CT Only: HG "fix" for the giant ship fans

[Amber Chancer]

OK guys.

If you think that HG rules are broken because at TL 15 dreadnoughts get beaten by cruisers (I don't - but that's immaterial to this thread) then here's your fix, and it's VERY simple.

ALL you need to do is ditch the rule that says the number of criticals automatically inflicted by a spinal whose code exceeds the size code of the target ship is reduced by 1 for every 2 factors of armour the target ship is carrying.

This does four things.

1. It gives greater survivability in the battle line to big ships (especially code T - 300,000 tons - and above)

2. It gives a MUCH greater role to those top-end particle accellerators (they suddenly do MUCH more than give you just four rolls at the top end of the surface explosion and radiation tables)

3. It makes the Tigress the best ship in FS

4. It gives you plenty of scope for "improving" on the Plankwell and Kokkirak by designing your dreadnoughts at 300,000 rather than 200,000 tons.

It does not, however, make armour pointless, or rehabilitate designs such as the Gionetti. You still need plenty armour if you don't want to get mugged by hamsters.

Happy with this??


(Actually, I'm thinking that even for a small ship guy, it may be an improvement ... )

 

[mike wightman]

A better fix is to put the fuel tanks shattered result back on the critical table where it belongs.

And allow meson screens to act like armour does on meson hits.

Still does't help that a crew 1 mission kills a ship. So how about this rules variant - every crew hit acts as a negative DM on every roll the ship makes.

 

[Bob Weaver]

OK guys.

If you think that HG rules are broken because at TL 15 dreadnoughts get beaten by cruisers (I don't - but that's immaterial to this thread) then here's your fix, and it's VERY simple.

ALL you need to do is ditch the rule that says the number of criticals automatically inflicted by a spinal whose code exceeds the size code of the target ship is reduced by 1 for every 2 factors of armour the target ship is carrying.

Amber,
It has always seemed to me that the essential problem most folk see with HG as written is that big meson gun spinals will one-shot-zot just about anything you can put in space, and extra size is no defense. Spinal PA's are limited by defender's armor, which your suggested fix addresses. It doesn't address the overkill capability of the meson gun, however. The other current thread about Dreadnaught design concerns the problem that 100KdTn+ ships make little sense as they are much more expensive, and die just as fast as sub-99KdTn ships do under meson fire.
IMTU, I've accepted that, and gone with small and mid-size ship fleets, topping out at about 50KdTns. Big enough to play HG with them, but circumventing the above noted problem with large ships.

Cheers,
Bob W.

 

[atpollard]

Meson guns are sort of dumb anyway, so just drop the Meson Gun and Meson Screen and call it a day.

 

[Amber Chancer]

Amber,
It has always seemed to me that the essential problem most folk see with HG as written is that big meson gun spinals will one-shot-zot just about anything you can put in space, and extra size is no defense. Spinal PA's are limited by defender's armor, which your suggested fix addresses. It doesn't address the overkill capability of the meson gun, however. The other current thread about Dreadnaught design concerns the problem that 100KdTn+ ships make little sense as they are much more expensive, and die just as fast as sub-99KdTn ships do under meson fire.
IMTU, I've accepted that, and gone with small and mid-size ship fleets, topping out at about 50KdTns. Big enough to play HG with them, but circumventing the above noted problem with large ships.

Cheers,
Bob W.

Bob -

With the fix I'm proposing, the big ships DO make sense. To be immune from spinal criticals, you need to be 300KT +

But now, different weapons have different roles; and there is much more incentive to ship a reasonable proportion of particle accelerators.

You still need mesons to kill the dreadnoughts.

Your big-ass Particle Accelerators are the weapon of choice for knocking out heavy cruisers, however.

Your smaller Particle Accelerators, mounted in smaller ships, become the weapon of choice for dealing with light cruisers and destroyers.

The strange anomaly that you can make a very heavily armoured destroyer which can stand in line against a cruiser pretty much indefinitely disappears.

Because you are getting more knock-outs from critical hits taking out things other than crew, you'll get more interesting boarding actions (a ship knocked out by a meson hit seldom has any crew left - so those boarding actions just don't happen).


Allowing a meson screen to act like armour against mesons is an interesting idea ... I like it. Presumably you no longer have to penetrate the thing as well.

Another way of helping to rebalance might be to give meson weaponry a roll on the interior explosion table only.


