Making Battleships Work

[AndreaV]

Taken from the "Battleship and battlerider" thread

Well Orr,
It would seem you've just argued the point of saying that this entire thread is pointless, and that further commentary is a waste of time. Thank you for convincing me of that.

<shakes his head and gives up>

Well perhaps not pointless but perhaps missing the point.

I think most of us will accept that in HG the cruiser/cruiser-rider (that's my term for a rider armed on the level of a cruiser rather than battleship) is a better fleet investment than the battleship/battlerider. Most of us will likewise agree that canon indicates that most battlefleets in the OTU are based around battleships rather than cruisers. I think the problem is to "fix" HG to make it better reflect canon (bonus would be fixing the "big numbers" problem too).

One of the major problems appears to be the damage tables themselves. There are five mission killing damage results (ship vaporised, bridge, computer or power plant destroyed and fuel tanks shattered). Four of these are criticals but one (fuel tank shattered) is routine. Moreover, 1 in 9 internal explosions will result in FTS making a hit by a J meson a guaranteed kill.

My first suggestion would be to shift the FTS to the criticals table, switching it with the Crew-1 result. Now 1 in 6 meson interior explosions will result in a critical, and with this modification, 1 in 3 criticals will result in a mission kill. This means that you will need 18 interior meson hits to guaranteed a kill. Only a T meson is capable of this.

Any thoughts? or other suggestions?

 

[mike wightman]

Lots

Main one being large ships of size to hit +2 require two hits to fully reduce a drive/pp stat.

First hit reduces it by -n as normal but it can take a second hit to that drive before it is reduced again.

Put a / through the usp on the first hit and a \ on the second to produce a X.

 

[mike wightman]

Next one is that meson screens should act like armour against meson gun hits the same way hull armour is treated for normal weapon hits - it reduces the number of extra hits and autocrits.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Next one is that meson screens should act like armour against meson gun hits the same way hull armour is treated for normal weapon hits - it reduces the number of extra hits and autocrits.

i disagree.. mesons screens shoulf not act like armour, armour should act like armour, and protect agianst meson hits,

Any power building warships that are facing meson weaponry should be building thier ships to take meson hits that explode inside the target. ergo, internal coompartmentaion should be heavy, and all major compents should be in thier own armoured boxes You can't do anything about a meson hit that goes off inside engineering, but you can do somthing about that shot affect, say, the spinal mount.

also, i think that the meson screens are too weak for their intended purpose. I only have the MgT rules, but in those, it looks like most ships cannot mount screens capable of stopping thier own meson spinals (the 200Kt Sylea class BB auto-penetrates it's own screens, the planet class CA penatrates itself on a 4+, etc). i think that it should be harder to penetrate the screens, much harder. I would say that a battleship firing at it's own clone shouldn't be penerating on more than a 7 or 8+ i.e. aprox 50%) a larger ship should be able to mount better screens, which would balance out agianst a equal sized oppent but protect it well agianst smaller hulls.

 

[AndreaV]

i disagree.. mesons screens shoulf not act like armour, armour should act like armour, and protect agianst meson hits,

Any power building warships that are facing meson weaponry should be building thier ships to take meson hits that explode inside the target. ergo, internal coompartmentaion should be heavy, and all major compents should be in thier own armoured boxes You can't do anything about a meson hit that goes off inside engineering, but you can do somthing about that shot affect, say, the spinal mount.

A good point, especially as HG actually mentions that part of armour is internal strengthening (pp28). And like you suggest, you can't prevent a meson gun going off wherever it will, but you can prevent that damage spreading. So I wouldn't apply armour against the damage rolls themselves, but would use it to reduce automatic criticals and number of damage rolls as per pp41.

Thus your J meson hits a 5,000 Td (size E) ship with factor 8 armour. Under existing rules it gets ten damage rolls (1 + 1 per factor over 9) and four automatic criticals (4 factors over the ship size. But under this modification it loses 8 of the extra damage rolls (1 per armour factor) and all of the criticals (1 per 2 factors of armour). However, the remaining two damage rolls are not modified by armour.

 

[mike wightman]

Too big a reduction IMHO.

Sort of defeats the whole point of the meson gun doesn't it?

