Armor Adjustment for Volume

[Carlobrand]

Yes, certainly. Fortunately that is rather easy to ensure with cheap, small, agile, well-armoured missile boats or fighters.

That's where things get really fun. In a one-battle game, there's no point in screen fighters because by the time you need them, you've lost the game; only matters if someone's keeping score and there's some advantage in minimizing your losses. In a campaign, there's no guarantee your force is going to encounter even odds; in fact, you and your opponent are both doing everything possible to go into battles with an advantage and avoid fighting battles with a disadvantage. You can't break away by jump without abandoning the fighters and boats, so you take a few jump-capable screeners just in case you have the opportunity to break away by jump. If you break away by acceleration, some screeners will always be lost if the enemy fleet keeps good agility - which they have to in the Meson Age - so attrition (and your fleet is stranded in the outer system until the other fleet leaves, you bring fuel in to them, or you send in a force to rendezvous with them so the combined force is big enough to drive out the attacker).

Those screeners become critical in getting your fleet away when you find yourself outmatched, but they take a bit of attrition with every engagement that you're forced to flee, it takes 6 or more months to replace them, and then you need to move the newly produced ones to join the fleets where they're needed. Makes life interesting; you hit points where bad luck or bad decisions leave you without enough screeners to prevent a breakthrough.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Quite, but battle-ships and riders are in the same situation, both needs to be screened to break off.

Besides, missile boats are cheap and quite useful to degrade enemy spinals before you commit your spinals, giving them a significant advantage.

 

[Carlobrand]

Quite, but battle-ships and riders are in the same situation, both needs to be screened to break off.

Besides, missile boats are cheap and quite useful to degrade enemy spinals before you commit your spinals, giving them a significant advantage.

Well, battleships can technically break off by jump from the line but, in practice, you're usually pretty beat up by that point and don't want them exposed while you're trying to salvage your force, so yes they're pretty much in the same situation - unless you're running short of screeners and are forced to risk a battleship to firm up the line. Whether that's reason enough to have a few battleships is debatable; in a pure combat campaign I'd still rather have riders and screeners, but I'd pay very close attention to construction and fleet management. Battleships are more useful for roles outside of the scope of a typical campaign, things like show-the-flag missions where you want something intimidating but don't want to send out a million or more dTons to do the job.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Well, battleships can technically break off by jump from the line but, in practice, you're usually pretty beat up by that point and don't want them exposed while you're trying to salvage your force, so yes they're pretty much in the same situation - unless you're running short of screeners and are forced to risk a battleship to firm up the line.

Effectively a battleship trying to jump from the battle-line will have to cut acceleration (hence agility) to power the jump drive, making it a sitting duck.

Whether that's reason enough to have a few battleships is debatable; in a pure combat campaign I'd still rather have riders and screeners, but I'd pay very close attention to construction and fleet management. Battleships are more useful for roles outside of the scope of a typical campaign, things like show-the-flag missions where you want something intimidating but don't want to send out a million or more dTons to do the job.

No need to make megaton tenders; I usually use single rider tenders, so perhaps 30 kDt.

 

[Carlobrand]

Effectively a battleship trying to jump from the battle-line will have to cut acceleration (hence agility) to power the jump drive, making it a sitting duck. ...

CT Book 5, Jumping: "It must expend energy points equal to two turns output from a power plant whose number is equal to the jump being attempted. ... Energy used to power the jump may not be used for other purposes."

CT Book 5, 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 ... but its agility becomes equal
to its maneuver drive or its power plant number, whichever is less. The ship may still use its computers and screens."

Which translates to: I use emergency agility and then make sure my design has enough power to power computer and screens while still providing power for the jump.

My experience with high-agility dreadnoughts is they tend to have a power plant 9 to maintain agility-6 while powering weapons and screens and such. There's usually a trade-off with armor for jump range, or vice versa; trading off agility is generally unhealthy. If I'm desperate to save a ship, I'll do a jump-1 to anyplace safe and then make a second jump to my intended destination with the remaining fuel. I can generally do that in two turns, assuming I was careful about the design, and in one turn if I'm willing to gamble by also shaving a point off agility, which is usually better than letting him take two shots at me.

