High Guard Next: When you can't take anything else away, you know you're done
- Thread starter robject
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Ah, I had forgotten about that. I think that's worth preserving, if only mixed into defenses during the design phase.
Slight quibble. If Eurisko taught us anything, it was that in HG, secondaries are just another form of armour.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I just reread the damage rules, and that is NOT the case. At ALL.
Where are you getting this, something floating around from HG1?
Hmm, maybe you mean the configuration defense, where solid ships are easier to hit because they are fatter and ship hulls like dispersed structures give mesons fits?
I strongly disagree with this characterization, the electronics frying radiation hit part of PA and Mesons alone will leave a large warship a gibbering hulk of useless even if you don't get to the power/jump/major systems on the initial pass.
Unless.
A quick review shows that Armor-14+ gets that sort of result, which at the lower TLs is going to cut into the fuel budget and therefore jump/maneuver budget badly, slacking off at the higher TLs and thus allowing faster further ships with that same level of survivability.
Okay, so let's say Armor-14 is the gold standard for taking hits and walking away. Every ship equipped to this standard will rule the stars. With even higher armor, you can avoid fuel hits.
But there is a rule that I think is badly stated and has a different intent- the critical hit armor reduction rule.
I think a lot of people take this literally, and so since you cannot get a critical hit even with armor 1 against spinal weapons, the ships do not lose armor.
I think the intent of the rule is that if you roll a natural 2 on surface explosions, you lose an armor value, period. Otherwise the rule makes no sense.
If you like to avoid being nibbled to death with 1000 fighters destroying your battleship armor in one pass, make the rule a natural 2 with a spinal mount or nuclear weapons (so even a lower TL missile bay cruiser can get it done, if they can get past nuclear dampers and have a huge ammo budget).
Ahh, suddenly the picture changes, those hits start adding up and the once invincible armor plate buckles, allowing those 200+ bays to start racking up meaningful hits and edging the spinal mounts ever closer to maneuver/internal explosions territory.
Mr. Superbattleship has to start looking for the jump exit once the armor is reducing and the fuel hits are adding up to limiting jump options.
Secondly, if you like Big Honking Guns on your Big Warship, consider a simple rule change- more then one spinal mount per ship!
Those Star Blazers Andromeda battleships have two wave motion guns. The Death Star is arguably an array of PA spinals that combine together into one big ubershot. Iserlohn Fortress is firing up several power nodes for it's X-ray laser. Let em rip!
You can't have Armor 14 at any TL below 14, except in planetoids. See the top of page 29.
So your assessment of armor sizes is buggered.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Alright I missed that so I would say my analysis was 'not entirely accurate', but highlights the point even more that at lower tech levels the Big Boats will not just slag weapons then dance away with just some weapon repairs/replacements in their near future as the fellow I was responding to suggests.
At TL12 that gets Armor-12, enough armor to prevent maneuver hits but not computer hits on radiation, so you can still get mostly the same effect with the lower tech ships.
The part I really missed and didn't highlight was the radiation hits, that is another chance at armor reduction, and of course just as armor gets stronger and cheaper meson guns come along and have an excellent chance at opening up the armor from the inside out at three times the chances of radiation and surface hits.
Another pass at the damage tables suggests to me that it is absolute bugout time when the armor gets reduced below 4. That's when adjusted 2 surface hits start scoring interior explosions and the soft chewy inside of the ship starts getting torn apart by any serious weapon system.
The thing that high tech Big Warships have going for them is relatively cheap and small Nuclear Dampers and Meson Screens. The latter of course is costly from a power use and therefore powerplant and fuel standpoint, but no excuse to not have some spares on hand ready to power up, whereas a smaller craft might have to do with one each.
Beats being torn up, especially by a swarm of nuclear armed strike fighters.
I think its a sign of an interesting system that on some threads you hear that Spinals are ineffective and broken while others (like here) state they are battle winners. While secondary batteries on some threads are claimed battle winners 'but boring' or only good for armour or completely ineffective.
