Speaking of Commerce Raiding; Keith Ships

[sabredog]

I finally dug out my copy of Adventure Class Ships. The Chameleon is a monster: 800 tons, jump 3, maneuver 3, armor factor A, she has a 50 ton missile bay eek, four particle accellerator barbettes, and a triple laser turret.

That beast must have been made with the HG1 rules - it allowed for smaller bays and I think they could go in smaller ships, too.

The thing sounds like something out of Outlaw Star. One shot and there wouldn't even be anything to salvage from it's victim!

 

[Whipsnade]

That beast must have been made with the HG1 rules - it allowed for smaller bays and I think they could go in smaller ships, too.

Sabredog,

Good grief!! It's the Mini Me version of the Happy Fun Ball!! o:

I've never seen a copy of HG1 but, going from what others have posted here over the years, this certainly seems like a design from that book. IIRC, Wil has a copy so hopefully he'll chime in.

There's a period in CT, especially among the third party writers/publishers, where it seems a sort of LBB:2/HG1e/HG2e mash-up was used. I know a few of the lesser known designs Dan has tackled as part of the CT Errata effort have thrown him for a loop. He's found components, prices, and volumes from all three ship building rule sets stitched together so tightly it's been nearly impossible to disassemble some designs into their supposed components.

Looking at HG2 with regards to her weaponry, the PA barbettes become available at TL14 so I'm assuming that's the TL of the weaponry. The four barbettes can be grouped as either four Factor-1 batteries, two Factor-2 batteries, or one Factor-3 battery. The triple laser turret is a single Factor-4 battery, but that missile bay is Factor-NINE battery.

The PAs look dangerous, but small battery factors in HG2 result in high To-Hit numbers and PAs are no exception. All things being equal, the PAs hit well less than half the time - although rolling on both the Surface Explosion and Radiation Damage tables isn't bad. The laser battery has a slightly easier time hitting, but sand can quickly make those odds grow long.

The missile bay, however, is the showstopper. Sand or beam defenses? Maybe if you have hug batteries and roll lucky. Nuclear dampers? Again, the screen rating better be in the upper third for even a 50% chance. Repulsors are the only active defense with a chance and I don't think many merchantmen will be carrying them. Besides, one repulsor bay can only effect one potential missile strike.

This thing is a monster. That armor level means you'll either have to "waste" a spinal mount on it or throw several nuke missile volleys at it in the hopes of getting a critical hit or interior explosion result.

I don't know what it's computer rating, but I'm hoping it's just high enough for jump3!


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

That monster is also a HG2 design... HG1 has no barbettes.

I'm gonna look at HG2...
__ Td _ PU __ MCr Item
_ 800 __ 0 ___ 96.0 Hull 800T Needle/Wedge SL
__ 88 __ 0 __ 144.4 Armor TL14 A=11%
__ 20 __ 0 ____ 4.0 Bridge
___ 6 __ 1 ___ 27.0 Computer 3/FIB
__ 64 __ 0 ___ 32.0 MD 3G
__ 32 __ 0 __ 128.0 JD J3
__ 48 _ 24 __ 144.0 PP TL14 P3 TD=PUx2
__ 24 __ 0 ____ 0.0 Fuel-PP
_ 240 __ 0 ____ 0.0 Fuel-J3
__ 50 __ 0 ___ 12.0 Missile Bay USP=9
___ 0 __ 0 ____ 0.5 Hardpoints x5
__ 20 _ 20 ___ 16.0 PA Barbettes x4 TL14 USP=3
___ 1 __ 3 ____ 4.0 Triple Turret and 3x Beam Laser TL 13 USP=4
__ 60 __ 0 ____ 7.5 Stateroom x15
__ 59 __ 0 ____ 0.0 Cargo


Pilot x1
Navigator x1
Engineer x5
Steward x0
Gunner x7 (2 MB, 4PAB, 1 TBLT)
Medic x1

MCr615.4 (553.86 after standard design discount)

The missile bay means 7 turrets may be mounted; only 5 are… she could have a couple sandcasters added. Two triple sandcasters, their Hardpoints and turrets, plus two gunners and their staterooms, would cost MCr 3.7 and 10 tons of cargo, and give a factor 6 sandcaster!

SInce it's sub-1KTd, it uses Bk2 crew.

800 tons, jump 3, maneuver 3, armor factor A, she has a 50 ton missile bay, four particle accelerator barbettes, and a triple laser turret.

 

[Whipsnade]

That monster is also a HG2 design... HG1 has no barbettes.

Wil,

Ugh...

No barbettes in HG1 means it's another of the "mash-up" designs that have made Dan prematurely gray.

It isn't a "pure" HG2 design because no bays can be mounted on sub-1KdTon ships.

However the Keiths put it together, it's a beast.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Rigel Stardin]

All this talk of taking out poor defenseless merchants with this puppy has got me in the mood to go hunting with my "Broadsword". It will be up in the gallery shortly...

 

[aramis]

Nothing says you can't put a bay on a sub-1KTd ship in HG2. You're just rounding wrong, Bill.

