Maximum Viable Battleship Size

[AnotherDilbert]

My contention is that HG2's model is incomplete. That's why...

Just like all other rule books, supplements, and games out there...

... the S:9 designs, with the Tigress being the Queen of Bad Designs, stink.

They do stink when examined through HG2. Change the rules and those ships suddenly work. So, either HG2 is incomplete/wrong or every warship design in CT is wrong.

I'll choose the "smaller" problem.

Even FS notes that they are not very efficient at space combat: "a squadron of eight 50,000-ton battleriders in a rnillion-ton tender approximates in price two Tigress class dreadnaughts, yet possesses much greater firepower and survivability."

You assume that because the Imperium built them, they are the best solution to a specific problem: major space battles. I find that naive. There can be other reasons for building them.

You invalidate an entire core rule book, because of a few specifically outdated (Plankwell, Kokirrak) or inefficient (Tigress) ship classes that probably form a minor part of the Imperial Navy. You invalidate the entire canon about meson guns. You no longer have any rules for fighting military ships. I find that a much bigger problem.

You make your interpretation, I make mine. What more is there to say?

 

[mike wightman]

I prefer to redesign the Imperial fleet

 

[Condottiere]

I don't think it's possible for a unified design policy, or aesthetic.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

more like japanese reasons. the japanese are very big on official appearances, even moreso than the chinese.

Well, let's call it Japanese political reasons then.

If you tried to call a US ship "USS Injun Killer", I guess you would get some US political reactions.

Everyone has baggage.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Agreed, and it is a broken design to boot, or at least the jump 4 performance is

The USP clearly states that both the Tigress and the Kokirrak are J-3 designs. Only the Plankwell is J-4, but it gives up both agility and armour.

As far as I can see a Jump-4, Agility-6, Armour 15, screen-9 ship cannot be built, something has to be reduced. If you want to be combat effective it is easiest to reduce the jump fuel load.

 

[mike wightman]

The USP says jump 3 but the stat block says jump 4 and over the years there has been a myth of an Imperial jump 4 fleet.

 

[Condottiere]

As I recall, that's what the game designers stated for tech level fifteen, which was the Imperium Navy's base tech level for about a century.

 

[whartung]

It is the final word in OTU canon, however. It trumps ALL other editions for what is the OTU.

That's all fine and good. But my point is that the S:9 designs are designed for the "Canon that was", not the "Canon that is". The ships were designed for a reality of the OTU as viewed through the lens that is HG2.

"Once they are gone" is false. The ship exists in a quantum tunnel alone the entire jump course, only collapsing after a week. If the line is blocked, at collapse, it collapses at the closest interruption to the entry point.

Ok, I actually don't have a real problem with that. It's a good explanation of all the jump shadowing and masking bits. It helps explain how Jump has a "Line of sight" problem.

The ramifications of it, though, have the potential of making traffic control a real mess. Thinking about it a little this is likely not much of a problem, as most starports happen to be on bodies that orbit the central star (or related to such bodies), so even if you were in the "exact same place", relative to departure (i.e. 800,000km at bearing 123 degrees), as some other ship, you'd be "a week later" on the solar system map, so there's little chance of unintended interrupting some poor trader that left a week ago through normal operations.

I bet the local Marshals office and Skip Tracers would like to take advantage of this aspect of Jump though. Piracy enforcement just got a whole lot easier, too.

 

[Whipsnade]

You assume that because the Imperium built them, they are the best solution to a specific problem: major space battles.

Not quite.

I assume because they Imperium built them that the Imperium thinks they are the best solution to a specific problem.

The Imperium doesn't have a copy of HG2.

I find that naive.

Not naive, realistic. Realistic and grounded in actual naval history.

Take a look into the design of warships between roughly 1865 and 1905. There's a huge improvement in all technologies coupled with an almost complete lack of actual battle experience. When you look at France's navy, for example, you'd be forgiven if you thought every minister, admiral, and naval architect involved was mentally deficient.

The French and every other navy simply didn't know what would work and what wouldn't. They made a lot of guesses and a lot of those guesses turned out to be wrong.

You invalidate an entire core rule book, because of a few specifically outdated (Plankwell, Kokirrak) or inefficient (Tigress) ship classes that probably form a minor part of the Imperial Navy. You invalidate the entire canon about meson guns. You no longer have any rules for fighting military ships. I find that a much bigger problem.

No, no, and no. I'm not throwing out HG2 and I'm not throwing out meson guns. All I'm saying is that we don't have the full picture.

You make your interpretation, I make mine. What more is there to say?

Only this: The OTU has been dealing with meson guns since the Nth Interstellar War when the Terran Confederation fielded them against the Ziru Sirka.

The OTU has been using meson guns, defending against meson guns, and cleaning up after meson guns for thousands of years. It's not stretching things too much to think that the OTU might just know what they're doing and that we do not.

You're assuming they're idiots despite those thousands of years of experience. I'm assuming they're as smart as you and I.

What more is there to say?

 

[Whipsnade]

Here I think the problem is the folks at GDW didn't use their own rules enough to understand that the fluff and the rules are slightly incompatible.

That's the meta-game answer, Mike. It's patently obvious that GDW didn't build enough ships and fight enough battles with HG2 before writing all those canonical descriptions and other fluff.

(And I'm not faulting them for that either. They cranked out a new product every 20 days for 20 years and we're still using HG2 nearly 40 years after it's release.)

The in-game reason for the disconnect between HG2 results and canonical descriptions is another problem altogether.

So either the OTU is right or HG2 is right - the answer is that the latest version of the OTU trumps all :devil:

Pretty much, although I'd rather describe HG2's model as incomplete instead of wrong.

