Proto-High Guard 5, take two

[robject]

Mike Wightman, McPerth, Craig Glesner, and Jeff Johnson contributed ideas to this list.

CONCEPTS

1. These rules deal with tactical battles. Logistics and strategic positioning are beyond this scope.

2. Rules determine when a unit is activated.

3. Low crew quality, low morale, or "bamboozlement" means a unit has a delay before it is "combat ready" (thanks Mace!).

4. Ships can be screened.

5. Flanking provides an attack advantage.

6. Ships can be forced to retreat.

7. Not all Batteries Bear.

8. Spines always Bear -- Forward.

9. A Leader can ignore or nullify rules 2-8 under certain circumstances.

10. Multiple batteries of a kind may be grouped into a larger battery. This may include nearby ships.

11. Operational rule: Jump scatter is a reality.

12. Operational rule: Insystem movement is conducted differently from tactical movement.

13. Payload-based ship design ("Percentage-based" design). Size is a result, expressed as [payload / (1.00 - operational fraction)].
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[Mace]

Great work!

How about state of readiness? A ship at a 'relaxed' state of readiness is going to take longer to reach battle stations than one that's at a more alert posture.

The duration from current state to combat ready would be dependent on your point 3 (a greener crew would take longer than a veteran crew).

 

[pendragonman]

Mike Wightman, McPerth, Craig Glesner, and Jeff Johnson contributed ideas to this list.

CONCEPTS

1. These rules deal with tactical battles. Logistics and strategic positioning are beyond this scope.

Of course this is true. Logistics and strategic deployments would be part of a campaign setting like a T5 version of TCS.

 

[robject]

Great work!

How about state of readiness? A ship at a 'relaxed' state of readiness is going to take longer to reach battle stations than one that's at a more alert posture.

The duration from current state to combat ready would be dependent on your point 3 (a greener crew would take longer than a veteran crew).

I think this would work as one application of a general case where a unit is bamboozled.

 

[Ulsyus]

This looks like an excellent starting point. The real meat comes from this point. Regarding your foundation concepts:

1. These rules deal with tactical battles. Logistics and strategic positioning are beyond this scope.

Do you include in-system movement as Strategic or Operational (grand-tactical) movement? This bears on your point 11.

2. Rules determine when a unit is activated.

Will this be linked to point 3?

4. Ships can be screened.

Is this a function of escort vessels in the game, or do you have something else in mind?

5. Flanking provides an attack advantage.

By way of arbitrary bonus, or as a function of limiting batteries that can bear on the flankers (eg: spinal mounts won't be pointing at the flankers)?

6. Ships can be forced to retreat.

Is this based on damage taken with crew quality, or based on an arbitrary rule?

8. Spines always Bear -- Forward.

Forward being the direction they're thrusting in? They can not thrust for a turn and thus point their spinal weapons in a different direction?

10. Multiple batteries of a kind may be grouped into a larger battery. This may include nearby ships.

This could be a serious foundational concept: do weapons bear on defences in series or parallel? Does a damper have an effect on everything passing through it's area of effect, or does it have to be targeted at each weapon system it can impact on?

11. Operational rule: Jump scatter is a reality.

Another one that relates to the difference between strategic and operational warfare.

I hope that's not too many questions at this point.

 

[robject]

Hey, I was happy just to get concepts written down. Figuring out actual content is intimidating. But here we go.


Q1. (and Q11.) Do you include in-system movement as Strategic or Operational (grand-tactical) movement?

Short Answer: Leaning towards strategic.

That's a good question -- and Jump Scatter is for sure part of that question.

It SEEMS to me, and I could be wrong, that strategic movement fails with "ad hoc" battles. In other words, the invading fleet as a single "fleet card" unwittingly comes in range of home forces. It seems cumbersome to have to break down that fleet into task forces before combat can begin.

The benefit to using a single "strategic" unit is that Jump Scatter is very easy to implement: arriving forces are "bamboozled" until they manage to "organize themselves", which may depend on Leadership and Crew Quality. (But: how do we use Crew Quality across an entire fleet?)

A more "operational" option, where the invading fleet arrives as task force units, creates a setup phase. In this phase the invading fleet arrives, scattered in a modified Flux curve across the target destination (X,Y) and target time (T). Thus, Jump Scatter is inherently accounted for.


Q2. When is a unit activated?

Short Answer: I don't know.