Spinals and secondary weapons can be portrayed many ways which is part of what makes HG interesting. If a consensus was finally agreed on, there would be no need for a game to prove your point of view. That games have occurred and there is still no consensus, I find quite fascinating.
FWIW Eurisko demonstrates that secondary batteries win battles. As 'armour' it is worth noting they are only effective against other secondary weapons.
Spinals and secondary weapons can be portrayed many ways which is part of what makes HG interesting. If a consensus was finally agreed on, there would be no need for a game to prove your point of view. That games have occurred and there is still no consensus, I find quite fascinating.
FWIW Eurisko demonstrates that secondary batteries win battles. As 'armour' it is worth noting they are only effective against other secondary weapons.
The following quotes just tell me that HG, while usefully expressive, is too complex to understand. The two are not mutually exclusive, but I think it is difficult to get both in the same room, so to speak.
Isn't it possible that there have not been enough games, despite the tournaments held in the 80s?
Tell me more. I thought Eurisko's point was that an overwhelming swarm of big spines with engines win battles?
Okay, tell me more about secondaries, all three of you. Obviously they're not supposed to be "another form of armor". They're supposed to be subordinate offensive weapons, right?
To design squadron warfare that both fully expresses Traveller and yet is not too complex to understand: Staggering, Fateful, unknown number of hours.
Isn't it possible that there have not been enough games, despite the tournaments held in the 80s?
Matt123 said:
Tell me more. I thought Eurisko's point was that an overwhelming swarm of big spines with engines win battles?
Okay, tell me more about secondaries, all three of you. Obviously they're not supposed to be "another form of armor". They're supposed to be subordinate offensive weapons, right?
I can only go back to other historic sea battles to get an impression of what a secondary weapon was supposed to be used for. If I look at Ships of the Line with a broadside of old 24-pounders as the 'main weapon', then the secondaries would be those swivel guns mounted on the rails. The function of a rail mounted swivel gun is not to give the enemy broadside something to shoot at in order to keep your 24-pounders in the battle longer. Secondaries do not win battles, but they are not a form of armor ... to model them as such is a flaw.
If I look at 20th Century Dreadnoughts and Battleships, the big (say 12" to 16") guns are the primary weapon. The ship killers that win battles. The 40 mm Bofurs along the sides are the secondaries. Again, they do not win battles and they do not act as armor to protect the main gun from hits by enemy main guns. They protect the ship from enemy craft too fast to track with a main gun (aircraft or torpedo boats).
Going back to the LBB starship combat rules, there were only small weapons to act as 'main guns'. Under those rules, there was no 'impossible to damage' ships. A single small ship could hit even the largest ship, and a swarm of small ships could destroy a large ship (although large ships still held an advantage, just not invulnerability). The loss of the ability of one ship to even have a chance of damaging another ship is a fatal flaw that rendered the High Guard RAW useless to me. The idea that a billion SDBs could not stop a single Dreadnought feels innately wrong. The use of small weapons as armor plays a major part in creating that dynamic.
Ultimately, this may be of absolutely no help to you, since it is some of the most basic dynamics of HG that I have a significant personal problem accepting ... but you asked for my input.
Good luck.
Thanks AT. Yeah, Traveller fandom has a love-hate relationship with HG. I get that.
But your thoughts are useful. Secondaries are defensive, but not armor.
Also, they sound like the definition of non-capital ships: you can lose them but keep the fleet. Whereas with capital ships, if you lose them, the fleet is lost.
But your thoughts are useful. Secondaries are defensive, but not armor.
Also, they sound like the definition of non-capital ships: you can lose them but keep the fleet. Whereas with capital ships, if you lose them, the fleet is lost.
I guess that Ideal for me would be if turrets could attack ships too small to mount a Bay Weapon (which might be difficult for a bay weapon to target and impossible for a spinal weapon to target).
Bay weapons should decimate a ship too small to mount a Bay Weapon, but have trouble hitting it (creating a purpose for those turrets). A bay weapon should be optimal for attacking other Bay weapon size ships (say 1000 to 20k dTons). A bay weapon should be able to hit and damage a dreadnought (say 100k+ dTon ships) but probably not inflict critical internal explosions.
