Converting HG ships to Book Two

[infojunky]

Far as that is concerned, I suppose we could use the Striker ortillery definitions as equivalent for LBB2 weaponry at that.

See that is a whole different topic, reconciling ship combat to Striker and visa-versa.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

No conversion is going to please everyone. One assumption I make is that like where Book 5 says ships designed using Book 2 are fine, I go and say ships designed using Book 5 are fine. Here is the 3x5 card fill it out. Like so far I have:

Tigress (Type BB)
1. M-Drive (1770V, 6G)
2. J-Drive (166Q, Jump-4)
3. Power Plant (555M)
4. Fuel (190000)
5. Hold (?? tons, plus 300 fighters)
6. Bridge (Pilot-2)

S-1 (Meson T) Gunner-2
etc.
but this says little about how it acts in Book 2 combat. This also shows my slavish adherence to math conversion....

So some more things have to be added. Like, assuming I do damage how many letters/points does the M-Drive take before it goes down to 5G? 1770V is 42500 damage points....

Some things HAVE to be modified, like the Book 2 damage table. If you add screens for example (forget for the moment how they would defend), what number do you need to roll to hit the screen generator on the existing table.

Some things you have to accept like computer hits are totally different.

 

[kilemall]

See that is a whole different topic, reconciling ship combat to Striker and visa-versa.

No not really, I was suggesting using the Striker equivalents found in the ortillery section as actual values for LBB2 combat.

Okay, reading Striker now, I meant the bays.

Missiles, 25 launchers for the 50-ton, 50 launchers for the 100-ton, bay missiles are bigger then turret missiles. So bay missiles should do a 1d6+X sort of value, or 2d6 damage.

Plasma/Fusion, equivalent of 10 weapons.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Right-o. 1d6+x That should have been obvious. There is still the use of space nukes per the HG damage tables. Hmm.

On Drive performance:
I gave it some more thought. For Jump and Maneuver, one could take the total damage points derived, divide by their performance to determne base points then multiply by .5, 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, etc. to determine lower performance levels
So a Tigress has Maneuver 6. This in turn gives you 42500 Damage based on volume for Maneuver Drive. So Perfomance is:
Gs Points
6 38958-42500 (42500/6*5.5)
5 31875-38957 (42500/6*4.5)
4 24791-31874 (42500/6*3.5)
3 17708-24790 (42500/6*2.5)
2 10625-17707 (42500/6*1.5)
1 3541-10624 (42500/6*0.5)
- A-3540
Slag Below A

Power Plants will have to work differently as it it possible to have power higher than 6 (for Agility) and what I call "fat" drives. Lower TL power plants take up more volume.
Going strictly by previous formulae will give lower TL ships an advantage in damage points. :nonono:

Also, this begins a line of questioning of should Agility be part of Book 2 and if so how? Or not. If the goal is to preserve Book 2 AMAP (as much as possible), then maybe Agility should be dropped.

 

[kilemall]

Nukes are covered in SS3 for Missiles, they get an upgrade anywhere from 10D to 100D, mitigating limit is they are megacredit per warhead options.

So a nuke broadside from say a 10,000 ton missile cruiser, say 5 missile bays, would be a 100 MCr event. Something that would have been really good to incorporate into TCS, sort of thing where each ship might have just one round of those on board.

 

[aramis]

It was a Series 120 game, remember? Fewer than 120 counters and can be played in under 120 minutes?

Mayday's damage results stink for TTRPG play, but fits the design criteria.




So basically Star Fleet Battles: Traveller?

Note that my SFB and Starfire experience lead me to doing SSD cards for playing a Bk2-mayday hybrid... with tickboxes.

Bk2 damage, mayday rules. Except computers. We just dropped a model per hit. (Noting that, for small ships, the Bk2 computer damage is the biggest damage sink of the ship. )

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Nukes are covered in SS3 for Missiles, they get an upgrade anywhere from 10D to 100D, mitigating limit is they are megacredit per warhead options.

Oh, goodie a Book 2 version of a radiation table! Now particle accelerators and meson guns are more fun!

 

[mike wightman]

I would base the LBB2 weapon damage of HG2 designed ships on the number of EPs a black globe absorbs.

So for damage we have:
turrets and bays (#= USP factor)
lasers/plasma weapons #x1
fusion weapons #x2
PA #x5 (except 3tPA turrets #x3)
meson bays #x20
missiles #x2
nukes #x100
spinals EPs as damage

 

[kilemall]

Oh, goodie a Book 2 version of a radiation table! Now particle accelerators and meson guns are more fun!

