Invasion of Terra: second Rim War?
- Thread starter Hal
- Start date
One gun in one turret on one battleship. Besides, how many saboteurs choose suicide?
How many rogue Titan, Minuteman, Polaris, and Trident launches were there? How many ships couldn't deploy? Planes couldn't sortie? Tanks didn't run? How often did the wrong ammo arrive? Or meals poisoned?
Yeah, there will be Walkers and Mannings. But entire squadron, wings, and divisions disrupted to such an extent they're mission killed?
one guy put a capital ship in repair for, what, six months?
remember that ammo dump that went up in the soviet union, near ... murmansk? what was that, 1/3 of all their munitions?
what was that intel leak that revealed hundreds of cia agents in the middle east?
got whole worlds to recruit from.
none that we know of. a more interesting question would have been how many launches DIDN'T happen when called upon.
oh you're kidding, right? I've heard of ships where someone started a fire in the engine room so they could have a day or two extra with the family before deployment.
actually that's a good one. on my boat our people got sick three times before our command responded by shutting down the entire mess deck for two weeks to sanitize it.
the point is technology extends individual capabilities, and loyalties in such a war as described on the rim will be a major issue. certainly a good gaming issue!
Agent of the Imperium - would anyone recommend it for filling out missing information on fleet activity or background information in general?
The higher price range for the book in conjunction with it being a Kindle read only type of thing (ie, if I did buy it, it would be for reading on the Kindle rather than it being a paper back!) more or less dissuaded me from buying it. Some of the comments about "Wafer" technology and the like has me wondering if I'd want to buy it or not.
Just wondering... (yes, a thread digression, but not worth starting up a new thread just to get a single answer!)
Thanks.
I abhor game fiction, but I thought this was a pretty good sci-fi book that just happened to be set in the Traveller universe. Some thought-provoking trans-humanist tech. Not a lot of information on fleet activity but some interesting insights into interdiction actions, quarantines, and how the Imperium evaluates and addresses potential threats.
Hmmm. I had wondered if I was missing anything by not getting it. Looks like you're of the opinion that while it is a good read, it doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of details for naval life or naval combats or naval anything in particular... Bummer.
Amazon.com has it listed for an ungodly amount of money. $125 used, or 2108 (yes, two THOUSAND one hundred eight dollars) for a new one. Sheesh.
One goes for three grand! Are these people insane?
I normally abhor game fiction too because, even when written by professionals, it's nearly always fan fiction. That is, it's someone attempting to write about another person's vision.
AotI is an exception to that because the man himself is writing about his own vision.
Getting back to Hal's question, while there aren't any major "info dumps" on fleet operations there are a lot of asides and other similar nuggets which gave me a lot to think about.
- There's a scene where a Marine walking across a ship's bridge genuflects towards the empty captain's chair.
- Kinetic bombardment is used often enough for ships to be specifically designed and designated for it.
- Meson spinals somehow aren't quite as nasty as HG2 make them out to be. Two capital ships trade meson volleys and, while damaged, aren't trashed anywhere near as much as we'd think.
- Meson screens need to be dropped before you fire your meson gun(s).
- Ships and the systems aboard them are routinely "astrofenced". Capabilities and actions can be triggered and/or prevented depending on the ship's location. That this astrofencing capability even exists is only known in certain circles.
- Arbellatra's advance on Capital occurs in a manner I'd never considered.
There's a lot more and I'm still finding them.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Dropping the black globe is known, dropping meson screens seems new.
Where is that reflected in the rules?
Where is that reflected in the rules?
It's new to me, but it's also foreshadowed oddly enough. As you note, black globes act like armor in both directions. What's more, sand does the same thing in LBB:2 and Mayday.
Beat's me. I haven't yet found it in T5 but there's a lot in T5 I'm completely in the dark about.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
It would explain the Solomani preference for battlecruisers, they could keep the shields raised while taking pot shots with the particle accelerator spinal mounts.
From long range.
From long range.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
You could always open the porthole in the sidewall, or bow wall, in this case.
A lot depends on "how things are done".
For instance, what if the Meson Screen were an all of nothing kind of affair? In other words, you can either generate the field (have it up) or you had to have it entirely down - where you can't have any "holes" in the field?
