Looking for TechLevel 12(ish) warships

[Lautenschlaeger]

My fellow sophonts,
I am running a game in Reaver's Deep, in the general vicinity of the principality of Caledon. I'd like to play around with ideas for a space combat system next, involving warships of the various small politcal entities in that area.
I've bumped into problem: technologically speaking,the area is a bit of a backwater with TLs around 12 or so. The warships (destroyers and cruisers is what I'm thinking of) in the various publications I own (MegaTraveller and Mongoose) tend to be a lot more advanced, at TL15 predominantly.
Does anyone know of a source for lower tech ship designs? Or, failing that, is there a ship builder app out there I could use to generate them myself?
Happy to read your thoughts.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Does anyone know of a source for lower tech ship designs?

Mongoose Sword Worlds has some TL-12-ish warships.

Or, failing that, is there a ship builder app out there I could use to generate them myself?

Not apps, but plenty of spreadsheets.

Mongoose 2022, very complete:
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/excel-ship-designer-v2025-02-08.123101/post-996546

Mongoose 2016 simpler, faster:
https://www.travellerrpg.com/threads/mgt2-ship-design.38848/post-626193

MT:
https://www.travellerrpg.com/threads/mt-ship-and-grav-vehicle-spreadsheet.40275/post-605466

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, early Third Imperium, and late Interstellar Wars, between the Vilani and the Terrans, specifically, the Terrans.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I've bumped into problem: technologically speaking,the area is a bit of a backwater with TLs around 12 or so.
Does anyone know of a source for lower tech ship designs?

This invites a bit of a trick question.

Are you looking for craft with more of a defensive posture or an offensive one?

The ultimate defensive design would be a system defense boat (or a J1 capable system defense ship that can be used for microjumps within systems).

A more offensive design would be much more oriented around expeditionary skirmishing and raiding.



The answer to this question then has a follow up ... how "expansive" of a military budget are you talking about?
In other words, do the construction costs need to have any kind of "economy" to them, or can the hull metal be gold plated latium?

If you're looking at Pocket Empires of limited reach, I'm thinking that their military budgets "would not be 'infinite' like Imperial military budgets" as a starting point. This then has implications on the types of forces that can be fielded (cutters vs destroyers vs cruisers vs battleships vs carriers, for example) and the types of "specialties" in military doctrine that various polities might favor.



For example, one polity has angled more towards development of small craft fighters for power projection and defense, along with their carriers ... while rival has taken a different path that is more oriented around 1-20k ton destroyers (big guns are bay weapons) ... while a third polity goes in for more of a "battlewagon" approach (if it doesn't have a spinal mount, don't bother building it).

If it helps, think of the various tendencies as being more of an infantry/cavalry/artillery style of rock/paper/scissors type of military procurement policy.

The fun thing is that the TL=9-11 range is kind of the "zenith" for small craft fighters in terms of military relevance, so you really do have the opportunity to have a variety of different military doctrines competing with each other between Pocket Empires (if you want).

 

[Condottiere]

Doctrine would probably be dependent on available resources and governmental policy.

Governmental policy would likely depend on opposing forces, intent, and power projection.

 

[Lautenschlaeger]

Thanks a lot for the input. Very good questions to consider, particularly from Spinward Flow. I'll bear those in mind. For testing the system, I'll start off with building some destroyer variants (very much on a tight budget), test them, and then proceed from there.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It depends a lot on what rule system you are using...

A good MgT ship is nothing like a good MT ship.

 

[Lautenschlaeger]

Understood. For now, I'm fine with having plausible ships on a pretty coarse-grained resolution. Like, has M-drive at 3, Jump-2 capable, has so many laser turrets, so many bays, so many sandcasters, so many hull points et cetera. Once I have that, I can test the concepts I have in mind for a space combat system. Optimising those ships for Mongoose rules (have just switched my group over from MTr) will come later, if at all.

 

[kilemall]

Nukes should reign supreme for smaller then spinal, but that’s a CT HG perspective.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Nukes should reign supreme for smaller then spinal, but that’s a CT HG perspective.

Nuclear Missiles are the "killer app" ... so long as ordnance reloads are ignored.
If stockpiles are limited, then it's possible to "exhaust" the nuclear missile craft ... at which point their "combat relevance" drops precipitously (and you need to start thinking about retreating).

Until then, they're Grade-A1 bang bangs!

 

[Condottiere]

The thing about nukes is that they're really scalable, to the point that each warhead could have a dial.

Could you dial it up to eleven?

Yes, to the point that the Soviets toned down their Tsar bomb.

Which does seem there's a rather big and obvious hole in High Guard armaments.

 

[Badenov]

The thing about nukes is that they're really scalable, to the point that each warhead could have a dial.

Could you dial it up to eleven?

Yes, to the point that the Soviets toned down their Tsar bomb.

Which does seem there's a rather big and obvious hole in High Guard armaments.

I'm still a bit hung up on the idea that at TL12 (TL15, even) this TL6 device has performance equivalent to a spinal mount (based on the modifier that opposes the penalty for factor 9- weapons). That's like saying in RL that someone's TL1 gadget is so butch that it is more useful than a battle rifle in a soldier's kit.

