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Trillion Credit Squadron

Hi Ptah, welcome aboard


This thread may help you find stuff.
 
Hah, I guess this is the source of Sigg's other thread in the Traveller Wargames forum.

While not TCS, I did run a limited intelligence, limited communication, double-blind game of Fifth Frontier War in 2004. What I mean by that is that I was the only one who knew who was where and doing what. All players submitted their orders and communications through me. They only knew the positions of enemy forces if they encountered them, or if another friendly force (or friendly world) made contact and reported it.

I resolved all combat according to orders and directives given by the players. If they responded in time, they got to pick their losses (or they could specify the order in which losses would be taken before hand).

Since 5FW is much more abstract than TCS I was able to avoid some of the problems Bill had in his games. Tracking communications was something of a pain; I wound up assuming a "virtual" pool of couriers for each side, and traced the path from point of origin to destination; if a viable path existed then the message got through. This caused some problems for the Imperials because the Swordies got a fleet over Lanth rather early, playing hell with their comm routes to the forces fighting on the Sword Worlds border.

I tracked the game using a computerized version of the game. PM me if you'd like details about it.

The game only got through 8 or 9 turns before real-life events forced me to suspend it. Still, the players overall seemed to enjoy it and they definitely came away with a new appreciation of the issues faced by commanders who only know where the enemy was 4 weeks ago.


- John
 
Hah, I guess this is the source of Sigg's other thread in the Traveller Wargames forum.

While not TCS, I did run a limited intelligence, limited communication, double-blind game of Fifth Frontier War in 2004. What I mean by that is that I was the only one who knew who was where and doing what. All players submitted their orders and communications through me. They only knew the positions of enemy forces if they encountered them, or if another friendly force (or friendly world) made contact and reported it.

I resolved all combat according to orders and directives given by the players. If they responded in time, they got to pick their losses (or they could specify the order in which losses would be taken before hand).

Since 5FW is much more abstract than TCS I was able to avoid some of the problems Bill had in his games. Tracking communications was something of a pain; I wound up assuming a "virtual" pool of couriers for each side, and traced the path from point of origin to destination; if a viable path existed then the message got through. This caused some problems for the Imperials because the Swordies got a fleet over Lanth rather early, playing hell with their comm routes to the forces fighting on the Sword Worlds border.

I tracked the game using a computerized version of the game. PM me if you'd like details about it.

The game only got through 8 or 9 turns before real-life events forced me to suspend it. Still, the players overall seemed to enjoy it and they definitely came away with a new appreciation of the issues faced by commanders who only know where the enemy was 4 weeks ago.


- John
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Take it form me, TCS is a record keeping nightmare, especially for the GM/referee who must have copies of EVERYTHING the players have. Computers will make this easier; I've seen a TCS starter kit of sorts complete with ship designs on line in some sort of MS database format.
Care to post the link? Or will any of the programmers here build an application to track TCS paperwork?

Early on, the battles are die rolling - record keeping headaches, especially if you don't limit the number of pilots somehow. The HG2 weapon tables create optimal design solutions at every given TL. Most of those solution favor smaller hulls over 'deathstars' thus requiring more pilots. ForEx: Before powerplants reach a certain power density, nuc missiles are your best bet. That means most naval budgets will have HORDES of missile boats carried by armored tenders. (Even the much maligned sub-100dTon fighter is a ship killer below a certain TL, ~12 IIRC.)

I'd like to see a list of these "best design solutions" and exploits in order to either correct them or reflect them in my designs.

For most of the battles we used the statistical battery resolution rules published in JTAS. That let us handle the huge numbers of 'to hit' and 'to penetrate' rolls huge numbers of batteries required. Rolling for 100 laser batteries per each battleship will break your wrist.
Which JTAS issue was it in?
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Take it form me, TCS is a record keeping nightmare, especially for the GM/referee who must have copies of EVERYTHING the players have. Computers will make this easier; I've seen a TCS starter kit of sorts complete with ship designs on line in some sort of MS database format.
Care to post the link? Or will any of the programmers here build an application to track TCS paperwork?

Early on, the battles are die rolling - record keeping headaches, especially if you don't limit the number of pilots somehow. The HG2 weapon tables create optimal design solutions at every given TL. Most of those solution favor smaller hulls over 'deathstars' thus requiring more pilots. ForEx: Before powerplants reach a certain power density, nuc missiles are your best bet. That means most naval budgets will have HORDES of missile boats carried by armored tenders. (Even the much maligned sub-100dTon fighter is a ship killer below a certain TL, ~12 IIRC.)

