High Guard 1.5 (<1979 edition)

[robject]

So, the 430 bays on the Tigress are slightly more likely than the 24 bays on the AHL to hit, but will do the exact same damage... HG'79 really is quite silly.

It's critically important to pin down the specific problems with HG1, and this embodies the main problem nicely. Intuitively, and perhaps due to living with HG2, we understand that (for example) 200 bays are going to be much more effective than 20 bays. A ship that can survive a 20-bay hit may be knocked OOA by a 200-bay hit.

Our reaction is to bend the Weapon Rating Chart, to require an order of magnitude more weapon tonnage to get the battery rating. But there are at least three ways to do it:

CHANGE NORMALIZATION
Currently, all weapon point values are "normalized" to a 1,000 ton hull standard. It is likely that this will have to change upward.

Or it could be disposed of altogether. Doing that, however, would essentially force a rewrite of the entire weapons tables on page 26, essentially starting over from scratch. It's DOABLE because we generally know how OTU ships "should work". But I doubt it will be easy.

BEND THE WEAPON RATING CHART
Bend the columns in the Weapon Rating Chart for every weapon type (seven columns). This maps the post-normalization value to a Factor number. The normalization process would probably also have to change.

These changes would have to be monitored by the change in values of the USP for iconic ships that we generally understand in the OTU.

WIDEN THE POINT RANGE IN THE WEAPON TYPES CHARTS
Widen the point disparity of the weapons by type (four tables). These tables hold the pre-normalization point values for weapons on a given emplacement. The normalization process would probably also have to change.

These changes would have to be monitored by the change in values of the USP for iconic ships that we generally understand in the OTU.

REDO THE COMBAT TABLES
Redefine the thresholds in the combat tables. This would retain the HG1 USP unchanged, but what those Factors can *do* changes. This is a "clean" change that might "fix" existing designs without having to re-design them. The downside is that the combat tables are the coarsest metrics.

These changes would have to be monitored by the change in effectiveness of weapons of each type by attack factor, and against defenses of appropriate types by defense factor. The upside is that problems would be obvious if we understand all the data.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Yes, quite.

We can get the same behaviour as in HG'80, by placing the bays in separate smaller ships, making each bay a battery of the same factor, so the same hit chance, but many times more dice rolling and total damage...


To make HG'79 work each battery would have to have a damage score, e.g. in Dtons, so one hit damaged that many Dton of the stricken system. We would have left the USP behind and be dangerously close to TNE damage, needing complete design sheets for the involved craft and recalculating drive and battery rating after each hit... Or perhaps a damage score per factor for every hit location?

 

[robject]

... each battery would have to have a damage score, e.g. in Dtons, so one hit damaged that many Dton of the stricken system...

As far as we know, that might be exactly what the pre-normalized point values represent, in general terms.

The TL 12 single pulse laser might indeed do one ton of damage.
The TL 11 LBay missile rack might indeed do 50 tons of damage.

Actually it's in "hits", because the TL12 beam laser does two hits to the pulse laser's one hit. But two "hits" aren't a far stretch from two tons of damage.

Generally, but...

The TL 15 particle accelerator bay probably does more than 16 tons of damage, but PA and Meson guns are unusual weapon types in HG1.
And the fusion guns are rated in very high numbers. Too high to mean "tons of damage".

But taking lasers, missiles, sand, and repulsors together, they seem to play nice.

 

[robject]

I'm trying to understand why the meson and PA weapons are scaled so low, on both the weapons table by type, and on the ratings chart. And conversely why the plasma/fusion weapons are rated so high on both.

It is.... well it must be because of the normalization. Normalizing on low numbers causes high rounding, while normalizing on high numbers retains accuracy.

Therefore, the PA and meson weapons are going to have several coarse breakpoints (largely by hull size?), while the energy weapons will be more fluid.

---

That suggests a strategy, which suggests a somewhat hidden design intent. The intent is that energy weapons, which are only in smaller emplacements, track factors more closely with hull tonnage than the "capital" weapons. Is that correct?

