You can always upgrade later."

I have no trouble with assigning 1-2 tons to the central computer, as an irreducable minimum of periferals cooling, shielding and access, but I don't like increasing it for better computers. By 1980 we had already found the limit of building computers faster: the speed of light. To get more clock-cycles per second the processors have to get smaller and smaller so the signal could reach the next junction in less time (notice that Big Blue is smaller than a Cray II which is smaller than an IBM 360). Ganging processors into neural networks help some, but even centimeters of seperation will lead to lag, as one processor waits for the results from another (which has already been done, but is crossing the distance to the second processor.)

Powerful computers are small, very powerful computers are smaller. And these are because of basic laws of physics with any sophisticated calculating technology


[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 09 May 2001).]

 

[Christopher Jennings]

I wholeheartedly agree that High Guard is a fine system. All MT did was add detailing thatmost of us just don't need. So what I did was "back engineer" what new systems I liked, such as the newer spinal mounts, and put then into HG format. As far as the computer size controversy is concerned I really never let it bother me because I always figured that the tonnage included all the contol panels,scanners, vid screens,ect.ect.ect., and not just the computer CPU itself. Besides when your designing for the Fleet you ussually have plenty of room to play with.
As far as fuel usesage is concerned, that has never been of much concern to me either. For the poor smucks tramping aroung in a small merchant just getting a free load of fuel can be enough of an aventure seed to see you through an entire session. The Navy on the other hand isn't so concerned about getting ships fueled as much as preventing ships they don't want to get refueled. But thats aother subjest altogether....

 

[Uncle Bob]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Christopher Jennings:
As far as the computer size controversy is concerned I really never let it bother me because I always figured that the tonnage included all the contol panels,scanners, vid screens,ect.ect.ect., and not just the computer CPU itself. Besides when your designing for the Fleet you ussually have plenty of room to play with.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

"contol panels,scanners, vid screens,ect."? I thought that was why we had a bridge percentage? Frankly, all my objections would be solved by renaming the computer percentage as "sensor suite." It would have the same effect on ship design and combat, and would avoid offending the intelligence of everyone who has taken a computer course in the last twenty years.

Of course, the computer program rules go out the window, but we never used them anyway.

 

[Christopher Jennings]

Lighten up "Uncle Bob". We are after all just talking about imaginary rules to build fictional ships in a reality that doen not exist. So what if I want to justify a certain rule in a certain way. Its my version of that reality so thats the way it is- in that reality. If you really want to get that hung up on detail maybe you should go back to the MT rules so that you can figure out how many light switches to put in each stateroom.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Lighten up yourself, and call me Bob if the "Uncle" bothers you.

You can do whatever you want in your game, after all it is your game. However, I am criticizing the rules, and explaining why your rationalization won't wash with me or my players. Traveller is a Science Fiction game, not fantasy, so the rules should at least recognize objective reality.

FTL drive and reactionless drives were necessary for narrative purposes (although the work of Alcubierre and Woodward make them, well, not impossible.) The original rules were based on a fair understanding of 1960s-70s style mainfraim computers, but in the 70s he introduction of the microprocessor changed all that. The computer rules as written are not necessary for narrative or play balance, so they should be changed.

[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 11 May 2001).]

 

[Uncle Bob]

Oh, and I guess I should defend Murphs 5% tankage.

The problem with 10% tankage is not the price of fuel, but lost cargo space. We could always scrape up the cash for fuel, but that mortgage payment was a bitch. With 5% fuel, a jump 2 ton ship can carry enough cargo to pay the mortgage without sharp trading, subsidies, or doing "favors" for Naval Intelligence.



[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 12 May 2001).]

 

[Christopher Jennings]

Well "Bob", I guess you sure did show me up. Frankly I don't care if how I decided to interpret the rules for my game "doesn't wash" with you or not In the choice of detail vs playability, both I and the other players that have played the game for the last 24 years have always gone for the latter as the point has always been to "play a game" not recreate a reality based on scientific concepts, many of which haven't even been thought of yet.
So we can either agree to disagree on details while agreeing that Traveller is the best game concept of its kind, or we can continue in what is in reality a pointless pissing contest that ends up with people taking a serious look at "Space Opera" for better rules - oh, the horror.

 

[Murph]

Exactly!
But I liked you doing favors for Naval Intellegence. Remember the "Black Globe generator drills"?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Oh, and I guess I should defend Murphs 5% tankage.

The problem with 10% tankage is not the price of fuel, but lost cargo space. We could always scrape up the cash for fuel, but that mortgage payment was a bitch. With 5% fuel, a jump 2 ship can carry enough cargo to pay the mortgage without sharp trading, subsidies, or doing "favors" for Naval Intelligence.

[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 12 May 2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>