Battleship and Battlerider

[aramis]

Well, if you can come up with a plausible reason why armor factor doesn't go up as the size of the ship increases, we can conclude that TNE and T20 is wrong about armor. If you can't, we can conclude that it's HG, T20 and MGT that's wrong. It has to be one or the other. Unless they ALL wrong, of course.


Hans

Or are different universes with different physical laws.

All it means is that HG and MGT armor isn't mostly hull shell on big ships.

Which might mean it's more structure to hold the mass of the hull shell. After all, the increase in shell mass is ∆Vol^(2/3).

So, if we assume that the base AV formula is accurate for 1KTD... and it's all hull shell At TL 13-14 (2% per AV), AV1 is 8.5cm thick. At 1000000Td, it's 80cm thick. So it can't be that much.

But it could be largely internal buffering and bracing.

TNE, for its part, largely ignores the need for structural support of the armored shell; it has an internal frame, but it's not actually linked to supported mass... merely to volume and max G's.

In either case, both are simplifications and abstractions.

 

[mike wightman]

They didn't have the technology to build cruisers back then. You need minimum TL9 for the jump drive.


Hans

LOL, ok you got me...

 

[rancke]

Or are different universes with different physical laws.

That doesn't actually work, since two different universes that have the same history must of necessity have the same technological development which requires the same physical laws. Change the physical laws a tiny bit and you'll have a whole army of butterflies messing things up. Also, for anything that isn't Science Fiction physics, the physical laws of the CTU and the MTU and the TNEU, etc. etc. are supposed to be identical (i.e. real world physics), aren't they?

But lets ignore that for a moment. There are two kinds of discrepancies. There are the kind where two things can both be true, just not in the same universe. For that sort of discrepancies your different universe theory would work (if you could get around that other basic problem). And then there's the kind that is self-contradictory. That kind don't work in ANY universe. So unless you can explain how the same volume in bigger ships translates into the same armor factor, HG and T20 and MGT are demonstrably wrong.

All it means is that HG and MGT armor isn't mostly hull shell on big ships.

Which might mean it's more structure to hold the mass of the hull shell. After all, the increase in shell mass is ∆Vol^(2/3).

And the increase in structural mass isn't?

So, if we assume that the base AV formula is accurate for 1KTD... and it's all hull shell At TL 13-14 (2% per AV), AV1 is 8.5cm thick. At 1000000Td, it's 80cm thick. So it can't be that much.

It goes up a bit when you put armor factor 10 or 12 on the ship.

But it could be largely internal buffering and bracing.

Which goes up at the same rate as the outer shell, doesn't it?

In either case, both are simplifications and abstractions.

Yes, that we can agree on. But simplification and abstraction from what? And at what point does the simplification go from being negligble to being distorting? Which brings us back to the discrepancy between background material and design&combat rules.


Hans

 

[shadowdragon]

Check the starting post in this thread. If Shadowdragon did his sums right, he managed to fit everything inside a 25,000T battlerider.


Hans

Um, actually, both the BR and the BS are sitting at 100kTd. But it did all fit

 

[rancke]

Um, actually, both the BR and the BS are sitting at 100kTd. But it did all fit

So I see. The ones referred to in your original post were 100,000T. My mistake.

But didn't you also come up with a design for a 25,000T battlerider with factorT spinal and armor factor 15? Or was that someone else? Somewhere else?


Hans

 

[Ishmael]

But didn't you also come up with a design for a 25,000T battlerider with factorT spinal and armor factor 15? Or was that someone else? Somewhere else?

The Oz did so, back in post #17
-------------
As far as armor and physics......
Traveller uses science-fiction physics for simplicity and playability. It doesn't really mesh too well with real-world physics in most cases, so the best that can be done is to follow the physical model that the rules present in lieu of presenting a bit of structural engineering to the game ( which would really change ships and large structures drastically from normal Trav ).

 

[McPerth]

I agree rules for armor are somwhat fawled.

In HG you can design a fighter so armored as for the only way to kill them is by using your spinal mount, so having ro kill them one at time.

