Battle-Class Ships: Design and Combat Discussion

[AnotherDilbert]

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.

PA spinals have better to hit and don't need to penetrate any active defences, hence they are much more likely to do damage.

Take a hi-tech 1 kDt missile boat with armour 20, meson screen-9, and agility 6. Pretty heavily armoured and something you might expect to find on a TL-15 battlefield.

A meson N hits at 11+ (8%), penetrates the screen at 7+ (58%), penetrates config at 6+ (72%), for a total chance of doing damage of 3.5% which is a kill.

A PA T hits at 7+ (58%) and thats it. Against a size A ship the factor T inflicts 17 size crits, reduced by armour to 7 crits. 7 crits is not a statistical certainty of a kill but about 95% kill chance. So, a total of 55% kill chance.

So, in this scenario a PA spinal is ~15 times more likely to kill a small heavily armoured ship than a meson spinal.

Note that I used a larger factor PA spinal, because these are the most efficient kill tools at TL-15, and typically how they would be deployed. Including power the PA spinal is just a little larger than the meson.

Note that the PA spinal would still inflict one size crit on a size K rider with armour 15, so still relevant against the standard meson sled. A single crit is about 36% kill chance against a rider (presuming multiple computers, screens, and crews) mostly PP and M-drive destroyed. Not as impressive as a meson, but combined with a much higher chance of doing damage the PA spinal is still competitive.

Let's see:
A meson N hits a size K rider at 10+ (17%), penetrates the screen at 7+ (58%), penetrates config at 4+ (92%), for a total chance of doing damage of 8.9% which is a kill.

A PA T hits at 6+ (72%), which inflicts a size crit (and some insignificant surface damage) which is a 36% kill chance, for a total kill chance of 26%. So "only" twice as likely to kill an enemy rider compared to a meson spinal. But of course it does nothing against larger ships.

Hence:

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.

And of course everything kills unarmoured ships.

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.

Quite, and this is the reason meson spinals are better than a bunch of meson bays.

Meson spinals are often overkill, they can inflict several kill conditions with each hit, e.g. Fuel Tanks Shattered and a Power crit. If meson bays could hit as well as spinals they could distribute their fire over several enemy ships, and inflict the same crippling hits on different ships, so killing more ships, hence they would be superior to spinals.

Meson spinals needs the better hit chance to be relevant compared to meson bays. Without it combat would be dominated by 1000 Dt ships with a meson bay...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm seeing some confusion about the scale of the game:
Is it a tactical fleet battle game, like HG?
Is it an operational system invasion game, like Invasion: Earth?
Is it a strategic war game, like FFW?

Limit the scope to get something where you can play a scenario in an hour or two (like HG).
Then, perhaps, build a strategic layer on top, like TCS Campaign?

Admirals duelling in the smoking wreck of a ship is a bit too operatic for me...

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

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Instant reactions:

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.

Ick, no. Thats just overwhelming clutter. A few ships, each launching a missile counter (or two) each round, that then moves independently for a few round, and before you know it you have dozens of counters (or for large encounters hundreds of counters) milling around, bogging down the game.

Unless fighters can actually kill ships on their own, make a fighter screen a modifier on the main combatants, not separate counters.

Simplify ruthlessly! Too much detail makes the game unplayable.

31:30 NO VECTOR MANAGEMENT. Ships typically move one hex. Missiles move two. These are space ranges.

Great! Most players are not expert shiphandlers, their characters are supposed to be. Vector movement takes a lot of time, computer support to do well, and players often fail at it. Too complicated, except perhaps for single ship duels.

32:00 We may need a world marker.

Terrain, great! What HG lacks.

 

[robject]

Clutter: understood.
That means: how to manage missile and fighter swarms.

Note that HG1 knew how to kill capitals: that single opening gargantuan volley from your ship.
So instead of filling a tabletop with missile counters, you do the killer salvo and give it rules.

Now we differentiate the fighter swarm from the missile swarm.

---

A mechanic Marc was musing on is the double-crit; i.e. instead of one-hit one-kill, you need two missile crits (for example) hitting the capital ship at the same time to kill, or something along those lines.

 

[kilemall]

Clutter: understood.
That means: how to manage missile and fighter swarms.

Note that HG1 knew how to kill capitals: that single opening gargantuan volley from your ship.
So instead of filling a tabletop with missile counters, you do the killer salvo and give it rules.

Now we differentiate the fighter swarm from the missile swarm.

