Armor Adjustment for Volume

[kilemall]

The whole TL15 ACS/fighter craft with Armor 15 thing has bothered me for some time, and the discussions here clarified the issue of greater volume/less proportionate surface.

So I think I have a simple solution for CT/HG, others can throw in their relevant similar tweaks for other versions.


Consult the Target Size DM chart.
This chart determines armor adjustments for volume.
Broadly speaking, negative values increases per armor rating volume percentage, and positive values decreases.


-2 boats costs 2 more volume ratings per armor rating- so to get armor rating 1, spend the equivalent of armor rating 3, to get armor 2 spend 6, etc.
-1 ACS costs 1 more rating per armor rating, so armor rating 1 costs 2, armor rating 2 costs 4, etc.
DM 0 requires no adjustment.
+1 larger ships get an additional 1 armor rating 'free' per 1 spent, so armor rating 2 costs 1, armor rating 4 costs 2, etc.
+2 super ships get an additional 2 armor rating 'free' per 1 spent, so armor rating 3 costs 1, armor rating 6 costs 2, etc.

For desired odd number armor rating value, the bonus does not count, so a +2 armor rating 6 ship costs 2, but the same ship at armor rating 7 costs 3.


It's not strictly speaking a totally accurate formula, but seems to me to be a quick way within the rules to get things closer to what they should be.
So fighters and ACS make more sense being unarmored, lighter frontier cruisers may not load up fully on armor or pay the usual prices for capability, and the larger heavier units gain an edge on protection AND options for greater firepower/range/flexibility.
The HG ships end up looking more like Imperium ship values, which I know many consider not desirable or a conflation of two 'different' games, but I like that sort of 'paradigm validation'. YOMD- Your Opinion May Differ.

 

[mike wightman]

It's a problem of scale and like fighting like.

HG should really be based on some sort of logarithmic scale to determine factors like was attempted for 1st edition but abandoned.

Consider the size factors we have:
-2 fighters
-1 escorts
0 destroyers
+1 cruisers
+2 battleships

Possible solution - if you are shooting at a vessel of a class lower than your own they do not get the +6 on the damage table, if you are shooting at a class two lower then they either do not get the +6 or you subtract your weapon factor from their AV whichever is the better for the bigger ship, of you are three size classes higher then they do not get the +6 and you subtract weapon factor from their AV

 

[kilemall]

Not quite sure what you are saying here. Examples?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Making armour bigger/more expensive will just make Riders even more attractive, since we can no longer fit both reasonable armour and jump fuel. Even missile boats will be forced to be Riders.


Fighters can't really afford armour anyway, they generally rely on being un-hittable.

 

[kilemall]

Making armour bigger/more expensive will just make Riders even more attractive, since we can no longer fit both reasonable armour and jump fuel. Even missile boats will be forced to be Riders.


Fighters can't really afford armour anyway, they generally rely on being un-hittable.

I don't buy your assertion- if the larger ships can get full/max armor protection with a higher percentage of free space, then they could be MORE capable then the BR setup.


I could see the cruiser line in the DM0 range being BR but the full size monsters can do more.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I don't buy your assertion- if the larger ships can get full/max armor protection with a higher percentage of free space, then they could be MORE capable then the BR setup.

If you'll allow me to start from the beginning:

In standard HG combat any vessel with a spinal is basically equal, one hit and you die. 10 kDt or 500 kDt doesn't matter. A bit more or less armour doesn't matter. If you change this basic characteristic of HG combat, the rest of my argument is void.

Smaller vessels are cheaper, so for a given naval budget you will get more of them. For every 500 kDt vessel you'll get scores of 10 kDt vessels.

In combat a few 10 kDt vessels will destroy a single 500 kDt vessels with a very high probability. Scores of the smaller vessels will destroy the larger vessel with very small losses.

Hence, there is very little reason to build large battleships for space combat. Making them slightly cheaper or more capable will not change that.


So, my conclusion is that big ships are still uneconomical and will lose (badly) to small cruisers and riders.



Changing the cost of armour will change how much it costs to avoid having your precious spinal degraded by weapon hits from secondary armaments, i.e. nukes.

Making armour more expensive (on small ships = all ships I care to build) will make nukes relatively more effective, especially at lower TL.

This will possibly make agility more attractive as a defence (on lower TLs where we have to choose between armour and agility), I don't know, I haven't run the numbers.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's a problem of scale and like fighting like.

HG should really be based on some sort of logarithmic scale to determine factors like was attempted for 1st edition but abandoned.

...

