Ship design principles for OTU polities?

[TheDark]

Tying into the changing technologies bit, I looked at the three systems I had conveniently at hand (CT High Guard 2, MT, and MgT1) and noted what Tech Level each weapon is available at. CT and MT are essentially the same - MT has a "particle turret" one TL earlier than CT, but it's a super-heavy turret that's effectively the Particle Barbette from CT, which was available one TL earlier. Mongoose, by comparison, has earlier missiles, meson guns, and particle weapons, and later beam lasers and plasma turrets. Mongoose also gets rid of some weapons (fusion turrets, repulsors, plasma bays) while adding new ones that aren't on this list (torpedoes, rail guns, 100-ton fusion bays). A couple of these changes I agree with (the 50-ton missile bay being 3 TLs higher than both the turret and 100-ton bay was weird, and the PLaser before the BLaser makes sense). Others I don't (particle turrets at TL8 and meson weapons at TL11?). I figured I'd just note the changes ahead of looking at anything from the Mongoose era (or doing any conversions to that system).

Lowest TL	CT (HG2)	MgT1
Missile Turret	7	6
Sandcaster Turret	7	7
Pulse Laser Turret	7	7
Beam Laser Turret	7	9
Plasma Gun Turret	10	11
Fusion Gun Turret	12	Not Available
Particle Accelerator Turret	15	8
Particle Accelerator Barbette	14	8
Meson Bay (100 ton)	13	11
Particle Bay (100 ton)	8	8
Repulsor Bay (100 ton)	10	Not Available
Missile Bay (100 ton)	7	6
Meson Bay (50 tons)	15	11
Particle Bay (50 tons)	10	8
Repulsor Bay (50 tons)	14	Not Available
Missile Bay (50 tons)	10	6
Plasma Bay (50 tons)	10	Not Available
Fusion Bay (50 tons)	12	12
Particle Accelerator (Spinal)	8	8
Meson Gun (Spinal)	11	11

 

[ady]

Early (in publication history) Vargr ships seem to go for cone or egg shapes with lots of spiky bits and sickle wings, like the Type VP or Rrazaaghz or (to a lesser extent) the Farrou.

True, most of the ones in the Vargr alien module and later MT publications are like that. Though there is a dispersed Structure Vargr 'Trade Ship' (similar size, config and stats as the unstreamlined pirate ship stats given in Book 2) in IISS ship files. That book also explains that each individual clade or political group tends to it's own thing - there generally is no standard design for the entire Vargr Extents because its a boiling soup of ever changing factions, alliances and family groups, each with their own tech level, styles and fashions. The pointy egg with fins only seems to be a popular image with the Imperials as Vargr because that is the type of ship that was mostly used by Vargr raiders and invaders during the Interstellar wars.

 

[ady]

Tying into the changing technologies bit, I looked at the three systems I had conveniently at hand (CT High Guard 2, MT, and MgT1) and noted what Tech Level each weapon is available at. CT and MT are essentially the same - MT has a "particle turret" one TL earlier than CT, but it's a super-heavy turret that's effectively the Particle Barbette from CT, which was available one TL earlier. Mongoose, by comparison, has earlier missiles, meson guns, and particle weapons, and later beam lasers and plasma turrets. Mongoose also gets rid of some weapons (fusion turrets, repulsors, plasma bays) while adding new ones that aren't on this list (torpedoes, rail guns, 100-ton fusion bays). A couple of these changes I agree with (the 50-ton missile bay being 3 TLs higher than both the turret and 100-ton bay was weird, and the PLaser before the BLaser makes sense). Others I don't (particle turrets at TL8 and meson weapons at TL11?). I figured I'd just note the changes ahead of looking at anything from the Mongoose era (or doing any conversions to that system).

Lowest TL	CT (HG2)	MgT1
Missile Turret	7	6
Sandcaster Turret	7	7
Pulse Laser Turret	7	7
Beam Laser Turret	7	9
Plasma Gun Turret	10	11
Fusion Gun Turret	12	Not Available
Particle Accelerator Turret	15	8
Particle Accelerator Barbette	14	8
Meson Bay (100 ton)	13	11
Particle Bay (100 ton)	8	8
Repulsor Bay (100 ton)	10	Not Available
Missile Bay (100 ton)	7	6
Meson Bay (50 tons)	15	11
Particle Bay (50 tons)	10	8
Repulsor Bay (50 tons)	14	Not Available
Missile Bay (50 tons)	10	6
Plasma Bay (50 tons)	10	Not Available
Fusion Bay (50 tons)	12	12
Particle Accelerator (Spinal)	8	8
Meson Gun (Spinal)	11	11

