Big Naval Ships in the Traveller Universe

[whartung]

Battle Rider does all of this.

Its most complicated mechanic is missiles, because it has the concept of directors rather than launchers, and they need to tracked. Counters represent missile spreads, not necessarily individual missiles.

Directors limit how many missiles can have actions in a turn, not how many missiles can be in flight.

BR is "crit to kill" (like HG is), has detection, lock on, jamming, "stealth(tm)", and simple vector maneuver (vs Brilliant Lances). Counters contain most of the bookkeeping.

It even has a card system instead of dice.

 

[Carlobrand]

Battle Rider does all of this.

Its most complicated mechanic is missiles, because it has the concept of directors rather than launchers, and they need to tracked. Counters represent missile spreads, not necessarily individual missiles.

Directors limit how many missiles can have actions in a turn, not how many missiles can be in flight.

BR is "crit to kill" (like HG is), has detection, lock on, jamming, "stealth(tm)", and simple vector maneuver (vs Brilliant Lances). Counters contain most of the bookkeeping.

It even has a card system instead of dice.

TNE? Ooh, I don't have that one. I feel an urge coming on ...

 

[mike wightman]

Both Brilliant Lances and Battle Rider are worth picking up.

 

[robject]

I know this might not be the best part, but I’ll begin with what (IMHO) you should avoid: the flagrant inconsistences among rules, narrative and wargames that we can find in former versions.

Thanks for these -- this part is a lot of fun, because we can look at the narrative, ask questions, and weigh them against the rules.

Some examples:

• In FFW the SW fleets put the IN to withdraw, and formerly they took the Entropic Worlds from the Darrian. Given the TL differences, probably a single Gioneti (AKA SHE) Light Cruiser, with its MG spinal and + 3-4 DM for computer difference would have finished the whole fleet, let alone a whole CruDron or the Darrian TL16 ships…
• Same in Rebellion about the Vargr (whose ships are shown at TL 11-12) taking Gemid (TL16)
• In FFW confronting the best naval units (IN) against the worst ones (SW/Vargr) gives a + 2 columns in firing, far from the DMs th computer differences will give in HG

First point -- in some sense, the IN decided to make a strategic withdrawl, and in some sense, the Darrians allowed the Swordies to take the Entropic Worlds. Why? I don't know.

Last two points -- High Guard is missing benefits from its rules which may, for example, mitigate technological disadvantage.

• No rules in FFW to represent the Zhodani believeing Jewell and Efate would fall to siege (no siege rules, despite the improtance of them in narrative)
• In Invasion Earth narrative (and game) it takes months (if not seasons) to conquer Earth. In FFW it would be a matter of a few weeks

Sieges probably do take months, but perhaps they're not interesting except as a strategic consideration (a la "mop up")? That might make the beginnings of an "endgame" process for conquest. It might even allow degrees of siege (e.g. conquest versus Black War).

• (again) The very high fleet loses in narrative (and WGs) on any war with a combat system that destroys few ships, while cripples many to mission killed but easily repairable

THAT one is interesting. For some reason I vaguely recall the preference that Out Of Action really ought to mean NOT Easily Reparable.

 

[robject]

Who is going to agree an official change to a forty four year old rule set?

Ahem...

The crew quality option replaces the individual skills section of HG - which is broken.

Crew Quality is to Skills, as BCS is to ACS.

I would replace crew quality with individual skills for PC involvement

Yep.

 

[robject]

Simplify: I'm basing on CT Book 5 since it's what I know best, is fairly simple, and I think will do the job with minor tweaks - minor being defined as a simple-to-execute change that will deliver a big-ship setting. No offense to traditionalists, the RAW are plenty fun but support a different outcome. The thread as I understand it is about coming up with a system that promotes the big ships that the setting presents as dominant.

These are good suggestions for High Guard. Thank you, Carlo.

Here's one new bit that you can ignore at your leisure: from Agent of the Imperium, the ship which fires its meson spine has to drop its meson screen for that turn. This makes the meson spine capital vulnerable for that turn, in order to outweigh its sheer destructive power. This also means the ship with a particle accelerator spine may keep its meson screen up all the time.

 

[robject]

Battle Rider does all of this.

Battle Rider looks nice and reads well. It has Fog of War, vector movement, squadrons including capital ships, crew quality, and more.

 

[kilemall]

These are good suggestions for High Guard. Thank you, Carlo.