A spinal mount should be devastating to any ship it hits, but should have a disadvantage targeting ships under 10,000 dTons and be unable to target ships below 1000 dTons. A battleship does not shoot a torpedo boat with a 12" gun, not because it will not harm it, but because you cannot hit it.
HG should have a 'right tool for the right job' feel.
A step in that direction would be to ignore turrets and bays when calculating hits with a spinal weapon ... and ignoring turrets when calculating hits with a bay weapon ... no more free armor.
A second step would be to impose some sort of to hit penalty when target size is less than weapon factor ... small guns are for shooting small ships and big guns are for shooting big ships.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
High Guard is not Victory at Sea in space
It is a game for designing and building the capital ships of the OTU from TL7-TL15.
As you advance from TL to TL the nature of the BB changes due to developments in weapons, armour, screens and power plant output etc.
This it does well IMHO.
Where HG falls down is it's combat system, I agree that bay weapons/massed turret batteries are useless as offensive weapons, and I would suggest the reason for most of these issues is that the USP string is not fit for purpose.
A better model should have been playtested.
Spinals - capital ship mounted capital ship vs capital ship weapons
Bays - escort class ship killers
Turrets - anti-missile and anti-small craft
It is a game for designing and building the capital ships of the OTU from TL7-TL15.
As you advance from TL to TL the nature of the BB changes due to developments in weapons, armour, screens and power plant output etc.
This it does well IMHO.
Where HG falls down is it's combat system, I agree that bay weapons/massed turret batteries are useless as offensive weapons, and I would suggest the reason for most of these issues is that the USP string is not fit for purpose.
A better model should have been playtested.
Spinals - capital ship mounted capital ship vs capital ship weapons
Bays - escort class ship killers
Turrets - anti-missile and anti-small craft
High Guard is not Victory at Sea in space
Until a certain licensee modifies a certain product Traveller-ward, at least. (No, I'm not privy to any such effort)
Something like that, yeah.
The Oz
SOC-14 1K
Attempting this....
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
If you are looking for fast fleet resolution, can't do better then going back to the one that started it all, Imperium.
It's beam-missile-shields, perhaps for HG ships you use spinal-medium-defense, with half of the medium weapons value assignable to defense against other medium shots, and TL applies a +/-1 per difference level. Not sure how you apply range as a modifier though.
Remember, Imperium counters stand for a 2-8 or so squadron of ships, so you could have two overpowered expensive ships be equivalent to 6 similar but weaker ships.
It's beam-missile-shields, perhaps for HG ships you use spinal-medium-defense, with half of the medium weapons value assignable to defense against other medium shots, and TL applies a +/-1 per difference level. Not sure how you apply range as a modifier though.
Remember, Imperium counters stand for a 2-8 or so squadron of ships, so you could have two overpowered expensive ships be equivalent to 6 similar but weaker ships.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
My apologies to Whartung, I had missed the whole critical hit rule, which does indeed make larger ships more survivable against spinal weapons.
There is one sweet spot where the computer hull size limitation is less then the available spinal mount, the Q PA spinal vs. the P hull size limit at TL12.
Otherwise, it is possible to build highly armored battleships that absorb the heaviest blows of the spinal mounts/nuke strikes and not lose vital engineering or maneuvering and have a slagfest.
Of course this makes for horrendous arms races as the next TL up instantly obsoletes all your largest battleships into the range of very expensive exploding battlecruisers.
I still think the fix is to treat natural 2s as a crit for armor reduction.
Well heck, turns out there is a bit in the Consolidated CT where they clarified the hull range, even the Q spinal can be matched by the Q hull.
There is one sweet spot where the computer hull size limitation is less then the available spinal mount, the Q PA spinal vs. the P hull size limit at TL12.
Otherwise, it is possible to build highly armored battleships that absorb the heaviest blows of the spinal mounts/nuke strikes and not lose vital engineering or maneuvering and have a slagfest.
