High Guard 1.5 (<1979 edition)

[kilemall]

So why is the tonnage solution unacceptable?

 

[mike wightman]

So why is the tonnage solution unacceptable?

Because the number of tons of damage required to reduce a drive on a BB by 1 factor will instantly destroy light cruisers - conversely if the number of tons of damage reduces an escort ship's drive by one factor it is going to take hundreds of hits to do anything to a BB - which is against the lowering the number of dice rolls paradigm.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Whoa, whoa, too complicated, simplify, simplify...

Add extra hits for weapon factor only.

Soak extra hits by tonnage only.

Balance so that ships do and soak about the same amount of hits, e.g. a BB with a factor 9 does 9 hits and soak 9 hits.

That way a couple of BBs fighting and a couple of CLs fighting will take the same amount of time.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

and replacing it with


I think computer can be removed here, because TL affects components (e.g. weapons and drives) in the ship's design already. Not enough, you say? OK we can talk about that.

Too much, a DM+8 on a 2D roll is off the charts.

 

[Silverhawk]

And I was just about to quote you, because I now understand why those are better ideas.

So, use the concept of the HG2 hull size DM table for multiple uses across all attack types in HG1.

HULL SIZE MODIFIER

Below 100K            No modifier.
100K and above        Modifier = Volume/100,000

*

The concept of the hull size DM table is a good one. I have problems with the HG2 one as written and posted earlier in the thread an alternative.
I also found it interesting that MT had damage table that listed items such as Weapons and Drives as Jump - N where you rolled to see how damaged the drive was rather than a drive hit being an instant destroyed.

 

[whartung]

Is there a rock-paper-scissors relationship between weapons and defenses in the OTU?

Not really. At some level there is, but, in general, no.

Consider, in HG 80 at least, can't speak the '79, the "universal" defense is Agility, as this affects everything and has no direct counter.

The next universal defense is Armor. Armor has a great impact on the smaller batteries, notably turrets. But even then, nuclear missiles provide some scissors to armors paper.

Meson Guns are the true outlier in contrast to most everything else, with the Meson screen being the only scalable defense (bigger ships get bigger screens which counter smaller meson guns).

The game of combined armors is typically limited to different platform, in our case ships, specializing in rock or scissors. But as the ships get bigger, they can start carry all rock, scissors, and paper.

It's really a different game without the meson threat. Armor becomes the main scaling factor that makes bigger ships tougher and tougher.

 

[robject]

[Multiple attacks] draws the battle out to tedium.

The game should be fun when cruisers and battleships are engaged, which probably makes escort class and below easier to take out.

Another thing to consider if we manage to scale weapon factors correctly is that the higher factors could get bonus damage rolls too.

* Toughness. Adds to all defensive ratings (armor, screen, damper, globe) - yes but being a -DM to the attacker rather than extending the tables.

I like this; however, if it added to defensive ratings then it can be part of the index, rather than an additional computation.

Another thing that would bring this into line with AotI is the meson screen could suffer the same way as the black globe.

I think that's important enough to do.

Add extra hits for weapon factor only.
Soak extra hits by tonnage only.

I like the de-coupling there. Let's run down that road a bit and see what happens.

 

[mike wightman]

I've always wanted to see this take on rock paper scissors (lizard spock)

spinals - good vs cruisers-capitals, moderate vs lt.cruisers-escorts, uselass vs small ships and fighters
bays - moderate vs cruisers-capitals, good vs lt. cruisers-escorts, good vs small ships and fighters
turrets - useless vs cruisers-capitals, moderate vs cruisers-escorts, good vs small craft and fighters

then there is the good old missile boat vs particle rock vs meson sled

fianally I still like the idea of replacing turret weapons with a point defence factor.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Not really. At some level there is, but, in general, no.

There are rock-paper-scissors effects all over HG'80. The most common is Meson vs. Missiles vs. PAs.

