Freedonian System Defense Boat
- Thread starter Hal
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Although Don's argument lost wrt HG, it won wrt Traveller version 5. Adventure-Class Ships can carry a single "main" weapon, which is more or less a proto-spine.
Regarding Mongoose: that's a very specific rule, indicating to me that someone knew exactly what he was doing.
Regarding Mongoose: that's a very specific rule, indicating to me that someone knew exactly what he was doing.
That makes sense and doesn't unbalance new designs provided the spinal costs the appropriate number of hardpoints.
Yes, but was whatever he was doing worth making every single previously published design sufficiently undergunned to effectively invalidate most, if not all, of them?
This is a perfect example of what I mean when I say that you shouldn't change canon that works, not even for a better idea. Presumably this new rule has a reason for existing. Possibly ship so designed are better, for some way of evaluating, than ships conforming to the old weapons limits. But was there something actually wrong with the old system? Was it inherently self-contradictory? And even if it was, does the new rule fix that?
I could see a rule that changed the limit to relate to surface area in some way (always provided the new rules made the most common canonical ship designs still remain inside the ballpark). But what is the reason for this change, and is it worth it?
If it is worth it, hopefully Marc will mandate a retcon of all previously published design systems and designs to conform to this New and Improved Version of Canonical Life As We Know It.
But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Hans
Obviously, invalidation (whether knowing or not) didn't matter to whichever Mongoose Person inserted that rule. Could be a "get 'er done" drive, coupled with an eye for a more generalized rule base, plus a long-held preference, which could be toggled off by a Third Imperium Setting. That's the positive spin. The opposite spin would be hostile disregard for canon. The truth is likely in between.
I don't know where Mongoose is on ship redesigns. A first-pass design (call it a retcon) has been done, for Traveller version 5, for 60+ small starships, drawn largely from TTB, TTA, the Alien Modules, and FASA. The second pass is brewing, but is waiting on errata. CT civilian ships are close enough to be usable as-is (they were ported anyway); T5's design assumptions are different enough to warrant a port for military ships, although that Main Gun isn't worth it for most designs.
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Does this mean that the 2000T ship in the example can theoretically have four bays, but that since bays cost 10 hardpoints each, it can actually only have two, or does it mean it can have 4 bays plus 20 turrets? What are the tradeoffs?
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Both TNE and T4 rewrote the ship weapon paradigm.
Allowing the loose interpretation of HG (which is an optional rule for T20) lets you build stuff closer to the TNE and T4 ships.
Ever try to build a RCES Clipper using HG2? Fudging the bay weapon /loosly interpreting HG2 allows something close.
And since the Clipper is the signature ship of TNE it should be possible in any era of the OTU - hence I am of the view that the loose interpratation of HG is the closest model to what was really possible in the golden age of the OTU.
I like the way MgT HG does it too
Allowing the loose interpretation of HG (which is an optional rule for T20) lets you build stuff closer to the TNE and T4 ships.
Ever try to build a RCES Clipper using HG2? Fudging the bay weapon /loosly interpreting HG2 allows something close.
And since the Clipper is the signature ship of TNE it should be possible in any era of the OTU - hence I am of the view that the loose interpratation of HG is the closest model to what was really possible in the golden age of the OTU.
I like the way MgT HG does it too
This is likely one of those circumstances where the phrase "you just can't please everyone" fits to a T.
My biggest gripe if you will, with multiple systems with different "guidelines" for ship building, along with different rules sets for handling a given conflict between ships - is that they tend to be mutually exclusive of each other. Prior to TNE, ships didn't have to contend with the issue of running out of reaction mass for propulsion - and consequently, battles between those two genres were going to by its very nature, be different. Making something compatable across the spectrum for ALL ships would have required that ALL ship building systems adhere to the very basics of the original ship design rules. Case in point - the use of a given amount of fuel for jumps changed between CT High Guard rules and that of MegaTraveller rules. I dislike INTERSTELLAR WARS precisely because it permits ship designs that were illegal in the first version of GURPS TRAVELLER.
Now for the fun part...
When you base your traveller universe on quasi-historical events that had preceded the "current" events - a little bit of care should be taken to insure that the ship design and combat system produces results that are comparable to the original events possible from the earlier design system. Put another way? Imagine designing a set of rules, where the American Civil war is fought in a particular fashion with Rules set A, then designing rules set B such that the events from rules set A are retained - yet are NOT possible using rules set B? The "disconnect" becomes all the more pronounced when someone tries to go back to the original "events" and finds that it is not possible using the new rules.
