Proto-High Guard

[mike wightman]

HG1, a ship always effectively has batteries = Tonnage/1000. The factor of said batteries is based upon weapon strength per 1000 tons. So, if you load a TL 10 1000 tonner with a single (40 strength) Missile Bay, it's one battery of 40 strength, giving factor 8; on a 2000 tonner, a single missile bay is factor 6, because you spread that strength out over 2× 1000 Td sections, but it now fires twice at factor 6. On a 3000 tonner, it's 13.33 per, or factor 4, firing thrice.

That's your interpretation, not the rules as written.
A 2000t ship doesn't fire twice with its missiles- it only gets one roll to hit, nor does a 3000t get three, it also only gets the one roll to hit per USP factor (i.e. type of weapon)
HG1 USP factors go from 1-9 and you only get to roll once for each weapon type - note that turret and bay points for missile and energy bays could be totalled with turret versions.

It was the major flaw in the HG1 USP factor and combat system.

 

[flykiller]

HG2 free trader - what's a laser?

engineering/bridge
j2/m2/pp2
weapons
(pms)(pms)

allows
m1(pms)(pms) or m2(-ms)(-ms) or m1(-ms)(-ms)j1

personally for a civilian ship playing defense I prefer
m2(mmm)(sss)

 

[mike wightman]

You miss my point - the free trader can not move and fire energy weapons. Nor can it prepare for jump, move and fire energy weapons.
It can do all of those in Mayday, LBB2 and HG1 - the EP system in HG2 doesn't work for small civilian vessels...
oh and a free trader is j1/m1/pp1

 

[whartung]

Save for the very coarse EP stuff folks are talking about, but without necessarily considering that the primary consumer of EP is Agility, not weapons, nothing being talked about here seems to engage the player at all other than just showing up and rolling dice.

Players have very few decisions to make in HG combat once the fleet is built and deployed in to the field.

 

[kilemall]

If energy point allocation could be made organic to the decisions made during combat without slowing down play I would be all in favour.

I have never liked the EP rules in HG2 as they are not tracked as damage accrues. Without an easy tracking system you would be better off just getting rid.

EP is central to my fighting the ship crunchy version.

 

[kilemall]

Save for the very coarse EP stuff folks are talking about, but without necessarily considering that the primary consumer of EP is Agility, not weapons, nothing being talked about here seems to engage the player at all other than just showing up and rolling dice.

Players have very few decisions to make in HG combat once the fleet is built and deployed in to the field.

I'ma gonna fix that.

And the split fire.

And range.

And meaningful maneuver.

 

[kilemall]

That's your interpretation, not the rules as written.
A 2000t ship doesn't fire twice with its missiles- it only gets one roll to hit, nor does a 3000t get three, it also only gets the one roll to hit per USP factor (i.e. type of weapon)
HG1 USP factors go from 1-9 and you only get to roll once for each weapon type - note that turret and bay points for missile and energy bays could be totalled with turret versions.

It was the major flaw in the HG1 USP factor and combat system.

Took me about 2 hours to determine that 1000-4000 ton ships were optimal as a result of that rule.

Have no idea how something like that could get to a printing that way.

 

[kilemall]

You miss my point - the free trader can not move and fire energy weapons. Nor can it prepare for jump, move and fire energy weapons.
It can do all of those in Mayday, LBB2 and HG1 - the EP system in HG2 doesn't work for small civilian vessels...
oh and a free trader is j1/m1/pp1

Yep, you gotta choose.

Capacitor/battery systems can help.

 

[robject]

A 2000t ship doesn't fire twice with its missiles- it only gets one roll to hit, nor does a 3000t get three, it also only gets the one roll to hit per USP factor (i.e. type of weapon)
HG1 USP factors go from 1-9 and you only get to roll once for each weapon type - note that turret and bay points for missile and energy bays could be totalled with turret versions.

It was the major flaw in the HG1 USP factor and combat system.

I read and re-read this section of HG1 last night, and it's only last night that I realized this. HG1 has one and only one battery per weapon type!

HG2 had "batteries bearing" and (number of) "batteries".

I think these are two sides of one coin, except HG1 didn't have rules for breaking down a battery into sub-groupings, and it seems that High Guard ship combat relies on being able to attack many targets.

 

[flykiller]

oh and a free trader is j1/m1/pp1

checked with "traders and gunboats" last night, a "free trader" is listed as 200 dtons j2/m1 (don't know where I got the idea that it was m2). in hg2 terms this implies pp2, meaning 2ep is available at all times outside of jump (probably where I got the idea of m2 - ships spend most of their time in transit so m2 makes economic sense, and in hg2 terms it makes the overall maneuver drive cost less per dton, and it makes combat sense because it makes ag2 available). now of course given the debris field that constitutes "canon" perhaps you meant a different version of the "free trader" ....

