Looking for a resource on Capital Ships

[Spike]

So I'm a MongTrav guy, which probably says something about me but:

Having gone through High Guard (a while ago), I've since noticed that even the various race books do never seem to list anything bigger than about 2k, and ships of that size are generally described as frontline combat vessels.

This seems to postulate one of two Traveller Universes as Canon:

One, in which High Guard (with Plankwells and Tigeress and so forth) doesn't actually exist and the Imperial Navy, the Zhodani Navy, and so forth are all limited to 2k ships. (essentially treating it like the Robot book and the Time-Psychic stuff in Psion)

The Other one is that only the Imperium has Capital Ships... which sort of beggars the question: how is anyone else even a thing?

Since I'm pretty sure neither is true, I must be missing a book or resource somewhere that lists non-imperial Warships.

Of course: Since everyone pretty much builds their ships with the same general rule-set I'm not entirely sure what I expcct from this. Realistically, I'd like to evaluate potential naval tactics and stratagies vis a vis the various match-ups, or at least some sort of doctrinal insight to how the relevant navies operate... but at a minimum it'd be nice to just have a proper non-imperial battleship or two for set dressing, if nothing else.

 

[aramis]

Part of the problem is that Mongoose pretty much has said all published designs in Mongoose books will have deck plans.

Making deck plans for big ships is a pain; making ones that make sense is harder still. Making ones that are useful in the context of an 8.5x11" book is nearly impossible at any reasonable detail level. Plus, each such ship is several pages - 5+, to as many as 15 for the battleships - space most people would rather see be more useful content.

So, don't expect big ships until Mongoose either (1) changes their policy, at least for big ships, or (2) finds some gluttons who can manage to make reasonable plans.

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller - classic not mongoose - started as a small ship universe. The basic rules allowed you to build up to 5000t ships.

The original adventures and setting material made the proto-official traveller universe a small ship setting.

Then came Star Wars and the desire for big ships - so High Guard came along and completely redefined the way ships worked in the OTU.

The rpg continued to concentrate on the small ship side of things, but big ships popped up from time to time - The Traveller Adventure has capital ships in the back ground to the adventure but all the action is with PC scale ships.

Mongoose decided to also have a sort of two ship sizes universe too. The small ships in the basic rulebook for pc scale adventures and then they too published HG for the big ships.

Since most adventures, even those based around the alien races detailed in the alien books, involve PC scale ships for rig purposes they didn't detail the big ship each of the major races would possess.

Here's the interesting thing - classic Traveller material never detailed the capital ships of the major races either. There is fan made stuff, but no official designs for the Zhodani TL14 capital ship fleet.

 

[DangerousThing]

Here's the interesting thing - classic Traveller material never detailed the capital ships of the major races either. There is fan made stuff, but no official designs for the Zhodani TL14 capital ship fleet.

From the point of view of the PCs in their really nice far trader, if a capital ship confronts you, the exact design doesn't matter. If it comes to a fight, unless you've got Grandfather on your side, the capital ship will vaporize the PCs, then probably submit paperwork to take the cost of vaporizing them out of their estates.

More likely is that the capital ship will just ignore the PCs and send a light craft or two to question them or maybe search them if things look suspicious. Unless, of course, the captain is bored and thinks the men need a pin-point gunnery drill or maybe likes to just scare the **** out of some poor PCs.

I can see the PCs ship's computer output now.

1 battery locked on from XXX, total of 1 lock.
1 battery locked on from XXX, total of 2 locks.
7 batteries locked on from XXX, total of 9 locks.
1 battery locked on from XXX, total of 10 locks.
314 batteries locked on from XXX, total of 324 locks.
276 batteries locked on from XXX, total of 500 locks.

*** COMPUTER CORE LOCKING UP ***
*** COMPUTER BACKUP EJECTING ***
*** GOOD LUCK ***

 

[Gray Pennell]

When my players encountered a 500000 ton highport and weapons ring of 500 100 ton bay weapons who needs a spinal mount. I aslo think a well designed 5000 ton ship would still scare the computer out of a 500 ton or less ship.

 

[DangerousThing]

When my players encountered a 500000 ton highport and weapons ring of 500 100 ton bay weapons who needs a spinal mount. I aslo think a well designed 5000 ton ship would still scare the computer out of a 500 ton or less ship.

Actually even a poorly designed 5000 ton ship would still scare a 500 ton ship as long as the 5000 ton ship had weapons.

