High Guard Armor Fix

[dccarles]

I'll admit I don't really see too much of a problem.

It is true that the cube/square law ought to give larger ships better armour than fighters. But much of the objection to fighters having lots of armour seems stem from the belief that it's just not right. But High Guard fighters are not aircraft; they don't need lift, and move through the same medium as their larger brethren.

The reverse problem shows up in Brilliant Lances. Even though lasers have humongous penetration relative to their input power, large starships (10+ ktons) can easily have an armoured shell that blocks out all secondary weapons - including the biggest nuclear pumped x-ray lasers. The worst that could happen would be that most of the sensor antennae would be wiped out, and buying redundant antennae are cheap. Add this to the extreme granularity of the critical hit table by size and big ships are completely immune to attacks by swarms of frigates. I have no problem with a 10,000 ton ship beating, on average, two 5,000 ton ships, but when it can beat a hundred 1,000 ton ships, I begin to wonder if the scaling is a bit too steep.

High Guard armour also accounts for internal bracing, which is proportional to the square of volume (actually length.) Because High Guard is a simple game (though with far-reaching consequences for Traveller as a whole), squares and cubes etc. are to be discouraged. So, if you feel armour formulae should be changed, here's a suggestion:

Each TL on the Hull Armor table has a constant n; the base required tonnage for armour is (n + na) (=n(1+a)), where a is the desired armour level. Each Hull Size also has a to hit modifier. To modify the table, subtract the to hit modifier from n to get the new constant (minimum 1.)

Note that this only counts for additional armour, not the 'free' armour provided by planetoid hulls.

Example: A TL 15 fighter (40 tons) wants to have an armor factor of 10. The constant n for TL 15 is 1. The hit modifier for a size 0 fighter is -2. The fighter will require (1 - (-2)) x (1 + 10) = 33% of the fighter's internal volume.

Example: A TL 12 battleship needs to be armoured against missile fire. The ship is 120,000 tons (to hit modifier of +1.) N at TL 12 is 2, and the desired armour level is 6. The battleship will require (2 - (+1))(1 + 6) = 7% of the ship's volume.

--Devin

 

[BillDowns]

I am one of those that feels the armor is a problematic aspect of High Guard. Using Devin's examples

Example: A TL 15 fighter (40 tons) wants to have an armor factor of 10. The constant n for TL 15 is 1. The hit modifier for a size 0 fighter is -2. The fighter will require (1 - (-2)) x (1 + 10) = 33% of the fighter's internal volume.

Example: A TL 12 battleship needs to be armoured against missile fire. The ship is 120,000 tons (to hit modifier of +1.) N at TL 12 is 2, and the desired armour level is 6. The battleship will require (2 - (+1))(1 + 6) = 7% of the ship's volume.

--Devin

Cranking the numbers gives the fighter 13.2 tons of armor and the battleship 8400 tons. It ust doesn't feel right that the fighter would have better protection than the battleship which is what the High Guard rules do.

Someone earlier mentioned a Spitfire being more armored than a Zero. But, a twin 40mm would gut both equally. In the Traveller universe, I feel that a triple laser turret should do the same to a 40 ton fighter.

I like the earlier suggestion of simply limiting the armor factor by the size factor.

 

[sabredog]

Not to be picky, but doesn't it say in one of the editions of High Guard that armor isn't just in thickness, but also takes into account internal bracing, system redundancy, and such things, too? So if that is so, does a formula like this really work for those sorts of things?

BTW: I like how this chart could be used for calculating applique' armor as well.

And who armors fighters anyway? I make them as cheap and plentiful as possible and armor seems a waste.

 

[tbeard1999]

Not to be picky, but doesn't it say in one of the editions of High Guard that armor isn't just in thickness, but also takes into account internal bracing, system redundancy, and such things, too? So if that is so, does a formula like this really work for those sorts of things?

BTW: I like how this chart could be used for calculating applique' armor as well.

And who armors fighters anyway? I make them as cheap and plentiful as possible and armor seems a waste.

A 10 ton Book 5 missile-armed TL15 fighter with 15 points of armor costs MCr12.205 and is nearly unkillable with normal weaponry in HG.

Losing *all* the armor only reduces the cost by about 30%.

Any sane navy would pay 50% more to render fighters largely immune from normal weapons IMHO.

And it is physically unreasonable to treat armor as a flat percentage of hull tonnage because armor just doesn't work that way. This, by the way is why the most heavily armored tanks are also generally the largest and heaviest.

It's mechanically unreasonable because the HG damage mechanics make it impossible for most non-spinal mount weapons to damage a ship with this much armor:

1. A surface damage roll or radiation damage roll of 22+ is no effect.

2. The roll is 2d6 + the target's armor rating. If the weapon is rated 9 or less (which is all non-spinal mount weapons), the roll is adjusted by +6. With a (15+6=) +21 modifier, it is impossible to roll less than 23 on 2d6.