In MT that's true too, but the fact your capital ship may have meson bays in addition to its spinal help somewhat against those heavy armored fighters.

In MGT (though I've not played it I've readed it and tried to study its rules), you can design a TL 15 10-15 dton fighter with armor 15 and armed with a PA turret. Now pitch a flight of them (let's say 50) against a Planet class CA (as described on HG) and see what happens to the poor cruiser...

Also In MGT 10% of your tonnage dedicated to bonded superdense armor makes you nearly imprevious to all weaponry a pirate ship could carry (only PAs may damage you if bays are not in use), so making it a good choice (even if doubling the cost of your hull) for free traders in high threat areas (where pirates are active), as lasers and nukes will simply bounce against your armor(even PA turrets will do nothing more often than not), and few pirtes (if any) will have bays on their ships. You won't need even sandcasters.

I cannot talk about other versions, as I've never studied them so much.

 

[The Oz]

But didn't you also come up with a design for a 25,000T battlerider with factorT spinal and armor factor 15? Or was that someone else? Somewhere else?


Hans

That was mine. Want to see it?

Ship: Defiance
Class: TL-15 Battlerider
Type: Battle Rider
Architect: Osmanski

USP
         BR-L106EJ3-F99909-999T9-0 MCr 25,071.530 25 KTons
Bat Bear             1   1 1111B   Crew: 301
Bat                  1   1 1111C   TL: 15

Cargo: 73.000 Fuel: 3,500.000 EP: 3,500.000 Agility: 6 Marines: 50
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Backups: 1 x Model/9fib Computer 1 x Bridge 1 x Factor 9 Nuclear Damper 1 x Factor 9 Meson Screen

Architects Fee: MCr 250.715   Cost in Quantity: MCr 20,057.224

 

[aramis]

@McPerth
Actually, a pirate fleet of 600Td pirates can whittle away a BB under MGT... Mongoose armor is ablative, ever so slightly, and damage is ListedDamage+ToHitMargin... and it only takes 1 point to get a potential armor hit.

@Hans, re universes
No, different physical universes doesn't necessitate different histories of culture at the detail level said history is written. It just means the universes are coverged on the covered history. And, given mongoose's changes, it, too, is a separate universe from the rest.

@Hans, in re internal bracing

Internal structural members have a strength based upon their cross-sectional area, but must also increase length (and increased length increases load stresses as well)...

This is why skyscrapers are not really increasing in size much for anything other than prestige projects... further increases with current materials science will result in having no useful space at lower levels, as the cross sectional area required to carry the load increases past the area of the base.

If I remember correctly, it works out to about volume^(3/2) multiplier to the percentage. But I do know that it results in increases over the volume multiplier factor. There's a wonderful essay on it in the back of Rolemaster Companion I (section on generating realistic heights and weights).

Which means that a fighter's armor is mostly shell for the armor; a BB's armor is mostly bracing for the load-mass of the armor shell.

 

[McPerth]

@McPerth
Actually, a pirate fleet of 600Td pirates can whittle away a BB under MGT... Mongoose armor is ablative, ever so slightly, and damage is ListedDamage+ToHitMargin... and it only takes 1 point to get a potential armor hit.

Sure, and it's as easy to lower the armor at a BB than to an equally armored free trader (though the barrage tables would surely turn the free trader into space dust while the BB will go nearly undamaged)...

I think there surface must surely be a factor.

One thing I think is better in MGT than HG/MT is that most ships are destoyed, not just crippled but easily capturable and repairable, so the high casuality numbres told in the Rebellion setting are at least credible. Under HG/MT rules, most of the ships crippled would be easily captured and repaired, so those casuality numbers would be more as captures than true losses for the Imperium (quite more about this on thread 'using of captured ships').

 

[whartung]

But that leaves us back on square one, try to explain why the background material claims that battleships are better able to stand in the line of battle and cruisers aren't, when the design and combat rules makes the difference in survivability between a cruiser (albeit a big one) and a battleship so not worth the cost of four or five times as much for a battleship.

Because the background material is trying to fill a narrative of what someone THOUGHT should happen without actually applying the rule system in place to see if it actually WOULD happen.