...No need to make megaton tenders; I usually use single rider tenders, so perhaps 30 kDt.

Fair point. A 1:1 tender/rider set-up is less vulnerable. I'm not sure I want that for some of the peace-time missions though. I prefer the intimidation factor of a single well-armored, well-screened and agile ship with a whole lotta batteries for show-the-flag over having a rider with fewer batteries and a vulnerable tender, but the rider concept does have one big advantage: you can build more riders than tenders and thereby have a reserve available to replace losses.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on game edition mechanic.

In the Mongoverse, direct energy transfer from anywhere except solar panelling can be funnelled to the jump capacitors, allowing a same turn transition.

There are mo moving violations in transitioning, except possibly an enhanced probability of misjumping.

 

[kilemall]

Heh, if you are actually maneuvering jumping is pretty easy, just charge up and go- long as you have the fuel/power and aren't in the 100D well.


You jump the screened stuff, scuttle any too far gone ships and then jump the line.



Being 500,000 km in the well can cost some turns getting to a safe jump point depending on delta vee and relative courses/speeds.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

CT Book 5, Jumping: "It must expend energy points equal to two turns output from a power plant whose number is equal to the jump being attempted. ... Energy used to power the jump may not be used for other purposes."

CT Book 5, 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 ... but its agility becomes equal
to its maneuver drive or its power plant number, whichever is less. The ship may still use its computers and screens."

Which translates to: I use emergency agility and then make sure my design has enough power to power computer and screens while still providing power for the jump.

I certainly would not allow that, you are declaring "divert all available power to the jump drive" and "divert all available power to the manoeuvre drive" at the same time. You are using the same power to drive all of the jump drive, manoeuvre drive, and armaments at the same time, which is clearly not possible.

Note:

Energy used to power the jump may not be used for other purposes.

Also note:

Page 28, Agility (clarification): Any vessel using emergency agility cannot use any weapons (except sandcasters) or screens (except black globes). The published text led to missile-armed vessels designed to use emergency agility at all times, which was not intended.

My experience with high-agility dreadnoughts is they tend to have a power plant 9 to maintain agility-6 while powering weapons and screens and such. There's usually a trade-off with armor for jump range, or vice versa; trading off agility is generally unhealthy. If I'm desperate to save a ship, I'll do a jump-1 to anyplace safe and then make a second jump to my intended destination with the remaining fuel. I can generally do that in two turns, assuming I was careful about the design, and in one turn if I'm willing to gamble by also shaving a point off agility, which is usually better than letting him take two shots at me.

Powering even a Jump-1 requires the output of a PP-2 for a round. I doubt you have that much extra power free. Generally it means cutting agility by two.

Taking two weeks to get back to base as a doctrine would invite the enemy to raid your base while you were in jump space. It is certainly possible, but yields operational initiative to the enemy.

Trading off armour invites missile boats to scrape the weapons, not quite acceptable for a BB. But, yes, you will not get effective J-4 BBs even at TL15.

The situation you describe is only at high tech, say TL 15 and possibly TL14. At lower TLs power and hence agility and spinals are much more expensive and you will struggle to get decent armour and agility on riders, much less ships.

I prefer the intimidation factor of a single well-armored, well-screened and agile ship with a whole lotta batteries for show-the-flag over having a rider with fewer batteries and a vulnerable tender, but the rider concept does have one big advantage: you can build more riders than tenders and thereby have a reserve available to replace losses.

Battleships are not intimidating when the enemy knows that he can kill it with a few small riders. It will only invite sniggers about over-compensating...

I agree that excess riders makes excellent planetary defence monitors.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Speaking of which, I am very close for my long-term mixing CT/HG combat project. Got mechanics down, including a version of 'the line' that's a bit different then classic Imperium/HG line em up and go, but I think will feel pretty hardcore without getting into crazy sim territory.

How will you handle screening and the reserve?

If we can't screen the tenders, the rider concept will be far more vulnerable.

 

[mike wightman]

Powering even a Jump-1 requires the output of a PP-2 for a round. I doubt you have that much extra power free. Generally it means cutting agility by two.

