Proposed Ship mission codes

[Condottiere]

I was taking into consideration Sector Fleet's categorization, and to some extent, Fighting Ships of the Solomani Confederation.

Monitor and Dreadnought have been, at least in recent memory, the only categories of warships, or sub categories, that were honoured with the name of their originators.

And you could sub sub categorize them:

1. Dreadnought - twelve inchers

2. Super dreadnought - thirteen and a half to fourteen inchers

3. Fast dreadnoughts - Queen Elizabeths, fifteen inchers (actually, doesn't exist but that's what the authors described the Prometheus class as)

4. Intermediate fast battleships - Hood

5. Battleships - treaty

6. Battleships - light, refurbished Kongos, Dunkerque, Scharnhorst

7. Battleships - fast

8. Battleships - super, Yamato

Dreadnoughts, in this case, represent the one hundred twenty gun goliaths of their day, or even ones specifically built as flagships, such as the Victory.

Battleships the ninety gun second raters.

And since we may be threading on interwar to Great Patriotic War era, third raters are the heavy cruisers, whereas in the Great War, for the British they would be the super dreadnoughts.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

As I recall spinal mounts ala Fire Fusion Steel, the spinal mounts had certain dimensions, and most starwarships had to be built around them.

In FFS all mounts could be dimensioned freely, there were no standard spinals.

All craft could have spinals, from fighters on up... Fighter spinals were not very impressive, either in range or power.

 

[Condottiere]

What about tunnel length and calibre/diameter?

I don't think you can squish the spinal mount together in a given volume.

Or maybe that's the short range assault variant.

 

[mike wightman]

One of the nastiest weapons you can build in FF&S is a spinal laser.

As to multiple tubes look at the AHL and imagine the launch tubes are actually smaller spinals than the main spinal...

 

[Grav_Moped]

Even if both fire at the same target, armor should apply separately to each, a significant difference from a single beam.

A particle accelerator throws charged particles, by definition. If polarity is alternated between shots, subsequent fires will be attracted to the target...

 

[McPerth]

A particle accelerator throws charged particles, by definition. If polarity is alternated between shots, subsequent fires will be attracted to the target...

According the article about Spinal Weapons in JTAS 20 (page 40), charged PAWS are not used in space, as the particles own repulsion would make them to disperse very quickly and make them i nefective.

According this article, in space Neutral particle PAWS are used...

 

[whartung]

What about tunnel length and calibre/diameter?

In FFS, tunnel length is correlated to range. Longer length, more range.

 

[whulorigan]

According the article about Spinal Weapons in JTAS 20 (page 40), charged PAWS are not used in space, as the particles own repulsion would make them to disperse very quickly and make them inefective.

According this article, in space Neutral particle PAWS are used...

More specifically, simple neutral hydrogen atoms are ionized and the charged protons are accelerated down the barrel, but then are allowed to "re-combine" with the electrons that they lost as they exit the barrel, becoming neutral hydrogen atoms again as they proceed to the target thru vacuum.

 

[robject]

Never read up on that one. If it’s 10x the size/power input for 10x the damage or possibly scaling advantage, I’m good with it.

Referee's Companion, p71 has

• High Guard's Particle Accelerator spines A-T, plus spines U-Z going up to TL 19
• High Guard's Meson Gun spines A-T, plus spines U-Z going up to TL 19.
• Disintegrator Spinal Mounts (TL17 - TL 21)
• Jump Projector Spinal Mounts (TL 21)

The power and volume are re-scaled to MT units, but they map back 1:1 to EPs and tons.

In other words, it extends the High Guard spines past TL 15 (and adds two high TL categories).

 

[robject]

The [payload percentage] effect is not huge after 1000 Dt, and very small after 10000 Dt.

With T5, this is because of the dilution of "invariant" tonnage required on all starships to some degree.
For example, that 5 tons overhead on jump drives.

By the time the ship reaches 1,000 tons, that 5 tons of overhead is 0.5% hull volume.

A small overhead makes small ships more than just scaled versions of each other, but lets large ships scale without significant error.

 

[kilemall]

Referee's Companion, p71 has

• High Guard's Particle Accelerator spines A-T, plus spines U-Z going up to TL 19
• High Guard's Meson Gun spines A-T, plus spines U-Z going up to TL 19.
• Disintegrator Spinal Mounts (TL17 - TL 21)
• Jump Projector Spinal Mounts (TL 21)

The power and volume are re-scaled to MT units, but they map back 1:1 to EPs and tons.

