[HG] Designing a TL12 fleet
- Thread starter Golan2072
- Start date
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
How close are you? And is there a general area causing the problem?
If you're in the right ballpark it may just be the author's pesonalization of or small error in HGS still hiding and more obvious in large designs.
I haven't used it in ages myself so I don't recall the minor issues I'd found or if they were all addressed. Not saying it isn't a great program, it is. Just that it has (or had) a couple idiosyncrasies
Scott Martin
SOC-13
For severely mangling HG. I originally did this as a Proof Of Concept at tech/10 (6 G accell and a mod/4 computer) so this is the "updated" to tech/12 version. This is mostly a demonstration of why HG needs missile magazine rules 
as well as pushing the HG "rules lawyering" as far as possible. I may have overlooked something in HG that says small craft cannot mount bays, if so apologies for wasting peoples time. According to HG, a bay may be mounted for each 1,000 T, so this carries one bay and no other weaponry. Since all of its weapons are non-energy using, HG allows it to declare "Emergency Agility" every turn with no effect to its operations, other than to make it harder to hit.
I'll take a swarm of these against anything you'd care to offer at equal price at Tech/12, no squadron grouping rules needed.
Because I used HGS I have manually "tweaked" the P Plant to be 18 T (6 EP) and changed the cargo to be 0.5 t (Formerly 0.8 EP) giving it base agility-1. HGS also automatically adds fuel scoops to all ships (perhaps just small craft) which means that it errors out if you use a dispersed structure hull on a fighter. Carries no bridge, 3 accel couches and a small craft cabin. Left this with Hull form 1 (Needle) but for combat against higher tech opponents, change this to 7 (to avoid Meson Bay Death)
Base for ships with a model/6 computer (anything sane at tech/12) is -6 to hit
(+1 for computer difference, -5 agility, -2 size) so this fighter *can* hit itself in HG combat. The lack of armour means that this makes it go "boom". Welcome to the joys of atrittion warfare, and I hope that you have a large flight academy to churn out small craft pilots and gunners.
Tech Level: 12
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">USP
XX-0705651-000000-00008-0 (MCr 139.895) 99 Tons
Bat Bear 1 Crew: 3
Bat 1 TL: 12
Cargo: 0.50 Fuel: 6 EP: 6 Agility: 1
Fuel Treatment: None
Architects Fee: MCr 1.399 Cost in Quantity: MCr 111.916
(all costs are before changing PPlant and removing fuel scoops)</pre>[/QUOTE]Scott Martin
as well as pushing the HG "rules lawyering" as far as possible. I may have overlooked something in HG that says small craft cannot mount bays, if so apologies for wasting peoples time. According to HG, a bay may be mounted for each 1,000 T, so this carries one bay and no other weaponry. Since all of its weapons are non-energy using, HG allows it to declare "Emergency Agility" every turn with no effect to its operations, other than to make it harder to hit.I'll take a swarm of these against anything you'd care to offer at equal price at Tech/12, no squadron grouping rules needed.
Because I used HGS I have manually "tweaked" the P Plant to be 18 T (6 EP) and changed the cargo to be 0.5 t (Formerly 0.8 EP) giving it base agility-1. HGS also automatically adds fuel scoops to all ships (perhaps just small craft) which means that it errors out if you use a dispersed structure hull on a fighter. Carries no bridge, 3 accel couches and a small craft cabin. Left this with Hull form 1 (Needle) but for combat against higher tech opponents, change this to 7 (to avoid Meson Bay Death)
Base for ships with a model/6 computer (anything sane at tech/12) is -6 to hit
(+1 for computer difference, -5 agility, -2 size) so this fighter *can* hit itself in HG combat. The lack of armour means that this makes it go "boom". Welcome to the joys of atrittion warfare, and I hope that you have a large flight academy to churn out small craft pilots and gunners.
