High Guard Next: When you can't take anything else away, you know you're done

[robject]

This thread is for thought experiments on making it easier to design capital ships.

The constraint is that the result doesn't sacrifice Traveller (not just the OTU, but all of Traveller).

The idea is to remove complexity from capital ship rules, according to the above constraint.


"Critical" means the component and rules as written is closely tied with the definition of "Traveller".

"Clear" means the decision-making process -- when to install one over the other -- is clear, even if the decision is a hard one. (Actually if the decision isn't a hard one, it shouldn't be part of the process).



Hull Detail is Critical and Clear

The Hull, being essentially a container, may simplify -- for example, calculating the volume last -- but configuration and armor don't really simplify. This has an implication on spine design, since armor and configuration are the two main elements of spine defense (add-on defenses are the secondary elements of spine defense).

CONCLUSION: I THINK configuration, armor, and hull volume are simple enough and straightforward as is.



Drive Detail is Critical and Clear

Really I can't see how they'd get simpler than they are now. Agility is the one thing that could simplify, perhaps.

CONCLUSION: I THINK drives are about as simple as they can get. Drives as-is are critical to defining Traveller.



Spine Detail is Critical but NOT Clear

The spine, being the essential core of capital ship design, doesn't simplify. They are such powerful components that their size, TL, price, and energy requirements are (very roughly) part of the definition of Traveller. Similarly, the TYPES of spines defines the Traveller universe. A simplification could come in making it easier to know why you'd choose one spine over another.

CONCLUSION: I THINK selecting a spine, based on size, TL, energy requirements, and type, is critical to Traveller. A table is the best way to present these choices. The implications of those choices should be made clearer.



Auxiliary Craft are Critical but NOT Clear

I think some gains could come from simplifying auxiliary craft -- in particular how auxiliary craft fight during a battle -- although I think they're not as significant as simplifying how secondary weapons and defenses work.

CONCLUSION: I THINK that aspects of auxiliary craft are important to the Traveller universe, but they are not well defined, and that the best way to define how they work in battle is a part of a simplifcation of HG.




Crew Detail is NOT Critical

Reducing crew complement to an exponential digit, much like the POP digit in the UWP, with a concession to a population multiplier, might be reasonable. Thus crew is chosen based on a coarser calculation.

CONCLUSION: I THINK crew numbers can be estimated more roughly without losing anything.



Secondary Weapons and Defense QUANTITY is NOT Critical and NOT Clear

This is where I think the biggest gains are. I think that informed decisions always follow the same patterns, and uninformed ones always make critical mistakes. This is where clear overarching options can be presented to the designer. Call them packages if you prefer.

This could be as simple as a modifier to some variant of the TCS statistical hit table. But I also think that the simplified mass-combat rules in Mercenary can inform combat in HG as well.

CONCLUSION: I THINK a vast simplification in secondary and defense allocations is in order.

 

[atpollard]

I have not looked closely enough to be sure, but does configuration really matter? I mean with respect to cost. It always seemed like one of those things that got lost in the decimal points and forced stupid shapes to dominate for trivial gains.
Could hulls be driven by a simpler calculation or matrix of size, TL and Armor Factor.

It also reminds me of the old method of combining all of the percentage based variables together, calculating the fixed tonnage payload, and then determining the final size of the ship.

 

[mike wightman]

Another holy grail thread rob

And yet again the greatest feat of HG glossed over - ships can be built and can fight it out over a range of TLs from 7 to 15.

I think the simplest system for BCS ship design is to reduce everything to a % based component which means finding a way to make spinals a % based system, with final rating based on a formula such as this (actual tonnage x TL factor x EP) or some such.

You can then design BCS really quickly by assigning the %s to the components.

 

[robject]

And yet again the greatest feat of HG glossed over - ships can be built and can fight it out over a range of TLs from 7 to 15.

I suppose I didn't even think of it because it's so clear and so easy to understand.

Otherwise: yes, I'm on that page, but I'm going further. To wit:

The Tigress has 400 bay weapons. Why 400? Why not 300? 250? 500? A thousand?

Answer: it doesn't really matter, because they're secondaries; what matters there is the concept, and the concept is that there is a pile of secondaries proportional to the hull and the ship's mission.

Those secondaries should evaluate to a DM, based on hull volume and ship mission. In a general way, TCS taught us that with its statistical combat table. That needs to percolate up to the design layer.

The Tigress has 400 beam laser turrets. Same questions. Same answer.

Apply in a similar manner to screens, dampers, globes, fighter wings, fuel shuttles, and so on.

 

[mike wightman]

Thinking on spinals how about adapting the armour % to spinal mounts?

