Fighters verse Type S scout ships

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Fighters. Any System. Scouts are for scouting. If going on the cheap, give them model 1's strip out the J-Drives and make it a Fireship.

We have a philosophy at the Consortium about fighters. A fighter should be small. 50 tons is a big target. It is better to shed four 10 ton fighters in the hull space of what you would use on a 50-ton fighter.

Fighters have at least 6g and agility 6 if they want to even enter a battle and survive. Fighting in a scout at 2g? Madness.

 

[mike wightman]

High Guard.
Ideally a fighter will have the best computer for it's TL, a bridge, man/agl 6/6, and the highest weapon factor it can manage. Armour is a luxury since a fighter's survival is based on not being hit.
To get all of that into the smallest hull possible is the design challenge, and at low TLs trade offs have to be made.

They are bleedin expensive though.

LBB2
the 6g ship's boat is the vessel of choice as a heavy fighter, the 10t fighter is ideal for getting a lot of missiles onto a target.

 

[Icosahedron]

Putting a battlefield meson gun on a smallcraft could be a bit of a surprise to anything that gets too close...

I have those - mainly used for softening up ground targets, though. You'd need to get very close to use it in space.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The fighter question; like I mentioned on another thread all of the major governments, particularly the Imperium, probably use a variety of fighters. Light interceptor type of craft or heavy fighter-bombers.

I've often imagined that everything from the VF-1S type Valkyries from Macross to Vipers from BSG, and a bunch of homegrown craft I've conjured myself. This being the case, I think the same can be said for scouts as well, although the official designs are limited.

The scene I have is a bunch of scout ships attached to a main Imperial battlefleet, and they skirmish with fighters and gunboats. I haven't played out the scenario, but I'm going to write it anyway, particularly since they're just a small part of a larger fleet. The scouts are there as another iron in the fire.

The revelation for me though, is that, as far as Traveller fighters go, I never imagined a fighter with a turret. But that's just me

 

[ditzie]

If you let me make some modifications, then I'll pick the Scout

 

[mike wightman]

Make all you like within the rules - it still won't win against a purpose built heavy fighter of equal TL.
The jump drive and fuel take up too much space that could be used for power plant, computer and armour.

Armouring the scout may make it more survivable - it only needs to downgrade the weapons factor to below the critical threshold to give it a chance of escaping, the actual amount of armour would depend on the TL of the fighters you are up against.

TL14+ fusion gun armed fighters are goint to ba a concern , weapon #5 requiring #8 armour to stand a chance.
TL13 you can get away with only #6 armour.
TL12 or less and #4 would do you.

 

[Icosahedron]

The revelation for me though, is that, as far as Traveller fighters go, I never imagined a fighter with a turret. But that's just me

LBB5 p34: "A small craft may mount the equivalent of one turret. In actuality, the mountings are probably rigid and no actual turret is present."

The key word is 'probably'. I read that to say that turrets are unusual but not impossible. I tend not to have turrets on my small craft, unless they are ground-attack weapons such as a chin-mount autocannon. In any case, a turret would need a separate gunner.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Yeah, that strikes me more as a "Your Traveller Universe may Vary" kind of statement, than a hardline rule.

To me "fighter" connotates a single or double seated high speed craft that's extremely nimble. It's so nimble that it doesn't need a turret, or if it does, than it's perhaps controlled by targetting software; i.e. it's not manned as such, unless controlled by a backseater (WIZ or RIO). A larger fighter might have a manned turret, where a fully automated fighter might sport a full triple, or maybe two smaller singles. Not really sure, but I guess the rules lean against that possibility.

But that's just my interpretation of how the rule could work.

I've gotten about four or five pages of single spaced fiction down that loosely feeds off this topic. Right now I'm not sure whether to kill the pilots in the opening scene or not :smirk:

But, regardless, I came up with a strike craft that's manned by a crew of three (or four), and sports a turret in addition to its main armament. It's not the F-16-ish Rampart-cousin I was envisioning, but it's opened up some possibilities for future Traveller fighter development.

Scout ships are another animal

 

[ditzie]

Make all you like within the rules - it still won't win against a purpose built heavy fighter of equal TL.