You may as well use PA spinals and get the better hit chance.

Which reminds me - the principle drawback of the meson gun is its higher to hit number.

 

[AndreaV]

Too big a reduction IMHO.

Sort of defeats the whole point of the meson gun doesn't it?

You may as well use PA spinals and get the better hit chance.

Which reminds me - the principle drawback of the meson gun is its higher to hit number.

I don't think it does. Its more just evening the field. As the rules stand, the Meson gun is far superior to the PA. Even a small one is able to guarantee a mission kill any ship with one hit. I think it puts the Meson and PA on the same level. They're both equally affected for extra damage and criticals, but while the PA has a better hit ratio, the Meson gets to score internal damage and ignores armour on it damage rolls (making its fewer hits considerably more lethal). The Meson gun is still a very potent weapon, just not a silver bullet any more.

 

[McPerth]

Taken from the "Battleship and battlerider" thread

One of the major problems appears to be the damage tables themselves. There are five mission killing damage results (ship vaporised, bridge, computer or power plant destroyed and fuel tanks shattered). Four of these are criticals but one (fuel tank shattered) is routine. Moreover, 1 in 9 internal explosions will result in FTS making a hit by a J meson a guaranteed kill.

My first suggestion would be to shift the FTS to the criticals table, switching it with the Crew-1 result. Now 1 in 6 meson interior explosions will result in a critical, and with this modification, 1 in 3 criticals will result in a mission kill. This means that you will need 18 interior meson hits to guaranteed a kill. Only a T meson is capable of this.

Any thoughts? or other suggestions?

You forget than in HG there is another big ship killer result: crew. Few ships have factor 5 crew or more, and 1/3 of the radiaton tables roll and 1/12 i the interior explosion are crew hits (with your proposal it would be 1/6). So a J meson gun has a fair chance to leave a ship uncrewed too (yes, I know nowere in HG says a ship reduced to crew 0 is killed, but some common sense should apply over the rules).

This was fixed in some revisions an totally fixed (even overfixed, if this word exists) in MT, where a crew hit just kills a crew section, so you'd need 1 hit per 1000 dton to leave the ship uncrewed.

also, i think that the meson screens are too weak for their intended purpose. I only have the MgT rules, but in those, it looks like most ships cannot mount screens capable of stopping thier own meson spinals (the 200Kt Sylea class BB auto-penetrates it's own screens, the planet class CA penatrates itself on a 4+, etc). i think that it should be harder to penetrate the screens, much harder. I would say that a battleship firing at it's own clone shouldn't be penerating on more than a 7 or 8+ i.e. aprox 50%) a larger ship should be able to mount better screens, which would balance out agianst a equal sized oppent but protect it well agianst smaller hulls.

I disagree in this point. Many historical examples are about war machines that would not survive a hit from its main weaponry.

In the eternal fight of hit power against passive defenses (and for now this mostly means armor, as we don't have anything in form of screens), for now, hit power has always emerged as the victor (small victories for armor, as US Civil War Ironclands were short lived), to the point that since WWII, earth's navies (forgive me again for resorting to wet navy examples) have been thinning their armor as they see moslty useless.

A Tiger, one of the WWII most powerful tanks, would not have survived a hit from its main gun either.

 

[pendragonman]

You forget than in HG there is another big ship killer result: crew. Snip

Please see the consolidated errata, page 14:

http://dmckinne.winterwar.org/pdfs/ConsolidatedCTErrata.pdf

This divides the crew into equal sections based on one section per 1000 dtons of ship. The example shown in the errata has the Kinunir having two sections of 18 crewmembers each since it is bigger than 1000 dtons but smaller than 2000.

 

[McPerth]

Please see the consolidated errata, page 14:

http://dmckinne.winterwar.org/pdfs/ConsolidatedCTErrata.pdf

This divides the crew into equal sections based on one section per 1000 dtons of ship. The example shown in the errata has the Kinunir having two sections of 18 crewmembers each since it is bigger than 1000 dtons but smaller than 2000.

TY. I knew (as I said) it has been fixed somewhere, but I didn't have the CT consolidated errata.

