Battle-Class Ships: Design and Combat Discussion

[whartung]

They're not so good against swarms of multiple targets.

Well, that's the thing, and I need to do some tests with lower TLs.

While the Spine may offer "one shot, one kill", it's not very useful when there's 300 things to kill. If those 300 things are effective against a spine, then the spine is at a serious disadvantage (to the point that spines aren't worthwhile in a tactical sense).

But you can't have, say, an Imperial Navy made solely of Fighters.

One of the limitations, e.g. in TCS, was number of pilots. This intrinsically limited the number of hulls, and thus, perhaps, should be considered as part of the equation.

But I don't know, say, for the US Navy whether staffing an aircraft carrier is a "problem". Does the Navy have enough officers and crew and pilots for a carrier? Would the Navy say "Yea, we'd like another CV, but just can't crew it, so we don't make it", or is it pure economics -- CVs are expensive to build an operate, so they're made with great care and consideration.

Do battle fleet end up being clouds of 5K tons missile or beam ships.

In HG the real power of spines is they're outright ship killers. The turreted weapons are obsolete simply through raw tonnage.

Not to say you can't make a ship combat ineffective -- a charred hull with no weapons isn't very good at projecting power, but that's someone "unsatisfying" from a play POV.

Guess I'll make up some TL 12 and 13 ships and see how they fight.

 

[Spinward Flow]

In HG the real power of spines is they're outright ship killers. The turreted weapons are obsolete simply through raw tonnage.

The thing that tips spinal mounts over the top is this ...

LBB5.80, p41

Spinal Mounts: All spinal mount weapons which hit and penetrate inflict one extra damage roll (on each appropriate table) for each letter by which their size exceeds 9. For example, a particle accelerator with a code of A gets 2 rolls on both the surface explosion and radiation tables; a factor of B receives 3 rolls, etc. The number of extra rolls is reduced by one for each factor of armor the target ship has (but a weapon always gets one roll). Meson guns are not reduced by armor.

Critical Hits: All batteries whose weapon code exceeds the size code of the target ship will inflict (if they hit and penetrate) automatic critical hits equal to the size difference. For example, if a missile battery of factor 9 hits a size 4 ship, it will (in addition to any other damage) inflict 5 critical hits. These critical hits are reduced in number by one for each two factors of armor the target ship has; round odd numbers down. Meson gun hits are not reduced by armor.

Multiple hits per code above 9 is simply GAME OVER when spinal mounts hit.
Automatic critical hits is another factor, but when meson gun automatic critical hits are not reduced by armor (or by the Meson Screen factor!) then everything just slides to the right in favor of meson guns.

In other words, in LBB5.80, the spinal mounts are simply TOO GOOD at delivering damage results, making everything else relatively worthless by comparison. The balance is upended in favor of the spinal mounts, with the meson guns getting a tremendous (too much of a good thing?) advantage in their favor.

 

[robject]

...spinal mounts are simply TOO GOOD at delivering damage results, making everything else relatively worthless by comparison.

^ Which we know about from Doug Lenat's blowout of High Guard back in the early 1980s...


And I suggest that they're supposed to trump everything else. For all of High Guard's bits that may not reflect the OTU, the spine actually does accurately reflect the OTU.

 

[Condottiere]

Range.

In theory, the bigger the gun, the longer the range.

The bigger the target, the more likely a hit.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

... mounts are simply TOO GOOD at delivering damage results, making everything else relatively worthless by comparison.

^ Which we know about from Doug Lenat's blowout of High Guard back in the early 1980s...

? Eurisko is a missile rock, conspicuously without any spinal. The fleet contained 75 missile rocks, four meson spinals, three PA spinals, and a few supporting ships. TL12 combat is quite different from TL15 combat.

The spinal ships are lightly defended (by comparison), and can expect to spend dozens of turns in the reserve repairing for each turn in the battle line shooting. They would be easily defeated by nukes without the Eurisko missile rocks to hide behind.

Not really a poster child for the superiority of spinals...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And I suggest that they're supposed to trump everything else. For all of High Guard's bits that may not reflect the OTU, the spine actually does accurately reflect the OTU.

Agreed, they are, at TL14-15 or so.

You still have to look out for swarms of missile boats and design ship's defences accordingly.

And that is the rock-paper-scissors of TL-15: Meson spinals beats PA spinals, missile boats beats meson spinals, and PA spinals beats missile boats. There is no single best design or strategy, either at TL-12 or TL-15, and that's the genius of HG.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

"Statistical Combat" Is. Not. Fun.

