High Guarding again

[McPerth]

Breaking Off By Acceleration has explicit rules in LBB5.80 on p39, with additional rules on p41-42 covering the Pursuit Step.

I'm afraid I didn't explain myself well there (or I forgot a part of the post): what I meant is tha, logically, if you intended to take a ship with 2G to reserve, a ship of mine with 4G could pursue it, by ignoring your frontline ships (hence the taking of risks). I'm not sure why I didn't clarify it more...

House Rule by @McPerth ... not a matter of RAW.

Please, when quoteing something, at least quote all the relevant part .

If you read it you'll see what I said was not so different than what you said. The whole relevant part is:

a ship without a functioning M-drive cannot voluntarily change lines, though situation may change it

Do you see the difference?

You're also assuming that engagements are "static locations" that craft zoom around in (like a race track or a fish tank?).

No, I'm not assuming this, but it seems you forget another important detail: if you are in combat, there's an enemy, and he's unlikely to collaborate with you in your plans.

When you have a ship without M-drive, it's not inmobile, but unable to change its factor (as you say, in this point we agree). You may order your whole fleet to accelrate to cover it, but, unless the enemy moves away, he will remain in range, and so not in reserve. This will not depend on your ships closing, but on enemy's increasing the range (as he cannot himnself)

If the battle moves on another vector on the 3D space, as you say (or so I understand), it will be left drifting alone, but neither then it will be in the reserve line, but isolated as it is said in teh boarding section (though for diferent reasons).

If you'll forgive the return to the musketman infantry analogy ... what's the difference between 1 man in the line stepping 2 paces backwards compared to every other man in the line (except the 1) stepping 2 paces forwards?
Spoiler alert: there isn't one, with respect to the relative positioning of everyone in that line.

I'm afraid this is not exact: if he steps two steps backwards, he will be 2 farther than the enemy, while the rest would keep the distance. If the rest of the line steps 2 steps forward, this soldier would keep the distance, while the rest will close it 2 steps toward the enemy. IMHO this is a clear difference (and maybe 2 steps don't make the difference, but some more steps do)

Again forgeting there's an enemy there if you're in combat...

A better way to think of things is that there are basically 4 ranges in LBB5.80 combat:

I can gladly accept this ammendment, but in any case, a Tender (or Carrier) in one of those ranges is unlikely to be able to recover subcrafts in anotehr one...

Now, where this gets interesting is a matter of interpretation (ie. House Rule) ... such that a Breakthrough can ALSO occur for any craft on the line of battle which has had no offensive weapons fired at it!

IMHO an interesting proposal, but in the end, probably a needless addition to complexity. I agree a single fighter should not be able to avoid a breackthrough, but even if a ship is not fired upon, the risk remains, and it is as unlike to break the enemy lines as any other ship, even if fired. With your rule, some fighters may still block the larger ships, as long as at lest one of them fires each large ship, even if this fire has no possibility to be effective.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sorry to butt in, but:

You may order your whole fleet to accelrate to cover it, but, unless the enemy moves away, he will remain in range, and so not in reserve.

That would be so in a detailed movement system, say like Mayday or MT, but not in the abstract HG system.

BATTLE FORMATION STEP
Both players form their ships into two lines each. The first is the line of battle; the second is the reserve. Ships in the line of battle may fire and be fired upon. Ships in the reserve are screened; they may not fire and may not be fired upon unless their defending line of battle is broken (see Breakthrough).

Ships in the Reserve are not out of range, they are screened i.e. the battle line imposes themselves in the way of fire.

As soon as the screening line of battle is disabled, you can fire on the reserve:

BREAKTHROUGH STEP
A breakthrough occurs if all of one player's line of battle ships have been rendered incapable of firing any offensive weapons. If this occurs, the other player is allowed to fire all of his or her line of battle ships at any of the ships in the enemy's reserve. The (formerly) screened ships are not allowed to fire back, but may fire defensively.

So they are not out of range, you just lack a line of fire to them.

 

[McPerth]

Played High Guard, sure, but no formal TCS Tournaments or Campaigns.

As said, you have then more experience thabn myself... The Traveller community in Barcelona was then quite small, and I don't knoew anyone who did...

You are reading things as implied that are just not in the rules.

