Ship building: A plethora of rules.
- Thread starter bozzutoman
- Start date
TheEngineer
SOC-14 1K
Hi !
IMHO Ron just hit one important point.
Just ask Yourself what is needed to play the game.
Players are bad people and usually ignore 95% of the details you have prepared the days before
The tiny 4% consist of really important stats like size, design, engine-ratings, cargo, cabins and perhaps guns.
Every Traveller systems provides these basic stats and system specific flaws rarely trigger player questions.
Perhaps we also should stress, whats common to every system ?
Ok. There is 1% left. These are the things, which are not covered by any contruction system, but the players want to know in detail
Practically I get along with the MT rules and their flaws as well as I did before using HG2.
Actually I use T20 or GT ship stats, too.
I also use different ship design software (Ships for Windows and GTS, I still would like to have something like GTS for HG2/MT/TNE etc.).
Things only get more complicate, if there is a "in detail played" combat situation, where I have to ensure compliant systems...but anything else - even cinematic fudged space combat - works in mixed mode.
regards,
Mert
IMHO Ron just hit one important point.
Just ask Yourself what is needed to play the game.
Players are bad people and usually ignore 95% of the details you have prepared the days before
The tiny 4% consist of really important stats like size, design, engine-ratings, cargo, cabins and perhaps guns.
Every Traveller systems provides these basic stats and system specific flaws rarely trigger player questions.
Perhaps we also should stress, whats common to every system ?
Ok. There is 1% left. These are the things, which are not covered by any contruction system, but the players want to know in detail
Practically I get along with the MT rules and their flaws as well as I did before using HG2.
Actually I use T20 or GT ship stats, too.
I also use different ship design software (Ships for Windows and GTS, I still would like to have something like GTS for HG2/MT/TNE etc.).
Things only get more complicate, if there is a "in detail played" combat situation, where I have to ensure compliant systems...but anything else - even cinematic fudged space combat - works in mixed mode.
regards,
Mert
ronnyquest
SOC-4
One good illustration of (realistic) starship combat can be found in The Dean's (Robert A. Heinlein's) Citizen of the Galaxy. I highly recommend it.
Also worth mentioning is the brief scene at the beginning of Niven's Mote in God's Eye. How do I kill your ship? I put as many joules into your shield (black globe, really) as I can in as short a time as possible until it collapses so I vaporize your vessel. Literally like an old-style boxing match where the opponents "toe the line" and slug each other until one falls over.
We seem to expect Star Trek space combat sequences from our designs. Perhaps we should not.
Also worth mentioning is the brief scene at the beginning of Niven's Mote in God's Eye. How do I kill your ship? I put as many joules into your shield (black globe, really) as I can in as short a time as possible until it collapses so I vaporize your vessel. Literally like an old-style boxing match where the opponents "toe the line" and slug each other until one falls over.
We seem to expect Star Trek space combat sequences from our designs. Perhaps we should not.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Thanks, it's one way to try to reintegrate TNE with the rest of Traveller canonOriginally posted by robject:
Nice handwave there Sigg
There are a couple of ways around that I can think of
The obvious one is to use drop tanks for the jump inbound - no TL restrictions in TNE FF&S
Otherwise, use battle riders - still the superior in the ships vs riders argument IMHO
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
My favourites are the first chapter of the Reality Dysfunction by Peter F.Hamilton, and the prologue for Consider Phlebas by Iain M.Banks.
The moral of them both is to fight at a distance with machines
ronnyquest
SOC-4
There are a couple of ways around that I can think of
The obvious one is to use drop tanks for the jump inbound - no TL restrictions in TNE FF&S
Otherwise, use battle riders - still the superior in the ships vs riders argument IMHO
</font>[/QUOTE]Except, of course, that not everyone will have access to those technologies, nor will they necessarilly want to use said technologies even if available. Nor are all ships able to easily use drops tanks. Further, it is not really a challenge to assume that all things are available at all times in all situations. That is a very wrong assumption. The issue remains. We have to think of what our characters (or fleet commanders, whatever) would do in any given situation. Just because the tecnology exists at our tech level does not mean that will will have access in a given situation.
Also, who purchases all these ships we design with these pitiful ship design rules? We tend to forget that our ships, fleets, planetoid bases, whatever, cannot exist in a vacuum (sic). There are other considerations for our Trillion Credit Squadron.
Scott Martin
SOC-13
I'll preface this with the disclaimer that I run a fairly "hard" SF universe: one of the reasons that I use traveller is that the *physics* behind FF&S is quite close to the Real World (tm) I could quibble about things like the fact that Densities of materials are a bit off, but 7.85 vs 8 for steel is close enough for my little world. My universe has no reactionless thrusters (one of the things that drew me to TNE / FF&S) since it forces design comprimises that are not present for "Classic Traveller" ships. (I remember at 14 figuring how long it would take for my scout/courier to reach 99% of light speed: this will factor in to my discussion later)
There are a couple of considerations that you folks don't seem to be considering in your discussion (apologies if this has already been covered: I'm too lazy to search through several thousand topics...) the overview is:
</font>
I'll also take issue with the "if you lose power in space, you're dead" but discuss it further in the next post, "Cost Effective Designs"
If you aren't familiar with it already, you should check out this page: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
which discusses "realistic" space war.
