CT Only: Agility and acceleration

[AnotherDilbert]

But in CT you can also have M-drives 6 and Agility 0 (despite being able to acceperate at 6G), if you have no extra power, so, while M-drives limit maximum agility, agility is not dependant on them, but on power...

No, M-6 and Ag-0 means you send no power to the M-drive, so you get no acceleration = 0 G.

Agility is not something extra, it's the normal operation of the M-drive. No power = no acceleration.

 

[McPerth]

No, M-6 and Ag-0 means you send no power to the M-drive, so you get no acceleration = 0 G.

That’s not what I read in HG (page 28)…

Agility: Energy points remaining after weapons, screens, and computers have been installed may be applied toward the ship's agility rating. Divide the remaining energy points by 0.01M; the result is the number of agility points the ship has. Drop all fractional points. Agility is the ability of a ship to make violent maneuvers and take evasive action while engaging hostile targets. A ship's agility rating may never exceed its maneuver drive rating. For each power plant hit received in combat (cumulative) the ship's agility rating is reduced by one.

(underlining is mine)

As you can see, the Agility is not the acceleration power (given by the M-drive number), but the ability to make violent maneuvers, and depends on unused power, while the M-drive is its limit…

Where have you taken your previous statement that Agility 0 means no acceleration? If so, to give an example, the Azhanti class cruisers cannot accelerate, as they have agility 0…

 

[Carlobrand]

... If so, to give an example, the Azhanti class cruisers cannot accelerate, as they have agility 0…

Well, they can't, not while shooting. Agility is irrelevant during noncombat situations since the guns aren't shooting and the screens aren't active - power's going to the drives, aside from what's getting eaten by the computer (which admittedly is a bit of a conflict, but one can postulate that the computer outside of combat is drawing reduced power since it's not handling targeting solutions and so forth). CT High Guard offers a roughly comparable situation for combat situations: Emergency Agility.

"A ship may be declared to be using its emergency agility during the pre-combat decision step. If so, the ship may not fire any of its energy consuming weapons (all but missiles and sandcasters), but its agility becomes equal to its maneuver drive or its power plant number, whichever is less."

Again, there's some conflict - you're applying power to screens but still getting full power out of your drives - but that's a bow to gameplay to keep emergency agility from becoming suicide by other means.

 

[McPerth]

Again, where do you take this?

Both AnotherDilbert and you are quite knowledgeable about CT:HG, more than myself in fact (I'm note a MT man), but I cannot find where it's said that Agility is the acceleration, and the only definition I find is the one I quoted above, that is quite a different matter...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

As you can see, the Agility is not the acceleration power (given by the M-drive number), but the ability to make violent maneuvers, and depends on unused power, while the M-drive is its limit…

Yes, the ability to make manoeuvres = acceleration.

LBB5'80, p41:
PURSUIT STEP
Ships breaking off by acceleration must begin at long range; they may break off from the line of battle or the reserve. Ships may break off alone or in groups; a group breaks off at the agility of its slowest ship.

Straight acceleration is agility.

Where have you taken your previous statement that Agility 0 means no acceleration? If so, to give an example, the Azhanti class cruisers cannot accelerate, as they have agility 0…

Yes, that means it can't accelerate while firing all its weapons. With "Emergency Agility", i.e. not powering weapons, it can accelerate at 2 G, the M-drive rating.

 

[McPerth]

Yes, the ability to make manoeuvres = acceleration.

Ability to maneuvers = acceleration. Determined by MD

Ability to make violent maneuvers and to evade while engaging hostile targets= Agility

It's not the same...

Straight acceleration is agility.

While I understand using agility instead of maneuver may be confusing, I always understood it means it's not just straight acceleration. Again, nowhere

Yes, that means it can't accelerate while firing all its weapons. With "Emergency Agility", i.e. not powering weapons, it can accelerate at 2 G, the M-drive rating.

So, in the same round where it joins the front line (and so accelerates to reach it), it cannot fire... That's the logical conclusion of what you say...

Is there any specific reference about the accelerating capacity being the Agility, and not the MD?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Again, where do you take this?

Both AnotherDilbert and you are quite knowledgeable about CT:HG, more than myself in fact (I'm note a MT man), but I cannot find where it's said that Agility is the acceleration, and the only definition I find is the one I quoted above, that is quite a different matter...

It is not explicitly stated, but that is the result of what is stated. There is no hint that you get acceleration without providing power to the M-drive.

LBB5'80, p17:
MOVEMENT
Starships move through ordinary space using maneuver drives as described in Book 2, page 1 under Interplanetary Travel. Power for the maneuver drives is provided by the starship's power plant, which must have a rating equal to or exceeding the drive number of the maneuver drive.

The M-drive consumes power that is produced by the power plant.
No power, no acceleration.