Nor can it prepare for jump, move and fire energy weapons.

that's not a failure of the rules as such. I'm sure that every version of the "free trader" is a civilian vessel, not a combatant.

 

[mike wightman]

That's the far trader not the free trader.
Free trader is the LBB2 j1,m1,pp1 200t
Far trader is the T&G j2,m1,p2 200t

 

[robject]

How about fighters? I haven't given them much thought, perhaps because at TL15 or so they're just not very effective.

They might make semi-decent anti-missile clouds, at lower TLs. They might be decent missile delivery platforms, except we've got bays for that.

TL 8-11: Nuclear missile-carrying fighters are effective.
TL 12-17: Nuclear Dampers shift power away from fighters.
TL 18: Disruptors shift power back to fighters.
TL 19: Antimatter missiles shift power back to fighters.
TL 20: Proton Screens shift power away from fighters with antimatter missiles.

 

[aramis]

How about fighters? I haven't given them much thought, perhaps because at TL15 or so they're just not very effective.

They might make semi-decent anti-missile clouds, at lower TLs. They might be decent missile delivery platforms, except we've got bays for that.

TL 8-11: Nuclear missile-carrying fighters are effective.
TL 12-17: Nuclear Dampers shift power away from fighters.
TL 18: Disruptors shift power back to fighters.
TL 19: Antimatter missiles shift power back to fighters.
TL 20: Proton Screens shift power away from fighters with antimatter missiles.

As long as fighter weapons can penetrate screens, they're a nuisance to kill and likely to be used. It's only when they cannot get hits that they will disappear from the fleets - tho', due to the ability to hit civvies, they're likely to remain in system patrol duty well after leaving the fleets.

Likewise, the OTU uses fighters even at TL15, so something is missing from the game to make them worthy. (Most likely, that being that a squadron should count as a battery, rather than 12 separate much smaller batteries)

 

[kilemall]

As long as fighter weapons can penetrate screens, they're a nuisance to kill and likely to be used. It's only when they cannot get hits that they will disappear from the fleets - tho', due to the ability to hit civvies, they're likely to remain in system patrol duty well after leaving the fleets.

Likewise, the OTU uses fighters even at TL15, so something is missing from the game to make them worthy. (Most likely, that being that a squadron should count as a battery, rather than 12 separate much smaller batteries)

I'm using datalink like the Aegis/NTDS to allow ships to share targeting data from a higher Computer rating with cleaning up all the evasion and EW/spoofing as direct feeds, the small fighter and craft/ships then are translating for firing from their position with their weapons.

At close range (1000km or less) they can then act as anti-missile batteries, or strike platforms possibly in a coordinated battery per squadron as you often suggest.

I got a zillion solutions. Ask me another one.

 

[flykiller]

That's the far trader not the free trader.

yep, you're right. I'll shut up now.

 

[robject]

I'm using datalink like the Aegis/NTDS to allow ships to share targeting data from a higher Computer rating with cleaning up all the evasion and EW/spoofing as direct feeds, the small fighter and craft/ships then are translating for firing from their position with their weapons.

My approach is similar, via CommCaster (but that doesn't show up explicitly until T5).

At close range (1000km or less) they can then act as anti-missile batteries, or strike platforms possibly in a coordinated battery per squadron as you often suggest.

Yes to this. And fighters can always kill escorts, which can kill cruisers, which can kill capitals.

 

[Whipsnade]

Holy guacamole, I love threads like these!

With regards to multiple targets, I'm beginning to question whether it's more a meta-game desire than an actual part of the OTU's "fictional reality". I mean, you hand a player a Kokirrak and they're going to want to it's meson spinal, 50 missile bays, 50 fusion gun bays, 50 laser turret batteries, and 33 PA turret batteries at as many different targets as possible. It becomes a case of 184 batteries and 184 targets.

But how often does something like that occur?

During my fracking sojourn in North Dakota I played a lot of solo Seakrieg. When I say a lot, I mean a lot. Because I wasn't too enamored of that system's air rules, I focused on gun line battles from roughly 1890 through WW2. There are quite a few battles involving quite a few warships types other than the usual "Dreadnoughts at Jutland" fixation and I read up on as many as I could.

One aspect stood out, especially considering how navies prior to WW1 thought battles would pan out: Secondary batteries weren't at all in play. Range has a great deal to do with it, secondary batteries don't have the range of the bug guns. However, the "failure" of light forces to pose the threat during battle they were supposed to is another reason.

Everyone "knew" that light forces on both sides would dash in to launch torpedoes while the opposing battlewagons traded salvos and thus battlewagons would need secondary batteries to deal with that deadly threat. Trouble is that it almost never happened.

First, opposing light forces kept each other at bay and, second, the heavies would switch their primary batteries at any light forces which got close enough. It was very rare that a capital ship fired it's primary battery at one surface target while firing it's secondary armament at another surface target.