I'd like to see a list of these "best design solutions" and exploits in order to either correct them or reflect them in my designs.

For most of the battles we used the statistical battery resolution rules published in JTAS. That let us handle the huge numbers of 'to hit' and 'to penetrate' rolls huge numbers of batteries required. Rolling for 100 laser batteries per each battleship will break your wrist.
Which JTAS issue was it in?
 
Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Care to post the link? Or will any of the programmers here build an application to track TCS paperwork?
2-4601,

If memory serves, I found via the 'ct starships' Yahoo group. It was at least five years ago and I remember it being in a near-archaic MS database format even then. I eventually opened the files on a 286 machine that had MSWorks.

The databse files consisted of designs for all the major powers, locations of each power's fleet assets (X at System A, Y at System B), and fleet assignments. There were also database files for orders parsed by location, owner, and date.

Let me nose around 'ct-starships' and see if I can dredge it up again.

I'd like to see a list of these "best design solutions" and exploits in order to either correct them or reflect them in my designs.
The (in)famous 'Eurisko' designs are the FFE JTAS Reprints, again IIRC. There are also some convention winners published in one of the first 2 JTAS Reprint volumes. You'll notice a set of convention campaign design specs in the TCS adventure listed by year. The designs published in JTAS were built to those various TCS specs.

The 'best design' ideas for TTL15 are pretty muc worked out. You either build hi-agility meson 'sleds' that are small enough to bring as many spinals to the fight as possible but big enough to prevent auto crits (size P IIRC) or 'turtles' with insane armor levels and lots of missiles and PAs.

At each TL, a rock-paper-scissor dynamic can be observed. A 'best design' scissor will be a 'best design' paper all hallow and get beaten all hallow by a 'best design' rock. Balanced fleets are your best bets, 'mono-crop' fleets do not work in the long run.

On a side note, at or below TTL12, fighters are deadly. If you have the pilot numbers available, you can swarm all but the most skewed warships design (i.e. insane armor and nothing but small laser batteries) in a single combat round for ~75% of the cost of the warship in fighters. The fighters kill primarily through fuel hits. Get ten of them and a warship no longer has any EPs.

This all has to do with the powerplant size per EP rating, a lack of effective dampers, and the limited computer ratings available at lower tech levels.

Which JTAS issue was it in?
It's in one of the first 2 JTAS Reprints. The article is by Leroy Guatney - who also happens to be an utter rat bastard, but don't let that make you think the article is no good.

You can easily run up your own stat tables. I did so years ago with nothing more than a pencil and calculator. Spreadsheets make it even easier. Look at it this way;

Each 'to hit' number has a specific probability of occuring on 2D6. You take that probability and factor it with the number of batteries firing. So if the probability is 0.1, you'll need 10 batteries to generate one hit, 100 batteries to generate 10, and so on.

You can do the same thing with the follow on 'to penetrate' rolls.


Have fun,
Bill

P.S. How did that Dinom 'revisit' of your's work out?
 
Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Care to post the link? Or will any of the programmers here build an application to track TCS paperwork?
2-4601,

If memory serves, I found via the 'ct starships' Yahoo group. It was at least five years ago and I remember it being in a near-archaic MS database format even then. I eventually opened the files on a 286 machine that had MSWorks.

The databse files consisted of designs for all the major powers, locations of each power's fleet assets (X at System A, Y at System B), and fleet assignments. There were also database files for orders parsed by location, owner, and date.

Let me nose around 'ct-starships' and see if I can dredge it up again.

I'd like to see a list of these "best design solutions" and exploits in order to either correct them or reflect them in my designs.
The (in)famous 'Eurisko' designs are the FFE JTAS Reprints, again IIRC. There are also some convention winners published in one of the first 2 JTAS Reprint volumes. You'll notice a set of convention campaign design specs in the TCS adventure listed by year. The designs published in JTAS were built to those various TCS specs.

The 'best design' ideas for TTL15 are pretty muc worked out. You either build hi-agility meson 'sleds' that are small enough to bring as many spinals to the fight as possible but big enough to prevent auto crits (size P IIRC) or 'turtles' with insane armor levels and lots of missiles and PAs.

At each TL, a rock-paper-scissor dynamic can be observed. A 'best design' scissor will be a 'best design' paper all hallow and get beaten all hallow by a 'best design' rock. Balanced fleets are your best bets, 'mono-crop' fleets do not work in the long run.

