Starship Combat 2 - Renegade Legion: Interceptor

[princelian]

As I stated before, I don't care for the T20 starship combat system, and I've been looking at rulesets to replace it with. I've settled on Renegade Legion: Interceptor, which I happen to own and always liked.

However, the starship construction rules, especially in regard to translight drives, don't work well for Traveller, and the tech level of the ships (including the Terran Overlord Government (TOG), the Kess'Rith, the Renegade Legions, and the Commonwealth) is pretty much at parity. Tech level in Traveller is a definite issue ship to ship and culture to culture. TL 14 Zhodani interceptors are a whole different level of threat from TL 11 Vargr fighters... And that's a whole different kettle of fish from those two gleaming TL 15 Imperial patrol cruisers that want you to stand to for inspection...

What I propose to do is to use High Guard or possibly MegaTraveller-as-fixed-by-me to build the ships and then convert them into RL:I statistics. This gives me the best of both worlds insofar as ship design and a playable realspace combat system.

The reason I'm posting this here is that I'm wondering if any of the rest of you combine rulesets for starships like this. And if so, what rulesets do you use?

 

[Rover]

I am not overly fond of the T20 starship combat rules. It could be that I don't understand them very well. I do not feel the rule book is very clear.

I have been toying with a simplified rule set for combat of 2 or 3 ships. I do not know if I want to have combat with more than 3 ships IMTU.

2 points define a line, 3 points define a plane.

2 ship combat I determine each ships velocity and distance between the 2. Determine attacks at that range. Next round calculate new range and velocity and do it again. Being a line, ships can only move closer or farther apart.

3 ship combat would be similar, but I would have to incorporate direction to speed and distance.

 

[princelian]

Unless you're actually going to sit down and work out the vector math, you want to avoid 3D, even though you'd utilize it in an actual space combat.

His pattern suggests two-dimensional thinking.

For example, if you're higher-acceleration than your higher-velocity inbound opponent and you want to prevent them from closing beyond a certain distance, you'd accelerate at right-angles to their plane of attack. If there's only one cluster of opponents, you can approximate this on a 2D grid by defining its plane as the appropriate plane to accelerate into.

However, with two clusters of opponents, the maximum-distance vector may (almost certainly WILL) fall between orthagonal planes. (For two closing opponents at right angles to one another, you want a heading at 90 degrees to the plane defined by their course, which takes you "up" out of the 2D grid.)

This all requires pretty heavy use of vector math, which is great if you're playing with a group of math and physics geeks (like me). Not so great if your group includes psychologists, editors, computer geeks, surgical nurses, and salesmen. I'm the only "hard" sci-fi geek in the group of geeks, although they're all sci-fi and fantasy fans.

(I.e., my gearheadedness rating will probably have to drop to ge- for this group of players. Oh, woe is me....)

Consequently, I'll stick with a 2D grid. Now, if the plotline is "PCs evade capture by the Sword World cruisers" and the only successful evasion vector is up, I'll let 'em go up. 'Nuff said.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Ad-Astra Games claims to take the scary math out of 3D combat.

Like I posted earlier for 2D (When dealing with 2-3 ships 2D is sufficiently accurate unless you have really weird base vectors.) I prefer Mayday. And aside from the non-floating maps, (the two scales of maps actually works) I don't see the issue with the T20 Advanced Combat rules. (I see another issue with gunnery skill, and current large ship combat rules, but that is another thread.)

Aside from the fact that you have decided that you don't like it, what is wrong with it? What you are trying to do sounds much more complicated, for little practical effect.

 

[princelian]

Let's see. I'm not bashing T20's combat system here, I want to be clear about that.

Critical hits can allow a light ship to destroy a capital ship. Not to mention nuclear and meson attacks.

In RL:I, a light fighter is in for a tough fight against a heavy fighter, but it could conceivably win. In T20, such a confrontation is autokill for the light fighter unless the aforementioned critical hit intervenes.

The movement system in T20 is too much of an abstraction for me.

The starship construction system in T20 is not quite right, and it'd take me too long to work out the kinks, so I'll be using HG or MT as I mentioned above. I worked the kinks, to my satisfaction, out of those systems.

Renegade Legion: Interceptor is a fun space combat simulation game. It even has neato color 3D boxes that have side and top views of the fighters. I like its armor and damage system (that I think the flowchart is cool exposes how geeky I am). I like how well it meshes with Traveller small ship scaling.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Large ship combat is broken. A decent, and so far working fix is posted on my website and in a few threads here. Nukes are not all that effective, though they do help smaller ships deal with bigger ships. However this is only if the bigger ship lacks point defense. If the bigger ship has adequate point defense, nukes, and missiles in general are non-issues. (Though they are expensive and tie up the opponents lasers.) As far as small ships killing bigger ships with crits, it generally happens less than 5% of the time. Remember that some Battleships in WWII were killed by single 500 lb bombs. (The USS Arizona and the HMS Prince of Wales both went down to Golden BBs.)

