External carriage is the normal Lurenti from Spinward Marches Campaign. CT High Guard explains (p 32, Vehicle Launch Facilities) that "Ships which have a type 7 configuration hull carry craft and ships attached to their exterior." And since the Lurenti is config 7, the Nolikians are carried outside. There's so many other problems with the Lurenti as described that it probably doesn't matter what you do. The screening while deploying confused me, too, since distributed carriers launch all ships simultaneously.
Lighter Aboard SHip - where a larger vessel transports smaller, loaded vessels (eg barges).
The way I read B.5, while you can launch (and recover) all the sub-craft in one turn, they will be in the same line as the tender. Thus if you want your tender to not be in the battle line, you need a screen of escorts to be the battle line during launch and recovery operations. A bit rough of the escorts, but they're a heck of a lot cheaper than a battle tender.
I agree that's the case when you launch your riders, but that implies keeping them onboard the Lurenti until the fight starts and launching riders at the beginning of the fight. That seems like a bad plan to me. I would launch the riders immediately on jumping into the system and form up lines right then before anyone has any hope of doing anything about it. Is there a downside to this?
Probably not, assuming nothing's gone terribly wrong. That doesn't address leaving, though.
When you're leaving, you already know who's close and can normally arrange a safe area to jump out.
And here's the screen. Presumably the Imperium preferred using jump-capable ships that might make it out over fighters that would be definite sacrifices. Note that the tender is worth 23 billion credits, the riders 9.3 billion each (so about 65 billion for all seven), and the fighters 105 million each (or 21 billion for the lot). A Sloan is worth ~3.3 billion, so all seven cost about the same as the fighters. So the escorts cost the same, and have fewer crew than the fighters, and you might not lose them all if they're used as a screen, while the fighters are gone (because you jumped out and they can't). Also, if the universe behaves in ways other than as High Guard says, the fighters aren't much of a screen because they can't actually hurt serious warships.
Less of a roadblock and more of a speed bump.
Fighter squadrons can be thought of in much the same way.
CB-U642464-000900-00000-11 MCr 141 897 400 000 Dton
bearing Crew=2 206
batteries TL=15
Cargo=9286 Fuel=176000 EP=16000 Agility=2This. So very this. I can't mash the agree button any harder. But if it's all you've got to use . . .
So, that's the problem, any Sloans you put on the front line are taking a risk. The enemy's meson spinals only hit on a 4+6=10, but a 10+ on 2d6 is 1 in 6. and your Lurenti with seven riders isn't retreating from a pair of sloops, they're presumably facing something that's a threat to 7 Nolikians. So 1 in 6 times how many attackers? That's a real risk. Also, the Sloan's also aren't appreciably better armed than the 50-ton fighters. My rant: Being capable of hurting the opponent is not a requirement of being on the front line, one of the CT rules I find silly - I would ignore ships on the line that can't hurt me meaningfully, but CT requires they be dealt with before attacking the back line. So, a turn on the front line to guard the Lurenti's retreat. Then the banged up Sloans, savaged by missile hits that degrade their weapons to pretty useless, can Jump out as well if they can survive all the enemy mesons and didn't take too many fuel tank dings from the missile barrage. So one Sloan guarding the retreat is probably a loss. But probably not more than that. Still, a squadron of fighters is 1/3 the cost of a Sloan.
Because a speedbump is all you need. A 50-ton fighter with agility 6 is -8 to be hit. That's a high hurdle even for a particle spinal or a missile bay. Sadly, the rating 7 computer takes away 2 of that, in my Sylean redesign I put a bridge and rating 9 comp in so that it takes full advantage, You only need one of the squadron to survive for 1 round to prevent the enemy from firing on your back line. But that's still a sacrifice if you jump out without them, so the 50 x 200 swapout described above is my preference.
I agree. There are many solutions.
CB-T7425J4-099909-99999-20 MCr 133 421 300 000 Dton
bearing Z 5 CCCCZ Crew=2 239
batteries Z 9 LLLLZ TL=15
roops=100 Low=1100 Cargo=0 Fuel=135000 EP=15000 Agility=0
Single Occupancy -64 117 161 510
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Unstreamlined Custom T 300 000
Configuration Dispersed 7 15 000
Jump Drive 4 1 15 000 60 000
Manoeuvre D 2 1 15 000 10 500
Power Plant 5 1 15 000 45 000
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-4, 4 weeks 4 135 000
Purifier 1 2 025 20
Bridge 1 6 000 1 500
Computer m/9fib J 1 26 200
Staterooms 2339 9 356 1 170
Low Berths 1100 550 55
Cargo
Bay Particle, 100 t 9 20 2 000 720
Bay Meson, 100 t 9 20 2 000 1 420
Bay Repulsor, 100 t 9 9 900 99
Bay Missile, 50 t 9 200 10 000 2 500
Triple Turret 10/ba Beam 9 20 200 600 200 turrets organised into 20 batteries.
Double Turret 10/ba Fusion 9 20 400 800 200 turrets organised into 20 batteries.
Triple Turret 10/ba Sand 9 60 600 450 600 mounts organised into 60 batteries.
Nuclear Damper 9 1 20 50
Meson Screen 9 1 40 60
Ship 20000 Dton 7 140 000 280
Heavy Fighter 50 Dton 200 10 000 21 086
Nominal Cost MCr 161 509,75 Sum: -64 117 161 510
Class Cost MCr 29 493,19 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 133 421,00
Crew & High 0 Crew Bridge 150
Passengers Mid 0 2239 Engineers 450
Low 0 Gunners 614
Extra SR 0 Frozen Service 610
# Frozen W 0 0 Flight 415
Marines 0 Marines 100Much worse, it only takes 5 weapon hits to render a Sloan ineffective, or about 10 missile bays. Missile bays are very cheap compared to spinals...
Certainly, there is no single best design, it all depends on the opponent.
It takes hits to make a Sloan ineffective?
To be clear, it takes one meson spinal to wreck anyone's day. But yeah, it can take 8-12 spinals to get that hit. A genius tactician (using Ship Tactics to increase computer rating per HG p 44) can bump that up out of reach, but it would take a really insane rating (like 5 or 7) to do so.
Yes, sadly small stuff is so much more plentiful than PA Spinals. And then again, when 'effective' means 'can knock out a laser battery', it sounds much less effective. The most effective use of a PA Spinal is to make sure your enemies know you have it so they don't cheap out on their ships and skip the armor, which is normally 1/4 to 1/3 the cost of the ship. So, build the PA Spinals. Publicize the test firings. Make your enemies spend money on armor.
Yes.
Well, completely ineffective to prevent breakthrough.
Ship's Tactics-3 is enough to bump the hit chance to 1/36 (size A, Long range) and with penetration to 1/100.
Missiles are cheaper to punish lack of armour. And they are great at reducing the factor of enemy spinals by one step, making them noticeably worse at penetrating screens.
Sure. But one thing they are not useful for, outside of High Guard, is stopping heavy ships coming after your tender while it re-embarks its riders and flees. But in HG even a very few of them can stop a whole fleet for that one turn it takes to load up and jump out (assuming the tender has plenty of energy).
And then it can't, in HG, launch all its riders at once, nor pick them all up at once.
