Vile
SOC-12
What?! They re-wrote LBB2 in 1981? You mean there are LBB2 rules for creating small craft?
I need to go look at my CT CD-ROM!!
About Fighters
- Thread starter tbeard1999
- Start date
I need to go look at my CT CD-ROM!!
Sort of, they are just for customizing the basic designs, but back in the day a cutter was just a 50 ton boat and no modules...what was inside it was up to your imagination. Anything other than the few original craft was totally up to you.
I think there was some complicated equation for computing fuel, but since my originals fell apart (as has several other newer copies over time) long ago I can't look it up. I wish I still had at least the first editions of the first 5 books. "sniff"
I think there was some complicated equation for computing fuel, but since my originals fell apart (as has several other newer copies over time) long ago I can't look it up. I wish I still had at least the first editions of the first 5 books. "sniff"
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The 10t fighter is limited to just one laser as mentioned earlier. For a more versatile fighter use a modified 6G ship's boat. You can get up to 3 lasers, or mix and match, and install a bigger computer.
Vile
SOC-12
Always did like that ship's boat, myself. Of course, you can still get 3 lasers for the same tonnage with three 10 dton fighters. Still no room for a decent computer, though.
leo knight
SOC-12
IIRC, the first edition cruiser (geezer mode: "We didn't have any 'mercenary' cruisers, just cruisers, and we liked it!") had 3 pinances or ship's boats instead of the cutters. They didn't get that until the Broadsword class was printed in the JTAS, then came the second edition, etc. I always bedeviled my players with those instead of fighters.
I keep stumbling myself on the Star Wars/ BSG image of fighters, and tried turning to the Space 1999 Hawk:
http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/models/w2mhawk.html
It agrees nicely with the 1 laser/ 2 missile launcher limits of the 2nd edition, if you imagine the pods on the stubby wings are missile launchers.
I keep stumbling myself on the Star Wars/ BSG image of fighters, and tried turning to the Space 1999 Hawk:
http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/models/w2mhawk.html
It agrees nicely with the 1 laser/ 2 missile launcher limits of the 2nd edition, if you imagine the pods on the stubby wings are missile launchers.
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tim_manley
SOC-12
LBB2 said:
only 1 laser, remaining weapons must be missle racks or sandcasters.
LBB2 said:
So that ship's boat, according to the book rules as written (1981 ver
) can have a triple turret on a single hardpoint, one laser, the other two can be missile or sandcasters.I do not believe that there is any requirement (indeed, it may be prohibited on the basis that the small craft are not => 100 tons - and the rule does not say per 100 tons or fraction thereof; it says per 100 tons) that the ships boat have a turret of any sort.
"Fixed mount" would be common to fighters and small craft alike, as changing orientation is not of any real energy consequence for a small ship, especially considering the 20 minute combat rounds. Of course, one could argue that there is not significant difference between 99 and 100 tons, but the rules have to draw a line somewhere, if there is to be an armament difference between large and small craft.
"Fixed mount" would be common to fighters and small craft alike, as changing orientation is not of any real energy consequence for a small ship, especially considering the 20 minute combat rounds. Of course, one could argue that there is not significant difference between 99 and 100 tons, but the rules have to draw a line somewhere, if there is to be an armament difference between large and small craft.
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tim_manley
SOC-12
Agreed. But, unless I'm missing it, there isn't really a discussion of how the "other weapons" are affixed to the small craft. Now we can assume fixed mount (like 3 missiles on the fighter OR 1 beam OR 1 pulse. If we extrapolate that to mean 1 "mount" per 10t of craft then the 20t luanch could have 6 missiles, or 1 beam + 3 missiles....
My personal opinion is that fighter capability changes with respect to other craft as TL changes. Thus I like your TL9 suggestion -- low TLs have dogfights -- and as TL rises fighters are more likely to shift to a strategic role than a tactical one. Or something like that.
Well, I am not much for extrapolation.
