Big Ship vs Little Ship

[mbrinkhues]

Okay, the Pytheas Class Exploration cruiser from G:T First In


Hull: 3000dt, streamlined with fuel scopes,
minimal armor, radical stealth/em cloak

Engine: Thrust 2.1g, Jump 4

Cargo: 290dt / 480to

Subcraft: Spacedock for 200dt of small craft

Crew: Around 60-70, 36 Staterooms

Weapons: 15 turrets
- 3 Tripple missile
- 7 Tripple sandcaster
- 5 Tripple (Beam)Laser

Screens: Meson Screen, Nuclear Damper

Specials: Fuel Processor
Large(Command) Bridge
Sickbay
Large Workshop
Four Probe Launcher
Two Survey Modules
20 Laboratory places

Cost: 868MCr including 85MCr for Subcraft

The cargo hold is located right next to the hangar bay. The ship is used both as a long range scout operating in new territories and as a military spycraft. The electronic bays can be re-configured for SigInt duty. The ship is rather cramped.

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by stofsk:
I wonder: how big is BIG in YTU? How small is small?

MTU started off about three decades ago as a "big ship" TU (I love me some High Guard), but over the last several years, I have migrated to a "small ship" TU.

There are two practical reasons: there are some serious engineering issues of structural integrity once spacecraft hulls get upwards of 10000 dtons in displacement (about 50000 GWT equivalent, but without the water to hold them up), and big ships are so overwhelmingly superior in space combat and commercial efficiency that they pretty much drive the little guys to extinction any time they are in competition with them.

So I've slowly embraced a TU wherein a 3000-dton, Jump-4 vessel (designed under CT Book 2) is considered "huge", and most starships are in the 1000-dton-and-under range. There's still lots of money to be made, and space combat can be horrifically violent and expensive, and once you adjust the scale of your thinking, there's plenty of adventure and satisfaction to be found...

 

[parmasson]

^Welcome fellow heretic.

Yeah it’s really all about scale. If the PCs are in a 100 ton scout the difference between a 3000 ton battleship and a 100,000 ton battleship is irrelevant.
Deckplans could also become a reality as well.

 

[Border Reiver]

I think there is plenty of room for big naval vessels but like Dalton says many will have never seen a Tigress class.

A far as merchants are concerned, bulk carriers seem to make economic sense. AHL cruisers were converted to merchantman and economies of scale ought to come into effect (as long as they keep the holds full.

Deck plans are still viable on big vessels, just look at AHL. Standard decks repeated at various levels.

 

[Golan2072]

There is also the rule-system consideration; a Small-Ship universe implies either CT-LBB2, (possibly) TNE, or T4's (horribly obscure) QSDS; a Large-Ship universe implies either CT-HG or MT.

I use (heavily house-ruled) CT rules. While I love the spirit of LBB2, I have several issues with the rules (vector movement; also every single weapon rolls seperately to hit so 600-dton+ ships cause BIG numbers of rules). So I make a compromise and go HG, due to the flexibility of the design rules (which are a bit too technical) and the more managable (but far less flavourful) combat system. While HGS makes HG-based designs very painless, the system encourages a very-big-ship universe which is very fun for naval simulations and not so fun for PC-scale ships.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
While HGS makes HG-based designs very painless, the system encourages a very-big-ship universe which is very fun for naval simulations and not so fun for PC-scale ships.

That's like saying that you can't have adventures akin to those of the Sidney Water Police (in the TV series Water Rats) in the same world where naval carriers exist. Just because there are Tigresses out there doesn't mean that you can't have a location where they don't show up.

And, yes, a 3000 T destroyer is just as much a problem for a 200 T tramp ship as a 500,000 T dreadnaught. In both cases it's 'game over' if one shows up. The difference is that you can have six score of destroyers for the same price as one dreadnaught. I really don't understand why 'small ship universe' adherents don't consider that a problem.

As for rule system, you can make small ships just as easily as big ships with HG. That said, I think the ideal solution would be to fix the Book 2 system to eliminate the discrepancies with HG (and, of course, fix HG's power plant fuel consumption problem at the same time ). Imagine: A system like Book 2's that is compatible with HG! Wouldn't that be something?


Hans

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
While HGS makes HG-based designs very painless, the system encourages a very-big-ship universe which is very fun for naval simulations and not so fun for PC-scale ships.