Here's one new bit that you can ignore at your leisure: from Agent of the Imperium, the ship which fires its meson spine has to drop its meson screen for that turn. This makes the meson spine capital vulnerable for that turn, in order to outweigh its sheer destructive power. This also means the ship with a particle accelerator spine may keep its meson screen up all the time.

Whew, that makes meson guns mutually assured destruction. I always figured they just dropped it for a few seconds, or the meson gun took the decay in consideration for adjusting fire/output.

 

[whartung]

Whew, that makes meson guns mutually assured destruction. I always figured they just dropped it for a few seconds, or the meson gun took the decay in consideration for adjusting fire/output.

It's curious, Meson are already notoriously difficult to hit with.

In B5, screens affect To Hit. In Battle Rider, they reduce the damage, which kind of makes more sense, to be honest. The screen makes some portion of the attack decay early/late and less effective on the target. In BL, the screens are "Meson Armor", so its a hit/miss mechanic.

 

[mike wightman]

BCS - rock paper scissors lizard spock
spinal - kills capital ship and escorts, escorts are harder to hit, good luck hitting a fighter
bay - cumulative damage will degrade capital, a few hits kill escorts, a single hit kill fighters if it can hit
turrets - cumulative damage can damage escorts, kill fighters, missile screen

armour - capitals can be armoured or heavily armoured
escorts can be armoured
armour reduces damage one step, heavily armoured two steps

screens counter a particular attack type
meson - meson guns
dampers - nukes
sand - missiles, energy weapons
repulsors - missiles

special rules
nukes
meson guns

A factor for everything plus tags
Resolution by playing cards or a couple of dice rolls

Capabilities of BCS degraded over time with potential crits from mesons and nukes

BCS stats should fit on a playing card.

 

[WizWom]

As a GM who regularly has his campaigns devolve into big ship battles, I'd say I have good experience with this.

Talking mostly from a Classic Traveller screen, since each version modifies things a bit one way or the other.

First, there is no sense making a ship bigger than your spinal mount & protection level warrants; all extra mounts not specifically to support your ships main weapon just give you fewer spinal mounts per BCr spent, which means you end up losing.

HG, you need Agility 6, best computer to even stand a chance in the line, if you don't have that, go home

A Meson gun can be too big; since you really only need to shatter the fuel tanks or destroy some vital component with a crit. So 6-10 rolls on the internals table is enough to kill the biggest ship. So, again, you're better off with a 8x 1000 ton meson gun than an 8000 ton one. Since for the same Jump/maneuver/armor/meson screen you're talking constant percentages, it almost is a linear scale for main weapon size vs. ship size. Add in the bonus to hit bigger ships, and you have another reason to keep line ships as small as possible.

Prior to the effective meson screen (TL!4), your ships really cannot stand against a meson armed fleet; so fielding the most meson guns you can to disable the enemy as fast as possible is the paradigm. HG computer TL limits coupled with computer max ship size leave you having pretty lame ship[s early.

Some paradigm ships

Vilanesh Armored Cruiser CA-K113(1)4D3-A9(7)0002-80C07(6)-1 MCr22924.3714 19500 Tons TL:10 Cargo 17.8 Frozen Watch Fuel 2730 EP 780 Agility 1 Crew 167 Marines 20 3x 30 ton Ship's Boat Fuel Scoops and Purifiers.

Thuvia Battle Cruiser CB-P1256E(+5fib)4-49(26,32)0004-667B6(24,30)-4 MCr85448.0008 74000 Tons Cargo 8 Frozen Watch Fuel 19240 EP 4440 Agility 5 Crew 1050 Pulse Lasers 10x 90 ton Shuttle 21x 40 ton Fighter in 3 Squadrons Fuel Scoops and Purifiers. Backup 5fib Computer

Humicar Battleship BB-P(+b)13(0)68F(+6fib)3-C9(22,27)1(+1)1(+1)06-8(4,5)78K6(22,27)-1 MCr116336.946 70000 Tons TL:12 Cargo 62 Frozen Watch Fuel 5600 EP 5600 Agility 6 Crew 664 Marines 200 Low Passengers 432 6x 50 ton Interceptor Fuel Scoops and Purifiers. Backup Bridge. 6fib Computer, Meson Screen 1, Nuclear Damper 1

Defiant Strike Cruiser CS-J136(0)AG2-29(4)3300-700E7(3)-0 MCr8609.24 9000 Tons Cargo 50.4 Frozen Watch Fuel 3600 EP 900 Agility 0 Crew 98 Pulse Lasers Fuel Scoops and Purifiers.