That too.

Have an idea on doing HG table like stuff on the 2-12 CT tables. Cogitating, especially on the armor part.

 

[Whipsnade]

Note that my SFB and Starfire experience lead me to doing SSD cards for playing a Bk2-mayday hybrid... with tickboxes.

Bk2 damage, mayday rules. Except computers. We just dropped a model per hit. (Noting that, for small ships, the Bk2 computer damage is the biggest damage sink of the ship. )

That sounds like the kind of game I'd very much like to play.

The hybrid we played the most was far more simplistic; Mayday for movement and HG2 for nearly everything else. It worked, but those SSDs sound as if they would have been a lot more fun.

 

[kilemall]

Honestly this is a totally meta topic. In that while the stated goal is to express one thing in terms of the other, there is the underlying conversation of what additional mechanics are needed to give more satisfaction. Playing through the permutations works both goals.

I Started this topic with a bunch of questions. Now I find I have a bunch of new questions.

Armor? Guys how would you handle it? This also talks to how damage is allocated.

Heavy Missile launchers? i.e. the individual launchers from bays.

Then along that line, smaller bays?

And related, How do you handle number of Hardpoints taken up by a bay? Some people use 5 points per 50 tons bay and 10 per 100...

Alongside that Damage incremental along a volume metric instead of the performance metric?

Another thing all the tinkering with book two has pointed out to me is that the upper limit of book two is somewhere between 1000 and 2000 tons, even though the chart goes beyond that. Though to be honest that is where the hand off between the books is as well.

Important point- are you wanting to be able to translate HG ships to LBB2 combat, have HG-like effects of the HG toys, or are you wanting HG toys in LBB2 terms and otherwise all the mechanics are LBB2?

 

[infojunky]

No not really, I was suggesting using the Striker equivalents found in the ortillery section as actual values for LBB2 combat.

Okay, reading Striker now, I meant the bays.

Ah! We went different directions mentally, I was hitting the rewriting Ships into striker terms and mechanics.

Missiles, 25 launchers for the 50-ton, 50 launchers for the 100-ton, bay missiles are bigger then turret missiles. So bay missiles should do a 1d6+X sort of value, or 2d6 damage.

I thought along those lines as well, though the Missiles Supplement direction is a option as well.

 

[infojunky]

Important point- are you wanting to be able to translate HG ships to LBB2 combat, have HG-like effects of the HG toys, or are you wanting HG toys in LBB2 terms and otherwise all the mechanics are LBB2?

I'm going to be unhelpful, so the Answer is Yes...

But mostly expression in Book2 terms is the final goal.

With a secondary goal of adding the bits that are missing from Book 2.

And last adding in skill based rules for handling all of the above.

 

[infojunky]

No conversion is going to please everyone. One assumption I make is that like where Book 5 says ships designed using Book 2 are fine, I go and say ships designed using Book 5 are fine. Here is the 3x5 card fill it out. Like so far I have:

Tigress (Type BB)
1. M-Drive (1770V, 6G)
2. J-Drive (166Q, Jump-4)
3. Power Plant (555M)
4. Fuel (190000)
5. Hold (?? tons, plus 300 fighters)
6. Bridge (Pilot-2)

S-1 (Meson T) Gunner-2
etc.
but this says little about how it acts in Book 2 combat. This also shows my slavish adherence to math conversion....

So some more things have to be added. Like, assuming I do damage how many letters/points does the M-Drive take before it goes down to 5G? 1770V is 42500 damage points....

Amused, I have to say you have been very useful to me in guiding some of my thoughts about the topic.

Some things HAVE to be modified, like the Book 2 damage table. If you add screens for example (forget for the moment how they would defend), what number do you need to roll to hit the screen generator on the existing table.

As I said the deepest I have gotten into defenses is trying to figure out a armor mechanic.

 

[infojunky]

Just for your amusement, the Black Globe section of the combat rules in HG give a passable conversion to number of hits based both on USP rating and weapon power.....

 

[mike wightman]

I agree, in fact I made this very point in post 28

 

[infojunky]

I agree, in fact I made this very point in post 28

Argh! I hate when I do that..... Sorry Mate. I was reading the section for the Capacitors and Jump drives, thus my mind jump to "Ah this is a good source" Instead of "That is Mike said", when I read the passage in depth.