Book 2 vs Book 5 unarmored hulls

[Carlobrand]

So, advice.

Book-2 and Book-5 handle unarmored hulls very differently. Book 2 laser and missile hits can damage the power plant, jump drive, computer, can injure crew, or can even cause the ship to be destroyed on a critical, and missiles can inflict multiple hits. Book 5 unarmored hulls only take such damage from nuclear missiles or spinal-mount weapons; other weapons can only damage the maneuver drive, weapons, or fuel. Book 5 lasers and non-nuclear missiles seem to be unable to completely penetrate the hull.

Book 5 unarmored hulls have a Striker rating of 40, equivalent to 33.6 cm steel; by way of comparison, the battleship New Jersey carried 28.7 cm belt armor. MegaTraveller says this is necessary to protect space travelers from radiation hazards; MT's Hard Times, in "One Small Step", has individuals taking radiation damage in "disposable hulls," which they define as an armor rating of 8 or more (and presumably less than 40) but they are vague as to the radiation sources, mentioning only "astrographic realities".

Apollo did not reach the moon in battleship armor, and we've no plans to head to Mars in battleship-armored spacecraft. The current solution seems to be a thick layer of polyethylene or some similar substance sandwiched between two metal plates of some sort, possibly doped with other materials that are better at absorbing gamma. This would behave much like a Book-2 hull: it would protect from solar wind and cosmic radiation, but it could conceivably be penetrated by shrapnel from a sufficiently powerful missile and from the ship-mounted lasers described in MT/Striker.

Book 5 produces very similar damage results to Book 2 if secondary weapons do not receive the +6 penalty, but Book 2 was a fairly dangerous combat environment. Take away the +6 penalty and Book 5 fleet actions become brutal for anything but a well-armored warship, and even those are losing weapons pretty consistently.

I'm also exploring some sort of rule to account for smaller craft having thinner armor for the same percentage spent on armor as bigger craft: fighters would end up carrying only a quarter of the armor rating the normal rules would suggest. Large warcraft would be much easier to armor, but I'm not certain if I want to keep the TL armor limit or raise that to let them armor up more to resist the secondary weapons better. I'm inclined to keep the limit; I've never been much on invulnerable (to anything but mesons) warships.

So, what do you think about dropping the +6 penalty (and presumably giving a -6 bonus to spinal particle weapons) so the Book 5 combat has a more Book 2 feel to it?

 

[mike wightman]

I have a simple house rule that bay weapons do not get the +6DM on the damage table, but that requires that I have a house rule USP that splits turret ad bay weapons into their own lines of numbers.

I also have much more crunchy house rules.

I think the way to fix some of the irregularities in HG is to apply a scale factor to the various ship classes, these classes being based on the size DM breakpoints -2 -1 0 +1 +2

Similarly weapon systems are optimised for various target sizes, turrets, bays and spinals thus have their strengths and weaknesses against the various 'ship classes'

I will try and find my precious post on this since my main computer has died again and until I can recover the hard drive data I have lost all my electronic notes.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So, what do you think about dropping the +6 penalty (and presumably giving a -6 bonus to spinal particle weapons) so the Book 5 combat has a more Book 2 feel to it?

Fine, if somewhat deadly, for Free Traders. Every hit has a ¹/₃₆ chance of causing a Fuel Tanks Shattered, completely knocking out the ship.

Utter bloodbath for warships.

Even the Gazelle with its Particle barbettes would generate lots of crew hits against lightly armoured targets. Hardly a sporting way to kill PCs.

 

[whartung]

Book-2 and Book-5 handle unarmored hulls very differently. Book 2 laser and missile hits can damage the power plant, jump drive, computer, can injure crew, or can even cause the ship to be destroyed on a critical, and missiles can inflict multiple hits. Book 5 unarmored hulls only take such damage from nuclear missiles or spinal-mount weapons; other weapons can only damage the maneuver drive, weapons, or fuel. Book 5 lasers and non-nuclear missiles seem to be unable to completely penetrate the hull.

This is a mistake.

A Free Trader is Size 2. A single triple beam turret is Factor 3 (without the TL modifier).

If an attacking batteries factor is greater than the size of the target, you get a crit for each of the difference. So, BL factor 3 vs Ship size 2 = 3 - 2 = 1 crit.

Against an unarmored Free Trader, that's 1 crit. Armor reduces crits at a 2:1 rate.

A little bit of armor can help. Armor 2 will make you immune from that crit. At TL-13+ (where the laser gets a +1, you need Armor 4).

Crits automatically penetrate and do bad things.

Book 5 is a crit system. Without crits, you can't do much.

The rule say that crits reduce armor, I would argue that after the armor has reduced the crits, the armor should still be damaged. So that even those the armor prevented the crit the first time, it won't the next time.