In other words, it extends the High Guard spines past TL 15 (and adds two high TL categories).

Is the damage in line with their higher tech and sizes? I would assume the disintegrators are horrific.

 

[McPerth]

Is the damage in line with their higher tech and sizes? I would assume the disintegrators are horrific.

Not really (at least in MT)...

See this old post in MT errata thread

 

[robject]

Is the damage in line with their higher tech and sizes? I would assume the disintegrators are horrific.

I'll take McPerth's word for it, but could a High Guard user just align classes U thru Z of PA and Meson spines?

Of course Disintegrators don't exist in HG so you'd have to adapt them somehow. You'd have to decide their effects and how to map them to damage and defenses.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Of course Disintegrators don't exist in HG so you'd have to adapt them somehow. You'd have to decide their effects and how to map them to damage and defenses.

LBB A3 has a precedent for disintegrator pistols with a psionic fire control/designation system ... which you could just scale up from there.

Simplest system to resolve disintegrator damage would be "choose which critical hit effect you want to apply to the target" upon hit and then move on.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

With T5, this is because of the dilution of "invariant" tonnage required on all starships to some degree.
For example, that 5 tons overhead on jump drives.

A major effect is the constant crew and bridge required by T5 for small ships. As required controls mostly vary with number of moving components, and crew depends on required consoles, a 1000 Dt ship basically need the same bridge and crew as a 100 Dt ship.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Not really (at least in MT)...

See this old post in MT errata thread

The 2013 errata makes them better? Roll on Surface and Internal damage, with a bigger DM than mesons.

Also seems to reduce armour, at least of small ships?

Still not very likely to penetrate Dampers, so...

 

[kilemall]

I'll take McPerth's word for it, but could a High Guard user just align classes U thru Z of PA and Meson spines?

Of course Disintegrators don't exist in HG so you'd have to adapt them somehow. You'd have to decide their effects and how to map them to damage and defenses.

I wasn’t really interested in putting disintegration in, just saying any upgraded weapon/tech should have an advantage and disadvantage or counter later on.

Just by way of example, I would glom onto the background of disintegrators being a further development of nuclear damper atomic manipulation.

Make it like a repulsor for missiles/small craft and a short range highly destructive surface attack in line with greater power input and the auto armor destroy function, no size critical it just does. If no armor then hull/structure hits if your version tracks that.

 

[McPerth]

Simplest system to resolve disintegrator damage would be "choose which critical hit effect you want to apply to the target" upon hit and then move on.

Again for MT, this was my suggestion:

Then this will be my last entry on this subject till open again.

Forgive my daring for making the proposal.

Time ago, with some friends, we talked about the theme and proposed to have a new table that pitched the disintegrator against the armor class. If disintegrators penetrated this table, the ship was simply destroyed (lethal enough?).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e
a 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8
b 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8
c 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7
d 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7
e 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6
f -1 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6
g -1 -1 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5
h -2 -1 -1 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5

All rules about penetration are in effect (modifiers, etc.).

Of course, numbers may be modified as you feel free, if you find the idea is worth it.

Sadly, we didn’t talk so much about antimatter missiles…

PS: sorry for that mess. I don't know how to insert the table on the post. I hope you'll understand it anyway. If anyone can fix it, I would be grateful.

For those unfamiliar with MT:

• Armor class meant the materials the craft was made on, so A would mean soft steel, E crystalion and G bonded superdense (the best one at TL15), just to give some examples....
• The numbers in the table are not needed rolls, but DMs for the "penetration" table, so the higher the more letal

 

[McPerth]

The 2013 errata makes them better? Roll on Surface and Internal damage, with a bigger DM than mesons.

Sure, but still affected by armor and, being lower ratings, less rolls and criticals (that also reduce armor).

MG kept being a better option.

 

[agorski]

After finally reading through this entire thread, it seems like ship mission codes need to evolve with tech level. So a different set of codes at each level. This would solve the problem of classifying what tonnage of ships have spinals, for example.

Historically, you started with torpedo boat destroyers, which evolved into destroyers, which evolved into modern frigates. Different codes for different times.

Enjoy this giant can of worms. Discuss.