Someone though "we need BBs, big BBs because wet navy's had big BB's and all of this is basically inspired by wet navy's. If we don't have big BB's we'll just get all sorts of mail asking why not".

And the narrative isn't really wrong, per se, it's just wrong in the era of Meson Guns. Meson Guns and the mechanics around them obsoleted the big ships, because their big-ness no longer had material effect on the outcome.

Before that, when the ships would just sit and spin like a chicken on a rotisserie under the heat of missile and PA fire, bigger ships last longer.

As always the debate focuses on trying to reconcile mechanics with story telling and them can be very different.

 

[rancke]

Because the background material is trying to fill a narrative of what someone THOUGHT should happen without actually applying the rule system in place to see if it actually WOULD happen.

But the rules are supposed to emulate what the background material claims happened. If you had some rules for designing historical vehicles and it turned out you couldn't design a Spitfire with them, would you decide to do away with Spitfires in your WWII game? Me, I'd change the design rules to better reflect reality.

The background material describes the reality of the setting; the rules attempt to emulate that reality. At least that's the way I feel it ought to be.

And the narrative isn't really wrong, per se, it's just wrong in the era of Meson Guns. Meson Guns and the mechanics around them obsoleted the big ships, because their big-ness no longer had material effect on the outcome.

Before that, when the ships would just sit and spin like a chicken on a rotisserie under the heat of missile and PA fire, bigger ships last longer.

By the time the material applies to it has been the Era of the Meson Gun for over 3000 years. So that explanation doesn't explain anything.

As always the debate focuses on trying to reconcile mechanics with story telling and them can be very different.

And as always I believe that the rules are supposed to emulate a vastly more complicated reality, a reality that is every bit as complex as the real universe. If the rules don't fit the setting, change the rules, not the setting.


Hans

 

[aramis]

The background material describes the reality of the setting; the rules attempt to emulate that reality. At least that's the way I feel it ought to be.

I disagree on the above whole heartedly. The setting should be plausible within the rules, yes, but the rules trump the setting fluff every time for me.

Especially when the setting postdates the rules.

 

[Captain Midnight]

A case in point is that the U.S. no longer produces a BB class of ships. However the Ticonderoga class cruisers are actually longer and have a deeper draft than the Iowa class BB.

Statistics drawn from FAS.org:

Iowa-class BB: full displacement 57,271 tons, waterline length 860 feet, maximum navigational draft 38 feet, draft limit 37 feet.

Ticonderoga-class CG: full displacement 9,957 tons, waterline length 529 feet, maximum navigational draft 33 feet, draft limit 23 feet.

Both were equipped with Tomahawks during the time those missiles were available; it's not really meaningful to compare the Tomahawk directly to the Mark 7 16-inch gun... unless you include the 127 VLS cells on a Ticonderoga against the Iowa's 1,200+ round magazine capacity.

The term "cruiser" and "battleship" generally seem most meaningful when compared to other contemporary units. For example, a Baltimore-class WWII-era heavy cruiser would have been totally unable to stand in a WWII line of battle... but could have single-handedly defeated the Royal Navy at Trafalgar.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

1980's tech warships (actually 60-70 tech warships) wouldn't stand a chance against 2010 era ships. The reason being military tech advances at a far faster rate than civil tech. The Navy and air force are looking at Stealth drones which will carry the same payload as most of today's fighters.

Advance this to the Traveller era and what do you get?

Automated combat drones taking out vessels 10 to 100 times larger than there mass?

Meson cannons are quite useful against large target but what about hundreds or even thousands of drones?

The point here is with our understanding of technology changing every few decades and in some cases every few years, warship design in Traveller is going to change as well. So will the tactics each player employs when designing his or her fleet...

 

[rancke]

I disagree on the above whole heartedly. The setting should be plausible within the rules, yes, but the rules trump the setting fluff every time for me.

Why?

I dislike your view because it would make roleplaying in ficticious settings so much poorer than roleplaying in historic settings, and I believe that there is really no good reason for that.