That's a useful comparison. Doesnt mongoose also add a load of extra weapons and technologies? I havnt looked into it myself (Mostly a CT fan), but I have heard about star wars style photon torpedoes, 'energy' cannons', etc. Also, how does Mongoose combat stack up against Highguard 2ed? Do the weapons have roughly the same performance on hitting a ship, penetrating armour/screens and doing damage, or is it a different? These are factors that will effect ship design and styles.

 

[Condottiere]

Ship design tends to reflect doctrine, biases, preferences, presumptions, prejudices, and industrial base.

The Confederation Navy does believe in hit and run, while seeking a Mahanian decisive battle, which would explain their sudden appreciation for missiles and torpedoes.

 

[TheDark]

That's a useful comparison. Doesnt mongoose also add a load of extra weapons and technologies? I havnt looked into it myself (Mostly a CT fan), but I have heard about star wars style photon torpedoes, 'energy' cannons', etc. Also, how does Mongoose combat stack up against Highguard 2ed? Do the weapons have roughly the same performance on hitting a ship, penetrating armour/screens and doing damage, or is it a different? These are factors that will effect ship design and styles.

Mongoose added some weapons, particularly in High Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron. Railguns and torpedoes are the new types of weapon, and some mounts got new weapon types.

I don't feel familiar enough with CT HG combat to do a direct comparison, but I can provide some examples from Mongoose. Weapon damage is rolled per hit, ranging from 1d6 for a Beam Laser to 9d6 plus an automatic Crew hit for a 100-ton Particle Beam Bay (Spinal weapons do fixed damage ranging from 120 for a Railgun A to 450 for a Meson D).

Ships have Hull, Structure, and Armor. Armor subtracts from the rolled damage. If the damage is >0, it inflicts at least one Hit on a table. If the ship has at least 1 Hull, the table is External Damage. If it's reduced to 0 Hull, the table is Internal Damage. If Structure is 0, the ship breaks up.

A Beowulf has 4 Armor, 4 Hull, and 4 Structure. A Beam Laser striking it will do 1d6-4 damage, so 2/3 chance of no hit (0 or less) and 1/3 chance of 1 hit (1-2 damage). That 100-ton Particle Bay that did 9d6 damage would be between 5-50 damage, which would be two single hits on the low end and two triple hits plus a double hit at the high end. The weakest spinal weapon would do 116 damage, which would translate to...*checks table*...two Triple Hits and twelve Double Hits. Ouch.

Single hits mean inflicting one hit on the rolled system, double is two, triple is three. Most systems are damaged on one hit, disabled on the second, destroyed on the third, and any additional hits go to Hull if external or Structure if internal. The main exceptions are that Armor, Hull, and Structure are all reduced by 1 per hit, so Armor can be whittled away to some extent.

On the External table, 12/36 rolls will hit Hull, 6/36 will hit Armor, 6/36 will hit the M-Drive, 4/36 will hit Fuel, 4/36 will hit a Turret, and 4/36 will hit Sensors. If a ship has no Armor, the Armor hits are Hull hits, so either 1/3 or 1/2 of External hits are Hull.

On the Internal table, 10/36 rolls will hit Structure, 8/36 will hit a Weapons Bay, 6/36 will hit Cargo, 5/36 will hit the J-Drive, 5/36 will hit the Power Plant, 1/36 will hit the Bridge, and 1/36 will hit a random Crew member.

So against a Beowulf, which has Armor but no Bay weapons, on average it will take 20 Hits to completely destroy the ship, needing 12 Hits to inflict 4 Hull and 8 more Hits to inflict 4 Structure. That's roughly 60 successful attacks with a Beam Laser, since 1/3 of its attacks will become Hits (slightly less because some Hits will damage Armor, but how many less will vary significantly by how lucky the rolls are at whittling down Armor early).