Tech Level: 12
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">USP
XX-0705651-000000-00008-0 (MCr 139.895) 99 Tons
Bat Bear 1 Crew: 3
Bat 1 TL: 12
Cargo: 0.50 Fuel: 6 EP: 6 Agility: 1
Fuel Treatment: None
Architects Fee: MCr 1.399 Cost in Quantity: MCr 111.916
(all costs are before changing PPlant and removing fuel scoops)</pre>[/QUOTE]Scott Martin
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Some Traveller trivia you may not know about Scott.
First edition High Guard mentioned missile magazines, and allowed the tactic of firing off all your missiles at once in one high intensity volley.
I like your fighter concept design, and I think you just found a hole in the emergency agility rule that I hadn't realised before
I'd always assumed that computer and screen EPs had to be paid in full, but the wording of the emergency agility rule is pretty clear - and there's nothing in Trillion Credit Squadron to say any different
I think that mounting a bay weapon in a small craft may stretch the wording of the small craft weapons section, but as you say, it doesn't say you can't do it
Nice design concept
First edition High Guard mentioned missile magazines, and allowed the tactic of firing off all your missiles at once in one high intensity volley.
I like your fighter concept design, and I think you just found a hole in the emergency agility rule that I hadn't realised before
I'd always assumed that computer and screen EPs had to be paid in full, but the wording of the emergency agility rule is pretty clear - and there's nothing in Trillion Credit Squadron to say any different
I think that mounting a bay weapon in a small craft may stretch the wording of the small craft weapons section, but as you say, it doesn't say you can't do it
Nice design concept
Scott Martin
SOC-13
Hi Sigg
I missed HG 1 comletely (it was 1984? before I could afford Book 5, being a student and all at the time) Given the feedback I heard, HG2 was a dramatic improvement, so I never looked "back". I'm also (no longer) compulsive about having "everything" Traveller, so I can't see ponying up the obscene prices that HG1 seems to go for. The Starfire game series (IIRC David Weber was one of the authors) had problems with its missile armed ships being overly powerful until they finessed magazines: If you're looking at a HG rules variant you could do worse than look there.
This POC (Tech/10) beastie was the driving reason that we came up with the "escort" rules.
We were running a TCS campaign starting at Tech/9 and at tech 10 I built 5 carriers and associated fighters: one for defence, and one for each of my opponents homeworlds.
It was a very short campaign after that (mostly limited by how painfully long it takes to travel at Jump-1) The carriers got to their "target" homeworlds before anyone reached Tech/11 (or got a look at the fighter design)
Admittedly the first players I hit *could* have mentioned it to the players "farther away" but I think that they were a bit peeved to have their home defence fleets slaughtered by a single carrier and 40 fighters, and wanted to see if anyone else could "counter" this rules abomination.
Carrier group 3 was eliminated by a few nasty planetoid defence platforms (100T Missile bays + insane hull armour + lots of point defence + SLOW. Killing those damn things was *hard*) That said, 90+ factor-7 missile bays (the remnants of Carrier Groups 2,4 and 5) still took them down, and fighters were *far* cheaper and faster to build than planetoid monitors.
Scott Martin
I missed HG 1 comletely (it was 1984? before I could afford Book 5, being a student and all at the time) Given the feedback I heard, HG2 was a dramatic improvement, so I never looked "back". I'm also (no longer) compulsive about having "everything" Traveller, so I can't see ponying up the obscene prices that HG1 seems to go for. The Starfire game series (IIRC David Weber was one of the authors) had problems with its missile armed ships being overly powerful until they finessed magazines: If you're looking at a HG rules variant you could do worse than look there.
This POC (Tech/10) beastie was the driving reason that we came up with the "escort" rules.
We were running a TCS campaign starting at Tech/9 and at tech 10 I built 5 carriers and associated fighters: one for defence, and one for each of my opponents homeworlds.
It was a very short campaign after that (mostly limited by how painfully long it takes to travel at Jump-1) The carriers got to their "target" homeworlds before anyone reached Tech/11 (or got a look at the fighter design)
Admittedly the first players I hit *could* have mentioned it to the players "farther away" but I think that they were a bit peeved to have their home defence fleets slaughtered by a single carrier and 40 fighters, and wanted to see if anyone else could "counter" this rules abomination.
