LW:
After the globe is dropped and the first combat round is done, there is *no* surpirse in the HG2 combat rules.
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Understood and that point the idea would be for the ship {MI] to run for it if it is attacking something other than merchantmen or small warships like close escorts. Does that make sense?
There are no sensor rules either, so there is no 'long range snorkling'. Everyone knows where everyone else is, it's all a matter of hitting, penetrating, and causing damage.
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I seem to recall there are rough rules in Book 2 about this. Otherwise I will have to admit that I am creating my own rules.
So have I, and so has most of the 'ct-starships' group. We had wait for the internet before we could found our eGroup. It's now a Yahoo group. Check it out, bring your 'sub' designs too.
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Thank you for the invitation. I'll work on it some more and see if I can make it more useful and "playable"
"50 ton bay at TL 15 = 9 not <9."
Again, how do you recieve a 'crippling' hit when your weapons factor is equal to or less than 9? Those batteries have am automatic +6 drm on the tables so there's no chance of rolling a critical hit. Those batteries factors are smaller than their target's size codes, so there's no chance of being granted a critical hit. How can a sinlge fuel-1 or weapons-1 hit be viewed as 'crippling' on even a light cruiser?
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I was counting nuclear missiles against a ship that had no screen defences. Subsequently I was not employing the +6 DM for nuclear --only for HE missiles. Perhaps this a perversion of the rules or overawed respect from a non-scientist for the power of nuclear explosions.
Ah, there it is! You're using house rules! That answers everything.
I guess so. Sorry for the confusion but I also don't recall anywhere in High Guard where it is stated that dampers and repulsors are constantly running all the time. If I am mistaken then again sorry for the confusion. [No need to provide page cites to HG unless you wish to...]
Yeah, the damper isn't running because the warship is at dock; of course the dock doesn't have a damper either, or the picket ships, right?
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I was think ing that the MI could evade the pickets because pickets are might be further out. Also, because "submarines" are not extant in OTU and are new in my IMTU cruisers and lesser warships tend to prance about on their own. Cruisers operaed singly up until 1st World War without destroyer screens so I was assuming that this might be the case in IMTU.
nucs are still effective because the dampers aren't running and the armor factor is less than 6? Slap on 6 levels of armor and even nucs can't roll a critical hit result.
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But only the heavier cruisers and dreadnoughts have such levels of armor, no?
The unsuspecting cruiser has no picket ships? No one guarding the 'harbor' or 'dock', even though the area is viewed as 'safe'?
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Yes but see my rationale above such as it is and again Scapa Flow, Pearl Harbor, Taranto as real life examples of laxity? And two of those success were against countries that were already at war? If an attack is not expected? I understand you may disagree but history is full of lax procedures and overconfidence...not so much a technical issue as a human nature issue?
What you didn't make clear is that this is an IMTU exercise; you've added assumptions and conditions that do not apply to the OTU.
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Well, I thought I was not straying too far outside the rules of High Guard and I will admit that I am a recently returned dabbler. Mea Culpa,
nolo contendre etc etc...
Tell me again why the area is seen as so safe that the vessel needn't run it's damper but there also aren't enough DDs or DEs flitting about?
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Cruisers operating on their own? And if as you say all ships are detected far enough away then putting screesn into place would be a matter of seconds or a minutes at most? I'm just throwing this out to you for thought? In your game all ships may run about constantly with all defenses operating at all times but does this interfeere with ships boats and the like? Do you ever have a time where ships are not running screen defenses?
[all of this omits black globe of course]
Entirely irrelevent, that type of stealthy manuevering does not and can not occur in the OTU. It may occur in YTU, but then it has no relevence for anyone else's TU *unless* they use your house rules.
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Well I was trying to bring it in and make it work logically. Obviously IMTU I can do any old stupid thing I want. My intial post was to get informed feedback and opinions regarding the logic and the rules of what I was doing. I dod not expect that anyone would want to bring this into their game and I was not going to say that I had the answer to any great problem.
Yet another house rule needed to make your design work.
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Guilty guilty guilty. But not an irrational rule?
I am really trying to avoid magic supership BS here. I think you appreciate that. I hope you do.
LEW - If you have the time, check out the DGP article 'Project Blackheart' ..."
our MI generally resembles the Nemesis, but the DGP vessel carries a weapon that can actually harm other ships. The MI does not, unless we use your 'intermittent dampers' house rule and even then basic armor levels still work against the MI.
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Is this in print? Where to find it? If someone else has already got a better design then I will waste my time on another projest.
How big are merchantmen IYTU? Do the navies in YTU ship everything in PC-sized Beowulfs and Maravas? There are no merchantmen over 1000 dTons?
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I have huge freighters. to ship everything in 200 to 400 ton merchants would make little or no sense. I'm not an engineer but I have spent many dull years in federal courts representing ships and shipowners so I have a decent familiarity with the economics of shipping and cargo.
Let me state it again; The MI's main battery is too small to do the job the vessel was supposedly desinged for.
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yes, I get your point.

Back to the drawing board and I thank you for your constructive criticism.
True, but it could also slag both of them. The MI can do great harm to the 'small fry'; those ships under 800 dT on which it can get an automatic critical hit in the first combat round. The MI would be a pike amongst the minnows against SDBs, PC-sized merchants, Type-T patrollers, and the like. The trouble is, those aren't the only ships out there.
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I realize that and maybe that is the flaw. I need to test it against 50,000 to 100,000 merchants too. I would think that it could "sink" one of those as well or am I wrong in my thinking?
Because Traveller is a RPG, most of the canonically described ships have been skewed towards the PCs end of things. To paraphrase Bruse Johnson, using descriptions of Pc vessels to make assumptions about navies and megacorp merchantmen is like using a snapshot of Indian Ocean dhow traffic to make assumptions about the USN and Lykes Lines.
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I understand that too. As a child of USN officers and having had dealings with Lykes Lines
I understand your point and think it is well taken
[the old Lykes headquarters is visible from my office window and I have sued Lykes in an antitrust matter. Obviously before the Lykes bankruptcy]
Are you going to 'waste' a black globe on a vessel that can only beat up 'small fry'? On a vessel that will get stomped more often than not?
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I thought I rasied that point in my initial post and it certainly was part of my thinking. Is this a good design or a waste of time? Of course history is littered with poor designs so even if it is as worthless as you observe then I will have it fail and be dropped as a harebrained idea from some junior officers at the Admiralty building.
Have no fears, my blood pressure is fine. I'm a long time ship combat crank
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apparently yes.
and am always on the look out for new ideas and new tricks that work.
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As am I.
Sadly, the MI isn't one of them. She can't fight in her weight class and is far too expensive an option for smacking around 'small fry'.
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I'm sure you have heard it before but "it sounded like a good idea on paper."