Warship Roles
- Thread starter Scott Martin
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Fly,
The HG2 mechanic works pretty well for a game played without a map.
The initiative roll winner chooses the range. Initiative is a 1D6 roll modified by the number of ships, fleet tactics skill, and the lowest agility(1) rating found on each side.
So we have luck, skill, 'speed', and squadron size all effecting a single die roll to determine who chooses the range. That's a pretty good mechanic there.
Have fun,
Bill
1 - There's that damn vague term again.
agreed, but playing without a map is like driving a car without tires.
regarding fighters and making them more important:
seems to me that the to-hit tables in HG2 aren't so bad, it's the screen and damage system that finally marginalize fighters. the damage system in HG2 just plain reeks anyway, maybe T5 should have a new approach to this.
Fly,
Agreed. As much as I like the idea of different damage tables for different weapons, HG2's take needs to be ditched.
T5 is a chance to clean up and clear up a whole slew of things. That's one reason why I keep ratting everyone's cage about the troubles that flow from the idea of jump masking. We have a chance to clear up jump and make it more logical.
Have fun,
Bill
In High Guard, Agility is equal to, may not exceed, and in some cases, is lower than the Manuever Drive rating of ships. If the ship design does not have enough energy points (a function of power plant value to be sure) left over, it may not utilize its full Manuever Drive rating towards its agility, and consequently has a lower agility rating. It is through that game mechanism, that Agility = Manuever and Manuever = Agility become logically linked.
Hal,
Not exactly. While a ship's maneuver drive rating provides a 'cap' or 'upper limit' for it's agility factor, agility in HG2 is never described in gees.
Not logically linked, conflated is a more accurate term. Just as people came to believe mass was linked to the 100D limit.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for ditching HG2's frustratingly vague 'agility' ratings for something like 'emergency power' that takes into account ship size, configuration, power availability, and other factors.
Have fun,
Bill
As a stand-alone game, yes. For roleplaying purposes, I'm forced to say Bk5 combat is nearly worthless in PC suitable ship classes.
As to agility being rated in G's: it isn't. But, since it's limited to G's, it's quite true that a ship can raise its agility (given the propensity of MT and some HG players to over-power their ships) to raise agility by increasing the drive size.
Aramis,
I completely agree with that. Only two PC skills effect HG2 combat and then only in a peripheral fashion. Fleet tactics can effect the initiative roll and ship tactics can effect agility.
That's pretty poor for a role-playing game, but HG2 ship combat is more like a wargame than anything else.
Have fun,
Bill
I kind of like jump masking, gives the game character. certainly wouldn't want to administer it though. imtu jump is from x1 y1 z1 to x2 y2 z2, with anything between these points in real space being irrelevant. jump can initiate from anywhere and precipitate to anywhere - course, initiation inside 100d results in misjump, and precipitation inside 100d results in things like the jump drives not coming out of jump with the ship ....
(laugh) the phrase "a really small 18-inch gun" comes to mind ....</font>[/QUOTE]Looking at the High Guard (Book 5) Particle accelerator progression from turret weapon to spinal mount, focus on TL 15 weapons only. Graph the relationship between Weapon Factor, EP and dTons of weapon.
How large would a TL 15 UWP=A Particle Accelerator actually be? How small of a ship could it be mounted in? Describe the HG combat effects of such a ship/weapon combination.
