CT+ Ships
- Thread starter infojunky
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I'd bring in some of T5's "high tech lets you build better at any size" while mostly keeping with the LBB2 "bigger is better, and only high tech lets you build bigger".
That is, keep the drive size limits from the Drive Performance Table (or extend it out a bit beyond Z and undo the big performance gains for the W-Z drives, while keeping the explicit 5k or implicit 10k/12k ton upper limits) but apply TL Stage Effects based on the standard TL of the drive, not its capability. That is, a Size E drive is TL-10 regardless of whether it's providing Jump-1 in a 1KTd hull or Jump-5 in a 200Td hull. Might need to nerf the TL Stage Effects from those given in T5, though, to prevent absurd results.
Also, if you're using EPs (or something like them), allow power plants to have ratings higher than 6.
The other question is whether to keep the LBB2 maneuver drive sizes (small, and goes up just a little slower than the G-rating) or go with a LBB5 paradigm (m-drive size goes up much faster than the G rating). The main m-drive constraint in smaller ships was the flat-rate-by Pn power plant fuel allocation*. If you suspend that, something else needs to go in to compensate or almost everybody will be pushing 6Gs by default.
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*a zombie legacy from the '77 rules.
That is, keep the drive size limits from the Drive Performance Table (or extend it out a bit beyond Z and undo the big performance gains for the W-Z drives, while keeping the explicit 5k or implicit 10k/12k ton upper limits) but apply TL Stage Effects based on the standard TL of the drive, not its capability. That is, a Size E drive is TL-10 regardless of whether it's providing Jump-1 in a 1KTd hull or Jump-5 in a 200Td hull. Might need to nerf the TL Stage Effects from those given in T5, though, to prevent absurd results.
Also, if you're using EPs (or something like them), allow power plants to have ratings higher than 6.
The other question is whether to keep the LBB2 maneuver drive sizes (small, and goes up just a little slower than the G-rating) or go with a LBB5 paradigm (m-drive size goes up much faster than the G rating). The main m-drive constraint in smaller ships was the flat-rate-by Pn power plant fuel allocation*. If you suspend that, something else needs to go in to compensate or almost everybody will be pushing 6Gs by default.
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*a zombie legacy from the '77 rules.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
LBB:2
1 - revert to minimum power plant being tied to m-drive
2 - add a cost for designating drives as military
3 - add a cost for designating military sensors
4 - quad turrets become an option
5 - add point defence rapid pulse plasma/fusion guns as a military option
6 - add PA barbettes as a military option
7 - add 10t, 25t, 50t, 100t bays as options
8 - add spinal mounts as a military option
1 - revert to minimum power plant being tied to m-drive
2 - add a cost for designating drives as military
3 - add a cost for designating military sensors
4 - quad turrets become an option
5 - add point defence rapid pulse plasma/fusion guns as a military option
6 - add PA barbettes as a military option
7 - add 10t, 25t, 50t, 100t bays as options
8 - add spinal mounts as a military option
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Ditch LBB2 and all the complicated tables, just straight simple LBB5.
Stage effects might sound like a good idea, but is mathematically complicated. The different power plants by TL in LBB5 is a usable level of complication, T5 is way too complicated.
Stage effects might sound like a good idea, but is mathematically complicated. The different power plants by TL in LBB5 is a usable level of complication, T5 is way too complicated.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
My answer is hybrid LBB2/LBB5, results geared more to ship drama rather then design demolition derby, die roll reduction and actual fleet maneuver that matters.
The computer levels effectively sort out the civilian/military sensor differentiation- I’m persuaded by arguments put forward here that the sensors are part of the computer cost.
One major must have for ACS level LBB5 builds is greater volume cost for armor for smaller ships, especially small craft.
The computer levels effectively sort out the civilian/military sensor differentiation- I’m persuaded by arguments put forward here that the sensors are part of the computer cost.
One major must have for ACS level LBB5 builds is greater volume cost for armor for smaller ships, especially small craft.
It is sort of inherent in the drive by TL in The Tech Level table.
Mostly for LLB2, my favorite spacecraft rules, I would shorten range up, add a PA Barbette, and maybe make all weapons mounts singular, except a hybrid laser/missile/sandcaster mount for smaller vessels.
1. '77 drive rules, but maybe without the flat-rate fuel by Pn (rather than %Td by Pn). Retain a high power plant burn rate, but make it proportional to ship tonnage -- that is, the fuel tankage rather than the M-Drive size is still the design constraint on maneuver capability. Provides another use case for drop tanks, perhaps.
2. That or make fuel processors a separate line item.
3. Definitely.
4. Sure, why not? But then again, what does that get you that allowing more (or physically larger) turrets doesn't?
5. Why limit dedicated point-defense weaponry to military ships?
6-8. Sure.
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One of the things that bothers me about LBB2 is that the only place where high TL actually is better rather than just bigger (which allows economies of scale) is the TL-15 (Size W-Z) drives. It just seems odd that whatever TL-15 brings to the table for the largest drives can't be applied to smaller drives as well, and that there are no incremental TL improvements at lower TLs.
The big thing about the LBB2 paradigm is that it allows trading off ship size for capability within a TL, rather than applying a flat capability cap by TL the way LBB5 does.
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Rats, thanks to the edit time limit I have to post an additional post.
Yes, the pp fuel formula need revision to (desired coefficient) x hull displacement x pp number
No fuel processors should be ship mounted ever - otherwise the first thing a merchant should do is sell their ship and but fuel purification plants for every type C starport...
