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Agility - thoughts

I don't know much about FFS. For the CT HG 2 setting, I still think it'd end up getting shot down by opposing lasers. Tiny and agile, but still 10 times the size of a missile, big enough to treat as a small craft, maybe a -3 DM for size, and no computer to speak of to counter the other side's computer DM. I'm still not sure if there's power there to burn through CT HG battleship armor. I'm guessing it'd be very version-dependent as to whether it worked or not in a given setting.

I recall one of the big arguments that came out against Excalibur: it only worked if you were the only one who had them. In this instance, you could use your own laser bombs to kill his laser bombs, game to the side with the most laser bombs.
 
I tried to keep my exposition rule agnostic. Just saying a fusion power plant with a HePlar m-drive can give a missile (torpedo?) a big increase in delta V compared to a chemical rocket. Just increase the size to 1.4m3 to have lots more fuel and they are still .1 DT. Obviously way beyond the budget for a civilian missile they still have thier constraints. If you want to add coms need .1m2 of antenna then there are the radiators for the power plant and some m2 for the HePlar exhaust, the missile quickly runs out of m2 for active sensors antennas, so indeed not very good onboard ECM/ECCM, active sensors. While a computer can be installed, even at TL 15 it is not going to be a full DM -, even with the rule giving a flight computer only 10% of the m3 of the ship board versions, it's just too big and heavy for this application.
 
Here is a way to encompass agility into a IMTU:
As far as computer DM's go, if the missile has laser coms, and the launching ship (or hand off to a control ship), has enough laser com antennas to control the salvo of missiles then the controlling ship's computer is used for the DM, however the distance from the control ship to the missiles imposes a sluglish response time. Reduce the effective computer level by 1 for every .5LS distant the missiles are from the controller. Minimum level is whatever level computer is on the missile. This causes you to send a controller missile or a few with the salvo, perhaps one in every six missiles needs a computer. Ditto for EW missiles, no warhead, instead has a EW suite and antennas (folding). Think Honor Harrington combat descriptions before deploying grav coms on the missiles, the tac officer programs the pen aid birds and specifies targets before the salvo engages the defenses, the time lag makes it impossible for the tac officer to do any real time corrections, everything is covered by the embedded computers on the missiles. While the defending tac officers on every ship gets to make real time updates, however the salvo passes through the entirety of the defense envelope in perhaps 3 seconds, so only time to give one order per tac officer.
Now how do we play that in Traveller? If both sides of the battle are players, and they designed their ships and weapons themselves (FF&S rules for the designs I am assumming, as they give way more flexability) then the referee can set up three maps, one for himself and one for each player faction, track all forces on the ref's map, only give contact info to players as they earn the intel. Fight the missile engagements acording to the capabilites the players designed into their ships and weapons. Ref establishes CEP chart by tech level defined as a circle of X diameter at .1 LS for each TL or range of tech levels. Example: TL 15 weapons (beam) have a CEP of 10m at .1LS however use of thrusters or attitude adjustments makes it 10 times worse per g applied: 1g = 100m, 2g=1km, 3g=10km, 4g=100km, 5g=1000km, 6g=10,000km (pick your own numbers to make agility use have the effect on weapon accuracy that you perfer.) Hit chances are per shot. If the target is still on the dot and the CEP is smaller than the area of the target, then all shots hit "spot on the dot"). If the target is no longer on the dot but the CEP still covers the area the target is in, then per the ratio of area of target/area of CEP shots hit "spot covers the dot". If the target has managed to get off the dot and the CEP is smaller than the enemy hull area facing, then all shots miss "spot misses the dot". What do I mean on the dot? Your position was predicted to be (X,Y) and when the shots arrive you are at (X,Y) or close enough that parts of your hull are at (X,Y). Not on the dot: you have changed your actual position by the amount of your hull length+enemy CEP, causing all shots to miss.
For large battles, first play a one on one using standardized ship classes, calculate ranges and agility needed to get off the dot results, and the ranges where regardless of agility all results are on the dot. Note these ranges on the data sheets for each ship class. Assume the commanders of the ships understand these ranges and the enemy CEP ability. Closing to engagement: Each side tries to maneuver such that if they can get off the dot while the enemy is on the dot (CEP is big when you are using 6g agility), then they are happy to attrit the enemy for free unless there is some fixed position that they are tied to (defending a high port or in system infrastructure). The side at disadvantgage closes the distance to bring the other side back onto the dot. Fight a few rounds as each force jockeys for an advantage, till both sides are "spot on the dot", or one side tries to break away. Obviously with ROF default of 10 firings per half hour, but rules allow beefed up weapon systems that might put out many many more shots than that. Say a weapon could fire at ROF 900 or one shot every 2 seconds, but consumes all your agility energy allocation, the enemy being "spot on the dot" is when you will use this. You get to fire this weapon 89 times before all guns fire, pray you hit something good before they can shoot back.
 
Here is a way to encompass agility into a IMTU:
As far as computer DM's go, if the missile has laser coms, and the launching ship (or hand off to a control ship), has enough laser com antennas to control the salvo of missiles then the controlling ship's computer is used for the DM, however the distance from the control ship to the missiles imposes a sluglish response time.
No. At 300,000 Km/sec there would be no sluggish response time. Look at the combat ranges in Trav.
 
Some of the rulesets have ranges up to 8 light seconds, I would call a 16 second delay in two way communications a bit sluglish.
 
