Carrying capacity by tech level

[mike wightman]

Sorry Tobias, but I have to disagree.

It doesn't say miss out step 8.

Step 8 says "select hull armour".

Nor does it say anything in the text about ignoring the armour table for an armour value of zero.

If you select no armour it costs you 1-4% of the hull. Those are the rules as written in HG2.

Nobody follows them though

Even Trilion Credit Squadron fails to clear this up.

 

[mike wightman]

That said, I always ignore the armour table if the ship is unarmoured...

 

[Piper]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Even Trilion Credit Squadron fails to clear this up.

See TCS, page 23, Provincial Fighter Gnat
Armor factor-0, no entry for material volume.

While I agree that the rule could be more clearly worded, two separate examples in two distinct sources seem to make it clear.

If you combine this with the fact that certain amounts of interior structure are deliberately excluded from the design sequence (material volume of fuel tanks), one could make a reasonable case that hull structure and material volume have been deliberately abstracted and simply assume that the hull strength is adequate.

A tube is only stronger than a rod for a given volume of material. If you ignore internal supporting structures you could wind up "proving" that a beer can is as strong as a solid rod of the same diameter.

 

[Tobias]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Sorry Tobias, but I have to disagree.

Read the text, not the lists or the tables. If you go by this, it can be read either way. If you take the example into account, it becomes obvious. Assuming that "no armor" needs space much sense as an unarmed ship requiring a chief gunnery officer - which is the same kind of ambiguous wording, and has no example giving counterproof.
If no armor is selected, no percentage needs to be allocated to armor - this is obvious from the rules and examples and anything else is deliberate misreading.
And, while I noticed this when I first read the article, this discussion is the precise reason why I didn't mention it. Whenever there is a rule which requires even a tiny bit of common sense to read, people will gleefully throw their own overboard for an argument's sake.

Regards,

Tobias

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Piper:
See TCS, page 23, Provincial Fighter Gnat
Armor factor-0, no entry for material volume.

While I agree that the rule could be more clearly worded, two separate examples in two distinct sources seem to make it clear.

As I said earlier, even the canon ship designers appear to have ignored the rule

The rule is there though

Unless you have a copy of HG2 that says:
8. Select hull armour (block 15), if an armour factor of 0 is chosen then ignore the armour table entry.

The body of the text begins "Hulls may be armoured...if no armour is selected, the armour factor in the USP is zero. The armour table indicates formulae for the computation of armour tonnage and cost, based on the factor selected."

So there you go - choosing no armour equals armour factor 0 in the USP, and armour factor 0 in the USP costs 1-4% of the hull depending on TL.
It does not state that you ignore the armour table.

As to the design of canon ships, a couple are broken or in need of errata, namely the Kokirrak and the Tigress.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Tobias:
Read the text, not the lists or the tables. If you go by this, it can be read either way.

I disagree, see the post above for the text.

The only ambiguity is the examples of ship design, and if you assume the ship designers got the rules wrong - which has a lot of precedent in GDW ship designs - then you can explain this

If you take the example into account, it becomes obvious.

Nope, all that's obvious is that the example designers didn't use the rules as they are written in the book

Assuming that "no armor" needs space much sense as an unarmed ship requiring a chief gunnery officer - which is the same kind of ambiguous wording, and has no example giving counterproof.

Except that there is no ambiguity in the wording for the gunnery section crew for an unarmed ship.
"The ship should have a chief gunnery officer and at least one petty officer for each type of weapon aboard."
No weapons equals no gunners.

I'm not sure if you have a chief gunnery officer for each weapon type though

If no armor is selected, no percentage needs to be allocated to armor - this is obvious from the rules and examples and anything else is deliberate misreading.

I'm not misreading anything, deliberately or otherwise.
As I said earlier, I ignored this rule for years too.
But then I also got bay weapon tonnage remaining mixed up for a while like the FASA designers did

And, while I noticed this when I first read the article, this discussion is the precise reason why I didn't mention it. Whenever there is a rule which requires even a tiny bit of common sense to read, people will gleefully throw their own overboard for an argument's sake.

Regards,

Tobias

It's what tends to happen if rules aren't clear enough, or aren't playtested thoroughly.

It could all have been cleared up through a bit of errata, or even an explanation during a TCS tournament.

Now there's a thought. Did GDW officials or referees have any clarification on this, or is it just a case that so many of us have been using the wrong rule for so long now that the right rule should be ignored completely

This isn't an argument Tobias, it's a civilised discussion.

I'll bet the TML has had a few flames over this one.

 

[Piper]

The Kinunir is a design example from High Guard and the Gnat is an actual worksheet. Since Marc Miller is credited with both books, one might reasonably assume he at least checked the designs.

But, no matter.
It still leaves open the issues of decking, bulkheads, fuel tanks and inertial dampers.

Ultimately, High Guard is a game, not a structural engineering handbook.

Regards

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

A question on the structural strength of hulls.
How does the math work when applied to load-bearing hulls that are stressed due to rotational acceleration (like a space station or O'Neill colony) instead of thrust acceleration (like a fusion drive)?

