Defining other roles for Traveller Starships

[Vladika]

...the true workhorse within the battle lines would be the 1,000,000t jump 4/6 tender. (jump 4 with riders but build it with a jump 6 engine so it has more flexibility if fitted with extra fuel modules or drop tanks).

Now I'm curious. Do you count the 1,000,000dtonne Tender as J6 (70,000dt Jump Drive[7%]) then ADD 400,000dtonnes of Riders (or whatever) for a TOTAL 1,400,000dtonne ship & load? (70,000/1,400,000=.05 or J4 Drive[5%] for the larger load.)

 

[pendragonman]

Normally riders are carries craft like cutters or ship's boats. So the 400 ktons of riders would be part of the 1000 kton dispersed structure.

I am guessing that for J6 performance he reduces the # of riders for the extra fuel space.

 

[Piper]

... the problem is that everyone takes the 2d6 game and tries to make it a serious wargame. can't do it. making it into a serious wargame requires a full start-over re-write ...

Which (as I remember) is pretty much what Battle Rider did which goes to prove your point.

Just asking (and if this smacks of thread drift I'll un-ask it on request) what's on your short list of serious space wargames?

 

[Vladika]

Normally riders are carries craft like cutters or ship's boats. So the 400 ktons of riders would be part of the 1000 kton dispersed structure.

This has always been my understanding of the rules. That and 1,000,000dton ships as a maximum size.

I am guessing that for J6 performance he reduces the # of riders for the extra fuel space.

Could be. Another solution would be Drop Tanks, which I am certain Mike will be using for deployment for battle. I also know he uses drop tank Tankers. I, alas, await his response.

 

[flykiller]

what's on your short list of serious space wargames?

heh. the one I'm trying to put together .... but when I posted it some time ago no-one was interested.

but I still think in terms of hex boards. I'm really out of the loop and I have no idea what else is out there, so I can't say. I suppose a modern serious game would be lan-based 1st-person double-blind.

 

[robject]

Anything over a million tons must be a pain to maintain, or even build.

Anything much over a million tons is more like an event than a ship. It's something to assault, rather than board.

The TL9 or TL10 Loeskalth built at least one 50-billion-ton planetoid starship. But who would want to design that with a ship design system? It's more like a tiny planet with jump drives than a ship*.


* And if you think that sounds odd, remember that the Ancients had jump-capable planets.

 

[Vladika]

Anything much over a million tons is more like an event than a ship. It's something to assault, rather than board.

Very true as it would have a minimum of 1,000 ships troops or marines aboard as CREW! No telling how many more are aboard.

 

[Piper]

heh. the one I'm trying to put together .... but when I posted it some time ago no-one was interested.

Any chance you could send me a link to this?

but I still think in terms of hex boards.

You mean there's some other kind???

 

[flykiller]

Any chance you could send me a link to this?

would have to get a website again first so not any time soon, but it would be good to finish it and post it, just so it can be said that it was done. so, maybe. it would be announced here - of course - so you'll see it.

 

[McPerth]

This has always been my understanding of the rules. That and 1,000,000dton ships as a maximum size.

In fact, I don't remember having read a maximum anywhere in HG. While size Y is 1000000, size Z is only defined as "reserved", not giving any number. I always thought this will be handled as with massive numbers of turrets, whose battery numbers are given as X, Y or Z in the USP and in the bottom line is told X=#.

Could be. Another solution would be Drop Tanks, which I am certain Mike will be using for deployment for battle. I also know he uses drop tank Tankers. I, alas, await his response.

I would not rely on drop tanks for offensive opperations, as you're likely to run out of them (and anyway they take too much tonnage, unless dismantled, but that will stop you for a while to mount them).

They can be useful on defensive opperations to move reserves with lower intra-jump time or to profit maximum jump capacity by jumping to an empty hex...

 

[mike wightman]

Now I'm curious. Do you count the 1,000,000dtonne Tender as J6 (70,000dt Jump Drive[7%]) then ADD 400,000dtonnes of Riders (or whatever) for a TOTAL 1,400,000dtonne ship & load? (70,000/1,400,000=.05 or J4 Drive[5%] for the larger load.)

You can do it that way if you use the drop tank performance rule, or the example of the jump tug in S:9, and IMTU I have use such a fudge

But I can't help feeling for a competition game that it is something for nothing due to the fact that if you built the tender as a "smaller" ship with oversized drives and then add riders/drop tanks you are getting away with using a smaller bridge.

I suppose you could assume that the riders link their bridges and computers to the tender.

Size code Z - reserved, build it as big as you like

 

[flykiller]

one last post for an alice module - the imperial marine expeditionary battalion.

