Maximum Viable Battleship Size

[AnotherDilbert]

It's all because we've been "typing at" one another instead of talking face to face.

Face-to-face conversations are certainly better, and more enjoyable.

 

[Dagrill]

We can believe both IF we also remember that there are different levels of "canonicity". This happens to be exactly the issue I've been trying to address in this thread: We can only infer a certain amount of OTU canonical information from HG2 and other Traveller war games.

We all too often fall into the habit of binary thinking. It's always 1/0, yes/no, up/down, black/white, and so forth. We all too often forget about nuances.

Yes, Traveller war game are canon. War games are a special subset of canon however because, unlike purely canonical descriptions, war games must also bow to "ease of play" concerns.

Case in point, squadrons in FFW use all their jump fuel every time they jump no matter what distance they jump. If a jump4 squadron makes a one parsec hop, all it's jump fuel is used. That rule is in place to ease play; players won't have to keep a log for each squadron's fuel status. However ff you chose to ignore the real reason that rule exists, you could make a "logical" argument that jump fuel regulators hadn't been invented prior to the 5th Frontier War.

Another example of this involves HG2's sandcasters. In both LBB:2 and Mayday sand is launched in the Ordnance Launch Phase of the Turn Sequence. Sand can then interfere with an opponent's laser fire providing that the launching ship hadn't changed vectors. In HG2 however, sand seemingly isn't cast until after an opponent's laser batteries hit. Naturally, the reason for this is ease of play. Ships in HG2 don't move, so the protection from earlier launched sand cannot be lost. Letting players assign their sand defenses after laser/energy/missile hits are rolled is nothing more than a decision for ease of play.

Again, if you can't or won't understand why and when sand is deployed in HG2, you'll come up with a "solution" much like that proposed by DGP. Because they forgot the MT combat system was designed with ease of play in mind, they suggested that a weak laser "ranging" pulse would signal a subsequent weapon strike with enough time to allow the defender to launch sand.

Thus incomprehension and an inability to grasp the idea that war game designs have different needs than canonical descriptions produced a "solution" for a problem that didn't exist.

From Imperium's jump lines to FFW's "lack" of jump fuel regulators to HG2's sandcasters and "magic' missiles to many other example, it's patently obvious that Traveller's war games, while canonical, are canonical only up to certain point. Ease of play means that war games must obey a very different master. That means that we can only make canonical inferences up to a certain point and no further.

Thus S:9's ship designs are correct because HG2's combat model does not provide us with the compete story. T5 has finally given us a reason why those large battlewagons exist and there will be other solution for all the other mysteries the ship combat raises.

Excellently put, could not have put it better myself

Kind Regards

David

 

[AnotherDilbert]

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.

I'm baffled, why would this have anything to do with HG?

 

[Dagrill]

Ship classification is a political thing. This is not a Carrier:

DDH-183 JS Izumo
As far as I can see we make different interpretations of available data, and there are not enough data to determine if any of us are "right" or "wrong".

Sorry, it looks like a carrier to me, are you saying that the flight deck is too short for modern aircraft?

Kind Regards

David

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on the length of the flight deck, and on the aircraft.

 

[Dagrill]

I seem to remember that the Japanese DDH could not, and cannot, be classified as CV anything, since Carriers are a symbol of an unacceptable past. So they may look like carriers, function like carriers, but they are classified as destroyers.

I call that a misclassification for political reasons.

Your other examples may work just as well.

Just because it isn't called a carrier by the government, does not mean it is not a carrier. I remember Invincible was called a through deck cruiser originally, but when she went to war she carried aircraft that took off from her and did everything else a carrier was required to do.

Kind Regards

David

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sorry, it looks like a carrier to me, are you saying that the flight deck is too short for modern aircraft?

That is the Japanese destroyer JS Izumo.

I was trying to say that official ship classification and ship function is not necessarily the same thing.

 

[mike wightman]

I'm baffled, why would this have anything to do with HG?

Because Agent of the Imperium is MWM's novel set in the OTU.

In it he describes stuff that HG - the rules that are supposed to model such things - doesn't do.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Just because it isn't called a carrier by the government, does not mean it is not a carrier.

Which is exactly what I meant.

In reference to a discussion of "battleships" that I proposed could actually be used for other purposes than space battles.

 

[Dagrill]

Which is exactly what I meant.

In reference to a discussion of "battleships" that I proposed could actually be used for other purposes than space battles.

Thanks for the clarification, my misunderstanding and I think this thread is moving too fast for me to follow...

Kind Regards

David

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Because Agent of the Imperium is MWM's novel set in the OTU.

In it he describes stuff that HG - the rules that are supposed to model such things - doesn't do.

It is a part of the OTU now, but was not then.

