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ship combat

what system do you use for ship combat ?
does anyone have a nice simple one that leaves movement in the the capable hands of characters with skill and thus the players immagination ?
i cant be bothered with vectors .
 
High Guard (CT Book 5) is probably your best choice. It is what we always ended up with when players got tired of vector movement.
 
thanks guys .
i even thought high guard was too complicated with all those tables , but maybe i should just settle for that .
i will check out the link .
 
I use the Ben Bell patented cinematic make it up as you go along space combat system. Has worked great up to now, let dice rolls influence you but you are the final arbitrator.
 
Originally posted by BenBell:
I use the Ben Bell patented cinematic make it up as you go along space combat system. Has worked great up to now, let dice rolls influence you but you are the final arbitrator.
You must be using also the BenBell 2.1 Audio-Visual Cue-Master and the BenBell LIVE! Audio Synthesizer?
 
Hey gang,

Vectors are of course the most realistic way to go, but it's rare that the effects of a space combat will be altered very much by dismissing vectors in favor of something more manageable (i.e. "flat"). However, if you're racing through an asteroid field (stupid Han-solo tricks), 3D vector resolution is pretty much necessary, but then the exhiliration of such an event gets lost in timely calculations (unless you're like me and you love vectors). What we need here is a computer program - the physics of the thing wouldn't be prohibitively difficult to code...

You gotta admit, space combat would be fun as hell if you had a program to compute your alternatives at every step (after all, the ship's computer would provide as much). But it would have to calculate line of sight, resolve missile movement, and ultimately track everything through an asteroid field... This is really no more ambitious than many of the user-designed programs for creating systems, sectors, and worlds.

Does anyone know of a program already out there that we could tweak to meet our Traveller needs? We could set up something using Python, but then we'd be reliant on running the Python shell... any suggestions?

- Milo Holt
 
"Python"? Is that the cutting-edge beta test version from the British Ministry of Silly Walks? ;)
 
Has anyone figured out how to incorporate the towed missile pods found in Weber's Harrington Universe into your space ship combat?

What about the towed arrays (such as used by submarines today) for ECM and detection functions? The Harrington Ghost platforms would also be an interesting tool to be used in larger ship combats.

GDW's BATTLE RIDER uses active and passive sensors ON each vesel but nothing about a towed array. The missiles in BATTLE RIDER are limited to those carried ON each ship. Again nothing about a towed missile pod. Or have I missed something? I have only scanned the rules and not had a chance to play out an engagement yet (just picked up a copy of the game a few days ago).
 
Aravain: '"Python"? Is that the cutting-edge beta test version from the British Ministry of Silly Walks?'

No, no - it's not even remotely connected to flying circuses and the like, and it's been around long enough to pass beta testing...

Seriously, though - I'd like to help put together a simple turn-based 3D space-combat program.

Here are the assumptions:
- We all like Traveller
- Space combat simulation is an interest
- We use computers

I'd honestly like to see more software for the traveller rpg - it can only help the game.

And for those of us who participate in tabletop online rpgs (i.e. GRIP), better software correlates directly to a better game...

C'mon, help me out here - are you really uninterested in a virtual 3D combat tabletop?

- Milo Holt
 
Something like this?:
Book2_1.jpg


Book2_2.jpg


This is a Book 2 combat program I started writing a while back in Blitz3D. I got the vectored movement pretty much completed, but got sidetracked by writing other projects before getting the combat routines going. Here, red vectors show the past, blue show the undisturbed future, yellow shows gravity vector, green vector shows acceleration, and white vector shows the final result. The green disk shows the ship's acceleration limit (i.e. you can only drag the acceleration endpoint with the mouse in this area), and the gray disks show the planet's gravity well in 0.25 G increments.

I hope to get back to it at some point. So, yes, a virtual 3D combat tabletop is certainly possible to create.
 