One additional complication is that I'm not accounting for Effect - essentially, each point by which the to-hit rolls exceeds 8 adds 1 damage. That'll make hits a little more common and potentially inflict a couple 2x Single Hits in a "real" battle, but for this sort of off-the-cuff White Room exercise/explanation that would be a lot of math to figure out the effects of Effect. (I'm also not touching the Barrage system for High Guard capital ships because I've never been able to figure out if it actually works or not - I'm primarily interested in Adventure Class Ships)

 

[Rupert]

I think that's because MT tends to require very high tech levels to match pretty average CT tech levels in terms of what you can fit into a ship, so they had to dump lots of power plent to make everything fit. Thus smaller M-drives and missiles rather than lasers.

For what it's worth, in TNE/Brilliant Lances there were the following ships and their weapons:

Aslan Trader (Eakhau), 400 DTons, M1J2 (fairly limited g-turns), 2 x 3 DTon turret sockets (the equivalent to a CT hardpoint) with one laser each (TNE turrets only ever had one weapon in them).

Aslan Clan Transport (Khtukhao), 505 DTons, plus 95 DTons shuttle (jump volume 600 DTons), M2J2, 6 x laser turrets, 1 x master firecontrol director (MFD) (one of more MFDs are essential for any real space combat vessel).

Vargr Trader, 200 DTons, M1L2, 2 x turret sockets.

Vargr Corsair (Ueknou), 400 DTons, M3J2 (lots of manoeuvre fuel), 2 x laser turret, 2 x missile turret (2 missile per turret, 4 extra in cargo), 1x MFD w/missile control, 1 x MFD.

Zhodani DE (Zhdits), 400 DTons, M6J2, 4 x laser turret, 1 x MFD

Zhodani Strike Cruiser (Vlezhdatl), 2000 DTons, M4J2, 1 x PAW (small spinal, probably bay equivalent in power), 4 x missile barbette (5 missiles each, 40 extra in cargo), 4 x laser barbette (6 Dtons, single laser per), 2 x MFD w/missile control, 2 x MFD (beam only).

For comparison, some Imperial ships:

Gazelle, 280/400 DTons, M3.J3 (M5J5) (lots of fuel), 2 x laser turret, 2 x laser barbette (in place of PAW turrets), 1 x MFD

Patrol Cruiser, 400 DTons, M4J3, 2 x laser turret, 2 x missile turret (2 missiles each, 8 extra in cargo), 2 x MFD w/missile control.

Chrysanthemum, 950/1000 DTons (carries 50 DTon cutter externally), M6J4, 2 x PAW (both fixed forward, small), 2 x laser turret, 3 x missile turret (2 missile each, 30 more in cargo), 3 x sandcaster turret, 2 x MFD w/missile control, 2 x MFD. This and the Midu Agashaam are the only ships in BL with a listed armament that have sandcasters.

 

[TheDark]

I have a copy of Battle Rider, but I'll have some question marks where the original owner wrote on the counters and I can't read the original numbers (edit: the writing was because there was official errata, which the original owner kept with the box. Stats updated). The Maggart and Aurora each have two versions. "Bay" weapons might be barbettes; both types are group as "secondary beam weapons" on the counters.

Size -1
Valor (Missile Corvette) - J4, M6, 20 missile directors
Manticore (Light Battle Rider) - M4, Meson spinal (6 damage), 2 laser turrets
Shukugan (System Defense Boat) - M4, 2 laser turrets, 2 missile directors
Mary Ellen Carter (Armed Merchant) - J2, M1, 2 laser turrets, 2 missile directors
Ashtabula (Raider Cruiser) - J3, M2, 4 laser turrets, 2 missile directors, 2 sandcasters
Kinunir (Colonial Cruiser) - J4, M4, 2 laser bays, 4 laser turrets, 2 missile directors
Fiery (Close Escort) - J4, M4, 1 laser bay, 2 laser turrets, 1 missile director
Patrol Cruiser (Patrol Cruiser) - J3, M4, 2 laser turrets, 2 missile directors
Gazelle (Close Escort) - J3/5, M3, 2 laser bay, 2 laser turret
Victrix (Multimission Sloop) - J2, M4, 2 laser turrets, 1 missile director, 1 sandcaster

