Fighters are ineffective in High Guard/TCS???

[Darley51]

Help me understand why fighters and other small, but fast attack craft are ineffective under High Guard and TCS... I've been watching the discussion, but don't quite get it...

Yes, a larger frame allows for more armor and screens... but doesn't a smaller, faster vehicle allow for more agility?

Thanks!

 

[Bob Weaver]

Help me understand why fighters and other small, but fast attack craft are ineffective under High Guard and TCS... I've been watching the discussion, but don't quite get it...

Yes, a larger frame allows for more armor and screens... but doesn't a smaller, faster vehicle allow for more agility?

Thanks!

Darley, when you consider that 'small craft' are limited to 1 turret/max 3 weapons to calculate attack factor, and they often don't have the large computers of the battleships or destroyers, their to-hit numbers become very poor. Take a TL15 missile-carrying fighter. It's got 3 missiles for a factor of 3. The base to-hit number is 5. It's facing an opponent with maxed out agility (6) which is easy to do at TL 15. The fighter may have a decent model/4 computer, but it's target has a model/9. So add to the base to-hit number 6 for the target's agility and 5 for the difference in computers, and viola, a to-hit number of 16+. Impossible with 2D6. Turn it around, and the model/9 ship has a positive DM of 5 which cancels out most of the fighter's agility defensive DM. Then, the "attack factor > size code = critical hit" rule makes fighters short-lived once targeted.
Even faced with another fighter identical to itself, the DMs are bad - 6 for agility and 2 for a size-0 target. To-hit number: 13+ Still impossible. Small craft can't fit in the large batteries needed to bring the base to-hit numbers down enough to make scoring a hit likely; nor can they survive hits from the big guns. Check the to-hit tables (pp. 45-47) and you'll see what I mean.

Best Regards,

Bob W.

 

[skyth]

Another factor is that the only weapon that a fighter can reasonable carry and have power for other things is the nuclear missile. (Assuming Armor-15 target...Nukes and pulse lasers are the only non-spinal/meson that can actually do damage)

Nukes for a fighter max out at level 3, and it is impossible to penetrate a decent nuclear damper (Level 6 or higher) with a 3 missile

 

[Darley51]

Bummer!

Fair enough.

Apparently, I've been watching too much television and not playing enough Traveller (shock, gasp, grrrk!):rofl:

Thanks! A small portion of my ignorance has been corrected.

 

[Bob Weaver]

Fair enough.

Apparently, I've been watching too much television and not playing enough Traveller (shock, gasp, grrrk!):rofl:

Thanks! A small portion of my ignorance has been corrected.

A lot of folk around here want Traveller fighters to act like Star Wars fighters, but as the rules are written, they just don't. High Guard is an abstract/wargame rules set, not a PC-level tactical combat rules set. I learned this the hard way - check out Jeffr0's thread in the Classic Traveller section "2009 PBEM Trillion Credit Squadron Tournament", and the results summary: http://jeffro.wordpress.com/2009/03...credit-squadron-round-robin-tournament-notes/
My squadron had fighter craft, and they were completely useless except as missile magnets.:toast:

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[Jeffr0]

My squadron had fighter craft, and they were completely useless except as missile magnets.:toast:

But they made marvelous wooshing sounds as they veered through the hard science Newtonian ether!



As a referee, I really like that small ships are punished so severely. (Less junk to keep up with it folks are rewarded for taking nice big mega-cruisers that are immune to such puny vessels...!) This has a lot of strategic implications that are interesting to contemplate if we can just let go of our WWII fighter combat model....

 

[Vargas]

I'm not sure there's a good way to make fighters effective against big ships and allow for slugfests between dreadnoughts at the same time. If fighter "sized" weapons capable of inflciting big damage exist, there's no need for heavily armed battleships. Conversely, if battleships can take a lot of punishment, it seems smarter to mass firepower than disperse it.

 

[Bob Weaver]

I'm not sure there's a good way to make fighters effective against big ships and allow for slugfests between dreadnoughts at the same time. If fighter "sized" weapons capable of inflicting big damage exist, there's no need for heavily armed battleships. Conversely, if battleships can take a lot of punishment, it seems smarter to mass firepower than disperse it.

An idea I've toyed with IMTU is the "bomber" ship - large, armed with planetary ordinance, but in need of (fighter) defense while it lumbers towards its target. But, as Jeffr0 pointed out, HG does not model WWII, so I've had trouble getting a balanced execution for this type of craft.

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[Bob Weaver]

But they made marvelous wooshing sounds as they veered through the hard science Newtonian ether!