What rule set has a missiles with that range? That would be 2.4 million KM
Technically, all of them do, since missiles will travel along their vector indefinitely (until acted upon by outside forces) like everything else.

The various Traveller space combat systems place maximum effective range for beam weapons at somewhere between 2 (CT Book 2) and 7.5 (Power Projection, arguably also Mayday) light-seconds.
 
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T4 FF&S does, and you can design your own missiles with components that are small enough to make a very nice and capable missile under .1DT at TL 15. TL 14 and your limit appears to be about .25DT. lower than that and you are looking at multiple DT. (The power plant table rules how small the power plant can be at each tech level, even antimatter plants once you get into TL 17 through TL 19. HePlar maneuver drives require a fusion power plant to feed the drive with ionized gas to throw out the back after accellerating the ions. Think rocket exhausts that are fractional C, quite the fuel mizer for the thrust derived. If you need smaller than .1DT then you are back to chemical rockets and the relatively poor thrust/kg that entails.
 
So, CT HG/Book-2/MT/maybe SS-3, I have a volley of 1 to 30 missiles, some of them are penetration aids, maybe they communicate with each other for targeting information - especially useful if they're each using different types of sensors to overcome target ECM. They get through the lasers, with some losses. They get through the sand, with some losses. They're in terminal phase so they either already have no hope of hitting due to ECM effects or they're on course and too close for the target's ECM to defeat their sensors.

Now the target is jigging with agility and - I'm not sure it matters. Missile is at least as fast if not faster and can adjust course as quickly as the target jigs at that point. They can spin to try to take the hit at an angle, but there's nothing indicating that requires a massive investment in energy to the maneuver drive and that wouldn't affect nukes. Maybe jigging helped earlier, but I'm not sure why it would: I have a spray of missiles precisely so I can cover a wider potential target area. ECM might have confused my missiles but if my launcher's ECCM cut through that then I'm on course in terminal phase and countering him move for move. His agility is no help.
 
Technically, all of them do, since missiles will travel along their vector indefinitely (until acted upon by outside forces) like everything else.

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Yes, yes. Funny. 6 turns or so at 6G. So NOWHERE near far enough for light speed lag to be an issue.
 
Generally if you are trying to go for a contact hit you need 4g of maneuver to counter each g of agility. Here is how that works: For your sensor + communications delay time you have been going in the wrong direction, takes one g to stop going the wrong direction, 2g to make up for the time that the target has been going 1 g in the other direction then another g to get back on the intercept course.
 
Yes, yes. Funny. 6 turns or so at 6G. So NOWHERE near far enough for light speed lag to be an issue.
This also depends on ruleset. but of course light lag is an issue in several of them. In BL/BR hexes are 30,000 km, with combat at 10-30 hexes being quite possible. In Mayday, hexes are 300,000[!] km, so obivously light lag is an issue even at 1 hex of range. In CT (Starter) combat, there is nothing to keep you from (and it may indeed be quite prudent to be) launching missiles as soon as you detect an enemy at two light-seconds, that is 600,000 km, of distance.
 
Yes, yes. Funny. 6 turns or so at 6G. So NOWHERE near far enough for light speed lag to be an issue.
well I have designed missiles in T4 that do 6g96 ( 8, 30 minute turns at 6g) good enough to go... let's see 9.8m/s * 6 *(1800s * 8)/1000 for 826.2KM/s, with distance travelled 6 million 96 thousand 384 km. hmm sounds about 20 light seconds from rest and moving at .27C or a light second every 6 minutes .
 
This also depends on ruleset. but of course light lag is an issue in several of them. In BL/BR hexes are 30,000 km, with combat at 10-30 hexes being quite possible. In Mayday, hexes are 300,000[!] km, so obivously light lag is an issue even at 1 hex of range. In CT (Starter) combat, there is nothing to keep you from (and it may indeed be quite prudent to be) launching missiles as soon as you detect an enemy at two light-seconds, that is 600,000 km, of distance.
This is a CT forum, so those are the rules I'm thinking inside of... In CT (starter) there is nothing to control after a few rounds as the fuel is run out.
 
Ah, sorry CT well the missiles can get bigger in 100 ton missile bays, just pile on 2 extra stages each one adds 6g6 so the 100 ton bay missiles can have 6g18 with 2 coasting phases programmed in. 50 ton bay missiles could be 6g12 with one coasting phase. In both cases the final result is a standard 6g6 missile that is able to move a LS or two and have 6g6 for terminal engagement.
 
This is a CT forum, so those are the rules I'm thinking inside of... In CT (starter) there is nothing to control after a few rounds as the fuel is run out.
Where are you getting that from? Here's what that game says about missile movement:
"missiles move as if they were ships with maneuver drive-6".
And that's it.
 
Ah, sorry CT well the missiles can get bigger in 100 ton missile bays, just pile on 2 extra stages each one adds 6g6 so the 100 ton bay missiles can have 6g18 with 2 coasting phases programmed in. 50 ton bay missiles could be 6g12 with one coasting phase. In both cases the final result is a standard 6g6 missile that is able to move a LS or two and have 6g6 for terminal engagement.
If using SS3: Missiles, discretionary burns are actually lighter than other propulsion systems. You can fit a 5G10 discretionary burn, a controller, a mass sensor and an intelligent detonator, plus a 10-kg force focussing warhead into a standard 50 kg missile.

Not that I think those tiny missiles make too much sense, mind you, but going by the rules that's how things are.
 
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