____________________
No Win Wars:
If you are in an interstellar war with someone, and have both a reactionless drive and FTL technology that allows you to "jump" in at any vector and bearing in an enemies systems, then you will have a very short, very bloody "Total" war. Accellerate a N expendible ships (say that type S scout) on autopilot to 99+ percent of light, jump them into your opponents systems on non-standard bearings (say 42 degrees off the system axis) and do some "fine tuning" of the steering to ensure that your FTL capable "missiles" hit every inhabitable body in the system (planets and orbital habitats). Even if yoo magically manage to detect this incoming kinetic missile (hmm: 100 diameters with a 1% C detection edge: most of your system defences have 0.05 seconds to realize that they are under attack, go to full power, achieve a lock and fire before your planet goes "blooey" this assumes that you can disintegrate it or change its vector by a significant fraction of light speed, which will be quite challenging since its relativistic mass is quite large. This assumes a 15,000 km diameter planet,smaller bodies have more issues.
Game Over.
Everyone loses.
For reference, note that David Weber worked on a number of strategic space warfare games before writing the "Harrington" novels: he's a smart fellow, and I suspect that there's a reason his universe has a very hard upper limit on translation from FTL.
I handle this with a similar maximum velocity on FTL transitions, as well as postulating a limited number of areas that a translation can take place. Territorial boundaries are often delimited as much by the presence of "shoal" space as rifts. "Shoal" space is characterised by things like Nebulae, gravitic anomalies and the like which restrict FTL transit through some regions of space. I also don't allow reactionless thrusters...
_________________
Scott Martin
There are a couple of considerations that you folks don't seem to be considering in your discussion (apologies if this has already been covered: I'm too lazy to search through several thousand topics...) the overview is:
</font>
- No Win Wars</font>
- The Reasons for Cost Effective Designs</font>
I'll also take issue with the "if you lose power in space, you're dead" but discuss it further in the next post, "Cost Effective Designs"
If you aren't familiar with it already, you should check out this page: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
which discusses "realistic" space war.
____________________
No Win Wars:
If you are in an interstellar war with someone, and have both a reactionless drive and FTL technology that allows you to "jump" in at any vector and bearing in an enemies systems, then you will have a very short, very bloody "Total" war. Accellerate a N expendible ships (say that type S scout) on autopilot to 99+ percent of light, jump them into your opponents systems on non-standard bearings (say 42 degrees off the system axis) and do some "fine tuning" of the steering to ensure that your FTL capable "missiles" hit every inhabitable body in the system (planets and orbital habitats). Even if yoo magically manage to detect this incoming kinetic missile (hmm: 100 diameters with a 1% C detection edge: most of your system defences have 0.05 seconds to realize that they are under attack, go to full power, achieve a lock and fire before your planet goes "blooey" this assumes that you can disintegrate it or change its vector by a significant fraction of light speed, which will be quite challenging since its relativistic mass is quite large. This assumes a 15,000 km diameter planet,smaller bodies have more issues.
Game Over.
Everyone loses.
For reference, note that David Weber worked on a number of strategic space warfare games before writing the "Harrington" novels: he's a smart fellow, and I suspect that there's a reason his universe has a very hard upper limit on translation from FTL.
I handle this with a similar maximum velocity on FTL transitions, as well as postulating a limited number of areas that a translation can take place. Territorial boundaries are often delimited as much by the presence of "shoal" space as rifts. "Shoal" space is characterised by things like Nebulae, gravitic anomalies and the like which restrict FTL transit through some regions of space. I also don't allow reactionless thrusters...
_________________
Scott Martin
Scott Martin
SOC-13
The Reasons for Cost Effective Designs
(or why many of my military designs are designed to allow overpowering of weapons at the expense of maneuvering capability)
_______________________________
The best warship is one bristling with weapons, has power to burn, has a thick armour hull to shrug off attacks, a massive sensor suite to detect anything in space and really long "Legs" both FTL and normal space.
Well, lets think again.
A modern naval task force tends to consist of a large group of specialized vessels, so lets examine why that is the case.
Would it be possible to build a ship that could carry a strike wing of fighters, large shore bombardment batteries, Missile and anti-missile launchers, Point defence weapons, minesweeping equipment, SONAR and ASW capablilties?
Yes (a qualified yes anyway)
Would it be effective?
Probably not. This describes some cities, since I neglected to mention "a top speed of 45 knots" and even if possible, would you want to risk losing this expensive behemoth?