One thing I discovered the hard way, back in the day before I settled down on a specific set of role playing rules, is that when you utilize a given role playing system, and want to continue playing in the same game world you started off with - translating characters from System A to System B is never 100% perfect. So certain abilities present in system A are what you stive to recreate, but the "extra abilities" present in system B become lumped in with the abilities from System A. Then, God forbid that you want to translate to system C, because now you have legacy issues with both A & B, and system C almost always adds new abilities to be used by the character. This happened to me when I utilized TFT, went to DragonQuest, then to Rolemaster, and finally, went back to TFT for my campaign world. The character which had been translated so many times in those differing systems, became an UBER-Diety by the time I went back to the original system.
Likewise? I disliked the ship building rules for MgT because of the very thing that is now seemingly to become standard with T5. New ships will outgun old ship design philosophies - rendering any continuity between older versions of Traveller history a moot point. Ironically, the VERY same issue arose with GURPS TRAVELLER. There, missile weapons became Ship Killers in a major way as an outgrowth of GURPS VEHICLES rules, which were NOT the same as High Guard rules. Translating ships specifically from the older Traveller rules set into the newer GURPS TRAVELLER rules became an exercise in futility - because the weapon systems and rules had changed dramatically.
Ah well. So be it. Trying to utilize the Fighting Ships from CT and T20 is an exercise in futility. Trying to create the "signature ships" between systems becomes an exercise in futility because the way a given ship worked in its native system, will no longer be valid in the new system.
THIS is why I am not happy with T5 or MgT's wave of the future. But, that's just me
My biggest gripe if you will, with multiple systems with different "guidelines" for ship building, along with different rules sets for handling a given conflict between ships - is that they tend to be mutually exclusive of each other. Prior to TNE, ships didn't have to contend with the issue of running out of reaction mass for propulsion - and consequently, battles between those two genres were going to by its very nature, be different. Making something compatable across the spectrum for ALL ships would have required that ALL ship building systems adhere to the very basics of the original ship design rules. Case in point - the use of a given amount of fuel for jumps changed between CT High Guard rules and that of MegaTraveller rules. I dislike INTERSTELLAR WARS precisely because it permits ship designs that were illegal in the first version of GURPS TRAVELLER.
Now for the fun part...
When you base your traveller universe on quasi-historical events that had preceded the "current" events - a little bit of care should be taken to insure that the ship design and combat system produces results that are comparable to the original events possible from the earlier design system. Put another way? Imagine designing a set of rules, where the American Civil war is fought in a particular fashion with Rules set A, then designing rules set B such that the events from rules set A are retained - yet are NOT possible using rules set B? The "disconnect" becomes all the more pronounced when someone tries to go back to the original "events" and finds that it is not possible using the new rules.
One thing I discovered the hard way, back in the day before I settled down on a specific set of role playing rules, is that when you utilize a given role playing system, and want to continue playing in the same game world you started off with - translating characters from System A to System B is never 100% perfect. So certain abilities present in system A are what you stive to recreate, but the "extra abilities" present in system B become lumped in with the abilities from System A. Then, God forbid that you want to translate to system C, because now you have legacy issues with both A & B, and system C almost always adds new abilities to be used by the character. This happened to me when I utilized TFT, went to DragonQuest, then to Rolemaster, and finally, went back to TFT for my campaign world. The character which had been translated so many times in those differing systems, became an UBER-Diety by the time I went back to the original system.
Likewise? I disliked the ship building rules for MgT because of the very thing that is now seemingly to become standard with T5. New ships will outgun old ship design philosophies - rendering any continuity between older versions of Traveller history a moot point. Ironically, the VERY same issue arose with GURPS TRAVELLER. There, missile weapons became Ship Killers in a major way as an outgrowth of GURPS VEHICLES rules, which were NOT the same as High Guard rules. Translating ships specifically from the older Traveller rules set into the newer GURPS TRAVELLER rules became an exercise in futility - because the weapon systems and rules had changed dramatically.
Ah well. So be it. Trying to utilize the Fighting Ships from CT and T20 is an exercise in futility. Trying to create the "signature ships" between systems becomes an exercise in futility because the way a given ship worked in its native system, will no longer be valid in the new system.