At lower TLs we have Armour vs. Agility vs. battery-size, as we can't afford both heavy Armour and high Agility.

Meson Guns are the true outlier in contrast to most everything else, with the Meson screen being the only scalable defense (bigger ships get bigger screens which counter smaller meson guns).

The game of combined armors is typically limited to different platform, in our case ships, specializing in rock or scissors. But as the ships get bigger, they can start carry all rock, scissors, and paper.

Size has nothing to do with armour and screens, they are strictly proportional to size, so equally affordable at different sizes. It's mostly a TL effect.

It's really a different game without the meson threat. Armor becomes the main scaling factor that makes bigger ships tougher and tougher.

Larger ships are not able to carry more armour, and are not at all tougher than smaller ships.

The only thing you need size for is to carry larger spinals, but that only increases firepower, not survivability.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

spinals - good vs cruisers-capitals, moderate vs lt.cruisers-escorts, uselass vs small ships and fighters
bays - moderate vs cruisers-capitals, good vs lt. cruisers-escorts, good vs small ships and fighters
turrets - useless vs cruisers-capitals, moderate vs cruisers-escorts, good vs small craft and fighters

Turrets have to be good at something other than killing themselves, otherwise we have no rock-paper-scissors chain.

Do you mean:
Capital ships (spinals) kills escorts (bays),
Escorts kills fighters,
Fighters kills capital ships?

That would require some work, to make fighters viable. Somehow that reminds me of Mongoose...

 

[robject]

I've attached a first-draft weapons table to the OP. I think it's a conservative update -- the only change it makes, is to adjust all weapon point values to a common scale, so that it only needs one column in the final Weapon Rating Chart.

If it keeps the output values essentially identical with standard HG1, then I see an opportunity to interpolate point values by TL in several places that couldn't do that before.

The values could also all be divided by 6 or so for smaller numbers.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

OK, I looked at the 1.5 pdf. Slightly rescaled, but a bay is still factor 9, so I assume you normalise per kDt hull? If so, no major difference to HG'79?

Armor. HG1's armor system, on the other hand, solves a nagging flaw in HG2 which has been a problem for the OTU -- namely, the ability to build fighters that are nearly impervious to attacks.

Armour has nothing to do with fighter invulnerability, they're difficult to hit because of agility and the size DM. Armour is basically irrelevant as almost anything that can hit a HG'80 fighter will inflict size crits, regardless of armour.

None of that is relevant to HG'79.

But fighters can presumably still have the same armour as battleships, as it is a straight percentage of the hull?

 

[mike wightman]

No, armour in HG79 has a tonnage limit, it is not percentile based.

 

[robject]

@Dilbert right, follows the original very closely. I fudged the Least Common Multiple to keep values lower, so some values are not exact, but they're only off by a few percent.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

---

HG1 Analysis via Iconic Ship Design Features

Ship	TCJMP	Armor	Sand	Screen, Damper	Globe, Repulsor	Laser	Energy Wpn	PA	Meson	Missile	Ftrs
Gazelle	44444	9	0	0, 6	0, 0	4	0	4 (<JTAS4)	0	0	0
Kinunir	A2447	9	0	0, 0	0, 0	4	0	9	0	3	0

* JTAS 4 says that two dual barbette particle accelerators have half the power of a 10T bay.

JTAS says one barbette is half of a tiny bay, two barbettes should be the same strength as a tiny bay.
The Gazelle should have one factor 9 battery (it was two factor 4 batteries in JTAS).
The Kinunir has the same tiny bay, but normalised to 1.25 kDt it is strength 540 / 1.25 kDt = 432 pts/kDt => factor 7.
The same bay in a ~250 Dt ship and in a 1250 Dt ship gives different factors, with the smaller ship having greater firepower, demonstrating the silly effect of normalisation.

The Gazelle has two triple laser turrets: 60 × 3 × 2 = 360 pts => factor 7 according to the pdf.
The Kinunir has eight double laser turrets: 60 × 2 × 8 = 960 pts, 960 / 1.25 kDt = 768 pts/kDt => factor 9.

