Rationalizing Book 2 and High Guard

[McPerth]

(I still maintain the designers of HG 1 made an error with the drive % tables and that's the real reason for the drive size disconnect.)

I can't tell where the error is (if we assume there is one), but it has always beated me why in Bk2 jump drives were (to achieve the same number) more massive than maneuver ones, and in HG this was reversed.

To have a 1000 dton ship with J4 M4, in Bk2 you need to devote 105 dtons to JD, 39 to MD and 61 to PP, while in HG you need 50 dton for JD, 110 to MD and 40-120 (depending on TL) to PP (totals are 205 dton in Bk2 and 200-280 in HG, so largely affecting its performance too).

 

[far-trader]

...or (re my post above) after recalling an earlier thought (mine? others? both ) the drive letter tables only refer to the possible maximum, not the actual maximum.

For example the entry of the C drives for 100ton ships listing performance 6 at TL9 may apply to maneuver but not jump, since J6 would require a TL12 computer minimum (in Book 2). Still a break from HG though.

There really is no way to reconcile the two. They are different universes with different ideas in a number of fundamental ways. Drive performance and TL, ship size limits, weapons, and more.

 

[far-trader]

(I still maintain the designers of HG 1 made an error with the drive % tables and that's the real reason for the drive size disconnect.)

I can't tell where the error is (if we assume there is one), but it has always beated me why in Bk2 jump drives were (to achieve the same number) more massive than maneuver ones, and in HG this was reversed.

That's exactly the error mike is noting. It's as if the two are reversed. If you change the table headings in HG from Jump and Maneuver to Maneuver and Jump you get much closer parity to the sizes in Book 2.

 

[mike wightman]

Makes me wonder if they actually played their own games by their own rules if you see what I mean.

First thing I noticed when I got to the ship construction tables in HG was that they were the wrong way around - so how come no one at GDW spotted it?

 

[McPerth]

Makes me wonder if they actually played their own games by their own rules if you see what I mean.

First thing I noticed when I got to the ship construction tables in HG was that they were the wrong way around - so how come no one at GDW spotted it?

So did I, but in MT they mantained HG equivalent to the volume needs for drives (at least JD and MD, PP worked quite differently in MT)

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Makes me wonder if they actually played their own games by their own rules if you see what I mean.

That is where I was going, I think they just rushed it out the door to make money. It was complex enough when we were teenagers that we thought there was actually something there.

Oh by the way I do want the thing to work, it just doesn't

No one has addressed the missile issue. It came to me as I was messing around with an old submarine game the other night that the missile supplement rules make missiles into WW2 aquatic torpedoes. You have only enough propellant to make one or two course corrections, almost as if they were still guided by gyroscopes or gimbals.

 

[Dragoner]

It is because the guys at GDW were wargamers that used what they knew.

One thing that is definitely off throughout the whole game is the TL discussion. Some they didn't know back then which we are just beginning to understand, such as the difference between bronze age and iron age is that bronze age people knew how to work iron, but usually didn't until they ran low on tin. Which goes for a lot of technology, what gets used in reality is a hodgepoge of different tech based upon a mix of ease of use, efficiency and infrastructure. Cell phones versus landlines are a perfect example, most countries developing phones instructures now, totally skip or abandon their old cable line phones for cell towers.

With jump drives, we only get a bare minimum of information, all prices are about the same as well as reliability. But if they were laid out in reality, they would always have specific manufacturer, price and reliability; plus the idea of why does a j-2 TL15 drive not lighter and more efficient than a TL11 drive from thousands of years ago? I'm not looking for a retcon though, the beauty of CT is it is just bare bones rules and it's my fiat if I'm GM to determine exact issues.

 

[Enoki]

Missiles, unless made with a number of thrusters in various positions are going to have limited maneuverability in space. They cannot use aerodynamic surfaces like AAMs or SAMs can in an atmosphere. There would, by necessity, only be limited propellant for such thrusters. A gimballed nozzle would be easier for coarse course corrections early in the flight.
I would think most missiles would use a near ballastic trajectory into the target area where they might have limited maneuverability to finally hit a target. That gives the greatest firing range for the fuel available and, the missile in transit does not require much guidance information from the firer.
With larger ships, there is only so much maneuvering they can do to avoid missiles. Point defense and soft kills using ECM and shields would have to be relied on more than outmaneuvering these weapons.
In a sense, it is similar to the findings of Morse and Kimball in Methods of Operations Research. That is, the defending ship should adopt tactics that maximize defense.
In our case here the small ship would maneuver radically hoping to avoid a hit while the large ship plods along relying on passive and active defense systems to take out the missiles.

 

[Dragoner]

Here is a mind blower about tech levels from the original HG that I ran across and may in some ways answer the questions about TL of drives:

Availability: Starships can be constructed at the shipyard of any class A starport; non-starships may be constructed at the shipyard of either class A or B starports. The technological level of the world holding the shipyard governs the construction capabilities: the tech level of a ship may not be more than 3 greater than the tech level of the shipyard. All higher tech level equipment must be imported, at 50% sur-charge.
The Imperial Navy may procure ships of up to tech level 15, although it also pro-cures ships at tech levels 11 to 14; Subsector Navies may procure ships at any shi-pyard within their borders; Planetary Navies may procure ships at anywhere within the borders of their subsectors, or may construct the ships locally, using local re-sources, even if a shipyard is not present.

HG1, pg21

 

[robject]

just add a requirement to LBB2 that Jump-2 drives must be at least TL11, Jump-3 drives must be at least TL12, etc.

Bingo. Hoc est corpus Travellera.

Incidentally, I've never understood why GDW didn't revise LBB2 to be compatible with HG. I understand the attraction of a simpler ship design system; I just think it would have been (and still would be) easy to make a cut-down version of HG that had the simplicity of LBB2.

It's because by then the game system was spiralling out of control by any one person, and supplements were being put out every 22 days or so. There was no motivation and/or no time.

 

[fredofmars]

MiniLotsaGuys class Leader Gig

The crewing per HG though gives small ships way too many crew, like a minimal bridge crew is 11 people, even for small ships...

http://webspace.webring.com/people/jf/fredofmars/designs/mnltsgys.htm

MiniLotsaGuys class Leader Gig

My design for the minimum size ship that could fit the minimum HG2 crew. It consists of 11 command crew and 1 engineer. It comes out to 11.2 tons.

It's an exercise in bureaucratic excess.

 

[Dragoner]

http://webspace.webring.com/people/jf/fredofmars/designs/mnltsgys.htm

MiniLotsaGuys class Leader Gig

My design for the minimum size ship that could fit the minimum HG2 crew. It consists of 11 command crew and 1 engineer. It comes out to 11.2 tons.

It's an exercise in bureaucratic excess.

Sounds like it has buttons that need to be pushed in triplicate, call it the bureaucracy shuttle.