The T20 ship construction system is the Highguard system, with a slight difference in that sensors are defined by the computer installed and small craft are limited as to what size computer you can install. LBB5 had no sensor rules. Highguard translates directly to T20, with minor exceptions, generally those ships that used LBB2 engines or LBB2 engines mixed with LBB5 engines, or the canon ships that used the first edition of LBB5.


Your Light fighter vs. Heavy Fighter analogy is flawed. If you actually use the THB Light Fighter and the oversized TA7 Heavy fighters, then you are essentially correct. However a properly designed and crewed Light Fighter can easily be more than a match for a typical Heavy Fighter. A single seat craft will get its butt kicked unless it is fighting another single seat craft. (As will an undermanned Merchant.) Well designed Light and Heavy fighters are actually pretty evenly matched. (Ammunition and sensor range being the two things the Heavy fighter could have going for it, if they are both missile armed. Sensor range only if they have other weapons. Now if you want to fly my Eagle series of Heavy fighter against other fighters then the other fighters are in trouble, unless they followed a similar design philosophy. Even if the target is up to 100 tons, or twice their size. In fact two of them will probably rip up typical escorts in the 300-400 ton range.

You didn't specify, if you thought the movement was abstract for T20 basic combat or advanced combat. Most of the time this is from people that stopped with the basic combat. Advanced is about as close as you are going to get compared to any other system provided you don't actually go 3D. I prefer the Mayday movement as it is easier to keep track of but it is basically the same system. You accellerate based on your ship's G-Rating. (And that includes all vector changes.) How much more realistic can you get and still stay on a 2D map? I do agree that Basic combat is way too abstract.

Now if you go to extremes you are going to hit problems. (Fighters against Cruisers for example.) And if you leave the large ship combat as is, well that is an entirely different can of worms.

For typical Player Character encounters, then the system works.

I figure you are going to stay your course with the attempted conversion. I just thought I would give you some food for thought. And for those others that are reading the thread, that the T20 system isn't really as broken as you make it sound.

[ August 10, 2006, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: Sigg Oddra ]

 

[princelian]

It's not broken, and I didn't mean to imply that it was. It's simply that I don't like its abstraction of physics-based movement.

RL:I does a pretty darned good job of getting the actual vectors in there, while keeping the battle on a 2D map. No, I **DON'T** want to go 3D, if only because I'll lose my players' interest.

If I use RL:I, and if the campaign starts getting into bigger ship engagements, I have the option of moving into Renegade Legion: Leviathan, which deals with capital ships and fleet engagements. Gotta make some major mods to RL:L, for example, making all ships fit in a single 750 km hex - the bigger capital ships are 3-hex and even, I think, 4-hex monstrosities, but are only 1000 m or so long...

(Can you say "scaling error?")

There's a similar problem in Interceptor, too: the patrol cruisers are two-hex ships in a 15 km/hex scale, which is just silly. A patrol cruiser's about the size of a Type S or maybe Type A.

Anyhow, I'll certainly take a look at your site for tidbits to steal....uh, I mean look at.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Thte big issues you run into with Capital ships is Spinals with lower crit hit numbers, and huge crit damage multipliers. And Gunnery as a skill especially combined with PMOS is excessively nasty, especially with a Spinal Meson critting on a 10. As a skill it advances to quickly. Granted Marines and Mercenaries, when switching to BAB for Naval fire, would make your best gunners, but as a practical matter, generally have better things to spend feats on than firing starship weapons. (And unless the GM brings it up, Players generally won't take that feat.

)

If you search the boards you will find my specs for Imperial Fighters that I use in my campaign. If you want to use fighters, as a rule in your campaign, these will show you what can be done. The Eagle series, in particular, has some very nasty implications, which may not be immediately obvious, especially for T20, but those implications carry over in general.

Aside from the minor changes I have made to the rules, if you get settled into the T20 shipbuilding system I think you will agree that it is actually the same system you have become used to, though it isn't as detailed as MT is, (which has its own flaws in it.) it also doesn't require a degree in Aerospace Engineering to build a starship. (I studied Aerospace Engineering and I still found the MT starship design system a pain in the butt.) Oh and contrary to first impressions, LBB5 and MT are not compatible. They derive their designs from an entirely different set of assumptions.

 

[princelian]

I put up this disclaimer because there've been some touchy interchanges on some of the other subjects on CotI: The following is not meant to offend you in any way.

I'm well aware of the differences in LBB5 and MT. When MT first came out, I was fooled - yes, fooled! - by the neato art on the Player's book. The scene of the combat-armored troopers approaching the two space-gals and their open iris valve was a good one.

And the task system was enticing - quantify how those skill rolls work? Brilliant! Or so it seemed, and now I actually hate that part of MT. (See other threads about my views on the task system.)

And the starship generation system! Wow! Actual megawattage! Components down to the 'fresher! Wow!

Oh, wait, it's broken. In several places. Badly.

So we went back to HG for a while, but eventually my gearheaded friends and I fixed MT to a great extent, at least to where it worked for us.

