AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Yes, in a civil war. The Imperium isn't likely to repair non-standard Zho, Swordie, or Vargr warships any more than the US would repair Chinese warships to put into use.
Big Naval Ships in the Traveller Universe
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
OK, let's do a detailed look instead. I think you might be right:
You have engaged the enemy. Presumably you are victorious, driving the enemy from the field as it were, since you're considering salvaging his wrecks.
As pointed out, the T-Meson inflicts 19 internal and 19 radiation hits. We've got fiber optic backups so, other than a possible critical, mostly the radiation killed crew; there were likely a couple of Weapon-3 or 4 hits. Fuel tanks were shattered - likely twice but that makes no difference; they can be repaired easily, if I read the TCS rules correctly.
We will accept that 12% of the opposing battlecraft hit by spinal meson fire are fragments; some of yours are as well. For each of the remaining craft hit by spinal meson fire, on average three other systems are destroyed by internal hits and will have to be replaced (unless we were lucky and it hit the crew or troops or frozen watch instead): among those crits, ~42% chance the jump drive was destroyed (if it had one), ~30% chance the power plant was destroyed, overall 60% will need a salvage tender. ~23% chance the computer was destroyed, ~16% chance the bridge was destroyed, so about 14% will need a piggyback. Overall, about a quarter can travel under their own power to a place for repair, assuming they're jump-capable in the first place, and the rest will either need help or will need to be repaired there.
Now, here's where things get interesting: unless you vastly overwhelmed him or were very lucky, you've got craft in the same condition. Unless the opponent was at the same tech level, your top priority is to repair your own craft; higher tech ships may be a problem for you if you don't have the tech to repair them, no point in repairing lower tech ships until you get your own better ships back in the fight. Where they can't be made to jump by piggyback, your salvage tenders are coming out, collecting them, and delivering them to your Class A/B starport for repairs. The tech level rule will cause some headaches here; you may need to travel a ways if you've got high tech ships, since high tech A/B worlds are rarer than the other sorts. The whole of the Marches has four TL15 worlds, all some distance from the border with the Zhodani; your situation may be better depending on the size of your map. On the other hand, the lower tech enemy ships can be taken to your lower tech ports if you can get them there; the Marches has three TL14 worlds.
Damaged battleriders are easiest; yours can travel back on their own tenders. You'll have to reorganize a bit so surviving riders can move forward to the next fight with as few tenders as possible to leave the others for salvage work; or, you give up the initiative and leave them there so your tenders can grab salvage, which might be risky. You likely don't have any enemy tenders but riders are smaller so salvaging enemy riders is easier. For larger craft, a lot depends on how much you invested in building salvage tenders: you anticipate needing the things, but the more you spend on them, the less you spend on combat ships.
Shipyards have a damage capacity more or less equal to their population, modified by a government type modifier. The average planet has a population of about 342 million just from the pop code, but that's heavily weighted: only about 1 in 6 worlds has a population in the hundreds of millions or better. Still, that's a generous capacity - a pop 5 world with a good starport and the right tech level might be able to repair a battleship and certainly could repair cruisers and battle riders - and craft are likely to be fully repaired in a couple of months. The real constraint is that tech level rule: the higher your tech level, the farther you're needing to transport craft for repair and the longer it will take to get there (and back). Alternately, once the message arrives (high jump couriers accompanying your fleet will be useful), the port's sending out parts that can be transported to stricken craft (high jump transports might be useful) and installed. (Presumably the naval base is sending replacement crew unless you came prepared). It takes "double the normal repair time". I presume the crew is working on all systems more or less simultaneously, but it doesn't actually say, so 2 to 4 months. Things like the maneuver drive could likely be brought in from ports a lot closer since they require a lower tech level.
So, much depends on the flow of battle. If you're winning, you'll likely have time to repair most of the enemy's stricken craft and add them to your fleet, but it may be several months depending on how far away the source of parts is. There doesn't seem to be a rule on how many parts can get made (or I missed it). If the war is more or less balanced and that world's hotly contested, you'll be working your best to get out your own crippled ships for repair first, and the rest are likely to face an Invasion Earth scenario, with hastily repaired cripples adding their strength to whatever forces you've got in that system. If you're smart, you brought a bunch of spare crews in cold sleep in transports; those transports could always have jumped away from the original battle if it had turned against you, but they'd be invaluable if you won, providing crews for all those crippled ships so the field repairs can get started right away. Some cripples will be of no use - dead powerplants and such - but pretty much anything with power and surviving weapons might be able to help a little, at least for a while - presumably including enemy cripples if you brought enough crew. The patched up enemy cripples could actually be quite valuable in your effort to hold the conquered system, assuming you invested a bit in sleeper ships for that occasion.
Might get a little complicated, what with the little couriers and transports and calculating cargo space and all, unless you and your opponent agree to abstract that and just say it takes X time based on the distance.
Maybe, maybe not. Given the repair-in-place rules, it might be worthwhile to send parts to repair them in place as a garrison force to free your own fleet to pursue the enemy, especially since it might be quicker to get parts to them than to your own ships. They may not be up to Imperial standards, but they are certainly a match for their own ships. If you have the funds to spare, the idea is not without merit.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
A) It's not your tech base. Everything is different, down to the bolts and electrical conventions.
B) Computers and control systems in Zdetl with crucial controls psionically activated, especially designed to keep Impies out.
C) Deliberately scuttled as the enemy retreated.