How about http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/fs/ditzie_97_dec_17.txt. It may not look like a Scout anymore...

Oh, you must mean a particular set of rules

 

[mike wightman]

Yes, High Guard since that is what the original poster postulates.

TNE and T4 based designs aren't allowed since they belong to a totally different ship paradigm

 

[atpollard]

LBB5 p34: "A small craft may mount the equivalent of one turret. In actuality, the mountings are probably rigid and no actual turret is present."

I never liked that rule, it feels just plain wrong - like mounting a 100 ton bay weapon on a 200 ton ship 'because it has the room'.

If the best that any starship can do is 1 triple turet per 100 dTons, then the small craft should be restricted to one weapon (missile/laser/sand) per 33.33 dTons. IMHO.

[Actually, I prefer a limit of 10% of the ship for the largest weapon it can mount: A 1 dTon turret on a 10 dTon small craft; a 10 dTon barbette on a 100 ton starship; a 100 dTon bay on a 1000 dTon starship; etc.]

 

[robject]

TNE and T4 based designs aren't allowed since they belong to a totally different ship paradigm

A paradigm which scares me.

 

[mike wightman]

Me too, you can do some really nasty things with FF&S...

 

[Icosahedron]

I never liked that rule, it feels just plain wrong - like mounting a 100 ton bay weapon on a 200 ton ship 'because it has the room'.

If the best that any starship can do is 1 triple turet per 100 dTons, then the small craft should be restricted to one weapon (missile/laser/sand) per 33.33 dTons. IMHO.

[Actually, I prefer a limit of 10% of the ship for the largest weapon it can mount: A 1 dTon turret on a 10 dTon small craft; a 10 dTon barbette on a 100 ton starship; a 100 dTon bay on a 1000 dTon starship; etc.]

Did you just argue yourself in a circle?

 

[The Oz]

[Actually, I prefer a limit of 10% of the ship for the largest weapon it can mount: A 1 dTon turret on a 10 dTon small craft; a 10 dTon barbette on a 100 ton starship; a 100 dTon bay on a 1000 dTon starship; etc.]

IMTU I work it the other way round: if the weapon is more than 1% of the total vessel displacement then the weapon is a "fixed mount" (called a "spinal mount" for larger vessels). If the weapon is 1% of less of total displacement then it can be a "flexible mount."

So "turrets" are fixed mounts on all Traveller small craft IMTU.
50-ton bays are fixed mounts on ships less than 5000 dtons.
500-ton bays are fixed mounts on ships less than 10,000 dtons.
And 1000-ton spinal mounts become "flexible weapons" on ships of 100,000 dtons or more.

IMTU the Tigress-class SD carries one factor-T fixed spinal mount and five! factor-R meson gun "turrets".

 

[Ishmael]

imtu, what a ship can have, as far as bays/turrets, is limited by surface area.
but then, I tend to use heavily modified rules and assumptions, so that might not be useful to other folk

 

[atpollard]

Did you just argue yourself in a circle?

Not quite, my complaint is 'one rule for all ships'. If three missile launchers require 100 tons of starship, then three missile launchers should require 100 tons of small craft. If a small craft can 'hard mount' a turret that it is too small for, then sub 1000 ton ship should be able to 'hard mount' a bay weapon.


I generally prefer simpler universal rules:

• I would rather see 10% of the ship as the largest weapon that it can mount - for all ships (small craft, adventure class ships and military giants).
• I would prefer a bridge of 2% of the ship for all ships. [2.8 cubic meters for a 10 ton fighter; 2 tons for a 100 ton pilot only starship; 8 tons for a 400 ton merchant, etc.].

But that is strictly IMTU preference.

 

[atpollard]

IMTU I work it the other way round: if the weapon is more than 1% of the total vessel displacement then the weapon is a "fixed mount" (called a "spinal mount" for larger vessels). If the weapon is 1% of less of total displacement then it can be a "flexible mount."

That would work for me, since it applies to all ships equally.
Just FYI, MegaTraveller limited a turret to 40% of the total vehicle volume. Imagine a 300 ton ship with a 100 ton turret [bay weapon].