When I think of unit activation, I don't think of Battle Rider. Instead, I think of Memoir '44, where only a portion of the entire force is activated. The effect is sort of like if a single round of Battle Rider were broken up into several phases. In allowing more than one unit to act, the turn is given substance, but is short enough to keep the passive player's attention focused. Even more so, since the phasing player is limited to making the most use of the units he's allowed to activate. I consider this a win-win.

That said, there's a lot to be said for Initiative Order, especially if Crew Quality and/or Leadership needs more emphasis. So while I love Memoir, this is high-tech space combat, not World War Two. So then I think about a Frankensteinian hybrid, where groups based on Initiative are activated, but that creates a game-able datum. Do we want that? I don't know.


Q4. "Ships can be screened" means what? Escorts?

Right, I'm thinking about the role of some fighters and escorts.


Q5. Does flanking provide an arbitrary bonus, or does it limit batteries bearing, or ?

When I tried this out, I figured that flanking ships were allowed to pool their attacks. A coordinated attack. The Mass Fire rule would apply. But you're quite right in that a safe flank is one where the enemy's spine cannot bear on you.


Q6. Is retreat based on damage taken with crew quality, or based on an arbitrary rule?

I was thinking that a successful attack forces a retreat. This works very well in deckplan combat, and I figure it's an easy way to add tactical maneuvering in the game. It's also a nice way to inflict "tactical" damage to an enemy -- especially since a Victory almost never results in annihilation of the enemy. Or shouldn't.


Q8. Spines face "forward"? What is "forward" in a ship?

Right, great clarifying question. I mean the direction the ship is pointing in.

How ships move is something I worry about. I prefer not to use vectors, because I like the game surface cluttered with ships, not vectors. I'm deferring.


Q10. Mass fire ("Multiple batteries" from "multiple ships") is a serious foundational concept. Do weapons bear on defences in series or parallel? Does a damper have an effect on everything passing through its area of effect, or does it have to be targeted at each weapon system it can impact on?

Short answer: I prefer options that require fewer dice rolls, but etc etc.

GREAT questions.

Definitions: Assume that

• A "Battery" is a grouping of like weapons, possibly from multiple sources.
• An "Attack" is an attempt by a battery to damage a target.
  

If defenses are applied serially, like High Guard, then I think it's easier to tune the system to work with the matrix of weapons and defenses in Traveller. BUT that creates a dice-rolling-palooza. And the ONLY dice-palooza I can stand are ones where each attack is done with a single d6. Those can be fun. Others are never fun.

If defenses are applied in parallel -- for example, as a set of cumulative DMs to one task roll -- then the game moves quicker and feels less like a dice-rolling-palooza.

SCREENS -- my humble opinion -- are a kind of armor, so do not "target" attacks -- and that includes primitive forms of screens, too (sandcasters).

 

[Original_Carl]

How about fleet costs in RU? Fleet TL as an effect on combat capability?

Thanks for taking this on, Rob. A T5 High Guard would really enhance my game. I'd be willing to contribute to funding this. PM me if you have questions.

 

[robject]

[FONT=arial,helvetica]I've merged in some suggestions from Mike Wightman and extended my concepts.

MISSIONS

1. Goals include assault, occupation, escape, neutralizing the enemy, etc.

COUNTERS and MOVEMENT

2. One counter is a squadron of like ships. Weakened and reinforced squadrons are represented by additional chits.

I reserve the use of the flipside of the counter for nefarious purposes.

3. Tactical movement rules for units in battle, operational movement rules for units which are not actually engaged. Jump Scatter may apply in both scenarios!

Tactical movement may be as simple as a range-band system, or may use hex mats or surfaces with ranges measured in hexes or cm. Marc likes vector movement, so I’ll have to brainstorm about that.

With the invading fleet arriving as task force units, we have a game setup phase. In this phase the invading fleet arrives, scattered in a modified Flux curve across the target destination (X,Y) and target time (T).
Thus, Jump Scatter is inherently accounted for. “Green” crew can additionally have a “bamboozled” chit on their units as they struggle to organize.

4. Rules determine when a unit is activated.

Non-total unit activation can keep the "passive" side engaged by shortening the time between phases / rounds. It also forces the phasing player to be more effective in his action choices - it makes them worth more.
And it doesn't have to feel contrived -- it can work to emphasize other aspects of the game (initiative, crew quality, leadership, handicapping, etc).