For that matter, why aren't all those military vessels nuclear powered? the combat effectiveness of an unlimited range combatant is significantly higher than one that needs to depend upon its fleet train or bases for resupply.
Welcome to the world of cost effectiveness. The navies of the world are overwhelmingly dominated by light units powered by "conventional" powerplants that are not radically different from those towards the end of the second world war (yes, I'm overgeneralizing, but a fuel oil powered turbine is very similar to a high efficiency diesel turbine...) It's cheaper to equip and run a couple of "conventional" units than a single nuclear poweered one, and there are some telling arguments in favour of having twice as many less capable platforms.
Some things to keep in mind:
1) If you put all your eggs in one basket, then the big basket is needed to deal with any problem.
If your fleet is made of ten SuperCarrierBattleshipSweepers and you need to send one off to deal with a blockade, and another to sweep some mines suddenly you have lost 20% of your effective combat power to two trivial missions. Try explaining to your planetary congress that you left the blockade in place and ignored the mines in case your sneaky opoonent was trying to draw you off guard.
As an "allied" power I would be nervous when your new ambassidor arrived on board a ship capable of glassing my country, with several batallions of marines with tanks and logistical support in tow...
2) Some missions are mutually exclusive do to Real World (tm) issues
The aformentioned SuperCarrierBattleshipSweeper would be really bad for ASW (try to keep something aircraft carrier sized "quiet" enough to hunt subs) and would be really inappropriate in the Persian Gulf or Straits of Norway, since it would need a LOT of hull depth to stabilize that much ship. It would also suck as an assault transport, since it would need to offload its forces several mies off shore to avoid running aground.
3) The world is about trade-offs
A shipping line is likely to determine what ships to buy based on what the shipping company considers important: they will purchase the ship (bulk carrier, container ship whatever) based on the *least expensive cost per unit volume transported* they will get paid the same amount for each tonne of cargo shipped if they ship it in a yacht as a bulk frieghter. Most successful shipping companies don't buy a lot of yachts. It is also worth noting that there are a limited number of cargo ship designs in the world today: it's a lot cheaper to choose a design that's "close enough" than to custom build for your specific needs. This also means that you can hire people from rival firms who know how to run *exactly the same ship* and if you decide to go into another business (say become a cruise line) you can sell of your existing "stock" of ships to a (former) rival, since they use the same design. Stock ships also make getting parts easier and cheaper (Quick quiz: which is more expensive, a radiator for a Ford or a Ferrari? What's the difference in manufacturing cost?)
4) Sometimes you can get away with scrimping on what some people consider "essential".
The stopping distance of a supertanker is measured in the tens of naval miles, the turn radius is similarly large. Many of these vessels no longer keep a watch (or have a legal requirement to keep a watch) in "deep ocean" because it's really easy to notice another bulk freighter, and anything else won't even slow you down. the fact that they have right of way in shipping lanes means that they dont need to carry the extra crew to keep a watch in any case, and when they are near port they are generally under tow (and again have right of way as "limited maneuverability" vessels while under tow: if they run you over it's *your* fault) This would certainly be precedent for "Active sensors powered down while in atmosphere": this actually makes sense for a civilian design, since the starport sensors are guarenteed to be better than anything your hull will mount, so you don't move until they give you your flight path.
Just don't pull this with a military design: I want to see your naval minister explain to a (formerly) friendly head of state why your most modern destroyer drove through a bulk freighter.
_____________________________
This is where I counter the "losing power in space is horribly bad". If your aircraft loses power and you don't deal with it in the space of minutes, even if you survive the experience you are unlikley to enjoy it. If your (wet navy) destroyer loses power it needs to worry about what to do before it gets near land, runs aground or sinks (due to the holes in its hull that often accompany "losing maneuvering power") Most space travel is boring. Very boring. Very very boring. (next 10 sentances omitted for brevity) unless this is catastrophic (in which case you don't care that you can't maneuver) you probably have hours (at least) or weeks to months (or however long your reserve life support is rated for) to fix the problem. This is more of an issue with "low tech" designs (like anything we currently use) since the maneuvering needed (due to very low delta-V capabilities) means that we have fairly tight "windows" for maneuvering: even so, the "launch window" for many probes is measured in weeks: with an extra Kilometer per second (that's a teeny fraction of a G-turn by the way) those problems go away.
Anyway, enough rambling. I'll try to track down my FF&S Tech 13 fleet units and polish up my low tech orbital fortification doctrine, along with the "Dominoes from Hell" long term defensive missile installations (the core of the doctrine, since low tech fleets can't maneuver for beans)
I also suspect that I'll be spending time discussing design trade-offs with Ron. On a related note does CCJoe (Joe Heck) lurk on this board, or has he stopped playing completely in the last few years?
