Sandcasters

[flykiller]

I'd like someone to tell me what it is that agility translates to in the real world? What's the difference between having 6G thruster plates with 0 Agility, and 6G thruster plates with 6 Agility? (Other than a big to-hit mod in HG2.) I have trouble envisioning a situation where 0 EP generating 6G thrust gets no "agility", but permanently allocating a big block of EP gets "agility", and the 6G thrust remains the same.

well now, that is a step back. I'll try.

(assuming HG2) agility is acceleration. maneuver drives generate acceleration. to operate, they require energy. if you have a ship with maneuver 2 and power plant 2 and the power plant output is devoted to the maneuver drives, the maneuver drives are capable of generating 2g and have an agility of 2. if you have a ship with maneuver 2 and power plant 1 and the power plant output is devoted to the maneuver drives, the maneuver drives are capable of generating 1g of acceleration and have an agility of 1. if you have a ship with maneuver 2 but no energy is available to power the maneuver drives, then the drives cannot generate any acceleration and have an agility of 0.

maneuver is acceleration in one direction.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Once you move over to the second edition High Guard ship paradigm then weapons require EPs so power plants must be built larger than the maneuver drive rating or the maneuver drive rating (agility) suffers when weapons are used.

I always designed my HG2 ships to have enough spare EP, after powering all systems requiring EP, to keep full Agility (up to the M rating).

I'm not sure right at the moment, but I thought the wording of the rules was such that it required you to do it that way (i.e., if you were going to have Agility at all, you needed to have a separate block of EP allocated to it during design. (If I'm wrong, please be kind to me for not digging up my book right at this particular moment.)

 

[mike wightman]

That's why you can have an emergency agility rating, where you don't use weapons, and instead run the maneuver drive at full power.

One thing I've never understood is why the power plant has to be run flat out all the time instead of being powered down to conserve fuel.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by flykiller:
(assuming HG2) [...] if you have a ship with maneuver 2 but no energy is available to power the maneuver drives, then the drives cannot generate any acceleration and have an agility of 0.

I thought the HG2 M-Drive's only requirement was that a functioning PP of the same rating be available.

I can’t recall any talk about the generality of "PP output" being devoted to the M-drive, or anything. Each PP generated X EP, but all those EP would always wind up being allocated to things other than M-Drive Gs. As nearly as I can tell, if an HG2 vessel can power all weapons and screens, but if it has 0 EP left over, it has no trouble thrusting away at full M-drive Gs (T20 is different, of course); . . . .

<runs off an gets his book />

. . . . Ok, I&#146;m back.

From HG2: p. 28:
Agility: Engery points remaining after weapons, screens, and computer have been installed may be applied toward the ship&#146;s agility rating. Divide the remaining energy points by 0.01M; the result is the number of agility points the ship has. Drop all fractional points. Agility is the ability of the ship to make violent maneuvers and take evasive action while engaging hostile targets. A ship&#146;s agility rating may never exceed its maneuver drive rating. For each power plant hit received in combat (cumulative) the ship&#146;s agility rating is reduced by one.
A ship may voluntarily refrain from using any weapons or screens (computers may still be used) which require energy points and still receive emergency agility rating (for that combat round only) equal to its current maneuve-drive rating or power plant rating (whichever is lower).

Nope, nothing in there about having zero acceleration from the maneuver drive if there is 0 EP to give over to agility.

 

[mike wightman]

Ask yourself this question, why must the power plant equal the maneuver drive rating? If the power plant's EP excess only provides combat agility why do you need a power plant equal in size to the maneuver drive?

If you build a ship with a maneuver 4 drive and a power plant 4, then use all those EPs to power weapons, what is powering the maneuver drive?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:


If you build a ship with a maneuver 4 drive and a power plant 4, then use all those EPs to power weapons, what is powering the maneuver drive?

Well, it must be the Design Sequence Blind Spot energy source. Better known by its Ancient's name: Handwavium.

 

[mike wightman]

As I said earlier, think of agility as effective maneuver drive rating.
There is another problem with High Guard EPs, and that is what happens when a power plant takes a hit.
The immediate answer is the agility goes down by one.
What if you then lose your spinal mount? Can the energy be redirected to the maneuver drive?
As weapon batteries are reduced/knocked out are the EPs transferrable?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
One thing I've never understood is why the power plant has to be run flat out all the time instead of being powered down to conserve fuel.

I, too, have never understood that.

I've seen a number of house rules (or rather, I've seen the mention of house rules) that allows power plants to operator at lower levels and consume less of the PP-fuel reserve.