Kali Light Cruiser CL-L136BH(+8fib)3-09(10,11)6(+6)6(+6)08-900G9(10)-1 26003.5776 MCr 24000 Tons TL:14 Cargo 30.2 Frozen Watch Fuel 9840 EP 2640 Agility 6 Crew 225 Marines 15 2x 50 ton Cutter Fuel Scoops and Purifiers. Backup 8fib Computer, Meson Screen 6, Nuclear Damper 6

DuPage Light Cruiser CL-K146CJ3-09(8)7709-760G7(9)-0 MCr16571.5022 19900 Tons TL:15 Cargo 124.2 Frozen Watch Fuel 10348 EP 2388 Agility 6 Crew 162 Marines 20 Fuel Scoops and Purifiers.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
I recently had some fast cruisers fight some Particle beam destroyers of lower TL and the unarmored Meson tuned ships suffered, so possibly back up things like this with a screen of Small sized missile escorts, packing as high a factor missile as you can muster on a tiny super-armored hull (planetoid hull if you can).

 

[WizWom]

The Tigress class appears to be the largest, feasible starwarship.

I think you will find this somewhat more capable and survivable.

Titan  Dreadnough BB-W(+b)1469J(+9fib)4-A9(205,409)9(+9)9(+9)09(1,2)-9(135,270)99T9(55,110)-2  MCr685903.32 800000 Tons TL:15
Cargo 6.5 Frozen Watch Fuel 392000 EP 72000 Agility 6 Crew 6278
4x 40 ton Pinnace in 2 Squadrons Fuel Scoops and Purifiers.
Backup Bridge. 9fib Computer, Meson Screen 9, Nuclear Damper 9

 

[McPerth]

First, there is no sense making a ship bigger than your spinal mount & protection level warrants; all extra mounts not specifically to support your ships main weapon just give you fewer spinal mounts per BCr spent, which means you end up losing.

Have you confronted this fleet to a similar budget fleet of small missile bay ships firing nukes?

I've never really played too much HG combats, but most articles about it say smart bet is on the missiles side...

Yes, spinals may mission kill any single ship with one penetrating hit, but may only fire once per combat round, and if swarmed by smaller ships they may be in a bad situation, to say the least.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Have you confronted this fleet to a similar budget fleet of small missile bay ships firing nukes?

Yes, an isocost of missile frigates will scrape the weapons and M-drive off that ship in short order, against a few blown apart ships.

Even a Tigress will do significant damage with its missile bays, and probably win a single duel.

All LBB5 TL-15 J-4, Ag-6 warships are significantly compromised somewhere...

 

[McPerth]

Sieges probably do take months, but perhaps they're not interesting except as a strategic consideration (a la "mop up")? That might make the beginnings of an "endgame" process for conquest. It might even allow degrees of siege (e.g. conquest versus Black War).

And yet they were integral part of the Zhodani strategy...

FFW uses to represent months (at least the few times I had the possibility of playing it), so even if they take them, some way to represent the sieges should be given, again seeing the importance Zhodani gave to them in their strategy, if we want to make it minimally consistent with the narrative from where it derives.

THAT one is interesting. For some reason I vaguely recall the preference that Out Of Action really ought to mean NOT Easily Reparable.

The result most losses are left after a CT/MT HG battle does not conform with this definition of Out of Action, if you accept TCS repair rules (the only ones I know about)

 

[kilemall]

Robject, my critical disable result comes with the repair mechanic.

Since I know what tonnage results from a hit, I can apply x number of engineers to repair y tons per turn. I prefer a roll, triggers on every 10% of the system repaired, so a system that was 60% damaged gets repaired to 50%, you roll a 5+ to repair a step up (disabled/1/50%/full).

10 tons of damage on a critical to a 1000 ton drive can shut it down. 10 tons of repair triggers a less then 2+ roll, likely something as simple as flipping a breaker. 500 tons of damage will make the critical require far more effort.

 

[JackKovalsky]

The big ships (battleships, fleet carriers) will make up a relatively small part of the fleet and will spend most of their (non-war) time at naval bases, maybe venturing out every so often as a group for naval exercises or individually to "show the flag".

Medium ships (cruisers, light carriers) will probably account for 2-4 times as much of the fleet as the big ships. At any one time, half will be accompanying the big ships and the other half will be on patrol (normally in pairs) or at fixed stations on the borders.

Destroyers, frigates/destroyer escorts, escort carriers and corvettes will make up 75-90% of the fleet (by numbers). The big and medium ships will have 2-4 of these each as escorts; the rest will be split between permanent stations, convoy escort duty and patrols, usually operating in pairs of divisions of 4 ships. I think these will actually be much larger (tonnage) than the examples we see in published works.