Agreed, but it takes care of the detail. You can still roll the critical component (the spinal) manually. It makes big ship combat fast enough to actually use...

Firing 1000 weapons on a Tigress is exhausting.

And pointless. By the Law of Great Numbers, the result will be virtually indistinguishable from the statistical result.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

One of the limitations, e.g. in TCS, was number of pilots. This intrinsically limited the number of hulls, and thus, perhaps, should be considered as part of the equation.

Only in tournament play, not the interesting bit: campaign play.

Guess I'll make up some TL 12 and 13 ships and see how they fight.

Take a look at the Islands campaign in TCS. It has several powers in the TL 11-13 range with uneven resource availability and uneven strategic positions. Planning e.g. a TL-12 fleet to be able to fight more numerous TL-11, fairly equal TL-12, or numerically disadvantaged TL-13 opponents is quite challenging.

At lower TLs both power and armour are much more expensive. You have to choose carefully between speed, armour, and jump capability. The lack of defences means that turret weapons are back in style, but you also need bays and spinals. It takes awhile to design a fleet...

 

[Spinward Flow]

^ Which we know about from Doug Lenat's blowout of High Guard back in the early 1980s...

And I suggest that they're supposed to trump everything else. For all of High Guard's bits that may not reflect the OTU, the spine actually does accurately reflect the OTU.

To which the appropriate response is ... do they have to?
Do they have to be a blowout of THAT magnitude?
Or to put it another way ... do they have to be that unbalancing?

A Spinal-T does 19+19 damage rolls when it hits ... and automatic criticals are just "bonus" on top of that.
A Spinal-N does 14+14 damage rolls when it hits.
A Spinal-J does 10+10 damage rolls when it hits.
That's surface (particle accelerator) or internal (meson) damage plus radiation (both) damage rolls.
Oh and extra rolls for particle accelerators gets reduced by armor, but meson guns ignore armor for extra damage on internal explosions and radiation damage.

Is that kind Omni Mega Beam against a single target actually warranted?
I mean, I get the impulse desire for "Reflex Weaponry" that one shots things from beyond the horizon out to 280,000km ... but still ...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

To which the appropriate response is ... do they have to?
Do they have to be a blowout of THAT magnitude?
Or to put it another way ... do they have to be that unbalancing?

A Spinal-T does 19+19 damage rolls when it hits ... and automatic criticals are just "bonus" on top of that.

Why else would we invest thousands of tons into a single weapon system, and thousands more into power generation?

The basic advantage of a meson spinal over a meson bay is not the extra hits, but that it can penetrate a meson screen.

A Meson T is about 7000 Dt + 2400 Dt for the power + 166 Dt for the crew = 9566 Dt.

A meson bay is about 100 Dt + 400 Dt for power + 12 Dt for crew = 512 Dt.
19 meson bays are 19 × 512 = 9728 Dt for the same number of hits as the spinal.

The point of meson spinals, over meson bays, is to hit and penetration.
The point of PA spinals is size crits.

Meson spinals excel at killing large, well-defended ships.
PA spinals excel at killing small ships.
Nukes attritions everything but hi-tech rocks.

 

[whartung]

Multiple hits per code above 9 is simply GAME OVER when spinal mounts hit.

This is what killed the Tigress. 1 hit from the J gun was 20 hits on the Tigress, 10 Radiation, 10 Interior. The spinal didn't even intrinsically crit. In the damage, it did roll some criticals, but the ships was ineffective, "dead", by the time they rolled. What killed the ship were several crew hits.

Do they have to be a blowout of THAT magnitude?

The larger guns justify themselves by manifesting in damage as multiple damage rolls. Why should a 1000 ton spinal weapon only get "one crack" at the damage table, just like a single missile turret? There needs to be some outcome benefit from picking the spinal.

 

[kilemall]

This is what killed the Tigress. 1 hit from the J gun was 20 hits on the Tigress, 10 Radiation, 10 Interior. The spinal didn't even intrinsically crit. In the damage, it did roll some criticals, but the ships was ineffective, "dead", by the time they rolled. What killed the ship were several crew hits.


The larger guns justify themselves by manifesting in damage as multiple damage rolls. Why should a 1000 ton spinal weapon only get "one crack" at the damage table, just like a single missile turret? There needs to be some outcome benefit from picking the spinal.

