BCS Discussion (Fall 2022) (<HG79)

[robject]

I am now thinking I completely misunderstood Marc.

He wasn't saying "cruisers don't carry screens," which would be a ridiculous thing to say. He was saying "at that time, cruisers didn't carry screens," making them a sitting duck for a ship with a meson spine. He engineered the scenario in AOTI so that his target ship would be especially vulnerable to a dreadnought spine one-hit-kill.

For whatever reason, I didn't catch that nuance.

 

[whulorigan]

So is the takeaway from this that in the period prior to year 1000 (TL-14 and earlier), Imperial Cruisers typically did not find themselves in tactical situations in which they were facing Meson Spines (or powerful Meson Bays), and it was not considered worth the expense based on their mission profile?

What distinguished a "Fleet Intruder" from other sub-classes of cruiser, and what was their expected mission profile that it was considered advantageous to have the Meson Screen (or what changed in the late 900's that the IN began rethinking things)?

 

[robject]

So as much as I might not like High Guard (in particular the 1980 flavor), it has a lot going for it that has proven popular.

The USP, as much as I dislike it, is compactly comprehensive. It's a trivial handful of bytes that can uniquely identify millions of spacecraft, from the smallest pod to the million-ton behemoth.

The combat charts, as much as I dislike them, faithfully represent the OTU concept of layered defense that is just about impossible to dismiss from Traveller.

---

Modified USP

Assume my strange idea of a BCS Character Profile replaces the current ship damage model.
Given that, consider a modified USP for BCS. What do I think is needed, and what would I prefer to drop, if possible?

• Ship mission code is important. It's the only "social" data in the USP.

Size can be separate.

• Hull config is needed. It might be a T5 config, but it's still necessary.
• Maneuver and Jump are useful.

Power plant, on the other hand, is only useful when you're doing attrition.
Computer is no longer needed; nor is Crew.

• I'd like to abstract armor, on the assumption that armor is all-or-nothing. Let's go nuts and see what happens then.
• A Beam rating is needed for defense.
• Tractor/Pressors need to be there (a type of Repulsors).
• One Screen Rating, and assume the screen includes all lower TL capabilities... including Sand.
• One Scrambler Rating, and assume the screen includes all lower TL capabilities.
  
  
• A Meson rating is needed.
• A PA rating is needed.
• A Missile rating is needed.
  
  
• Then "Appendix codes" are needed for Exotics and Special weapons (Gx globes, Ju Jump damper, Fi Fighter squadrons, In Inducer, Di Disruptor, St Stasis, Da DataCaster, Or Ortillery, Co CommCaster, Ra RailGun, Sl Slug throwers, Sa Salvo Racks, Ca Cargo hold, Ma Marines, Tr Troops.)

That would suggest something like

               BBS64-9999-9T9 Gb4.     BCS 223323/3.     200,000 tons.     TL-15.
               | ||| |||| |||  |
BB=Battleship--| ||| |||| |||  |
Streamlined------||| |||| |||  |---Black Globe
Maneuver----------|| |||| |||------Missile
Jump---------------| |||| ||-------Meson
                     |||| |--------PA
Screens--------------||||
Scramblers------------|||----------Beams
                       |-----------Tractor/pressors

 

[robject]

What distinguished a "Fleet Intruder" from other sub-classes of cruiser, and what was their expected mission profile that it was considered advantageous to have the Meson Screen (or what changed in the late 900's that the IN began rethinking things)?

That's an interesting question. I didn't read enough of Supplement 5 to see if it mentioned the reason. If designed for e.g. the Solomani Rim War, then perhaps there was more technological parity there, so they needed screens.

 

[whulorigan]

That's an interesting question. I didn't read enough of Supplement 5 to see if it mentioned the reason. If designed for e.g. the Solomani Rim War, then perhaps there was more technological parity there, so they needed screens.

One would still think that the IN would be building ships that might need to go up against a Zhodani Consular Fleet, who were a long-standing adversary. How long has the Consulate been at TL13/14? (Or how long have they been equipping their Consular Fleet Capital Units with significant Meson Weaponry)?

 

[Condottiere]

Having invented meson weapon technology, the Confederation would likely be highly enthusiastic users of it.