I'm not too bothered by the fact that a single meson hit is usually a complete knockout. Against sensibly protected ships they're not that easy to score; and by the time you have meson-armed ships they're normally going around in squadrons and your player characters, if they have any sense, aren't aboard them

 

[Amber Chancer]

Still does't help that a crew 1 mission kills a ship.

It doesn't have to if the ship has a frozen watch - provided you only suffer one of them.


The combination of your suggestion that Meson Screens act as "armour against Meson attack" rather than something to be penetrated, and my suggestion that meson gun hits should ONLY get a roll on the Interior Explosion, and not the Radiation Damage Table, is going to mean that those Crew-1 hits take longer to come.

They're still going to happen; but not nearly so quickly, and not in nearly such great numbers.


I've just drawn up my own list of four alterations - three from this thread and one from elsewhere - which should between them make a MAJOR difference to rebalancing the ship combat equations. They are these:


1. Critical hits scored as a result of a hit by a weapon with a USP factor in excess of the target vessel’s USP size factor are never reduced as a result of armour, no matter what weapon system scores the hit.

2. The effect of Meson Screens is varied, and a meson screen does not need to be penetrated. Instead, the Meson Screen acts in the same way as armour does for any other vessel: it provides a + modifier for the damage roll, and it reduces the number of damage rolls which are made for a hit by a spinal meson weapon.

3. Meson weapon hits only get a roll on the Interior Explosion damage table; they do not get a roll on the Radiation Damage Table.

4. The Fuel Tanks Shattered result on the Interior Explosion Damage Table, and the Frozen Watch / Ship’s Troops Dead result on the Critical Hit table, shall be switched.

I THINK that should pretty much do the trick from every perspective. But, rather than debate these proposals endlessly, may I suggest that everyone with an interest in this question fight a few HG battles with this adjustments to the rules, and see what the outcome is?

First up, I'd suggest fighting some encounters with FS designs - to get the hang of the different game dynamic. Then design a few ships specifically for these variant rules, and see how it plays out.

My prediction is that you'll find you still WANT meson weaponry, but they're not the instant ship-killers they once were - at least, not to those ships with adequate meson screens. However, as those screens are chipped away by interior explosions from meson hits, they will become increasingly vulnerable.

The Particle Accelerator, on the other hand, will come into its own. I just designed a TL-15 32,000 ton J-3 6G Agility-6 Armour-14 Cruiser with a Factor-P Particle Accelerator. Under the variant rules, this has the capacity to score critical hits on anything less than 50,000 tons. I've not yet worked out the minimum tonnage for shipping a Factor-T ... but it is going to be a cruiser-size ship, not a dreadnought. So Cruisers are going to be capable of hurting dreadnoughts (those of less than 300,000 tons, anyway) but the dreadnoughts should be able to hurt the cruisers more.

As I say, I THINK that the combination of fixes will work to iron out most of the criticisms of the combat system. But let's trial it, and see what the outcome is.

 

[mike wightman]

I still require the meson screen to be penetrated too.

The reduction of extra meson hits is in addition

I don't like dropping the radiation hits, but these too can be reduced by the screen rating

My fix for making big ships more survivable is to require more hits to reduce a USP factor.

I do like the playing around with the auto crits and armour reducing them, rather than scrapping it altogether how about increasing the amount of armour needed to reduce a crit?

Every 3, 4 or 5 levels of armour reduce the auto crits instead of the 2 it is now.

 

[Amber Chancer]

I do like the playing around with the auto crits and armour reducing them, rather than scrapping it altogether how about increasing the amount of armour needed to reduce a crit?

I tend to think about 14th century armoured knights, when rationalizing this out.

Really expensive armour was practically impossible to penetrate with anything.

But the fact that you couldn't penetrate it, didn't mean that you couldn't damage the man inside. Strike it hard enough, with a big enough blunt (or even sharp) implement, and he would still suffer a terrific concussion.

I think of these criticals as being the sort of concussion damage that a ship suffers if you blat it with something big enough. Even if you don't penetrate its armour, you can still cause it a lot of hurt. A bit like depth charges and submarines, I suppose. And logically, such concussion damage should not be affected in any way by armour.

 

[Amber Chancer]

I still require the meson screen to be penetrated too.

The reduction of extra meson hits is in addition

I guess if you do that, then yeah, you need to keep the radiation damage rolls as well, or you render the meson weapon altogether too impotent.

I just have a little conceptual difficulty with the idea that you roll to penetrate, and if you penetrate it still manages to upset your apple cart a bit.