What I don’t buy is spinal weapons being limited to one per ship in the 100k+ range…

 

[Spinward Flow]

PA spinals excel at killing small ships.

Particle accelerators excel at killing unarmored ships.
Against armor, they're really at a pretty marked disadvantage compared to meson guns ... even with the meson screen factor thrown in.
Meson screens are extremely effective at nullifying meson bay weapons (meson screen-3 is adequate if computer models are at parity), but not nearly as useful at the higher end of spinal mounts.

 

[robject]

Hey -- okay, I was wrong about Eurisko - I remembered wrong...

---

1. The Spine Is Designed to be King

The price, the tonnage, and yes, the exclusivity, all point at the spine being King.
Sure, TL should affect this, but even the TL 10 spine is a monster for more than one reason.

If it's not meant to be an unbalancing force, then it's just a bay weapon. Do we want that?


2. And Yet, Dreadnoughts Should be Tough

So OK, I think Dilbert's point about Dreadnoughts is important: the one shot, one kill for them is a problem. Dreadnoughts should be tough, even against spines. How that works is up for discussion then, but I assume it's a combination of defenses plus sheer volume. It can be overcome, but it seems you ought to get a defensive efficiency of scale with gigantic volumes.


3. PA Spine Promotion

I'll dig up Marc's comments on PA spines.


4. Yes TL.

Each TL changes the balance of weapons and defenses so that each TL has different strengths and weaknesses.
TL also introduces the next dangerous thing (so this might partly be the "arms race" effect).


5. Rock-Paper-Scissors even at the SAME TL.

I suggest that Rock-Paper-Scissors could exist within each TL.


6. I Always Think of Tactical Slugfest

Though I don't know the rules, I think of games like Mongoose's A Call To Arms for Babylon 5, and how it uses (relatively) straightforward ship cards to let people play interesting and even sophisticated space warfare on the tabletop. And I think, if we can represent a squadron as one massed unit, that Traveller fleet combat could (perhaps) have that kind of game experience.

Granted, ACTA is a slugfest - a well-designed move and shoot with a healthy dose of CRTs. And that's not what Traveller capital ship warfare is "about". In fact it's more like Mayday's scale than High Guard. So I'm back to lines of battle at the chokepoints of the systems.

 

[robject]

Here's the skeleton of a conversation I had with Marc in March 2017 that's related to all this. All of these thoughts except one are, I believe, Marc's, and I think he mostly still thinks these ways about these concepts. Note that missiles are important here.


Marc's current position on meson guns is as follows:

• BCS: Assume meson screen rating == Armor factor.
• It's smart to have a meson screen.
• BCS: You can't fire your meson gun when your meson screens are up.
• Particle Accelerators are significant weapons, even in the era of meson guns.