LBB5'80, p27-28:
Energy Points: Before installing computers or arming a ship, it is necessary to calculate the energy points available to the ship. This calculation uses the formula E=0.01MPn, where E equals the energy points available, M is the tonnage of the ship, and Pn is the power plant number. ... Energy points are used for four purposes: powering weapons, shields, for maneuver drives (for agility), and for computers.
Powering Weapons, Shields, and Computers: Various weapons, screens, and computers require energy points for operation, and these must be provided from the power plant. The weapons and screens installed on a ship may not consume more energy points than the power plant generates. Additional equipment may not be installed in reserve; the total energy point requirement for all equipment aboard ship must not exceed the energy point value of the ship.
Agility: Energy points remaining after weapons, screens, and computers have been installed may be applied toward the ship's agility rating. Divide the remaining energy points by 0.01M; the result is the number of agility points the ship has. Drop all fractional points. Agility is the ability of a ship to make violent maneuvers and take evasive action while engaging hostile targets. A ship's agility rating may never exceed its maneuver drive rating.

The power plant produces power.
Weapons etc. consumes power.
What is left is sent to the M-Drive in order to produce acceleration. No power, no acceleration.
You do not have to produce enough power for weapons and the M-drive at the same time, that is optional.

A PP-1 produces 0.01M EP.
A MD-1 consumes 0.01M EP to produce Agility-1 (1 G).

CT TCS, p12:
AGILITY
Agility is a measure of the amount of energy available to the ship's maneuver drives, even when other operations are in progress. As such, agility is an extremely important aspect of any combat ship.
...
Agility in Pursuit: In pursuit situations, those ships breaking off do so at the speed of their least agile ship. Similarly, pursuers follow at the speed of their least agile ship. Thus, given all the other charactistics and capabilities of ships in combat pursuit situations, agility determines their basic ability to flee or pursue.

Agility is your ability to manoeuvre, your acceleration.

LBB5'80, p41:
PURSUIT STEP
Ships breaking off by acceleration must begin at long range; they may break off from the line of battle or the reserve. Ships may break off alone or in groups; a group breaks off at the agility of its slowest ship.

You accelerate away by your agility = your current acceleration.

Ability to maneuvers = acceleration. Determined by MD

Ability to make violent maneuvers and to evade while engaging hostile targets= Agility

Yes, it's exactly the same. There is no other way to make "violent maneuvers" than by acceleration.

Newton's Law of Motion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_laws_of_motion)

1. A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force.
2. At any instant of time, the net force on a body is equal to the body's acceleration multiplied by its mass or, equivalently, the rate at which the body's momentum is changing with time.

So, in the same round where it joins the front line (and so accelerates to reach it), it cannot fire... That's the logical conclusion of what you say...

Acceleration is not velocity. You can accelerate towards the enemy until you reach a desired speed, then turn off the drive to coast at constant speed until you reach firing range and start blasting away.

LBB5 does not do movement in that detail, but you can do it with the fairly realistic LBB2 system, or even the horribly unrealistic MT system.

 

[McPerth]

It is not explicitly stated, but that is the result of what is stated. There is no hint that you get acceleration without providing power to the M-drive

Of coruse M-drives need power, but I always understood this was already featured in the PP needing to be at least as large as MD... If not, you could well ahve a ship with MD6 and PP2, just you wouldn't have enough power for the MD.

The power plant produces power.
Weapons etc. consumes power.
What is left is sent to the M-Drive in order to produce acceleration. No power, no acceleration.
You do not have to produce enough power for weapons and the M-drive at the same time, that is optional.

A PP-1 produces 0.01M EP.
A MD-1 consumes 0.01M EP to produce Agility-1 (1 G).

While this is one viable interpretation of what rules say, it's not what rules say...

Yes, it's exactly the same. There is no other way to make "violent maneuvers" than by acceleration.

No, fully different. You can maneuver a 747, but you cannot make violent maneuvers with it.

And a 747 has more acceleration than a WWI Focker DR1, but the former had quite more maneuver capacity.

Acceleration is not velocity. You can accelerate towards the enemy until you reach a desired speed, then turn off the drive to coast at constant speed until you reach firing range and start blasting away.

Sure, and it would keep moving towards the enemy line until overpassing it, as velocity will keep unless it accelerates...

LBB5 does not do movement in that detail, but you can do it with the fairly realistic LBB2 system, or even the horribly unrealistic MT system.

And maybe because of this lack of movement in detail it's not clarified in the rules, though I'd never really though about that, assuming a ship caould always accelerate up to its MD (as long as the PP was equal or higher), ergardless Agility.

And fully agreed about MT rules...

 

[McPerth]

Moved from another thread, as it was monopolizing what should have been another discussion

 

[whartung]

Maneuver doesn't mean a whole lot in HG. You only really "maneuver" between the front and back line.