On a side note, at or below TTL12, fighters are deadly. If you have the pilot numbers available, you can swarm all but the most skewed warships design (i.e. insane armor and nothing but small laser batteries) in a single combat round for ~75% of the cost of the warship in fighters. The fighters kill primarily through fuel hits. Get ten of them and a warship no longer has any EPs.

This all has to do with the powerplant size per EP rating, a lack of effective dampers, and the limited computer ratings available at lower tech levels.

Which JTAS issue was it in?
It's in one of the first 2 JTAS Reprints. The article is by Leroy Guatney - who also happens to be an utter rat bastard, but don't let that make you think the article is no good.

You can easily run up your own stat tables. I did so years ago with nothing more than a pencil and calculator. Spreadsheets make it even easier. Look at it this way;

Each 'to hit' number has a specific probability of occuring on 2D6. You take that probability and factor it with the number of batteries firing. So if the probability is 0.1, you'll need 10 batteries to generate one hit, 100 batteries to generate 10, and so on.

You can do the same thing with the follow on 'to penetrate' rolls.


Have fun,
Bill

P.S. How did that Dinom 'revisit' of your's work out?
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:

At each TL, a rock-paper-scissor dynamic can be observed. A 'best design' scissor will be a 'best design' paper all hallow and get beaten all hallow by a 'best design' rock. Balanced fleets are your best bets, 'mono-crop' fleets do not work in the long run.

On a side note, at or below TTL12, fighters are deadly. If you have the pilot numbers available, you can swarm all but the most skewed warships design (i.e. insane armor and nothing but small laser batteries) in a single combat round for ~75% of the cost of the warship in fighters. The fighters kill primarily through fuel hits. Get ten of them and a warship no longer has any EPs.

This all has to do with the powerplant size per EP rating, a lack of effective dampers, and the limited computer ratings available at lower tech levels.
So, in my TL12-max TU, my fleets will be carrier fleets as in my LBB2 version, is that correct? Each fleet has one big-ass carrier with several squadrons (each squadron=6 to 12 ships, depending on weapon and turret configuartion), some used defensibly (i.e. against other fighters), others offensively (i.e. against the other side's carrier). The carrier and support ships stay in Reserve; Fighters and Escorts (read: armored anti-fighter laser-ships) go to the battle Line. Somewhat like the Cold War naval paradigm. A Cruiser would be a carrier with heavy weapons of its own, used for independant operations.

I assume that the fighters will be armed with missiles (do they need anything else, like sand, or could they mount triple missile racks for USP code 2?).

Can statistical tables solve the issue of resolving the involvement of atleast 10 fighters on each side of a battle (but could go to several scores on each side)?

Another option would be to treat each squadron as a "ship", group all its weapons into one battery, and have a modified hit table for it. This will (IMHO) resolve the "swarming" exploit and probably make fighters less useless in later TLs as well. And, best of all, it will reduce the complexity of it all.

P.S. How did that Dinom 'revisit' of your's work out?
Slowly; Striker is time-intensive, far more than HG, and I don't have much time to devote to it. But I'm slowly making progress on this; I won't abandon it, I promise
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:

At each TL, a rock-paper-scissor dynamic can be observed. A 'best design' scissor will be a 'best design' paper all hallow and get beaten all hallow by a 'best design' rock. Balanced fleets are your best bets, 'mono-crop' fleets do not work in the long run.

On a side note, at or below TTL12, fighters are deadly. If you have the pilot numbers available, you can swarm all but the most skewed warships design (i.e. insane armor and nothing but small laser batteries) in a single combat round for ~75% of the cost of the warship in fighters. The fighters kill primarily through fuel hits. Get ten of them and a warship no longer has any EPs.

This all has to do with the powerplant size per EP rating, a lack of effective dampers, and the limited computer ratings available at lower tech levels.
So, in my TL12-max TU, my fleets will be carrier fleets as in my LBB2 version, is that correct? Each fleet has one big-ass carrier with several squadrons (each squadron=6 to 12 ships, depending on weapon and turret configuartion), some used defensibly (i.e. against other fighters), others offensively (i.e. against the other side's carrier). The carrier and support ships stay in Reserve; Fighters and Escorts (read: armored anti-fighter laser-ships) go to the battle Line. Somewhat like the Cold War naval paradigm. A Cruiser would be a carrier with heavy weapons of its own, used for independant operations.

I assume that the fighters will be armed with missiles (do they need anything else, like sand, or could they mount triple missile racks for USP code 2?).

Can statistical tables solve the issue of resolving the involvement of atleast 10 fighters on each side of a battle (but could go to several scores on each side)?