04:45 Something like a new Imperium game
04:50 Ship card values
06:40 Hexes are all "space ranges" (= light seconds and greater)
06:50 TL 8 thru 11.
07:00 Ziru Sirka doesn't break J2 until Terran Confederation, J3 until Third Imperium.
08:10 We do have Stage Effects to extend base TLs, if necessary.
08:35 Dots next to attack ratings to show maximum weapon range.
09:00 Cards: secret weapon, hero admiral, mutiny!, ?? form a row ??
09:30 The last game sets up the next game.
09:50 ASSUME: the Ziru Sirka wins almost all of the wars, to a point.
10:18 ZS starts with Dominators and fights someone (Geonee) with a different type of ship.
10:35 Based on performance, those ship types get integrated into the fleet.
10:50 The Imperium only "learns" (gets new capabilities) by losing.
11:20 When the Imperium beats the other guys, there's no reason to use the losers' ships!
11:35 So the other guy is consoled that if he loses, the ZS doesn't get their Type 2 ships.
11:55 Marc is a bit conflicted by this.
12:05 It's hard to wrap your head around, which might be a sign of RDME.
12:45 Progress of the ZS is fore-ordained.
13:10 These are metaphorical battles: the ZS is always "fighting the last war".
14:00 Rob: victory conditions are therefore different because the playing field is uneven...
16:05 "Imperium" to attract casual gamers. Striking minis, easy rules, one hour play.
16:35 Miniatures is what gets people; board games won't work here these days.
17:05 The key is MISSILES. We need missile counters that swoop in and blow up.
17:35 Put three missile salvos in one hex. Zero dice, 30 points against 25 points defense.
18:10 First hit disables, then a mitigation roll to repair. A second hit kills.
18:45 Need multiple salvos working together in order to make a hit. Not just one shot.
19:45 SpineMaker forms the core of "High Guard 5" with text from HG1 HG2 and Clay Bush etc.
22:00 Main payload (often/usually the spine) is the central design element of HG5.
23:45 Asterisk next to ship defense for meson screen presence.
24:00 Assume meson screen == Ship armor.
24:15 If gun is meson, then ignore armor unless there's an asterisk there.
25:00 Therefore a good strategy: use a meson screen with a particle accelerator.
26:30 PA spines should not be worthless in a meson gun world.
26:45 RDME... and the players don't have to do ship design.
27:10 From Ziru Sirka, to the Border Wars, Frontier Wars (and Black Fleets)
27:45 Starting with the Consolidation Wars lets us introduce ships and rules gradually.
28:45 One losing strategy is to stand-off with siege engines: maybe they can destroy the mainworld. (This might be a victory condition)
29:30 Miniature types: dreadnoughts, fighter clouds, missile swarms.
30:00 This is a capital ship game.
30:25 The ships are abstract elements, representing more than just a capital ship. This is a step back from the naval buff's wargaming rules. The only ships that matter are the primaries.
31:05 Have to have missile and fighter swarms. A LOT of them, because people care about them, and this is how you project power from great distances.
31:30 NO VECTOR MANAGEMENT. Ships typically move one hex. Missiles move two. These are space ranges.
32:00 We may need a world marker.
32:30 Two kinds of missiles: close-range "factors" shot as other secondaries, and long-range deadly weapons.
33:00 Not enough markers! Maybe each missile attacks twice? We need two or three swarms to attack in order to overwhelm a ship.
33:20 Start out with (say) Spine K, Armor K, smaller ships but with typical ships.
33:40 By the Interstellar Wars, we have bigger guns of course.
34:20 You can LURK missiles.
34:45 If one missile swarm gets peeled off by defenses or screens, you can order the other one to lurk until they can get enough help to go in for the kill.
35:00 The flaw: if you have attack factor 10 vs armor 20, how can you overcome that?
36:00 Lucky hit? Secret weapon? Mutiny? Traitor? Boarding party?
37:00 No: CommCasters to coordinate fire.
37:40 How do the teleporting Zhodani commandos work?
38:00 Zho ship has to match speed and vector (?)

 

[robject]

I also have a draft page and conversation from 2011 that talks about these ideas:

I envision an upper end for BCS ships at the 10^10 tons (= 20 km long x 3 km thick?) or (= 6 km sphere planetoids). Such ships have multiple Mainweapons.

(pause to consider lots of options and processes).

The simplest system is that each MainWeapon has its own power plant.​

Then his spine-maker draft from 2011 has three different types of "main weapons": a spine, a dish, and a bay.

From there, he defines no fewer than 15 kinds of things those main weapon emplacements can serve:

• Particle Accelerator spine
• AM Particle Accelerator spine
• Plasma / Fusion Gun spine (!)
• Meson spine
• Rail Gun spine (!)
• Inducer dish or bay
• Jump Damper dish or bay
• Tractor/Pressor dish or bay
• Disruptor dish or bay
• Missile spine or bay
• AM Missile spine or bay
• KK Missile spine or bay
• Ortillery spine or bay
• Fighter launcher spine or bay

Some of these are short range, some are long range.
And modifications can be made.


Now imagine a Very Large Ship that has multiple main weapons... a Killer Hedgehog...

 

[robject]

As for what the combat should BE LIKE. I've boiled some of canon down a bit to a pile of data points. Things to think about.

• [CW] Boarding actions are important. Olav hault-Plankwell dies during a boarding action.
• [CW] Focus. A clash of capital ships and auxiliaries on a vast scale, resulting in the "smoking hulks of ruined ships" where the two admirals meet on the deck of a ship in a person-to-person final duel to decide the winner. Thus we see the focus starts very wide, lets attrition whittle things down, until the focus constricts to the two commanders.

• [TS] Terrain. Battles amidst the debris of the overlapping region of two adjacent systems is important.
• [TS] Supply lines limit advances.
• [TS] Force the Enemy to Leave. The fall of certain worlds cause the "evacuation" (perhaps a naval evacuation) of more important worlds.
• [TS] Hours. A full combat scenario is measured in hours. Ships and their auxiliaries (e.g. the Allamu) can hold the line for four hours of steady attack before suffering screen failure (and all hands lost).