Most capital ships under HG80 construction rules will have power plants rated 9 or higher.
That allows for agility 6 and power plant 3 allocated to weapons screens etc. Breaking off by jumping means not using the power plant 3 allocation for weapons, and instead using it to power the jump drive, this is perfectly within the rules, while maintaining agility 6.

I agree that excess riders makes excellent planetary defence monitors.

Just like in Invasion:Earth...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Most capital ships under HG80 construction rules will have power plants rated 9 or higher.
That allows for agility 6 and power plant 3 allocated to weapons screens etc. Breaking off by jumping means not using the power plant 3 allocation for weapons, and instead using it to power the jump drive, this is perfectly within the rules, while maintaining agility 6.

The Meson Screens takes almost PP-2 all by itself, I assume that you don't intend to turn that off...

OK, you could free perhaps PP-1 by not firing the weapons, you would still have to cut agility to jump in one round.


Note that strictly by RAW power allocation is not optional, the only way to change power allocation is Emergency Agility; you cannot e.g. gain extra agility by refraining from firing a spinal mount. But I agree it is reasonable that you can allocate power as you see fit, as long as power is only used once...


Also note that you can't prevent a breakthrough of your line of battle if you can't fire your weapons, rendering putting the ships in the line of battle moot if you do not power their weapons.

 

[Carlobrand]

I certainly would not allow that, you are declaring "divert all available power to the jump drive" and "divert all available power to the manoeuvre drive" at the same time. You are using the same power to drive all of the jump drive, manoeuvre drive, and armaments at the same time, which is clearly not possible. ...

No, that's not what I said. Power plant 9: PP-6 powers agility 6, PP-1 provides jump-1 (if provided over 2 turns), PP-2 provides sufficient power for other systems - about 4000 EP, which covers the meson screen (3600 EP at F9), nuclear damper (90 EP at F9), and computer (12 EP at Model/9 or 9fib). Technically there's power to spare for secondary weapons - 298 EP - but an opponent might quibble about one doing power allocation to that level of detail and secondary weapons aren't really worth bothering with when the aim is to get out of Dodge quick. Easier to just say I'm going to emergency agility and applying power to jump; if he quibbles about power, I can show him my math and establish that the power is available for use by the jump drive, satisfying both rules.

...Powering even a Jump-1 requires the output of a PP-2 for a round. ...

Or PP-1 for 2 rounds, and I did mention reducing agility by 1 to manage a jump in one round. I don't need to lower by 2.

...Taking two weeks to get back to base as a doctrine would invite the enemy to raid your base while you were in jump space. ...

Which they would do anyway if I let the battleship get destroyed. He just limps in a week later than the rest of the fleet.

...Trading off armour invites missile boats to scrape the weapons, not quite acceptable for a BB. But, yes, you will not get effective J-4 BBs even at TL15. ...

Yup, that's the dilemma in a nutshell. Good solid warcraft with shorter legs, or warcraft with greater reach that aren't as effective in combat.

...The situation you describe is only at high tech, say TL 15 and possibly TL14. At lower TLs power and hence agility and spinals are much more expensive and you will struggle to get decent armour and agility on riders, much less ships. ...

Well, you forego the big guns and settle for battleships with cruiser-weight spinals - and shorter range.

...Battleships are not intimidating when the enemy knows that he can kill it with a few small riders. It will only invite sniggers about over-compensating ...

Well, certainly anyone playing to CT High Guard would snigger. Canon universe seems to think battleships are intimidating for some reason. If I were to set about describing an Imperial fleet, I'd include some battleships to conform to canon biases. If I were to design a fleet that fit High Guard rules, battleships would have been consigned to the dustbin of history when mesons showed up. Actually, carriers are more intimidating for High Guard rules show-the-flag when you think about it, so long as you send them with good escorts, because they can stand outside of range of the planet's deep meson batteries and send hundreds of little fighters to duel with the planet's military (which I guess would be Striker rules at that point) and strafe hell out of the cities, and if someone rises up to challenge them, the carrier books for the outer system and rendezvous with their surviving fighters there before going home.