Possible solution - if you are shooting at a vessel of a class lower than your own they do not get the +6 on the damage table, if you are shooting at a class two lower then they either do not get the +6 or you subtract your weapon factor from their AV whichever is the better for the bigger ship, of you are three size classes higher then they do not get the +6 and you subtract weapon factor from their AV

I haven't thought this through, but I don't think that is a good idea.

For anything else than spinals this is not a problem, a twice as large ship has twice as many weapons and can take twice as many weapon and fuel hits.

For large lightly armoured ships it might be problematical that we can inflict drive damage with low factor weapons (I assume this is the problem you are trying to address?). I'm not too worried about this since such ships are basically not combat-effective anyway. But if we want to solve this it would be easier to change the drive hits to something tonnage based like the fuel hits, each hit damages X Dt drive. Yes, this would have unfortunate effects on the compactness of the USP.


If you make damage logarithmic, you have make weapons logarithmic too (like HG'79 I believe?). Instead of firing each individual bay, you would fire a barrage of all weapons against that target, with a calculated weapon factor depending on the size of the firing ship, or something like that. Sorry, that is getting too complicated for my taste...

 

[kilemall]

I haven't run the numbers on the 30K vs. 100K ships, larger ships avoid the auto critical hit bonuses and armor can eliminate the PA hits initially so all you have to worry about are meson guns, and I would argue the problem with most one hit/one kill ships is lack of redundant systems so critical hits are not so critical.



But with your caveat of HG RAW I'll accept your thesis as largely axiomatic economically speaking as armor is not enough of a cost/space savings to offset redundancy and the rules do not allow for things like multiple power plants going into one power stream.



The answer IMO is not limiting spinal weapons to just one per ship and combined power routing, but that would be the sort of rules change you point to as invalidating the thesis anyway.


That best design solution result BTW IMO eliminates what should be a design goal of any starship build/demolition derby, more then one way to build winning fleets.



As for the percentage/tonnage damage issue you discuss with Mike, that's a major flaw with the RAW damage tables, and a major driver for me to change the damage paradigm. Right now I'm just wrestling with the armor modeling- should it reduce damage or be a total hit/miss proposition?


For instance, to use a parallel system (personal combat) I tend to stick with a reduced damage paradigm ala Striker and what I gather MgT does vs. the CT damage/no damage system, because rounds strike armor still does blunt trauma damage (and I assume lasers would convey heat, etc). But most RW ship and tank damage is penetration/no penetration (with the exception of spall).


I was under the impression fuel loss was strictly percentage-wise, 1% per hit value. So 30% allocation to fuel means a capacity of 30 fuel hits, whether the ship is 1000 or 100000 tons (ACS ships below 1000 tons take more fuel damage proportionally).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I haven't run the numbers on the 30K vs. 100K ships, larger ships avoid the auto critical hit bonuses and armor can eliminate the PA hits initially so all you have to worry about are meson guns, ...

Depending on TL, rocks of about 10 kDt and reasonably armoured ships of about 20 kDt can be immune to size crits from PAs. 100 kDt is certainly not needed.

... and I would argue the problem with most one hit/one kill ships is lack of redundant systems so critical hits are not so critical.

We can easily duplicate e.g. computers and screens, but hardly drives or fuel tanks.

The most common meson kill result is Fuel Tanks Shattered. That result specifically says game over, regardless of any duplicate systems.

And if we use statistical resolution a Fuel Tanks Shattered result is automatic if a meson J+ penetrates.

With a few select duplicate systems and a duplicate crew we might survive a low factor meson hit, but it's very unlikely to survive several.

The answer IMO is not limiting spinal weapons to just one per ship and combined power routing, but that would be the sort of rules change you point to as invalidating the thesis anyway.

There is a name for that: Battle Riders...

That best design solution result BTW IMO eliminates what should be a design goal of any starship build/demolition derby, more then one way to build winning fleets.

That we already have with HG, there is as far as I know no single best fleet that can defeat all others.

As for the percentage/tonnage damage issue you discuss with Mike, that's a major flaw with the RAW damage tables, and a major driver for me to change the damage paradigm. Right now I'm just wrestling with the armor modeling- should it reduce damage or be a total hit/miss proposition?

TNE did a fair job of that, but it is inherently more complicated with much more book-keeping and individual hit tables for each ship.

I was under the impression fuel loss was strictly percentage-wise, 1% per hit value. So 30% allocation to fuel means a capacity of 30 fuel hits, whether the ship is 1000 or 100000 tons (ACS ships below 1000 tons take more fuel damage proportionally).

Almost, it's 10 Dt or 1% of total fuel capacity (presumably whichever is higher). So large ships can always take 100 fuel hits.

