Ship Building Rule Flaw

[Ben Harrison]

The lowest level that a spinal mount weapon can be is TL-8 (a particle beam) however, I have checked (using a spread sheet) and at TL-9 the smallest size hull that I could make such a weapon (and its needed crew) fit is 9000 tons (I could fit both the TL-8 and 9 PAW fit in such a hull).

Yet upon looking up the computer needed to support such a craft (over 4000 and up to 10000 tons) we see that you need at least TL-10

Something must be done to correct this. Either change the TL were spinal weapons come available, adjust the TL were certain computers become available or some sort of official rules stating how lower TL computers can be made to compensate, i.e. at the right TL the computer's total volume ix X while at a lower TL the volume needed is X*Y or X+Y or something similar.

 

[flykiller]

yeah. it's one of those "we gotta publish tomorrow morning" things.

instead of putting the weapon on a ship, you could put it on a monitor (a platform in simple orbit).

 

[vutpakdi]

I don't see a problem there. Yes, you have several systems which seem to be contradictory, but that's okay. Advances in one tech area don't necessarily mean advances in all areas equally.

Yes, you can build a spinal point at tech 8, but you can't build at ship large enough at tech 8. That's okay: the tech in one area hasn't caught up to the tech in another area.

There are equivalent analogies in recent history where there are two technologies which should be able to go together but can't yet for some reason. For example, in the late 40's, the US could build atomic bombs and build balistic missiles, but building ballistic missiles that could carrry the bombs was another mattter entirely.

In the Traveller realm, perhaps one TL-8 world builds the spinal mounts and then ships them or installs them in TL-10 ships from another world.

Alternately, the TL-8 "spinal" mounts could represent a large planetary defense weapon installed in a mountainside. It's the size of something that would go in as a spinal mount, but since the world can't build ships that large yet, the weapon is instead installed in a ground installation.

Ron

 

[far-trader]

I'm pretty sure that HG and/or T20 states you can import up to 2 TL above your building shipyard so a TL 8 shipyard could build a ship around the spinal and then import the required computer for the final fitting.

Still, I agree there are rules instances that should have been better integrated.

 

[Ben Harrison]

Originally posted by flykiller:
yeah. it's one of those "we gotta publish tomorrow morning" things.

instead of putting the weapon on a ship, you could put it on a monitor (a platform in simple orbit).

It would still requre the larger computer. At TL-9 the largest size ship (right now) that the Highest TL-9 computer can control is 4000 tons. At TL-8 and 9 the weapon alone is 5500 and 5000 tons respectivly. So a monitor will not solve the problem.

 

[cmdrx]

This problem is directly from High Guard, of which the T20 ship design system is based.

This issue has been addressed more times than I can remember in the past 20 years or so. Solutions have been many and various and some were metioned in this forum. Others I have heard are use a network of TL8 computers to equal the power of a Model/4 (10,000dt ship), basicaly multiply the size/cost/etc by the difference (in this case x2, Mod/4-Mod/2). Or use the lower tech computer but instill a penalty to hit based on how far the computer is from minimum (again, -2 in this case.) Actualy you can use the same penalty for all ship functions involving moving a ship like aiming spinals, piloting, astrogation, agility, etc... because of inadequate ship avionics. I rule that you can build a big ship at lower tech levels, it just becomes a bigger pain in the you-know-where to fly it with limited equipment.