The quick answer is, 'That's what a knife is', but a knife isn't more effective than a gun in the way nukes are more effective than anything that's not a spinal. Really only Meson weapons are more effective than nukes, and particle spinals are roughly on the same level. I say roughly, because Particle Spinals can't be mitigated by anything other than size, agility, and computer rating, where nukes are mitigated by all those things, plus sandcasters, beam weapons, repulsors, and nuclear dampers. The flip side being that Particle Spinals are limited to one per ship, where missiles can get piled in up to the ceiling.

I find myself a bit disappointed in CT's vision of the future. MgT at least posits weapons that can do more damage than nukes exist in the future.

 

[mike wightman]

Flip it on its head.
By TL10+ spinal mounts have the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon.

The other thing to consider is that the HG nuclear missile is the size of an AGM-114 Hellfire missile.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Understood. For now, I'm fine with having plausible ships on a pretty coarse-grained resolution. Like, has M-drive at 3, Jump-2 capable, has so many laser turrets, so many bays, so many sandcasters, so many hull points et cetera.

All of that depends on rules version.

E.g. MT had no great use for large M-drives, MgT2 does, both for movement and dodge actions.

What weapon mix is actually effective is highly dependant on version.

 

[Badenov]

Flip it on its head.
By TL10+ spinal mounts have the destructive potential of a nuclear weapon.

The other thing to consider is that the HG nuclear missile is the size of an AGM-114 Hellfire missile.

The earliest Particle Accelerator spinals are available at TL8, and have the same to-hit roll as a contemporary missile bay (3, since at TL8, a 100-ton missile bay is only rating 7). The spinal gets a bonus damage roll that the nukes don't get, though amusingly the number of bonus rolls are reduced by the target's armor factor, so that can be mitigated to nothing done, making nukes and particle spinals close in effectiveness against armored targets.

I had a whole commentary typed up, and I realized it was pointless. The one spinal per ship limitation makes the nuclear weapons better than spinals regardless of mitigation, which at TL8, hasn't really evolved yet. Nuke Dampers don't start until TL12, Repulsors start at TL10 (and are rating 2 at that TL, making them imperfect defenses), and Sandcasters and beam weapons are never very effective, making the 1 nuke (50/100T bay) per 1000T a clear winner.

So now spending hull tonnage on armor is starting to seem like it could help. Even 4 armor (20% of your hull at TL8) makes it so that the Surface Explosion table can't roll Interior Explosion or Critical results. This will eliminate the (admittedly uncommon) instakill results and as has been said, reduce fights to slugging matches to see who can reduce the other's fuel tank to 0 first.

 

[Badenov]

To answer the main question of the thread, I have a rough design, basically scaled back from higher TL designs, and I don't have any idea how effective it would be, but I will offer it up:


I don't have it in other than a very messy and hard-to-read homemade excel sheet, so I will just offer the USP and add that it has 660 marines, and 4 homebrew 40T pinnaces than can deliver a platoon at a time. Actual Tonnage is 99,999T. Cost is 146,484.2MCr.

 

[kilemall]

I'm still a bit hung up on the idea that at TL12 (TL15, even) this TL6 device has performance equivalent to a spinal mount (based on the modifier that opposes the penalty for factor 9- weapons). That's like saying in RL that someone's TL1 gadget is so butch that it is more useful than a battle rifle in a soldier's kit.

The quick answer is, 'That's what a knife is', but a knife isn't more effective than a gun in the way nukes are more effective than anything that's not a spinal. Really only Meson weapons are more effective than nukes, and particle spinals are roughly on the same level. I say roughly, because Particle Spinals can't be mitigated by anything other than size, agility, and computer rating, where nukes are mitigated by all those things, plus sandcasters, beam weapons, repulsors, and nuclear dampers. The flip side being that Particle Spinals are limited to one per ship, where missiles can get piled in up to the ceiling.

I find myself a bit disappointed in CT's vision of the future. MgT at least posits weapons that can do more damage than nukes exist in the future.

I dunno, Shotguns and Starships, on brand.

 

[Badenov]

I dunno, Shotguns and Starships, on brand.

Oh, it's on brand. I just am not happy with a future that's not very futuristic. This is like two cavemen discussing the future of flint knapping.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, californium shotgun shell.

 

[TheDark]

On DriveThru, the Ares Dragon is available as a PWYW item for MgT 1e. The ship is a TL12 800 dTon mercenary cruiser with a 20 dTon launch.

If you're willing to do conversions from GURPS, 101 Starships has far more than 101 starships, and the ones that are GTL9 would probably be the best for conversion, since they're roughly equivalent to TL 9 to 11 ships. GTL10 covers roughly TL 12 to 15, so the bottom end could align with what you're looking for, but it could take a lot of sifting through entries to find that bottom end. I'd start with the Rule of Man vessels in looking at GTL10 ships, since those would date back to the Second Imperium. One nice thing is that they do full breakdowns of the ship components at the back of the document, so even if you're not sure what the equivalent to a particular system would be, you can see how large it is in GT and find something similar in MgT.