A Call To Arms, Mongoose's space wargaming rules, has a version of this rule: if you can't control your ship, it drifts along whatever vector it had last turn.
OTU Only: Types of Big Ships
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
A Call To Arms, Mongoose's space wargaming rules, has a version of this rule: if you can't control your ship, it drifts along whatever vector it had last turn.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
That's down to the crew of the ship, not some fleet level dictat.
It looks like a simplification for game purposes to me, not an attempt at realistic emulation of combat.
Hans
I would think it would be mainly influenced by Fleet Tactics skill. I'm not sure
how increased TL in communications would improve your ability to instruct your sub-commanders in what you want them to do, unless you are suggesting the AI runs everything because the human brain can't cope?
Regards
David
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I can see fleet tactics placing a limitation on the number of squadrons that can be included in a fleet, perhaps provide a limit to the number of squadrons in the line, the rest have to be in the reserve?
Might be better to find a way to limit cooperation rather than restrict sub-unit numbers. Limited ability to combine fires or to engage missiles defensively, perhaps?
How does one represent the concept of "reserve" in a hex-based system?
I presume one doesn't. Or perhaps you could have a ship hug real close to a larger ship so they couldn't be distinguished by opposing sensors. Or maybe you could have a larger ship hug real close to a smaller ship that was using some sort of "Wild Weasel" function.
the rules for ship combat in MgT are fairly light weight. I suppose the best approach to rules not specifically addressed by the system is to rely on in house decisions.
If a referee wants to allow vessels to move into a larger slower vessels blind spot, they can allow a tactics or pilot test. Difficulty of the task can be adjusted by the referee.
If there is some degree of parity between the two vessels in size and maneuverability then an an opposed test between pilots and captain could easily resolve the issue.
Player: I want to maneuver into the enemies blind spot.
Referee: Hmmm its a prety big ship, and it's slower than yo are...Okay lets make this an average task.... tactics, and another for the pilot...
<dice rattle>
Referee: well you managed to get into the ships shadow, and it cant fire it's weapons at you this round....
If our using High Guard rules and can find the coverage charts for various hull configurations you can determine how hard it is to spot a gap in the ships firing arcs, and how difficult it would be to slip into one of those gaps in coverage.
If it's a Small starship looking at the deck plans can tell you where the turrets and bays are...you can make a quick guestimate of where the gaps are and how big they are.
Does this mean we can have collision/ramming rules in space games again?
Only if you have the janitor flying the ship. :devil:
Seriously though, only reason I can see for not having a ramming rule to allow a ship with better acceleration to "missile" a less maneuverable ship would be that the culture doesn't like the idea. That much mass at those speeds, it seems pretty suicidal. Maybe that culture has a strong aversion to suicide or finds the kamikaze idea dishonorable.
Blind spot? What blind spot? I was referring to a ship hiding close to a friendly so that opposing sensors picked them up as one target instead of two. Tricky maneuvering but doable if the two computers talk to each other. As for maneuvering into a blind spot, there's no air out there: you try to hide in an enemy's blind spot and - assuming you can pull it off at all - the enemy need only flip end-to-end to point his guns and sensors right back at you. That would be one neat trick, matching his turn rate while still some distance off. You'd have to be inside what, 20 meters or so?
It's not a well-formed idea. Perhaps it should be expressed as a difference in TL to reflect the effects of improved communications, jamming, and counterjamming technology.
sorry misread your post...
If your looking to merge sensor signatures It is within the realm of possibility, if the two vessels were close enough to one another and the range, and sensor abilities of the vessel trying to detect the targets were favorable.
as for finding a gap in an enemies firing arc goes. Yes ships are capable of radical maneuvers, and there is no air resistance. but ya still got inertia, reaction times, and sheer size to deal with.
A ship with higher thrust can generate higher gee maneuvers than a bigger slower ship. meaning that a g ship with low thrust is going to have some sizable gaps in it's coverage.
At longer ranges it's not going to be an option but up close and in a maneuverable vessels Flying a fighter, gunship,attack ship, or small agile smugglers vessel( not mentioning names) could conceivably move into a gap in a warships weapons arcs and stay there with some skilled piloting.....
It wouldn't be as easy, but it is feasible under certain conditions.
salochin999
SOC-13
Necroing the thread but the question got me thinking about functional categories.
Seems to me the first choice is will your main battle fleet be made of Napoleonic era style "ships of the line" type ships or a collection of combined arms style specialist ships.
Either way I think there are a minimum of four necessary functional categories and a couple of optional ones.
1) If you go with the first option then your first necessary category are the ships of the line - the big battleship / dreadnaught type ships which would be as big and powerful as possible. (If you go with combined arms specialist ships they are still a collective fighting unit so the rest still applies.)
2) If you have a battle fleet like this in a system and they pick up an odd signal from a moon somewhere then you don't want to send one of the ships of the line as their purpose requires concentration of force so you need a frigate class as well, fast and expendable. They don't need to be that tough and wouldn't fight in the line of battle. They are effectively the fleet's version of recon light cavalry.
optional 1) Thirdly if you want to maximize your battle fleet's firepower you might want to trade some self-sufficiency and have tenders always follow the battle fleets around. Fleets of a navy using this option might be less flexible and self-contained but have heavier firepower.