Armor is TL dependent. For warships, there seems to be no reason to not get the best possible armor always. This does not seem to be a productive choice.

Agreed, not much of a choice, for a warship. But it is a choice for a para-military ship...

Selecting the ship's computer is not productive: you always get the largest computer possible. I'm for scrapping that combat DM entirely.

Agreed, not a choice, for a warship... I would recommend to keep the DM as a straight TL modifier, to keep hi-tech ships superior.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

No, armour in HG79 has a tonnage limit, it is not percentile based.

HG'79, p27:
The armor table indicates the tech level, cost, and required tonnage (per 1000 tons of hull) for armor, as well as the increase in hull factor.

Tonnage for armour is per kDt hull, so a percentage, or rather a "promilleage".

 

[robject]

Frankly, I always thought that the component tables ought to carry the tech level benefits there. Bake it in and we have one less DM to fool around with during combat.

Unless there's a good reason why we should be double-dipping by using the computer rating (or the TL rating straight)...

---

Except for the spine attack tables, I also thought the combat tables should be converted to tasks.

If we prune the spine tables, then even those could become plain tasks.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Frankly, I always thought that the component tables ought to carry the tech level benefits there. Bake it in and we have one less DM to fool around with during combat.

Unless there's a good reason why we should be double-dipping by using the computer rating (or the TL rating straight)...

It keeps a TL-15 ship with a factor-9 much better that a TL-14 ship with a factor-9, i.e. an Impie ship much better than a Zho...

It gives texture to the game, the Zho planning to fight a superior tech enemy has a very different design environment that the Impies. And explains why a small Zho squadron is a major boon to the Swordies.

Except for the spine attack tables, I also thought the combat tables should be converted to tasks.

If we prune the spine tables, then even those could become plain tasks.

And we get the task DM tables in MT, that are much more difficult to read... I find it much more cumbersome to use in anger.

 

[robject]

It keeps a TL-15 ship with a factor-9 much better that a TL-14 ship with a factor-9, i.e. an Impie ship much better than a Zho...

It gives texture to the game, the Zho planning to fight a superior tech enemy has a very different design environment that the Impies. And explains why a small Zho squadron is a major boon to the Swordies.

First, in HG1 the top computer is TL13, so that's not even here in HG1. I agree that's a deficiency.

It is baked into the spines table, so there's one place where the spine should be capitalized, so to speak, but HG1 doesn't really do that very well.

It is possible to widen those point ratings, though, to bake TL into the design system. Might be real ugly though. Let's find out.

Let's scale and stretch out the LBay Missile point values thus*:

LBay	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
Missile	180	240	300	375	450	525	600	800	1000	1200

Now the Zhodani ship grabs 100 of these, for 80,000 points, and the Impie grabs 100 of these, for 100,000 points.

Let's assume the normalization factor is 1.0, so no change, then assume (lots of assumptions) that the point values fall out:

80,000 points = Factor 8
100,000 points = Factor 9


And now you can pretty safely force me into deciding (a) for an expansion to the battery factor code, or else (b) keeping the cursed computer mod -- because the system's coarseness might not support the OTU otherwise.



* You know... if the scales were all linear, then I could just store the factor numbers directly in those weapon tables.

And we get the task DM tables in MT, that are much more difficult to read... I find it much more cumbersome to use in anger.

That's understandable, thank you.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Shouldn't the weapon tables already give us that, though? A TL15 battery should pack more oomph than a TL14 battery...

Ah but you indicate that in fact they _don't_, because those tables are too coarse.

But in HG1 they don't have to be, do they? We can widen their point differences.

By how much? I dunno.

The TL/computer DM is on every roll, every penetration. Even a DM+1 is a huge advantage, especially as it's reversed for the enemy.

A single TL diff can be built into the tables, but the difference between TL-15 and TL-12? We only have 9 factors to play with...