A kind reminder to the Perennially Obtuse, please note the use of the phrase surface target.

If a surface target was in range of a ship's primary and secondary batteries, it got pasted by that ship's primary and secondary batteries. If the secondary batteries found themselves out of range, they didn't go looking for targets of opportunity. They held their fire instead.

Unless a ship was under air attack, batteries rarely split their fire between multiple targets.

Another kind reminder to the Perennially Obtuse, please note the use of the word rarely.

As you all know, I'm very much loathe to draw too many analogies between historic naval combat and OTU naval combat. All too often someone decides OTU combat resembles Age of Sail, Age of Dreadnoughts, Age of Carriers, Age of Submarines, or Age of Something Else and then proceeds to mindlessly hammer a HG2-shaped plug into whatever hole they fervently believe it should fit in. HG2 combat resembles HG2 combat and we can only draw the broadest of analogies.

That being said, I think there's a good argument for a single indivisible attack factor. Especially if that factor models spines and bays or just bays.

Turret-based batteries are another question. They could be counted as part of the layered defense Rob is mulling over, especially with regards to the big ships.

Just my 0.02 Cr.

 

[robject]

Holy guacamole, I love threads like these!

And when several grognards are engaged, the conversation can be thoroughly enjoyable. And instructive. And thoughtful.

That being said, I think there's a good argument for a single indivisible attack factor. Especially if that factor models spines and bays or just bays.

As I said, thoughtful. Things to chew on.

 

[aramis]

Small comparison problem - bays don't have more reach than turrets, and Spinals don't either, if using HG.

The Batteries Bearing (which is handwaved* away in TNE and T4 by rotation on centerline) forces the big ships to split fire. They always need two targets to make full use of their weapons.

Monolithic batteries have the simulation issue of needing then rules for massive battery versus squadron, or else fighters suddenly become massively overpowered by taking forever to swat. (The Starfire solution was to not count fighters against the tracking limit if only engaged with point defense...)

Thing is, RAW HG2, a TL15 fighter is able to hit some TL15 warships, and not others, but each fighter takes at least one battery-round to kill. And a Cruiser might have 24 or so.

In a 40 ton or so fighter, we can get a Model 9, a triple laser for a factor 4 battery, and agility 2.5, with just over a week's endurance, and factor F armor... it's GOT a chance against a TL 15 capship... the peak globe is 4, peak sand is 9, computers match... not great odds... a squadron of 12 expects to hit about once per turn. And about half die in a turn IF the target has defenses. And they're MCr250 each. And most warships don't actually have sand 9...

In practice, a lot depends on the dice manipulation of the players.

 

[Whipsnade]

Small comparison problem - bays don't have more reach than turrets, and Spinals don't either, if using HG.

I should have mentioned it, but I thought it was obvious. I guess I should had added more "kind reminders".

Spines, bays, and turrets all seem to have the same range in HG2. All seem to have the same range because A) energy weapons are limited to Short whether mounted in bays or turrets and B) weapon ranges in that other CT ship combat system, LBB:2, depend in part on a gunner's skill.

So is that range a physical limit ala HG2's energy weapons? Or is it more of a sensor/targeting/aiming limit ala LBB:2's gunnery skill? Or is it some combination of both?

Should Rob look into different ranges for spines, bays, and turrets? Mike has already suggested that "bigger" batteries might have trouble targeting smaller/more agile opponents.

I wonder if something as simple as spines/bays able to fire at Long and Short while non-missile turrets are limited to Short might be worth considering?

Monolithic batteries have the simulation issue of needing then rules for massive battery versus squadron, or else fighters suddenly become massively overpowered by taking forever to swat. (The Starfire solution was to not count fighters against the tracking limit if only engaged with point defense...)

Or some part of the layered defense Rob is mulling over effects only fighters, again something like Starfire's PD not counting towards the tracking limit. Of course in Starfire, you time the arrival of your missiles and fighters to force your opponent to choose which of the two his PD systems will target...

In a 40 ton or so fighter...

Yeah, you can eventually get a mission kill via fuel hits; a Fuel-N hit inflicting N% or 10 tons whichever is more. The trouble is, as you note, how many rounds will it take to inflict the required hits?

The CT_Yahoo Group smoke tests worked in part because the "fighters" could mission kill their target in one round and that occurred because A) the "fighters" were cheap enough to be built in bunches and 2) the "fighters" could hit/pen somewhat better than once in twelve shots. "Fighter" losses were relatively low because the ship being swarmed only got one crack at it's tormentors.

Now, if those fighters suddenly cost 250 MCr, hit only once every twelve shots, and lose 6 out of 12 craft each round, the smoke test tactic doesn't work as well.

You can get your hits, but are you going to get enough of them before the warship destroys more than it's worth in "fighters"?