High Guard

[hunter]

Ok, the plan is to use High Guard as the core ship design system for T20. There have been a couple of mentions in other posts on 'fixes' that some think need to be made to the HG rules.

I'm not promising any changes, but if you think some part of the system needs to be changed, let us know by replying to this thread and telling us what and why.

We will consider what we receive and of course put across to Marc anything we think is appropriate. Understand, Traveller is Marc's game and he has final approval or disapproval on changes such as this.

Hunter

 

[DrSkull]

I'd stick to cosmetic changes if by doing so you can keep trans-system useablity.

For instance, while I see much to commend the 5% per jump number for jump fuel "fix" some people advocate, I would much rather be able to use a CT ship (or books of ships for that matter)as written in T20 than to have the fix made. It seems to me that that would be desireable if you are planning to put out products that are simultaneously useable for CT and T20.

A cosmetic change I wouldn't mind would be calling the ships' "computer" the "electronics suite" or the "control/sensor system" just to avoid having to explain why Far Future Computers are so huge.

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Dave "Dr. Skull" Nelson

 

[hunter]

Just so. We don't want to make any changes that causes incompatibility with ships in previous works.

Hunter

 

[DaveShayne]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hunter:
Ok, the plan is to use High Guard as the core ship design system for T20. There have been a couple of mentions in other posts on 'fixes' that some think need to be made to the HG rules.

Hunter<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<snip>

As I suggested in another thread, explanatory text for the ship size limitations by computer would be in order. I also think incorporating the ship design by percentage method from TCS might be a good idea.

David Shayne

 

[Gaming Glen]

Add sensors and simple rules for use, including specific skills. Sensor suites don't have to be as complex as MT's, but PCs will be wanting their ship to either hide from other ships or look for other ships that are hiding. Star Trek had plenty of instances of "hiding" the ship, whether in gravity wells, atmosphere, magnetosphere, etc (I won't comment on how "real" this was, it is ST-science *cough* after all). PCs will probably be doing a lot of covert ops or outright piracy and stealth is important for this.

Glen

 

[William]

I'd like to see three things:
1) Integrate all the TCS additional rules. They add quite a bit in a completely compatable way.
2) As suggested above, rename the computer to Electronic Suite or some such and describe it as including the computers, sensors, commo, ecm, eccm, and anyother electronics that the ship needs. Higher the number, the more capable all these functions are and fib simply is a way to say it's got redundancy built in - not that it's necessarily fiber optic based (perhaps long ago they were and the name stuck.) bis would likewise be improved in the commo or sensors areas?
3) Simple skills or feats would also need to be added to reflect these gagets. Probably on the order of Tracking in d&d3, nothing to complex.

 

[evilpheemy]

I like the idea of replacing the old computer with the "electronics suite" as described earlier. I wouldn't want to make starship combat too complex, since the focus of the game should remain on the PCs and not their ship. Ship to ship combat should be as fast if not faster than personal combat, to better keep the game from devolving into a boardgame.

EvilPheemy

 

[aramis]

Include mayday-style movement rules for as an option, so that we have more than "Close" and "Far"... plus the TCS mods.

I would love to see the reincorporation of the MT "Jump Fuel is 5x the J Drive volume". This does, however, smack heavily of MT. (It was the one MAJOR MT change to the setting.) Or at least a side note on this particular option.

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-aramis
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Smith & Wesson: The Original Point and Click interface!

 

[DonM]

Clarify certain confusion points about the existing rules:

1) The computer/ship size question. There are two ways to read the table, and HG players appear to be divided evenly on how to read it.

2) Applying damage to ships batteries that are reduced to a single weapon (ie, is the single weapon reduced like it would be had it been the only weapon in the battery prior to taking damage, or is it eliminated like all the other weapons in the battery, by a single weapon-1 damage).

3) Use both the TCS modifications, and the JTAS #14 (I think that's right, but I don't have it here in the office to confirm) rules on fighter squadrons. There were also some alternate rules on handling crew hits in JTAS, that might be worthy of using.

4) On the CT-Starships list, a fine person whose name escapes me posted conversions of the added MT high-tech materials back to CT. If you could use those, it would be VERY cool.