...Also note that you can't prevent a breakthrough of your line of battle if you can't fire your weapons, rendering putting the ships in the line of battle moot if you do not power their weapons.

"A breakthrough occurs if all of one player's line of battle ships have been rendered incapable of firing any offensive weapons."

They are still capable of firing weapons. They are electing not to. I interpret this breakthrough rule to indicate that it is safe for the opposing fleet to fly through your line to get at the reserve (it's really hard to see why the enemy can't just take shots at your reserve in normal combat otherwise, and High Guard is a very abstracted system) and given the power of these weapons at ground combat ranges (<5 km MT rules, <125 km Striker rules), it makes sense fleets don't want to get that close. Lasers are carving through Factor 10-11 armor at that range, and let's not even think about energy weapons. I don't think any fleet would have a problem stopping the jump charge-up to take advantage of an opportunity to fire point-blank at an enemy trying to get to their reserve.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on the actual numbers involved; if you had massive numbers of warships, the sheer quantity would favour a battle rider doctrine, as it wouldn't matter if any were left behind in a tactical withdrawal.

A double envelopment, or a triple envelopment would only result if the transports could be destroyed or isolated, which would maroon the riders, and wipe them out.

Battleships take on a heavy cavalry role, while battle riders are the heavy infantry, or mounted heavy infantry, if you prefer.

 

[kilemall]

How will you handle screening and the reserve?

If we can't screen the tenders, the rider concept will be far more vulnerable.

Each ship has a 10000 km EW bubble around it, in which it's ECM is actively attempting to deceive the precise location of the ship, if just by meters, to make shots more ineffective (hence the computer -/+).
If the ship is by itself, just normal rules apply. If however a ship is behind it, the leading ship is helping to mask the trailing ship, as long as it is in the 'way' of an enemy ship.
Both the screening AND the screened ship's computer value is used for the defender's negative computer DM. ALL screening ships are added together to this negative- if this results in an impossible to-hit, the screened ship is invulnerable (long as it doesn't fire).


The kinda-screeened ship has to be maintaining the same D-V, acceleration and course as the screening ships to maintain the effect- a formation.
The other limit is that the screening arc only works for 60 degrees. If the opposing ship or fleet is just one formation, screening ships only have to cover the one direction. If there are 2 or more enemy formations, the screening ships have to cover those directions, potentially thinning out the cover to dangerous levels.

So a good deal of fleet combat is seeking to thin out one side of a formation's EW to be able to finally attack the ships that are walled off, and/or maneuvering to force thinning or get free shots at the unprotected backside.

The other logical option with this paradigm is to charge the formation and break into the protected center and fire at point blank range. This certainly CAN be done in a CT maneuver game, but I have a mechanic where the weapons get more destructive and easier to hit the more ranges drop below 100,000km. The riders may be successfully attacked in this manner, but the attackers will likely not survive well against BR combat superiority.

This is where fighters come into play, expendable and either firing beams at point blank or generating a kinetic damage advantage with a high speed pass. And of course the riders best have a fighter screen to prevent such an incursion.


Other thought, the armor volume adjustment goes straight to this whole issue of the spinal cruiser vs. battleship dinosaurs, with it the bigger ships have more room to carry more power and therefore more speed, weapons, etc. Optional rules like more then one spinal weapon can make them not so much of a 'compensation joke' anymore.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

No, that's not what I said. Power plant 9: PP-6 powers agility 6, PP-1 provides jump-1 (if provided over 2 turns), PP-2 provides sufficient power for other systems - about 4000 EP, which covers the meson screen (3600 EP at F9), nuclear damper (90 EP at F9), and computer (12 EP at Model/9 or 9fib). Technically there's power to spare for secondary weapons - 298 EP - but an opponent might quibble about one doing power allocation to that level of detail and secondary weapons aren't really worth bothering with when the aim is to get out of Dodge quick. Easier to just say I'm going to emergency agility and applying power to jump; if he quibbles about power, I can show him my math and establish that the power is available for use by the jump drive, satisfying both rules.

But that is not Emergency Agility, but a house rule for free allocation of power rendering Emergency Agility unnecessary.

By the errata (if you are using that) Emergency Agility automatically turns off all weapons and screens.