I believe that a PP should have Low, Standard, and High EP output levels, and three or four Overload EP output levels.
</font>

• Low: No weapons, screens, or jump, and probably partial M (not quite sure) but far less fuel is consumed.</font>
• Standard: Enough for full normal M-rating, lifesupport, computers, avionics, sensors, and comms.</font>
• High: Full EPs. The ship's full EP is available, and the full fuel consumption rate is underway. "Normal Max specification output". Using this level for extended periods requires early monthly or annual maintenence, or an extra servicing (or whatever). Military quality power-plants (more expensive) would be designed to operate for longer periods at this level, as this would be considered "combat level output".</font>
• Overload: +10%, +20%, +30%, etc. Requires early services of the powerplant, may require early servicing of attached components.</font>

Personally, I also believe that every component aboard the ship that uses power be required to have some PP energy "allocated". This would be ok for when only one or a hanful of sihps were being used (but would have to be "abstracted" way for fleet combat). (T20 moves toward this, but it adds this additional EP burden without lightening the load elsewhere (so far as I can tell), so T20 versions of HG2 ships can never be quite as well-designed).

Of course, this also leads to my heretical belief (suppressed to allow my delusion in the OTU to continue on) that jump drives should draw EP from the PP to function, and that is it. Unfortunately, this belief also shatters the standard Jn * .10 * M = Jump Fuel standard equation, and so falls under the "ban of canon". Ah well.


Additionally, MDs would work like PPs, in that they could "take" overloaded power to generate additional thrust (but then, this is already MT canon, and so is not a stretch).

 

[mike wightman]

T20 gets around its extra EP burden by halving the size of power plants.

Build a TL15 19kt Munchkin class light cruiser under High Guard and then using T20. You'll find room to fit armour under T20 rules, thanks to the half size power plant.

A quick fix for the overloading maneuver drive is to allow an emergency agility greater than the maneuver drive rating, and roll for something to break every turn. The rules for double firing weapons in CT could probably be adapted.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
T20 gets around its extra EP burden by halving the size of power plants.
[...]

Ok, my brain must be headed south.

I can still recall checking up on the various main points of the T20 design sequence a while back when I first picked up the book. I can't recall thinking that PPs where all that different.

However (now that I have someone leaning over my shoulder), it's apparent that you are correct about the resizing of the PPs.

Mind you, I'm not that upset, just irked at myself.

 

[flykiller]

well, looks like my original question has been left in the dust.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by flykiller:
well, looks like my original question has been left in the dust.

Do you mean about sensors being able to determine if an opponent was going to fire?

It depends on which edition of the game the sensors come out of.

If we're talking HG2, then you can determine Zip! It's not even a part of the game.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Aramis:
If one works from the TNE model, one detects the lock on of the Beam Pointer, which is a pre-fire pulse, and tracks sand to prevent fire from the beam pointer.

One then puts sand on a course that is stable until the sander moves away from it...

I prefer a more CT Bk2 model; put out a cloud; the cloud has a vector. If fire goes through that cloud, apply the factor of the cloud.

The sand acts just like armor vs lasers. I don't remember the effect vs missiles.

And detecting the power build up is too trekish; the beam-pointer detection at least gives you 0.2-0.4 seconds for an automated pinpoint scatter; the build up is likely to be drowned in engine noise.

THe Beam pointer detection is just as Trekish. Real world, if a "Beam pointer would set off the otherguys sand then I would either not use it, just fire, or I would mount several beam pointer lasers per laser and engage several targets with just the pointer. Causing everyone to expend sand, before firing the real thing with no warning.

At typical ranges a Laser rangefinder will tell you the range and distance to where the target was about half a second ago. Big deal.

The whole, explaination of how sand vs. lasers works is a bunch of wand waving and silly incantations. It can't be effective point defense vs. a light speed weapon, without FTL sensors. Not in the quantities and sizes specified. However since the rules say it is, then it works. But the concept of the individual canisters, each being 1/20th of a ton of displacement, causing a screen between your ship and the enemy is extremely silly, so I would only allow it per individual laser shot, or each missile. Not some cloud that interposes itself between the firer and the target. Mostly because even if the course doesn't drastically change nobody is going to fly straight and level for any length of time.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I notice that no one has gone over (in this topic, anyway; I'm willing to bet it's been covered before somewhere) the amount of time it takes for the "sand" to disperse into the "cloud". That is not going to happen fast enough to interpose between an incoming laser beam.

Basically: A sand-cannister is launched. It must physically separate from the ship. It must then detonate to disperse the sand into a cloud. The cloud, according to Sigg's Post, is 2500 km in diameter. That's a sizeable fraction of Earth's own diameter. How does a little cannister disperse sand over so wide an area? How come it's an even dispersion instead of shell (given the huge kick necessary to disperse out to such a volume)? Or was it always a (vaguely) spherical shell instead of a cloud? Ships are, typically, going to be moving at high velocity (you have to in order to get anywhere in a solar system; and I doubt two opponents will politely slow down to waterborne navy speeds and exchange broadsides).