 

[tim_manley]

Years ago I ran a campaign that was "WW2 tech" in space. In that one I had actually guns and cannons on ships. Then I came up with a rule for the "size" of the weapon and how many "spaces" each hard point had. I also had some formula for G rating based on ship weight. Adding weapons increased the weight, which reduced acceleration. I don't recall if I have those docs anywhere, but if I had the time and inclination I could probably reproduce them.

The more interesting aspect was having HMGs on space-craft ordinance velocity and time of flight were the big measurement. The "race" amongst the super-powers was to increase ordinance velocity to reduce time of flight. This made combat a lot closer than just 1 light second.

Combat in this game I used the Salvo wargame and ship chits with hex measured vector math. Conceptually shooting was predicting what hex the other ship would be in based on weapon TOF. That actually ended up being more complicated and too much work, so we reduced it down to range modifiers. TOF for weapons gave different range mods and that worked out quite well. The Gunner-4 guy ended up being pretty awesome and a life safer for the small ship of players.

The back-story of "how" was that aliens basically came into the subsector populated with all these planets filled with folks. The highest were at TL5, then some TL4, and others TL3, with a smattering TL2 and 1. They traded all the goods needed to get them into space. So the TL5 folks and TL4 folks took their naval ships (all submarines at first) and converted them into space ships. They then began converting their other naval vessels into spacecraft. The rule of thumb I used then was that 5 tons of naval ship equated to 1 traveller ton.

The players were on a converted tramp steamer (not really "steam" anymore, but you get the point) and were hauling cargo between worlds in the "rim" (the worlds that were primarily TL2,3 and some 4).

They got a kick out of standing at a gun port, shooting their "fifty-cal" while aiming through a telescope...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Warning; midless rambleings ahead

Okay, I've given this much thought.

Turret Realities;

A force acts equally on both halves in a system. This being the case a turret needing to traverse on a spacecraft would also rotate the spacecraft in freefall as well as rotating its own mass. As we know this effect is negated in atmosphere where external pressures keep the craft flying straight, but, Traveller adopts this convention for cinematic purposes (perhaps some handwavum; i.e. a motion damper that keeps a ship going straight in freefall while the turret rotates).

"So what?" you say. Why do I bring this up? Because I'm still twitching my nose at turrets being mounted on "fighters", or what we would consider a fighter like hull/fuselage. A turret on a huge 100,000 BB would have little effect as opposed to that same turret being mounted on a 100dt scout, or 30dt fighter. It's one of those thingys the rules don't address.

Why is this imporant? Because to me, anything that holds more than two men (sentients) no longer qualifies as a fighter, but as an attack craft; perhaps a gunship or light corvette; i.e. something like the Gazelle class escort, which is clearly not a fighter. In otherwords, something that can "hack" a turret (for lack of a better phrase).

For me, I always picture fighters as being highly maneuvreable little beasties. Likewise, I pictured scouts as being perhaps a couple cuts (your slice thickness may very) below that in terms of maneuverability, but no less deadly in a "turret for turret" situation. But again, as the simulation bears out, this clearly is not the case because of DMs.

Hence, in my fiction, I've got a "long range" attack craft that, though technically classed as a fighter by the ruleset, is clearly pretty large, pretty deadly, and perhaps nearing the size of a scout.

Ergo, as far as fiction and possible future adventure piblications go, I'm going to "wing it" so to speak.

I'm almost sorry I asked this question, but I'm glad I was able to flesh out this idea by starting this thread. That is I tend to stick to established "canon"; i.e. a Type-S scout for the longest time was the only scout available, and anything else was just not permitted because it wasn't defined by the official GDW publications. So, when and if I ever submit this stuff, or ask to sell it here, it may skirt the official rules, or circumvent them with appropiate TL explantions involved to make the cinematic fighters I envision work in the OTU

Traveller, as intended, is supposed to be able to accomodate all sorts of settings and devices. As such, the things I'm writing now are unimpinged by the hard black and white Bk5 rules.

Thank you for listening to this set of rambleings. I really needed to get this off my chest.

Carry on... carry on