So, the capability of the m-drive has been converted into Agility.

You can argue that you need spare EP to drive the M-Drive in order to achieve Agility. But there's no sense with "well, the M-Drive is maxed out because I'm already going 6G, even with extra EP". So the M-Driver is converted into an agility "maker". Both the M-drive and the EP limit agility.

A Power Plant needs only be as big as its M-Drive, and coincidently a matching Power Plant is enough to make Agility == Maneuver drive rating.

That's where "emergency agility" comes from.

You'll note that Emergency Agility is equal to M-Drive or P-Plant, whichever is lower.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Of coruse M-drives need power, but I always understood this was already featured in the PP needing to be at least as large as MD... If not, you could well ahve a ship with MD6 and PP2, just you wouldn't have enough power for the MD.

There are a lot of things that are not allowed by RAW. Making underpowered ships that can't use their drives fully are among them.

There is no hint in the rules that the PP produces more power than 0.01MPn EP.

The jump drive must also be supported by a PP of equal rating. It explicitly needs EPs to operate, EPs that can't be used for any other purpose while preparing to jump (LBB5'80, p39, "Breaking Off by Jumping".

It's different in MT where you always have to power the M-Drive fully, then agility is calculated on otherwise unused power.

No, fully different. You can maneufer a 747, but you cannot make violent maneuvers with it.

And a 747 has more acceleration than a WWI Focker DR1, but the former had quite more maneuver capacity.

Aircraft manoeuvre by pushing against the surrounding air with wings and fins, spacecraft have no such luxury.

The only way to manoeuvre, violently or otherwise, is by acceleration.

Sure, and it would keep moving towards the enemy line until overpassing it, as velocity will keep unless it accelerates...

Yes, so? Making ships that can't manoeuvre while firing is sub-optimal, but allowed. It is also allowed to have a computer that is too small to make long jumps, even if you have a large jump drive.

And maybe because of this lack of movement in detail it's not clarified in the rules, though I'd never really though about that, assuming a ship caould always accelerate up to its MD (as long as the PP was equal or higher), ergardless Agility.

There is no hint of that in the rules.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Yes, the ability to make manoeuvres = acceleration.

This is wrong in the context of Agility.

Maneuver-6, Agility-0 can accelerate at 6G ... IN A STRAIGHT LINE ... but has negligible capacity to evade/jink/weave/whatever to dodge incoming fire in a combat relevant way. The acceleration is 6G ... but easily PREDICTABLE, making enemy weapons lock on a simple task.

Maneuver-6, Agility-6 can accelerate at 6G ... IN ANY DIRECTION AT ANY TIME ... giving a high capacity to evade/jink/weave/whatever to dodge incoming fire in a combat relevant way. The acceleration is 6G ... but highly UNPREDICTABLE, making enemy weapons lock on a very difficult task.

Maneuver determines the acceleration Gs available.
Agility determines how "diverse" the vectoring of those acceleration Gs can be to make a craft's movements difficult to track and predict.

Craft with lower Agility scores "can't keep up with/follow" the maneuvers of higher Agility craft ... hence why higher Agility is need to successfully Break Off By Acceleration from combat. You "outmaneuver" your opponent using your higher Agility so as to "lose them" and make your getaway.

 

[Carlobrand]

Okay, I'm confused. What are we proposing the craft is using to make violent maneuvers if not the maneuver drive? Why would these violent maneuvers be capped by the maneuver drive rating if the maneuver drive were not involved in making them? There's no air out here.

I've suggested before that changing the craft's orientation might cause a beam or missile to strike on the oblique and fail to do damage, but that wouldn't be capped by the maneuver drive rating. That's more like what's happening in MegaTraveller, where agility is calculated from excess energy and mass, and maneuver rating isn't considered.

 

[Carlobrand]

Maneuver-6, Agility-0 can accelerate at 6G ... IN A STRAIGHT LINE ...

There is nothing in the rules suggesting a maneuver drive can accelerate a craft when not provided energy to do so. That energy comes from the power plant. When that energy is busy doing something else, it is not available to the maneuver drive. Were a maneuver drive able to accelerate a craft without energy from a power plant, there would not be a rule requiring a power plant equal to the higher of the jump rating or the maneuver rating; you could just install a maneuver drive with no power plant and have a maneuver 6 agility 0 craft. You cannot have a maneuver drive without a power plant, ergo you cannot operate a maneuver drive without power from the power plant.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

This is wrong in the context of Agility.

Maneuver-6, Agility-0 can accelerate at 6G ... IN A STRAIGHT LINE ... but has negligible capacity to evade/jink/weave/whatever to dodge incoming fire in a combat relevant way. The acceleration is 6G ... but easily PREDICTABLE, making enemy weapons lock on a simple task.