For PA spinal:

TL..... %
8-9 4+4s
10-11 3+3s
12-13 2+2s
14-15 1+s

s=spinal factor which cannot be higher than the TL of construction

Secondary bays become a %, as do tertiary (turret) batteries.

For meson spinal:

TL..... %
11 4+4s
12 3+3s
13-14 2+2s
15 1+s

s=spinal factor which cannot be higher than the TL of construction

 

[robject]

I have not looked closely enough to be sure, but does configuration really matter?

It does, because it is a passive defense against weapons. A dispersed hull is cheap and is harder to hit.

Maybe there are too many configurations, but that's the essential bit of it from a combat point of view.

 

[robject]

Thinking on spinals how about adapting the armour % to spinal mounts?

s=spinal factor which cannot be higher than the TL of construction

Right. You'd want the numbers to come out about like the table, so percentage by TL is in the right direction.

Of course weapon FACTOR is a function of TL and the volume of the spine, not the hull. TL x spine volume is a proxy for output energy, I suppose. Then from there we get into the weeds, which I want to avoid for now.

 

[robject]

Alternately, you can (ab)use the Armor formulae to directly generate spines:

PA Spines:

TL 8-9: volume = 4(1 + s)
TL 10-11: volume = 3(1 + s)
TL 12-13: volume = 2(1 + s)
TL 14-15: volume = 1(1 + s)

Where "Volume" is in kilotons.

Not quite a linear formula. There's a logarithm in there.

 

[mike wightman]

Yup - once you can reduce ship design to:

drives - 4-24%
pp - 1-20%
fuel - 1-80%
spinal - 1-30%
secondary/tertiary batteries - 1-10%
armour - 0-30%
screens - 0-10%

all you need to do is balance the %s, apply TL effects and determine combat factors.

 

[mike wightman]

Alternately, you can (ab)use the Armor formulae to directly generate spines:

PA Spines:

TL 8-9: volume = 4(1 + s)
TL 10-11: volume = 3(1 + s)
TL 12-13: volume = 2(1 + s)
TL 14-15: volume = 1(1 + s)

Where "Volume" is in kilotons.

Or use a linear formula.


Factor = Spine Volume x TL / Large Number

or

Spine Volume = Large Number x Factor / TL


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This returns it to a volume based component rather than a % - for simplicity if everything is a % then final design is much easier.

 

[robject]

This returns it to a volume based component rather than a % - for simplicity if everything is a % then final design is much easier.

However, that means the spine's factor does not vary with its volume. A spine is not a jump drive, nor is it armor: you don't need to coat a hull with a spine in order to get a certain level of performance.

 

[mike wightman]

But the bigger it is the better the performance. It is a % of hull after all - so its volume is changing.

It is a % of a hull size so a 100,000t BB 15% (15,000t) TL14 spinal is still going to be a lot more effective that a 20,000t DD 16% (3,200t) TL15 spinal

 

[robject]

I'm trying to keep in mind some lessons learned from Mike and others. To wit:

1. Defense is dependent on lots of things, including ship size, which accounts for damage control.

2. Missile usage must be taken into account.

3. Meson spinal mounts are not instant capital ship killers.

4. Units are conglomerates classed by mission, which implies size, suggests defensive and offensive capability, and so on.

5. Morale is important, as are Admirals.

6. Technological advantage/disadvantage can be handled from the rules, or even the scenario, rather than from the counter.

7. Size could be generalized into the mission code, and further represented by inflating any values which remain. But remember point #1, where defense is dependent on ship size.



So if you reach ATT-BOM-DEF, you've gone too far.



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[robject]

But the bigger it is the better the performance. It is a % of hull after all - so its volume is changing.

It is a % of a hull size so a 100,000t BB 15% (15,000t) TL14 spinal is still going to be a lot more effective that a 20,000t DD 16% (3,200t) TL15 spinal

No no, I agree with that. I was concerned that a Factor-8 spine in a TL15 100,000t BB is larger than a Factor-8 spine in a TL15 20,000t DD.

 

[robject]

Looking at ship design backwards, which elements are true decision points, and which are unimportant or are easily inferred from other decisions?

0. Ship TL is often not even a decision, but rather a scenario variable.

1. Ship mission (and size) are perhaps the clearest decisions to make -- or should be!

2. Hull Configuration embodies clear decisions, I think.

3. Armor tends to depend on the ship's mission. Perhaps not completely, but mostly.

4. Drives tend to depend on the ship's mission to a large but not complete extent.

5. The Spine tends to ALWAYS follow DIRECTLY from the ship's mission. It is a rare design that doesn't install a spine based directly on the mission.

6. Auxiliary Craft often follow from the ship's configuration and mission. I wonder how much they vary?

7. Crew is a completely mechanical calculation. The only exception I can think of might be troops, but even there I think mission determines troop levels.