I'd say i'm interprenting the rules as they are written, on a different way than you do, both implying this from them.

Sequence of actions are not implied, it's explicitly stated:

Yes, in this resumed listing (that, BTW, as you say, are in pages 46.47, not 48-49 as the book says in your quote, but that is for the errata thread, if not already there...).

The description of each step may well be interpreted otherwise.

Sequence of play cannot be determined by sentence structure or order.

Are you sure? To my understanding, the order they are listed is exactly what makes it a sequence...

See Step 9: No specific sequence or order is specified or implied.

Actions in step 9 do not interfere with one another. Those in step 1 do, and so are more detailed and in different paragraphs (at least, that is how I interpret them)

The escorts (or sacrificial fighters) are needed when you break off by jump as you load the riders in the battle formation step and jump after combat in the pursuit step.

if only for this, the sacrificial fighters would be quite cheaper... The escorts, jumping independently, are to cover the deployement...

From the 154^th Battle Squadron description, in the SMC (page 36):

These Sloan class Fleet Escorts carry enough firepower to cover the brief interval between launch and action for the Battle Riders (...)

So, the writters seem to interpret it more in my way than in yours...

(if those ships are up to the task, I may agree with you)

Again you are implying things that are not in the rules.
There is only one battle at a time, and only one battle line and reserve.

You leave the battle by breaking off, forming a separate battle:

Then, to you, what do the sentence separated from protecting friendly ships means, if not being separated from the rest of the force?

You leave the battle by breaking off, forming a separate battle:

Yes, you leave it this way, but you may be stranded out by being disabled and separated from protecting friendly ships. If not (again) what does this sentence mean?

But then we leave RAW behind, and enter the realm of house rules.

And if not, we leave logics behind and enter on the realm of absurdness, or can you tell me a single reason (RAW aside) for offensive weapons making you able to keep with the fleet while those without them don’t (both having the M-drive inoperative)?

 

[kilemall]

If the action is being done deliberately (onboard), all it takes is 1+ EP stored in the jump capacitors and then "damaging" the capacitor(s) holding that 1+ EP such that the "storage capacity" of the jump capacitors drops below the amount of EP stored. Basically "deliberate damage" to the jump drive/capacitors by personnel onboard ... either in person or by remote(ly controlled) action.

Such destruction by personnel aboard can be achieved using satchel charges or grenades, relatively easily.

If you know (or don't care ...) what you're doing, even slug thrower bullets can suffice ...

Doesn’t work for me from a joule/boom table perspective, but all of this is to taste. I’m certainly stretching the damage rules to allow a chance of survival beyond a certain point, and may yet differentiate scuttles to be inherently more destructive.

 

[McPerth]

Sorry to butt in, but:

All discussions here are public, so no one is butting in, but adding valuable contributions

 

[McPerth]

Ships in the Reserve are not out of range, they are screened i.e. the battle line imposes themselves in the way of fire.

And can you please tell me how can a ship be so screened, if not by keeping the enemy out of range?

 

[Grav_Moped]

And can you please tell me how can a ship be so screened, if not by keeping the enemy out of range?

Interposed ships providing ECM, incidental anti-missile fire, and stray sandcaster clouds. Sort of like the difficulty with small-arms fire through a melee, but with more smoke bombs and flashbang grenades in the brawl.

 

[Condottiere]

The reason you scuttle a warship, star or otherwise, is to prevent the enemy from capturing it, and gaining technological and/or intelligence insights.

Also, the engagement range rather drastically increased in the hundred years after Trafalgar.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And can you please tell me how can a ship be so screened, if not by keeping the enemy out of range?

You can't shoot at what you can't see. Not by being invisible, but by distracting you with something more visible.

At 1 ls ≈ 300 000 km range we are not seeing clearly, we are looking at weak sensor blips.
A weaker sensor signal will be masked by a stronger nearby signal.


How does a submarine sneak into a harbour? By masking their sound signature with the stronger sound signature of a nearby surface ship.

 

[Spinward Flow]

You can't shoot at what you can't see. Not by being invisible, but by distracting you with something more visible.

Not plausible in space combat.
What you're talking about is functionally an occultation (one object passing in front of another).