A lot of stuff in HIGH GUARD was abstracted in a way that people just accepted what was involved, without necessarily thinking through the ramifications (Something I'm as guilty of as the next guy!).
In all, each GM who had to paint pictures with words for his players, needed to visualize things himself before he could paint it for others to see. If the players never asked the question, chances are, he never did either.
It is like the ship to ship combat rules from one game system that said "in order for a missile to impact/detonate on its target, it must END its movement in the hex of the ship". I thought "What?!!!" As long as the missile's built up velocity allows it to move THROUGH the hex of the target, that's an IMPACT as far as I was concerned. When I thought about the missile homing rules in the game, I thought this was ridiculous. Other insanities in the game with its complex methodology to determine if a missile hits made me seek a simplification of the rules.
Simply put: you have a missile with its current location. Point one of a Triangle. You have an end point of where that missile will go if it doesn't change its velocity/heading in any way. That's point two of a triangle. Finally, you have a potential end point where the missile can vary its final impact based on the change in velocity and heading that is possible from the Missile's own motive power (third point in a triangle). If a ship is within this triangle and can't get OUT of it in the entire turn, said ship can be hit by the missile. If the ship can get out of this area - the question then becomes one of "can it get out of the engagement zone before the missile strikes? If yes, then the missile misses, if no, then the missile hits."
That approach made the original rules of the game seem unnecessary. As to what rules set am I talking about? The GURPS TRAVELLER rules set.
In any event - game rules often influence the perception of the game's reality so to speak. If a "shield" is an all or nothing kind of thing - either on or off, then it has an impact on how things work.
Case in point? The jump bubble theories presented in T5. If the Jump bubble conforms to a spherical effect around a generator, then the ship has to be entirely within the sphere for it to jump. If the field conforms to the shape of the hull, and has only a 3 meter space between the hull and the field boundary - that's another reality of the rules. Can two hulls in Jump space collide by accident? Is Jump Space individualistic for each hull such that each hull enters a different dimension even despite the fact they both entered Jump space at the same time, jumping the same distance, and even jumping to approximately the same location? What happens if by some quirk of fate, two ships jumping from two different locations, happen (by freak chance!) to jump to the exact same location at the exact same time? Does the larger displace the smaller? Do both get displaced? Do they annihilate each other? Each "answer" defines the metaphysics of the universe in question.
So, the implications of the Traveller Universe tend to have some subtle side effects that sometimes aren't caught.
Sometimes, the rules themselves have potential issues or logic issues that produce side effects.
<shrug>
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
You would think the meson screen aspect would have been mentioned before, since you would have to declare it with black globes.
Maybe the writer was thinking of Star Trek.
Maybe the writer was thinking of Star Trek.
Entirely Possible.
See, here's what goes through my mind regards to the Meson Screen...
The description of the Meson Gun is that it goes through a planned decay. It also sticks in my mind, that it required TWO beams to collide at the point of impact (Maybe I'm mis-remembering, so RESEARCH it to confirm or deny!!!). IF it s two beams colliding at the same point, then the decay from the collision is what produces the energetic damage and radiation at the point of impact. If it is only ONE beam decaying as planned, the end result is the same: the end point experiences the nasty effects.
So how does the Meson Screen handle all of this? Can a meson screen for example, block ALL meson communications? If it is two beams that impact, then it would seem that any screen on your end, should be able to do the same thing at your end, that a protective screen at the target's end. Correct? But what if, the incipient decay of a single beam is what the Meson Screen is deflecting so it doesn't cause the damage? Does it make the entire beam deflect harmlessly (ie no decay with no concentrated explosion) or does it deflect it so that it explodes harmlessly somewhere else?
The "details" if you will, don't seem to have been fleshed out. With the black globe, things are a little more tricky. It brings to mind the propeller interrupter gear used in World War I. The timing mechanism blocks the weapon so it can't fire through the propeller, but otherwise lets the machine gun fire when the propeller won't be in the way. Firing OUT of a black globe set to flicker works in that fashion. The trick for the enemy fleet is to fire at you when the globe isn't blocking - which is why (presumably) the authors of the rules did what they did.