Carrier group 3 was eliminated by a few nasty planetoid defence platforms (100T Missile bays + insane hull armour + lots of point defence + SLOW. Killing those damn things was *hard*) That said, 90+ factor-7 missile bays (the remnants of Carrier Groups 2,4 and 5) still took them down, and fighters were *far* cheaper and faster to build than planetoid monitors.
Scott Martin
2-4601,
Do not get hung over the old, false conceit that tonnage somehow equals class. That idea is utter nonsense as examples from Real World naval history show.
Mission equals class. Around the turn of the last century, the RN built several cruiser classes that displaced more than contemporary RN battleships. The large vessels were called cruisers because of the role they were designed to fill and not because of their displacement.
Yes, installing the systems a cruiser needs to fufill it's mission does mean that a certain size is necessary. However, hull size alone does not equate class. It's the tools required for a certain mission installed within that hull that do that.
S:9 Fighting Ships showcases a TL14/15 navy. You're not building a TL14/15 navy. TL15 cruisers may average 50KdTons, but that doesn't mean that TL12 cruisers must do the same. FWIW, canonical Imperial cruisers have a tonnage range between, IIRC, 40 and 100KdTtons.
I must strongly disagree. HG2 works very well with lower TL navies. It just doesn't produce the results our technological blinders cause us to expect.
In our world as technology progessed, vessels carrying fighters and missiles eventually won out over vessels carrying big guns. HG2 simply turns that on its head. As technology progesses in the OTU, vessels with big guns win out over fighters and missiles.
Suggesting that a TL12 design is 'wrong' or 'bad' because it doesn't compare favorably to a TL15 design is missing the point. TL12 designs fight in a different TL setting than TL15 designs and dismissing them for that reason is a failure to apply the proper context. The idea of USS Monitor as a viable warship in 2005 is ludicrous, but the same vessel was a world beater in 1862. Ditto HMS Dreadnought, KMS Bismarck, and the WW2 USS Enterprise. Each kicked ass in their respective mileau and just because a CVN or SSN of 2005 could put them under without breaking a sweat that doesn't mean they were any less useful in their orignal setting.
Have fun,
Bill
Scott,
Try Walt Smith's excellent site for some good HG2 supply rules:
http://users.hartwick.edu/smithw/traveller.htm
The high intensity missile fire rule in HG version One was a hold over from GDW's Imperium boardgame. The same rule also appears in Dark Nebula.
Have fun,
Bill
fredofmars
SOC-12
There is also my article on missile magazines that discusses running out of missiles:
http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/shipyard/missilemags.html
http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/shipyard/missilemags.html
Scott Martin
SOC-13
Hi Bill and Joe
Thanks for the links: after my last TCS game I dropped out of Traveller for a while and tried an experiment with the Real World(TM). I certainly can't complain about the results...
I've mostly decided to try and support FF&S style construction, since it fits better with my "Hard" SF leanings and expectations. It also *requires* worrying about things like missile supply, which was not dealt with well in LBB traveller, but is integrated intelligently into the FF&S design structure.
The earlier POC fighter was an example of just how far you can "bend" the rules of HG without actually breaking them: I was a bit surprised that no-one else had seen this type of fighter design before. It's a logical extension of the core rules, and makes fighters dominate HG combat from TL-9 to TL-12 or 13. (No squadron rules needed...) These were the ultimate extension of the "Eggshells + Sledgehammer" design philosophy. You can extend this using Book 8 "robots" to make these true attrition craft (a pair of robotic gunners and a robotic pilot take less space than the accell couches, and are probably cheaper than the training cost for sophonts)
It also underlines how the "rules" will affect your design process. Until I discovered that it was *possible* to put together a fighter like the one illustrated, I tended to design Low Tech ships to be as big as the computer technology would allow. I always thought that it was funny that computer size limits means that it was *impossible* to build a T9/T10 ship with a spinal mount, since the spinal mounts were larger than the computer would allow you to build your ship!