Size -2
Chrysanthemum (Destroyer Escort) - J4, M6, twin Particle spinal (4 damage each), 2 laser turrets, 4 missile directors, 7 meson screens, 2 sandcasters
Midu Agashaam (Destroyer) - J4, M6, Particle spinal (6 damage), 4 laser turrets, 6 missile directors, 7 meson screens, 3 sandcasters
Aurora (Multimission Clipper) - J2, M2, Meson spinal (4 damage), 4 laser turrets, 2 missile directors, 2 sandcasters
Aurora (Combatant Clipper) - J2, M2, Meson spinal (4 damage), 5 laser turrets, 12 missile directors, 3 sandcasters
Maggart (Tender Clipper) - J2, M2, Meson spinal (6 damage), 4 laser turrets, 4 missile directors, 2 sandcasters, 2 light battle riders
Maggart (Combatant Clipper), J2, M2, Meson spinal (6 damage), 5 laser turrets, 12 missile directors, 3 sandcasters, 1 light battle rider
Lancer (Destroyer) - J2, M2, Meson spinal (9 damage), 10 laser turrets, 5 missile directors, 10 meson screens, 10 sandcasters
Fusilier (Destroyer) J2, M2, Particle spinal (11 damage), 10 laser turrets, 5 missile directors, 10 meson screens, 10 sandcasters

Size -3
Rapier (Destroyer Escort) - J4, M4, Meson spinal (10 damage), 5 laser bays, 10 laser turrets, 10 missile directors, 11 meson screens, 7 sandcasters
Starburst (Light Cruiser) - J3, M6, Meson spinal (11 damage), 20 missile directors, 20 laser turrets, 14 meson screens, 20 sandcasters, 10 nuclear dampers
Mercury (Heavy Cruiser) - J5, M4, Meson spinal (12 damage), 30 missile directors, 25 laser turrets, 16 meson screens, 25 sandcasters, 5 nuclear dampers
Gallant (Battle Rider) - M6, Meson spinal (14 damage), 20 missile directors, 20 laser turrets, 14 meson screens, 40 sandcasters, 10 nuclear dampers
Admiral (Battle Rider) - M5, Meson spinal (11 damage) AND Particle spinal (12 damage), 20 missile directors, 10 laser bays, 30 laser turrets, 16 meson screens, 30 sandcasters, 5 nuclear dampers

Size -4
Triumph (Battle Tender) - J3, M2, Meson spinal (9 damage), 10 laser turrets, 6 missile directors, 13 meson screens, 20 sandcasters, 5 nuclear dampers, 4 battle riders
Cleon (Battle Tender) - J3, M2, Meson spinal (8 damage), 10 laser turrets, 4 missile directors, 13 meson screens, 15 sandcasters, 1 nuclear damper, 6 battle riders
Sylea (Battleship) - J3, M6, Meson spinal (16 damage), 30 laser turrets, 40 missile directors, 16 meson screens, 40 sandcasters, 15 nuclear dampers
Voroshilef (Battleship) - J3, M2, Meson spinal (12 damage), 2 meson bays, 2 particle bays, 20 laser turrets, 40 missile directors, 11 meson screens, 30 sandcasters, 5 nuclear dampers

In the Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide, the Aurora has 8 laser turrets and a meson spinal mount and can carry a 400 ton module, a 200 ton module, and four 100 ton modules (or the equivalent in 25 and 50 ton modules). The Maggart is a stretched Aurora that can carry more modules. The Manticore is probably a 400-ton Battle Rider - the Maggart normally has a 400-ton fuel skimmer (Manta), but the counters only credit it with fuel processing equipment, so replacing the skimmer and the 400-ton module with a pair of Manticores would make sense for the "carrier" Maggart, with the combat Maggart replacing the skimmer but having a standard 400-ton module in place.

 

[jec10]

Remember the "Multiple Firing Batteries" rule on page 19 of Battle Rider. It explains that the counters for the big ships show the batteries that can bear on a single target, rather than the total of weapons on the ship.

Hence why the Aurora, for instance, in the game has 4 "laser turrets", whereas the Aurora in RCEG has 8 laser turrets.

 

[mike wightman]

Mongoose has made ion cannons baseline Third Imperium weapons tech now.

 

[Rupert]

Mongoose has made ion cannons baseline Third Imperium weapons tech now.

I think they did away with the MgT1 missiles that if they missed got to swing back around and have another go, so there's that.

 

[TheDark]

Remember the "Multiple Firing Batteries" rule on page 19 of Battle Rider. It explains that the counters for the big ships show the batteries that can bear on a single target, rather than the total of weapons on the ship.

Hence why the Aurora, for instance, in the game has 4 "laser turrets", whereas the Aurora in RCEG has 8 laser turrets.