THIS is why I am not happy with T5 or MgT's wave of the future. But, that's just me
4 bays and 16 turrets...
Every weapon in MGT takes 1 HP + 1T Fire control.
Turret weapons take no extra for the weapons.
Barbettes take 5Td
Bays take 50 or 100 Td
And spinals are not in MHG.
Minimum tonnage for a 50Td bay is going to be 100Td or so... but here's your PF, Rob, for MCr 77.5
MGT design
_Td MCr_ Item
100 02.0 Hull
010 00.5 bridge
000 05.0 Computer Model 4
001 00.0 HP & FC.
050 50.0 50Td Meson Bay
010 24.0 PP C
006 00.0 PP Fuel for C for 2 weeks
005 12.0 MD C
008 01.0 2x crew quarters, DO for 4 crew (P,E,G, spare)
005 01.0 1 unit hull armor BSD
005 04.0 Sensors, Very Advanced.
=== =====
000 77.5
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In other words, military ships designed with MGT are demonstrably wrong for the canonical Traveller Universe. What a dissapointment.
OTOH, it means we don't have to worry about lack of compatibility between MGT products and the OTU.
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Is that the LBB2 1st ed OTU, the HG 1st ed OTU, the LBB2 revised OTU, the HG 2nd ed OTU, the MT OTU, the TNE OTU or the T4 OTU?
MgT HG can produce something close to the RCES Clipper which is part of the OTU - something HG2 can't do unless you fudge it.
No version of Traveller bar T20 has a ship design system completely compatible with any other so don't write off MgT HG designs as being incompatible with OTU canon because there is no definitive ship design system for the OTU.
MgT HG can produce something close to the RCES Clipper which is part of the OTU - something HG2 can't do unless you fudge it.
No version of Traveller bar T20 has a ship design system completely compatible with any other so don't write off MgT HG designs as being incompatible with OTU canon because there is no definitive ship design system for the OTU.
You should have been able to figure that out from comments by Mongoose Matt alone.... THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT COMPATIBILITY.
And a correction: Spinal mounts require 1 HP per 100 Td of weapon.
T20 isn't 100% compatible with HG. It has different computers and an additional streamlining type.
And yeah, I agree, the OTU varies by edition.
All the ship design systems have their quirks, and none of them are exact reflections of OTU "reality", but in many cases it's perfectly possible to discern which features are compatible with the OTU and which aren't. OTU ships don't have the huge powwer plant fuel tanks that CT gives them. They use 10% of tonnage per jump number for jump, not the figures MT claims. They use thrusters for maneuver, not the HePlaR drives that TNE claims. Streamlined ships don't lose 20% of interior tonnage the way GT claims. And a 2000T military ship can't have four bays weapons and 16 turrets.
Now, the 1 hardpoint per 100 dT is probably a simplification of the "truth". I suspect the truth involves surface area in the calculation, and smaller than 1000T spinal mounts are probably possible. But being able to pack almost twice the firepower into a hull that the hardpoint rule allows is patently wrong. Because why? Because if it was possible, most military ships we've seen described in previously published material would carry almost twice the firepower they do. It's one of the prime functions of a military ship to carry firepower.
Hans
There's only one OTU, but the picture of it that we get from each edition is distorted in different ways.
Hans
Holy war!
(Of course I already figured you were a Quixote, Hans, albeit of a gentle and rational variety).
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
This could only ever be true if the game designers themselves had come up with a definitive version of the OTU. Sadly they never did.
The OTU has always been a sandbox for the developers to play in, and they re-wrote the core technologies from edition to edition without a care, TNE being the most extreme shift in tech paradigm.
I was always fascinated by the articles written by the writers of MT and TNE over the choices they made and the new ideas they introduced. They weren't bothered with compatability more with 'how do we make this better game'.
There's nothing religious or mystical about it, just simple pragmatism. It's useful to have a baseline universe to provide common ground between people who want to share their work in a shared universe. To assume that TNE publications deals with a parallel universe, one where technology is radically different from the one described by CT materials, yet miraculously had the exact same history anyway, simply means discarding everything written in any TNE publication, the good with the bad. It's much more useful to assume that they were talking about the same universe (that explains the identical history nicely, doesn't it?), but that some of the material is flat out wrong. That way you can keep the bits of TNE that works and just discard the bits that don't work. Much less wasteful. Repeat this argument for every other Traveller version.
Hans
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