 

[mike wightman]

A crew hit of any size still prevents you from firing weapons etc.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

You forget than in HG there is another big ship killer result: crew. Few ships have factor 5 crew or more, and 1/3 of the radiaton tables roll and 1/12 i the interior explosion are crew hits (with your proposal it would be 1/6). So a J meson gun has a fair chance to leave a ship uncrewed too (yes, I know nowere in HG says a ship reduced to crew 0 is killed, but some common sense should apply over the rules).

This was fixed in some revisions an totally fixed (even overfixed, if this word exists) in MT, where a crew hit just kills a crew section, so you'd need 1 hit per 1000 dton to leave the ship uncrewed.



I disagree in this point. Many historical examples are about war machines that would not survive a hit from its main weaponry.

In the eternal fight of hit power against passive defenses (and for now this mostly means armor, as we don't have anything in form of screens), for now, hit power has always emerged as the victor (small victories for armor, as US Civil War Ironclands were short lived), to the point that since WWII, earth's navies (forgive me again for resorting to wet navy examples) have been thinning their armor as they see moslty useless.

A Tiger, one of the WWII most powerful tanks, would not have survived a hit from its main gun either.

and, during the first world war, german BCs at Dogger Bank and Jutland were able to remain in the fight dispite taking dozens of main-calibre hits form british captial ships (though of coruse the older britihs Bcs at jutland faired rather...poorly). At trafalgar, dispite spending a whole day being pounded into surrender, not one ship on either side was sunk by gunfire (though quite a few were so damaged that they were sunk by a storm after the battle, and more were too damaged to be worth salvaging).


a knight in full plate armour could take a sword slash to the chest without worry. their are accounts of mail-clad knights in the crusades with littrally dozens of arrows stuck in them....and fighting on, with nothing more than serious bruising to show for it.

for evry example, thier is a counter example.

 

[McPerth]

and, during the first world war, german BCs at Dogger Bank and Jutland were able to remain in the fight dispite taking dozens of main-calibre hits form british captial ships (though of coruse the older britihs Bcs at jutland faired rather...poorly). At trafalgar, dispite spending a whole day being pounded into surrender, not one ship on either side was sunk by gunfire (though quite a few were so damaged that they were sunk by a storm after the battle, and more were too damaged to be worth salvaging).


a knight in full plate armour could take a sword slash to the chest without worry. their are accounts of mail-clad knights in the crusades with littrally dozens of arrows stuck in them....and fighting on, with nothing more than serious bruising to show for it.

for evry example, thier is a counter example.

I just said that a ship able to destroy his tween with just one hit wasn't so impossible.

In Dodger Bank (just about 8.10 years after the dreadnoughts have been introduced), German BCs sustained quite a good pounding by British BBs, true, but about 35 years after that, when naval artillery had evolutioned more than armor, the Hood was blown up with nearly a single hit.

About the knights, when crosbows and longbows entred into the fray, they could penetrate plate armor and kill in one shoot, not to say when gunpowder was introduced...

And I liked you telling of Gibraltar, because I think another pointlof it may apply to HG combat system...

As you said, not a single ship was sunk in the battle (though some did not arrive to port after it), and most mission killed ships (you're right, not precisely with a single hit) were there to take for the winner. I've said many times this is what would happen at space battles with the HG/MT system: very few destroyed ships and many prizes to take (unless scuttled, of course). As always, most of that on the thread 'Use of caputred ships'.

 

[pendragonman]

Just to be clear, The Hood went down so quick due to a design philosophy error, not due to shear armor penetration. She was designed more for speed and agility and not designed to absorb plunging fire (i.e. her decks were not "armored decks"). It is much the same design issue that cost the British so many BCs at Jutland.

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

About the knights, when crosbows and longbows entred into the fray, they could penetrate plate armor and kill in one shoot, not to say when gunpowder was introduced...