Implications thought of after the fact tend to try to rationalize things that look to be a problem. Sometimes the rationalizations are valid, sometimes they're a HUGE request to hit the "I BELIEVE" button that all of these over the top movies ask the audience to press so that their critical thinking doesn't get in the way of a good action adventure thrilling sequence. Me? I prefer less pushing of the I believe button and let the STORY move me along, but I'm reaching the understanding that my tastes are not those of the audience. In about another 20 years or so (or sooner, who knows!) I will be laid to rest forever, and my tastes (possibly that of a generation?) will die with me. Point is, I like my Sci-Fi to be reasonably plausible. Artificial gravity plates are a "nice" thing to have instead of realistic scenes for a sci-fi setting. Here's a really NASTY trick you can use aboard a ship for your campaigns if you ever decide to try it...
Imagine having gravity plates set in your ship in deep space, and you have computers controlling "zones" for the defenders. On the wall, mount 3 G plates, and on the floor, mount your normal plates. If someone aims a ballistic weapon at you (such as a gun), and the computer defense system determines that you're in danger - imagine how a lateral 3G field will help deflect a bullet's path aimed at say, your center of mass? Can a 10 foot long gravity field set to 3 G made sufficient a difference as to cause the bullet to miss its intended target point sufficiently to save a character's life? Implications. If Traveller Technology were real, man's inventiveness and capacity for both war and defense from war, would take technology and pervert it extensively beyond its original intended application. Being able to separate out component parts based on density (centifuges anyone?) could also have an interesting effect with variable gravity gradients. Having control of positive/negative ions AND gravity could also have interesting chemical ramifications.
In the end? We're given the basic underlying premise of how space battles go with HIGH GUARD and take it from there. Then we had BATTLE LANCES that had its own presumptions thrown in the mix. Then we had the original CT combat rules (and it required Mayday to bring both High Guard and the classic rules together). Then we had the abstractions introduced with Range bands, then T4's rules, T5's rules, T20's rules, GURPS TRAVELLER rules (which made Missile combat deadly until someone said "that's not classic Traveller in flavor" and nerfed the max damage that a kinetic kill missile can achieve at high velocities). I've not looked too closely at Mongoose Traveller (no insults intended!), but in the end - the story is the thing, and people look at the rules as closely (or not) as needed.
So, if you want to use the Star Trek mode of "Shields", go for it.
I just have one minor question to ask...
If nuclear dampner technology works on Nuclear weapons, why doesn't it work on the radiation aspect of a Meson weapon? Does a Gamma Ray laser suffer any impediments when going up against a Nuclear Dampner field?
Sometimes, it just isn't worth trying to work out all of the ramifications! Especially when my own ignorance will cause me to make the same level of mistakes that perhaps the game designers had for their own, when they first made up the rules back in the day.
Thought for the day as anyone ponders these questions/thoughts...
Do you know why I sometimes hate watching movies these days? Cell phones. In the past, before the cell phone invention, you could watch a movie made in the 60's and watch it in the 70's or 80's and it wouldn't be jarringly different than today. Now, if you watch a movie before a certain brand of smart phones hit the market, or before flip cell phones were so passé, you know the movie has already "dated" itself with that one MINOR inconsistency. So it is and will be, with any Sci-Fi game or anything that attempted to predict a future of 30 years from now (let alone the CENTURIES that Traveller postulates) without something going haywire. Even something as simple as "Anagathics" is starting to take a hit now because of modern technology. Even something like being able to create surrogate egg cells from living skin tissue means a whole heck of a lot of social changes just waiting to hit our descendents into the future not far from now, let alone in the age of the Second Imperium! Can you imagine a life with artificial wombs where men no longer need women to bring in the next generation, or women needing men to keep the species alive?
THAT is what weapon technology of the future and space battles of the future will have in store for us. Things that we can't even imagine, nor see the ramifications. So - use the game as you see fit. It is a shared reality from the Author(s)' fertile minds for us to use in our games. Use it or not as you see fit.
For the record, the conclusion that the explosion was intentional was challenged. Sandia National Labs later concluded the explosion was an accident caused by an over-ram - the ram used to insert the powder bags into the gun driving the bags too deep and jamming them. Navy testing showed this was possible, but Navy did not agree that this was the cause, though they did back down from their original finding and concluded that a cause could not be determined.
Yup, sums it up. Happens that way sometimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522