Scott Martin
(or why many of my military designs are designed to allow overpowering of weapons at the expense of maneuvering capability)
_______________________________
The best warship is one bristling with weapons, has power to burn, has a thick armour hull to shrug off attacks, a massive sensor suite to detect anything in space and really long "Legs" both FTL and normal space.
Well, lets think again.
A modern naval task force tends to consist of a large group of specialized vessels, so lets examine why that is the case.
Would it be possible to build a ship that could carry a strike wing of fighters, large shore bombardment batteries, Missile and anti-missile launchers, Point defence weapons, minesweeping equipment, SONAR and ASW capablilties?
Yes (a qualified yes anyway)
Would it be effective?
Probably not. This describes some cities, since I neglected to mention "a top speed of 45 knots" and even if possible, would you want to risk losing this expensive behemoth?
For that matter, why aren't all those military vessels nuclear powered? the combat effectiveness of an unlimited range combatant is significantly higher than one that needs to depend upon its fleet train or bases for resupply.
Welcome to the world of cost effectiveness. The navies of the world are overwhelmingly dominated by light units powered by "conventional" powerplants that are not radically different from those towards the end of the second world war (yes, I'm overgeneralizing, but a fuel oil powered turbine is very similar to a high efficiency diesel turbine...) It's cheaper to equip and run a couple of "conventional" units than a single nuclear poweered one, and there are some telling arguments in favour of having twice as many less capable platforms.
Some things to keep in mind:
1) If you put all your eggs in one basket, then the big basket is needed to deal with any problem.
If your fleet is made of ten SuperCarrierBattleshipSweepers and you need to send one off to deal with a blockade, and another to sweep some mines suddenly you have lost 20% of your effective combat power to two trivial missions. Try explaining to your planetary congress that you left the blockade in place and ignored the mines in case your sneaky opoonent was trying to draw you off guard.
As an "allied" power I would be nervous when your new ambassidor arrived on board a ship capable of glassing my country, with several batallions of marines with tanks and logistical support in tow...
2) Some missions are mutually exclusive do to Real World (tm) issues
The aformentioned SuperCarrierBattleshipSweeper would be really bad for ASW (try to keep something aircraft carrier sized "quiet" enough to hunt subs) and would be really inappropriate in the Persian Gulf or Straits of Norway, since it would need a LOT of hull depth to stabilize that much ship. It would also suck as an assault transport, since it would need to offload its forces several mies off shore to avoid running aground.
3) The world is about trade-offs
A shipping line is likely to determine what ships to buy based on what the shipping company considers important: they will purchase the ship (bulk carrier, container ship whatever) based on the *least expensive cost per unit volume transported* they will get paid the same amount for each tonne of cargo shipped if they ship it in a yacht as a bulk frieghter. Most successful shipping companies don't buy a lot of yachts. It is also worth noting that there are a limited number of cargo ship designs in the world today: it's a lot cheaper to choose a design that's "close enough" than to custom build for your specific needs. This also means that you can hire people from rival firms who know how to run *exactly the same ship* and if you decide to go into another business (say become a cruise line) you can sell of your existing "stock" of ships to a (former) rival, since they use the same design. Stock ships also make getting parts easier and cheaper (Quick quiz: which is more expensive, a radiator for a Ford or a Ferrari? What's the difference in manufacturing cost?)
4) Sometimes you can get away with scrimping on what some people consider "essential".
The stopping distance of a supertanker is measured in the tens of naval miles, the turn radius is similarly large. Many of these vessels no longer keep a watch (or have a legal requirement to keep a watch) in "deep ocean" because it's really easy to notice another bulk freighter, and anything else won't even slow you down. the fact that they have right of way in shipping lanes means that they dont need to carry the extra crew to keep a watch in any case, and when they are near port they are generally under tow (and again have right of way as "limited maneuverability" vessels while under tow: if they run you over it's *your* fault) This would certainly be precedent for "Active sensors powered down while in atmosphere": this actually makes sense for a civilian design, since the starport sensors are guarenteed to be better than anything your hull will mount, so you don't move until they give you your flight path.
Just don't pull this with a military design: I want to see your naval minister explain to a (formerly) friendly head of state why your most modern destroyer drove through a bulk freighter.
_____________________________
This is where I counter the "losing power in space is horribly bad". If your aircraft loses power and you don't deal with it in the space of minutes, even if you survive the experience you are unlikley to enjoy it. If your (wet navy) destroyer loses power it needs to worry about what to do before it gets near land, runs aground or sinks (due to the holes in its hull that often accompany "losing maneuvering power") Most space travel is boring. Very boring. Very very boring. (next 10 sentances omitted for brevity) unless this is catastrophic (in which case you don't care that you can't maneuver) you probably have hours (at least) or weeks to months (or however long your reserve life support is rated for) to fix the problem. This is more of an issue with "low tech" designs (like anything we currently use) since the maneuvering needed (due to very low delta-V capabilities) means that we have fairly tight "windows" for maneuvering: even so, the "launch window" for many probes is measured in weeks: with an extra Kilometer per second (that's a teeny fraction of a G-turn by the way) those problems go away.