5) Playtest! We've got a bunch of people on the CT-Starships list, and I know we'd love to help you out with this....


DonM.

 

[Takei]

As far as computers go, you could always just scrap a seperate computer and say it's part of the bridge tonnage. Books 2 & 5 both say that the bridge tonnnage accounts for avionics, sensors and comms, so why not the flight computers? Sensors/fire control could be rated by TL and Civilian or Military for game purposes, and existing designs wouldn't be greatly effected tonnage or cost wise.

Cheers

Paul Bendall

 

[Tobias]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Takei:
As far as computers go, you could always just scrap a seperate computer and say it's part of the bridge tonnage. Books 2 & 5 both say that the bridge tonnnage accounts for avionics, sensors and comms, so why not the flight computers? Sensors/fire control could be rated by TL and Civilian or Military for game purposes, and existing designs wouldn't be greatly effected tonnage or cost wise.

Cheers

Paul Bendall<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to disagree here. For a lot of ships, especially small ones, which are most interesting for RPG campaigns, Computer tonnage and energy requirements are important restrictions. MT essentially eliminated these for spacecraft, so you could have a Model/9 computer in each little fighter, and I didn´t quite like it. If you want, reclassify the "computer" as "military electronics" and waive the size restrictions. But eliminating seperate computers altogether will definitely change High Gurad into something entireley different.



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[DrSkull]

I certainly think that you have to keep the "Computer" rating the same for it still to be High Guard and for it to work and be compatible, but what I and others suggest is to just not calling that particular rating "computer" anymore, to avoid the problem with the large size and power ratings which seem unrealistic nowadays to some people.

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Dave "Dr. Skull" Nelson

 

[AndreaV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hunter:
Ok, the plan is to use High Guard as the core ship design system for T20. There have been a couple of mentions in other posts on 'fixes' that some think need to be made to the HG rules.

I'm not promising any changes, but if you think some part of the system needs to be changed, let us know by replying to this thread and telling us what and why.

We will consider what we receive and of course put across to Marc anything we think is appropriate. Understand, Traveller is Marc's game and he has final approval or disapproval on changes such as this.

Hunter<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fix the ship construction time!!!! At the moment there is *no* formula that can reproduce the "curve" in TCS (I've spent weeks trying to find one and believe me there isn't one, you have to use a completely different formula for every bracket).

 

[J]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hunter:
Just so. We don't want to make any changes that causes incompatibility with ships in previous works.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Most of the published HG designs in the CT material have one or two design errors. But thats understandable really, it's far easier these days to double check calculations with a spreadsheet or computer program. I would avoid reprinting old designs without checking them first to see if errors do exist.

I think most problems can be cleared up by clarifying the rules. Don has already mentioned the ship/computer size and battery damage clarifications.

I'd add crew calculation clarification, a few worked examples would solve most questions.

Also needed is some clarification on small drives in several places the rules state a drive takes up a minimum of 1 ton, does this mean if i calculate a 0.5 ton drive I pay for 0.5 tons of drive and then increase the tonnage or I increase the tonnage and then pay for a 1 ton drive?

Don also mentioned the Jtas article, I certainly think the the crew changes Jones suggested make sense. As written a ship with 1000 crew taking a Crew-1 hit will lose 900 crew the second Crew-1 hit will kill 90. This needs to become a linear decline in crew to make frozen watches a sensible concept.

Think about removing drop tanks, several TCS campaigns have found the use of drop tanks open to abuse. Standard demountable tanks are fine but drop tanks lead to problems. Mind you given the setting you've chosen they wouldn't be available (the gazelle was one of the first ships to use drop tanks in 1105ish).

And finally have a think about removing the book 2 compatibility, HG regular allows designers to use Book 2 components which don't really fit with the HG system. But if you were to drop Book 2 compatibility many of the published designs will be invalid because they were designed using Book 2 not HG.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DonM:

4) On the CT-Starships list, a fine person whose name escapes me posted conversions of the added MT high-tech materials back to CT. If you could use those, it would be VERY cool.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don, it was me who posted all the conversions. While they would be nice they are perhaps beyond the scope of the earlier setting of T20. I still have the text files around somewhere so if anyone wants a copy I can send them out. As it seems that HG will remain unchanged in T20 it shouldn't take me too long to produce some MT -> T20 conversion notes.