I re-read the Advanced Starship Combat section, and it's not terrible. The movement system isn't right, but it's not terrible. The damage system isn't terrible, either. And I may end up using it, simply because it's compatible with the rest of the d20 system, and Renegade Legion would have to be converted.

I agree with you on the Gunnery thing, btw. I see why the designers did that - they wanted the Navy folks to be good at Gunnery but not so much in physical combat - but it does go up too fast, especially if you take it as a PMOS. (That's just WRONG, btw....)

A better fix is to have two kinds of BABs - personal combat and vehicular combat. Easy enough to modify the character sheet to have some vehicular combat room, and you've solved the problem.

Marines DO typically man batteries on Naval starships in the Imperium - there's a marine gunnery deck on the Azhanti High Lightning, for example. Maybe it's because they're better shots...

Although...I think if I do keep Gunnery, it'll be Pilot that lets you "fly the gun" of the Spinal Mount....

 

[archhealer]

Just a couple of notes on Gunnery; PMOS is a free can of whoopass with this skill, but a few other feats offer similiar (If lesser) bonuses. Skill Focus and Greater Skill Focus (If you allow such D20 feats) spring right to mind. A character with thsoe two feats as well as PMOS and four or five ranks in Gunnery, takes 10 and actually has an automatic score of near 20 or higher (Depending on a few other factors). And chances are a character that focused on gunnery will have as many ranks in it as they can...

 

[BetterThanLife]

Archhealer. It is even worse than you think.
Typically a starting characteris 7th to 12th level, if the character wants to shoot then Gunnery will be a 10-15 without feats. Take the Specialization in Gunnery, that is +2 more. And add PMOS gunnery. So without rolling you are now at 22-27. But wait there's more. If the vessel commander has Leadership at around 12, and is spending their action "Commanding the ship" (Leader check DC 15 and watch out for that one as PMOS too.) Leadership rank divided by 3 is a bonus to hit.) The Ship's Tactical Officer (AKA Gunnery Officer has Ship's Tactics and he isn't actually firing any batteries personally, then add his Int or Wis bonus.) The Fleet Commander can do the same thing, granting an additional Wis or Int bonus. We are at or near 10 points in bonuses and we haven't gotten to Sensors, ECCM and Computer Aided Gunnery. So a Capital ship is going to start with +22 to +27 to the shot at a minimum. Now add the USP of the weapon.

Now consider that the most difficult to hit target in Starship space combat is a Agility 6 AR15 Heavy fighter. (The Eagle is one of those.) AC 31. Now fighters don't have excessive crews to garner some of those bonuses, well except for the Eagle.) An Eagle can counter some of those bonuses with great piloting, another +6 tops, A good tactically sound commander, +2-+4 more and a little bit of ECM which will probably be countered by the bigger computer in the Capital ship. Max AC mods is an additonal 10, or 41.

The Eagle Series of Heavy fighter has a crew of 4. Pilot, Gunner, Commander and EW operator.

Guess what you thought gun combat in Traveller was fast furious and deadly? Just be thankful that hits against ships don't do as much damage, compariatively as hitting a person. Starship combat is fast and dangerous. (Of course it generally has always been that way in Traveller.)

In the movies as well, you get hit you are in trouble. (Star Trek is one of the few exceptions where they soak up damage all day long.)

The real issue with Capital ships and the rules isn't that Spinals do massive damage to whatever they hit, they always had, it is that Meson Spinals, regardless of size Crit on a 10, and has a crit mod that will vaporize (do more than twice the available SI damage to a ship with average rolls) up to 750,000 tons of ship, excluding the radiation damage. They will reduce a ship of approximately 8,000,000 tons to 0 SI points. There is no reason to build battleships. Two battle tenders with Harpy LAC (Light Battle Riders) cost about the same as two Tigresses can wipe out a Task force in one firing pass.(And we aren't talking about a light task force, try 30-36 ships of any size.)

 

[BetterThanLife]

In case you hadn't noticed there are definitely issues in Starship combat in T20, but in general they had always been there as part of Traveller. In T20 Naval combat just got a little faster. (Not much but it can get more pronounced.) It generally applies in Naval Combat, not the Merchant vs. Ethically Challanged Merchant scenario. (Especially since those two are unlikely to see eath other until they are in Visual range.)

 

[aramis]

I use MT rules, T20 Ships, and Mayday movement.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by princelian:
RL:I does a pretty darned good job of getting the actual vectors in there, while keeping the battle on a 2D map.

Yes, it does. Your general idea rocks!

I eagerly await the product of your Hurculean effort.

Originally posted by princelian:
If I use RL:I, and if the campaign starts getting into bigger ship engagements, I have the option of moving into Renegade Legion: Leviathan, which deals with capital ships and fleet engagements.

Ugh! As good as RL:I was (and it was revolutionary), RL:L was a train-wreck.

Originally posted by princelian:
Gotta make some major mods to RL:L

I would say!