 

[mike wightman]

I am toying with something like this as a control panel set up.:

Name	Class	Mission	Hull Size	Config.	Armour	Opps	Jump	J Fuel	Maneuver	Crew
					0-9					O__E__G__T__

And then for offensive weapons:

Main___________	Missile Bay	PA Bay	Meson Bay	Energy Bay	Laser Bay	Missile	Laser	PA	Energy
0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9

Defenses

Black globe	Meson Screen	Nuclear Damper	Repulsor Bay	Sandcaster
0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9	0-9

And another row for ordnance magazines, carried craft, launch tubes etc.

 

[McPerth]

...and then I think about how High Guard, the rules, is subtly out of context and insulated from an actual setting, and my head spins.

Well, I'd say not so subtly (as I defended in many a thread before)...

If you try to explain the OTU setting by using HG rules for ship combat, you'll find many oddities, beggining for the enrmous ship losses in wars (where, using the rules, most would have been recovered repairable), following with the initial success of the Sword Worlds in most Frontier Wars (despite their 3-5 TL disadvantage) or by the Vargr advances against even subsector fleets in the Rebellion (among other oddities that I sure forget now)...

But each of those oddities should require (and most already have) its own thread(s)...

 

[robject]

SHIP AS CHARACTER

The "novel" way is to use the compressed-block format we see in ... well everywhere, but I'm thinking specifically of 1,001 Characters.

3250 Kokirrak  BB-TU44.   223323-3.       200,000 tons.     TL-15.
   OPS 2. DataCaster-7  
   SEC 2. Missile-9  PA-7    Inducer-5      Tractor-7
   DEF 3. Beams-7    Sand-7  Black Globe-4  
   ENG 3.
   CAR 2.
   BOA 3.
   LIN 3. Meson-T

 

[robject]

Okay I may not understand combat fully but I'm getting a picture of a BCS design sequence that takes concepts from High Guard.

BCS Design, Quick Military mode (fewer options)

1. Select Tech Level.
2. Select Mission.
3. (Set armor to "yes", fuel purifiers to "yes", and max computer model for TL.)
4. Select Configuration.
5. Select your spine weapon. Set the stage and range.
6. Adjust Support Elements:
   1. Ops factors (DataCaster).
   2. Secondaries factors (Missile, PA/Meson, Inducer, Tractor/Pressor).
   3. Defensive factors (Beams, Sand, Screens, Scramblers, Globes).
   4. Maneuver, Jump, Hop ratings.
      1. (Fuel % calculated)
   5. Fighter factor.
   6. Troops and Marines factors.
   7. (Crew calculated)
   8. (Volume Calculated)
7. Assign "Profile Points"
8. (Print Ship Profile)

 

[robject]

Using a prototype program that takes shocking liberties with the data, I can build ships using this proto-frankensteinian-BCS-HG1-like thing. Kind of.

I loaded up a TL15 battleship with factor-9 of everything I could find at TL 15/16, a Meson T spine, Jump 3, Maneuver 4. I think I still have to figure in armor.

BB-NU43. 725,000 tons.
Ops(4). Datacaster-9
Sec(4). Missile-9. PA-9. Tractor/Pressor-9.
Def(4). Beams-9. Sand-9. Scramblers-9. Screens-9. Globes-9.
Eng(4).
Car(4). Fighters-9.
Boa(4). Marines-9. Troops-9.
Lin(4). Meson-T.

So maxing out the emplacements requires 725,000 tons. If I tried instead to build a Tigress I'd have to drop several factors across, say, three emplacement types.

 

[RogerD]

Everyone seems to be missing what for me is the most important piece of space combat: stealth and detection. To shoot at things you need to be able to detect them.

Screening ships will be far more about extending the eyes of the fleet and less about fighting.

ECM and ECCM should be very important capabilities here.

It is also interesting to me that the battleship is considered the ultimate weapon platform. This works provided the assumption that defence is better than offence. The opposite is true in the modern wet navy. That is why modern navies have missile frigates, not destroyers or cruisers for the most part. Battleships became AA gun platforms and shore bombardment platforms after Pearl Harbor with limited exceptions. Today, one missile or torpedo penetrating defences can kill a ship of any size.