Hull Volume	Barbette A ~8 points	TBay A 16 points	10 x TBay A 160 points	100 x TBay A 1600 points	450 x TBay A 7200 points
Gazelle	5	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
10K	-	1	9	9	9
Nolikian	-	-	5	9	9
Lightning	-	-	2	9	9
100K	-	-	1	9	9
Kokirrak	-	-	-	5	9
Tigress	-	-	-	2	8

What Feels Wrong.
A Gazelle really shouldn't be able to field the same PA rating than a Nolikian. EVER.
A Tigress really shouldn't have to make huge efforts just to keep up with smaller ships. EVER.

Put another way,
One PA barbette does not ever equal ten PA small bays, ever.
450 LBays are always better than 10 small bays, always.

 

[kilemall]

Yes, quite.

We can get the same behaviour as in HG'80, by placing the bays in separate smaller ships, making each bay a battery of the same factor, so the same hit chance, but many times more dice rolling and total damage...


To make HG'79 work each battery would have to have a damage score, e.g. in Dtons, so one hit damaged that many Dton of the stricken system. We would have left the USP behind and be dangerously close to TNE damage, needing complete design sheets for the involved craft and recalculating drive and battery rating after each hit... Or perhaps a damage score per factor for every hit location?

Already have this handled in my CT/HG version, and an easy stepped fail check if you want to avoid the factor to ton calc. I laid it out in an earlier post.

I reduce the bay/battery rolls by making armor an absolute pen value and allowing bays to act like turrets in a battery, each additional bay adds 1 to the attack value. That theoretically puts them into spinal levels, but the spinals end up being more power effective per EP fed in.

 

[robject]

The Key Problem

It looks to me like the key problem is the hull normalization. As Dilbert noted, it's so intrusive that it turns "batteries bearing" into a monster that gives small ships inordinate power relative to the capital ships.

Another way of putting it is that it shrinks the size range of BCS. That's not a bad thing in isolation, but the OTU assumes that the Tigress is supreme in its context.

Solutions

1. Scale up. The first thing I thought of early on is to normalize to larger hulls. This, however, may squash the smaller ships into unsatisfyingly coarse performance brackets: just as now the Tigress can't stand up to a Lightning, so then perhaps there would be little to no difference in power between a Gazelle and a Sloan.

2. Import Bearing Factor from HG2. HG2 saw and fixed the problem by introducing a bearing factor on all weapons; essentially this caps ship power by forcing some weapons as a reserve capacity under the guise of "not all weapons can bear in one combat turn."

3. Toss it out completely. Maybe there's no need for a scale factor at all. In this case, the tables which determine attack factor would carry the full load of determining how effective a ship's massed weapons are.

 

[mike wightman]

Which brings us back to a log scale for weapon factors based on points totals for weapons.

It is worth pointing out again there is no to hit roll in HG79 - you roll to penetrate defences.

And perhaps people have to leave behind the baggage they are bringing from HG80 and look at what a weapon factor represents - such that a 1000t bay armed escort may top out at a factor of 5, but that factor of 5 may still have a chance to penetrate the layers factor 9 defences...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Which brings us back to a log scale for weapon factors based on points totals for weapons.

Quite.

It is worth pointing out again there is no to hit roll in HG79 - you roll to penetrate defences.

Tomato, tomahto...
One more similar roll.

And perhaps people have to leave behind the baggage they are bringing from HG80 and look at what a weapon factor represents - such that a 1000t bay armed escort may top out at a factor of 5, but that factor of 5 may still have a chance to penetrate the layers factor 9 defences...

Quite, but the difficult part is to make sure that the high factor battery does appropriately much more damage than a lower factor battery, probably more hundreds of times more than ten times more.

 

[robject]

Which brings us back to a log scale for weapon factors based on points totals for weapons.

I've updated the OP to include options for changing the normalization factor.

One thought I had was to use the HG2 bearing factor as the normalizer.

So for example the Tigress has 430 LBay missiles... in HG1 that's 21,500 points. Hull V has a 50% bearing factor, so that's reduced to 10,750 points.

Then we update the Weapon Ratings for Missiles, where 10,000 points is a Factor-9.

Then the Free Trader has 1 single-turret missile launcher. In HG1 that's 1 point. That's either a Factor 0, meaning it's only good for point defense, or else it's the introductory Factor 1, which in HG1 currently is a very weak factor by the way.