Personally, I think that by the time a sand-cloud had expanded enough to fill the "hex", the ship in question would already be into another hex further down the map (unless it was moving very slowly).


The realities of using sand as a defensive measure bring up many, many unaswered questions.

If you think about it for a while, if a grav-tech society has repulsors, it has the opposite, tractors. Although such a tractor/repulsor system could hold a cloud of sand in position next to a vessel, this effectively creates a type of physical shield, and Traveller doesn't really have "shields", per se.

(Note: I could never understand why tractors and tractor/repulsors are >= TL-16 in the OTU. Jefferson P. Swycaffer's "anti-concussion" field technology seems like it would be a natural fit into Traveller, a logical extension of the other existing tech; and yet, it isn't there.)

Ack! The sand-caster question makes my head hurt.

<siren! siren! siren! />

Handwavium-caster now in operation.

You will believe in sand-casters. You will believe in sand-casters. You will believe in sand-casters.

After this alert is over, you will awake refreshed and happy, your headache will be gone, and you will not remember this alert.

3, 2, 1 . . .

<alert-off />

Hmm, everything seems much better now.

 

[mike wightman]

To get some idea of the dispersal properties of a sandcaster have a look at the rules in Striker (repeated in MT) for using sandcasters as "super shotguns".
They have an effective range, in a standard atmosphere, of 500m - danger space 40m wide, penetration 20 (enough to go through TL15 battle dress);
long range is 1000m - danger space 80m wide, penetration 10;
extreme range is 2000m - danger space 120m wide, penetration 5.

Now if this rapidly dispersed cloud can be held in a cone by an electromagnetic/electrostatic/gravitic field - or better yet just spread out around the ship, you have the makings of a defensive "shield".

The CT rules for stacking sandcasters are a little bit vague.
IMHO using them as a screen against laser/energy attacks and a point defence shotgun to shoot up missiles looks like a better bet.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Now if this rapidly dispersed cloud can be held in a cone by an electromagnetic/electrostatic/gravitic field - or better yet just spread out around the ship, you have the makings of a defensive "shield".

Except that this part, however reasonable it is, also suddenly requires that sandcasters draw on EP to operate.

 

[Piper]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
<snip>
Now if this rapidly dispersed cloud can be held in a cone by an electromagnetic/electrostatic/gravitic field - or better yet just spread out around the ship, you have the makings of a defensive "shield".

The CT rules for stacking sandcasters are a little bit vague.
IMHO using them as a screen against laser/energy attacks and a point defence shotgun to shoot up missiles looks like a better bet.

That's about the way I have them in MTU. I add in having to replenish the screen if it blocks any laser fire or if any course change vectors are added. This assumes that the magnetics/gravitics can hold it during evasion moves but aren't strong enough to compensate for a full burn.
As for missiles, I just assumed the sand would effect those through abrasion rather than requiring a special "shotgun" firing.
Interesting idea.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Except that this part, however reasonable it is, also suddenly requires that sandcasters draw on EP to operate.

No more EPs than the grav plates or acceleration compensators

I agree with your earlier comment that virtually all ship systems should have an EP cost - including the two above.

So what's a reasonable EP cost for holding the sand in a field once launched?
How does 0.5EP per launcher sound?

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
I agree with your earlier comment that virtually all ship systems should have an EP cost - including the two above.

So what's a reasonable EP cost for holding the sand in a field once launched?
How does 0.5EP per launcher sound?

I don't think going any lower than that is a good idea. I don't want to deal with fractions lower than .5, it would be highly annoying in actual play.

That does tend to alter many standard designs, though. It also makes it tougher for small ships to mount sandcasters, as little fat and far traders don't have many EP to begin with.

Gamer-designed vessels are frequently designed down to the last EP (or, at least, I always tried to cut it as close as possible). Adopting this rule would prove troubling for them, and they likely would look over this rule and think, "It's interesting, but not for me because it would be too much work and ruin all my good designs."

In my own design sequence that I toy with from time to time, "peripheral" systems, like life support, do draw power. All grav plates and inertial compensation and contra-grav get lumped together in a single package called "Gravitics". They draw an amount of power, too. Starting out quite low for small ships, and working its way up.

 

[mike wightman]

Yep, it definitely belongs with an IMTU tag

Most of the standard designs lose all agility when fitted with laser weapons anyway, which is a bit odd since the maneuver drive is fully powered still.

Agility in T20 appears to be like the overthrust idea you mentioned a while back.

IMTU I would get round it by building the larger power plant but reducing power plant fuel to four weeks worth of normal computer/gravitics/maneuver (or jump) use, and have combat (weapons, screens, agility) cost fuel duration.

By the way, what's the tonnage-energy-Cr cost for the gravitics stuff in your house rules?