In a world of 400,000 dTon "Ships of the Line", could that be described at a PT boat with "a really small spinal mount"?
looking down a little further on page 24 there, one sees that at tech 15 a 50 dton bay can hold a factor 3 meson gun, and that it needs 100 energy points. sorry, it just ain't gonna fit onto a sub-100dton ship no matter how it's scaled.
being generous and saying that a sub-100dton vessel somehow can mount a fully powered factor 1 meson gun, one then checks the HG2 to-hit charts and finds a factor 1 meson gun hits on 9+. missiles and lasers do better at that factor level, and there's no particular reason to think that a really small meson gun will do any more damage than a conventional weapon. in addition, if the target vessel has any kind of meson screen the factor 1 meson attack can't penetrate the screen anyway.
using HG2 as a reference, that is.
under HG2, it seems that while the to-hit rolls aren't so bad, it's the screens and armor and +6 to <=factor 9 weapons that do in fighters.
how 'bout this: get rid of the +6. also, the role of fighters is to bring weapons inside the effective range of screens and anti-missile defenses before launching their attacks.
how 'bout this: get rid of the +6. also, the role of fighters is to bring weapons inside the effective range of screens and anti-missile defenses before launching their attacks.
Just a small direction change. What is a fighter?
Most of this discussion focuses on "Tomcats in space". It would seem that fighters will mostly engage other fighters or provide support roles as very long range reconnaissance or support of other small craft. Attacking capital ships, not so much.
My take on fighter roles.
Very long range reconnaissance, flights of "fighters" would be launched to fan out and give the fleet plenty of notice of what's out beyond sensor range. These might be have 2 or 3 man crews and have life support for a week or so, kind of like pint size non jump Type S scouts.
Defensive role of taking out other fighters, missiles or small escort craft. Offensive: hunt down the other sides long range recon craft, picking on support craft, landing shuttles, troop carriers.
Support of boarding operations by providing escort and cover. Your Far Trader is less likely to do something cute with four heavy fighters escorting that Custom's Cutter. Taking out the few remaining turrets on the crippled cruiser before the Marines come in.
Throwing away craft and pilots against capital ships? I think not. Fighter craft still cost money and pilots don't come cheap or easy. You throw them away the with the first battle, what do you use for the next engagement? Resupply or return to base of a squadron of fighters takes resources and time that may not be available.
Notice almost all of these could be handled by robotic or RPV craft. YMMV.
Another tangent. A System Defense Boat hiding in the gas giant with a team of RPV's popping up to see what's what or sitting on an asteroid with it's unblinking eyes out.
For what it's worth, how do y'all perceive fighters being used?
LAN
Most of this discussion focuses on "Tomcats in space". It would seem that fighters will mostly engage other fighters or provide support roles as very long range reconnaissance or support of other small craft. Attacking capital ships, not so much.
My take on fighter roles.
Very long range reconnaissance, flights of "fighters" would be launched to fan out and give the fleet plenty of notice of what's out beyond sensor range. These might be have 2 or 3 man crews and have life support for a week or so, kind of like pint size non jump Type S scouts.
Defensive role of taking out other fighters, missiles or small escort craft. Offensive: hunt down the other sides long range recon craft, picking on support craft, landing shuttles, troop carriers.
Support of boarding operations by providing escort and cover. Your Far Trader is less likely to do something cute with four heavy fighters escorting that Custom's Cutter. Taking out the few remaining turrets on the crippled cruiser before the Marines come in.
Throwing away craft and pilots against capital ships? I think not. Fighter craft still cost money and pilots don't come cheap or easy. You throw them away the with the first battle, what do you use for the next engagement? Resupply or return to base of a squadron of fighters takes resources and time that may not be available.
Notice almost all of these could be handled by robotic or RPV craft. YMMV.
Another tangent. A System Defense Boat hiding in the gas giant with a team of RPV's popping up to see what's what or sitting on an asteroid with it's unblinking eyes out.
For what it's worth, how do y'all perceive fighters being used?
LAN
looking down a little further on page 24 there, one sees that at tech 15 a 50 dton bay can hold a factor 3 meson gun, and that it needs 100 energy points. sorry, it just ain't gonna fit onto a sub-100dton ship no matter how it's scaled.
being generous and saying that a sub-100dton vessel somehow can mount a fully powered factor 1 meson gun, one then checks the HG2 to-hit charts and finds a factor 1 meson gun hits on 9+. missiles and lasers do better at that factor level, and there's no particular reason to think that a really small meson gun will do any more damage than a conventional weapon. in addition, if the target vessel has any kind of meson screen the factor 1 meson attack can't penetrate the screen anyway.
using HG2 as a reference, that is. </font>[/QUOTE]A Traveller PT boat would not be a small craft. Using WW2 size comparisons, it would be a SDB designed to hunt in packs to kill ships in the 20,000 to 400,000 dTon range.