What's in between? If we do logarithmic then it's tidy but demanding, as Dilbert noted.

Start from the perspective of what a 1,000,000 battle rider would look like - factor 9 everything and highest possible spinal - and work backwards.
- Mike

Yeah, I think you're right.

Missile Attack Factors.
HG1 Weapon Points Table unchanged.
Bearing multiple replaces normalization.
HG1 Weapon Rating Chart replaced.

1 = 3 (or whatever)
2 = 40 (1 Bay/LBay)               1,000t ship
3 = 150 (5 LBays)                 5,000t ship
4 = 500 (10 LBays)               10,000t ship
5 = 950 points (20 LBays)        20,000t ship
6 = 2,000 points (50 LBays)      50,000t ship
7 = 3,000 points (85 LBays)     100,000t ship
8 = 6,000 points (184 LBays)    200,000t ship
9 = 9,000 points (330 LBays)    400,000t ship

So for example, a Tigress with 430 LBay missiles. 215 guns bear, for 10,750 points. Thus a Factor-9.
And a Kinunir with two triple turret missiles. 6 guns bear, for 6 points. Thus a Factor-1.
A Lightning-class Cruiser with, say, 28 LBay missiles. 21 bear, for 1,050 points. Thus a Factor-5.

In this scheme, even 200,000 ton ships cannot field a Factor-9 missile attack. That's too strict, isn't it?

---

Lots of ways to do it though.

By the way, this is just for missiles. All the other weapon types use different scales.

 

[robject]

"WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT"

Start from the perspective of what a 1,000,000 battle rider would look like - factor 9 everything and highest possible spinal - and work backwards.
- Mike

I can't fill up that kind of volume with a nonjump-capable ship. Which only means.....

WOW THIS MONSTER WILL HAVE EVERYTHING AND A JUMP DRIVE TOO.

Volume.    Component.             Notes.
---------  ---------------------  ------------------------
1,000,000  Hull                   Max 998 bays (with spine + launch tubes).
  260,000  Drives                 M6, P6
   60,000. Fuel
   40,000  J-Drive 3
  300,000  J-Fuel
   10,000  Meson Spine Bigger Than Anything Known to Mankind
   10,500  Fighters               500 of 'em + tube
    3,200  200 PA SBays           Sure, Factor-9, why not.  1,600 points.
   10,000  200 Repulsor LBays     Sure, Factor-9, why not.  4,000 points.
   10,000  200 Missile LBays.     Factor-7
   10,000. Missile Magazine
    5,000  200 Fusion Bays        Sure, Factor-9, why not.  18,000 points.
      300  300 Laser Turrets    Point Defense Factor-9, why not.  1,500 points.
      300  300 Other Turrets    Point Defense Factor-9, why not.  ?? points.
      300  300 Sand Turrets     Point Defense Factor-9, why not.  1,500 points.
   15,000. Armor-9
      100. Damper-9, Screen-9, Model/7, Scoops + Refinery
   40,000  Crew Space (10,000)
   20,000. Bridge
   20,000. Aux Bridge
  180,000+ open space.  I think I should fill this with a squadron of Nolikians.

REVISED FIGHTER TABLE
Because I can't stand it.

Factor 0	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
None	1 fighter	2 fighters	4	8	20	40	60	80	120	160	200	250	300	350	400

HULL-VOLUME BASED NORMALIZATION MULTIPLIER

100-10,000t	20k	30k	40k	50k	75k	100k	200k	300k	400k	500k+
1.0	0.95	0.9	0.85	0.8	0.75	0.7	0.65	0.6	0.55	0.5

REVISED WEAPON RATING CHART

Weapon	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4	5	6	7	8	9
Meson	1 point	8 points	30	100	200	400	600	1,000	1,500
PA	1	8	30	100	200	400	600	1,000	1,500
Energy	1	80	300	1,000	2,000	4,000	6,000	12,000	18,000
Repulsor	1	16	60	200	400	800	1,300	2,600	4,000
Missile	3	40	150	500	950	2,000	3,000	6,000	9,000
Laser PD	1	8	30	100	200	400	600	1,000	1,500
Sand PD	1	8	30	100	200	400	600	1,000	1,500

 

[robject]

Off the rails then, but let's see what that looks like on the Azhanti High Lightning.