• [HG] Lurking. SDBs lurk in the atmosphere of GGs, and are able to damage a refueling invasion fleet.
• [HG] Atmospherics. capital ships' spinal weapons may not be effective or able to bear.
• [HG] Submarine Dogfights 1. Battles within the GG's atmosphere are in some ways like submarine warfare (orbital spines and nukes are like depth charges)
• [HG] Submarine Dogfights 2. Battles within the GG's atmosphere are in some ways like dogfights -- including atmospheric stability.

• [V] Planning. Poorly organized and coordinated elements are easily defeated piecemeal.
• [V] Assault Success. "Easy" planetary assault IS POSSIBLE with ship's troops.
• [V] Assault Failure 1. Planetary assault can be easy to misjudge.
• [V] Assault Failure 2. A well-organized planetary army and defense militia can trump assault ships.
• [V] Failure can result for court-martial and expulsion, exile or death.

• [P] Gas giant refueling is CRUCIAL for invading fleets.
• [P] Local naval bases are of potential use to invading naval forces.
• [P] Invading task forces can show up off the planetary plane.
• [P] Buying Time 1. As invaders refuel, portions engage local defenses to buy time for a second task force's arrival, which drives straight for the target world.
• [P] Open World. A world may react by declaring itself an OPEN WORLD. (This is because the Imperium doesn't rule worlds, remember?) Apparently this undermines the naval base stationed here, and elements surrender or flee. Interesting, yes?

• [K] Singles. Battles are fought between single Capital Ships and their auxiliaries.
• [K] Buying Time 2. High Guard elements exist to cover and buy time for refueling ships that are in the atmosphere.
• [K] Refueling is a Crucial weak point. GG refueling is CRUCIAL to nonlocal forces and therefore a WEAK POINT in task force defense.
• [K] Buying Time 3. A Capital ship might sacrifice itself in order to let its auxiliaries escape.
• [K] Uncertainty. The other side might not be certain if a damaged ship is beyond salvage or not. Some boarding actions are aboard doomed capital ships.
• [K] Tactical Victory 1. Even if one side "wins", the losing side can still gain victory points by denying access to potentially salvageable ships.
• [K] Tactical Victory 2. A ship can be potentially salvageable, but the side that controls the ship may lack access to repair facilities (e.g. Bard Endeavour).

[References]


CW: Civil War / Barracks Emperors' era

TS: Battle of Two Suns

HG: High Guard (the scenario, not Book 5)

V: Battle of Velpare. Raiding naval squadrons of the Sylean Federation versus patrolling squadrons of the Interstellar Confederacy.

P: Battle of Porozlo. The Zhodani thrust strikes Porozlo to provide a base for the Rhylanor assault.
K: Battle of Kagukhasaggan: The fleet intruder Bard Endeavour and its auxiliaries was ambushed while refueling in the Kagukhasaggan system by the Solomani dreadnaught Retaliation and a large number of accompanying warships, together forming Strike Force Daring.
Several of the smaller Imperial escorts in the high guard position were destroyed covering the disengagement of the Imperal task force from the system's gas giant's gravity well and those ships already refuelled headed out-system at maximum G's to make a jump. To cover the withdrawal, the Bard Endeavour (its tanks nearly dry) remained behind to delay the enemy and sell itself as dearly as possible.

The heroic stand of the Bard Endeavour enabled most of the task force to escape, but left the fleet intruder a glowing wreck in a decaying orbit over Kagukhasaggan 2, one of the small inner worlds of the system. Those crew still living began evacuating the doomed vessel, although many were cut off in the interior of the stricken vessel.

Based upon the interrogation of the evacuated crews, the Solomani felt the ship was still intact enough to attempt a highly risky in-system jump. The Solomani assembled three stike teams. One entered through the rear doors of the boat dock deck to clear the jump drive deck and repair the jump drives if possible. The second team forced their way onto the ship via the fighter recovery lock on deck 69 and crippled the four remaning fighters. The third part forced the air locks on deck 41 and cleared deck 40 above it. A handful of marines and crew resisted the first strike team and denied the Solomani from salvaging the ship. The three strike teams evacuated. Three hours later the Imperial Fleet Intruder Bard Endeavor, with 43 of her defenders still aboard, suffered catastrophic reentry into the atmosphere of Kagukhasaggan 2.