Anyway, small ships are very vulnerable in HG.

 

[Carlobrand]

Fine, if somewhat deadly, for Free Traders. Every hit has a ¹/₃₆ chance of causing a Fuel Tanks Shattered, completely knocking out the ship.

Utter bloodbath for warships.

Even the Gazelle with its Particle barbettes would generate lots of crew hits against lightly armoured targets. Hardly a sporting way to kill PCs.

Good point. I hate the fuel tanks shattered bit. I suspect anyone who's taken a shot at house-ruling the game has changed that bit in one way or another. A culture with 5000 years experience in space knows to segregate fuel tanks so a hit doesn't take them all out. I'd also put a reserve tank deep inside the ship, maybe buried in the power plant itself, so you'd still have power for a short while if you lost all the tanks, at least enough time to ground the ship or get back to the reserve, do some slap-dash repairs, and take on a bit of fuel from a friendly.

For warships, if they don't have at least a bit of armor, they really aren't worth calling warships. Police ships might get away with that, relying on superior computers and superior firepower to make up the lack: a police cruiser's Model/3 and four batteries should put 2 hits on their typical foe in the first exchange, and the repair rules are generous enough to get them home once they've taken the opposing ship. Gazelle's Model/6 ought to put 3 of 4 shots into the hull of a typical PC ship on the first salvo. Only difference the particle beam makes at that point is they'll be treating you for radiation sickness after they arrest you.

Radiation injury doesn't tend to be immediately fatal. That's actually one of the nastier things about it: you may be beyond help, but you'll take a few days in the dying part. For the PC's sake, one hopes the game master decides far future radiation treatments are a good deal better than what we have now. On the positive side, if the treatments are better, then they have a way to knock out crews and then heal them up for the trial later.

This is a mistake.

A Free Trader is Size 2. A single triple beam turret is Factor 3 (without the TL modifier).

If an attacking batteries factor is greater than the size of the target, you get a crit for each of the difference. So, BL factor 3 vs Ship size 2 = 3 - 2 = 1 crit.

Against an unarmored Free Trader, that's 1 crit. Armor reduces crits at a 2:1 rate.

A little bit of armor can help. Armor 2 will make you immune from that crit. At TL-13+ (where the laser gets a +1, you need Armor 4).

Crits automatically penetrate and do bad things.

Book 5 is a crit system. Without crits, you can't do much.

The rule say that crits reduce armor, I would argue that after the armor has reduced the crits, the armor should still be damaged. So that even those the armor prevented the crit the first time, it won't the next time.

Anyway, small ships are very vulnerable in HG.

Completely overlooked the crit-due-to-size bit. IMTU the TL13 weapons are considered military grade and not available to civilian shipping. On the other hand, that's not likely to stop the typical corsair from doing some black market upgrades, so that doesn't really help. A guaranteed crit with every hit is a bit more of a game changer than I had planned for.

I've never understood the crits reduce armor bit. Why? How does a particle beam punching through here cause the armor to be weaker over there?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I hate the fuel tanks shattered bit.

As it disables the ship in a single hit, it might be better as a crit, but that would make it unrepairable.

... do some slap-dash repairs, and take on a bit of fuel from a friendly.

Which is what you can do by RAW...

For warships, if they don't have at least a bit of armor, they really aren't worth calling warships.

Agreed, but look at what spinals and nukes can do even to heavily armoured ships with a DM +6.

Below TL-15 you really have to choose between heavy armour and agility. Heavy armour is not always the right choice.

Only difference the particle beam makes at that point is they'll be treating you for radiation sickness after they arrest you.

OK, it is not specified what happens to the casualties, but a single Crew-1 hit makes the ship incapable of firing weapons and making repairs, so out of the fight.

 

[whartung]

I've never understood the crits reduce armor bit. Why? How does a particle beam punching through here cause the armor to be weaker over there?

It's a mechanic. A "crits make ships weaker until they die" mechanic.

 

[Proneutron]

So, advice.

Use one book or the other. They are not reconcilable really as they weren't meant to be.

 

[Carlobrand]

Use one book or the other. They are not reconcilable really as they weren't meant to be.

Oh, I don't think it's as bad as all that. Besides, I'm stuck at home like everyone else. Playing around with the rules beats watching TV.

I like High Guard for its abstract play. Lends itself a bit better to a storytelling style of gamemastering than whipping out map and counters would. A mechanic that stretches one's willing suspension of disbelief to the snapping point is a bit awkward in that context - not that there's much opportunity to deal with armored ships in role-play, but I'm a bit of a stickler for verisimilitude. If I'm going to house-rule the thing, the "crits kill armor" piece dies - one less rule to have to remember in the heat of battle. As does the Fuel Tanks Shattered piece - kill 25% of the fuel instead: the port tanks go up but the starboard, top, and bottom tanks are still intact. Perhaps cap that at 1000 dT fuel: gives large ships the benefit of their larger scale.

