CT Only: The terms of EP

[infojunky]

Ok, as presented in Book5 EP is broken on the small hull end of the scale. I.e. the cost to fire a laser or the like is too high to be in line with the maneuver and weapons fire as presented in Book2.

In that a ship's agility cost is the cost to drive it's maneuver drive.

In larger hulls this isn't as apparent as it is in the Adventure Class Hulls.

With all the recent discussion of HG'79 I am giving it a closer look. Though if I had my druthers I would pick and choose between the edition of HG for bits to steal for Book2 styles combat.

 

[mike wightman]

The double fire rule is the place I would start.

To qualify for double fire the letter code of a power plant has to be one or more letters higher than the M-drive. Let's assume that military HG power plants have this built in.
So laser turrets and the computer can be ignored. For the sake of simplicity I would roll all turret weapons and nuclear damper into this.

To power bays +1 power plant number
To power meson screens +1 power plant number
To power a spinal build its own power plant and add it on (that is subtract from available hull volume).

 

[kilemall]

Big question, are you seeking to resolve under CT or LBB5?

 

[infojunky]

Big question, are you seeking to resolve under CT or LBB5?

Big answer, some flavor of Book2...

 

[infojunky]

The double fire rule is the place I would start.

To qualify for double fire the letter code of a power plant has to be one or more letters higher than the M-drive. Let's assume that military HG power plants have this built in.
So laser turrets and the computer can be ignored. For the sake of simplicity I would roll all turret weapons and nuclear damper into this.

To power bays +1 power plant number
To power meson screens +1 power plant number
To power a spinal build its own power plant and add it on (that is subtract from available hull volume).

It's a place to start.

Mostly looking for "rules" to justify the bits in my head. In that, other than arbitrary algorithm would be cleaner.

 

[mike wightman]

To justify their inclusion, they should actually do something, be some form of currency. One of the hates I have for EPs in HG is that they are a bookkeeping exercise for the sake of it, in actual combat they are too much hassle to track 0 off the top of your head without looking how many EPs does a black globe absorb when hit by a laser battery, or a nuclear missile strike?

There are games out there that use EPs on a turn by turn basis, and possible the best ship combat game of its time has probably the best example of their use to borrow from - The Syar Trek rpg by FASA,

Decide what EPs do.

Power M-drive - how about over power -Mayday has the evade program cost you M rating, so we could spend EPs to pay this off
Power weapons - extra power to the weapons allows fro normal fire and laser return fire, double fire, even more allows double fire and laser return fire
Sensors - more power to sensors to extend the range at which you can get a weapon lock (there is a downside to this...)
ECM - more power to ECM to increase chance of disabling missiles

That sort of thing.

 

[kilemall]

Big answer, some flavor of Book2...

Then why care about EP at all?

 

[mike wightman]

Gives the engineer something to do...

 

[infojunky]

To justify their inclusion, they should actually do something, be some form of currency. One of the hates I have for EPs in HG is that they are a bookkeeping exercise for the sake of it, in actual combat they are too much hassle to track 0 off the top of your head without looking how many EPs does a black globe absorb when hit by a laser battery, or a nuclear missile strike?

See that is the wall I keep running into, after the ratio of drive cost to weapons cost.

Every time I have played with the concept as presented in the rules I see the issues.

As presented small ships either have agility or energy weapons fire, while you can build small ships that do, they don't feel the same as the originals.

From a design point of view, the limitation of the number of weapons a commercial ship has works well EP.

Though I have been considering a weapon limit of the number of lasers in a turret is limited to the power plant number.

 

[whartung]

Then why care about EP at all?

EP is (can be) an interesting mechanic in terms of helping discern what ship can do each turn. I don't want to go all SFB here, but, fundamentally, EP is THE mechanic at the core of Star Fleet Battles. It's always about having not enough power and what to do with what you have.

EP can be the thing that distinguishes a "freighter with guns" and a true military vessel.

 

[kilemall]

EP is (can be) an interesting mechanic in terms of helping discern what ship can do each turn. I don't want to go all SFB here, but, fundamentally, EP is THE mechanic at the core of Star Fleet Battles. It's always about having not enough power and what to do with what you have.

EP can be the thing that distinguishes a "freighter with guns" and a true military vessel.

Fine, I am doing that, but I’m not doing LBB2 except for a similar damage table and movement.

What I use for power allocation is called a tactic, essentially a prioritization of power use. Power to mDrive gets split between agility and acceleration. Weapons can double fire but risk overheat damage. The number of tactics available is predicated on the captain’s Ship Tactics skill level.

 

[kilemall]

See that is the wall I keep running into, after the ratio of drive cost to weapons cost.

Every time I have played with the concept as presented in the rules I see the issues.

As presented small ships either have agility or energy weapons fire, while you can build small ships that do, they don't feel the same as the originals.

From a design point of view, the limitation of the number of weapons a commercial ship has works well EP.

Though I have been considering a weapon limit of the number of lasers in a turret is limited to the power plant number.