:rofl::rofl:

 

[Hal]

One of High Guard's weaknesses as a combat game is this:

There are no provisions for WHY those battles take place with the ship hulls involved in the battle.

For example, using the original sensor rules from CT at the time HG first came out, we had rules for sensors such that:

Ordinary or commercial starships: one-half light-second
Military and scout starships: out to two light-seconds

"Ships which are maintaining complete silence cannot be detected at distances of
greater than half detection range; ships in orbit around a world and also maintaining
complete silence cannot be detected at distances greater than one-eighth detection
range. Planetary masses and stars will completely conceal a ship from detection."

Right under that paragraph on detection, it states that tracking can occur up to 3 light seconds (doesn't seem to matter if commercial or military for some odd reason).

Now I ask you a simple question <evil grin>

How does any "fleet" detect another fleet in order to engage in battle?

Now, lets make matters worse shall we? Lets look at the rules from MAYDAY, where we have rules for integrating High Guard material with Mayday rules.

Mayday states:

"Two ships which have matched courses are considered to be at boarding range. Otherwise, all ships within five hexes of each other are considered to be at short range. Ships separated by more than 5 hexes are at long range. Ships beyond 15 hexes are out of range and may not fire."

The irony here is this - if you look earlier in the book, it states that the scale of each turn is 100 minutes, and that the scale of each hex is approximately 1 light second. Max detection range for military ships per CT's Book 2 is 2 light seconds for military ships - or 2 hexes.

At present, we have the situation where in High Guard, we have ships that can attack with Meson spinal mounts up to 15 hexes of range. I won't get into an analysis of the "to hit" modifiers and ranges per Mayday's combat resolution table - because that has problems of its own, including the simple fact that it doesn't match High Guard in its implementation of "odds of securing a hit".

Suffice to state - Mayday's attempt to integrate High Guard within itself was not perhaps, as well done as it could have been - and subsequently, people are advised NOT to use its basic concepts with Book 2: Starship combat rules, or with High Guard itself.

Oddly enough, even Book 2: Starship has contradictions inherent within its rules structure. What contradictions? Note that the longest range any ship can be tracked is 3 light seconds, or 3 meters on the tabletop. Yet, page 30 of Book 2: Starships, gives us the following range penalty to hit modifier in combat:

Range greater than 5000mm -5

Last I knew, range of 5,000 mm = 5 meters

Hmm. Max tracking range is 3 meters, max hitting range is greater than 5 meters...

Ok, so High Guard and Book 2: Starships both have issues pertaining to ranges, sensors, and what have you. My ultimate point however, is that unless you can spot your opponent, and can have targeting data on your target ship - you can't fire a weapon at them, let alone manuever towards them in order to have a battle.

Where High Guard has problems in the long run is that it can't be utilized to run a reasonably simple tactical battle. How simple? Imagine trying to entice your enemy fleet to come out of its "harbor" and engage in battle via manuever drive only. First, you can't spot an enemy more than 2 light seconds away. Second, you can't have two fleets such that the seeming "only attack fleet" around of say, 5 destroyer hulls manuevering to engage in battle, suddenly enter into jump space after the defender commits to engaging in battle with them. The real attack meanwhile, manuevers towards its real target from its original "out of sensor range" staring position. High Guard has no real rules for picket ships acting as sensor platforms, nor does it have rules for ships in the lead acting as the advance sensor and transmitting targeting data to ships out of sensor range, but within radio communications range.

 

[far-trader]

One might say the answer to a lot (if not all) of your questions and issues Hal is the same answer of how Fighters are effective

You have Fighters to extend your sensor range and find the enemy. Spread your Fighters out in a cloud and you can now detect, track, and relay target info back to your big guns to plink away at that 5m range with the penalty. And if the enemy doesn't have their own Fighter screen they can't detect your big ship to fire back. All they can do is plink away at your Fighter screen. The ones that get too close anyway, since once they have contact they can relay that to other Fighters out of detection range but within tracking range, and they can't be spotted by the enemy.

So every Fleet (worthy of the term) will have Fighter squadrons for sensor range. And if two such Fleets engage it will first be Fighter v Fighter, then Big Guns v Big Guns at long range and Big Guns v Fighters are short range, and finally Big Guns v Big Guns at short range. Not that HG goes into that mind you but it seems the logical way at a glance anyway.

 

[Jeffr0]

As much as people complain about the presumed weaknesses of High Guard... they tend to overlook the fact that it is the most successful and useful design and combat rules for Traveller and (indeed) any more-or-less hard science fleet combat. Trying to coordinate the various sketches presented in Mayday, Book 2, 5th Frontier War, and High Guard seems to be pretty silly, though.