Or PP-1 for 2 rounds, and I did mention reducing agility by 1 to manage a jump in one round. I don't need to lower by 2.

Sitting in the line of battle doing nothing for two turns would invite serious casualties.

A Meson-N spinal would have about a 22% kill chance every round. As we are likely outnumbered, since we are fleeing, we are looking at least 25% of our BBs destroyed every round while they are trying to jump for total losses of at least 50%.

Reducing agility by 1 and jumping in single round would be slightly better since the hit chance is not doubled, just increased by 40-50%, reducing total losses to at least 33%.

Instead pushing out a few nearly unhittable fighters or missile boats and jumping from the reserve reduces losses to 0%. I consider that the only realistic option.

Which they would do anyway if I let the battleship get destroyed. He just limps in a week later than the rest of the fleet.

Just jump from the reserve and you have no need to be stuck in jump space. Or destroyed.

Yup, that's the dilemma in a nutshell. Good solid warcraft with shorter legs, or warcraft with greater reach that aren't as effective in combat.

Or Riders that have superior combat performance and superior mobility...

Well, you forego the big guns and settle for battleships with cruiser-weight spinals - and shorter range.

At lower TLs missiles will easily reduce the spinal every round. Spinal ships will spend most of their time in the reserve repairing weapon hits. Spinals are still necessary since they are the only weapon that can actually kill ships, not just render them temporarily ineffective by surface hits.

At say TL12- slow planetoids are more effective than fast conventional ships, needless to say they won't jump far by themselves.

"A breakthrough occurs if all of one player's line of battle ships have been rendered incapable of firing any offensive weapons."

They are still capable of firing weapons. They are electing not to.

I would say they have elected to render themselves incapable of firing.

We are straying into the treacherous waters of RAI here, but I would argue that any ship that does not fire can be safely ignored by the enemy and hence not screen other ships.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Each ship has a 10000 km EW bubble around it, in which it's ECM is actively attempting to deceive the precise location of the ship, if just by meters, to make shots more ineffective (hence the computer -/+).
If the ship is by itself, just normal rules apply. If however a ship is behind it, the leading ship is helping to mask the trailing ship, as long as it is in the 'way' of an enemy ship.
Both the screening AND the screened ship's computer value is used for the defender's negative computer DM. ALL screening ships are added together to this negative- if this results in an impossible to-hit, the screened ship is invulnerable (long as it doesn't fire).

To me this sounds as a very complicated way of saying ships can be safely screened, even if every squadron might need several ships to do the screening.

I don't think I would consider the extra complication worth it...

 

[kilemall]

To me this sounds as a very complicated way of saying ships can be safely screened, even if every squadron might need several ships to do the screening.

I don't think I would consider the extra complication worth it...

<Shrug> as you wish.



I just don't see the screening process working in terms of physical blocking when just a few 100 km of offset not to mention a fleet spread across 100000km would be able to fire at a screened ship behind a line ship, and it's an issue if you are actually moving ships about rather then abstract line em up and shoot.


I like it a lot because it helps make maneuver matter, and ship targeting can assume a different prioritization then just 'optimal threat damage'. Breaking a line and shooting at tasty targets, whether finishing damaged battleships or carriers or troop transports or riders might be desirable enough to turn the tide of a war rather then just raw attrition.

 

[Carlobrand]

But that is not Emergency Agility, but a house rule for free allocation of power rendering Emergency Agility unnecessary.

By the errata (if you are using that) Emergency Agility automatically turns off all weapons and screens. ...

Errata did what to who now??!

"Any vessel using emergency agility cannot use any weapons (except sandcasters) or screens (except black globes)."

Dammitdammitdammitdammitdammit!!!

I remember the no weapons but I'd forgotten the no screens. Awkward trade-off. You're right, it'd need to be house-ruled if I wanted it.

...Sitting in the line of battle doing nothing for two turns would invite serious casualties. ...

I did mention that, though not with the same degree of emphasis.

... If I'm desperate to save a ship, I'll do a jump-1 to anyplace safe and then make a second jump to my intended destination with the remaining fuel. I can generally do that in two turns, assuming I was careful about the design, and in one turn if I'm willing to gamble by also shaving a point off agility, which is usually better than letting him take two shots at me. ...