That's like saying that you can't have adventures akin to those of the Sidney Water Police (in the TV series Water Rats) in the same world where naval carriers exist. Just because there are Tigresses out there doesn't mean that you can't have a location where they don't show up.</font>[/QUOTE]I wasn't talking from a conceptual point-of-view; sure, having big ships in your universe won't invalidate the small ships. I was talking from a pure rules point-of-view, and HG rules are less suitable for engagements between a few small ships than for confrontations between large fleets of big ships.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
I wasn't talking from a conceptual point-of-view; sure, having big ships in your universe won't invalidate the small ships. I was talking from a pure rules point-of-view, and HG rules are less suitable for engagements between a few small ships than for confrontations between large fleets of big ships.

OK, that I won't dispute. I tend to forget the ship combat part of the rules, since I do a lot more shipbuilding than ship combat, so I read your remarks as pertaining to shipbuilding. Sorry.


Hans

 

[Golan2072]

Once I finish my current house-rule projects (expanded chargen) I'll probably go and explore the flaws of LBB2 and try to devise ways to patch them up.

 

[deadlock]

Greetings and salutations,

Originally posted by stofsk:

I wonder: how big is BIG in YTU? How small is small?

In my TU, anything over 1kdtons is considered big and anything 1kdtons or less is considered small.
If there is a big ship operating in the area the players are in, it's there for any number of reasons including:
</font>

• Plot Device: yeah, had a thought to get the ex-militaries involved with the military through former commanders, commands, emergency call-ups, etc.</font>
• Anti-Piracy: there were a couple of places in my TU where pirate activity was high (one from a recent war and the other I maintained to allow the PCs to "indulge" their darker sides. Soma, you still have the best character action to date, baby!</font>
• Conflict: Yeah, someone, somewhere, got their undies in a twist because someone said "no"; actually twisting the wearer's undies; felt the need to show who is the Alpha Male/Female;</font>
• "Save You From Yourselves": this is used when you give the PCs a stern warning not to go some place and they go any way.</font>

Also in my TU, I had band of players that worked their butts off to acquire a 1kdton merchant cruiser they had designed for themselves. It was a sweet design and they used it for everything. Escort duty, subsidized/speculative passenger and cargo transport, and their favorite, home. One of the best adventures they had in it was acting as a cadre for a system that had maintained its freedom from the Big Bad, but had lost most of its naval power in the process. The PCs needed credits fast to make their mortgage and the system needed help rebuilding.

I made use of a lot of small ships during that campaign with a big ship showing up for an interesting challenge.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
There is also the rule-system consideration; a Small-Ship universe implies either CT-LBB2, (possibly) TNE, or T4's (horribly obscure) QSDS; a Large-Ship universe implies either CT-HG or MT.

I use (heavily house-ruled) CT rules. While I love the spirit of LBB2, I have several issues with the rules (vector movement; also every single weapon rolls seperately to hit so 600-dton+ ships cause BIG numbers of rules). [...]

Side note 1.
T4 encompasses both small craft and huge, by the way (QSDS/SSDS/FFS2), though QSDS kept the hull sizes down.

Side note 2.
Sigg and I have worked Book 2 combat a bit, by permitting an homogenous triple turret to fire all three guns at one target with one to-hit roll. We have different views on what kinds of bonuses to grant this action, if any. Anyway, the offshoot is that combat becomes a bit easier for ships up to 1000 tons or so.

Something more needs to be done with ever larger ships, something approaching Battery Factors in HG. Oz has one idea, Sigg has another, and I have another, and others have opinions too.

Ok, done with side notes.
IMTU. 10,000+ton ships are mostly military, which you may or may not see docked at a major port. Kiloton ships will be seen along major routes. Everything else is small.

 

[Scott Martin]

MTU is "Small Ship" for military vessels and "Big Ship" for merchants, transports etc. this is heavily skewed because I prefer my SF like my Ice Cream: hard(ish). Since a single kit with a nuke or KKM will kill a big ship just as dead as a small ship, large task groups of lighter units are the norm, although I do use fixed defensive installations due to FTL restrictions IMTU (fixed defences in a TU where you can jump into a system at any vector anywhere outside a 100D limit are completely pointless).

Orbital habitats range from below 1 cubic kilometer into the hundreds of cubic kilometers range in volume. (1 cubic kilometer is about 60 million displacement tons)

Large transports range into the multi-Mton range(in Water displacement tons, AKA cubic meters) while assault transports (military transports) can be up to the 100 kTon range (10 kdTon range)

I use something close to Brilliant Lances for the combat system, and a hybrid of FF&S 1 and 2 for starship design.

Big ships make sense for cargo on major runs (keeps the crew size / ton of cargo down) but large ships are "big targets" for military operations. The analogy is fairly close to modern naval doctrine, with large, special purpose vessels (assault transports, carriers) escorted by vessels considered "small" in comercial terms (Destroyers and frigates)

Even those "massive" DD's are pretty small compared to a container ship, oil tanker or cruise ship, and it looks like the shift to frigate-sized combatants is continuing.