When you're talking engagement ranges measured in fractions of a light-second, the notion of using one craft to "block line of sight" to a second craft consistently enough to interpose and intercept any incoming fire directed at the screened craft in the reserve is ... laughable.

Given the hull sizes of craft (small or big) relative to the engagement ranges, you're talking about targets the size of a grain of sand held at (beyond) arm's length.

 

[kilemall]

Not plausible in space combat.
What you're talking about is functionally an occultation (one object passing in front of another).

When you're talking engagement ranges measured in fractions of a light-second, the notion of using one craft to "block line of sight" to a second craft consistently enough to interpose and intercept any incoming fire directed at the screened craft in the reserve is ... laughable.

Given the hull sizes of craft (small or big) relative to the engagement ranges, you're talking about targets the size of a grain of sand held at (beyond) arm's length.

We’re not talking about physically blocking, but rather sensor ghosts and distracts, which certainly is a real thing.

 

[Spinward Flow]

We’re not talking about physically blocking, but rather sensor ghosts and distracts, which certainly is a real thing.

Although not explicitly stated in the RAW, it is implied by inference that in LBB5.80 combat your computer model determines the "strength" of your Electronic Warfare capabilities (ECM/ECCM for offense/defense) due to how the model number is a +/- DM in to-hit and defense penetration rolls.

I personally like to think that higher computer model numbers also "have better sensor and communications suites" associated with them, but that is decidedly UNsupported by RAW ... mainly because LBB2.77/LBB2.81 didn't work things that way (and would have made the 1bis on Scout/Couriers look really inadequate).

 

[Badenov]

Although not explicitly stated in the RAW, it is implied by inference that in LBB5.80 combat your computer model determines the "strength" of your Electronic Warfare capabilities (ECM/ECCM for offense/defense) due to how the model number is a +/- DM in to-hit and defense penetration rolls.

I personally like to think that higher computer model numbers also "have better sensor and communications suites" associated with them, but that is decidedly UNsupported by RAW ... mainly because LBB2.77/LBB2.81 didn't work things that way (and would have made the 1bis on Scout/Couriers look really inadequate).

In their defense, the LBB2 Scouts were not intended to work in a contested EW environment and may have had understrength computers ill-suited to that purpose. That's what you get from the low bidder. I also consider that a ship's sensor suite is partly based on the computer model. A TL15 'Computer' the size of a large room almost certainly holds more than just a computer.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

In their defense, the LBB2 Scouts were not intended to work in a contested EW environment and may have had understrength computers ill-suited to that purpose. That's what you get from the low bidder. I also consider that a ship's sensor suite is partly based on the computer model.

An LBB2 Scout is just the cheapest ship possible with LBB2...
By LBB2 sensors and commo are part of the bridge system.

LBB2'81, p13:
A. The Bridge: All ships must allocate 2% of their tonnage (minimum 20 tons) to basic controls, communications equipment, avionics, scanners, detectors, sensors, and other equipment for proper operation of the ship.

A TL15 'Computer' the size of a large room almost certainly holds more than just a computer.

Why? Our current experience is that computers grow. The internet is the revenge of the massive computer:
E.g. CWL1 Data Centre (Newport, Wales, UK), roughly 150 000 Dt, even uses a few EP.

https://brightlio.com/largest-data-centers-in-the-world/


This:

is a "mobile terminal" that uses big computers for the heavy lifting. Without big computers, like above, they wouldn't be all that much use...

 

[Rupert]

Yes, because it's a true statement.
However, the framing of the assertion is a bit confusing.

What actually happens is NOT that a craft lacking a functional maneuver drive "moves" from the battle line to the reserve (implying the craft "mobilizes" itself into the rear).

Instead, what happens is the battle line MOVES in such a way as to screen/shift the location of the craft lacking a functional maneuver drive into a position which is "out of range" of continuing combat.

That requires that the other side are jolly nice chaps and move away from the non-manoeuvring ship so that you can put it in reserve and 'screen' it from fire. Why should they? At the very least you'd expect some mechanism by which they could contest this movement of the lines.

A better way to think about how the LBB5.80 combat system works is that the "line of battle" IS FLUID ... and that it shifts (at the start of) every combat round ... rather than being something static (and unchanging).