Maybe we should both trial both alternatives (still need to penetrate the screen; still get to roll on two tables vs. screen no longer needs to be penetrated, but only get to roll on Interior Damage) and then compare notes on how the two variants play.

 

[Vladika]

ALL you need to do is ditch the rule that says the number of criticals automatically inflicted by a spinal whose code exceeds the size code of the target ship is reduced by 1 for every 2 factors of armour the target ship is carrying.

Meson hits were never reduced by armor in the first place so how does this "fix" work?

Critical Hits: All batteries whose weapon code exceeds the size code of the
target ship will inflict (if they hit and penetrate) automatic critical hits equal to the size difference. For example, if a missile battery of factor 9 hits a size 4 ship, it will (in addition to any other damage) inflict 5 critical hits. These critical hits are reduced in number by one for each two factors of armor the target ship has; round odd numbers down. Meson gun hits are not reduced by armor.

And you still get the massive damage rolls for:

Spinal Mounts: All spinal mount weapons which hit and penetrate inflict one extra damage roll (on each appropriate table) for each letter by which their size exceeds 9.

 

[Amber Chancer]

Those still happen Vlad, IF you get to land a few good hits with your Mesons.

But by rebalancing the combat outcomes by giving the big Particle Accelerators a much better chance of pulling down the Meson-armed ships BEFORE they land their punches, it DOES redress the balance.

(Just try it out ... trust me on this ... you'll see a big difference)

 

[Vladika]

Those still happen Vlad, IF you get to land a few good hits with your Mesons.

But by rebalancing the combat outcomes by giving the big Particle Accelerators a much better chance of pulling down the Meson-armed ships BEFORE they land their punches, it DOES redress the balance.

(Just try it out ... trust me on this ... you'll see a big difference)

Hmmmm I'm for some re-balancing of the Spinal PAs. As Hans SHOULD have been saying "It's in the Setting so..."

I'll run it a few times and see. If it does work it's an easy fix.

Still, even if it does...Hans isn't going to be happy that a 12.5kdt PA "P" BR can...:devil:

BTW Don't mistake my poking a bit of fun Hans' way. I enjoy him as a friend, respect him as a player and agree with him MOST of the time. It's his charming, obstinate, persistence... If ever there was an irresistible force wearing away at the immovable object, it's Hans.

 

[Amber Chancer]

Vlad -

The reason I THINK this 4-point rebalancing will work (and I must admit, I've not play-tested it yet, either) is that the retention of critical hits (unreduced by armout under any circumstances) for the blatting of a puny size ship by a giant size weapon will ensure that big ships can absorb more damage than small ships (that will please the big ship brigade) whilst the fact that Meson Screns act as armour on Meson Hits means that even the big meson guns don't have pretty much guaranteed access to several rolls on the critical hits table.

I've just drawn up two starships which I think make sense with this fix ... and I think everyone will agree that they are vessels which OUGHT to make sense, but which don't make a heck of a lot of sense under HG as it stands. They are a CA designed for blatting the other side's cruisers and light cruisers; and a light cruiser designed for committing hamstercide on his destroyers and other tiddlers (and I think we can already start to reach an across-the-board concensus that this is how the ship hierarchy OUGHT to be - as long as we can scare off the hamsters with a CL, then the BBs don't need to fear the hamsters ... unless the hamster-wielder has CAs to knock out the CLs ... and so it goes on).

I'll leave you to draw up your own USPs ... I can't get the formatting to work on this board.


36 KT Cruiser (P), TL15

Hull: 36,000 tons. Needle/Wedge configuration

Performance: Jump-3; 6G; Power-plant B; 3,960 EP; Agility 6

Fuel Treatment: Integral fuel scoops and on-board purification plant

Electronics: Model/9 fib computer

Hardpoints: One spinal mount; three 50-ton bays; 35 hardpoints

Armament: Spinal Mount Particle Accelerator (factor-P); one 50-ton Meson Gun bay; one 50-ton missile bay; 14 triple laser turrets organised as 2 batteries; 1 single fusion gun turret organised as 1 battery

Defences: Armourel hull (factor-14); Meson Screen (factor-9); Nuclear Damper (factor-9); one 50-ton repulsor bay; 20 triple sandcaster turrets organised as 2 batteries

Craft: none

Crew: 40 officers, 246 ratings. Dual occupancy throughout except for Captain and 3 branch heads.

