Agility - thoughts
- Thread starter Carlobrand
- Start date
Making anything a relational DM means:
The rich get richer.
Meaning those ships which are disadvantaged already are disadvantaged doubly so. Poor Agility-0 AHL is not just going to be hit always; she's also never going to hit anything herself.
My thinking is basically the opposite. I don't think a Traveller Universe where at TL 14 you need to sport a 20:1 numerical superiority vs TL 15, and a 100:1 superiority at TL 13 (and TL 12- need not apply) is very interesting.
The rich get richer.
Meaning those ships which are disadvantaged already are disadvantaged doubly so. Poor Agility-0 AHL is not just going to be hit always; she's also never going to hit anything herself.
My thinking is basically the opposite. I don't think a Traveller Universe where at TL 14 you need to sport a 20:1 numerical superiority vs TL 15, and a 100:1 superiority at TL 13 (and TL 12- need not apply) is very interesting.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
Well, that's how it is in the our world. Why should it be that different in the TU?
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Gamers have this weird obsession with a concept known as "fairness" ... also sometimes called "balance" ...
Ok, I think you missed my point, which is entirely on me.
Your agility minus their agility generates the DM with 0 being the highest result. Note just your agility providing the -DM. E.g. two M6 ships would both have a net agility DM of 0.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
So? It's not unfair to get trounced by a technologically superior force. Gamers also have an obsession with a concept known as "logic" aka "verisimilitude"
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
If you get the Agility DM both coming and going, it will just make it more important, making Agility-6 mandatory.
At least at lower TLs you have a choice between armour and agility by RAW.
If you just want to generate more hits, make the battles faster, just do the conventional thing and add skill directly to rolls, perhaps even with a characteristic DM?
No, just trying to make agility less of a thing... two m6 ships have effectively a zero DM between the two. While if you are in a less agile ship vs a m6 ship you subtract you agility from theirs for not so steep DM.
Honestly, trying to emulate the Era of battleships better.
Era of battleships combat mostly meant agility didn't matter. If you wanted to not get sunk by a battleship, you needed to either be on one yourself or be nowhere near one. Agility only mattered when very close, and for dodging torpedoes.
Traveller space combat is at such long ranges that the firing ship's agility really doesn't affect the ability to land hits, and it certainly can't cancel the defending ship's ability to evade (i.e. apply agility as a penalty to being hit). It's not a universe of dogfighting space fighters getting into furballs.
I think you're basically talking about a dogfight.
Well, for one: Because it canonically is different. Zhodani at mostly TL 14 with a sprinkling of 15, Solomani at TL 14, Aslan at TL 14.... these are the Imperium's major threats. Not to speak of TL 13 Vargr corsairs and the Sword Worlds.
The second reason I already wrote: Because it's not interesting.
But, in a point I've made elsewhere (perhaps even on this very thread, but it's not worth the effort to search back), the only reason the AHL has Agility-0 is because it's a 1st Edition design described using 2nd Edition rules. If built from the start under 2nd Edition rules, it'd likely have a larger power plant at the very least -- and may have needed to trade away other weapon or defensive systems to fit that larger power plant and its fuel into the hull.
Civilian LBB2 ships having Agility-0, that I can understand. LBB2 military or paramilitary ones, a little less so (at least, consider a power plant that supports double-fire...) Legacy 1st Edition LBB5 military ships with Agility-0 simply have to be redesigned -- from the ground up, if necessary -- to fit the rules changes. They'd never have been built as the flawed versions you'd see from just carrying the stats straight across.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
The point of battleships is durability, sturdiness.
To make battleships viable in LBB5, you'd have to seriously nerf meson guns. In a one hit, one kill system, battleships just aren't viable. You'd make battles a long attritional slog, slowly degrading the opponents ships...
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Terrain is interesting! Differences are interesting! Sameness is boring! If everyone has the same TL, why even bother with TLs?
Zho fleets are different from Impie fleets. Different strategic mobility, different options for combat strategies. Designing a TL-15 fleet to primarily fight TL-14 fleets and vice versa is a lot more interesting than just TL-15 across the board. See the Old Islands Campaign where powers are distributed from TL-11 to TL-13, with vastly different budgets, a lot more interesting than everyone are the same.
This leaves the Swordies and Darrians to weak to fight anything but themselves, but c'est la guerre. There's always asymmetric warfare...
Yes, but they still feared torpedos... Note Missile are effectively Torpedos...
As for one hit one kill... Consider your average Battleship will have heavy armor, meson screens and the like.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Traveller missiles are nothing like WWI-II torpedoes in scale. They might cripple a small ACS, but will barely register on a battleship.
Sure, just as an average 10 kDt battle rider. Both will die just the same when a meson hits and penetrates.
In a critical hit, sudden death system, battleships have no survivability advantage over smaller, cheaper ships. Several smaller, cheaper ships will defeat the battleship.
To make battleships viable, they have to be more survivable than smaller ships.
Not really. Missiles are no more dodgeable than lasers in Book 5 combat. They do give smaller ships some punch at low TLs 9where dampers aren't so effective), so in that respect they are a bit, but they don't force manoeuvre the way torpedoes did, and that was a lot of the torpedoes value, as it turned out.
Even with factor-9 Meson Screens an Agility-6 battleship (assuming +2 to hit for size and +2 for short range) will get damaged about 60% of the time (a bit less of it's made with dispersed structure, but if it is after the first round of scrubbing by missiles and PAWS bays it'll have reduced Agility and be just as easy to hit), so after a few rounds of fire only the lucky will remain.
Well, that and sinking more ship tonnage than all other weapon types. Combined. In the history of mankind.
Partially. You could eke out Agility-2 by reducing or removing the secondary energy weapons, but a TL 14 HG2 warship with Jump-5 is not going to have much more.
I understand your intention, but I don't think that making agility a relational DM will work well in practice. In general, I don't think there are any quick fixes that can make HG2 combat more dynamic. IMHO the whole firing system needs an overhaul.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
At a guess, you are talking about fragile civilian shipping, not defended warships?Well, that and sinking more ship tonnage than all other weapon types. Combined. In the history of mankind.
Spacecraft don't have a vulnerable waterline and don't sink if you poke a hole in the hull.