Anyway, enough rambling. I'll try to track down my FF&S Tech 13 fleet units and polish up my low tech orbital fortification doctrine, along with the "Dominoes from Hell" long term defensive missile installations (the core of the doctrine, since low tech fleets can't maneuver for beans)
I also suspect that I'll be spending time discussing design trade-offs with Ron. On a related note does CCJoe (Joe Heck) lurk on this board, or has he stopped playing completely in the last few years?
Scott Martin
Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
I'm going to ask for a tall order.
A system that allows options of complexity chosen by the Referee that would be internally consistant. One that can be so simple that you can build ships with the one-line descriptors that are found in Mayday and allow for ship designs as complex as the ones from FF&S.
Depending on the game group that a Referee has, they may be interested in only the simple designs of Mayday (a ship is just something to get from here-to-there) or a group may want a ship that can be so customized and complex that special systems must be designed using FF&S. The tricky part will be having a system that has enough internal consistancy of rules to allow for this.
IMHO, this may also help with "starter" or "basic" versions of the game that could be created to garner more interest / new players for Traveller. Simple ship construction of simple ships for beginners is a nice thing to have.
Andrew Boulton
The Adminator
"One that can be so simple that you can build ships with the one-line descriptors that are found in Mayday and allow for ship designs as complex as the ones from FF&S."
That's close to my suggestion. Plugging modules together should be fairly simple, but if you need more complexity there's FF&S hiding underneath. (Or you could just use a pre-designed ship if you're really lazy).
There should be a two-level combat system to go along with this.
That's close to my suggestion. Plugging modules together should be fairly simple, but if you need more complexity there's FF&S hiding underneath. (Or you could just use a pre-designed ship if you're really lazy).
There should be a two-level combat system to go along with this.
Maladominus
SOC-14 1K
I see an SSD stats and full deckplan layout for the Romulan SuperHawk Battlecruiser from Star Fleet Battles!
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Combat system: wargame or character involvement?
For the basic game I'd go with character involvement.
Now decide what each character gets to do, T20 has good rules for this.
Captain - tactics
pilot - movement and evasion
engineer - red lining engines and damage control
sensor operators - identify targets, boonus to hit, ECM, ECCM.
gunner - fires weapons, controls missiles, and operates defences.
general crew - damage control
Next think about the info you need about your ship, or the enemy ships, to let each characer do his job.
pilot - maneuver and agility/evasion rating
engineer - excess power distribution options, damage control rating
sensor operator - sensor ratings, ship signatures
gunner - weapon range, damage, reloads
general crew -damage control rating.
Finally how will weapons cause damage, how will this be recorded?
Then start thinking about the design system that allows each of these to be determined in the simplest manner - LBB2 with bits added
For the basic game I'd go with character involvement.
Now decide what each character gets to do, T20 has good rules for this.
Captain - tactics
pilot - movement and evasion
engineer - red lining engines and damage control
sensor operators - identify targets, boonus to hit, ECM, ECCM.
gunner - fires weapons, controls missiles, and operates defences.
general crew - damage control
Next think about the info you need about your ship, or the enemy ships, to let each characer do his job.
pilot - maneuver and agility/evasion rating
engineer - excess power distribution options, damage control rating
sensor operator - sensor ratings, ship signatures
gunner - weapon range, damage, reloads
general crew -damage control rating.
Finally how will weapons cause damage, how will this be recorded?
Then start thinking about the design system that allows each of these to be determined in the simplest manner - LBB2 with bits added
And probably, the solution will be a revision of FFS2, which can produce devices which have dual stats: one detailed, and one modular. The revision will be tuned to produce something similar to the sort of modules we see in LBB2.
The hard part might be with Andrew's suggestion: to have two consistent levels of combat.
Scott,
The Near-C Rock Problem
This sounds very similar to the done-to-death "Near-C Rock" topic that's been discussed for at least 10 years (and probably 20+) by Traveller geeks.
The only way to avoid this is to enforce a diminishing acceleration based on one's velocity relative to whatever the reactionless drive is using to produce thrust. Or something! Magic... woo hoo!
In other words, thruster plates don't say you can't do it, but it doesn't exist in Traveller, so we wave our hands and just play, or find another game that has better hard sci-fi.
Specialized Ships
Pretty much what I've always preferred.
If You Lose Power, You're Dead
This was a misunderstanding. What Ron meant by "lose power" was probably "power plant [unfixably] dies". Unless the cavalry come to your rescue, it doesn't matter how much time you have.
In bracketing [unfixably], I understand that referees are sometimes kind to players who become attached to their characters, and provide a possible way to survive.