Cost: MCr 35,669.22 singly; MCr 28,535.376 in quantity


19.8 KT Light Cruiser (P), TL15

Hull: 19,800 tons. Needle/Wedge configuration

Performance: Jump-3; 6G; Power plant A; 1,980 EP; Agility 6

Fuel Treatment: None. The ship is dependent upon other vessels for away-from-base refuelling

Electronics: Model/9 fib computer

Hardpoints: Spinal mount; three 50 ton bays; 30 hardpoints

Armament: Particle Accelerator (factor-H); three 50-ton missile bays

Defences: Armoured hull (factor-13); nuclear damper (factor 8); 30 triple sandcaster turrets organised as 3 batteries

Craft: None

Crew: 24 officers; 146 ratings. Dual occupancy throughout except for Captian and 3 section heads.

Cost: MCr 18,544.7 single; MCr 14,835.76 in quantity


The CL required some pretty massive compromises to be made to keep it under the magic 20,000 tons. There is simply no way to get the Nuclear Damper up to factor 9 without increasing the size of the Power Plant ... and that would involve a serious compromise of the armour protection. I was not prepared to do this.

Similarly, the only way to make the ship independent of fuel tankers and enable it to attend to its own refuelling would be to sacrifice a bit of armour. To do so would allow another missile bay to be shipped ... but not an additional weapon type. That extra missile bay would quickly be lost to weapons damage. Better, I think, to maintain the armour, accept the tanker-dependency, and do without the fourth missile bay.

In HG2 as it stands, the CL would be little use against a mass phalanx of 1,000 ton Armour-14 missile hamsters each fitted with a 50-ton missile bay (actually, my hamsters tend to be a bit bigger, with a bit of a weapons mix, to enable them to absorb a bit mor edamage before the missile bay is degraded too far). It takes a J-factor weapon to be able to score any critical hits on them, and an R factor to get more than a single roll on the damage tables. So you end up needing something like the CA, or a ship wiht a J-meson gun, to deal with a single heavily-armoured destroyer. I think that big-ship and small-ship proponents alike can agree that that is a silly outcome.

If I am right, however, then with the 4-point fix a few of these CLs will quickly munch their way through the mass phalanx of hamsters ... who will have to trun their attentions (and missiles) from the BBs to the CLs in the interests of self-preservation ... leaving the BBs to get on with th eserious business of fighting one another.

As I say ... I THINK the rebalancing should work ... but let's put in a bit of play testing and see how it goes.

In particular, let's get a bit of experience ot take a view on whether, if the Meson Screen acts as armour against Meson hits, it should still have to be penetrated or not. I suspect the answer to that will probably depend upon your won personal preference as to how potent you think Meson weaponry should be. However, my concern is to find the balance point at which there is still a good reason for carrying it ... but not so obvious and overwhelming a case for it that spinal Particle Accelerators hardly ever get a look in (which does seem ot be the case at present ... )

 

[Amber Chancer]

I should perhaps say that I envisage the Meson-Screen-As-Armour acting to reduce the number of additional damage rolls that a meson gun scores in just the same way that armour reduces the number of additional rolls a spinal Particle Accelerator gets are reduced by armour.

OK ... so Armour-15 will still be able to reduce a T particle accelerator from 19 rolls on each table to 4, whilst the worst you can do to a T meson gun is to reduce it from 19 to 10; but it does go SOME way to rebalancing the potency of the two weapons types.

And, I might say, I rather like the elegance of the fact that the best Meson Screen you can have at TL15 will reduce the smallest TL15 meson spinal from 10 rolls on each table to 1 (but still better than a 100 ton bay at factor-9, because the bay gets a +6 die modifier) feels inherently right to me.

 

[Vladika]

Now that was an interesting outcome.

I've only looked at this at TL15 so far, so all comments are based solely on TL15.

Offhand I'd say it nearly forces Cruisers to adopt a minimum standard off 50kdt and BBs 300kdt. This is for survival.

I think the often touted "use Meson Screen factor as armor against Mesons" is also needed.

If these two items are used Larger, well armored, ships can survive several Meson Spinal hits, thus promoting Large ships (BBs particularly).

Mesons still do huge amounts of damage and you aren't going to be combat effective long but survival of 5-7 hits is possible, even probable with the right designs.

Particle Spinals have a much greater place in a well designed fleet, particularly on BRs.

As for armor? YES you need it more than ever! Against missiles and PAs it acts as it always did. BUT with more PAs, as the logical outcome of this rule change, more PAs equate to more damage to ships light in armor. Additionally it must be remembered that Spinal PAs are the best chance of first (or continuing) hits that you are going to get; EVER.