Use of bay weapons on small craft means that lower tech fighters are still useful against higher tech opponents, in much the same way as the "Swordfish" torpedo bombers were effective combatants in WW-2. Effective as long as you don't use them against targets with strong AA or interception capability.
Cap ships *don't* want to play tag with swarms of F-7 or 8 Missile batteries, even if they are "only" backed up by a model/4. Some of those shots are going to get through.
Scott Martin
Thanks for the links: after my last TCS game I dropped out of Traveller for a while and tried an experiment with the Real World(TM). I certainly can't complain about the results...
I've mostly decided to try and support FF&S style construction, since it fits better with my "Hard" SF leanings and expectations. It also *requires* worrying about things like missile supply, which was not dealt with well in LBB traveller, but is integrated intelligently into the FF&S design structure.
The earlier POC fighter was an example of just how far you can "bend" the rules of HG without actually breaking them: I was a bit surprised that no-one else had seen this type of fighter design before. It's a logical extension of the core rules, and makes fighters dominate HG combat from TL-9 to TL-12 or 13. (No squadron rules needed...) These were the ultimate extension of the "Eggshells + Sledgehammer" design philosophy. You can extend this using Book 8 "robots" to make these true attrition craft (a pair of robotic gunners and a robotic pilot take less space than the accell couches, and are probably cheaper than the training cost for sophonts)
It also underlines how the "rules" will affect your design process. Until I discovered that it was *possible* to put together a fighter like the one illustrated, I tended to design Low Tech ships to be as big as the computer technology would allow. I always thought that it was funny that computer size limits means that it was *impossible* to build a T9/T10 ship with a spinal mount, since the spinal mounts were larger than the computer would allow you to build your ship!
Use of bay weapons on small craft means that lower tech fighters are still useful against higher tech opponents, in much the same way as the "Swordfish" torpedo bombers were effective combatants in WW-2. Effective as long as you don't use them against targets with strong AA or interception capability.
Cap ships *don't* want to play tag with swarms of F-7 or 8 Missile batteries, even if they are "only" backed up by a model/4. Some of those shots are going to get through.
Scott Martin
Scott,
You are overlooking something, but you're also not wasting anyone's time. The "sub-1000dTon" rules tweak is an old one; we've played around with it for years at the 'ct-starships' Yahoo group. It's also a fun one to play with. It is not canonical however and the rules are quite explicit on that matter.
First, let's look at the actual rule and the follow-on example of that rule:
One bay (regardless of size) may be installed per 1,000 tons of hull available. Tonnage not otherwise allocated to weaponry is consdiered available. For example, a 50,000-ton ship might be assigned a 5,000-ton type A meson gun; it may install 45 bays in addition to the major weaponry.
Note the use of the word 'per' and not the use of the term 'up to'. You're interpretation infers 'up to' in the tonnage requirement sentence. Using your interpetation, the numbers written in the example would be wrong.
The idea that "sub-1000dTon" bays are allowed really gets killed in the 'Turrets' section following the 'Bays' section. Again, it is both the rule and the example that needs to be examined.
One hardpoint is allowed per 100 tons of hull not otherwsie allocated to weapons. For example, a 50,000-ton ships carrying a 5,000-ton type A mseon gun and twenty 100-tons bays may designate 250 hardpoints for turrets.
As in the previous example, if your interpretation was correct, the number written in the sample would be wrong.
As for missile magazines and bays, why couldn't a missile bay inlcude a missile magazine? TNE presumes that it does.
You're still right in suggesting that missile magazines should have been included in HG2. In fact, the entire question supplies is overlooked. A 100KdTon battleship with no cargo space is just plain silly. Of course, the idea behind HG2 was to present a reasonably detailed ship design system with quick ship combat system. Some items; like supply requiements, were left out while others were simply glossed over; such folding sensors, fire control, comms, ECM, and ECCM into a single computer rating.
Have fun,
Bill
Originally posted by Scott Martin:
For severely mangling HG. ...This is mostly a demonstration of why HG needs missile magazine rules
Now that's being a lawyer.