#24 Bay Missiles         18 bear = Factor 4.
#40 Dual Fusion guns.    30 bear = Factor 6.
#190 T3 Lasers.          142 bear = Factor 8.  <-- Seems off.
#130 T3 Sand.            97 bear = Factor 6.

And the Tigress.

430 Bay Missiles      215 bear = Factor 9
100 T3 Beam Lasers     50 bear = Factor 6
100 dual Fusion Guns   50 bear = Factor 4
100 PA Barbettes?      50 bear = Factor 6 ??
22. LBay Repulsors     11 bear = Factor 5
100 T3 Sand            50 bear = Factor 6?

I *think* that a full HG1.5 rebuild of these ships would increase their firepower. No idea how much though.

 

[mike wightman]

At least its heading in the right direction

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Off the rails then, but let's see what that looks like on the Azhanti High Lightning.

#24 Bay Missiles         18 bear = Factor 4.
#40 Dual Fusion guns.    30 bear = Factor 6.
#190 T3 Lasers.          142 bear = Factor 8.  <-- Seems off.
#130 T3 Sand.            97 bear = Factor 6.

Yes, factor 8 from 190 turrets is probably too much.

Why use a Hull Normalization Factor at all? It just complicates things and penalises large ships, which is not needed prima facie.


If we start with the baseline that a megaton ship can have factor 9 in everything, then each factor 9 battery should be in the region of 100 kDt worth of weaponry, so 100 bays or 1000 turrets.

For weapon types with both turret and bays, 1000 turrets should probably be a lower factor than 100 bays, to give any reason to use bays. Say 100 bays is factor 9, 1000 turrets is factor 7? This wold mean a rebalancing of the point values between turret weapons and bays. Something like a turret weapon is 3 pts so a bay should be 3 × 3 × 10 × 10 = 900 pts, rounded to 1000pts? 3 pts for a turret weapon gives some room for TL progression, it may start at 1 at low TL. We don't really need different point values for different weapons, unless we want specific results, such as higher factor for certain weapons (Fusion?).

With these assumptions we get:
Turret Wpn = 3 pts (at high TL)
Tiny Bay = 500 pts
Medium Bay = 1000 pts (at high TL)
Large Bay = 1300 pts.

And a factor progression of:

0          0
1          3     One turret at low TL, one wpn at high TL
2          9     On turret at high TL, so fighter and small ship max
3         40     A few turrets.
4        150
5        550     A bay or many turrets.
6      2 000
7      7 500     ~1000 missile turrets at high TL.
8     27 000
9    100 000     100 missile bays

Result:
1000 T3 @ 3pts per weapon = 1000 × 3 × 3 = 9000 pts, so factor 7.
100 MBay @ 1000 pts = 100 × 10000 = 100000 pts, so factor 9.
77 LBay @ 1300 pts = 77 × 1300 = 100100 pts, so factor 9. Slightly overpowered, but uses more space, so good?
Good enough for e.g. missiles?


For weapon types without bays, e.g. lasers and sandcasters give each weapon up to 30 pts, so ~1000 turrets is factor 9. No, that doesn't work, lest a single laser turret is factor 3 (way overpowered). Needs a separate pts scale, somewhat compressed, topping out at 9000:

0        0
1        3     Turret at low TL, single wpn at high TL
2        9     A turret at high TL
3       23     A few turrets
4       63
5      169
6      457
7    1 235
8    3 333
9    9 000     1000 T3 at high TL

With this we get (AHL):

#24 Bay Missiles     24 MBay @ 1000 pts = 24 × 1000 = 24000 pts => Factor 7. (Close to factor 8)
* Fusion guns not rated yet...
#190 T3 Lasers.      190 T3 @ 3 pts/wpn = 190 × 3 × 3 = 1710 pts => Factor 7.
#130 T3 Sand.        130 T3 @ 3 pts/wpn = 130 × 3 × 3 = 1170 pts => Factor 6 (very close to factor 7).

Quite reasonable for a 60 kDt ship?

Replace the 24 missile bays with 240 missile turrets and we get 240 T3 @ 3 pts/wpn = 240 × 3 × 3 = 2160 pts => Factor 6. Lose a factor but reclaim quite a lot of space, good enough?