3) The main battle fleet is functionally restricted to the alpha systems and the trade lines between them - because that is their purpose - you don't want your battle fleet off patrolling a rock somewhere when someone attacks one of your Coruscant-like systems. So the third minimum necessary class would be the cheap cruisers who patrol the less important systems and maybe raid commerce in war time. These need to be able to defeat merchants and pirates - who would be mostly in converted merchant ships - and evade battle fleets so fast and reasonably tough but not too much. They could easily be a SSU type ship.
4) In war time or in very pirate infested regions there might also be a need for convoy escorts. In terms of jump and manouver these only need to keep up with the type of merchants they escort and be able to fend off pirates and cruisers. They'd probably operate in groups if the risk entailed it so they wouldn't need to be individually capable of defeating cruisers. So the fourth type, Escort would be like a frigate but trading a frigate's speed for extra firepower.
optional 2) Lastly, another optional one, might be battle cruiser designed for commerce raiding and thus capable of defeating cruisers and escorts but not ships of the line.
.
So in a universe like this, in terms of the categories you might have:
important space
- battleship
- frigate
- tender
unimportant space
- cruiser
- escort
both (war time only)
- battle cruiser
so the only big ships might be the battleships - maybe divided into 4th rate, 3rd rate etc like Napoleonic era ships but effectively the same spinal design with a combination of older and more recent designs. All the rest could be pretty small say frigates/ escorts c. 400-600 dton, cruisers c. 1200, battle cruisers c. 2400.
This model suits me as I want a BSU running alongside an SSU with squadrons of massive naval ships along the main drag between the important systems but in the boondocks you rarely see any imperial navy at all - just the escorts some minor planets use as their navies and the occasional pair of imperial cruisers on patrol.
Seems to me the first choice is will your main battle fleet be made of Napoleonic era style "ships of the line" type ships or a collection of combined arms style specialist ships.
Either way I think there are a minimum of four necessary functional categories and a couple of optional ones.
1) If you go with the first option then your first necessary category are the ships of the line - the big battleship / dreadnaught type ships which would be as big and powerful as possible. (If you go with combined arms specialist ships they are still a collective fighting unit so the rest still applies.)
2) If you have a battle fleet like this in a system and they pick up an odd signal from a moon somewhere then you don't want to send one of the ships of the line as their purpose requires concentration of force so you need a frigate class as well, fast and expendable. They don't need to be that tough and wouldn't fight in the line of battle. They are effectively the fleet's version of recon light cavalry.
optional 1) Thirdly if you want to maximize your battle fleet's firepower you might want to trade some self-sufficiency and have tenders always follow the battle fleets around. Fleets of a navy using this option might be less flexible and self-contained but have heavier firepower.
3) The main battle fleet is functionally restricted to the alpha systems and the trade lines between them - because that is their purpose - you don't want your battle fleet off patrolling a rock somewhere when someone attacks one of your Coruscant-like systems. So the third minimum necessary class would be the cheap cruisers who patrol the less important systems and maybe raid commerce in war time. These need to be able to defeat merchants and pirates - who would be mostly in converted merchant ships - and evade battle fleets so fast and reasonably tough but not too much. They could easily be a SSU type ship.
4) In war time or in very pirate infested regions there might also be a need for convoy escorts. In terms of jump and manouver these only need to keep up with the type of merchants they escort and be able to fend off pirates and cruisers. They'd probably operate in groups if the risk entailed it so they wouldn't need to be individually capable of defeating cruisers. So the fourth type, Escort would be like a frigate but trading a frigate's speed for extra firepower.
optional 2) Lastly, another optional one, might be battle cruiser designed for commerce raiding and thus capable of defeating cruisers and escorts but not ships of the line.
.
So in a universe like this, in terms of the categories you might have:
important space
- battleship
- frigate
- tender
unimportant space
- cruiser
- escort
both (war time only)
- battle cruiser
so the only big ships might be the battleships - maybe divided into 4th rate, 3rd rate etc like Napoleonic era ships but effectively the same spinal design with a combination of older and more recent designs. All the rest could be pretty small say frigates/ escorts c. 400-600 dton, cruisers c. 1200, battle cruisers c. 2400.
This model suits me as I want a BSU running alongside an SSU with squadrons of massive naval ships along the main drag between the important systems but in the boondocks you rarely see any imperial navy at all - just the escorts some minor planets use as their navies and the occasional pair of imperial cruisers on patrol.
salochin999
SOC-13
cool - it made me think about what I want so it was useful to me too
Sal, do you have a mission statement for the force, accompanied by a series of prioritised task statements?
Eg:
Mission
The X Sub-sector fleet is to provide an ongoing High Guard for the prevention of disruption to trade and travel between the worlds of X.
