CT Only: How Often have You used High Guard space combat since Jan 2014?
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
While I am a proponent of HG (CT HG, let's be clear. Not Mongoose) I have had no reason to use it for combat since I let go of the Big Ship Universe.
It is not really useful for ships that don't have masses of batteries to track.
However, as a quick way to compare small ships, the USP is very very quick.
It is not really useful for ships that don't have masses of batteries to track.
However, as a quick way to compare small ships, the USP is very very quick.
Your poll results can be fairly well predicted! Especially given CT is a system that has been superseded by at least five others and the current user based is mature, busy and widely separated. On top of that I can tell you with reasonable confidence that the last spike in HG gaming activity on COTI was thanks to Jethr0 running the second of his BCS games, around 2011 (excellent tourney).
None-the-less I will claim daily on the basis of having launched a design tool in Feb and slowly working on expanding its capabilities into other areas of interest when RL permits (which it hasn't for 2-3 months damn it). Not quite "HG gaming" but working toward reducing the barriers to play for future gamers.
Other efforts, such as re-imagining the rules, I'm supportive of in recognition that more HG gamers would be a good thing and would lead to more nuanced COTI discussions.
None-the-less I will claim daily on the basis of having launched a design tool in Feb and slowly working on expanding its capabilities into other areas of interest when RL permits (which it hasn't for 2-3 months damn it). Not quite "HG gaming" but working toward reducing the barriers to play for future gamers.
Other efforts, such as re-imagining the rules, I'm supportive of in recognition that more HG gamers would be a good thing and would lead to more nuanced COTI discussions.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I rarely use large ships as part of a game. Fleet battles and such seem sort of out of place in a game. If one were to show up, or even some sort of battle group it'd be the equivalent of say a WW 1 era fleet with several battleships showing up and you and your fellow players are on a merchant ship or some small vessel. Against that setting, what would or could the players do in an engagement?
Holy Space Cows, Bat-Man!
Daaaannng!
Wow, I never expected those numbers, I honestly expected more like the reverse. Wow.
Hmm, maybe the HG crowd is thinning out.
Daaaannng!
Wow, I never expected those numbers, I honestly expected more like the reverse. Wow.
Hmm, maybe the HG crowd is thinning out.
Who has the time to create giant fleets and slug out epic space battles, which is the perception, from where I sit, of what High Guard Starship Combat does well? Flykiller tried to stir up some interest around here and got only 1 nibble from an overextended Armchair Admiral.
I have only had 1 space battle needing rules since January 2014, that was mostly background for my PbP right here and was far more Roleplaying Narration focused than wargaming, so CT Book 2 was the easiest to use, and even then, I found the turns too long and had to break the action into phases. HG would have been a step in the wrong direction for my needs over the last (almost) two years.
My apologies Matt, I didn't write the post title very clearly.
I was referring to use of the space combat rules in High Guard, rather than the design system!
(You're allowed to change your vote)
I am not very surprised. This is confirming a suspicion.
For ship design, High Guard has always has been on top of the Traveller pile, and I suspect it still is.
But, I suspect that the combat system has never seen a lot of use. Probably for the two reasons that repel you:
(1) the USP is too dense to grok.
(2) the combat system is too statistically-based to hold one's attention.
Perhaps that's fodder for Yet Another Poll, though.
In other words
* High Guard is the darling for ship design
* Mayday is the darling for ship-to-ship combat
As a system, however, CT High Guard still enjoys great popularity. So I conclude that it's not the age of the system, but rather something about the HG combat system itself.
As for the HG ship design system, I counter that it is still more popular than the systems that have since "superseded" it.
It had the benefit of no competition. New players are turned onto it by old refs. But I think the diverse TU of systems has weakened any great popularity, other than nostalgic. Unless, you can produce numbers to support the theory.
If this is true, then that's quite an achievement.
Good point. Done and done - poll created!:coffeegulp:
It absolutely sucks for adventure class ships. Every hit knocks something out, many PC-scale fights are "first to get lucky mission kills the other."
Unless, of course, the computers are disparite. In which case, a 3 model difference is a quick mission kill.
And most merchants? A single weapon hit in Bk5 usually eliminates the entire armament.
Bk2 strips systems slowly, and bigger bk 2 ships can take multiple hits to drives and computers and remain functional.
Bk5? any hit is a mission kill on an outbound A or R freighter, except a weapon hit. And a weapon hit strips it's armaments. (Remember: most any ACS type ships have factors for their weapons of 1-6; they thus take a DM+6 on damage rolls.)
The only hits possible are
- maneuver -1
- Fuel -1/-2 (either of which is 10Td lost, and precludes an S, A or R from jump; 2 such stops an A2 or R2.)
- Weapon -3/-2/-1 (any of which massively impacts any freighter's combat.)
Ah, Adventure.
The combat analysis is nasty too. Ouch.
Well. See, that gives me even more reason to dislike HG as all I do are ACS ships. Got no reason to build anything larger.
The combat analysis is nasty too. Ouch.
The T20 method is pretty slick - it uses USPs, but in a way that results in a much wider variety of outcomes.
salochin999
SOC-13
I used to fight battles with it years ago but now I just use the cost of a Tigress then take sub-sector population from the Spinward Marches supplement x 500Cr divided by the Tigress cost to get a rough idea how many dreadnoughts each colonial fleet has.
It's true for other game systems. Someone once showed me CT. I showed others T20. The tradition continues, but the majority of people do not have the time or cash to flip between systems. Once they get something moving they stick with it.