3. If you use nuclear missiles, you get a -6 to the roll. So even with nuclear weapons, you'll only damage fighters about 42% of the time.

4. Pulse lasers get a -2, which makes it barely possible to damage such a fighter (need a 2 on 2d6).

5. Batteries get critical hits equal to the difference between the battery rating and the target's size. But this is reduced by half the armor rating (7) for non-meson guns. This effectively means that only factor 9 non-meson bay weapons can kill this fighter. Somehow, requiring a 100 ton weapon bay to kill a single fighter seems ridiculous to me.

6. Meson weapons ignore armor, but they are very ineffective against needle configurations. A 50 ton TL15 meson bay will hit this fighter 6% of the time. A 100 ton TL15 meson bay will hit this fighter 9% of the time.

Bottom line -- sensibly designed HG fighters are immune from all but the largest capital ship weaponry. There will be no equivalent of the Millenium Falcon's duel with 4 TIE fighters in HG.

This would be equivalent to WWII Japanese Zeros being immune to anything except 14"+ battleship guns. It just doesn't feel right.

This problem also makes HG worthless for most battles involving high tech level armored ships of less than 20,000 tons (roughly the minimum TL for a starship to be able to mount a spinal weapon).

If the surface area chart gives you heartburn, others have suggested fixes that are less than ideal, but do solve the worst problems.

The best IMHO is to limit armor to the ship's size code. This is the easiest solution. It fixes the fighter problem (sort of), but leaves the 20K ton ships still messed up. Size/2 doesn't work; only 700kton ships can have 15 points of armor. Size x .6 is too fussy (I hate converting codes into numbers). Maybe something like tonnage/3000? This would allow maximum armor only on ships big enough to mount spinal weapons.

 

[dccarles]

And who armors fighters anyway? I make them as cheap and plentiful as possible and armor seems a waste.

I do, because fighters in Traveller are not Spitfires or Zeroes. They move in the same medium that giant battleships do: the cold vacuum of space. Atmospheric fighters iRL aren't significantly armoured because armour means high mass and high mass requires high lift and if your plane is dedicating all its power to generating lift instead of thrust, well, it's slow.

High Guard fighters are not eggshells armed with sledgehammers; they're bricks armed with feather dusters. Altering the armour rule to account for the square/cube law of volume/surface area would hep change this, but not as much as one might think: as TLs increase, computers require more and more energy, and that gets heavy and expensive. If the fighter doesn't buy the latest model computer and a small-craft bridge, it suffers accordingly.

--Devin

 

[infojunky]

This problem also makes HG worthless for most battles involving high tech level armored ships of less than 20,000 tons (roughly the minimum TL for a starship to be able to mount a spinal weapon).

Ding! give the man a prize, High Guard is a Fleet combat system. Which is one of the most overlooked facts in Traveller Fandom.

 

[dean]

Ding! give the man a prize, High Guard is a Fleet combat system. Which is one of the most overlooked facts in Traveller Fandom.

Fleet combat does (should) include fighters, however, and the problem thus still exists.

 

[infojunky]

Fleet combat does (should) include fighters, however, and the problem thus still exists.

Not at the battle of Jutland, which has more to do with the design of High Guard than anything else.

And if your gonna bring out Modern Navel combat, then your gonna have to accept a complete overhaul of High Guard from the assumptions on up.

Now I'm not saying that linear scale that armor follows is any where near correct. It's just not a easy fix under the HG rules-set without some retooling.

 

[sabredog]

Not at the battle of Jutland, which has more to do with the design of High Guard than anything else.

And if your gonna bring out Modern Navel combat, then your gonna have to accept a complete overhaul of High Guard from the assumptions on up.

Now I'm not saying that linear scale that armor follows is any where near correct. It's just not a easy fix under the HG rules-set without some retooling.

If you organize the fighters into laser and missile "battery" factors that can be used to intercept and/or supplement the larger ship's numbers of weapon factors then they are a viable and useful part of fleet combat.

They can act as flying columns to protect ships that are trying to leave the line to escape incoming missiles, harrass and destroy smaller ships. Fighters are the skirmish line, the line of torpedo boats of Jutland if you want to use that example.

So if fighters are made as small and cheap as possible any capital ship ought to be able to carry a compliment to act as a screening for against incoming missiles.

 

[tbeard1999]

Not at the battle of Jutland, which has more to do with the design of High Guard than anything else.

As has been noted, High Guard includes rule to design very small craft and starships from 100 tons up. Also, I've used High Guard as my ship combat system for PCs for decades, with satisfaction, so I don't agree that High Guard is only for fleet actions involving mainly capital ships.

And if your gonna bring out Modern Navel combat, then your gonna have to accept a complete overhaul of High Guard from the assumptions on up.

Not at all. The armor fix is very simple. Anyone who can design a ship in HG can easily handle a few simple modifications.