 

[Spike]

Oh, I agree that any normal small ship vs capital ship situation imaginable is 'run like hell or die stupid'.

I just have a massive disconnect when I see a Sword World Fleet Command Ship that is 2k, and an imperial Frigate could be 5k (or whatever) and the listed battleships range from 100k to the megatons.

So it sounds like there are no published ships anywhere aside from the tiny handful in High Guard? M'kay... thanks guys.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Sector Fleet gives some details.

 

[jappel]

The one canonical classic source for big non-Imperial ships that I can think of is Fifth Frontier War. It doesn't contain any detailed stats, but floating around somewhere is a methodology for converting the High Guard stats of a squadron of ships into 5FW terms, so it should be possible to at least partially reverse-engineer some ship stats from those. That would give some coverage of Zhodani, Vargr and Sword World ships.

 

[captnchuck]

There is Supplement 9 Fighting Ships. Has a ton of classic Traveller Heavy units including the Tigress and Plankwell Dreadnaughts. The only bad thing is there are no BattleRider/Tenders in the book.

 

[Selandia]

You may have a look at Trillion Credit Squadron, it gives uniform rule for various "races" (if you wish to interpret each player as a "race"), clearly pointing that CT OTU is not Star Fleet Battle or some other game in which each player has a specific layout and technology pool.

Selandia

 

[far-trader]

There is Supplement 9 Fighting Ships. Has a ton of classic Traveller Heavy units including the Tigress and Plankwell Dreadnaughts. The only bad thing is there are no BattleRider/Tenders in the book.

True, but if available to the OP there is a CT Battle Rider/Tender in the Spinward Marches Campaign module. The TL15 300,000ton Lurenti class Tender with seven 20,000ton Nolikian class Riders.

 

[rancke]

True, but if available to the OP there is a CT Battle Rider/Tender in the Spinward Marches Campaign module. The TL15 300,000ton Lurenti class Tender with seven 20,000ton Nolikian class Riders.

Which is seriously broken since the "BatRon" consists of 7 20,000 cruiser-sized[*] vessels.

[*] That is to say (to forestall any discussion about whether a 20,000T ship can match a battleship), a BatRon that costs an order of magnitude less than BatRons composed of battleships.​

The 154th should either be considered a CruRon or be composed of several (4-8) Lurentis.

Hans

 

[far-trader]

My bad It's a Cruiser Rider/Tender, aka a CruRon.

EDIT: Ah, you were editing/clairifyin while I was typing, agreed Hans

Brokenness aside* which I almost mentioned but*...

* what isn't broken in canon... redundant question, quick answer anyway... very little if anything ...hmm, perhaps the "natural" state of canon IS "broken" ? embrace the errors! they will set you free!

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, so, are there any true BatRon Rider/Tender examples in canon? Or are Battleships simply too large to be Riders? I'm drawing a blank on the memory bank

 

[rancke]

Hmm, so, are there any true BatRon Rider/Tender examples in canon? Or are Battleships simply too large to be Riders? I'm drawing a blank on the memory bank

Mentioned, yes, statted out, no. The 50,000T planetoid monitor Empress Troyhune was donated to Rorise by the Mora system navy. Commercial ships large enough to carry 50,000T boulders are unknown in the Spinward Marches[*], so in 1104 the 1,000,000T Imperial Navy tender Gorodish carried Empress Troyhune to Rorise in place of one of its Hadrian class battleriders.

[*] Data point for civillian traffic discussions!!!​

Since ships carry vessels that aren't designed to fit the bays at twice their actual tonnage, a Hadrian is probably 100,000T (or more, but that's unlikely). With the less empty space (i.e. no jump fuel tankage) and consequent extra armor, a 100,000T rider should be a match (in fighting ability and price) for 200,000T and 300,000T battleships.

I've never tried to stat out a Gorodish, so I don't know many riders it would be able to carry. Four? Or maybe only two or three? In any case I'd expect a squadron to consist of 2-4 Gorodishes.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

My bad It's a Cruiser Rider/Tender, aka a CruRon.

EDIT: Ah, you were editing/clairifyin while I was typing, agreed Hans

Brokenness aside* which I almost mentioned but*...

* what isn't broken in canon... redundant question, quick answer anyway... very little if anything ...hmm, perhaps the "natural" state of canon IS "broken" ? embrace the errors! they will set you free!