Groupings and Task
If you play around with what you want each of the elements to actually do, starting off with a big list of what needs to be done then prioritising it and working out which bits can be done by what (hey, this can be done by DEs, we don't need BBs for it at all!...) then some of what needs to be worked out just drops into place.
Eg:
Mission
The X Sub-sector fleet is to provide an ongoing High Guard for the prevention of disruption to trade and travel between the worlds of X.
Groupings and Task
Battle Squadron
1. Provide First Response component to check or channel foreign invasion force.
2. Maintain interoperability capability with neighbouring Sub-sector fleets
3. Be prepared to operate as part of a IN relief TF or TF element.
Cruiser Squadrons
1. Provide a battle escort force for Battle Squadron
2. Provide TF command components for concentrated Escort squadrons
3. Be prepared to adopt primary subsector protection role on BatRon attachment to IN or multi-Sub-sector TF
If you play around with what you want each of the elements to actually do, starting off with a big list of what needs to be done then prioritising it and working out which bits can be done by what (hey, this can be done by DEs, we don't need BBs for it at all!...) then some of what needs to be worked out just drops into place.
salochin999
SOC-13
"Sal, do you have a mission statement for the force"
Not a fully worked out one. My post above was a very rough version of that I guess. In reality I know what conclusion I want - a BSU along the main drag between the major planets of a sector (high pop and high TL) and a SSU everywhere else - so personally I just need a reasonably plausible way of justifying that and preferably as canon as possible so I can use all the old ships - just cos I like them.
The feudal aspect of the Imperium lends itself to this imo. What does a Coruscant type planet care about some rock somewhere with a weird religious colony who worship a snake god? It'd be like the King of France in the middle ages caring about a remote village in Brittany worshiping the same snake god thousands of years earlier. Two minor planets in the boonies fighting over a moon would be like two Barons in Provence fighting over a village. It only matters to the BSU when it effects the BSU.
The BSU might have an (as cheap as possible) org whose job it is to keep tabs on what is going on in the boonies (both inside the Imperium as well as on the frontier) in case it effects the BSU - like the Scouts for example - and feel obliged to show the flag from time to time (minimal cruiser patrols) but otherwise the governors of TL12+ planets with populations in the billions or tens of billions just aren't going to care imo.
Similarly with the economic stuff. I'm interested in the logic of a BSU economy - the major planets along the main drag - and the SSU economy everywhere else which mainly feeds on the scraps. The first mostly useful for people trying to figure out fleet sizes etc, the second for free trader type adventures.
Anyway getting a bit off-topic now but I think it's an interesting way to look at the Traveller setting and for me makes it easier to think of how to setup a campaign and dream up adventures. Instead of having a BSU or SSU have both running alongside with the main drag all Coruscants and 200,000 ton dreadnoughts and TL12+ but as soon as you get off the main drag it's the wild west - even deep inside the Imperium. If you think of it that way every sub-sector can become a frontier sub-sector because most of them only have five or six Coruscant type alpha planets. Everywhere else is Tattooine.
Not a fully worked out one. My post above was a very rough version of that I guess. In reality I know what conclusion I want - a BSU along the main drag between the major planets of a sector (high pop and high TL) and a SSU everywhere else - so personally I just need a reasonably plausible way of justifying that and preferably as canon as possible so I can use all the old ships - just cos I like them.
The feudal aspect of the Imperium lends itself to this imo. What does a Coruscant type planet care about some rock somewhere with a weird religious colony who worship a snake god? It'd be like the King of France in the middle ages caring about a remote village in Brittany worshiping the same snake god thousands of years earlier. Two minor planets in the boonies fighting over a moon would be like two Barons in Provence fighting over a village. It only matters to the BSU when it effects the BSU.
The BSU might have an (as cheap as possible) org whose job it is to keep tabs on what is going on in the boonies (both inside the Imperium as well as on the frontier) in case it effects the BSU - like the Scouts for example - and feel obliged to show the flag from time to time (minimal cruiser patrols) but otherwise the governors of TL12+ planets with populations in the billions or tens of billions just aren't going to care imo.
Similarly with the economic stuff. I'm interested in the logic of a BSU economy - the major planets along the main drag - and the SSU economy everywhere else which mainly feeds on the scraps. The first mostly useful for people trying to figure out fleet sizes etc, the second for free trader type adventures.
Anyway getting a bit off-topic now but I think it's an interesting way to look at the Traveller setting and for me makes it easier to think of how to setup a campaign and dream up adventures. Instead of having a BSU or SSU have both running alongside with the main drag all Coruscants and 200,000 ton dreadnoughts and TL12+ but as soon as you get off the main drag it's the wild west - even deep inside the Imperium. If you think of it that way every sub-sector can become a frontier sub-sector because most of them only have five or six Coruscant type alpha planets. Everywhere else is Tattooine.
That breakdown you described might be related to the strength of economies and the feeder routes they generate for the primary trade routes - which GTFT can generate for you if you want.
As for having the Outer Rim inside the 3I, that's probably more a YTU thing than anything else.
As for having the Outer Rim inside the 3I, that's probably more a YTU thing than anything else.