Whartung is right about the game being crit-based. That seems to be its way of showing the vulnerability of little lightly armored ships. Probably also rewards large batteries, but it's not passing the verisimilitude test: why does a laser that's only hitting fuel, weapons, and the maneuver drive suddenly become capable of wrecking the computer or killing a large number of the crew (I also imported MegaTrav's crew section piece, not that it makes any difference to the typical player ships) because it's in a battery of 3. It's only getting one damage roll out of the hit, which suggests the lasers are bracketing the target, and this only happens to little ships, which suggests this isn't a case of two lasers hitting the same point (which would happen whether the laser is hitting a small ship or a large ship, if it were happening at all). Since I'm already making craft more vulnerable, dropping that rule seems like a good idea - and again, one less rule to remember in the heat of battle.

As to big ships becoming more vulnerable, I'm playing around with options to make the armor rating you get out of a percentage armor purchase dependent on the size of the ship. For the same percentage of armor, a big ship ends up with a much thicker depth of armor than something like a fighter would. It should get the benefit of its larger scale - which would make it less vulnerable and counter the effects of a big change in the damage roll modifier. Still working out the details.

 

[atpollard]

Besides, I'm stuck at home like everyone else. Playing around with the rules beats watching TV.

:rofl:
I loved that answer!

(I chose to use the Traveller rules to run a PbP Traveller SteamTech game on a TL 4 Waterworld with a "40 day" day/year and ported all of the Starship skills to Steamships ... Wild West Waterworld)

 

[mike wightman]

Like I have said - a scale factor is needed and it is already in the game if you squint a bit.

The Size DM for the ship can be used in addition to other DMs, e.g. apply it to the damage table.

It can also be used to reduce the number of critical hit by subtraction (and yes that means -2 and -1 hull sizes take extra criticals).

And I still recommend differentiating between bay and turret weapons by dispensing with the +6DM on the damage table for bay weapons (note that this will make bay nukes nasty - if they can actually score a damage result).

 

[Proneutron]

Oh, I don't think it's as bad as all that.

Well, after about 40 years no one has done it that I've seen. So I'll stick with that assessment until shown otherwise.

 

[Carlobrand]

Well, after about 40 years no one has done it that I've seen. So I'll stick with that assessment until shown otherwise.

Working on that. Small chance of success, but I'm bored and I love crunching numbers, so why not.

An interesting thing happened while trying to figure out this Book-2/Book-5 thing. Striker tried to link Book-5 armor values into its armor system, in case a ship happened to be on the battlefield. It was not very successful. They ended up doing an errata, then MegaTrav came along and offered an entirely different method of linking the Striker armor values to a High Guard-like system.

So, I asked myself, if you assume an armor rating of X, based on what Megatraveller was saying - this thickness gives this bonus - how much bigger does a spacecraft have to be to get a +1 to the armor rating given the same percentage spent on armor? MegaTraveller doesn't actually count volume of armor (or hull) but I wanted to see where this went. The result was a 1:2:5 thing: moving from 10 dT to 20 dT gives a +1, 20 to 50 gives a +1, 50 to 100 gives a +1, 100 dT to 200 dT gives a +1, 200 to 500 gives a +1, and so on, and so on. It was odd and unexpected, but I guess it has something to do with the way that logarithmic system works. Working up from 10 dT to 200,000 dT, you end up with a +14 for the 200,000 dT over the 10 dT.

What you do with that is a matter of taste. You can start from 10 dT and the battleships end up getting heavy armor for a song, which means lots of space for back-up systems to deal with meson damage: they field battleships because battleships have more space for back-up systems than cruisers of the same armor rating. Or, you can start somewhere in the middle, and bigger ships benefit some while the smaller craft become tin-clads; a fighter is heavily armored when it manages to spend enough on armor to get out of crit territory.

An issue is that High Guard and Striker armor systems don't really mix. High Guard is additive, Striker runs some sort of logarithmic process, so those numbers work better for MegaTraveller. For High Guard, you'd do something based off a cube root function, and since it would be additive, the range from 10 dT to 200,000 dT would yield more like a factor of 27 for the battleship over the little fighter: the battleship would have 27 times the rating of the fighter for the same percentage spent. Those numbers get difficult even if you start somewhere in the middle. If you prefer a narrower range, better I think to scrap High Guard's percentages and import some adaptation of MegaTraveller's hull design system. It's far afield from High Guard, but it does offer some of the advantages of MegaTraveller without getting too deep into MT's cumbersome ship design rules. I'm working that up to see what it looks like.

 

[Proneutron]

Working on that.

Cool I look forward to seeing it.