Good catch, I was just checking the counters and didn't go back through the Advanced Rules. The numbers on the counters are effectively TNE's equivalent of the "batteries bearing" from CT HG or MT, rather than "batteries," but TNE is much more granular (and restricted) on firing arcs than those two systems. Ships in size categories 2*, 3, and 4 multiply their bays, turrets, sandcasters, and screens (but not missiles or spinals) by their size category for total number available.

*Maybe for 2. The Clippers have double the number of turrets listed, but the Chrysanthemum doesn't, and IIRC those are the only size 2 ships that have both regular stats and Battle Rider stats.

 

[TheDark]

Flipping this post around to look at it by weapon:

Pulse Laser - K'kree are easily #1 at 38.46%. The Vargr are second at 3.92%, Aslan third at 3.33%, and Zhodani fourth at 1.18%. The Droyne, Solomani, and Hivers don't use pulse lasers at all. The Vargr, Aslan, and Zhodani use them on seekers, scouts, couriers, and merchants, but not ships intended for combat. The K'kree use them extensively (around 3 out of every 8 weapons).

Beam Laser - Everyone except the K'kree uses these to a major extent. The Solomani are highest at 95.00%, with the Droyne next at 86.67%. The rest of the non-ponies are Vargr at 60.78%, Hiver at 50.00%, Aslan at 45.00%, and Zhodani at 38.82%. This is mostly a measure of how energy-heavy a group's weapon mix is (with the exception of the K'kree who rely on pulse lasers). So Solomani are almost exclusively BLasers, Droyne have 5 BLasers for every 6 weapons, Vargr are roughly 3-in-5, Hivers are exactly half, and Aslan and Zhodani are both a little under half.

Missile - Everyone uses missiles, even the Solomani. The K'kree are tops here at 38.46% (equal to their pulse lasers). Next are the Aslan at 35.00%, the Hivers at 33.33%, Zhodani at 30.59%, Vargr at 29.41%, Droyne at 16.67%, and the Solomani at the rear of the pack at 5.00%. As with pulse lasers, K'kree use missiles at roughly a 3-in-8 ratio. The Aslan, Hivers, Zhodani, and Vargr are all around 1-in-3 weapons being a missile, with Droyne at 1-in-6.

Sandcasters - not everyone uses sand. The Zhodani are the heaviest users, at 29.41%. The K'kree are next at 23.08%, with the Aslan and Hivers both at 16.67%. Vargr have a handful of sandcasters at 5.88%, and neither the Droyne nor Solomani use them at all. About 2 in every 7 Zhodani weapons is a sandcaster, with the K'kree slightly under 1-in-4, the Aslan and Hivers both at 1-in-6, and the Vargr fitting them only on civilian vessels (merchant and scout).

Obvious caveats are that these are small sample sizes, small ships, and exclude advanced weaponry. It does provide guidelines for what well-established small vessels (escorts, patrol craft, etc) will carry for each of these polities. Individual ships will vary, of course, and playing against type could make for a distinctive and memorable opponent, but I think these give some ideas of general loadouts to consider if a ship isn't being designed for a specific purpose.

 

[Rupert]

*Maybe for 2. The Clippers have double the number of turrets listed, but the Chrysanthemum doesn't, and IIRC those are the only size 2 ships that have both regular stats and Battle Rider stats.

The clippers are weird, and I think the errata is actually wrong. They should have eight lasers (or 10 for the LC version), and as they're on extenders they should be able to fire all at any target. The number of sandcasters should be halved though.

As for the Chrysanthemum, it's semi-correct - half the number of lasers and sandcasters, rounded nearest gives two of each per battery. However, the missiles stats are way off.

The Midu is also in both, and seems all correct at a glance.

 

[TheDark]

The clippers are weird, and I think the errata is actually wrong. They should have eight lasers (or 10 for the LC version), and as they're on extenders they should be able to fire all at any target. The number of sandcasters should be halved though.

As for the Chrysanthemum, it's semi-correct - half the number of lasers and sandcasters, rounded nearest gives two of each per battery. However, the missiles stats are way off.

The Midu is also in both, and seems all correct at a glance.

The extenders are also in the Advanced Rules. They let a ship fire two batteries at a target, but for detection purposes the ship is one size larger if they're extended, so the clippers are right with the errata. Otherwise, a Combatant Clipper with 10 turrets in a battery could extend mounts and fire 20 lasers at an enemy.