I've always interpreted "One bay (regaqdless of size) may be installed per 1,000 tons of hull available." (HG p.30, 1980 ed.) to mean you need at least a minimum of 1,000 tons. Reading per to mean "for each, for every" (per Webster's).
So for every 1,000 tons (not fraction thereof) you get 1 bay. This reading of per comports with common usage. For example, if the price of steak is $5 per pound, and you say give me half a pound do you expect to be charged $5 or $2.50?
Another example, in the world of statutory construction, to construe a term counter to common usage requires an explicit statement to so construe. Silence on the issue does not leave it open to what the reader would like. If I had a contract that said I will ship you 1 missile bay per 1,000 tons of ship hull you shipped me, I doubt you could get me to perform if you only sent 99 tons. But that's just the real lawyer in me talking.
I still agree with you, however, that missile magazines should be required.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Except there are canon examples of ships that bend this rule and do mount a bay weapon in less than 1,000tons
ONLY SHIPS though I think, NOT SMALL CRAFT.
Didn't stop me from doing it either though, I have a 95ton shuttle around here somewhere with a 50ton missile bay
fredofmars
SOC-12
I have both HG1 and HG2, and missed the missile magazine rules from HG1, which is why I wrote the article. I did look at all the missile rules I had available to me (I didn't/don't have T20 yet), but I made conscious choices to make it very compatible with HG2 rather than making it "more realistic" as some suggested I do.
I enjoyed writing the article, though it took me about six months of lunch times to get it done.
I enjoyed writing the article, though it took me about six months of lunch times to get it done.
Dan,
Yes, there are.
They're also freely acknowledged as broken designs too, just as the with the Gazelle-class close escort.
The X-boat is broken according to HG2; no powerplant, but no one is suggesting we follow that example. The Al Morai Type-MK is broken too. As are the canonical Broadsword deckplans, SMC's 154th rider tender, the Marava deckplans, and many other canonical designs.
Some predate HG2 and some were not checked as closely as they should have been. That doesn't mean we take as our example these acknowledged mistakes instead of the rules!
Have fun,
Bill
Scott Martin
SOC-13
Bill
I think we're all agreed that missile magazines were a bad oversight in the HG rules. It sounds like there were a lot of (similar) fixes for this problem.
I'll have to disagree with you on your bay interpretation though: if they meant that you weren't allowed to put a bay weapon in a sub-1,000 Ton vessel, then an example of a sub-1,000T vessel should have been in order. No examples anywhere of fractions of 1,000T, no examples of fractions of 100T. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the fact that they *didn't* provide this example means that there is a grey area.
Obviously I'm taking the point of view that this grey area is deliberate. If I were to play TCS with you I'd have to redesign a lot of my lower tech fleets Obviously this *was* allowed IMTU, although I may need to redesign my "fighter" to be a small starship (which allows better logistics anyway) but for *either* of our interpretations to be "Official" would require someone (Mark Miller?) to actually come out and make a decision one way or the other, and I don't think it's likely to be a priority (ever) given that we are now working an the 4th derivative version (assuming you don't count 2300 AD)
It is, however fun to debate those "old" rules, and TCS remains one of the most-played games of my youth.
My interpretation of all of the examples in HG amount to the following:
1) Take the hull displacement, subtract the spinal mount volume. Max bays is this volume divided by 1,000.
2) Take the hull displacement, subtract the spinal mount volume. subtract 1,000 t per bay, divide the rest by 100, and that's how many turrets you get.
Both your examples (taken from HG) agree with this interpretation. Since there is no example of
"400 T ship gets a bay, allows -6 turrets, AKA none".
I think that The Oz has a better retort to my POC fighter, since "a bay is not a turret." (I suspect that my fellow emperors would have appreciated finding that when the T-10 fighter was unveiled...)
An agreement must be reached with whoever you are playing with regarding the *interpretation* of this rule, but I'll trust Far Trader with his comments on existing published ships violating this, and thus supporting the interpretation that you don't need 1,000T to install a bay. You can still say that this doesn't make it Canon, but IMO this suggests which way the penny would drop.