(I'm too sick to finish this. I'll finish it later. long and the short of it is the alice can carry an entire marine battalion that has full electronic warfare, robotic, transport, maintenance, and medical support. it also has full training and cargo facilities, full lowberth facilities for long transits, and a seat on a lifeboat for every individual. it has no screens or dedicated underwater capability.)

naval weapons are of great destructive power and can handle most targets, but there are some installations which must be captured intact and some situations where big guns are not appropriate. imperial marines are deployed to apply a more careful and more precise destruction, almost always within existing structures.

a long verbal description follows. some may find it more profitable to skip to the bottom to see the battalion displayed graphically.

the marine battalion consists of head quarters, two infantry companies, a reduced armor company, and three support platoons for electromagnetic warfare (emw), special ops, and special teams. in addition there is an associated naval combat support department consisting of headquarters, maintenance division, medical division, and flight division. these supply not only the obvious rear support but also deploy personnel into the field with the marines for on-the-spot technical support.

each individual in the battalion and the department has two dtons of personal space, .5dtons of gear locker, and a lowberth. each marine has a full range of gear which is selected at mission time. cargo facilities allow ten months endurance. in addition there are other facilities specified later.

the standard fireteam consists of three privates and a corporal.

the infantry squad consists of three fireteams and a sergeant. the squad also includes a navy corpsman from the medical division and a marine communications tech from the emw platoon.

the support squad consists of a sergeant and three teams. the first team is three marine missileers - one corporal and two privates. the second team is three marines in battledress with FGMP-14's - one corporal and two privates. the third team is navy support - one combat armor technician, one weapons technician, and one general mechanic. one of these is a petty officer.

a platoon command section consists of a lieutenant, a staff sergeant, a private, a corpsman (petty officer), and a communications tech (corporal).

the platoon consists of a command section, three infantry squads, and one support squad.

the platoon is mounted on four 20dton standard frame infantry gigs. each gig can hold up to sixteen troops total. the infantry squads mount on their own gigs while the command section and support squad share one gig. each gig is piloted by two naval warrant officers and has 4g in full hover mode, unlimited life support endurance, a week's worth of fuel, and a bow-mounted VRF or chain gun.




imperial marine expeditionary battalion

hq
cmnd 54M
ofc 3Ss
s1 1sc
s2 3Sc
s3 4FS
s4 3Ss

A Co (infantry) (14i)
cmnd 32FSc[C][CfPfPf]
1plt 1Sp[c][P]
1sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
2sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
3sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
4sqd s cpp cpp [Pff]
2plt 1Sp[c][P]
1sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
2sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
3sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
4sqd s cpp cpp [Pff]
3plt 1Sp[c][P]
1sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
2sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
3sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
4sqd s cpp cpp [Pff]

B Co (infantry) (14i)
cmnd 32FSc[C][CfPfPf]
1plt 1Sp[c][P]
1sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
2sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
3sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
4sqd s cpp cpp [Pff]
2plt 1Sp[c][P]
1sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
2sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
3sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
4sqd s cpp cpp [Pff]
3plt 1Sp[c][P]
1sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
2sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
3sqd s cppp cppp cppp [pf]
4sqd s cpp cpp [Pff]

C Co (armor) (10t)
(listed by crew)
cmnd 3sc[w] Fcp[w]
1plt 1sc[w] scp[w] Scp[w] scp[w]
2plt 1sc[w] scp[w] Scp[w] scp[w]

D Co (emw) (3e 1i)
cmnd 3F
emw 1S ss[ww] ss[ww] ss[ww]
comm 1S
Asec s cppp cppp cppp
Bsec s cppp cppp cppp
Csec s cppp cppp cppp

E Co (spec ops) (4i)
cmnd 3F
A S sccc sccc sccc
B S sccc sccc sccc
C S sccc sccc sccc

F Co (spec teams) (3i)
cmnd 3F
exod S scpp scpp scpp
snip S scpp scpp scpp
rbts S scpp scpp scpp

 

[McPerth]

Recovery ships

This may be just rabish, but I was thinking about the recovery ships and I reached the conclusión in most cases the same Tenders might perform that role:

For raiders, of course, there is no problem.

For Tenders:

>see that a J4 M1 Tender will have about 60% of its volume tied up (40% jump fuel, 2% MF, 5% JD, 4% PP, 4% PP fuel, let's say 5% accomodations), so leaving about 40% payload (mostly BRs).

>most Tenders (if not all) will be irregular configuration, so I can envision them as being a core ship plus extendible arms to hold the BRs. If so, those extendible arms can be asily folded, reducing its tonnage to about 60% of the loaded ship.

>assuming both above premises are accepted, two Tenders could easily mate, resulting in a combo about 120-130% of one Tender's volume. The combo, by using just the JD of one of the tenders would have about J3 capability, enough for recovery in most cases.

Of course, recovering Battleships would be more difficult, unless the tenders are quite larger than them. Even if equal in tonnage the combo would be about 160-170% of each of them, allowing it to perform about J2.