Mind you, if you can use the rules to convince Marc Miller to retcon away battleships from the OTU, then the rules will indeed have trumped the setting. But until you do, the setting trumps the rules. (Except, of course, in the all too frequent cases when TPTB choose to ignore the elephant in the room. But that's a slightly different problem.)

Especially when the setting postdates the rules.

Oh please! Only the very early part of the setting postdates the rules, and that only for the most basic of the CT rules. Most of it is contemporaneously with or even predates some of the rules. And all the subsequent rules versions postdate the setting.

And really, the notion that a referee isn't entitled set aside any rule on the grounds that the results would be unrealistic is utterly foreign to me. But if the rules really trumped the setting, that would be the logical result.

Incidentally, I can only speak for the two Traveller versions that I've written for, GT and MGT, but in both cases previously published setting details were to be considered canon unless there were specific reasons not to. So as far as my knowledge goes, it really is supposed to be the same universe (or a near-identical alternate one). Do you have any evidence that it isn't supposed to be?


Hans

 

[rancke]

1980's tech warships (actually 60-70 tech warships) wouldn't stand a chance against 2010 era ships. The reason being military tech advances at a far faster rate than civil tech. The Navy and air force are looking at Stealth drones which will carry the same payload as most of today's fighters.

Advance this to the Traveller era and what do you get?

You get the description of the Classic Era written 30 years ago, retconned here and there in the years since, with considerable detail added over the years, but fundamentally unchanged.


Hans

 

[Hal]

Why?

I dislike your view because it would make roleplaying in ficticious settings so much poorer than roleplaying in historic settings, and I believe that there is really no good reason for that.

Hans

There is the issue of "suspension of disbelief" when you give a set of rules that "simulate" the structure of the game universe, and then discover the hard way, that the "storytelling" universe can not be done via the rules.

I have the same problem with GURPS YRTH setting as some people have with the Traveller OTU setting. If the storyline states "X" and "X" is not plausible within the rules, then "X" should never have been stipulated in the first place.

I've been looking a LOT more closely at the High Guard rules regarding disengagement from combat, and realizing that the following holds true:

If your Jump Tender has a Manuever Rating of 5, it can ALWAYS disengage from combat via Acceleration. If the Battle Riders are always of a speed of 6, then one could in theory, put forth the entire battle line save ONE craft with a Manuever Rating of 6 held in reserve. Then when the fleet has to disengage via acceleration - only those craft with a Manuever of 6 can keep a retreating "battle line" craft in combat. Ironically enough? If the main battle line consisists of Manuever 5 or less battleships - then the lone Battle Rider's survival chances just increased dramatically, as only those craft with a speed of 6 can engage it.

So why is it that a Manuever 5 jump tender always is able to disengage from a battle? Becuase ships in reserve are treated as if their manuever rating is 2 higher than normal. 5+2 is always greater than 6.

In the end, much of the discussion depends upon what tech level the combatants are in order to determine whether or not a Battle Tender/Battle Rider combination is better than a straightforward captial ship capable of jump. It also depends upon whether or not one is discussing an even battle, a slightly disadvantaged battle, or even a highly disadvantaged battle (depending upon which side is disadvantaged of course!). Question is - what kind of battles are we discussing? A meeting engagement? A defensive engagement where the defenders really can't retreat? Are we discussing a war of attrition? It all depends on what is required before one can say what the end results will likely be...

In any event - I myself detest it when the game universe writers consistently disregard the game structure itself when writing about the events of "history". If there is ZERO chance of a lucky shot occurring, then history results in that feel of "the script writers were on the hero's side, and the script writers got to choose who were the heroes." Not always something that people appreciate. Your Milage may vary of course.

 

[Hal]

You get the description of the Classic Era written 30 years ago, retconned here and there in the years since, with considerable detail added over the years, but fundamentally unchanged.


Hans

And that is the other issue I have a problem with.