 

[Condottiere]

The Ironclad and Dreadnought eras were subject to Moore's Law, which as we know from AMD's eternal struggle against Intel, doesn't mean much if you have great concepts and technology, if you can't bring them to market.

The French took forever to build a warship, and the British took half the time and still had greater industrial potential to outproduce them; the Germans managed to provoke the British to a Naval arms race, but realized that they neither had the industrial base to keep up the numbers, nor the means to support both a first class army and navy.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You assume that because the Imperium built them, they are the best solution to a specific problem: major space battles.

Not quite.

I assume because they Imperium built them that the Imperium thinks they are the best solution to a specific problem.

Very well. I note that you seem to not claim battleships are best for space combat.

You invalidate an entire core rule book, because of a few specifically outdated (Plankwell, Kokirrak) or inefficient (Tigress) ship classes that probably form a minor part of the Imperial Navy. You invalidate the entire canon about meson guns.

No, no, and no. I'm not throwing out HG2 and I'm not throwing out meson guns. All I'm saying is that we don't have the full picture.

Earlier you said:

Change the rules and those ships suddenly work. So, either HG2 is incomplete/wrong or every warship design in CT is wrong.

As far as I can see you want to change the HG rules to make battleships viable. Meson guns kills any ship with a single hit, making battleships impractical. I cannot avoid the conclusion that you want to change the way meson guns work.

You're assuming they're idiots despite those thousands of years of experience. I'm assuming they're as smart as you and I.

Misrepresenting what others say is always a classy move.

 

[mike wightman]

As far as I can see you want to change the HG rules to make battleships viable. Meson guns kills any ship with a single hit, making battleships impractical. I cannot avoid the conclusion that you want to change the way meson guns work.

At the risk of butting into a private conversation I think you are misreading what he (Mr Whipsnade) has written, it is T5 that has provided a reason for BBs to be built by the Imperium, because HG doesn't have any reason for them to be built - and yet according to the setting they are therefore HG is not the whole picture but T5 gives us a bit more of the picture.

Misrepresenting what others say is always a classy move.

Which is what you did in your previous sentence...
he has never claimed he wants to change the HG rules.

Many of us do want to modify them to make the game a bit more balanced, and there are house rules aplenty, but it is my personal opinion that the HG2 rules have yet to be improved by any version since.

 

[Whipsnade]

At the risk of butting into a private conversation I think you are misreading what he (Mr Whipsnade) has written, it is T5 that has provided a reason for BBs to be built by the Imperium, because HG doesn't have any reason for them to be built - and yet according to the setting they are therefore HG is not the whole picture but T5 gives us a bit more of the picture.

That's pretty much it, Mike. You were able to express the idea more succinctly than I.

 

[Whipsnade]

In Agent of the Imperium, two 100,000 dTon Intrepid-class dreadnoughts trade single meson volleys above Trileen/Zaru on 091-664.

One ship has it's jump drive destroyed. The other has it's maneuver drive destroyed. Neither suffers the extensive, ship slagging, crew killing, damage I listed in the When a Koki meets a Koki... thread.

Something is missing in HG2.

Further adding to the confusion, the dreadnought the Agent is commanding has to drop it's meson screen in order to fire it's meson spinal.

Something is definitely missing in HG2.

YMMV and I wish mine varied too.

 

[Dagrill]

I do not think there is much problem finding able bodies, the navy personnel requirements are much lower than today. The problem is to start training the extra crew 10 years before you need them. I guess a proper navy needs a lot of extra crew, so if you need 1000 gunners you have to train 5000 or 10000 gunners.

Or just train them, then freeze them until they are required, (no pesky employment terms in HG)

Kind Regards

David

 

[AnotherDilbert]

At the risk of butting into a private conversation I think you are misreading what he (Mr Whipsnade) has written, it is T5 that has provided a reason for BBs to be built by the Imperium, because HG doesn't have any reason for them to be built - and yet according to the setting they are therefore HG is not the whole picture but T5 gives us a bit more of the picture.
Which is what you did in your previous sentence...
he has never claimed he wants to change the HG rules.

Then I have completely misunderstood him.

Trying to evaluate HG or FS designs using rules from T5 thirty years later makes absolutely no sense to me, and it never entered my mind that that was under discussion.

I certainly interpreted this:

They do stink when examined through HG2. Change the rules and those ships suddenly work. So, either HG2 is incomplete/wrong or every warship design in CT is wrong.

I'll choose the "smaller" problem.

to mean changing the CT rules to make CT battleships viable.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That's pretty much it, Mike. You were able to express the idea more succinctly than I.

If I have misrepresented your views I apologise. I did not mean to misrepresent, I simply misunderstood you.

 

[Whipsnade]

If I have misrepresented your views I apologise. I did not mean to misrepresent, I simply misunderstood you.

There is no need for you to apologize for anything and there never has been a need for you to apologize for anything.

We have misunderstood each other, my friend, and with me doing most of it. It's all because we've been "typing at" one another instead of talking face to face.

If our conversation had taken place in a pub with a few pints, I firmly believe there would have been a lot of laughter, a lot of head nodding, and a lot of smiles.

Enjoy your evening.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Or just train them, then freeze them until they are required, (no pesky employment terms in HG)

Kind Regards

David

I tried to estimate US Navy carrier pilot numbers (wiki involved, so very rough). Pilot training is at least two years, then you sign up for at least 8 years service. Of these 8 years you normally spend nominally 3 years deployed on a carrier. I assume that these 3 years are actually somewhat less with leaves and additional training.

So roughly, for each deployed carrier pilot the navy has another 2 pilots assigned to other duties, and another 1 in training.

I'm suggesting a space navy would do something similar, but even more training and other duties.