Pondering turrets.

[infojunky]

From one point of view there are too many ship designs with Triple Turrets. There there is the whole hardpoints issue pay for them or not? Was looking through the CT Aliens books and the assortment of cruisers most the had triple turrets, ten or so of them. Heck if they where ten single or double turrets they would be just as scary.

Then there is the number of Hardpoints, one per hundred tons, which is out of whack with surface area, I kinda dig using surface area as the limit, which means fewer turrets on bigger ships but more room for bigger weapons on them.

With above one could just require larger weapons to require more Hardpoints for larger weapons instead of the surface area function.

Now I must point out I look at things from a Small Ship p.o.v.

 

[Spinward Flow]

With above one could just require larger weapons to require more Hardpoints for larger weapons instead of the surface area function.

Already built into LBB5.80 in the batteries bearing fraction.

 

[Dragoner]

Wow, just today I was thinking that there should only be dual turrets, and single for things like a particle accelerator.

 

[infojunky]

Wow, just today I was thinking that there should only be dual turrets, and single for things like a particle accelerator.

See I totally get that, for lower tech Particle Accelerators 10 and 25 ton bays always tickled my fancy.

 

[Dragoner]

See I totally get that, for lower tech Particle Accelerators 10 and 25 ton bays always tickled my fancy.

I think though the triple turret came into being so that a scout or another 100 ton craft can have the laser/missile/sandcaster combo ... yes, this stuff is interesting to think about.

 

[mike wightman]

Surface area for hardpoints, hmm...
Several Traveller ship design systems use surface area FF&S and GT:ISW spring immediately to mind. The most adaptable to the CT way of doing things is probably that found in GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.

Here are my thoughts from a while ago:

Hardpoints and surface area

What if hardpoints and their associated weapons were limited by available surface area only? No need to worry about EPs and all that, can you fit them on your hull and in your hull? A bit like LBB2 really ;) I dug out FF&S and put this together: hull..hp 100 2 200 3...

www.travellerrpg.com

 

[AnotherDilbert]

KISS.

Arguably FFS is more "realistic" and detailed, but a lot more, vastly more, ships are built using the simple systems such as CT and MgT.

We already have quite a lot of ship design systems. None of them are perfect, but most of them work. How about designing some ships, instead of endlessly tinkering with the design systems?

 

[mike wightman]

The GT ISW system is simple, it is pretty much HG level of complexity.

 

[Condottiere]

There's also the option for quadruples.

As for hardpoints, you could change that as removing minimum tonnage, and requiring specific tonnage for structural support for various weapon platforms.

 

[whartung]

Arguably FFS is more "realistic" and detailed, but a lot more, vastly more, ships are built using the simple systems such as CT and MgT.

It's funny, because the system in Brilliant Lances, which IS FF&S, it just skips the alternate tech, and weapon design parts, is not that bad. A step up over High Guard, I can't compare it with MT.

The hulls are "fiddly" because you have the combination of hull material and hull shape. In truth, it's 3 values: size, material, and shape, to wit you get mass, volume, surface area, and cost. Trivially spreadsheeted, but, certainly eye watering at a glance. It would have been better if they published the formula for the Hull Table rather than give it 64 entries. Another example, there's 9 different hull materials. But get in to the Starship TLs, and "typical" Imperial TLs (12-15), there's 2. A lot of choices just fall off the list (yes, you CAN use TL-6 Soft Steel for your hull, but...why would you?).

It's also best done in cubic meters rather than tons. After that, you calculate the drives (like Book 5), drop in a bunch of "false choice" sensors and electronics (yea, there's several options, but only one good one), and then start adding pre-designed weapons.

You have that part of locating systems across the hit locations. That's a combat system thing.

It's all pretty easy with practice.

It's more complex than High Guard, but not dramatically. The presentation in FF&S really hurt it. The system in BL where it's all condensed down makes it much more approachable. And, as I said, BL IS FF&S. There's no short cuts (there may be errata or some such), but the workflow is the same. It's just they have ship stuff condensed down to far fewer pages in a better order.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's funny, because the system in Brilliant Lances, which IS FF&S, it just skips the alternate tech, and weapon design parts, is not that bad. A step up over High Guard, I can't compare it with MT.