How big a space station can be built per tech level without overstressing the hull? I'm assuming a 1g interior gravity from centrifugal force on the outermost layer of hull with a standard 1000 millibar atmosphere.

 

[Tobias]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I disagree, see the post above for the text.

Yep, as I said. Intentional disengagement of brain, for the sake of argument.

"The ship should have a chief gunnery officer and at least one petty officer for each type of weapon aboard."
No weapons equals no gunners.

Nope. One chief gunnery officer AND one petty officer for each weapon type. There can be no more than one "Chief" gunnery officer.

It could all have been cleared up through a bit of errata, or even an explanation during a TCS tournament.

There was no need of clearing up because the vast majority of players have always read the rule as it was intended.

Now there's a thought. Did GDW officials or referees have any clarification on this, or is it just a case that so many of us have been using the wrong rule for so long now that the right rule should be ignored completely

OR could it be the case that everyone understood the rule as it was intended? No, can't be... you are getting right what everyone else is getting wrong.

This isn't an argument Tobias, it's a civilised discussion.

No, it's pointless ruleslawyering in the purest sense of the word. Which has already double-derailed this long enough.

Regards,

Tobias

 

[mike wightman]

Good points all Piper

The Kinunir was originally designed with a version of High Guard first edition, it was later redesigned for inclusion in High Guard second edition - and grew by fifty tons in the process

And let's not forget that the game's ship designers knew the rules so well that the 300t Gazelle got an extra turret, contrary to the rules

Then there are the errors in Supplement 9.

I used to think that armour 0 had no structural cost, but later versions of Traveller, common sense, and re-reading what is written have lead me to the conclusion that an awful lot of us have been doing it wrong for a long time now.

I have not seen, or even personally designed, a ship using HG2 that uses the armour 0 structural cost.

 

[robject]

I didn't realize that hulls took up volume in High Guard, but it looks like they might. Although I'm still not convinced... just like I'm not convinced that an unarmed vessel ought to have a Chief Gunnery Officer.

I think hull volumes ought to be ignored in starship design. TL differences will show up in implicit (and supplemental) armoring, and the quality of the stuff placed inside the ship. Shift the numbers somewhere else; combine them with other things. Put them in the bridge.
Whatever.

I guess this discussion has showed me that everyone has their reasons, and to allow them their preferences with proper credit.

My preference is to harness detailed, fiddly design for the creation of components which can be used by other gearheads AND used in a more abstract, modular system as well.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Jeff M. Hopper:
A question on the structural strength of hulls.
How does the math work when applied to load-bearing hulls that are stressed due to rotational acceleration (like a space station or O'Neill colony) instead of thrust acceleration (like a fusion drive)?

Well, the real problem with traveller ships is that they can change direction and magnitude of thrust fairly quickly -- otherwise a million dton structure isn't that hard. The major effect of rotational stress vs thrust stress is that rotational stresses are mostly a function of tensile strength, rather than buckling. This typically allows somewhat larger structures (billion dton structures could probably be built with TL 8-9 techniques).

 

[robject]

me: "I head my Kokirraks toward the 100D limit."

ref: "Suddenly, a squadron of Achzhdr class battle riders come swooshing out from behind the planet!"

me: "Hard about, full acceleration!"

ref: (rolls dice) "Your ships break into a million shards of fused, twisted superdense as the stress from acceleration trashes their hulls. The Zhodani spend a leisurely time psionically torturing any survivors found."

me: "Aw, rats."

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by Tobias:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by thrash:
and how it differs from measurements of strength.

This is not the point. You can repeat "Strenght =/= E" again and again. I know that. I do know as well, however, that E has widely different values for different materials, that differences are ergo reasonable. You assume that all materials used for Traveller's superscience starships have the same E as steel. This still doesn't follow from anything.

Regards,

Tobias </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, it does: the fact that structures in FF&S 1 & 2, as well as MT, are built with proportionate strength to steel by toughness (itself a massive simplifaction). They are, aside from that, used interchangeably, with a baffled monocoque structure being a fairly close match to the figures.

That no sizes limits (other than, for FF&S 1&2, the square-cube rule and it's effects on cooling and surface area) other than HG's imposed maximum of 1MTd and the computer tech limits upon hulls, one can presume that somehow, HG (And thus MT, FF&S, and FF&S2) treats this range of materials as structurally similar.

Stability is flat out ignored. Stability is why you can't build a long girder, and put the rated weight on it, and not expect it to bend. There are materials which won't, but if the bird lands on it, snap. There are others that can't hold as much, but will bend less.

Monocoque cylinder hulls for aircraft are the most material efficient means of building aircraft hulls in terms of weight for volume (CAP Cadet materials point this out) and provide fairly good stability over length, as the can be stressed specifically to counter gravity.

As to the AV0 Argument, all the designs with no armor should be AV -1, and we see no canonical AV0 hulls...

Makes those tankers look kind of weak, now, doesn't it?