I was thinking of the 10 Dt part. If each hit destroys 10 Dt machinery it will take quite a few hits to inconvenience a battleship.

 

[robject]

If you make damage logarithmic, you have make weapons logarithmic too (like HG'79 I believe?). Instead of firing each individual bay, you would fire a barrage of all weapons against that target, with a calculated weapon factor depending on the size of the firing ship, or something like that. Sorry, that is getting too complicated for my taste...

I think there's ways around the complication. And, you end up with a modified design system (i.e. you don't buy individual guns...)

 

[Condottiere]

Considering the ranges involved, you have to detect your target first, and than predict where it's going to be.

I'd go with THAC0, which takes into account all factors, including speed and size.

 

[kilemall]

I think there's ways around the complication. And, you end up with a modified design system (i.e. you don't buy individual guns...)

Hmm, what I have in mind is more a different paradigm system to weapons valuation- in the same range as barrage, but different.


But I need to get delta-vee and armor right.

 

[kilemall]

TNE did a fair job of that, but it is inherently more complicated with much more book-keeping and individual hit tables for each ship.

Almost, it's 10 Dt or 1% of total fuel capacity (presumably whichever is higher). So large ships can always take 100 fuel hits.

I was thinking of the 10 Dt part. If each hit destroys 10 Dt machinery it will take quite a few hits to inconvenience a battleship.

Yes, I took a good look at TNE/Brilliant Lances that was recommended which was pretty close to my proportionate damage model I had genned up previous to buying and looking at it. I do love some things about it especially in the signature, survivable systems and Big Antennae spaces. But yes it and my previous system is too much bookkeeping for too little play value. Almost better for PC battles to work out a to-hit on a deck plan, and destroy systems as the hit progresses in.



I think I've got a system that works off extant values in HG to get proportionality that's not too painful yet retains the critical hit flair (although a lot less of it, and more engineering drama- or completely sawed ship in half). Needing to make sure armor is right, and radiation is annoying. Might be better to leave radiation out of the meson hits or maybe go to a 1% crew hit like fuel. Per crew per system hit is just too much.



TBH I have a great distaste for BRs, partially due to old-school Imperium aesthetics, and partially to many many rounds of WarpWar, a game that predates HG at least by a couple years, that taught me the risk of having one interstellar carry vessel. They are inherently logical developments, but shouldn't be so decisive economically then the unitary ships.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

TBH I have a great distaste for BRs, partially due to old-school Imperium aesthetics, and partially to many many rounds of WarpWar, a game that predates HG at least by a couple years, that taught me the risk of having one interstellar carry vessel. They are inherently logical developments, but shouldn't be so decisive economically then the unitary ships.

Since you can screen them in the Reserve the tenders are quite safe in HG (but only HG).

There is no need to make just one huge tender, you can just as well make several smaller tenders.

The tender can be seen as an advantage: No matter how badly the Rider is shot up the jump drive is always safe and can transport the damaged Rider and its crew to safety.

 

[kilemall]

Since you can screen them in the Reserve the tenders are quite safe in HG (but only HG).

There is no need to make just one huge tender, you can just as well make several smaller tenders.

The tender can be seen as an advantage: No matter how badly the Rider is shot up the jump drive is always safe and can transport the damaged Rider and its crew to safety.

That's fine as a reason to have the design option, but from a gaming standpoint it's best to maintain 'many paths to victory', especially in a 'build em-Darwinian test builds in battle' game.

 

[McPerth]

No matter how badly the Rider is shot up the jump drive is always safe and can transport the damaged Rider and its crew to safety.

Only if they can rejoin the Tneder and be recovered, if the engagement goes bad and your side must flee...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Only if they can rejoin the Tneder and be recovered, if the engagement goes bad and your side must flee...

In HG (and HG only) the Tender can always be screened in the Reserve and follow the Riders. You just have to have something that can screen the Tender.

 

[Carlobrand]

In HG (and HG only) the Tender can always be screened in the Reserve and follow the Riders. You just have to have something that can screen the Tender.

...and hope your line doesn't get broken. If there's a breakthrough, your tenders become radioactive scrap metal.

 

[kilemall]

Speaking of which, I am very close for my long-term mixing CT/HG combat project. Got mechanics down, including a version of 'the line' that's a bit different then classic Imperium/HG line em up and go, but I think will feel pretty hardcore without getting into crazy sim territory.


Won't scale to TCS numbers, but should work out for player/small squadron battles.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

...and hope your line doesn't get broken. If there's a breakthrough, your tenders become radioactive scrap metal.

Yes, certainly. Fortunately that is rather easy to ensure with cheap, small, agile, well-armoured missile boats or fighters.