Something like Brilliant Lances would come closer to addressing what Hal is talking about. I'm not sure I can find any people interested in playing that one though... but the scale is clearly at the rpg level and not the fleet game-- it just has component parts and rules that map ("realistically") to what is "actually" going on... like what Hal seems to be pushing for with his sensor rules and so forth.

Wait a sec. Trillion Credit Squadron (of course) addresses this exact issue:

TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE
In the communication segment (before engaging in combat) it is possible to
determine the approximate strength of enemy fleets in a system. Players should be
told the general size and number of enemy ships (for example 1 gigantic ship, 8
large ships, 20 small ships, and 200 fighters) and their approximate maneuver drive
sizes (but not agility). Ships carried inside other ships may not be detected. Once
battle is joined, all factors are revealed.

Ruling: sensors and fighter screens are essentially irrelevant to fleet campaigns in the far future.

Why not take that as a premise instead of just assuming it's a problem? Or at least just work under the assumption that worrying about such issues would be pointlessly tedious in an already accounting heavy game system...?

 

[Hal]

So every Fleet (worthy of the term) will have Fighter squadrons for sensor range. And if two such Fleets engage it will first be Fighter v Fighter, then Big Guns v Big Guns at long range and Big Guns v Fighters are short range, and finally Big Guns v Big Guns at short range. Not that HG goes into that mind you but it seems the logical way at a glance anyway.

Therein lies a very astute comment (and logical of course).

The problem with this kind of set up if you will, requires that there be a way to have a "fixed" map like environment coupled with the "Range resolution" of High Guard.

How long after the fighters or picket boats come within sensor ranges of each other before main fleet elements can engage either the sensor picket elements, or the detected fleet elements within long range for firing purposes yet outside of sensor ranges? Therein lies the puzzle I think. Then there were rules for "non-military" missiles with sensor payloads. Problem is - those sensor payloads were not itemized nor given ranges as best as I'm aware

 

[Hal]

Ruling: sensors and fighter screens are essentially irrelevant to fleet campaigns in the far future.

Why not take that as a premise instead of just assuming it's a problem? Or at least just work under the assumption that worrying about such issues would be pointlessly tedious in an already accounting heavy game system...?

The thing to remember is that when discussing the advantages versus disadvantages of any aspect of High Guard, people concentrate on ONE thing to the exclusion of others, and need to be reminded of the "other thing".

For example? Tactically speaking, taking a high Jump drive capability makes for a weaker ship in overall combat. Yet, we're told that the advantage of a higher Jump Drive rating is a strategic issue, one that comes into play at the strategic level.

My issue with the sensor rules ect, is that fighters have a STRATEGIC value outside of their tactical value of limited weapon factors and smaller hull capabilities forcing them to use smaller computers. Ultimately, a fleet that is fighting at a strategic limitation is not being made to fight at a tactical limit based on the strategic "advantages". Since there are no real benefits at the strategic level OR tactical level for fighters, the question of "What use are fighters" is a valid one. Trillion Credit Squadron answers the thorny issue of what is the strategic benefit of a high Jump drive value. Neither High Guard nor Trillion Credit Squadron answer the strategic benefit of sensor platforms.

 

[Maccat]

Fighter Effectiveness

Fighters *are* effective, it's just what they entail...
While true that fighters are limited in what they can hit due to the fire factor limits, they are also hard to hit. Being small (albeit expensive!) one can have a lot of them. A squadron of fighters in the battle line will protect your reserve line unless totally eliminated. This could allow GG refueling, battle repairs etc. for weakened ships.
Not all ships are agility 6 and max computer, besides at TLD (13) + a fighter can hit anything other than another fighter, below that anything 2kt or greater. *Sometime* during a battle, assuming any hit that degrades agility or computer, ships become even more vulnerable to fighters.
Prior to TLD it takes 600t of ship to even be able to hit a fighter, after TLD 400t, assuming you dedicate your missiles for that, otherwise it's more like 1000t. So this could have the effect of whittling on one's opponent when they can't afford to direct firepower away from the big ship fight. They'd be very useful "mopping up" say prior to a boarding action. In a long/big fight, they could very well swing the battle, say by deploying them once the initial salvoes soften up the enemy's battle line.