...Instead pushing out a few nearly unhittable fighters or missile boats and jumping from the reserve reduces losses to 0%. I consider that the only realistic option. ...

When you have them, yes. I believe I presented the battleship screen as a desperation maneuver to firm up the line if you found yourself short of screeners.

Well, battleships can technically break off by jump from the line but, in practice, you're usually pretty beat up by that point and don't want them exposed while you're trying to salvage your force, so yes they're pretty much in the same situation - unless you're running short of screeners and are forced to risk a battleship to firm up the line. Whether that's reason enough to have a few battleships is debatable; ...

Fighters cannot be made nearly unhittable. A factor-9 missile battery hits them on a 10 or 11, depending on range and assuming they have a bridge and computer matching the computer of the ship attacking them, factor 9 missile batteries are available from TL12 up, and there tend to be a lot of missile batteries in a fleet. A factor 9 will score at least one critical, and about a quarter of the critical results will take the fighter out of the fight. (destroyed, power plant disabled, crew, fire control out), while a couple more will oblige it to leave the line next turn or be taken out in the next exchange (bridge destroyed, if it has one, and computer destroyed). Maneuver drive disabled might take it out of the fight if you decide to abandon it rather than accepting the penalty to initiative.

Asteroid war-turtles need to be at least 100 dTons. They're nice to have, but they're still killable with spinal mount mesons, and since there's not much else on the line when they come forward to screen your retreat, they do tend to draw the attention of the meson spinals at that point.

So, one way or another, there's still some attrition going on. If you're on your toes that shouldn't create a problem, but there's always the chance you could find yourself short on screeners because of bad luck or poor decisions.

...I would say they have elected to render themselves incapable of firing. ...

I would say that's a stretch. Certainly it'd need to be a point discussed before starting play, because I agree it could be a point of significant disagreement.

What is RAI?

Each ship has a 10000 km EW bubble around it, in which it's ECM is actively attempting to deceive the precise location of the ship, if just by meters, to make shots more ineffective (hence the computer -/+). ...

I like this very much. Very similar to some ideas I was playing around with, except I required the screener and the screened ship to occupy the same hex, and I tend to assume the fleet is flying all in the same hex in abstract battle since stretching it out would tend to make the wings vulnerable with very little tactical advantage gained. However, if I wanted to move to a map, I could see this being useful. I trust you will not be offended if I borrow a bit of that for my own house rule set.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

When you have them, yes. I believe I presented the battleship screen as a desperation maneuver to firm up the line if you found yourself short of screeners.

Needs must, if you have no screeners you have no choice.

But you really should not commit your precious spinal fleet without screens?

Fighters cannot be made nearly unhittable.

Agreed they are expensive to only tie up about six missile bays, but they are fairly small and cheap compared to spinal ships.

A Kokirrak only has 50 missile bays so about 10 fighters can hold it for a round. Riders are unlikely to have all that many bays.

Asteroid war-turtles need to be at least 100 dTons. They're nice to have, but they're still killable with spinal mount mesons, and since there's not much else on the line when they come forward to screen your retreat, they do tend to draw the attention of the meson spinals at that point.

Agreed, planetoid 'turtles' are better.

Small (<2000 Dt) planetoids are better against Mesons, but are vulnerable to PAs.

So, one way or another, there's still some attrition going on. If you're on your toes that shouldn't create a problem, but there's always the chance you could find yourself short on screeners because of bad luck or poor decisions.

There is always losses but the screen need only hold a single round to cover your retreat.

What is RAI?

RAI = Rules As Intended.

Yes, that is an interpretation.

 

[kilemall]

I like this very much. Very similar to some ideas I was playing around with, except I required the screener and the screened ship to occupy the same hex, and I tend to assume the fleet is flying all in the same hex in abstract battle since stretching it out would tend to make the wings vulnerable with very little tactical advantage gained. However, if I wanted to move to a map, I could see this being useful. I trust you will not be offended if I borrow a bit of that for my own house rule set.

Steal away, I rather thought that was the point of this forum.