Scott Martin
SOC-13
The crux of the issue for "Design" is really how does this hardware tie into the game system. High guard was (IMHO) deeply flawed: if I had enough "tactics" I could take a slow (maneuver / agility 1 or 2) beam armed fleet into short range against a fast (maneuver / agility 5 or 6) missile armed fleet.
No matter how crappy a tactician my opponent is, no navy will tolerate a comander that suicidal (oops, I meen "foolhardy") in command.
I'd suggest a three tiered system, in increasing order of complexity
1) Hard Core Roleplayers (Space Opera)
You don't really need a lot of detail here: "You are on board the INS Reaver, a ship renowned for her speed and heavy weapons, veteran of a dozen fleet engagements and the winner of the fleet starburst for piracy supression in the Crucis sector"
-Make it up, you don't really care about the fleet engagement, it's there to drive the plot. The players just use ships to get from "A" to "Trouble"
2) Intermediate gearheads ("soft core" SF)
This is the level at which High Guard was aimed at. Put together some components and see how it works together. The players have an interest in how things work but are unwilling to spend hours with a spreadsheet to upgrade the sensor suite of their ship (this ties back to the beginning of this thread)
This "simplified" system would also be useful for abstracting fleet engagements. As mentioned above, High Guard has a few major problems with ranges etc. I would see this system (as a wargame) having fairly limited maneuver options, such as
</font>
3) Hardcore Gearheads (Hard SF)
This is for those players who are into the game because they like designing or tweaking stuff. The vast majority of players and GM's have no interest in going here, but you need a core group to build the "modules" that fit into the abstracted level above. This will give you a combat system like "Brilliant Lances" but the really hard-core folks will be using the alternate sensor rules and plotting movement via (possibly computer aided) vector plotting, possibly 3-D vector plotting. This type of "play" tends to put more emphasis on the equipment and not the role playing, so it is generally reserved for "behind the scenes" play (or those pesky GM's).
I will note that as a GM I am firmly in group #3, but I recognize that most of my players (and most players generally) fall into group 1 or 2 (Group 1 players are often seen playing "Star Ace" and more recently "Serenity") so I put in a fair amount of effort to make the tech stay "Behind the curtain".
As a player I'm pretty bad at living in group 1, since I don't try things that I "know" are impossible. (That's what Fantasy RPG's are for!)
Scott Martin
No matter how crappy a tactician my opponent is, no navy will tolerate a comander that suicidal (oops, I meen "foolhardy") in command.
I'd suggest a three tiered system, in increasing order of complexity
1) Hard Core Roleplayers (Space Opera)
You don't really need a lot of detail here: "You are on board the INS Reaver, a ship renowned for her speed and heavy weapons, veteran of a dozen fleet engagements and the winner of the fleet starburst for piracy supression in the Crucis sector"
-Make it up, you don't really care about the fleet engagement, it's there to drive the plot. The players just use ships to get from "A" to "Trouble"
2) Intermediate gearheads ("soft core" SF)
This is the level at which High Guard was aimed at. Put together some components and see how it works together. The players have an interest in how things work but are unwilling to spend hours with a spreadsheet to upgrade the sensor suite of their ship (this ties back to the beginning of this thread)
This "simplified" system would also be useful for abstracting fleet engagements. As mentioned above, High Guard has a few major problems with ranges etc. I would see this system (as a wargame) having fairly limited maneuver options, such as
</font>
- Close Range</font>
- Open Range</font>
- Maintain range</font>
- Pursue</font>
- Break Contact</font>
3) Hardcore Gearheads (Hard SF)
This is for those players who are into the game because they like designing or tweaking stuff. The vast majority of players and GM's have no interest in going here, but you need a core group to build the "modules" that fit into the abstracted level above. This will give you a combat system like "Brilliant Lances" but the really hard-core folks will be using the alternate sensor rules and plotting movement via (possibly computer aided) vector plotting, possibly 3-D vector plotting. This type of "play" tends to put more emphasis on the equipment and not the role playing, so it is generally reserved for "behind the scenes" play (or those pesky GM's).
I will note that as a GM I am firmly in group #3, but I recognize that most of my players (and most players generally) fall into group 1 or 2 (Group 1 players are often seen playing "Star Ace" and more recently "Serenity") so I put in a fair amount of effort to make the tech stay "Behind the curtain".
As a player I'm pretty bad at living in group 1, since I don't try things that I "know" are impossible. (That's what Fantasy RPG's are for!)
Scott Martin
T20 is NOT perfect. But, for ships, it comes to right about the level of detail I've found needed for my RPG groups for ships.
MT gets too gearheaded for my players most of the time, not it number of axies to calculate, but in detail levels in each axis.
When one starts looking at, say T4 designs, the SSDS designs are far different than "Pure" FF&S2 designs. Even further were QSDS designs. It created a number of problems.