8. Secondaries and Defenses most definitely follow from mission.
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In other words, while there are decisions to be made for armor, drives, spine, secondaries, and subcraft, those decisions are a matter of emphasis rather than existence. They are exceptions, if you will, to assumed baselines which tend to crop up time and again with how High Guard capital ships tend to be designed.
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[robject]

Getting back to High Guard.

Leaving the hull size, configuration, spines, armor, and drives alone for the moment.

Focusing on secondaries and active defenses. Supposing their allocation were a percentage of the hull, rather than discrete bays and turrets.

Perhaps in the case of defenses, battery factor would largely default to that of the mission chosen for the ship, subject to TL restrictions.

 

[atpollard]

It does, because it is a passive defense against weapons. A dispersed hull is cheap and is harder to hit.

Maybe there are too many configurations, but that's the essential bit of it from a combat point of view.

I just meant ignoring the price adjustment for configuration.
Configuration obviously affects combat, so it is important.
I just wonder does a +/- 20,000 credits per dton (+/- 2 BCR on a 100,000 dT dreadnought) get lost in the decimal points.

I suspect that you can streamline it by just 'picking a configuration' and ignoring the cost.

 

[robject]

I just meant ignoring the price adjustment for configuration.
Configuration obviously affects combat, so it is important.
I just wonder does a +/- 20,000 credits per dton (+/- 2 BCR on a 100,000 dT dreadnought) get lost in the decimal points.

I suspect that you can streamline it by just 'picking a configuration' and ignoring the cost.

Ah. No, there's no destruction to the universe by having no price difference. Of course, High Guard tried to be many things to many people.

Configuration cost is either subsumed into the cost of the hull, or else it's significant. If it's not significant (and BCr2 is not significant to a capital ship) then bah. I had thought it halved the cost of the hull (but again, maybe THAT's not significant to a capital ship).

 

[robject]

MIKE!

Rather than tying SPINE to the same formula as Armor, how about tying SECONDARIES and DEFENSES, as two conglomerate GROUPS, to the same formula as Armor?

TL 8: 4 + 4s
TL 10: 3 + 3s
TL 12: 2 + 2s
TL 14: 1 + s

Value is % of main hull for the given factor.

Now THAT makes at least some sense, because a bigger hull might need proportionally more screens and bays for a given factor of coverage.


For spine, how about going straight to spine volume, rather than hull percentage?

TL 8: 4 + 4s
TL 10: 3 + 3s
TL 12: 2 + 2s
TL 14: 1 + s

Value is kilotons for spine, power system, and crew.




So for example, a TL 12 Cruiser thing.

34% Jump-3.
15% Maneuver-4.
6% (I can't remember offhand) Power-4.
12% Armor-5.
10% Secondaries-4.
10% Defenses-4.
[0% "Bridge" (in other words, it's not really 0%, but for design purposes it's a meaningless overhead)]

Subtotal: 87%

Then, for a payload, a TL12 Particle Accelerator-5, which displaces (2 + 2s) kilotons, or 12,000t. This requires calibration... a "Spine 5" must be more like a Spine "E" in High Guard?


That makes the total hull volume 12,000 / (1 - 0.87 ) = 12,000 / 0.13 = 92,300 tons.

Nice. Workable, even. Holy crap, this might actually work.


Call it a Cruiser, or something.

C-93u43 AV 5, PA 5, Sec 4, Def 4, TL12

1. Cruiser
2. 93 - kilotons - this might be re-useful for troops
3. unstreamlined
4. M4
5. J3 - note that Jump is only tangentially tactically important, being used only for withdrawl.
(note that I'm omitting Power Plant and Agility for now)

6. Armor 5
7. (Spine) PA 5
8. Secondaries 4
9. Active Defenses 4
10. TL12 - at this point TL is a STRATEGIC value ONLY. Tech level has already done its part in design.

 

[whartung]

There's also the Battle Rider meme, where basically all the mattered was the spinal, because all that mattered in the Big Picture were critical hits on ships.

Ships didn't ablate down to ineffectiveness, rather they were simply at either 100%, or they were dead.

Mesons made crits easier, but PA can still crit. The primary defense against crits was size, since crits were based on attack factor vs hull size, which is why for larger, capital ships, the bay and turret weapons we basically ineffective.

Great for color, but as far as effectiveness, the spinal was all that mattered.

The simple truth is that HG has a design system far more rich than the game it fights in, so many of the decisions aren't that important.

But the other end of the spectrum, running around blasting away with 400 bays trying to burn the 400 bays off the other guy, isn't really practical either. You get these ships stuck on a rotisserie roasting over a slow fire. An almost impenetrable armored core while the weapons and sensors are melted off the outside. When the weapons are gone, the target accelerates away, with its intact drive, intact computers, intact bridge, etc.