Consider using minicapacitors that ships charge up and allows for a few shots while at speed.

 

[infojunky]

EP is (can be) an interesting mechanic in terms of helping discern what ship can do each turn. I don't want to go all SFB here, but, fundamentally, EP is THE mechanic at the core of Star Fleet Battles. It's always about having not enough power and what to do with what you have.

YES....

EP can be the thing that distinguishes a "freighter with guns" and a true military vessel.

See this is the

Consider using minicapacitors that ships charge up and allows for a few shots while at speed.

Honestly that isn't a bad idea.

 

[Grav_Moped]

See that is the wall I keep running into, after the ratio of drive cost to weapons cost.

Every time I have played with the concept as presented in the rules I see the issues.

As presented small ships either have agility or energy weapons fire, while you can build small ships that do, they don't feel the same as the originals.

From a design point of view, the limitation of the number of weapons a commercial ship has works well EP.

Though I have been considering a weapon limit of the number of lasers in a turret is limited to the power plant number.

The thing I take from '77/'79 is that the power plant is very good at providing power to the maneuver drive (whether that's fusion exhaust or whatever the grav drive takes), and not so much at providing power to weapons -- but they don't need that much power by comparison. In other words, an "EP" to the maneuver drive is cheaper than one to the lasers or ECM transmissions.

 

[whartung]

Consider using minicapacitors that ships charge up and allows for a few shots while at speed.

...and not so much at providing power to weapons

Or, simply, much like the jump drive, the weapons pull (or require) more power than the plant can provide over a short time.

Consider. crudely, that a laser takes twice as much power as the plant can give (for assorted hand wavy values of "power").

The way to solve this is through a capacitor, which, like a xenon flash of old, can provide the discharge energy necessary for a single shot. But it takes "two turns" power up the capacitor.

Now, you can look at this like a ship wide weapon capacitor grid. It starts with, say, 20 points and the plant can charge 4 points per turn. And the ship has dual, triple laser turrets. Each laser shot takes 1 point. Each "double laser" shot take 2 points. You can see how the ship has the ability to make several shots in a row, but will soon find itself behind the ball.

The other option is to make the capacitors tied to each weapon.

What distinguishes a military vessel is more space to the capacitors (for longer sustained combat), or larger plants to drive the weapons.

"Doctrine" suggests using the capacitors for weapons as Capacitor...uh...capacity is smaller than Power Plant capacity. Simply, the power plant necessary to constantly drive 2 triple turrets would be larger, and much more expensive, than the capacitors to back them up. So, it makes more sense considering the rarity of combat, the lower maintenance of capacitors, the smaller tonnage requirement, etc. to use smaller plants and more capacitors than large plants to drive them all.

Obviously the ratios need fiddling with.

You can also add a mechanic of capacitor leakage. You can't, shouldn't, and don't leave the capacitors constantly charged. It would be a routine step when about to take flight to charge the capacitors first. But, you certainly wouldnt leave them charged up in dock, etc. etc. A catastrophic capacitor failure can be quite violent, so leaving them charged while docked is risky and frowned upon.

This opens up RP opportunities when players need to get out of Dodge quickly.

 

[infojunky]

Ok, playing with the numbers, when using some assumptions. 10ms^2 1g, no heat waste, and roughly 10 metric tons per Displacement ton.

Give a ballpark number of 10mw per 100 tons, at 1g.

Which is where EP should range, kinda. In Striker it Mw is low by a oder of magnitude is one looks at the Gravity Drive section in Vehicles creation.

While the stated number is 250mw. (This number is why MT was so flawed in technical matters, in it was just copied and not really looked at).

Then there are permutations of the Energy Weapons that result from the above flaw, in that if one runs out a table the expected inputs are much lower than are stated.

Thus attempting to use real world numbers is a flawed approach.

But, using EP as stated in Book5 works if one assumes that there is a battery and capacitor system as mentioned earlier in this thread. So the question becomes do we use the Jump Capacitors from Book5? Or some variation there of?

 

[kilemall]

Another difference is that LBB2 has aimed fire with potential of doubling, return fire, and anti missile fire. 3-4 shots by LBB5 standards. You’ll have to figure out something if you are looking to use EP standards in any way.

 

[kilemall]

1 cubic meter of the fire control tonnage dedicated to capacitors yields 2.6 shots, a couple cubic meters seems reasonable, make them part of the weapon buy and fit, or maybe 1 cubic meter capacitor per weapon/rack count.

So a triple rack plus lasers pays for 3 mini capacitors, 7.8 shots, and say a PD shot costs .1 EP and return fire .8 EP.

 

[infojunky]

Another difference is that LBB2 has aimed fire with potential of doubling, return fire, and anti missile fire. 3-4 shots by LBB5 standards. You’ll have to figure out something if you are looking to use EP standards in any way.

Se pointing out further bits that where on the page but I Haden't considered..

Though having every shot come out of the "Battery" bank is a good point.