To recap, atpollard derived a formula from my original charts:

A = T * F * 0.4467 * (D)^0.67

A = Armor Required (in dtons)
T = TL modifier (TL 14-15=1, TL12-13=2, TL10-11=3, TL 7-9=4)
F = Armor Factor (High Guard)
D = Ship Displacement (dTons)

EXAMPLE: 100,000 dTon ship, TL 15, Armor 1
Given T=1; F=1; D=100,000
A = 1*1*0.4467*(100,000)^0.67 = 1000.0367 dTons
(1000.0367/100,000)*100 = 1.0 percent

EXAMPLE: 1,000 dTon ship, TL 15, Armor 1
Given T=1; F=1; D=1,000
A = 1*1*0.4467*(1,000)^0.67 = 45.7105 dTons
(45.7105/1,000)*100 = 4.57 percent

EXAMPLE: 50,000 dTon ship, TL 12, Armor 6
Given T=2; F=6; D=50,000
A = 2*6*0.4467*(50,000)^0.67 = 7,542.3573 dTons
(7,542.3573/50,000)*100 = 15.0847 percent

EXAMPLE: 10 dton fighter, TL15, Armor 15
Given T=1; F=1; D=10

A = 1 * 15 * 0.4467 * (10)^0.67 = 31.34 dtons (in other words, the fighter cannot carry this much armor). It has about 4.5 dtons left after drives and accomodations, so it could carry 2 points of armor:

A = 1 * 15 * 0.4467 * (10)^0.67 = 4.17

Now I'm not saying that linear scale that armor follows is any where near correct. It's just not a easy fix under the HG rules-set without some retooling.

I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem terribly difficult to me.

If you don't like to use the equation, here's a chart for common hull sizes:

Size	TL7-9	TL10-11	TL12-13	TL14-15
 10 	8.4 	6.3 	 4.2 	 2.1 
 15 	11.0 	8.2 	 5.5 	 2.7 
 20 	13.3 	10.0 	 6.6 	 3.3 
 30 	17.4 	13.1 	 8.7 	 4.4 
 40 	21.2 	15.9 	 10.6 	 5.3 
 50 	24.6 	18.4 	 12.3 	 6.1 
 60 	27.8 	20.8 	 13.9 	 6.9 
 70 	30.8 	23.1 	 15.4 	 7.7 
 80 	33.7 	25.2 	 16.8 	 8.4 
 90 	36.4 	27.3 	 18.2 	 9.1 
 100 	39 	29 	 20 	 10 
 200 	62 	47 	 31 	 16 
 300 	82 	61 	 41 	 20 
 400 	99 	74 	 49 	 25 
 500 	115 	86 	 57 	 29 
 600 	130 	97 	 65 	 32 
 700 	144 	108 	 72 	 36 
 800 	157 	118 	 79 	 39 
 900 	170 	128 	 85 	 43 
 1,000 	183 	137 	 91 	 46 
 2,000 	291 	218 	 145 	 73 
 3,000 	382 	286 	 191 	 95 
 4,000 	463 	347 	 231 	 116 
 5,000 	538 	403 	 269 	 134 
 6,000 	607 	456 	 304 	 152 
 7,000 	673 	505 	 337 	 168 
 8,000 	736 	552 	 368 	 184 
 9,000 	797 	598 	 398 	 199 
 10K 	855 	641 	 428 	 214 
 15K 	1,122 	842 	 561 	 281 
 20K 	1,361 	1,021 	 680 	 340 
 30K 	1,785 	1,339 	 893 	 446 
 40K	2,165 	1,624 	 1,082 	 541 
 50K	2,514 	1,886 	 1,257 	 629 
 60K	2,841 	2,131 	 1,420 	 710 
 70K	3,150 	2,362 	 1,575 	 787 
 80K	3,445 	2,583 	 1,722 	 861 
 90K	3,728 	2,796 	 1,864 	 932 
 100K	4,000 	3,000 	 2,000 	 1,000 
 150K	5,249 	3,937 	 2,624 	 1,312 
 200K	6,365 	4,773 	 3,182 	 1,591 
 250K	7,391 	5,543 	 3,695 	 1,848 
 300K	8,351 	6,263 	 4,176 	 2,088 
 400K	10,126 	7,595 	 5,063 	 2,532 
 500K	11,759 	8,820 	 5,880 	 2,940 
 600K	13,287 	9,965 	 6,644 	 3,322 
 700K	14,733 	11,050 	 7,367 	 3,683 
 800K	16,112 	12,084 	 8,056 	 4,028 
 900K	17,435 	13,076 	 8,717 	 4,359 
 1M	18,710 	14,033 	 9,355 	 4,678

The number is the tonnage of one armor factor at the indicated tech level.

What far more vexing is that this system makes it more difficult to use my HG ship design software of choice (High Guard Shipyard by Andrew Moffatt-Vallance). While this won't let me customize component data, it allows me to add user defined components. So I just manually calculate the extra armor tonnage and add it as a user defined component.

However, they cannot have a negative tonnage, so I'm still out of luck when designing anything larger than 100,000 tons.