If a super-stealthy missile with a hydrogen bomb warhead penetrated close enough, that would surely be a kill. The Traveller assumption has been that this cannot happen in space. I’m not so sure of that. A combination of stealth, tactics and sheer mass should be able to overwhelm any warship.

These are the ideas that make SDBs and fighters viable and I hope they are included.

 

[whulorigan]

Everyone seems to be missing what for me is the most important piece of space combat: stealth and detection. To shoot at things you need to be able to detect them.

Screening ships will be far more about extending the eyes of the fleet and less about fighting.

ECM and ECCM should be very important capabilities here.

It depends how the designers want Traveller space-combat to look and feel.

In a "realistic" style or feel, there is no stealth in open space/vacuum without some sort of super-science that is otherwise unspecified in Traveller. Every vessel would be radiating heat well above room temperature (>300+ Kelvin) in infra-red (due to life-support & power generation systems) against a 2.7 Kelvin microwave background with nothing to hide behind or absorb/attenuate the IR-signal - every ship would be a giant glowing IR-lightbulb against the blackness.

But Traveller has always dealt with "detection ranges" historically, which at least suggests that some type of unspecified signal damping or scattering must exist at some level if ships need to first detect each other in open space. In fact, the absence of any provision for "heat radiators" in starship design implies that something is dealing with excess heat in some way (otherwise the crew would cook). One hand-wave is that it is some type of spin-off benefit of the M-Drive or gravitics in general that is spreading/damping the heat/signal out to other bodies in the star system.

T5.10 Book 2 ACS Starship construction does include Stealth-mask as a starship defensive system vs. active sensors (which specifically includes ECM & ECCM per the text). It may be that the issue is less about detecting the presence of targets as much as being able to accurately resolve them for targeting purposes.

If a super-stealthy missile with a hydrogen bomb warhead penetrated close enough, that would surely be a kill. The Traveller assumption has been that this cannot happen in space. I’m not so sure of that. A combination of stealth, tactics and sheer mass should be able to overwhelm any warship.

Keep in mind that there will be no fluid medium (i.e. "atmosphere") to transmit any concussive force. A "Nuclear" Device (Fission, Fusion, or even Antimatter) would be entirely heat, radiation and/or EMP damage unless it were VERY close.


BTW, don't get me wrong on any of this. I rather like all of the tropes you mention above as well. It is just a matter of how "realisitic" or "space-opera" you want to be (or in this case, what do the game designers want it to be). I have always come at Traveller as "Hard Space Opera" (i.e. somewhere in between).

 

[kilemall]

It depends how the designers want Traveller space-combat to look and feel.

In a "realistic" style or feel, there is no stealth in open space/vacuum without some sort of super-science that is otherwise unspecified in Traveller. Every vessel would be radiating heat well above room temperature (>300+ Kelvin) in infra-red (due to life-support & power generation systems) against a 2.7 Kelvin microwave background with nothing to hide behind or absorb/attenuate the IR-signal - every ship would be a giant glowing IR-lightbulb against the blackness.

But Traveller has always dealt with "detection ranges" historically, which at least suggests that some type of unspecified signal damping or scattering must exist at some level if ships need to first detect each other in open space. In fact, the absence of any provision for "heat radiators" in starship design implies that something is dealing with excess heat in some way (otherwise the crew would cook). One hand-wave is that it is some type of spin-off benefit of the M-Drive or gravitics in general that is spreading/damping the heat/signal out to other bodies in the star system.

T5.10 Book 2 ACS Starship construction does include Stealth-mask as a starship defensive system vs. active sensors (which specifically includes ECM & ECCM per the text). It may be that the issue is less about detecting the presence of targets as much as being able to accurately resolve them for targeting purposes.



Keep in mind that there will be no fluid medium (i.e. "atmosphere") to transmit any concussive force. A "Nuclear" Device (Fission, Fusion, or even Antimatter) would be entirely heat, radiation and/or EMP damage unless it were VERY close.

I was under the impression X-rays didn’t attenuate as much in a vacuum over atmosphere.