---

A mechanic Marc was musing on is the double-crit; i.e. instead of one-hit one-kill, you need two missile crits (for example) hitting the capital ship at the same time to kill, or something along those lines.

This sounds more like Range band scale.

 

[robject]

Good point... and Dilbert might be correct that I've confused two different games using BCS that Marc was talking about.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Clutter: understood.
That means: how to manage missile and fighter swarms.

In MgT2 missiles simply arrive after X rounds, no need to track them. Simple and works, good enough.

A mechanic Marc was musing on is the double-crit; i.e. instead of one-hit one-kill, you need two missile crits (for example) hitting the capital ship at the same time to kill, or something along those lines.

Very sensitive to scale; easily done by concentrating fire in larger engagements, nearly impossible in ship duels.

It would be better with something percentage based, perhaps a second cumulative screen that is big or expensive enough to only fit on big ships?

 

[robject]

^ like a layered defense that favors big ships.

 

[whartung]

Physics and terrain don't mix. Specifically, not at the historical engagement ranges portrayed in all of the current game systems. Space is just Too Big for there to be things to hide behind. At best you might find something that can affect sensor operations, but even that I'm very skeptical of.

Boarding actions only make sense at the end of the fight. Again, with distances as portrayed historically, the weapons are simply too powerful at close ranges for anyone to bother with boarding during a fight. At the end of the fight you have a chance to chase down, match vectors, burn through the hatch, etc. During an active battle, you're too busy blowing stuff up while trying to avoid being blown up.

The whole "can't shoot through meson screens", this is basically the "can't fire while cloaked" rule. This dramatically changes the efficacy of the meson gun in a meson-on-meson engagement, since dropping the meson gun (as currently implemented) is tantamount to suicide.

Mind, in the "10 BR vs Tigress", they would have readily dropped there screen because "there's 10 of us and one of them", so now it's mostly moot. This would be more a factor in more numerically balanced situations but, still, "he who brings the most mesons, wins".

Meson guns are over powered, armor is overpowered. Spinal PA kill because of crits, not because of the actual table damage they do, going back to surface damage is mostly noise at the high end. Mesons kill because they get to the roll on the dangerous parts of the damage table by ignoring armor. So, not only do mesons get to skip armor, they also get to go straight to the soft, gooey center. Armor for ships is there solely to protect against the bee stings, but can't actually save this ship itself in the end.

Brilliant Lances actually handles this very well, but it's a detailed system. Critical hits are based on the actual damage received compared to the size of the ship. Hit a small ship with a large amount of damage, and there's just simply not enough hull and such to absorb the energy, so this is manifest as (several) critical hits. A hand grenade going off on a Battleship isn't going to do much of anything, but a hand grenade on a dingy, well, different problem.

While mesons can ignore armor in BL, lasers, also, are reduced less by armor than PAs. So, mesons are quite as dominant as they are in HG. In fact someone here posited that in BL, you should be flying with LASER spinal mounts. BIG lasers may well occupy a sweet spot. Since most everything scales in FF&S (you can have big lasers, and small meson guns, for example), maybe that is a good idea.

But the point being that in BL, big ships take lots of damage, and you have to beat on them pretty hard. Crits are still killers, though, but tough ships are tough ships.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Space is just Too Big for there to be things to hide behind.

In EMPTY space, sure ... there's nothing to hide behind.
But in the vicinity of a planet, especially one with rings and/or moons ... there's PLENTY of things to hide behind or get lost in.

At best you might find something that can affect sensor operations, but even that I'm very skeptical of.

Attacking out of the Sun isn't just a WWI and WWII dogfighter tactic ... it works in space too.
The local star is a GIGANTIC FUSION REACTOR that is shedding radiation all over the place!

You know those nifty neutrino detectors that can direction find fusion power plants in other ships?
Or how about simply radar/ladar sensors for ranging and direction finding?
Or hey, what about infrared/optical/ultraviolet telescopes for being able to "get a visual" on things?

Now try pointing them at the local star and see what you get.

If your answer amounts to "flooded with noise that drowns out any signal from contacts" then you've been paying attention.
A local star is going to be the most powerful signal jammer in the vicinity, so if you can put your ship(s) in a line between your opponent and the star, then so long as you remain on that line odds are decent that the opponent won't detect you (until it's too late for them).

This is why being able to get parallax on scanning towards the local star can help, since that "fudges the line" that an attacker would need to approach from in the direction of the local star relative to each observer, pushing back the distance that an attacker could remain hidden within the EM jamming effects of the star's radiation emission noise spectrum.