TL effects! a missile fighter...
TL 9-12:
Agility 5 with max computer would make a fighter immune to other fighters.
Agility 6 with max computer would need:
FF5 (6trp) Missile (only at long range)
FF8 (10trp) Beam Laser (only at short range)
FF8 (10du.) Fusion (only at short range)
FFD+ (spinal) Meson
to be hit on a 12,
FF7/8 missile hit on 11, FF9 missile hit on 10, PA Spinals work as well!
It would be able to hit any agility 6 craft 2000t (size B) on a 12
It would be able to hit any agility 6 craft 20000t (size L) on an 11
TL 13+
because of the missile fire factor shift, w/ max computer takes agility 6 to be immune.
would need:
FF5 (4trp) Missile
FF8 (7trp) Beam laser
FF8 (8du.) Fusion
etc
It would be able to hit any agility 6 craft 100t (size 1) on a 12
It would be able to hit any agility 6 craft 2000t (size B) on an 11
It would be able to hit any agility 6 craft 20000t (size L) on a 10
It can hit anything other than another fighter!!!

Example TLC missile fighter:
Class: Shrike Heavy Missile Fighter
Type: Heavy Missile Fighter
Architect: AM

USP FM-0106D61-000000-00002-0 MCr 160.750 75 Tons
Bat Bear 1 Crew: 1
Bat 1 TL: 12
Cargo: 0.250 Fuel: 9.750 EP: 9.750 Agility: 6
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops
Architects Fee: MCr 1.608 Cost in Quantity: MCr 128.600

Example TLD missile fighter:
Class: Shrike Mark D Heavy Missile Fighter
Type: Heavy Missile Fighter
Architect: AM

USP FM-0106G71-000000-00003-0 MCr 164.150 70 Tons
Bat Bear 1 Crew: 1
Bat 1 TL: 13
Cargo: 0.500 Fuel: 11.200 EP: 11.200 Agility: 6
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops
Architects Fee: MCr 1.642 Cost in Quantity: MCr 131.320

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

Hal is entirely correct when he points out that TCS strategic focus provided the necessary "proof" for the canonical benefits of high jump ratings while HG2's tactical focus provided no "proof" for the same. The point Hal is trying to make (and correct me if I'm wrong, Hal!) is that there is currently no "proof" of the canonical effectiveness and/or utility of fighters in either TCS, HG2, or any other Traveller space combat system.

This lack of "proof" exists because Traveller is "missing" a game that covers one of wargaming's three basic scales. Traveller has tactical level space combat games like Mayday and HG2 and strategic level space combat games like TCS. What it lacks is an operational level space combat system(1). Putting it in simple terms, Traveller has a game in which you move within a battle and a game in which you move within a star cluster, but lacks a game in which you move within a star system.

It is in an operational level wargame that the utility of fighters and other small craft would be seen. Hal's assertion that the ability of fighters and small craft to extend a friendly force's sensor reach while also limiting the enemy's is entirely correct. It will take the design and release of an operational level space combat game for Traveller to provide "proof" of the canonical combat utility of fighters and other small craft.

I believe that a game partially based on TNE's "Battle Rider" could be the answer. That game uses vector movement like Mayday, cuts down on the number die rolls by focusing on critical hits, and requires a player to move his ships in formation. If the game's scale were expanded so that most of the map were beyond a ship's sensor/weapon range and some sort of hidden movement employed, scouting groups of fighters and/or small craft would prove very useful. Of course, fiddling with the game's scale would also require fiddling with both the movement system and timing. That would be no small task.

Finally, any discussion about the lack of combat effectiveness for both fighters and small craft must also address other issues. First, fighters are frighteningly effective against the ship sizes most PCs will be operating; a Tigress may laugh at a single Rampart but a Beowulf would be well advised not to tangle with one. Remember, Traveller is a RPG first and a wargame second, so the "player scale" aspect is one that cannot be overlooked.

Second, the lack of combat effectiveness is strongly linked to tech level. HG2 ship construction, and thus ship combat, can begin from TL7. At lower tech levels, generally held to be below TL12, where nuclear dampers are weak, power plants huge, and the computer gap narrow fighters are the "arm of decision". Fighter "swarms" can mission kill all but the most specifically designed warships in single combat rounds.


Regards,
Bill

1 - TNE's "Brilliant Lances" game does include some operational aspects, particularly it's inclusion of sensor lock hand-offs. However, as one poster has already written, "Brilliant Lances" uses individual ships detailed to such a degree as to completely prevent its use for battles using either large ships or large numbers of ships.

 

[Jeffr0]

Mayday states:

"Two ships which have matched courses are considered to be at boarding range. Otherwise, all ships within five hexes of each other are considered to be at short range. Ships separated by more than 5 hexes are at long range. Ships beyond 15 hexes are out of range and may not fire."

The irony here is this - if you look earlier in the book, it states that the scale of each turn is 100 minutes, and that the scale of each hex is approximately 1 light second. Max detection range for military ships per CT's Book 2 is 2 light seconds for military ships - or 2 hexes.