Of course this makes for horrendous arms races as the next TL up instantly obsoletes all your largest battleships into the range of very expensive exploding battlecruisers.
I still think the fix is to treat natural 2s as a crit for armor reduction.
Well heck, turns out there is a bit in the Consolidated CT where they clarified the hull range, even the Q spinal can be matched by the Q hull.
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Ok, you got me diving into material I wrote 4 years ago and never published (I found myself getting a a bit derogatory on Doug Lenat and his so called 'AI').
Part of the problem with discussions of HG is that most of the input is based on speculation based on heresay. With some preconceived ideas and a sprinkle of historical tropes.
For example, it is widely believed that Eurisko min/maxed the rules. As a consequence commentators deride the Eurisko fleet as being the epitomy of everything evil in HG. Whatever today's evil is.
Of 96 ships in the Eurisko fleet only 7 had spinals. The Eurisko class itself, an 11,100 ton vessel, 75 in number (three quarters of the fleet), had neither spinals nor bays ([FONT="]JTAS 10, page 39)[/FONT]. Consequently it could be argued that the only historical winning fleet published, essentially demonstrates that turret weapons should be a fleets main armament. Ergo Turret weapons are too powerful and must be dumbed down.
*duck and wait for howls of indignation and crys of "that proves the game is broken!"* --- all based on preconceived ideas, a sprinkle of historical tropes and a an inherent dislike of the rock, scissor, paper nature of the game.
Having read the literature on Eurisko and follow up articles, what comes across strongly, outside the Traveller community, is that the gamers of the day were applying historical memes to a game that was not attempting to model history (in their defence, the game was new and for many gamers it was their first gaming opportunity). As a consequence they got beaten, usually on or before the first turn of the game. When you turn up with scissors and the other guy presents a rock, you get beat. The interesting part about Eurisko is that it could also present paper and scissors.
Within the Traveller community, for some 30 years the myth of "Eurisko cheated" has persisted and very few if any commentators have done anything more than cherry pick aspects of the fleet for criticism. And of course there has been plenty of criticism that bears no relation to reality such as rob's quote above (rest assured you are not alone, in my post I mistakenly asserted secondary batteries albeit not as a criticism).
Personally I do not think the game is broken, but there is an accessibility issue. Fleet building takes too long which means many commentators shy away from actually engaging with the game (that and an implicit understanding that the game rewards experience which very few have).
In large part this is why I have felt driven to build numerous HG ship designers over the years to automate the process. I enjoy playing the game, but to do so I need opponents. Today everyone is short of time and few relish the thought of being the novice.
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kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Eurisko was the AI program that took advantage of the HG1 deeply flawed weapon/USP rules?
Heh, I saw that in the HG1 rules and deeply regret missing that historical TCS fight, I had already built an optimized fleet that was yes smaller then the typical superdreadnaught force, I think I would have beat it.
Oh and on the experience issue, HG is not the only spaceship game on the block with that going on. Starfire requires a fairly intense understanding of the tradeoffs of design vs. cost vs. tactics, SFB has fanatics who have every tractor/EW auction scenario memorized and will get you on the most obscure of rule points, and of course Eve Online involves game knowledge, advantage of people who have been subbed for years upping their character abilities to allow for superships, AND a 'who's company/tribe you join' component that is offputting.
Heh, I saw that in the HG1 rules and deeply regret missing that historical TCS fight, I had already built an optimized fleet that was yes smaller then the typical superdreadnaught force, I think I would have beat it.
Oh and on the experience issue, HG is not the only spaceship game on the block with that going on. Starfire requires a fairly intense understanding of the tradeoffs of design vs. cost vs. tactics, SFB has fanatics who have every tractor/EW auction scenario memorized and will get you on the most obscure of rule points, and of course Eve Online involves game knowledge, advantage of people who have been subbed for years upping their character abilities to allow for superships, AND a 'who's company/tribe you join' component that is offputting.
Yep, I think I could beat it too. I hope one day to prove it. It would be great to have a current version of Eurisko languishing somewhere in the middle of the competition.