Spinal PAs should engage Spinal Meson ships at long range as often as possible. This is especially true if the opposing player commits those ships in the opening round.

BTW, as an unintended outcome, Fighters are very much back in the mix!

 

[Vladika]

I should perhaps say that I envisage the Meson-Screen-As-Armour acting to reduce the number of additional damage rolls that a meson gun scores in just the same way that armour reduces the number of additional rolls a spinal Particle Accelerator gets are reduced by armour.

OK ... so Armour-15 will still be able to reduce a T particle accelerator from 19 rolls on each table to 4, whilst the worst you can do to a T meson gun is to reduce it from 19 to 10; but it does go SOME way to rebalancing the potency of the two weapons types.

And, I might say, I rather like the elegance of the fact that the best Meson Screen you can have at TL15 will reduce the smallest TL15 meson spinal from 10 rolls on each table to 1 (but still better than a 100 ton bay at factor-9, because the bay gets a +6 die modifier) feels inherently right to me.

This isn't so bad. 6 50kdt PA equipped Cruisers per 1 300kdt BB is about right and redresses much.

Strategically HG2 will be "age of sail" but, tactically, WW2

 

[Vladika]

A better fix is to put the fuel tanks shattered result back on the critical table where it belongs.

And allow meson screens to act like armour does on meson hits.

Still does't help that a crew 1 mission kills a ship. So how about this rules variant - every crew hit acts as a negative DM on every roll the ship makes.

I like the crew thing. Would like it better using crew quality DMs and finding a way to pay for them, but, preferably, Earn them.

Fuel tanks shattered is a given.

 

[Vladika]

I should perhaps say that I envisage the Meson-Screen-As-Armour acting to reduce the number of additional damage rolls that a meson gun scores in just the same way that armour reduces the number of additional rolls a spinal Particle Accelerator gets are reduced by armour.

OK ... so Armour-15 will still be able to reduce a T particle accelerator from 19 rolls on each table to 4, whilst the worst you can do to a T meson gun is to reduce it from 19 to 10; but it does go SOME way to rebalancing the potency of the two weapons types.

And, I might say, I rather like the elegance of the fact that the best Meson Screen you can have at TL15 will reduce the smallest TL15 meson spinal from 10 rolls on each table to 1 (but still better than a 100 ton bay at factor-9, because the bay gets a +6 die modifier) feels inherently right to me.

So allow the simultaneous use of Meson Screens...IF you want to pay the dt% increase to the ship, and that is costly.

 

[Amber Chancer]

Now that was an interesting outcome.

I've only looked at this at TL15 so far, so all comments are based solely on TL15.

Offhand I'd say it nearly forces Cruisers to adopt a minimum standard off 50kdt and BBs 300kdt. This is for survival.

I think the often touted "use Meson Screen factor as armor against Mesons" is also needed.

If these two items are used Larger, well armored, ships can survive several Meson Spinal hits, thus promoting Large ships (BBs particularly).

Mesons still do huge amounts of damage and you aren't going to be combat effective long but survival of 5-7 hits is possible, even probable with the right designs.

Particle Spinals have a much greater place in a well designed fleet, particularly on BRs.

As for armor? YES you need it more than ever! Against missiles and PAs it acts as it always did. BUT with more PAs, as the logical outcome of this rule change, more PAs equate to more damage to ships light in armor. Additionally it must be remembered that Spinal PAs are the best chance of first (or continuing) hits that you are going to get; EVER.

Spinal PAs should engage Spinal Meson ships at long range as often as possible. This is especially true if the opposing player commits those ships in the opening round.

BTW, as an unintended outcome, Fighters are very much back in the mix!

Vlad ... stop teasing us and give us the bloody combat report!!!!!

It sounds like I've convinced you conceptually ... there may still be some fine-tuning required, but it works, does it??

And ... tell me about the fighters!! You're absolutely right that THAT was unforeseen ...

 

[mike wightman]

My only concern is that PA are quite accurate so critical hits are going to be a lot more common.

I do like the rule change though, it just feels right.

One final suggestion (or two), taken from the pages of HG1.

Crew hits - crew factor must be reduced to 0 before the ship is mission killed (I think I prefer to keep the -1 to every roll per crew hit I suggested earlier)

Critical hit repairs - can be attempted if ship is in the reserve, roll 11+, DM▮+ crew factor...

Ok, and one final one, how about nuclear dampers can reduce radiation hits as if they are armour too