By the rule, small craft, under 100 tons, including fighters, carry up to 1 laser, and any combination of missle rack or sandcaster rack, per vehicle. There doesn't have to be a discussion, because the rule makes it explicit. Racks are fixed externally, and carry one "shot". With one laser mounted, you can have one missle and one sand cannister, two missles, or two sand cans.
Personally, I am satisfied with that. But, I am Old School in that respect
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Doyle Hunt
SOC-10
In my Traveller universe, fighters have five main advantages.
1) Ton-for-ton, fighters give the best density of turret-sized weapons. 100 tons of 10-ton fighters can have 10 turret-equivalents, vs 1 for a ship. Density of fire is nothing to sneeze at. Great for saturating the enemy's defenses.
2) They are capable of operating atmospheric, unlike the carriers, and so provide air support for ground assaults and escort for small craft. Their main offenseive use is to achieve air superiority around a planet.
3) Because each fighter is a sensor platform as well, they are excellent at locating enemy vessels; a widely-dispersed fighter wing in a tactical network forms a much larger synthetic aperture array than any one ship can carry, with real-time triangulation. Rather than directly attacking in space combat, they are armed primarily for self-defense and function to paint targets for their associated capital ships. Not glamorous, but a valuable role nonetheless.
4) Being small agile targets, they can position themselves between their capital ships and an enemy to serve as advance point defense platforms for toasting enemy missiles before they get close eough to threaten the big boys.
5) It's a lot easier to pick up chicks in a bar by claiming to be a fighter pilot than by claiming to be a cruiser helmsman.
That said, I tend not to use fighters very often, and my merchant players normally encounter them as security patrols and interdiction, flying cover for customs boardings. That way I can (sometimes) guarantee compliance with common sense. Shooting your way past a blockade is a losing proposition when your free trader has two turrets and you're facing six fighters.
1) Ton-for-ton, fighters give the best density of turret-sized weapons. 100 tons of 10-ton fighters can have 10 turret-equivalents, vs 1 for a ship. Density of fire is nothing to sneeze at. Great for saturating the enemy's defenses.
2) They are capable of operating atmospheric, unlike the carriers, and so provide air support for ground assaults and escort for small craft. Their main offenseive use is to achieve air superiority around a planet.
3) Because each fighter is a sensor platform as well, they are excellent at locating enemy vessels; a widely-dispersed fighter wing in a tactical network forms a much larger synthetic aperture array than any one ship can carry, with real-time triangulation. Rather than directly attacking in space combat, they are armed primarily for self-defense and function to paint targets for their associated capital ships. Not glamorous, but a valuable role nonetheless.
4) Being small agile targets, they can position themselves between their capital ships and an enemy to serve as advance point defense platforms for toasting enemy missiles before they get close eough to threaten the big boys.
5) It's a lot easier to pick up chicks in a bar by claiming to be a fighter pilot than by claiming to be a cruiser helmsman.
That said, I tend not to use fighters very often, and my merchant players normally encounter them as security patrols and interdiction, flying cover for customs boardings. That way I can (sometimes) guarantee compliance with common sense. Shooting your way past a blockade is a losing proposition when your free trader has two turrets and you're facing six fighters.
Given the rates in CT...
100 Td of fighter devoted space aboard gives only about 8x 10Td fighters...
80Td of fightercraft in external cradles
16td of double occupancy pilot staterooms
4td of double occupancy maintenance specialists
Still, that's quite nice an improvement.
100 Td of fighter devoted space aboard gives only about 8x 10Td fighters...
80Td of fightercraft in external cradles
16td of double occupancy pilot staterooms
4td of double occupancy maintenance specialists
Still, that's quite nice an improvement.
It actually depends on the rules you use for designing the ship. In Book 2 small craft are carried at their tonnage...so 100 tons gets you 10, 10 ton fighters. Under High Guard you get them at 130% of their tonnage on ships over 1000 tons, and at their tonnage on ships 1000- tons.