We can now make ships with 9G agility, are we then going to say that CT ships are bad because they only have 6G agility?

So he changed his mind, or evolved his ideas, thereby retconning the OTU. But CT was never involved in that.

I guess that TNE was at some time some sort of canon? Trying to reconcile HG and TNE ships would be futile.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Thanks for the clarification, my misunderstanding and I think this thread is moving too fast for me to follow...

You are not alone, it has obviously moved too fast to me to keep up.

 

[Whipsnade]

I'm baffled, why would this have anything to do with HG?

First, as Mike explained, AotI is set in the OTU's Classic Era; i.e. CT.

Second, HG2 is Traveller's ur-system of sorts. Not LBB:2, not Mayday, but HG2. Only HG2's concepts and mechanisms were pulled forward out of CT for the later versions.

MT's ship combat system is HG2 with the Task System bolted on. T4's ships combat system shows a definite HG2 lineage as does T5's. Even T20 follows HG2's concepts and mechanisms. In all we see the turret-bay-spinal differentiation, rolling to hit and rolling to penetrate, different damage tables for different weapons, the system heritage is undeniable.

Much like how Sixth Fleet "sired" VG's the later Fleet series of games each with slightly different and more complex rules, HG2 "sired" most of Traveller's later ship combat systems each with slightly different and more complex rules. Only GT and TNE aren't part of that "bloodline".

AotI is our first look at this more detailed OTU and what we've seen of naval combat doesn't quite fit with what came before.

Changes may be afoot. Changes which may change our perception of certain designs. Changes which may change our perception of certain weapons.

 

[JimMarn]

Sorry, it looks like a carrier to me, are you saying that the flight deck is too short for modern aircraft?

Kind Regards

David

From the look of it, its a helicopter assault ship. Carries Navy landing forces and the helicopters to deploy them. Not sure what the modern IJN calls them. edit: Ooops. That should be Self-Defense Force.

The US Marine Corps has a few similar to that. Which is how I know about them.

edit: The USN would call it a LPH, not an aircraft carrier CVA.

 

[mike wightman]

It is a part of the OTU now, but was not then.

Completely agree.
TNE retconned ships to have HEPLAR drives (but then original HG ships had fusion rockets)
MgT HG and T5 have totally changed the ship building paradigm for the OTU

I'm all in favour of going back to HG2 as the base line, but changes need to be made for game balance IMHO.

We can now make ships with 9G agility, are we then going to say that CT ships are bad because they only have 6G agility?

9g? The TNE and T4 rules had no hard cap - there is a 14g fighter in T4 IIRC.

Remember though that every Traveller rule set changes the tech paradigm. HG2 just happens to be the one most of us default to.

So he changed his mind, or evolved his ideas, thereby retconning the OTU. But CT was never involved in that.

CT had LBB2...

I guess that TNE was at some time some sort of canon? Trying to reconcile HG and TNE ships would be futile.

Oh it is much worse than that.
77 LBB2
Mayday
79 HG1
80 HG2
81 LBB2
MT
TNE
T4
T5
All different.

 

[Whipsnade]

Oh it is much worse than that.
77 LBB2
Mayday
79 HG1
80 HG2
81 LBB2
MT
TNE
T4
T5
All different.

Good thing my hair is grey already...

 

[mike wightman]

It could be worse:
GT
GT:ISW
HT
T20
MgT
MgT HG1
MgT HG2
all different - and a couple of them really, really change ship combat (hint MgT and its love of fighters, T20 and it super meson bays)

 

[AnotherDilbert]

9g? The TNE and T4 rules had no hard cap - there is a 14g fighter in T4 IIRC.

MgT2 has 9g manoeuvre drives available, and additional 16g reaction drives, for a possible 25g total. I have been given the impression that was not up to Mongoose.

CT had LBB2...

I mean CT is not involved in the current T5 retconning. Obviously CT had even larger retconning when it was current.

 

[Whipsnade]

Obviously CT had even larger retconning when it was current.

You can say that again, friend.

People often look at the Small Ship/Large Ship retcon, but there were so many other things too.

There's the text in CT'81 comparing interstellar travel to modern air travel. That's a huge change from the original version.

And how about low berths? We've suggested training and berthing naval crews against need, but in CT'77 that's a good way to lose a healthy percentage of your trained personnel.

CT underwent a huge personality change.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It could be worse:
GT
GT:ISW
HT
T20
MgT
MgT HG1
MgT HG2
all different - and a couple of them really, really change ship combat (hint MgT and its love of fighters, T20 and it super meson bays)

Quite. Which is why I am still baffled about why we would compare CT rules with the T5 OTU. Clearly a lot of things are different.

(MgT2 is even more strange, I think it makes battleships, but not riders, viable [if a slight problem with missiles can be fixed]).