I'm not sure how MT handles this: FF&S (1 and 2) just dropped the max weapons rules altogether, making them useless for comparison.
____________________________
On other Odds and Sods:
The only rules that I found from the "original" traveller era that gave magazine capacities were from Striker, which (as has been noted) has different troubles, and issues integrating with other LBB era rule sets.
And (IMHO) the computer rating "ECM/ECCM" justification for HG2 was long after the fact, to hide missing the boat on sensors and countermeasures as well as to explain away why a desktop PC could outperform a model/7
Scott Martin
I think we're all agreed that missile magazines were a bad oversight in the HG rules. It sounds like there were a lot of (similar) fixes for this problem.
I'll have to disagree with you on your bay interpretation though: if they meant that you weren't allowed to put a bay weapon in a sub-1,000 Ton vessel, then an example of a sub-1,000T vessel should have been in order. No examples anywhere of fractions of 1,000T, no examples of fractions of 100T. 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the fact that they *didn't* provide this example means that there is a grey area.
Obviously I'm taking the point of view that this grey area is deliberate. If I were to play TCS with you I'd have to redesign a lot of my lower tech fleets
Obviously this *was* allowed IMTU, although I may need to redesign my "fighter" to be a small starship (which allows better logistics anyway) but for *either* of our interpretations to be "Official" would require someone (Mark Miller?) to actually come out and make a decision one way or the other, and I don't think it's likely to be a priority (ever) given that we are now working an the 4th derivative version (assuming you don't count 2300 AD)It is, however fun to debate those "old" rules, and TCS remains one of the most-played games of my youth.
My interpretation of all of the examples in HG amount to the following:
1) Take the hull displacement, subtract the spinal mount volume. Max bays is this volume divided by 1,000.
2) Take the hull displacement, subtract the spinal mount volume. subtract 1,000 t per bay, divide the rest by 100, and that's how many turrets you get.
Both your examples (taken from HG) agree with this interpretation. Since there is no example of
"400 T ship gets a bay, allows -6 turrets, AKA none".
I think that The Oz has a better retort to my POC fighter, since "a bay is not a turret." (I suspect that my fellow emperors would have appreciated finding that when the T-10 fighter was unveiled...)
An agreement must be reached with whoever you are playing with regarding the *interpretation* of this rule, but I'll trust Far Trader with his comments on existing published ships violating this, and thus supporting the interpretation that you don't need 1,000T to install a bay. You can still say that this doesn't make it Canon, but IMO this suggests which way the penny would drop.
I'm not sure how MT handles this: FF&S (1 and 2) just dropped the max weapons rules altogether, making them useless for comparison.
____________________________
On other Odds and Sods:
The only rules that I found from the "original" traveller era that gave magazine capacities were from Striker, which (as has been noted) has different troubles, and issues integrating with other LBB era rule sets.
And (IMHO) the computer rating "ECM/ECCM" justification for HG2 was long after the fact, to hide missing the boat on sensors and countermeasures as well as to explain away why a desktop PC could outperform a model/7
Scott Martin
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
All true Bill and I used to be strongly on the side of calling them all broken but...
...there comes a time, when after decades and numerous designs and chances to officially fix them, that I'm tempted to say the rules must be wrong (or poorly written so we players are doing it wrong) and all the designs are correct
The curious thing is it's mostly official designs that seem to take the widest liberties with the rules and be given the sanction of canon with little notice of the errors. That's what makes me wonder if it's the presentation of the rules at fault.
Your quote above of the hardpoint calculation is a perfect example of one of my own goofs:
However IF we somehow puzzle out that what is meant by "hull not otherwise allocated to weapons" to mean that each Bay Weapon reduces the available hull total by the limit of 1 Bay Weapon per 1,000tons of hull (rather than the way I read it as the actual tonnage used by the bays) we do get the 250 hardpoints in the example:
50,000tons - 5,000tons - 20,000tons = 25,000tons / 100 = 250 hardpoints
See what I mean
...there comes a time, when after decades and numerous designs and chances to officially fix them, that I'm tempted to say the rules must be wrong (or poorly written so we players are doing it wrong) and all the designs are correct
The curious thing is it's mostly official designs that seem to take the widest liberties with the rules and be given the sanction of canon with little notice of the errors. That's what makes me wonder if it's the presentation of the rules at fault.