FWIW, IMTU I've always figured the one-weapon-type-only limitation for LBB2 Fighters (it doesn't actually extend to the other hulls; there are some tacit HG2 EP calculations going on behind the scenes) was an extension of the rule that a Boat driver can only operate one type of weapon (not including sandcasters), and the stock Fighter 1) has no Rider/Gunner crewman to operate additional weaponry, and 2) has inadequate Computer capacity to run the necessary software to effectively operate more than about one type of weaponry in any given turn.
And seriously, who puts sandcasters on a Fighter anyway? The little fella will be (or at least ought to be) moving too fast to get much benefit from them, and its mothership can bloody well sandscreen its own self...
For Fighters, I tend to prefer triple-missile loadouts IMTU (with 1 dton magazine), with the occasional 1-laser/2-missile choose-between-turns-which-will-be-armed configuration for truly gifted Boat operators. You could also stick a second couch in there for a RIO/Gunner (at the cost of .5 dtons of magazine) and use both weapons at once, but you might be better off just ditching the entire magazine in favor of an upgrade to a Model/2 computer and a decent combat software package...
...or add a weapons officer and a computer to load multi-target on so you can track multiple targets for the missiles. Or maybe a tail gunner with a laser to keep the bad guys off your tail while you bore in for a point blank torpedo launch by trading in the two missile racks for a couple of bay-sized missile rails?
Not when you account for the required pilots.
That would require writing software; the one-turret-equivalent weapons mount of a small craft (such a the Fighter) will be restricted to engaging a single target per turn via the software provided in the LBB2 rules.
Again, pre-written software issues preclude this, so you'd have to hack something up; more to the point, there are no "bay-sized" missile rails in BT since there are no bay-mounted weapons in LBB2 -- and even if there were, the dtonnage that would likely be required to support them might not be available once you cram a Gunner in there too.
Once you start tossing about "torpedoes" (figuratively and literally), you might as well ditch the Fighter crew entirely and just start dumping robotic drones with strategic-sized warheads overboard in the general direction of your foe...
(It's times like those that I am thankful the Imperial Rules of War frown upon warbots of all stripes, BTW.)
The gist of it all in BT is that Fighters are a way for starships to bring more than 1 hardpoint per 100 dtons of mothership to a battle, and under LBB2, whomever brings more hardpoints to the fight is already halfway to victory... in terms of cost-efficiency, a triple-missile Fighter with a 1-dton magazine projects the most force against an enemy (with occasional pauses to reload) for the 12 dtons of displacement (accommodating the vessel in hold space & a half-stateroom for the brave Boater who does the flying and shooting) it requires.
Fortunately I assume IMTU that engineers know the difference between a boat and a fighter when they design the things. So I assume fighters have what is needed to get the job done built into them.
You can make them better with a new computer or backseater, but if you just blindly go by the letter of the rules rather than the spirit (it is called a fighter after all] than you'd be better off to just buy a pinnace or ship's boat. Same speed, more lasers, and carry a few troops to board the target and finish the job.
Plus, writing new software is explicit within the rules, so why not do that?
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That's a non-trivial assumption; the discrepancy being that you and they may have markedly different conceptions of what the job precisely entails. The computer programming rules imply engaging multiple targets from one hardpoint's worth of weaponry is impossible by default, probably due to the limitations of fire control.
Not exactly. Indeed, for any circumstances other than starship-based deployments, Ship's Boats (or, as they are more accurately designated -- wait for it -- System Defense Boats) are more capable alternatives (after a little upgrading), and are therefore preferrable. However, when deploying from a starship, as mentioned previously, the "Fighter" is simply a way to extend the number of hardpoints available for combat in the most cost- and dtonnage-efficient manner possible.
Analogies to 20th Century naval and aerial warfare are pretty much irrelevant to Traveller combat operations; sorry, but it does need to be said from time to time lest we forget.
I thought that was my point; was I mistaken?