Seriously, it's a HG 2 design, straight up. It's just a matter of rounding up on the 1 bay per 1000 tons rule... just like turrets are 1 per 100Td of non-major/bay weaponry hull. A 101 ton ship can mount 2 turrets. A 121 passenger ship requires 2 medics. a 9 high passenger ship requires 2 stewards.

 

[Whipsnade]

Nothing says you can't put a bay on a sub-1KTd ship in HG2. You're just rounding wrong, Bill.

Wil,

And you're deliberately misinterpreting the text.

None of the GDW designs featured sub-1KdTon bays despite their obvious combat advantage. How the rule is used in examples is just as important as how the rule is written and that's because people can play semantics with written rules while they can't do the same with an example.

Would you like a copy of Don's latest High Guard Errata draft? He posted it to ct_starships just this week and on the first page he puts to rest this issue.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Blue Ghost]

*taps foot with arms folded*

See? SEE? What'd I tell you?

As I recall there was a blurb in either the flavor text or in an issue of Challenge that mentions its use as a landing/assault vehicle. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the entire starship arsenal is controlled by the weapons' chair on the bottom deck, nested among the missile bay, forward of the cargo area.

 

[aramis]

No, I am applying the stated rate in the same manner that the rate method is applied consistently in other designs.

And while GDW didn't, most 3rd parties did. (And T20, HG1 and MGT CRB and MGT-HG all explicitly allow a sub-1000Td ship to mount a single bay. TNE and T4 make little distinction between turrets and bays... and one can built a spinal mount into a 100Td ship under TNE & T4.)

So If Don's errata says "no," it is inconistent with almost all other editions of Traveller. And given that a number of things doable under HG simply were not done in GDW designs doesn't prove them illegal; it proves only that the HG system doesn't cover all the bases by which GDW evaluated their designs. (Namely, looking like a committee made them. Bad compromises all around.)

I'll dig up page numbers elsewhere.

 

[DonM]

So If Don's errata says "no," it is inconistent with almost all other editions of Traveller. And given that a number of things doable under HG simply were not done in GDW designs doesn't prove them illegal; it proves only that the HG system doesn't cover all the bases by which GDW evaluated their designs. (Namely, looking like a committee made them. Bad compromises all around.)

I know it does... but said that applies to HG. Trust me... I'm an advocate of allowing bays in sub-1kton ships (effectively meaning no turrets), because I like the idea of something similar to SFB's fast patrol ships for Traveller, but I lost this one.

My "fast patrol ships" were basically sub-1kton ships with big computers, lots of maneuver and a bay of some kind. Fun, but alas, illegal. If you find a page reference that defends the concept, let me know, I'd like to reopen the debate.

NOTE: Just because I edit the errata doesn't mean it's everything I want.

 

[DonM]

Marc and I were discussing this the other day... back "then", they just published designs because they thought they were cool...

That's how the Gazelle wound up in JTAS #4 -- it wasn't done in a system; Frank just had a cool design, and they fudged it in. The PA rules for Book 2 in JTAS #4 are an interesting if forgotten look at what could have been. But we've been trying to fix the Gazelle ever since.

And the Keith Brothers were given the same latitude.

Marc admits, they weren't trying to publish legal designs, they were trying to publish cool designs. The result 30 years later is a lot of confusion.

And legends of two handouts Marc doesn't have, and doesn't remember. One, claims of a handout of HG errata to players who submitted TCS designs at a Gen Con game, and two, legends of a handout fixing the Acquired Skills Tables in SMC (supposedly, it's not the same as S4's tables).

If someone does have either of those, PM me!

 

[Blue Ghost]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but in 1001 characters "Hero of the Galaxy" is described as having a 200 or 300 ton scout ship that performs like a battlecruiser.

It's all hokum and meant for fun, but it's there.

 

[sabredog]

I hold the line on no bays until the 1000 tons thing, because I figured that's what barbettes are for. They are what the 25 ton bays from HG1 turned into to allow for the smaller ships to have something between a turret and a bay.

 

[aramis]

HG1 has 10, 50, and 100 ton bays, not 25 ton.

 

[sabredog]

AH, ok,....I just checked the AHL stats and yeah - 10 ton bays. I knew there were smaller ones in HG1 that were replaced by barbettes.

 

[atpollard]

A personal annoyance of mine is the allowance of 1 bay (of 100 or 50 tons) on a 1000 dTon ship. Why can't a 1000 dTon ship mount two 50 dTon bays? I've had to reject several deckplan concepts that required paired 50 dTon bays to look right. The practical result is that 50 dT bays never really get used.

Barbettes are an oddity that never really were explored properly in classic Traveller. A 5 ton 'barbette' should be able to mount 15 weapons on a single hardpoint ... 5 times as many as a 1 ton turret. "Pull that triple turret and mount a pentadeca (15) turret in its place". At the very least, Barbette versions of all of the other 'bay weapons' should have been published.