A nitpick that has nothing to do with your point:

Mayday's boarding rules are contradicted by High Guard:

Disabled enemy ships may be captured by boarding. In order for boarding to
take place, two conditions must be satisfied.
First, the ship to be boarded must be disabled; it must be incapable of maneuvering,
all of its offensive weapons must be disabled, and it must not have a working
black globe generator.
Second, it must be separated from protecting friendly ships; this is assumed to
occur if, at any point after the ship is disabled, the owning player has the initiative
and changes range from short to long (retreating, in effect).

 

[Jeffr0]

While true that fighters are limited in what they can hit due to the fire factor limits, they are also hard to hit. Being small (albeit expensive!) one can have a lot of them. A squadron of fighters in the battle line will protect your reserve line unless totally eliminated. This could allow GG refueling, battle repairs etc. for weakened ships.

So if you have more fighters than he has average hit potential... your whole fleet can hide behind a few measly fighters to all roll 9+'s to repair disabled batteries.

That is not useless.

Also...

given High Guard's screen/reserve rules and the really stringent boarding rules... you'd think people would have a high chance of being completely and randomly destroyed if they got inside of so-called "short" range of even minimally armed ships...?

Maybe there's some sort of "suicide" range that high-agility fleets could theoretically get to after they keep the range at short for a couple turns...?

 

[Hal]

A nitpick that has nothing to do with your point:

Apparently, I didn't do a good job of linking my points. By the by, Bill's comments are, as usual, far more eloquent than what I manage to do, and he makes my points more clearly. Thanks Bill!

But as to the specific reason why I mentioned the range and scale in Mayday is this...

Book 2's scales were such that max sensor range for military sensors is 2 light seconds, and max tracking range once you gain a sensor lock, is 3 light seconds. After that, the ship is out of sensor range. If out of sensor range, the question becomes one of "How do you shoot at something you can't sense without it being blind shooting?"

The link between Mayday and Book 2 is that Mayday is supposed to be a hex based boardgame version of the vector movement (or so it was presumed by myself at the time). Yet? Each hex is one light second in range. Anything beyond 3 hexes should automatically not be able to be targeted by active fire. Now, is Mayday a stand alone game, not to be confused with Book 2 combat rules, or is it an adjunct to Book 2, meant to turn a vector based pencil and paper game into a tabletop hex based wargame? If the the former, then my mistake. If the latter, then there was a mistake made with the sensor rules.

 

[Whipsnade]

So if you have more fighters than he has average hit potential... your whole fleet can hide behind a few measly fighters to all roll 9+'s to repair disabled batteries. That is not useless.

Jeffr0,

Yes, that isn't useless. It's also little more than a game artifact.

You can't come up with any plausible explanation for odder aspects of HG2's Line-Reserve mechanism. The idea that one measly fighter somehow shielding an entire fleet from an enemy's fire is both mind-boggling and unexplainable.

It's similar to what happens to trucks, scout cars, and light tanks in Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz. The rules don't really allow for those units to be used in the manner they were actually used, so players use them as sacrificial roadblocks instead.

Keeping this in mind, I don't think we can use the Line-Reserve mechanism to deduce much about the role of fighter's in Traveller space combat.

Something I do find interesting, however, is that little gem you found in HG2's boarding rules. I've been putzing around with Our Olde Game for over thirty years now and I'm still surprised by all the little rules and concepts tucked away in various parts of CT's text. A few years back, S4 found a space combat mini-game tucked away in some skill descriptions and now you've brought our attention to a "loophole" in HG2's movement mechanism that has been "hidden" in the boarding rules.

I've always put up with the many oddities created by HG2's "range band" movement system, especially with the nonsensical "movement" of vessels with little or no capacity to move. A ship could lose all fuel, its entire power plant, or its entire maneuver drive and yet it could still be "moved" into either the Line and Reserve and "keep up" with the battle.

You could (barely) explain moving a crippled ship from the Line to Reserve; the fleet's remaining ships move into position to shield the crippled one, but there was no way to explain a crippled ship moving from the Reserve to the Line or the fact that a crippled ship could somehow keep up with the fleet. Like scout cars being used as roadblocks, you just accepted it as an artifact of the game's rules.

Now, however, tucked into the boarding rules is a rule concerning "disabled" ships. If a ship is disabled and the force she belongs to opens range, she's left behind. Of course, this hidden rule isn't perfect and doesn't solve all the problems inherent with the "range band" movement system. "Disabled" also requires that a ship has no offensive weapons and the owning player must be the one who opens the range, but the rule opens up all sorts of tactical issues I'd never been aware of before.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention!


Regards,
Bill