No, it is a Bat Ron. It clearly states it in several places. There are many errors in SMC - TL typos, cut and paste character tables, but the designation of Bat Ron is not one of them.

The Imperial Navy of the OTU in the FFW period designates the term BatRon to a single tender carrying its 7 riders.

The reason for this is pretty obvious.

The Imperium is facing off agains lower TL opponents, the BR is more than capable of standing in the line of barrel 1v1 against a TL15 BB. The tender/rider mission
consists of engaging the enemy's line of battle, not conducting long range missions, therefore it is not designated as a Cru Ron.

Since the tender can bring 7 spinal mounts to the battle this is the equivalent of 7 Zhodani BBs.

Mission - line of battle - designation - BatRon.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, so, are there any true BatRon Rider/Tender examples in canon? Or are Battleships simply too large to be Riders? I'm drawing a blank on the memory bank

The history section detailing the BatRon mentions earlier tenders. S:9 also mentions a tender that can carry a 50kt rider.

Anyone with any knowledge of High Guard can spot what's happened here.

The 50kt rider is a TL14 design, and the tender that goes with it.

The TL advantages of TL15 allow you to build smaller riders hence the reduction in size to 20kt.

 

[rancke]

No, it is a Bat Ron. It clearly states it in several places. There are many errors in SMC - TL typos, cut and paste character tables, but the designation of Bat Ron is not one of them.

We've been through this before. It's the equivalent of a CruRon as far as cost is concerned. If it actually was a for-real, honest to God BatRon -- capable of standing up to 6-8 2-300,000T battleships -- there would be no controversy about whether battleriders or battleships were better (as canon clearly states that there is), because even when the tender part was taken into consideration, battleriders woulsd be clearly and indisputably far, far better than battleships, and no one would spend money on building battleships.

The Imperial Navy of the OTU in the FFW period designates the term BatRon to a single tender carrying its 7 riders.

No, the people who made up (as in 'fictional') the information about the Imperial Navy in the FFW designated the term BatRon to a single tender carrying seven cruiser-sized riders. They also made up the information that the Imperial Navy in the FFW built lots and lots of battleships. This is a canon conflict. Either the Imperial Navy did not actually call the 154th a BatRon or they erroneously used the appellation 'BatRon' for a cruiser squadron.

The reason for this is pretty obvious.

The Imperium is facing off agains lower TL opponents, the BR is more than capable of standing in the line of barrel 1v1 against a TL15 BB. The tender/rider mission consists of engaging the enemy's line of battle, not conducting long range missions, therefore it is not designated as a Cru Ron.

Most of the cruisers built by the Imperial Navy serve in CruRons attached to fleets and never goes cruising. Indeed, any time they are assigned to a CruRon, odds are that their mission is to support a fleet, not go cruising. Cruisers that do go cruising are normally used singly or in pairs as core of scouting or raiding groups.

The jump-4 Lurenti would be perfectly capable of going cruising as a squadron, just as every other CruRon in the navy (except the CruRons with low jump capability, nevertheless designated as CruRons) would be, if deployed as a squadron.

"Cruisers serving with a battle fleet are generally grouped in CruRons of from four to eight ships, while individual ships or pairs of cruisers are used to form the hard core of scouting or raiding groups." [FS:9]​

Since the tender can bring 7 spinal mounts to the battle this is the equivalent of 7 Zhodani BBs.

Mission - line of battle - designation - BatRon.

No, it is the equivalent of 7 Zhodani cruisers. In cost and logically also in suvivability, whatever the simplified game combat system that evidently ignores something really important says.

See, "battleships have little better in the way of primary armament than cruisers," but "their extensive secondary batteries render them virtually immune to missile and small craft attack while their bulk provides a tremendous ability to absorb damage and keep fighting". [FS:9-10]

So if the combat system does not provide big ships with trememdous ability to absorb damage and keep fighting, then there's obviously a big flaw in the combat system. Meanwhile, the Nolikans quite obviously do not have the bulk of a battleship.

Mission - support battle fleet - composition - small spinal mount bearing vessels - proper designation - CruRon.


Hans

 

[robject]

Then the discussion turned on battleships versus riders, once again.

Well, my first impression is to side with Mike.

And then I started wondering if I agree with Hans about anything. That amused me for a few minutes.

I think the battleship has two things a rider lacks:

(1) lots of secondary weaponry

(2) Marc's idea of a battleship being capable of power projection, to act as a "compact, mobile Naval base" so to speak.