Another option would be to treat each squadron as a "ship", group all its weapons into one battery, and have a modified hit table for it. This will (IMHO) resolve the "swarming" exploit and probably make fighters less useless in later TLs as well. And, best of all, it will reduce the complexity of it all.

P.S. How did that Dinom 'revisit' of your's work out?
Slowly; Striker is time-intensive, far more than HG, and I don't have much time to devote to it. But I'm slowly making progress on this; I won't abandon it, I promise
 
Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
So, in my TL12-max TU, my fleets will be carrier fleets as in my LBB2 version, is that correct?
2-4601,

If you TU follows the same tech progression as the OTU, yes.

The deadliness of fighters at lower TLs depends on:

- Powerplant size versus EP produced
- Nonexistent or ineffective nuclear dampers
- The high cost in MCr and volume for armor
- The upper limit on computers

With bulkier powerplants, larger ships normally have lower agilities. Especially if they also carry jump drives. The lower agility rating makes them easier to hit.

Nuclear dampers work against the weapon of choice for all small ships; nuclear missiles. A battery factor under 9 recieves a +6 drm on the damage table and nuclear missiles recieve a -6 drm on the damage table. Nuclear missiles allow < 9 batteries to cause better damage.

Armor acts as a +drm to any damage table roll, except mesons guns. More costly armor limits the armor factors aboard ships and helps more/better damage occur.

The computer code in HG2 is a catch-all covering a myriad of functions. The difference between the firer's and target's computers can make a poor shot work and a great shot miss. With computers capped at the TTL12 level, small craft, who normally carry smaller computers due to size and EP reasons, will have a computer closer to that of larger ships. That means they can hit and penetrate more often than at higher TLs.

I assume that the fighters will be armed with missiles (do they need anything else, like sand, or could they mount triple missile racks for USP code 2?).
It depends on what kind of fighters you build or whether you build sub-100dTon fighters at all. You can build an 'el cheapo' fighter at around 10dTons and cram 3 missile racks aboard. Whether it will hit often enough and survive long enough is another question.

Fighters survived the 'smoke test' at 'ct-starships' in great numbers because they mission killed their target in one combat round. The warship only had so many batteries to throw at the swarm and could only kill so many in one round.

Larger fighters have many benefits. They can carry larger computers making it harder to hit them and it easier for them to hit. When you examine the bonus a computer gives a fighter, it may make sense to have a missile battery with an USP of 1 along with a sandcaster battery too. The fighter with a smaller may pack a bigger missile USP but hit far less often.

I think you should also eaxmine 'large' fighters or 'small' SDBs; vessels in the 100 - 200 dTon range. That increase has benefits too. You can easily mount a bridge meaning your computer works as rated, you can slather on lots of armor meaning you'll last longer, and you can arm an extra turret. A 200 dton 'gunboat' will cost more than a 50 dTon fighter, however with two turrets it will hit just as hard if not harder and survive much more often to fight another day.

The last bit is important, in the 'smoke test' only one combat round occured. That will not be the case IYTU.

Can statistical tables solve the issue of resolving the involvement of atleast 10 fighters on each side of a battle (but could go to several scores on each side)?
Yes, of course. The Guatney article even discusses grouping fighters as pseudo-ships, just as you postulate. It doesn't matter how many batteries are involved just as long as they are firing at the same target. You throw 100 missile batteries at Warship A, compute the 'to hit' probability, and find out how many batteries hit. Simple. The same can be for 'to penetrate' rolls and even damage rolls. In the latter, you distribute the hits over a bell curve superimposed on the damage table.


Have fun,
Bill
 
Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
So, in my TL12-max TU, my fleets will be carrier fleets as in my LBB2 version, is that correct?
2-4601,

If you TU follows the same tech progression as the OTU, yes.

The deadliness of fighters at lower TLs depends on:

- Powerplant size versus EP produced
- Nonexistent or ineffective nuclear dampers
- The high cost in MCr and volume for armor
- The upper limit on computers

With bulkier powerplants, larger ships normally have lower agilities. Especially if they also carry jump drives. The lower agility rating makes them easier to hit.

Nuclear dampers work against the weapon of choice for all small ships; nuclear missiles. A battery factor under 9 recieves a +6 drm on the damage table and nuclear missiles recieve a -6 drm on the damage table. Nuclear missiles allow < 9 batteries to cause better damage.

Armor acts as a +drm to any damage table roll, except mesons guns. More costly armor limits the armor factors aboard ships and helps more/better damage occur.