There will also be all sorts of auxiliary vessels of various sizes - tug/repair ships, tankers, supply ships, transports, couriers, scouts, etc.


That's for the jump-capable ships. Those assigned to system defense will generally be of similar sizes (maybe a bit smaller) but more heavily armoured and with larger arsenals for expendable munitions; there will also be orbital stations of similar sizes. They won't need as many auxiliaries unless the system is lacking in facilities and gas giants.


That does depend on which edition of Traveller; in some editions even larger warships my be viable designs. However, in practical terms 200k -300k is probably the realistic limit (I'd go so far as to say 100k is probably more realistic) due to cost constraints and not wanting to put all of your eggs in a very few baskets.

The Tigress isn't a very good design - at 500k it isn't that much more heavily armed than the Plankwell or Kokirrak, and doesn't carry any more fighters than the Antiama.

Hi,

Your naval fleet composition and deployment strategy seem well thought out, emphasizing a balanced mix of ship sizes and roles. The differentiation between jump-capable ships and system defense vessels is practical, ensuring versatility and readiness for various scenarios. Your point about not concentrating resources into a few massive ships like the Tigress is sound, as it mitigates risk and allows for more flexible and resilient fleet operations. Prioritizing a larger number of medium and smaller ships provides greater coverage and adaptability, which is crucial for both peacetime operations and combat readiness. The balance you've struck should serve well in maintaining an effective and robust naval force.

Jack

 

[TamsinP]

Hi,

Your naval fleet composition and deployment strategy seem well thought out, emphasizing a balanced mix of ship sizes and roles. The differentiation between jump-capable ships and system defense vessels is practical, ensuring versatility and readiness for various scenarios. Your point about not concentrating resources into a few massive ships like the Tigress is sound, as it mitigates risk and allows for more flexible and resilient fleet operations. Prioritizing a larger number of medium and smaller ships provides greater coverage and adaptability, which is crucial for both peacetime operations and combat readiness. The balance you've struck should serve well in maintaining an effective and robust naval force.

Jack

Thank you!

I've just spotted a typo in that post "usually operating in pairs of divisions of 4 ships" should, of course, be "usually operating in pairs or divisions of 4 ships".
There's another typo, but correcting it wouldn't involve any change in meaning so I'll leave people to figure it out.

 

[Carlobrand]

These are good suggestions for High Guard. Thank you, Carlo.

Here's one new bit that you can ignore at your leisure: from Agent of the Imperium, the ship which fires its meson spine has to drop its meson screen for that turn. This makes the meson spine capital vulnerable for that turn, in order to outweigh its sheer destructive power. This also means the ship with a particle accelerator spine may keep its meson screen up all the time.

I'm not sure how we'd do that. CT HG is set up for weapons to be powered the entire turn. I recall a discussion once on what that meant and why they didn't just use batteries or something to set aside power for when they actually made the roll and fired the weapon, a la Star Fleet Battles I believe the consensus at the time was that they were constantly firing weapons and the roll just represented the best of those shots - which really amounted to, "This is how the game does it and that's the best excuse we can come up with without changing the rules." At any event, that would mean the screen was always off when the gun fired, or we'd need to revise how weapons were being powered and then come up with a method to determine when the screen was down.

 

[kilemall]

I'm not sure how we'd do that. CT HG is set up for weapons to be powered the entire turn. I recall a discussion once on what that meant and why they didn't just use batteries or something to set aside power for when they actually made the roll and fired the weapon, a la Star Fleet Battles I believe the consensus at the time was that they were constantly firing weapons and the roll just represented the best of those shots - which really amounted to, "This is how the game does it and that's the best excuse we can come up with without changing the rules." At any event, that would mean the screen was always off when the gun fired, or we'd need to revise how weapons were being powered and then come up with a method to determine when the screen was down.

IMTU hybrid version I do have it be one big shot, but there are two reasons for that.

Number one I want commander agency as I am oriented more towards RPG then demolition derby fleets, so I want them powering up for the optimal range shot then maybe they go full agility and charge defense weapons. Side effect is 100-second sub turns, which seems a good timeframe for dramatic orders and crew enacting them.

Number two is ranges matter, unless I am running too many ships I am doing maneuver and a lot of the ships will change relative ranges at 100000 km or more, rather then either/or short/long.

My excuse is cooling off energy weapons, double charging and you start risking damaging yourself like double fire.