AT,
You're referring to the Infinite Monkey Missile Boats paradigm. Along with Meson Armed Suicide Sleds and PAW Rocks, they're part of HG2's rock-paper-scissors design triad.
Take one 1000 dTon hull, add one 100 dTon missile bay, one bridge, and the biggest computer TL your allows. Next, drop in an engineering plant that produces 6 gees and an agility rating of 6. Finish with a minimal amount of staterooms and all the armor you can cram aboard. Voila! You have a cheap attack platform with a decent punch (nukes missiles) that you can produce in enough numbers to drown your opponents in.
I don't know where the 'monkey' part of the name comes from. They've been called that at 'ct-starships' for as long as I can remember.
Have fun,
Bill
Bill.
Yes, that sounds about right. I was just comparing the 56 ton displacement of the WW2 PT 109 to the 50,000 ton displacement of the Bismark. If a PT boat was 1/1000 the size of a battleship, then a CT PT Boat would be 1/1000 the size of a Dreadnaught (or about 400 to 500 dTons). The WW2 PT Boats were designed to attack Destroyers that were about 60 times their size, so a quick estimate of a CT PT Boat is a 400 dTon ship designed to kill 20,000 dTon ships.
I just wanted to point out that a PT Boat is not like a 1 man fighter. It is a small warship.
Yes, that sounds about right. I was just comparing the 56 ton displacement of the WW2 PT 109 to the 50,000 ton displacement of the Bismark. If a PT boat was 1/1000 the size of a battleship, then a CT PT Boat would be 1/1000 the size of a Dreadnaught (or about 400 to 500 dTons). The WW2 PT Boats were designed to attack Destroyers that were about 60 times their size, so a quick estimate of a CT PT Boat is a 400 dTon ship designed to kill 20,000 dTon ships.
I just wanted to point out that a PT Boat is not like a 1 man fighter. It is a small warship.
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
I think that trying to "force" TRAVELLER ship combat into a particular historical combat model is the wrong way to go about things. Whether you agree with the results or not, I believe GDW accidentally did things the right way the first time when they released HG. The HG rules defined how the "physics" worked in the OTU (at least for big ships) and then the various ship/squadron design competitions served as "virtual wars" that evolved design proposals that eventually "worked" within the rules as provided.
You may like the "armored rock - meson sled - missile boat" triad that evolved, you may not. It might not agree with TRAVELLER canon. But it evolved =out of= the HG rules as published and made sense within the universe described by those rules.
T5 could try the same thing. Set up the shipbuilding/ship combat rules and turn a bunch of gamers loose on them to see what evolves. Then do the step that GDW didn't do: build the descriptions of canon warships around the "battle" results gotten from the gamers. If T5 ship design/combat makes fighters viable, then fighters and carriers should be the primary warships of the T5 universe. If heavily armored battleships prove to be the most efficient ships, they should be the arbiters of empires. And if the old "rock-paper-scissors" model should evolve once again, then that's what T5 fleets should look like.
You may like the "armored rock - meson sled - missile boat" triad that evolved, you may not. It might not agree with TRAVELLER canon. But it evolved =out of= the HG rules as published and made sense within the universe described by those rules.
T5 could try the same thing. Set up the shipbuilding/ship combat rules and turn a bunch of gamers loose on them to see what evolves. Then do the step that GDW didn't do: build the descriptions of canon warships around the "battle" results gotten from the gamers. If T5 ship design/combat makes fighters viable, then fighters and carriers should be the primary warships of the T5 universe. If heavily armored battleships prove to be the most efficient ships, they should be the arbiters of empires. And if the old "rock-paper-scissors" model should evolve once again, then that's what T5 fleets should look like.