I need to know, when I GM, how many people, how much cargo, how many weapons, how fast, how far, how pricey. It's nice to know how agile, and what can I see... Player demand might be part of the reason WEG-SW-2 included sensor rules...
I also need rules that work well with characters. If characters don't matter, it's a wargame, not an RPG adjunct, no matter what it's packaged with.
I look at the Serenity RPG, and wonder why Chris didn't get better cargo rules in there... but I do see a strong desire to focus on playable, not realistic. (My current player base is half unwilling to do sci-fi of any flavor. So I can't actually try it yet.)
Scott's comments aboout No Win Wars are, honestly, relatively without merit... if they had merit, the USSR and US would have launched armageddon. Almost half a century ago. Something keeps people from engaging in such for the most part. Anyone who would use it will soon find everyone else gang up to do them off...
Specialized ships are full of merit, but the current ships are still multi role in all current major navies. But multi-role is NOT Jack of all trades. Aircraft carriers are not just anti-shipping, nor air cover, nor ASW, but service all three, and have hospital ship and transport capability as well. By being carriers, they can readily be respecialized for one of these roles quickly. Most cruisers now are both partol (the cruiser's original purpose), surface warfare, and surveilance, with some anti-air and anti-submarine capability. Submarines again combine anti-shipping and anti-ground capabilities, courtesy of the newer weapons systems, and many also do occasional science runs and surveilance.
Even simple systems need this realism level to feel right: multi-role capable, but not jack of all trades capable.
MT gets too gearheaded for my players most of the time, not it number of axies to calculate, but in detail levels in each axis.
When one starts looking at, say T4 designs, the SSDS designs are far different than "Pure" FF&S2 designs. Even further were QSDS designs. It created a number of problems.
I need to know, when I GM, how many people, how much cargo, how many weapons, how fast, how far, how pricey. It's nice to know how agile, and what can I see... Player demand might be part of the reason WEG-SW-2 included sensor rules...
I also need rules that work well with characters. If characters don't matter, it's a wargame, not an RPG adjunct, no matter what it's packaged with.
I look at the Serenity RPG, and wonder why Chris didn't get better cargo rules in there... but I do see a strong desire to focus on playable, not realistic. (My current player base is half unwilling to do sci-fi of any flavor. So I can't actually try it yet.)
Scott's comments aboout No Win Wars are, honestly, relatively without merit... if they had merit, the USSR and US would have launched armageddon. Almost half a century ago. Something keeps people from engaging in such for the most part. Anyone who would use it will soon find everyone else gang up to do them off...
Specialized ships are full of merit, but the current ships are still multi role in all current major navies. But multi-role is NOT Jack of all trades. Aircraft carriers are not just anti-shipping, nor air cover, nor ASW, but service all three, and have hospital ship and transport capability as well. By being carriers, they can readily be respecialized for one of these roles quickly. Most cruisers now are both partol (the cruiser's original purpose), surface warfare, and surveilance, with some anti-air and anti-submarine capability. Submarines again combine anti-shipping and anti-ground capabilities, courtesy of the newer weapons systems, and many also do occasional science runs and surveilance.
Even simple systems need this realism level to feel right: multi-role capable, but not jack of all trades capable.
Scott Martin
SOC-13
Robject
the other alternative to the near C rock problem is use different ruled for your Traveller Universe I'll stop talking about this, since it has been a topic of discussion forever, I was just too lazy to search the archives for this board.
Aramis (Specialized ships)
I can't think of a navy that has laid down a cruiser class ship in more than a decade. This doesn't mean that there aren't any (I'm not an expert on the subject by any stretch of the imagination) but the large multi-role ship seems to have largely disappeared from the major fleets of the world. I have a suspicion that the Kirov Class will be the last big surface combatant we see for a while. I'll point out that the ships most capable of multi-role operations are carriers and assault transports, both of which are (by neccessity) quite large. The smaller vessels (and with this I'll include submarines, although some SSBN's are larger than WW2 carriers) tend to "reconfigure" by changing their armament load-out. I definitely agree that "multi role capable" seems to be the aim of many classes of smaller vessels, but there is a difference between multi-role capable and multi role effective.
I think that we may want to spin off another topic (or two) since this thread was supposed to be about what a starship system should look like, so I'm feeling a bit bad about the wild tangents that this has been taking.
Anyone have comments on the three-tiered system?
Scott Martin
the other alternative to the near C rock problem is use different ruled for your Traveller Universe
I'll stop talking about this, since it has been a topic of discussion forever, I was just too lazy to search the archives for this board.Aramis (Specialized ships)
I can't think of a navy that has laid down a cruiser class ship in more than a decade. This doesn't mean that there aren't any (I'm not an expert on the subject by any stretch of the imagination) but the large multi-role ship seems to have largely disappeared from the major fleets of the world. I have a suspicion that the Kirov Class will be the last big surface combatant we see for a while. I'll point out that the ships most capable of multi-role operations are carriers and assault transports, both of which are (by neccessity) quite large. The smaller vessels (and with this I'll include submarines, although some SSBN's are larger than WW2 carriers) tend to "reconfigure" by changing their armament load-out. I definitely agree that "multi role capable" seems to be the aim of many classes of smaller vessels, but there is a difference between multi-role capable and multi role effective.