Fluid and almost entirely under the control of each side when it comes to their ships.

 

[Rupert]

The escorts (or sacrificial fighters) are needed when you break off by jump as you load the riders in the battle formation step and jump after combat in the pursuit step.

A bunch of Sloans with barely any armour or screens will not last long as battle line, a breakthrough is likely...

That depends on how much excess firepower the attacking player has, because fire has to be assigned to a ship before it's rolled for so unless there's lots of spare damage the fire will have to be allocated on the basis of 'enough' to each ship, hoping the dice don't misbehave.

 

[Rupert]

And can you please tell me how can a ship be so screened, if not by keeping the enemy out of range?

By waving your hands really, really hard.

The reserve can't be out of range, because that would put them too far away (if the battle line to close) for the free movement in and out of the battle line, and for breakthroughs to have any chance of catching them inside a turn.

Yet, if the reserve is not out of range there's no logical way it couldn't be fired upon by the other side (and no logical way it couldn't fire back).

It, like a great deal else in HG's combat rules, is a great abstraction.

 

[Rupert]

We’re not talking about physically blocking, but rather sensor ghosts and distracts, which certainly is a real thing.

But a 200 DTon free trader, with a computer/1, 1-g manoeuvre, and a single laser turret (and thus no agility unless it uses emergency agility - it can move or it can shoot) can hold a battle line until the ability to fire that laser is lost, and 'screen' an arbitrary number of ships of arbitrary tonnage.

It's a rules construct, nothing more.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That depends on how much excess firepower the attacking player has, because fire has to be assigned to a ship before it's rolled for so unless there's lots of spare damage the fire will have to be allocated on the basis of 'enough' to each ship, hoping the dice don't misbehave.

If we are using statistical combat resolution we know exactly how many batteries are needed to disable a ship.

If we used a reasonable ship that number would be much higher, perhaps something like:

Try something like this at TL-15 (J-4, 6G, Armour 15, missile bay, damper):

FM-A146C92-F80900-45009-0      MCr 1 736       1 900 Dton
bearing     1     11  1                           Crew=36
batteries   1     11  1                             TL=15
                       Cargo=12 Fuel=988 EP=228 Agility=6

Spoiler:

Dual Occupancy                                       12     2 170
                                     USP    #      Dton      Cost
Hull, Streamlined   Custom             A          1 900        
Configuration       Needle/Wedge       1                      228
Scoops              Streamlined                                 2
Armour              15                 F            304       547
                                                               
Jump Drive                             4    1        95       380
Manoeuvre D         Z                  6    1        47        96
Power Plant                           12    1       228       684
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-4, 4 weeks            4       988        
Purifier                                    1        15         0
                                                               
Bridge                                      1        38        10
Computer            m/9                9    1        13       140
                                                               
Staterooms                                  4        16         2
Staterooms, Half                           32        64         8
                                                               
Cargo                                                12        
                                                               
Bay                 Missile, 50 t      9    1        50        13
Triple Turret       Beam               4    1         1         3
Single Turret       Fusion             5    1         2         2
Triple Turret 7/bat Sand               8    1         7         5    7 mounts organised into 1 battery.
                                                               
Nuclear Damper                         9    1        20        50
                                                               
Nominal Cost        MCr 2 169,50         Sum:        12     2 170
Class Cost          MCr   455,60        Valid        ≥0        ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 1 735,60                                
                                                               
                                                               
Crew &               High     0        Crew          Bridge    11
Passengers            Mid     0          36       Engineers     4
                      Low     0                     Gunners    14
                 Extra SR     0      Frozen         Service     7
               # Frozen W     0           0          Flight     0

Half the price of a Sloan, and much sturdier...


That said, the Sloan is one of the better escorts in S9, with some armour and useful firepower...


If the enemy can run off a squadron of Nolikians:
It can probably dispatch a few Sloans quickly enough...

 

[Condottiere]

Depends what spacecraft is doing the screening, and against what type of spacecraft it's doing the screening against.

The screen also has to be in relative position as regards to what it's defending, so if one is in motion, so, too, has to be the other, at the same rate.

You could say it exerts a sphere of influence that has to be neutralized first, before getting at the baggage train.

Or, bypassed.