After that it's all cleverness and computation.



Likewise, radiation environments around some planets (looking at YOU Jupiter) can get pretty intensely "noisy" in certain swaths of the EM spectrum, offering plenty of "cover" to camouflage a ship within, depending on the context and the sensor being used.

Here ... enjoy ...

 

[whartung]

In EMPTY space, sure ... there's nothing to hide behind.
But in the vicinity of a planet, especially one with rings and/or moons ... there's PLENTY of things to hide behind or get lost in.

In all of the games, 1 hex is equal to 1G turn of velocity. In Brilliant Lances, that's 30,000km. In Mayday, it's 300,000km. In Book 2, 1 "hex" (1 G turn) is 10,000km. Earth, the planet, the big blue marble thing, consumes 30% of a BL hex. In Mayday, it's 0.07%. It does a bit better in Book 2.

So, what are you hiding behind, while traveling 40,000 mile per hour?

Attacking out of the Sun isn't just a WWI and WWII dogfighter tactic ... it works in space too.
The local star is a GIGANTIC FUSION REACTOR that is shedding radiation all over the place!

You know those nifty neutrino detectors that can direction find fusion power plants in other ships?
Or how about simply radar/ladar sensors for ranging and direction finding?
Or hey, what about infrared/optical/ultraviolet telescopes for being able to "get a visual" on things?

Now try pointing them at the local star and see what you get.

The Sun (at Earth orbit) covers 0.0006% of the sky.

Ye Olde Neutrino Sensor.

Chadwick dumped them for BL.

Nuclear reactions give off neutrinos as a by-product, but the energy of these neutrinos varies with the exact type of nuclear reaction. The standard fusion reaction, the proton-proton chain, produces neutrinos of rather low energy. The ability to detect these neutrinos varies with the material used to detect them, but for one real-life neutrino experiment, it was calculated that an Earth-bound sensor would detect only about one neutrino per day from our sun. Given the much smaller size of a starship's fusion plant, a neutrino sensor would detect (on average) only
7.0E-21 neutrinos per second per ton of detector per watt of the fusion plant. This comes out to one neutrino every 50,000 years for a one-ton detector vs. a 100MW powerplant. Even with a very large neutrino sensor, say 1,000,000 tons, and a large power plant, say 100,000 MW, it would still take 26.3minutes (approximately a turn) to detect one neutrino, scarcely enough to build up a sensor track.

Anyway, so, yea. No hiding in space. At least not if you're dealing with historical Traveller game combat scales.

 

[aramis]

Statistical Combat Resolution from TCS takes care of the dice. A few capital ships fighting will basically only roll for spinals, the rest is just applying the statistical results without rolling. That alone makes HG the only Traveller system that can fight capital ships without simplifying away all the detail.


MgT2 takes a similar route for larger engagements, but removes the one-shot kills to go full attrition. That makes battleships quite difficult to kill, and quite viable.

The MT Ref's Companion unit rules can easily be applied in place of MT's "High Guard" chapter... needed formulae are in the Player's Manual... except for screens and meson gun damage. Missiles can be launched in flights, and any missile is only a handful of damage points, so the massed laser fire, if it hits, wipes out portions of a counter. The separation of Penetration from Damage makes it capable of dissimilar sized units mattering.

T20's high guard has a much smoother resolution mode than CT's... but it also uses non-6-sided dice.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The MT Ref's Companion unit rules can easily be applied in place of MT's "High Guard" chapter... needed formulae are in the Player's Manual... except for screens and meson gun damage.

Sure, we can cobble something together or simply use Statistical Combat Resolution with more or less any combat system, but HG was the only system where it was officially considered. All other systems (I know of) pretended that you were supposed to roll the dice hundreds of times a round for big ships, which presumably no-one ever did.

T20's high guard has a much smoother resolution mode than CT's... but it also uses non-6-sided dice.

I have never really looked at T4 T20, so I wouldn't know.

 

[robject]

T20 improved the rules in multiple areas. I think it was a well-considered rule set.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

How did it handle firing an ACS vs. BCS?

Not just more rolls, I presume?

 

[aramis]

How did it handle firing an ACS vs. BCS?

Not just more rolls, I presume?