Of course, SSN's just keep getting bigger, although the Typhoon class will probably remain the biggest damn sub for quite a while to come...

Scott Martin

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Scott Martin:
MTU is "Small Ship" for military vessels and "Big Ship" for merchants, transports etc. this is heavily skewed because I prefer my SF like my Ice Cream: hard(ish).

I prefer my SF like my ice cream: soft! With chocolate sauce, cookie crumbs, strawberries, nuts...

The analogy is fairly close to modern naval doctrine, with large, special purpose vessels (assault transports, carriers) escorted by vessels considered "small" in comercial terms (Destroyers and frigates)

Then the principal warship is the big, transport vessels that carry your armies. The workhorse of the fleet would be destroyers that are small, cramped, and have a low survival rate - but they wouldn't win a war by themselves.

You can't win a war with crummy escort ships. You either have boomers or transport vessels - one involves nuking an irate planet into oblivion, the other involves occupying the planet into submission. The big ships can act as transport for your armies as well as offer some ortillery support. They'd also act as command ships to oversee the direction of battle in space and on the ground. (you'd have mobile command centres on the surface of course, but I'm talking about overall 'big picture' level of command)

Escort ships are just that: escort. They can't project the nation's military might the way a carrier or battleship (for example) could.

 

[aramis]

Well, one major consideration is that at about 5000Td, we start hitting the "Must have magic materials" bar. Especially for the higher accelerations.

Interesting RW side note: most of the big tankers are well past the point of being able to induce metal failure by significant accelerations.

 

[Golan2072]

So real physics stand on the side of LBB2 - very interesting to hear this!

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
So real physics stand on the side of LBB2 - very interesting to hear this!

Christopher Thrash spent a good deal of effort going 'round and 'round on this issue...

Ship Structure and Hull Size Limitations

which has pretty much become the traditional stepping-off point for debate on it...

 

[Anthony]

Well, real physics is not on the side of ships that can accelerate at 6G for hours at a time. If you have Magic Drive Technology, there's no strong reason not to also assume Magic Material Technology, or just to assume that the drive technology works in a way that makes the problem irrelevant (by, for example, simply accelerating the entire ship without putting stress on it).

 

[boomslang]

Originally posted by Anthony:
Well, real physics is not on the side of ships that can accelerate at 6G for hours at a time. If you have Magic Drive Technology, there's no strong reason not to also assume Magic Material Technology, or just to assume that the drive technology works in a way that makes the problem irrelevant (by, for example, simply accelerating the entire ship without putting stress on it).

Except that MDT is one of the three basic assumptions-for-playability of original "hard SF" Traveller [Jump drive, tabletop hot fusion, and gravitics], whereas MMT isn't...

And although one can certainly stipulate that "field-effect" grav drives [proudly used IMTU for many years now] eliminate worries over structural rigidity, there are still issues of shock (from hostile weapons fire), drydocking within a gravity well, and other incidental accelerations... so MMT is pretty much required if you're going beyond Basic Traveller tech...

 

[Anthony]

Bonded Superdense is not MMT? In any case, basic traveller tech requires magic materials, to deal with such problems as weapons destroying themselves when they fire, power plants melting when used, ...

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

The key aspect to get along with large volume constructions is the construction principle.
E.g. the SMAD III uses very classical construction approaches (because they have to use affordable techniques) and thus size is pretty limited (just like Earths insect size limitations, by the way).

Future architecture moves toward bionic construction principles, using flexible inner frames, mainly adapted from plant "blue prints" . So stability is gained thru flexibility.
A teaser might be: http://www.bionictower-bvs.com

Using these principles, larger starship might be able to bend just as modern skyscrapers do, in order to react to stresses and moments (ok, no rubber starship, but 1 m per 100 m ship lenght seems reasonable).

For those really interested I just would recommed to get hands on a professional CAD package (e.G. CATIA), which enables to set up a simple but large frame construction and perform stress/acceleration tests with real and fictional materials. Well, judging the dynamic stability of a complex construction is just not a thing you can do manually or by a simple calculation.
I've got holiday in a few weeks and will try to do that again.

So, IMHO the 5000 dTon limitation is a bit funny for a SF background and we perhaps would not need MMTs in Traveller, but just sophisticated construction principles and a set of existing prototype materials (existing nanotubes cope with stresses 60 times better than steel) to explain BIG starships

BTW, a killing stress for a starship is perhaps not the maximum 6g forward thrust, but higher possible accelerations connected to rotational moments (turns), as those rip the structure apart.

Regards,

Mert