If the Traveller Universe is self-consistent with one set of rules, becomes less self-consistent with a second set of rules, and becomes even less self-consistent (ie it becomes contradictory) with a third set of rules - then the third set of rules needs to either:

A) change the history somewhat, making it an alternative timeline of sorts, but still recognizably THIRD IMPERIUM in its bent

B) Change the game rules until its rules are no longer contradictory

C) give up on the premise entirely, and create a new game background


Case in point: GURPS TRAVELLER has it such that missiles are a bit more devastating than they are in say, HIGH GUARD. As a consequence, the weapon mixes for the turrets and bays and spinals should be different than simply recycling the older CT ship designs. Why?

Because lets face it - Traveller attracts its share of gearheads who will fiddle with the rules until they find something they think will work. I applaud that approach simply because that is precisely how man-kind has been functioning over time. It is that approach that enables technology to advance as people tinker with the laws of physics trying to find a better way to do something, or to refine a new way until it becomes as efficient as possible.

In any event, I'm restricting myself to strictly High Guard designs simply because that was the rule set that was in ascendancy when the Third Imperium material was written for use with Traveller. If it is inconsistent with what is stated to have happened within OTU history, then either something is wrong, or the people will spot the inconsistency, and have to hit the "I believe" button to make that inconsistency disappear. That's like watching a movie about the Roaring 20's, and having the gangsters show up with M-16's and using man-portable anti-tank rockets against a 1950's vehicle in a time period that is supposed to be emulating 1920's. <shrug>

 

[rancke]

There is the issue of "suspension of disbelief" when you give a set of rules that "simulate" the structure of the game universe, and then discover the hard way, that the "storytelling" universe can not be done via the rules.

As far as I'm concerned, the suspension of disbelief is all on the side of "reality" being so much more complicated than any set of reasonably gamable rules could possibly encompass. I see Traveller as very much like any other historical RPG. The history happens to be fictional and that does make for one difference from the purely historical games, namely that the history can be retconned. But unless that happens, the "history" is just as rich and complex and fixed as real world history.

If you were running a Western game and one of your players wanted to buy a leMat, would you tell him that no such gun existed or could exist, because the equipment list didn't have one and the rules didn't cover it? Or would you either tell him, GM to player, that the rules didn't cover that kind of gun, so would he please accept that he couldn't have one, or sit down and figure out some new rules for carrying and shooting nine-shot revolvers with an extra barrel for a single cartridge of buckshot?

What if one of your Traveller players wanted a replica leMat? Would you tell him that no such gun ever existed and that such a gun can't exist?[*]

[*] Perhaps you can design a leMat using FF&S, I don't know, but what would you do if the result weighed differently than the historical version and had different ranges? Would you use the figures the rules gave you or the historical figures?​

Question is - what kind of battles are we discussing? A meeting engagement? A defensive engagement where the defenders really can't retreat? Are we discussing a war of attrition? It all depends on what is required before one can say what the end results will likely be...

Actually, I'm discussing a time long before any battle, when the Imperial and Zho and Solomani admiralties have to decide between buying so and so many battleships or 6 or 8 times as many cruisers or battleriders that are individually almost as effective as a battleship.

In any event - I myself detest it when the game universe writers consistently disregard the game structure itself when writing about the events of "history". If there is ZERO chance of a lucky shot occurring, then history results in that feel of "the script writers were on the hero's side, and the script writers got to choose who were the heroes." Not always something that people appreciate.

I'm glad you brought up that example. What if the "real" chance of a lucky shot was 1 in a 1000? And all you have to emulate that are two six-sided dice? Do you go by the rules that says there is ZERO chance of a lucky shot occurring; even if you roll a 12, you still don't hit. If you do, does that mean that if you're running a historical Western campaign set just after the Civil War, you'll let Stonewall Jackson be alive, because there was ZERO chance that he'd be hit by a stray bullet at that distance in the darkness[*]? Or do you go by a rule that says a natural 12 is alway a hit, thus getting almost 28 times too many lucky shots? Or do you say, "sure Stomewall Jackson was hit by a lucky shot, but you guys and the people you fight don't get lucky shots because they're below the resolution of the combat system".

[*] Please assume for purposes of this argument that the rules wouldn't allow anyone to hit under the historical conditions.​

Hans