 

[Rupert]

The extenders are also in the Advanced Rules. They let a ship fire two batteries at a target, but for detection purposes the ship is one size larger if they're extended, so the clippers are right with the errata. Otherwise, a Combatant Clipper with 10 turrets in a battery could extend mounts and fire 20 lasers at an enemy.

Ah, I'd forgotten that those rules gave you more batteries firing, not more total.

 

[TheDark]

I was wrong about Size -2 ships showing up in the regular rules, since the Midu Agashaam pops up in Vampire Fleets via "The Ship" (ex-ISS Archer), the Virus-ridden vessel that takes on the PCs as crew. It has a particle spinal, 8 laser turrets, 6 missile turrets, and 6 sandcasters, so it lines up with Fighting Ships when taking the changes from CT to TNE into account, converting a 50-ton bay into a spinal and changing all the turrets from triples to singles. It also fits with BR, which halves the lasers and sandcasters.

 

[ady]

That's a large part of why I'm not looking at the Imperium. Particularly in the GDW era, there's a lot less information on ships from the other interstellar nations. They're easier to look through and have less noise because what we're seeing are (presumably) the major classes that are the most commonly encountered.



That's also valid and why I decided to start with the GDW editions. There are changes between CT and MT, but a lot of them are relatively minor and in details that I'm not particularly interested in (how Agility is calculated, for example). For the broad sweeps of things like "K'kree use pulse lasers" or "Solomani are beam-heavy," the specific details of design rules shouldn't affect that too much. New Era or GT will have more significant mechanical changes, while T4 or ISW will have changes due to tech levels (but also less focus on ships from outside Imperial space). I don't expect to have hard and fast rules for each group's ship design, but broad, general guidelines about what they prioritize in a design.

The Vargr ships will be interesting to compare to CT's Alien Module 3, since they're pretty clearly the same ships but in different rule systems - it's a 200 ton Seeker, 200 ton Trader, 600 ton Far Merchant/Packet, 100 ton Scout, 800 ton Frigate, 200 ton Courier, and 400 ton Corsair in each. The Frigate drops from J4/M4 to J4/M3 and the Corsair from J2/M5 to J2/M3 (the Frigate also goes from 18 BLasers and 6 Missiles to 24 Missiles, while the Corsair's armament is unchanged at 6 of each).

A quick glance suggests a drop in beam weapons overall - the Trader swaps CT BLasers for MT Missile and Sandcaster, the Far Merchant's BLasers apparently just vanish, the Scout drops from BLaser to PLaser, and the Courier and Frigate both exchange their BLasers for Missiles. I'll need to back them out from UCPs to mounts, but I think only the Corsair and Seeker maintain the same amount of beam armament.

Flipping over to S&A, this seems to hold. The Solomani Fleet Courier goes from 6 BLasers to an all-missile armament. The Aslan Courier goes from a pair of missiles plus a pulse laser and sandcaster to just missiles, the Escort loses its BLasers (maybe swapping for more Missiles and/or Sandcasters, but I haven't checked that), the Seeker adds a PLaser, and the Scout appears unchanged. So other than the Vargr Corsair, Vargr Scout, Aslan Seeker, and Aslan Scout, everything that had energy armament in CT lost it in MT.

At least in these two books, the MegaTraveller versions of small ships are very missile-heavy compared to Classic Traveller.

"I don't expect to have hard and fast rules for each group's ship design, but broad, general guidelines about what they prioritize in a design."
That's the way to do it, I think, especially when drawing on lots of different articles by lots of different aurthors over 40+ years. Pick out a few bits you like and run with it.

I often used to base what ships have on their general TL and the examples I included in my games, often omiting some designs that didnt fit and creating new ones along the same lines. I prefer most vargr ships to be fast and armed with plasma cannons - they are flashy, short ranged and excellent in ground combat (Striker), a weapon that seems 'vargy' and a handy weapon for colony raiders and slave takers. I had Zhodani ships being long range (J4?) and prefering beam lasers (due to the Zhdits) and particle weapons. I had sword worlder ships being mostly troopships that spam missiles (the only chance they had of hitting higher tech imperial ships in Highguard), while the Imperials had no set design and varied a lot, due to their varied cultures and tech levels, long history, and need to adapt their ships to face off against each local threat. I did tend to avoid fighters though, as in Highguard they are useless against capital ships and even each other (14+ to hit on 2d6!), so I replaced Fighters for SDBs in Carriers - an example of how the rule system you choose can effect the ingame choices.