 

[Spinward Flow]

1. The Spine Is Designed to be King
2. Dreadnoughts Should be Tough
3. PA Spine Promotion

The overarching problem is that Meson Spinals are "just too good" because they ignore armor under LBB5.80.
Ignoring armor is effectively "cheat mode" for Meson Guns ... it's just that unbalanced.

Being able to ignore armor means that Critical Hits on the Radiation damage table (roll 2) and on the Internal Explosion table (roll 2-4) with no +6 modifier involved for a weapon being Factor: 9- is so incredibly unbalanced relative to EVERYTHING else that it's just ridiculous. Letting spinal weapons roll multiple times (so meson spinals get to ignore armor multiple times) starts becoming quite insane.

Think of it this way.
If a Particle Accelerator-T hits a target, it rolls 19 times on the surface explosion table and 19 times on the radiation table.
Each of those damage rolls are modified by armor.
As a matter of gross comparison, for Armor-15, that's a total of +570 DM spread across those 38 rolls and at best doing Weapon-1 or Fuel-1 damage (under LBB5.80).

Now compare that to a Meson-T hitting the same target ... rolling 19 times on the internal explosion and 19 times on the radiation table.
Each of those damage rolls ignore armor completely.
So as a matter of gross comparison, for Armor-15, that's a total of +0 DM spread across 38 rolls, with multiple critical hits resulting (under LBB5.80).

That's the difference between a whiffle bat and an iron bat.
There's simply NO CONTEST in terms of threat potential to an armored target.

Now ... if Meson Screens required TWO rolls to penetrate that would change things dramatically.

• If the first roll to penetrate the meson screen fails, then the meson gun attack is disrupted and does no damage.
  • If the meson screen is penetrated, reroll for penetration of the meson screen a second time.
    • If this second roll to penetrate the meson screen fails, subtract the meson screen factor from the meson gun factor to determine number of damage rolls to make on the internal explosion and radiation damage tables (minimum 1 damage roll on each). For example, a Meson-T (19+19 rolls) would subtract 9 damage rolls on each table (yielding only 10+10 rolls) due to the partial disruption of the incoming attack by the meson screen-9. Additionally, damage rolls on both the internal explosion and radiation damage tables receive a +2 DM per factor of meson screen.
    • If this second roll to penetrate the meson screen is successful, then damage rolls on both the internal explosion and radiation damage tables receive a +1 DM per factor of meson screen and there is no reduction to the number of rolls to made on the internal and radiation damage tables. For example, a Meson-T (19+19 rolls) would still roll 19 times on both damage tables.

Basically, create the condition(s) under which a meson screen "counts as armor" against meson attacks (while "actual armor" still gets ignored), reining in the staggeringly overwhelming advantage of meson gun spinal mounts where EVERYTHING is stacked in their favor very nearly at all times by default. By allowing the meson screens to be more of a "defense in depth" rather than just a "candy shell" style of membrane bubble effect, you wind up with a lot more parity between meson guns and particle accelerators in addition to creating opportunities for massive dreadnaughts to survive contact with meson guns thanks to the "armor-like effects" of their meson screens (if any).

 

[Spinward Flow]

[P] Gas giant refueling is CRUCIAL for invading fleets.

I'm reminded of episode 8 of Banner of the Stars ... where the Abh admiral wanted to "pillage" water from the oceans of a terrestrial world the fleet had established space dominance around, but lacked the necessary atmospheric tanker craft to obtain the quantity of water needed (for coolant rather than fuel with their technology) in less than 2 years to resupply the fleet. Was kind of fun watching the chief of staff to the admiral point out the predicament of being unable to "reach" what was right in front of them at the bottom of a gravity well and atmosphere that their ships were incapable of entering and leaving with the "stolen" water supplies they needed in the quantities they needed without resupply from their home bases outside the system ... and the resupply transports were late to arrive.

Not exactly analogous to Traveller, but you can wind up with broadly similar situations in which fleets are unable to refuel from oceans but can refuel from gas giant skimming ... and that then can become a problem for the deployment of assets in fleets. Fifth Frontier War also made a point of the delay that refueling needs could impose upon fleets after entering systems that they did not establish control in, so there's multiple precedents for this point.

 

[kilemall]

Well on the how do missile 10s affect armor 20, that’s where kinetics come in.

They increase their factor the more time at accel they get. So 10 at short range, 20 at long range, 30 at extreme range. etc. just for a simplistic example.