Maneuver-6, Agility-6 can accelerate at 6G ... IN ANY DIRECTION AT ANY TIME ... giving a high capacity to evade/jink/weave/whatever to dodge incoming fire in a combat relevant way. The acceleration is 6G ... but highly UNPREDICTABLE, making enemy weapons lock on a very difficult task.

No:

Agility is a measure of the amount of energy available to the ship's maneuver drives, even when other operations are in progress.

The M-drive turns power into thrust, hence acceleration. No power, no acceleration.

Agility is a measure of how much acceleration is currently available (in any direction), depending on how much power is available for the M-drive.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Let's look at it this way:
You have a ship with M-6 and PP-6 and no weapons, so Agility-6.
Now you take battle damage of PP-2, reducing the effective PP to 4.
What is you acceleration with M-6 and PP-4?
LBB5 says:

For each power plant hit received in combat (cumulative) the ship's agility rating is reduced by one.

Not the M-drive rating, the Agility is reduced.

You now have M-6, PP-4, hence Agility-4. You can accelerate at 4 G, limited by power, regardless of the higher M-drive rating.



Interestingly LBB2 is much more severe:

Drives and Power Plants: Each hit achieved on a drive or power plant reduces its letter classification by one. Thus C becomes B, X becomes W, etc. The potential of the drive or power plant is then computed based on its temporary new letter. Note that the letter rating of a power plant must equal or exceed that of a maneuver or jump drive in order for the drive to function.

With a damaged PP, no drive works at all.

 

[McPerth]

There is nothing in the rules suggesting a maneuver drive can accelerate a craft when not provided energy to do so. That energy comes from the power plant

No one (or at least not me) is discussing this, The power to feed the MD comes from the PP, and taht's why the PP must (at least) match the MD

Were a maneuver drive able to accelerate a craft without energy from a power plant, there would not be a rule requiring a power plant equal to the higher of the jump rating or the maneuver rating;

Curious, I read this same rule exactly in opposite way...

The fact your MD is capped by youyr PP may also mean that the power needed by the MD isalready featured in the PP. That's why even if you have more power than provided by your PP (the only case I can think about is a BG equiped ship with his sinks full), your MD keeps capped by your PP...

Agility is a measure of how much acceleration is currently available (in any direction), depending on how much power is available for the M-drive.

That's a way to see it. Another is that Agility is the measure of how quickly may you turn the direction of the trust (be changing the facing of the ship or using lateral acceleration) and so changin his vector in a unpredictable way, and discriminated from the capacity of accelerate in straight direction, that is marked by the MD.

Let's look at it this way:
You have a ship with M-6 and PP-6 and no weapons, so Agility-6.
Now you take battle damage of PP-2, reducing the effective PP to 4.
What is you acceleration with M-6 and PP-4?

Is 4, but because MD may never be higher than PP. If your ship had initially M-6 P-8+, this PP-2 damage would affect Agility, not acceleration, as your PP would still match your MD.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That's a way to see it. Another is that Agility is the measure of how quickly may you turn the direction of the trust (be changing the facing of the ship or using lateral acceleration) and so changin his vector in a unpredictable way, and discriminated from the capacity of accelerate in straight direction, that is marked by the MD.

No:

Agility is a measure of the amount of energy available to the ship's maneuver drives, even when other operations are in progress.

Is 4, but because MD may never be higher than PP. If your ship had initially M-6 P-8+, this PP-2 damage would affect Agility, not acceleration, as your PP would still match your MD.

No, that is when you build ships.

When you damage ship Agility goes down, not M-drive rating.

 

[McPerth]

No:

Agility is a measure of the amount of energy available to the ship's maneuver drives, even when other operations are in progress.

You forget there's another definition of Agility:

Agility: Energy points remaining after weapons, screens, and computers have been installed may be applied toward the ship's agility rating. Divide the remaining energy points by 0.01M; the result is the number of agility points the ship has. Drop all fractional points. Agility is the ability of a ship to make violent maneuvers and take evasive action while engaging hostile targets. A ship's agility rating may never exceed its maneuver drive rating. For each power plant hit received in combat (cumulative) the ship's agility rating is reduced by one.

And they seem not to be 100% coincident (or at least subject to different interpretations)...

No, that is when you build ships.

Because those are the working requirements, even after the ship is built, don't they?

When you damage ship Agility goes down, not M-drive rating.

So, a ship built as MD6 PP12 who has received 6 hits on its PP is unable to accelerate, despite having still MD 6 with a matching PP?

 

[Grav_Moped]

So, a ship built as MD6 PP12 who has received 6 hits on its PP is unable to accelerate, despite having still MD 6 with a matching PP?

Only if you invoke the emergency agility rule. Default assumption is that weapons get power prioritization.