I hand waved the CT distances due to mDrive somehow diffusing and muddying output, the same sort of bending as gravitic lenses for lasers. If one maintains the RL physics schema, that means ships that have mDrives off are going to be much more detectable. So the trope of entirely powering down becomes inadvisable.

It does make a ship that suffered battle damage more likely to attract attention from a wide area of lurking pirates possibly willing to fight over scraps.

 

[whulorigan]

Modified USP


That would suggest something like

               BBS64-9999-9T9 Gb4.     BCS 223323/3.     200,000 tons.     TL-15.
               | ||| |||| |||  |
BB=Battleship--| ||| |||| |||  |
Streamlined------||| |||| |||  |---Black Globe
Maneuver----------|| |||| |||------Missile
Jump---------------| |||| ||-------Meson
                     |||| |--------PA
Screens--------------||||
Scramblers------------|||----------Beams
                       |-----------Tractor/pressors

The one thing I dislike about this format (as well as the original High Guard) is that it cannot show a ship which has more than one type of a given weapon system (e.g. a ship that has both a Particle Spinal and lower-rated particle bays).

 

[whulorigan]

I was under the impression X-rays didn’t attenuate as much in a vacuum over atmosphere.

As far as I know, they don't attenuate as much - that is why I mentioned radiation above. The problem I am addressing is that most of the "blast" of a high-energy device in atmosphere comes from the transfer of thermal energy to the fluid atmosphere, creating a massive concussive outward expanding (and devastating) fluid-shockwave (that then hits its target a second time in reverse as the fluid atmosphere once again rushes back in to fill the low pressure zone created by the outward shockwave). That is why you get the mushroom-cloud.

In a vacuum, there is no fluid medium to transfer this energy to - the "blast" (so to speak) is all radiation, heat, and EMP, with no concussion.

Unless I have misunderstood, I think what RogerD was suggesting above by "Hydrogen bomb warhead" was simply a Fusion warhead on a ship-to-ship torpedo/missile (i.e. a standard nuclear toropedo).

I hand waved the CT distances due to mDrive somehow diffusing and muddying output, the same sort of bending as gravitic lenses for lasers. If one maintains the RL physics schema, that means ships that have mDrives off are going to be much more detectable. So the trope of entirely powering down becomes inadvisable.

It does make a ship that suffered battle damage more likely to attract attention from a wide area of lurking pirates possibly willing to fight over scraps.

My handwave is similar. I imagine an operating M-Drive (or perhaps a specific-designed gravitic system) that transfers the heat and spreads it out across all of the gravitating bodies in the star system that the drive interacts with (based on magnitude and distance), thus lowering its signature. Perhaps the presence of a ship in a star system is detectable by another vessel noting a general increase in heat and or gravitic signature detectable to sensors or ships systems, but the actual position of the source of the heat-increase may be muddled or unclear.

That would also make HEPlaR and Orion driven ships different in terms of design considerations.

 

[Condottiere]

Stealth is getting close enough, so that the other side can't react before whatever occurs.

 

[whulorigan]

Stealth is getting close enough, so that the other side can't react before whatever occurs.

Yes. But that still leaves the question on the table as to how to be stealthy (as you noted) when farther away while one can still react.

 

[RogerD]

Everyone seems to think that in hard science fiction, any emissions from a ship will be detectable, but it is going to depend on a lot of factors. I particular, you are looking for a small source at a signficant distance. Even large objects like stars become hard to detect as they get far away when they are smaller or cooler. A ship specifically designed to be stealthy could reduce its emissions, direct them in a particular direction (away from target), etc.

Even for active sensors, look at the factors in the radar equation - there are real limits to just how far away you can detect something. We are dealing with a fourth root in the classic radar equation, which will tend to limit (but not eliminate) technological gains. The most powerful radar today can track a basketball sized object at 41000km.

You also have the speed of light to deal with (depending on what range you want space combat to be viable at).

Once fully detected and locked on to by ladar (within some range), I would expect all stealth to be gone, but up until that point, it should be a factor - and you don't even need a black globe generator. Even then, there should be countermeasures like sand that could help you try to break that lock.

 

[Condottiere]

What you want is minimum emissions, which is where customized engines with maximum efficiency, and passive sensors, comes in.