First - There's no strong mechanical distinction between the two. As with using the

UWP is number of dice damage on hit.. Armor reduces damage on most kinds.
The hull point formula has many breakpoints; bigger ships have lower per ton.

base Td:	1	10	100	1,000	10,000	100,000	1,000,000
Base SI	50	75	100	250	500	750	1000
Per additional base TD	2.5	2.5	15	25	25	25	100

The weapons crit range and crit effects vary. Internal damage is done on a crit, armor fails to reduce.
Sand is +UWP to AC vs one attacking ship's missiles (DC is 10+Agl) or counts as armor (AR) on hit vs lasers
PD Lasers are an all or nothing Skill+USP+Computer vs 16+USP
PD Repulsors are same but vs 10+USP.
Armor and other screens reduce damage taken to SI. Non globe screens: While more than 1d is left, each UCP point removes 1 die; once down to 1d, each remaining UCP of screen/armor is a -1.
Black and White Globes: UCP × 10 is percent of SI converted to power. The conversion rate is how many EP per SI stopped.
Weapons

Weapon	Damage (per UCP)	Radiation	Threat	Crit	Globe Conversion	AR from	DC from
Missile	d6	⸺	18	×1	×2	Armor	Agility+Sand
Nuclear Missile	d6	d12	17	×2	×100	Armor, Dampers	Agility+Sand
Bomb Pumped Laser Missile	d10	⸺	19	×1	×1	Armor	Agility+Sand
Mining Laser	d6	⸺	20	×1	×1	Armor, Sand	Agility
Beam Laser	d8	⸺	20	×1	×1	Armor, Sand	Agility
Pulse Laser	d10	⸺	19	×2	×1	Armor, Sand	Agility
Plasma	d12	⸺	18	×2	×1	Armor	Agility
Particle Beam	d12	d12	17	×1	×5	Armor	Agility
Fusion	d20	⸺	16	×8	×2	Armor	Agility
Meson	d20	d12	14	×10	×20	Meson Screen	Agility

Note that the crit locations do not get modded for UWP. I'll note that I'm not happy with crits bypassing armor automatically.
If SI is marked, a system gets hit, too.
BPLMs can still be stopped by lasers and repulsors...
DC (Defence class, aka Armor Class) is also affected by configuration.
Armor 15 pretty much makes a ship invulnerable to standard missiles except on a crit (as max battery is USP 9) (so 1d-6 damage)... but the nukes d12 winds up 1d12-6... Which is why crits matter. Note also: crits by a nuke are 100×USP d6 SI damage.... a single contact hit by a nuke is near-fatal. 20d20 from a meson 1 crit is also going to toast anything.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Thanks for the explanation.

If I understand correctly bigger ships get a lot more hit points (SI?) per Dt, or very little extra? Base SI vs. additional seems weird?

Do big ships get more batteries, or just a single larger battery (like HG'79)?

The crit effects makes numerous smallish missile boats quite dangerous?

Well, obviously I don't understand much...

 

[aramis]

Thanks for the explanation.

If I understand correctly bigger ships get a lot more hit points (SI?) per Dt, or very little extra? Base SI vs. additional seems weird?

Do big ships get more batteries, or just a single larger battery (like HG'79)?

The crit effects makes numerous smallish missile boats quite dangerous?

Well, obviously I don't understand much...

That added SI isn't per Td, it's per multiple of the base tonnage for that range.

1 Ton has 50 SI
2 ton has 53 (1:26.5) (52.5 rounded up) ... (50+1×2.5)
3 ton has 55 (1:18.3) (50+1×2.5)
100 ton has 100: 1:1
200 ton has 115
300 toin has 130
400 ton has 145
500 ton has 160
600 ton has 175
700 ton has 190
800 ton has 205 (1:3.9)
900 ton has 220 (1:4.09)
1000 ton has 250 (1:25) (250+0)
2000 ton has 275 (1:1.375) (250+1×25)
3000 ton has 300 (1:10) (250+2×25)
500,000 Td has 850 (1: 588) {750+4×25}

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That added SI isn't per Td, it's per multiple of the base tonnage for that range.

Ah, OK, you get very little extra hit points for size.

Then I assume you don't get multiple batteries, but single higher factor batteries for larger ships with more weapon mounts?

 

[aramis]

Ah, OK, you get very little extra hit points for size.

Then I assume you don't get multiple batteries, but single higher factor batteries for larger ships with more weapon mounts?

Batteries are figured exactly as in Bk5. The only differences in the design system from Bk5+Adv5 is the addition of Airframe (5% loss of tonnage), and the computers - they are, when fully kitted, the same size as in Bk5, but you can nudge the sizes down for smaller ships and non-jump capable computers.