I will quite happily prove you wrong on that point, but this is not the place for such a discussion. suffice to say, people wore full plate for a long time after the introduction of handgonnes and they did so because it worked to protect them. and crossbows were in wide use in europe before plate armour was even invented, let alone in wide use (wiki says they date back to roman times, and were in common use as early as 1066 and the battle of hastings).

but enough, please. it's off topic and no longer relevant to the thread (how to fix traveller battleships) if you want to continue this, PM me and we trash it out thier.


the point should be making (and i wanted to make when talking about the meson screens) is that traveller in built "counter" for meson guns (the screens) are too weak to really do what they were supposed to do (at least in MgT. is it the same in CT and MT? do meson screens give you a decent chance of stopping a shot?). i would accept that a meson hit had a high kill rate if it was hard to get a solid hit on a target. But, as it stands, the weapon has significant upsides (ignores armour) without any major drawbacks (hard to hit)

Just to be clear, The Hood went down so quick due to a design philosophy error, not due to shear armor penetration. She was designed more for speed and agility and not designed to absorb plunging fire (i.e. her decks were not "armored decks"). It is much the same design issue that cost the British so many BCs at Jutland.

bad armour layout is no different form poor armour.

Hoods armour layout was based on the faulty, pre WW1 assumptions that a battle would be fought at less than 10,000 yards (medium range), not the long range gunnery at over 20,000 yards that dominated both world wars surface battles. as such, her armour was placed to protect agianst shells coming in more or less horizontal, rather than the plunging shells that killed her and the 3 battle cruisers at Jutland (all killed by plugning rounds setting off magazines)

 

[Peter Schutze]

rather than fiddling with the damage tables .... make the meson guns another point or 2 less likely to hit

when they do hit they will still be devastating which would keep them favourites like canon says but reducing their chance to hit makes them less overpowering vs other weapons

done right it makes things almost balanced enough so that other weapons gain a real purpose again

 

[skyth]

A 9 Meson screen gives you a decent chance to stop a J meson whereas a T Meson will go through a lot easier. I was testing ships against each other and came to that conclusion. Heavy cruisers that mount a T meson are better than light cruisers that mount a J. Especially since the T hits easier (I believe). My books are upstairs so I can't provide numbers.

Granted, this is all with battle riders, and no battleships (200k+ Tons). I think the biggest rider I dealt with was around 50k tons. You would see a lot more battleships if battle riders weren't the best ships out there.

High Guard has fundamental issues where only a spinal meson will actually do damage at high tech levels. (A spinal PA can be slightly useful as well. It hits a lot more often, but doesn't do as much damage).

 

[McPerth]

the point should be making (and i wanted to make when talking about the meson screens) is that traveller in built "counter" for meson guns (the screens) are too weak to really do what they were supposed to do (at least in MgT. is it the same in CT and MT? do meson screens give you a decent chance of stopping a shot?). i would accept that a meson hit had a high kill rate if it was hard to get a solid hit on a target. But, as it stands, the weapon has significant upsides (ignores armour) without any major drawbacks (hard to hit)

First of all, yes, in HG is more or less the same. Though mechanics are different, resulting numbers ar more or less the same. Also in HG if you have an spinal you cannot have bays nor turrets of the same kind (IMO a design flaw).

The only drawbacks MG has over PA are the power usage, the TL needed and the need to penetrate meson screens and configuration, while the PAs only need to hit.

The need to penetrate screens and config are only a problem if your weapon is not too powerful or you have less computing power than your enemy.

The need of more energy is not as significant as to be really a drawback.

 

[DonM]

First of all, yes, in HG is more or less the same. Though mechanics are different, resulting numbers ar more or less the same. Also in HG if you have an spinal you cannot have bays nor turrets of the same kind (IMO a design flaw).

That is easily fixed if you're willing to accept a longer USP. The reason that rule exists is to keep the USP simple. I don't believe there are any other impacts on game balance, but I'm interested in seeing arguments the other way.

And the crew section fix was printed in JTAS.

 

[McPerth]

That is easily fixed if you're willing to accept a longer USP. The reason that rule exists is to keep the USP simple. I don't believe there are any other impacts on game balance, but I'm interested in seeing arguments the other way.

And the crew section fix was printed in JTAS.

Posted by myself, just some minutes ago, in the post Battleships vs battleriders, where this same subject is being discussed too.

I you must fight against armor 15 (85+ in MT) fighters, imprevious to all but nukes and spinals, having some meson bays helps you a little...

Of course I also consideer those fighters a flaw of the system...