ATTACKS and DAMAGE

5. Under certain circumstances (flanking? other formations?), multiple batteries of a kind may be grouped into a larger battery. This may include nearby ships.
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[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]6. I don't know the attack task mechanic. T5 ACS uses tasks, Flux, and even 1D in certain places.
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[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]In Traveller wargames, relative TL difference is the thing. Make it leverage relative differences and the game is inherently adapted to the entire span of TLs.

[/FONT]7[/FONT]. Defenses. Assume that
• A "Battery" is a grouping of like weapons, possibly from multiple sources.
• [/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica]An "Attack" is an attempt by a battery to damage a target.[/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]• Screens behave like a kind of armor. Sandcasters included.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]• Turrets are like screens with anti-fighter capability.

[/FONT][/FONT] If defenses are applied serially, like High Guard, then I think it's easier to tune the system to work with the matrix of weapons and defenses in Traveller.
BUT that creates a dice-rolling-palooza. And the ONLY dice-palooza I can stand are ones where each attack is done with a single d6. Those can be fun. Others are never fun.

If defenses are applied in parallel -- for example, as a set of cumulative DMs to one task roll -- then the game moves quicker and feels less like a dice-rolling-palooza.

[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]8[/FONT]. When a squadron takes damage, the owning player decides which ships take the damage (this is Screening). The player removes a "[/FONT][FONT=arial,helvetica][FONT=arial,helvetica]reinforcement[/FONT]" chit from a target, or if there are none of those present, adds a "Damage" chit to the counter, degrading all tasks for a ship.

TACTICAL SITUATIONS

9. Low crew quality or morale makes a unit perform poorly.

10. Line of fire for most weapons (but not meson guns).

11. Torpedo/missile salvos are launched units. They must move each turn after launching or be discarded.

12. Flanking provides an attack advantage.

When I tried this out, I figured that flanking ships were allowed to pool their attacks. A coordinated attack. The Mass Fire rule would apply. But you're quite right in that a safe flank is one where the enemy's spine cannot bear on you.

13. Ships can be forced to retreat.

I was thinking that a successful attack forces a retreat. This works very well in deckplan combat, and I figure it's an easy way to add tactical maneuvering in the game.
It's also a nice way to inflict "tactical" damage to an enemy -- especially since a Victory almost never results in annihilation of the enemy. Or shouldn't.

14. Not all Batteries Bear. Spines always Bear -- Nose-ward.

15. A Leader can ignore or nullify rules 9-14 under certain circumstances.

16. Lone ships can do things that squadrons cannot. They have a place in the game.

SHIP DESIGN

17. Payload-based ship design ("Percentage-based" design). Size is a result, expressed as [payload / (1.00 - operational fraction)].

18. Spines are payload, and have their own mini-design system whose output is reminiscent of spines in High Guard.

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[robject]

How about fleet costs in RU?

Ooooh, I forgot to add that to the Fleet Combat concepts. Thanks!

 

[robject]

HA T5 High Guard would really enhance my game. I'd be willing to contribute to funding this.

Marc's been slowly approaching this, and has been making noises about tabletop Traveller starship wargaming recently.

 

[Ulsyus]

Am I wrong in assuming that you're talking about a hex map and counter game, or are you planning on trying this with miniatures?

Q1. (and Q11.) Do you include in-system movement as Strategic or Operational (grand-tactical) movement?

Short Answer: Leaning towards strategic.

That's a good question -- and Jump Scatter is for sure part of that question.

It SEEMS to me, and I could be wrong, that strategic movement fails with "ad hoc" battles. In other words, the invading fleet as a single "fleet card" unwittingly comes in range of home forces. It seems cumbersome to have to break down that fleet into task forces before combat can begin.

Yes, BUT having an operational level map of a system, and the trick would be to have a map board that could be reconfigured for different systems, that would be the great set-up for the actual tactical action. It's in the operational manoeuvre that success could be gained before a shot is even fired. For the most interesting games, ones that have opponents popping missiles and spinal beams off at each other, that's the culmination of everything going right for them at a grand-tactical level.

So I get why you might want to shy away from that, but I still find it a fascinating option. I played around with trying to do something like this a while ago using the counters from Imperium.

Q[/SIZE]5. Does flanking provide an arbitrary bonus, or does it limit batteries bearing, or ?

When I tried this out, I figured that flanking ships were allowed to pool their attacks. A coordinated attack. The Mass Fire rule would apply. But you're quite right in that a safe flank is one where the enemy's spine cannot bear on you.