It's basically FFS, somewhat simplified. I agree it's easier to follow.

The hulls are "fiddly" because you have the combination of hull material and hull shape. In truth, it's 3 values: size, material, and shape, to wit you get mass, volume, surface area, and cost. Trivially spreadsheeted, but, certainly eye watering at a glance. It would have been better if they published the formula for the Hull Table rather than give it 64 entries.

The formulae are trivial: L is the diameter of a sphere of the specified volume, and MV is the surface area of the same sphere multiplied by 1 cm = 0.01 m.

It's also best done in cubic meters rather than tons. After that, you calculate the drives (like Book 5), drop in a bunch of "false choice" sensors and electronics (yea, there's several options, but only one good one), and then start adding pre-designed weapons.

I agree there are a lot of non-choice choices in the system, but at least you get specified sensor performance.

Drives are not quite as easy as LBB5, as M-drives (HEPlaR) are calculated by volume for light ships, but by mass for heavy ships (basically armoured ships). As the mass of the ship changes as you add the drives themselves, and then the power plant to power the drives, and then the staterooms for the engineers... This is non-trivial unless you off-load the iterative calculations to a computer. Even then you can get a problem with hysteresis in the calculations as a heavy ship requires bigger drives, which requires more fuel, which makes the ship lighter, requiring smaller drives, etc, etc...

It's more complex than High Guard, but not dramatically. The presentation in FF&S really hurt it. The system in BL where it's all condensed down makes it much more approachable. And, as I said, BL IS FF&S. There's no short cuts (there may be errata or some such), but the workflow is the same. It's just they have ship stuff condensed down to far fewer pages in a better order.

Agreed, but there is more detail and more choices (that you probably don't want) in the full FFS.

The lack of custom lasers in BL is a big thing, as you can fairly easily make a ship with too heavy armour to be damaged by PAs or turret lasers, and to large screens to be very vulnerable to mesons.

In FFS custom lasers rules space, in my limited experience.

 

[infojunky]

KISS.

Arguably FFS is more "realistic" and detailed, but a lot more, vastly more, ships are built using the simple systems such as CT and MgT.

We already have quite a lot of ship design systems. None of them are perfect, but most of them work. How about designing some ships, instead of endlessly tinkering with the design systems?

True, i am well aware of that. The original thought was about the prevalence of triple turrets. I ponder about using a limiting factor for turrets based on the surface area, but here I would choose to use the ratio of surface to volume. Though in CT terms just using E.P. is probably sufficient.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The original thought was about the prevalence of triple turrets. I ponder about using a limiting factor for turrets based on the surface area, but here I would choose to use the ratio of surface to volume. Though in CT terms just using E.P. is probably sufficient.

One of the limiting factors is that filling those turrets with weapons is rarely cheap (LBB2.81 or LBB5.80).
LBB2.81 is more "punishing" in that regard since your have to pay MCr1 for the triple turret itself even before loading weapons into it (LBB5.80 largely dispenses with the single/dual/triple cost for the turrets themselves).

The other limiting factor is that only Beam Lasers and Fusion Guns can achieve a code factor: 9.
All other weapon types top out at a lower maximum code factor (usually 7) at the top end in LBB5.80.
At a lot of tech levels, the only way to achieve higher code factors on weapons is to use either bay weapons and/or spinal mounts, at which point you're looking a destroyer/battleship weapon technologies.

Third ... until you've topped out on computer model, it can potentially be a superior option to invest in a +1 computer model rather than in more turrets (funny that...).

 

[Condottiere]

Going by real life, one size does not fit all.

So, in theory, if you want to add more weapon systems to a turret/hardpoint, the turret needs to be larger.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The original thought was about the prevalence of triple turrets.

What's the problem? The triple turret is the default, and the turret ring (socket) is obviously dimensioned for it. There are also cheaper alternatives available, e.g. for the poor Free Trader just starting out.

 

[Condottiere]

1. So, since I forced myself to slog through Fire Fusion Steel, hardpoints would be the maximum number of weapon platforms that you can arm the vessel with, on the exterior, while you still have to install sockets of varying volumes, in order to actually emplace a weapon platform of varying tonnage.

2. Apparently, you can raise the turret for a better field of fire.

3. Latest option is embedding weapon bays on really large turrets.