Quad turrets since they are a thing in T5 and MgT now.
Yes, the pp fuel formula need revision to (desired coefficient) x hull displacement x pp number
No fuel processors should be ship mounted ever - otherwise the first thing a merchant should do is sell their ship and but fuel purification plants for every type C starport...
Quad turrets since they are a thing in T5 and MgT now.
I mean, I could see it be argued either way, you would not want a one off or prototype drive, only the tried and true, it's the way it is done now. So its likely that the lower TL drives would not be re-engineered.
edit: Also one could argue maintenance, if the higher TL drives could only be maintained at higher TL starports.
I can see the maintenance aspect.
On the other hand, LBB2 has Z drives that are up to 2 1/2 times as powerful for their size and cost than they "should" be if the underlying formulae that set the rest of the Drive Performance Table's values were followed (the Z Drive in 3KTd is Factor 6 where it "should" be Factor 2.4). This is the extreme case; the other TL-15 drive use cases are more in the range of 10-30% better than they "should" be.
Getting a 60% discount on your ship's drives (as well as the extra space) might be worth some logistical awkwardness.
On the other other hand, TL 15 is the only TL at which the ratings diverge upward from the expected values, so perhaps the ability to build "better" drives is limited to TL 15. This may well be due to publishing constraints: page-size at the very least, plus not wanting to use values higher than 24 because they ran out of letters. That said, it's the rules as they were written, and interpretation of the underlying reasoning is left to the reader.
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There's also the availability aspect. Just because TL 15 exists in the 3I (or whatever setting) doesn't mean that it's widely distributed. One could easily assert that TL 15 items are controlled military technology and highly classified and restricted.
Depends are what your goals are in doing a Ship Construction and Combat.
Personally, I would start would combat and work backwards.
A key example is if you want "fighters", as in small craft buzzing around big craft and able to actually do anything.
What are your fighting ranges, what's your damage philosophy, does maneuver matter.
Then you get to run a bunch of sims to tweak and tune your parameters.
Only once you have combat settled, once you have the combat capabilities and things that affect combat, then I would turn to design. Mostly once you know how lethal Weapon X is, you can better potentially understand how much it should cost.
Personally, I would start would combat and work backwards.
A key example is if you want "fighters", as in small craft buzzing around big craft and able to actually do anything.
What are your fighting ranges, what's your damage philosophy, does maneuver matter.
Then you get to run a bunch of sims to tweak and tune your parameters.
Only once you have combat settled, once you have the combat capabilities and things that affect combat, then I would turn to design. Mostly once you know how lethal Weapon X is, you can better potentially understand how much it should cost.
This applies to trade and commerce rules as well. Decide on what kinds of ships can be profitable while carrying generic cargo, and work the drive and hull costs to provide a reasonable return on investment at the expected rates for generic cargo.
This will, unfortunately, be a tedious process.
Indeed.
Ship makers can't make ships that cargo haulers will buy if they can't pay for the ship with their cargo rates. Similarly, cargo rates are inextricably tied to the cost of the ship, the cost to crew it, and the cost to fuel and run it. But neither is done in a vacuum.
And how does TL improve things? Or does that matter?
But then we get into the whole currency trading dynamic of a TL11 Credit vs a TL15 Credit, etc. etc.
I don't know anyone (not even Spinward...) that's gone to that level of modeling. What happens if you're running a TL15 ship among a bunch of TL11-12 systems, or a TL11 ship in a TL15 area?
Mind reels...but these are the realities of the economy.
Looking at ships as a whole, the benefits to the TL 15 drives are one of the only real things they get for being TL 15.
Personally, my feelings are to keep them simple, the design sequences are good eough in a lot of ways, with just a few tweaks. In the past I had almost redesigned them from the ground up as fusion-torch ships, and that just meant I had to do a lot more record keeping as ref.
Not ruling that out
Se that's and idea that I have notes on but not much more.
YES!
I would like to rejigger the the relative tonnages of the drives to be more along the lines of Book5 as well i.e. the power Plant is the big drive.
Currently I reset the minimum Maneuver drive as linear per letter code. While resetting the letter codes directly this severely limits anything over 1 performance for the larger hulls. Though I have been playing with multiple drives for the bigger hulls as well.
My fix on this was to reassign power plant fuel to Maneuver drive fuel and base the fuel use on the E.P. required to power said Maneuver Drive for that Hull class.
Note interpretive reading of Book5 on E.P. and agility gives the cost of powering the Maneuver Drive.
This is a fairly straightforward interpretation if you start with the '77 rules (PP only supports M-Drive) but set aside the Td per Pn (not per Pn x Td) allocation.
Ought to bump up the fuel burn rate per EP per turn, but allow idling down (you're not firing the lasers 24/7 either...)
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The EP is a pointless contrivance. The energy needed to move a ship at multiple g acceleration is vastly greater than the EP needed for a beam laser for example.
The CT rule of power plant letter greater than m-drive to allow for double fire is enough for me without having to re-invent the whole EP economy.
That said there is something to be gained for roleplaying the engineer if they have the task of allocating limited power, risking over clocking the power plant etc.
The CT rule of power plant letter greater than m-drive to allow for double fire is enough for me without having to re-invent the whole EP economy.
That said there is something to be gained for roleplaying the engineer if they have the task of allocating limited power, risking over clocking the power plant etc.