Tigress:

430 Bay Missiles       430 MBay @ 1000 pts = 430 × 1000 = 430000 pts => Factor 9. (well over, factor A?)
100 T3 Beam Lasers     100 T3 @ 3 pts/wpn = 100 × 3 × 3 = 900 pts => Factor 6.
100 dual Fusion Guns   not rated yet...
100 PA Barbettes?      not rated yet...
22. LBay Repulsors     22 LBay @ 1000 pts = 22 × 1000 = 22000 pts => Factor 7.
100 T3 Sand            100 T3 @ 3 pts/wpn = 100 × 3 × 3 = 900 pts => Factor 6.

Unbalanced design with too many missile bays for HG1.5?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And the end result is uninspiring: Light cruisers will have factor 6, cruisers factor 7, battleships factor 8, and super dreadnoughts factor 9. Nearly all of them, with an occasional a factor up or down...

 

[kilemall]

Why lock yourselves to factor 9? Imperium ranges were to 12.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I suggested greater range, for better granularity, on page 1, but was unceremoniously ignored.

We need a greater range than 0-9, perhaps 0-Z [33], comparable to hull codes?

 

[robject]

---

It’s not just you. I’ve been unceremoniously ignoring three voices: Dilbert, Mike, and Rob all have this urge to throw things out and start over.

I have to understand HG1 well, in order to see what the intent was. I don’t think anyone understands the original intent — Marc will not remember much there - as Mike noted, nobody’s bothered with it since 1980.

---

I’ve reluctantly agreed with Dilbert and Mike that the normalization is broken in HG1. It is unclear at this point whether it should be changed, or abandoned.

However, I suspect that the point ratings for the weapons aren’t bad, which makes me think they can be kept, which means perhaps just a change in how normalization is done could be enough. But I’m not sure.

But all three of us have to experiment with lots of dead ends to see what gives us OTU support but also interesting choices and yet retains some sort of HG1 flavor. Even that last bit is largely undefined. What does it mean to be “like” HG1? HG2 is like HG1, after all. Is it just HG2 without EP? No, but.



It “would be nice” to know the minimal fixes that would make HG1 work with the OTU while providing some decision making. Trying to stick to the original helps me focus.

 

[robject]

Pious posturing aside, I like some of innovations you two have proposed. I especially like changing the spine table to remove useless entries. There are a lot of ways to tinker with rules. I am tying to resist but I’ve tested things out there as well.

 

[robject]

And the end result is uninspiring: Light cruisers will have factor 6, cruisers factor 7, battleships factor 8, and super dreadnoughts factor 9. Nearly all of them, with an occasional a factor up or down...

Let’s try to analyze that.

HG1 has exactly one factor per weapon type. Thus there is one dimension.

In HG2, your ship has two dimensions there - factor and batteries bearing. Thus you can have a Factor-9 battery, but you’ll be beaten by the guy who has 200 Factor-9 batteries bearing.

Thus HG1 can’t do factors like HG2, because it represents two dimensions flattened into one factor, like TCS flattens multiple batteries into one statistical roll.

In fact, that might be the primary strength of HG1: in pre-calculating batteries at design time into a factor with massed-battery statistical characteristics.

Inadvertently, by trying to add richness of detail, HG2 forgot to resolve combat in a timely fashion. They had to bolt a HG1 design concept into the combat rules.

Meh, maybe.

Think about it that way.

 

[robject]

And the end result is uninspiring: Light cruisers will have factor 6, cruisers factor 7, battleships factor 8, and super dreadnoughts factor 9. Nearly all of them, with an occasional a factor up or down...

ON THE OTHER HAND.

How does this compare with HG2? Are all cruisers interestingly different? Because I really don’t know, and when I look at HG2 USPs I tend to see a lot of similarities. How many meaningful and useful variations are there? To what degree do the choices made in designing a ship in HG2 create a meaningful impact in the design (in a good way)?

I ask because I was never good at HG2 ship design. I had no way of knowing that a choice I made was good, bad, or made no difference — in weapons and defenses that is.

On the other hand, some “choices” were not actually choices at all. You must install the best possible computer. That was never a choice. Ditto dampers and screens. And the spines we already know about.