You'd have to rip out half the ship, replace with your own components, and bodge the connections. It's not done in a month, and will probably never work as well as the original.
It's not a European standard SOL.
Or maybe they will, even if not for the main fleet, as the British refit most captured ships after Trafalgar... Even at Trafalgar, 3 of the British SOLs and a cutter were French built, captured and refitted in former engagements
And I guess if US had heavy losses, refitting any captured Chinese ship would seem attractive, if it would take significantly less time than building new ships
I guess a look to this old thread would be interesting about the capturing issue...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I'd same from current events, attritionally, you'd want lower teched equipment to throw into the ventilator.
The latest battleships might have priority for the repair yards, but if the lower teched equipment is easier and faster to maintain, they'd be faster to return to the front.
The latest battleships might have priority for the repair yards, but if the lower teched equipment is easier and faster to maintain, they'd be faster to return to the front.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
The technical differences are massive, at a guess. It's not just a matter of swapping in a new drive for a damaged one. The foreign ship can't communicate with your fleet, can't use your ammunition, or you have no spare parts. You'd have to rip out all electronics down to the cabling, and then find out that it has insufficient power production, or 50 Hz instead of 60 Hz. Basically you can reuse the hull, and I doubt that will save all that much time or money.
What I do know is that European trucks are unsalable in China, and Chinese trucks in Europe. The tech assumptions and infrastructure are too different.
Well, I don't see anything in the rules about that, but I accept that the canonical setting would present challenges the game wouldn't capture. On the other hand, this isn't an idea that would be suddenly popping into someone's head after the shooting started. If it's a viable option, they've already thought of and addressed the challenges. I'd expect that the Imperials would have already anticipated and addressed their own repair challenges rather than sticking to the rule book. By the same token, I'd have expected the Impies to have already had plans in place for adaptive challenges if they felt there was value in restoring enemy hulks. If nothing else, scrapping one craft for parts for another would get at least some of them operational.
I don't know for psionic controls. Maybe, but again, if this is an issue then it's one the Imperials have faced for centuries and likely know how to deal with. It sounds more like an engineering challenge than an absolute block.
As for scuttling, the cripples are unmanned after making multiple radiation rolls. Dead and unconscious crewmen don't scuttle ships, and training the computer to do it independently just sounds scarily foolish, the more so since it asks the computer to make a judgment whether they've won or lost the battle - since they'll want to salvage their own equipment if they win - at a point in which the computer itself has likely sustained some damage. Doing it remotely is even more scary; maybe the Zho have that discipline, but I don't see the Vargr being willing to equip ships for that. They could maybe bring salvage tenders to keep in the reserve to take off cripples as they occur, but those things are awful vulnerable if there's a breakthrough. As for surviving ships scuttling their own cripples, that option tends to be reserved for when you have the luxury of time, but I'd be more than happy to give an opponent the opportunity to try that during a combat round and see how many more of his ships I can cripple while he's doing that.
Then too, the repair rules as written are so generous that you could repair pretty much anything given sufficient funds. For the Imperials, time is likely to be in shorter supply than funds.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Agreed.
Well, HG suggests that it take 24-60 months to build a ship > 5000 tons. A J1 drive for 300K ton ship is 6000 tons.
Not going to suggest it takes 2-3 years to make a large J-Drive (6000 tons is roughly a 50m cube), but, perhaps, 2-3 months is a bit aggressive.
It might be faster to salvage a working one from an existing ship, just to get the ship back into friendly territory and back to a shipyard than wait for a new drive.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
They are not specially designed to keep the Impies out, but for easiness to control them by any psionic trained officer. But see they must have manual backups, as not all officers in he Zhodani fleet are psionic. many are proles who have raised to officer status (and they are probably the best, as they have to work harder)
Narrative vs Rules again...
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
The Zho have pesky vassal species. Keeping control of your own Navy is quite important.
If it also prevents enemies to reuse your damaged ships, so much the better...
The Impies are the most dangerous such enemy (as far as the Impies know).
But if it also prevents some of your officers to use your own ships, so much the worse...
On the scuttling issue, I worked out scuttle rules including nuclear charges/ capacitor/ missile magazine/ power plant detonation, etc.
One of the choices is no scuttling prep, just blow the power plant, capacitors, magazines etc. Messy and bits might survive particularly computers.
Another is remaining crew goes through and sets nuclear charges then evacuates. Safer in terms of not setting, but dicey that they will get to all the scuttling predefined points.
Then you could have charges preplaced and manually primed.
The final would be pre placed and a self destruct central system, with the risks of hacked detonation when you don’t want it, or disabled when you do.
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AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
You don't need it for everything, just say security lock-outs and user authentication.
When an Impie tries to hack it, if will just refuse, and perhaps even slag the computers in the face of persistent attacks.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
If you use the updated crew rules from JTAS#14 (mandated by errata), it takes hundreds of crew hits to kill a battleship crew.
Even if you're not gonna repair and refit captured/crippled/scuttled ships the scrap aught to be worth something? Every ton of bonded superdense armour you scrap off a ship and melt down is a ton you don’t have to buy earlier. Same with internals, fittings and wiring.
Also there’s always intel to recover.
Also there’s always intel to recover.
Senility has set in: I keep forgetting to check the errata. On that score, the bulk of the crew is still alive, certainly enough to set timers and then evacuate. A real nuke - as opposed to one of those pathetic Davy Crocket-size missile tips - going off inside a heavily armored ship would leave nothing inside but vapor and would likely do irreversibly nasty things to the hull itself.
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