Your quote above of the hardpoint calculation is a perfect example of one of my own goofs:
Check the math. 50,000tons - 5,000tons - 2,000tons = 43,000tons / 100 = 430 hardpoints NOT the 250 hardpoints the example goes to pains to show.
However IF we somehow puzzle out that what is meant by "hull not otherwise allocated to weapons" to mean that each Bay Weapon reduces the available hull total by the limit of 1 Bay Weapon per 1,000tons of hull (rather than the way I read it as the actual tonnage used by the bays) we do get the 250 hardpoints in the example:
50,000tons - 5,000tons - 20,000tons = 25,000tons / 100 = 250 hardpoints
See what I mean
Scott,
That's nothing more than overly legal wriggling. and it deliberately flouts the spirit of the rule in question. Sub-1000dTon are implicitly illegal in HG2 and arguing the fact that they are legal because they weren't explicitly mentioned is disengenuous to say the very least.
The example of how to correctly apply the rule is there and the fact that GDW didn't realize they needed to 'lawyer-proof' the rules by giving negative examples is to their credit. The GDW staff was first and foremost wargamers. They wrote their rules with a wargamers mindset, a mindset in which the label 'rules lawyer' is an insult and not the badge of honor many mix/max RPG munchkins seem to think it is.
Case in point: Years ago I attended a wargame convention with several events featuring Avalon Hill designs. One of the games was Midway. Carrier air units in the game had a certain range; 14 boxes, which naturally limited how far they could fly in an attack. Another rule in the game allowed carriers to land and arm air units that were not their own just as long as the carrier's carrying capacity was not violated.
For years, players had followed the spirit of those rules. Carriers did recover air units that weren't their own due to air unit losses and carrier sinkings, just like in the real world the game was modeling.
Then a min/max munchkin got a brilliant idea.
The US carriers in the game all had the same carrying capacity rating; so many fighters, so many bombers, etc. Instead of launching a strike from Enterprise out 7 boxes, attacking, and returning 7 boxes, you could fly the Enterprise strike out 4 boxes, attack, and return 10 boxes to Yorktown. The Yorktown air units would then fly out 10, attack, and return 4 to Enterprise.
It was a neat trick according to the 'genius' who sprung it. It wasn't explicitly forbidden in the rules either. The fact that it flouted the spirit of the rules was of naturally of no consequence to him.
The organizers of the event and the convention; including members of the AH staff, felt differently. The 'genius' was given a choice; either replay the game without his 'trick' or the event would be cancelled.
Like the 'carrier hopping' trick, sub-1000dTon bays violate the spirit and intent of the HG2 rules.
No. It only means they couldn't imagine someone would twist the rules in that manner and then defend themselves by claiming a negative example is required to explicitly forbid something that is already implied.
That's plainly obvious. You're a rules lawyer and not a wargamer.
There is no 'debate' here. You freely admit you're exploiting a loophole created by overly legal wriggling along with deliberately ignoring an actual example and ignoring the implied thrust of the rules.
As for playing TCS, if your fleets included designs using sub-1000dTon bays, you didn't play TCS; you misplayed it instead.
YM obviously Vs.
Bill
Dan,
There is nothing to 'puzzle' out. You're given an example which clearly illustrate how to calculate the tonnage available for bays and turrets in turn.
The 'puzzle' only arise when we begin to look for loopholes we can then deliberately exploit in the face of the examples given in order to install more weapons.
I don't see a puzzle or even a difference of interpretation here. Take the rule alone and, yes, you can squint a bit and come up with a different take. However, take the rule and the example of the rule in the very next sentence and you can only interpret the rule in one way.
Any other interpretation involves choosing to ignore the example given to illustrate the rule. That's not just some minor quibbling over wording, that an example of wilfull ignorance with an ulterior goal in mind.
Have fun,
Bill