I think that we may want to spin off another topic (or two) since this thread was supposed to be about what a starship system should look like, so I'm feeling a bit bad about the wild tangents that this has been taking.
Anyone have comments on the three-tiered system?
Scott Martin
Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
A 3-tiered combat system would be good, but change the emphasis for Tier 1 from "Hardcore Roleplayers" to "Neophyte Gamers". A good example of Tier 1 could be a QSDS system created by Derek Wildstar (I'll post a link when I get off work) and resembles the space combat system given in T4. Tier 2 could be the system represented by Mayday/CT/T20 with PC skills being important. Tier 3 being the Brilliant Lances/Battle Rider level of space combat.
I would suggest considering a Tier 4 to represent the Trillion Credit Squadron/Imperium/Invasion Earth/Dark Nebula level of strategic wargaming to make sure that the overall system covers all the bases - plus it might just attract more players to Traveller from wargaming if implemented.
I would suggest considering a Tier 4 to represent the Trillion Credit Squadron/Imperium/Invasion Earth/Dark Nebula level of strategic wargaming to make sure that the overall system covers all the bases - plus it might just attract more players to Traveller from wargaming if implemented.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I think a multi tier system is a great idea. It's also been the holy grail of ship design/combat system for me.
What follows is all IMHO, YMMV etc.
CT almost had it.
LBB2 for a couple of ships per side. Mayday for task force/squadron level, High Guard for fleet.
When Starter edition came out there was the neophyte system.
The problem for me was High Guard - too abstract and a totally different ship paradigm to the rest of CT. Oh, and nothing for most of the crew to do.
MT comes close. If the ship design could have been simplified to LBB2 - which it can be - if the ship combat had been explained better and crew tasks been more fully developed.
A vector movement system could be tagged on for the purists.
TNE comes closest IMHO. A role playing scale combat system in the core rules, Brilliant Lances, and then Battle Rider. Problem is the combat resolution system is too complicated, and ship design could still do with being simplified to LBB2 level.
T4 tried, and if you use the stuff off the web, it was almost successful. It also gave us Pocket Empires and Imperial Squadrons for that fourth tier Jeff mentions.
Both TNE and T4 tried to base their simplified design systems off the more complex underpining of FF&S - TNE managed it with the BL Technical booklet, but T4 was confusing. Both need to be further simplified to end up with modular pick and mix. Or rather, the modules must be simple, the work that's gone on in the background... that's the fun bit
T20, excellent for player scale, broken for large ships. Ship design is High Guard level complexity, but, as others have said, it chose to go backwards rather than forwards. Everything wrong with HG ship design is wrong with T20. These problems could be fixed by a FF&S like architecture underneath T20's system or extrapolation of the charts and tables.
With T5 you have a blank slate - and you can take the best bits from other editions
What follows is all IMHO, YMMV etc.
CT almost had it.
LBB2 for a couple of ships per side. Mayday for task force/squadron level, High Guard for fleet.
When Starter edition came out there was the neophyte system.
The problem for me was High Guard - too abstract and a totally different ship paradigm to the rest of CT. Oh, and nothing for most of the crew to do.
MT comes close. If the ship design could have been simplified to LBB2 - which it can be - if the ship combat had been explained better and crew tasks been more fully developed.
A vector movement system could be tagged on for the purists.
TNE comes closest IMHO. A role playing scale combat system in the core rules, Brilliant Lances, and then Battle Rider. Problem is the combat resolution system is too complicated, and ship design could still do with being simplified to LBB2 level.
T4 tried, and if you use the stuff off the web, it was almost successful. It also gave us Pocket Empires and Imperial Squadrons for that fourth tier Jeff mentions.
Both TNE and T4 tried to base their simplified design systems off the more complex underpining of FF&S - TNE managed it with the BL Technical booklet, but T4 was confusing. Both need to be further simplified to end up with modular pick and mix. Or rather, the modules must be simple, the work that's gone on in the background... that's the fun bit
T20, excellent for player scale, broken for large ships. Ship design is High Guard level complexity, but, as others have said, it chose to go backwards rather than forwards. Everything wrong with HG ship design is wrong with T20. These problems could be fixed by a FF&S like architecture underneath T20's system or extrapolation of the charts and tables.
With T5 you have a blank slate - and you can take the best bits from other editions
As far as FFSx goes, you can currently create modular bits, but there seems to be no incentive to do it. If you're going to custom-build some stuff, then no-one's going to want it because it would be quite specialized.
A little ego-involvement could help here.
A little ego-involvement could help here.