The computer code in HG2 is a catch-all covering a myriad of functions. The difference between the firer's and target's computers can make a poor shot work and a great shot miss. With computers capped at the TTL12 level, small craft, who normally carry smaller computers due to size and EP reasons, will have a computer closer to that of larger ships. That means they can hit and penetrate more often than at higher TLs.

I assume that the fighters will be armed with missiles (do they need anything else, like sand, or could they mount triple missile racks for USP code 2?).
It depends on what kind of fighters you build or whether you build sub-100dTon fighters at all. You can build an 'el cheapo' fighter at around 10dTons and cram 3 missile racks aboard. Whether it will hit often enough and survive long enough is another question.

Fighters survived the 'smoke test' at 'ct-starships' in great numbers because they mission killed their target in one combat round. The warship only had so many batteries to throw at the swarm and could only kill so many in one round.

Larger fighters have many benefits. They can carry larger computers making it harder to hit them and it easier for them to hit. When you examine the bonus a computer gives a fighter, it may make sense to have a missile battery with an USP of 1 along with a sandcaster battery too. The fighter with a smaller may pack a bigger missile USP but hit far less often.

I think you should also eaxmine 'large' fighters or 'small' SDBs; vessels in the 100 - 200 dTon range. That increase has benefits too. You can easily mount a bridge meaning your computer works as rated, you can slather on lots of armor meaning you'll last longer, and you can arm an extra turret. A 200 dton 'gunboat' will cost more than a 50 dTon fighter, however with two turrets it will hit just as hard if not harder and survive much more often to fight another day.

The last bit is important, in the 'smoke test' only one combat round occured. That will not be the case IYTU.

Can statistical tables solve the issue of resolving the involvement of atleast 10 fighters on each side of a battle (but could go to several scores on each side)?
Yes, of course. The Guatney article even discusses grouping fighters as pseudo-ships, just as you postulate. It doesn't matter how many batteries are involved just as long as they are firing at the same target. You throw 100 missile batteries at Warship A, compute the 'to hit' probability, and find out how many batteries hit. Simple. The same can be for 'to penetrate' rolls and even damage rolls. In the latter, you distribute the hits over a bell curve superimposed on the damage table.


Have fun,
Bill
 
What a thread! Never played TCS below TL13. Also found that fighters at TL14 not very effective unless you built them with the best computers you can. They also sucked up pilots.

It's very interesting that around TL12 that fighters lose their edge. This could make a campaign based on a TL11-12 universe fascinating to run do to changing naval tactics as the damper is introduced into fleets, and the old carrier based navy gives way to the new dreadnaught based one.
 
What a thread! Never played TCS below TL13. Also found that fighters at TL14 not very effective unless you built them with the best computers you can. They also sucked up pilots.

It's very interesting that around TL12 that fighters lose their edge. This could make a campaign based on a TL11-12 universe fascinating to run do to changing naval tactics as the damper is introduced into fleets, and the old carrier based navy gives way to the new dreadnaught based one.
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Care to post the link? Or will any of the programmers here build an application to track TCS paperwork?
2-4601,

If memory serves, I found via the 'ct starships' Yahoo group. It was at least five years ago and I remember it being in a near-archaic MS database format even then. I eventually opened the files on a 286 machine that had MSWorks.

The databse files consisted of designs for all the major powers, locations of each power's fleet assets (X at System A, Y at System B), and fleet assignments. There were also database files for orders parsed by location, owner, and date.

Let me nose around 'ct-starships' and see if I can dredge it up again.
</font>[/QUOTE]It doesn't sound like it's the same one, but you may nevertheless be interested in having a look at this site:

http://www.republicofnewhome.org/lair/games/traveller/trav.html

Look under 'Naval Architecture' as well as 'Trillion Credit Squadron'.


Hans
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Care to post the link? Or will any of the programmers here build an application to track TCS paperwork?
2-4601,

If memory serves, I found via the 'ct starships' Yahoo group. It was at least five years ago and I remember it being in a near-archaic MS database format even then. I eventually opened the files on a 286 machine that had MSWorks.

The databse files consisted of designs for all the major powers, locations of each power's fleet assets (X at System A, Y at System B), and fleet assignments. There were also database files for orders parsed by location, owner, and date.

Let me nose around 'ct-starships' and see if I can dredge it up again.
</font>[/QUOTE]It doesn't sound like it's the same one, but you may nevertheless be interested in having a look at this site:

http://www.republicofnewhome.org/lair/games/traveller/trav.html

Look under 'Naval Architecture' as well as 'Trillion Credit Squadron'.


Hans
 
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