All good ideas
CT+ Ships
- Thread starter infojunky
- Start date
That in theory sounds nice, but a lot of work is needed to recreate Civilian ships.
???? You mean T4 system?
(Bold added)
EPs are there to force trade-offs in the LBB5 ship design/combat economy (which they do quite nicely in that system).
Obviously, energy weapons do require non-trivial power input, so some power generation is necessary. How much, though?
LBB5 literally handwaves the energy requirement for maneuver drives, while LBB2 does likewise for energy weapons and ECM transmissions (computer EP loads).
THANK YOU.
EPs are there to force trade-offs in the LBB5 ship design/combat economy (which they do quite nicely in that system).
Obviously, energy weapons do require non-trivial power input, so some power generation is necessary. How much, though?
LBB5 literally handwaves the energy requirement for maneuver drives, while LBB2 does likewise for energy weapons and ECM transmissions (computer EP loads).
While I like mid-size ships universes (<= 20KTd - just big enough for ST:TOS/TAS and SFTM ships), I'm not nostalgic for book 2 design. I'd use the HG design, and a tons per hit mode.
| System | Td per hit can take | notes |
| Bridge | 20 | |
| Computer | 1 | |
| Power plant | 3 | From LBB2 rate |
| Jump Drive | 5 | From LBB2 rate |
| Maneuver Drive | 2 | From LBB2 rate |
| Fuel | 20 | |
| Cargo bay | 25 | |
| Passenger Quarters/Seats | 20 | |
| Turrets, Barbettes to 5Td | --- | 1 each |
| Major Weapons | 10 | (10, 50, 100 Td Bays at 1, 5, 10) |
| Armor | 0.2 | 5 hits per TD. |
| Hull integrity | 50 | |
| Carried Craft (not Small Craft) | 1 per 25 Td | |
| Small Craft | own | Small Craft round down. |
Custom Hit Locations tables, too...
Fill by most hits allocating things to slots in the following order [7, 8, 6, 9, 5, 10, 4, 11, 3, 12, 2]; break ties by tonnage. Do not include Armor. If slots empty, reallocate, dividing the biggest n systems in twain, where n is number of empty slots. Put critical hits as 2 or 12 (designer's choice)
If too many types installed, combine smallest together 2-3 per line.
Armor always goes on 7 if installed, and as many other locations as its rating, but doesn't count for filling the table. Where the armor fits on the chart is a design decision.
Systems damaged past hits remaining shift towards 7. empty 7 is crit
So the type S would have
| Item | Tons | Hits | Hit location | -=-=- | 2d6 | Location hit | |
| Hull | 100 | 2 | 7 | 2 | Computer or Turret | ↙ | |
| Bridge | 20 | 1 | 5 | 3 | Maneuver | ↙ | |
| Computer | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | Power Plant | ↙ | |
| PP | 4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | Bridge | ↙ | |
| MD | 1 | 1 | 3 | 6 | Fuel | ↙ | |
| JD | 10 | 2 | 8 | 7 | Hull Integrity | Critical | |
| Quarters | 16 | 1 | 10 | 8 | Jump Drive | ↖ | |
| Turret | 1 | 1 | 2 | 9 | Cargo | ↖ | |
| Fuel | 22 | 1 | 6 | 10 | Quarters | ↖ | |
| Air/Raft Bay/Raft | 4 | 1 | 11 | 11 | Air/Raft | ↖ | |
| Cargo/mission bay | 21 | 1 | 9 | 12 | Critical | ↖ |
I've used this, tho' not recently.
I have been making damage tracks with checkboxes since 1986...
Hunter or MJD also came up with the same idea of tons per hit separately, as I found out in the T20 playtest.
The custom tables idea is inspired by Brilliant Lances...
Now I am really going to have to give T20 closer read.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Quite, but that is inherent in changing systems.
Hance, we don't do it, just talk a lot about it...
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Tons per hit is in MT, but only used in the vehicle combat system IIRC, not space combat.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
That is the LBB2 TL advantage; it allows bigger ships, that are more efficient.
Small ships are inefficient seems to be the basic premise of LBB2.
And you are locked into it. A certain TL proscribes the size of ship, with efficiency based on size, rather than efficiency based on TL directly, leaving ship size variable, as in LBB5 (and all later systems).
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
No hand-wave in LBB5, it's a rather central concept called Agility.
Agility is how much acceleration you have the power for, while using other power-hungry systems.
The M-drive needs the output of a PP rated to the same number. A M-Drive-2 in a 100 Dt hull requires the output of a PP-2, i.e. 2 EP, for full acceleration. Give it 2 EP get 2 G, give it 1 EP you get 1 G, give it 0 EP get 0 G.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
If 1 EP is capable of providing 1g acceleration to a 100t ship then either your laser weapons are ridiculously overpowered and will melt your own ship with their waste heat (Striker gives beam lasers an efficiency of 25%, while a pulse laser is 33%) or the m-drive is a perpetual motion machine...
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Like I said earlier - unless there is a mini game behind the EP economy during combat then you may as well ignore it. The equivalence between 1EP for a computer, 1EP for a laser and 1EP for accelerating 100t at 1g are ridiculous.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Obviously yes on both counts.
Waste heat is a separate issue that is studiously ignored in Traveller.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Heated shot or hot shot is round shot that is heated before firing from muzzle-loading cannons, for the purpose of setting fire to enemy warships, buildings, or equipment. The use of heated shot dates back centuries; it was a powerful weapon against wooden warships, where fire was always a hazard. However, it was rendered obsolete in the mid-19th century when vessels armored with iron replaced wooden warships in the world's navies. Also at around the same-time, the replacement of solid-iron shot with exploding shells gave artillery a far more destructive projectile that could be fired immediately without preparation.[1]
The use of heated shot was mainly confined to shore batteries and forts, due to the need for a special furnace to heat the shot, and their use from a ship was in fact against Royal Navy regulations because they were so dangerous, although the American ship USS Constitution had a shot furnace installed for hot shot to be fired from her carronades.[2] The French Romaine-class frigates originally also featured the device, but they proved impractical, dangerous to the ships themselves, and were later discarded.[3]
In battle, transfer the heat to a special chamber in a torpedo warhead.
The use of heated shot was mainly confined to shore batteries and forts, due to the need for a special furnace to heat the shot, and their use from a ship was in fact against Royal Navy regulations because they were so dangerous, although the American ship USS Constitution had a shot furnace installed for hot shot to be fired from her carronades.[2] The French Romaine-class frigates originally also featured the device, but they proved impractical, dangerous to the ships themselves, and were later discarded.[3]
In battle, transfer the heat to a special chamber in a torpedo warhead.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
We can easily make it; Use the laser turret or accelerate, decide each round. Impractical for many ships, quite doable for a single ship.
Edit: As in MgT2.
Yet that is what CT chose.
Shipboard weapons with a range in lightseconds and big computers use a lot of power, just as they would today.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
If it is for resolving ship combat during a session of role playing then it has to be character interaction with the combat rules.
The underlying physics of those rules should be consistent with the setting science paradigms.
The underlying physics of those rules should be consistent with the setting science paradigms.
Not exactly. LBB5 rules as written, a ship flown at 1G acceleration for a month straight uses 1%Td of fuel. A ship left parked in orbit, not maneuvering at all, also uses 1%Td of fuel (under the TCS powerdown rule). So at least 1G of continuous acceleration is literally free, or at least its fuel cost is buried in baseload operational requirements.
Of course, without the powerdown rule it's even worse.