Oz's commentary about the evolution of warship designs is on target. The normal way things go is:
Build better weapon to get enemy
Build better defense against better weapon
Build better weapon 2 to get at enemy
Build better defense 2 against better weapon 2.
etc
Then some yahoo figures out a way to make do with weapon system 3 despite armor system 4, which makes Armor system 4 relatively worthless. Then it is back to the drawing board to try and fix the problems that are cropping up.
One thing I'd like to see happen for a Traveller game is the degradation of Sensor systems/platforms during battle. Anything that will strip the hull of its externally mounted turret weapons should also be stripping the ship of its sensor arrays and the like. Just as sensors are needed for deep buried planetary meson sites - so too are sensors needed for a ship to fight. If you can blind a ship - isn't that equivalent to a mission kill at the very least despite how heavily armored it might be?
Imagine how it might have gone had they included a sensor stat for ships - and having the understanding that sensor arrays can't be armored? Imagine too a frustrated ship's captain being told "Sir, they just shot away the antenae for the active weapons lock system. We can fire at targets, but only if they are within .1 light seconds range. What do you want us to do sir?"
If fighters can hit sensor dishes and the like despite not being able to get past the armor - then perhaps they might prove useful after all...
Build better weapon to get enemy
Build better defense against better weapon
Build better weapon 2 to get at enemy
Build better defense 2 against better weapon 2.
etc
Then some yahoo figures out a way to make do with weapon system 3 despite armor system 4, which makes Armor system 4 relatively worthless. Then it is back to the drawing board to try and fix the problems that are cropping up.
One thing I'd like to see happen for a Traveller game is the degradation of Sensor systems/platforms during battle. Anything that will strip the hull of its externally mounted turret weapons should also be stripping the ship of its sensor arrays and the like. Just as sensors are needed for deep buried planetary meson sites - so too are sensors needed for a ship to fight. If you can blind a ship - isn't that equivalent to a mission kill at the very least despite how heavily armored it might be?
Imagine how it might have gone had they included a sensor stat for ships - and having the understanding that sensor arrays can't be armored? Imagine too a frustrated ship's captain being told "Sir, they just shot away the antenae for the active weapons lock system. We can fire at targets, but only if they are within .1 light seconds range. What do you want us to do sir?"
If fighters can hit sensor dishes and the like despite not being able to get past the armor - then perhaps they might prove useful after all...
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
I agree that degredation of sensors should be included in T5 combat, but there should also be a sensor replacement mechanism included in the ship building system.
Note that this would give another use for "fighters" as replacement sensor arrays for their mother ships. I would call them "sensor drones" instead of fighters but I do think that having the ability to launch additional sensors is something most space warships would have, both to enhance their sensor ratings (acting as a really big synthetic sensor dish, or just getting closer to the target) and replace damaged sensors during battle. Of course such sensor drones would be targets for the enemy.
This would add layer upon layer to player's tactical decisions in battle. How many drones do I launch? How much of my firepower do I spend on killing his drones? When do I think about disengaging; when I've lost all my drones, or just most of them, or not until the last sensor has been blasted off the hull?
Note that this would give another use for "fighters" as replacement sensor arrays for their mother ships. I would call them "sensor drones" instead of fighters but I do think that having the ability to launch additional sensors is something most space warships would have, both to enhance their sensor ratings (acting as a really big synthetic sensor dish, or just getting closer to the target) and replace damaged sensors during battle. Of course such sensor drones would be targets for the enemy.
This would add layer upon layer to player's tactical decisions in battle. How many drones do I launch? How much of my firepower do I spend on killing his drones? When do I think about disengaging; when I've lost all my drones, or just most of them, or not until the last sensor has been blasted off the hull?