I think this is important, as it has a significant bearing (but not with batteries: Nyahahahahaaa) on how ships are constructed, what batteries bear on which aspects, and how they tactically arrange or support each other. A wide flanking manoeuvre done operationally would be come down to maths, but if the flankee didn't punch out of there they'd potentially be in serious trouble. A flankee in a tactical action should be at a serious disadvantage given thrusting, except towards the flanker, and bearing with a spinal mount are a bit incompatible.

Q6.

Is retreat based on damage taken with crew quality, or based on an arbitrary rule?

I was thinking that a successful attack forces a retreat. This works very well in deckplan combat, and I figure it's an easy way to add tactical maneuvering in the game. It's also a nice way to inflict "tactical" damage to an enemy -- especially since a Victory almost never results in annihilation of the enemy. Or shouldn't.

Had you considered making it a product of damage taken and crew quality? A bit hard to do with counters unless you have morale markers available, but it would certainly make for a good game. More ships, cheaper because the crew quality is down, but more ready to cut and run when damaged to only a particular threshold...

Q8. Spines face "forward"? What is "forward" in a ship?

Right, great clarifying question. I mean the direction the ship is pointing in.

How ships move is something I worry about. I prefer not to use vectors, because I like the game surface cluttered with ships, not vectors. I'm deferring.

Again, this could come down to a counters versus miniatures thing. With my minis I use ship data sheets with a movement section, so can just write down their current direction and speed as well as which direction and how much they've applied thrust each turn. Plus, writing it down allows for hidden simultaneous orders. That's just a game philosophy thing, but by George does it introduce nail-biting and an great great game!!

Q10. Mass fire ("Multiple batteries" from "multiple ships") ...

Short answer: I prefer options that require fewer dice rolls, but etc etc.

Absolutely - more focus on the tactics and reactions than on chasing dice about the table.

 

[Ulsyus]

Marc's been slowly approaching this, and has been making noises about tabletop Traveller starship wargaming recently.

Which takes me back to an earlier question... counters or miniatures?

By that I mean is the counter one that's just a silhouette/picture or is it one that has stats on it, as they do in BR?

 

[robject]

A couple of your other thoughts first.

I am thinking of an "operational" solar system, as you describe it: a pile of planets etc, and an easy way to move between them, without using tactical movement.

Now, I hadn't thought of "wide" flanking, and I find I like the idea. It seems less messy than modeling it tactically. And it makes the operational game more interesting.

Which takes me back to an earlier question... counters or miniatures?

By that I mean is the counter one that's just a silhouette/picture or is it one that has stats on it, as they do in BR?

Yeah, good question. I think I need to try different things out. I think BR is definitely the upper-bound of detail, and would prefer to actually see less detail and bake a lot of that into a combat results system.

 

[robject]

All this may shift into a clearer focus soon; I've asked Marc how he sees Battle Class combat "looking" / working. Lacking this information directly, I assume that he starts with High Guard and goes from there.

BUT even so, it seems to me that operational rules are needed, and can be predicted rather closely, within a manageable margin.

 

[robject]

And We're Back

So I asked Marc a very brief and open-ended question about his vision for Battle Class combat:

how do you see Battle Class rules differing from ACS combat, and High Guard combat?

And he replied:

Battle Class depends on Battle Ships/ Ships of the Line / Capital Ships. If focusses on building and operating Battleships, and other ships are only side issues in space combat.

Thus, a battle is primarily BIG ships, with Cruisers appearing only as supplements. Destroyers, Escorts, and Fighters are abstracted.


There is probably some differentiation between Battleships, in what I hope becomes a Paper/Scissors/Rock relationship.


Battleships. Riders (in the 100,000 ton range). Fighter Carriers (with fighters being in the 1,000 ton range). Single Issue BIG ship (focused on a MainWeapon of one type). Monitors (defined as defensive and virtually immobile). and whatever else can appear in this mix.

 

[robject]

BCS Design

Now I'm going to do some midrash on his reply.

Battle-Class Ship Design

[FONT=arial,helvetica]Battle Class depends on Battle Ships/ Ships of the Line / Capital Ships. If focuses on building and operating Battleships, and other ships are only side issues in space combat.

BCS = design the Red Dragon, and let the Orcs be Orcs.

BCS is about Capital Ships. Last time we had this conversation, Marc mentioned that smaller ships can be designed using BCS, but the focus of BCS as a game (e.g. operations) is the most powerful ships.