As they are, barbettes appear for only 1 weapon at a specific TL and are almost immediately replaced by a turret version of the same weapon ... and the only ship that uses them is itself an illegal design.

I mean, how many ships have you seen with either 50 dT bays or barbettes?

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

I too would have liked more weapon options in HG2. To my thinking, if you've the volume and you can power it, you can have it aboard. I'd have loved to see sub-1KDton bays, multiple spinals, flexible battery assignments, sensors divorced from computer ratings, sensor rules, area defense fire, and much, much, much more.

However, I also respect and understand the design choices GDW made. The fact that we're still playing and playing with HG2 after nearly thirty years means that GDW achieved what they set out to achieve: Designing a fast and balanced ship combat and design game which provided a certain level of options without getting bogged down in minutiae.

Every option you add slows down ship design and game play. Every option you add makes balancing the game all the harder. GDW chose a certain balance between details and ease of play. Our later complaints over where that balance was struck have more to do with our misunderstanding about the role of HG2 in Traveller and less to do with GDW's design.

You see, within the Traveller "tent", HG2 is more of a wargame and less of a roleplaying game. Yes, advanced naval chargen made it's appearance there, but in HG2 GDW crafted a game that could design and then handle huge numbers of huge ships in huge battles. In his famous posts reporting a TCS campaign in 1999 involving TML members, Steve Higginbotham described battles that involved over a thousand ships and nearly ten thousand fighters. My own experience running multiple TCS campaigns as a "paper & pencil" wargame aboard ship were pretty much the same.

In the days before spreadsheets and personal computers, resolving such battles requires statistical odds determination and, with every option added, even that will eventually reach a point where there are too many ships detailed too much. The game needed to remain playable, so options had to remain limited. With HG2, GDW set their design dial more towards "wargame" than "RPG" and limited options for this very reason.

Players want more details and more "boom-boom" in everything they drive, fly, own, or steal. A player with a character who is a 90-year-old professor of flower arranging will still make an argument for Dr. Vivian Q. Milquetoast owning battledress and a FGMP-15. Players are going to want to know where the toilet tissue dispenser is located in Crew Cabin Three's fresher, if only to hide explosives there. Such levels of weaponry and minute details are deadly to a wargame however.

Yes, later versions added more options. I'll point out that, as those options increased, the number of designs and battles using those designs decreased markedly. The later versions were less useful as a wargame and more useful as a roleplaying aid.

Published MT designs are maybe 10% of the published CT/HG2 numbers and MT ship combat cannot be used for the same kinds of titanic battles HG2 can.

TNE designs lag behind even MT by an order of magnitude at least because that version took the process even further towards the player level. FF&S designs are very detailed, they even include the location of various internal components, and, while it's a great game, Brilliant Lances is far too detailed for more than a handful of ships to be controlled on each side.

T4 took the process both directions. It provided detailed ship building and combat on a "player level" while also providing a pure strategic wargame in Pocket Empire in which the players designed entire squadrons/fleets and then fought very stylized battles. Linking the two extremes T4 provided is all but impossible however.

In the end, GDW had to choose and they chose well enough to have us still using HG2 thirty years later. That's why I'll design within the HG2 restrictions for the OTU while also allowing those options I find useful IMTU.


Regards,
Bill

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

Some of these posts have gotten me thinking about the old Book 2 and High Guard rules and I was wondering what others thoughts are on some of the basics. Specifically, I've always wondered what others thoughts are on what a turret, barbette, and other type weapons really are and what they look like.

I know over the years my views have changed on many of them, but to tell you the truth I never really understood what a berbette is really supposed to be.

Maybe this might be best as a separate post though, but I'd really be interested in other peoples thoughts. (I'll try and maybe put one together tommorrow).

Regards

PF

 

[aramis]

Your aspersions on MT are quite wrong, Bill.

The MT combat system for ships IS high guard, adapted to the task system and a grid. It can do titanic battles. I've done a few.

Also, almost every canonical ship design from CT was redone in MT terms, tho' most were released on the net, rather than in print. The WWIVnet subs for traveller were rather active, and later replaced with the TML and XBML.

Back in about 95, there was a file with MT stats for all of the ships in the FASA ship books. It was on someone's gopher server. I've since lost the file, sadly, and the site died by the time I got married in 1996.

Only in the last 10 years has HG really seen a resurgence, and that due to T20, which has a compatible design system.

 

[jappel]

Many years ago, Sigg Oddra had an excellent post on up-gunning the small-ship universe by incorporating concepts from HG2 into the Book 2 rule system in very clever ways. I've always loved the ideas he came up with because it allowed you to build book-2 style ships that were truly military in purpose by adding things like armor, heavier weapons (including a "heavy turret" in between the usual triple turret and the barbette), etc. It meant you could build a 400-ton ship that would kick the crap out of an armed merchant twice it's size, but which would be useless for any purpose other than military operations.

Fortunately it looks like the meat of those rules have been preserved in this document, specifically Part Five:
http://www.the-children-of-earth.org/downloads/LBB2-EX.pdf