J.

 

[GypsyComet]

As I posted elsewhere, add a few of the RP touches to ship-building that were found in later editions: external docking of subcraft (and their effect on displacement), sickbays, labs and shops. As for drop tanks, I think the Imperium developed them after this book's declared date, so they can either be nixed completely or stuck in a sidebar.

Since HG is the basis for ships, I assume that the old single-double-triple turret thing will be part of it. I'm split between the sexy-but-impossible nature of those older weapon descriptions, and the realistic-but-ugly versions from TNE and later. My favorite answer is to go for both and just shorten turret-based combat ranges considerably, but I don't expect ot hear any agreement, frankly...

 

[Gaming Glen]

I have one problem with how the computer ratings were used in combat in HG. A fighter could not hold a highly rated computer (i.e. 9) and keep small, it also increased the cost of the fighter tremendously by putting in those larger computers. But with small computers they couldn't hit those high tech battlewagons; yet we get to see this in almost every TV series or movie as fighters chew up the big ships. How did everyone else handle this or is this part of the "Traveller feel"?

 

[Uncle Bob]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gaming Glen:
I have one problem with how the computer ratings were used in combat in HG. A fighter could not hold a highly rated computer.
<snip>
But with small computers they couldn't hit those high tech battlewagons; yet we get to see this in almost every TV series or movie as fighters chew up the big ships. How did everyone else handle this or is this part of the "Traveller feel"?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I handled it by sneering at the movies, and explaining that it didn't work unless the "aircraft" could carry weapons effective out of porportion to their size (like gravity bombs or torpedosin WWII) and were so much faster that they could get close. If people still didn't understand I made 'em watch the appropriate scenes in "Sink the Bismark" and "Pursuit of the Graf Spee."

[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 02 June 2001).]

 

[AndreaV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gaming Glen:
I have one problem with how the computer ratings were used in combat in HG. A fighter could not hold a highly rated computer (i.e. 9) and keep small, it also increased the cost of the fighter tremendously by putting in those larger computers. But with small computers they couldn't hit those high tech battlewagons; yet we get to see this in almost every TV series or movie as fighters chew up the big ships. How did everyone else handle this or is this part of the "Traveller feel"?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Basically its part of the Traveller feel and unfortunately is actually quite realistic. Modern strike aircraft work because they are at least an order of magnitude faster and more agile than their targets and they have access to effective "one shot kill" weapons. Neither of these holds true in Traveller nor realistically would it in space combat.

However, fighters still have a place in Traveller. They are not seen in the line of battle, but they have three very important niches.

First is interface work. Given the leathality of Traveller planetry defences, no admiral who wants to retain his rank will commit a large ship for planetry bombardment. But a swarm of fighters can penetrate the defences and strike the world. They are also very useful as instant airsupport for an invading army. Also most worlds will have fighters in defence.

Their second role is commerce warfare. Merchants and small escorts are vunerable to fighters. Slash and run raids by strike carriers, and convoy defence by cheap escort carriers both are very valid in Traveller.

Their third niche is system defence. A couple of squadrons of fighters stationed close in around a gas giant can be quite effective. Here detection ranges are short and the fighters can use the gas giants EM output as useful stealth. A good analogy here is modern Fast Missile Boats in restricted waters.

 

[JMBrooks]

For those who don't understand why Traveller fighters work like Star Wars fighters, bear in mind that the term "fighter" is to some degree inaccurate. These little ships aren't fighters in the atmospheric sense. Rather, they are much more like the late nineteenth-century torpedo boats or the PT boats or E-boats of WWII. The idea is that they are small, agile craft that aren't necessarily faster than the battlewagons, but that are smaller and harder to hit, cheap to manufacture, more useful for ordinary patrol duties, and dangerous in large numbers.

Effective fighter use in Traveller requires a large number of craft. Fighters in Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica are more of a "knightly steed" sort of vehicle, a means of heroic combat.

 

[kzin]

So, sorta like "PF"/"Fast Patrol Ships" in Star Fleet Battles?