More notes. I have lobbied for "percentage"-based design, where the hull volume is the last thing to be figured out, and Marc is friendly to the idea. Less powerful ships are within the design system's capability, and must be so, because even "powerful" ships vary in size, and components really do not change between ACS and BCS.

There probably will be abstractions or efficiencies for BCS to prevent death by detail. That's an overly dramatic way of saying the designer shouldn't have to sweat over whether or not to put 300 sandcaster turrets versus 400 sandcaster turrets on his Dreadnought. If you build a Dreadnought, by default it should be adequate, until you tweak things.

Consider that a "Design a Red Dragon" sequence should not assume that a dragon has zero armor by default. Instead, you design a Red Dragon, give it a personality, age it several hundred years, and you have Smaug.
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[robject]

BCS Combat I

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Thus, a battle is primarily BIG ships, with Cruisers appearing only as supplements. Destroyers, Escorts, and Fighters are abstracted.

In combat, things smaller than Cruisers are abstract. I don't know if that means grouped into counters, or if they are FEATURES of the capital ships themselves (that is possible).

I suspect there will be times when smaller units can have their own counter -- a large number of single-person fighters sent to destroy the Death Star -- but they're likely to be represented by a single counter (plus one for the Millennium Falcon, of course).

But I bet that's an edge case.

So: expect to see Ships of the Line and Cruisers.
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Battleships. Riders (in the 100,000 ton range). Fighter Carriers (with fighters being in the 1,000 ton range). Single Issue BIG ship (focused on a Main Weapon of one type). Monitors (defined as defensive and virtually immobile). and whatever else can appear in this mix.

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A 100,000 ton Rider is a bruiser to be sure. This sounds like Marc thinks of Nolikians as Cruisers, which is not unreasonable.

It sounds like thousand-ton "fighters" would be represented by a cloud, a mass counter, doesn't it?

And I think he's got "Monitor" mixed up with "Sentinel", but he tends not to mix things up in that way, so this sounds like a change in terms for "Monitor"... or maybe such a ship needs every possible nook and cranny for defenses, to the exclusion of significant maneuver... so it's a Denial of Entry force, a Roadblock, something that protects a planet or immobile resource.

 

[robject]

BCS Combat II

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There is probably some differentiation between Battleships, in what I hope becomes a Paper/Scissors/Rock relationship.

Rock/Paper/Scissors -- I'd like this to have a psychological element. A player takes risks that can be successful if he can judge what the other player is likely to do.

But, I don't think he's thinking of an overly abstract combat model. As in, roll 1D for one dreadnought to attack another dreadnought. Big Ships with One Spine made a design choice for a reason. That reason would presumably be part of the combat model. And it could be part of a Rock/Paper/Scissors rule.

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[robject]

BCS Combat III - the playing field

Marc did not say whether or not these rules were miniatures-friendly, counters-friendly, or High Guard-like.

His lack of comment on movement, however, might hint that it's more like High Guard than tabletop.

On the other hand, he has talked about tabletop games at other times. So, I don't think I can infer anything more - I asked for concepts, and he replied with the two major concepts (it's about Capital Ships, and combat is Rock/Paper/Scissors).

And in fact, at one point he brainstormed about tabletop Traveller:

4 x 8 foot, tiled pattern on 6 inch [15 cm*] white hexes, each further subdivided into one inch hexes in a slight grey. [9 x 18 six-inch large hexes]

Stage space battles [with adaptations] for BCS battles using High Guard or Battle Class rules...

The outer 9 x 18 hexes don't seem like enough for squadron battles, but inner 2.5 cm* hexes sounds like plenty (54 x 108).

I would lobby for resin miniatures which are 2.5 to 7.5 cm long (so they could span hexes) -- because spanning hexes can "hold" a rule mechanic with no effort. For example, it could say something about the "weight" of a ship's sensor signature, or about its zone of control.


* note When I say "15 cm", and "2.5 cm" I really mean just a tiny bit over that, because I am American. Similarly I think of "metric feet", where one foot = 30 "centimeters".

 

[Ulsyus]

I think BR is definitely the upper-bound of detail, and would prefer to actually see less detail and bake a lot of that into a combat results system.

In a number of ways BR was much simpler than HG, particularly WRT the means of determining whether damage had been done or not.

If the game is to be about opposing sides of any reasonable size (more than a BatRon and its supporting escorts) then the dice rolling really would need to be kept at a minimum to allow for a focus on what's actually happening on the display (aka the table) and on what the commander next needs to do with his vessels. Fighting the ship rather than fighting the rules, if you will.