Originally posted by Loki:
GDW's BATTLE RIDER uses active and passive sensors ON each vesel but nothing about a towed array. The missiles in BATTLE RIDER are limited to those carried ON each ship. Again nothing about a towed missile pod. Or have I missed something? I have only scanned the rules and not had a chance to play out an engagement yet (just picked up a copy of the game a few days ago).
_________________________________________________
Well, having a copy of battle rider for some time (and have used it too for resolving multi ship battles in me TNE campaign), there are sensor drones in the set you can deploy (like a missile), for that extra "reach" of vision. :cool: ;) .

As for towed missile pods...Hmmm.
This would require you to have enough MFD's (master fire directors) to guide them to target abaord your ship. Think of them as disposable missile launcher/ bays (5 large bay size missiles) externally grappled. (affecting performance of ship's speed of course, until deployed! HH's universe is missile heavy, and spinal weapon light. (perfect setting for TL-A-C Navies). The missile pods could be released and "towed" by remote control, and fired enmasse.
(Say a pod of 15 missiles (3x sets of five already to launch)with three auto launchers.)
This is quite a wallop if any get thru PD fires.
You will find rules for overwhelming missile fire in the Boxed set. very simplistic. Enjoy it!
 
Originally posted by WendellM:


I hope to get back to it at some point. So, yes, a virtual 3D combat tabletop is certainly possible to create.
Wendellm, I trust that time will be soon! Those screens look great...

Beladan
 
Well, I'm an engineer not a programmer. But I'm really good at breaking stuff.

So, I'd be more than happy, estatic in fact, to help test this in a gaming situation.

So, if the dust gets brushed off, and the executable is ready, just send a link and let's have a go at her ;)
 
I'm rather fond of pods myself, but I think they would require some special rules to make them work in game. Consider:

1000 ton pod launch facility, comprised of:
* 6 launch tubes for 25 ton pods
* extensive fire control and electronics suite to control the pods
* hardware to move and launch the pods
* 700 tons of magazine space to hold about 24 pods.

If you assume that missile bays are mostly magazine space, then its reasonable to assume that a 25 ton pod could hold about 3 shots of ship killers (say the same attack factor as a 50 ton bay at the same TL). If you allow the pods to ripplefire their entire loadout at once, then each pod is worth about three missile bays.

Our six tube launcher is then able to sustain a rate of fire equivalent to 18 x 50 ton missile bays. (at least until it runs out of pods.)

The same 1000 ton space of hull could have been used to mount 20 x 50 ton missile bays.

Where the benefit comes into play is when you deal with batteries bearing. Its safe to assume that all pods in play have bearing. It is not safe to assume the same thing with the bays. To mount 20 missile bays, you have to have at least 20,000 tons of ship. (And then you've pretty much got only missiles.) IIRC, that means that only 80% of your batteries bear (about 16 "tubes").

The other benefit comes in if you allow your pods to be "seeded" before your fire control passes the order to launch. If you program a double salvo of pods in the launch, you would have 36 launchers instead of 18, but you have to do it over two turns. Not bad, but not sustainable either.

In HH, the tech of the ships restricted the firing arcs to pretty much just the sides of the ships. The pods allowed them to get around this limitation by moving a disposable launcher outside the hull. Traveller has no such restriction, and will therefore make pods a bit more difficult to make tactically viable.

Traveller also doesn't have tractor beams, so your pods have to be semi-autonomous, and would function more like CAPTOR mines than like towed arrays. Which means that without using cables, you can't tow your pods.

What pods might be useful for is the CAPTOR mine concept. These things would be God Awful for area denial weapons.
 
Beladan, flyingsquid, Big Tim,

I've replied on This Thread since my Book 2 game is vector-based and I don't want to 'hijack' hirch duckfinder's thread here which I just noticed is on non-vector combat. See you there!
 
OK, I'll shut up about the combat program on this thread...

But these pods -- what a mess they'd be to set to code... I think they should be outlawed.
 
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