Ship Design Systems

[Scott Martin]

Married White Male? (MWM)

I'm struggling for an acronym that gives something like "underlying structural issues" which is what I get from the context. As you can guess, I googled it first.

I suspect that the number of folks that using T20 is an unfortunate indicator of the confidence in the strength of the underlying games system in T4. That said, I'd really like to have a system that is clean and playable.

I think that the most sensible plan is:
1) Calibrate the current system
2) Update the system so that it works in the Real World(tm)
3) Extend the system into "high tech" land
4) make sure that the underlying games system ties into this, and is playable
5) Build enough "high level" stuff that people can design at the LBB-2 level of abstraction

I think that #4 is probably the hardest part, and I have hopes that T5 will get there. All of these will probably take a LOT of input and constructive feedback from folks.

Failing a cleanly integrated system, I'll settle for one where the heavy equipment (tanks and starships) work in "real physics" land, and I'll use T20 (or the hero system, or Rock-Paper-Scissors) to do the role playing, and Traveller to do the "wargaming" in.

Scott Martin

 

[mike wightman]

The problem is what is real physics in 5000AD?

Which of the various Traveller tech paradigms do we start from?

Which combat system is the design system supposed to model?

 

[aramis]

Well, lets start with an inventory, then.

Base Traveller assumptions:
</font>

• Firearms remain practical</font>
• Energy weapons are practical at higher TL's
  </font>
  • </font>
  • Energy Weapons do not replace small arms on infantry</font>
  • Energy Weapons do find a heavy infantry role</font>
  • Energy weapons supplant large (Vehicular) direct fire kinetic energy weapons</font>
• Jump-space
  </font>
  • 1 week per jump.</font>
  • isolated while jumping</font>
  • jump drive must go with object jumping</font>
  • No corresponding FTL Commo</font>
  • Carried bubble of N-Space</font>
  • No alteration of course while jumping</font>
  </font>
• Mid-high acceleration spacecraft common</font>
• Artificial Gravity</font>
• Natural Gravity disconnection
  </font>
  • Gravitic Thrust (CT, MT, Striker, T4, T20)</font>
  • Contragravity, 98% reduction in gravity's effects. TNE, T4</font>
  </font>
• Continuous improvement in biological and medical sciences.
  </font>
  • Anagathics</font>
  • Partial-cloning</font>
  • Genetic Engineering, including uplift</font>
  • Gender Alteration of clones</font>
  • Induction of regeneration</font>
  </font>
• Bastard Feudalism</font>
• Interstellar trade exists (Density of trade arguable...)</font>
• long standing imperium</font>
• multiple alien races
  </font>
  • Very detailed alien modules (CT/MT/TNE*), including tech system tie-ins</font>
  • Playable minimalist-design aliens in group products (GT, T4, T20/TNE*) No Tech system tie-ins</font>
  • Multiple alien empires</font>
  </font>

OK, quote this, remove the quote and /quote tags, and all my other text, and add in what else you feel needs to be in the inventory of what makes the traveller assumptions.

 

[GypsyComet]

Originally posted by Aramis:

[*]Mid-high acceleration spacecraft common
[*]Artificial Gravity
[*]Natural Gravity disconnection
</font>

• Gravitic Thrust (CT, MT, Striker, T4, T20)</font>
• Contragravity, 98% reduction in gravity's effects. TNE, T4</font>

I'd add "high ratio reaction drives exist for special circumstances" to allow some HEPlaR variation to exist.
This section also should have some statement as to the limits of Thruster plates, as having the lack of Near-C Rocks in the setting be purely social is unsatisfactory (particularly to the K'Kree).

 

[aramis]

Base Traveller assumptions:
</font>

• Firearms remain practical</font>
• Energy weapons are practical at higher TL's
  </font>
  • </font>
  • Energy Weapons do not replace small arms on infantry</font>
  • Energy Weapons do find a heavy infantry role</font>
  • Energy weapons supplant large (Vehicular) direct fire kinetic energy weapons</font>
• Jump-space
  </font>
  • 1 week per jump.</font>
  • isolated while jumping</font>
  • jump drive must go with object jumping</font>
  • No corresponding FTL Commo</font>
  • Carried bubble of N-Space</font>
  • No alteration of course while jumping</font>
  </font>
• Mid-high acceleration spacecraft common</font>
• high ratio reaction drives exist for special circumstances</font>
• Artificial Gravity</font>
• Natural Gravity disconnection
  </font>
  • Gravitic Thrust (CT, MT, Striker, T4, T20)</font>
  • Contragravity, 98% reduction in gravity's effects. TNE, T4</font>
  </font>
• Continuous improvement in biological and medical sciences.
  </font>
  • Anagathics</font>
  • Partial-cloning</font>
  • Genetic Engineering, including uplift</font>
  • Gender Alteration of clones</font>
  • Induction of regeneration</font>
  </font>
• Bastard Feudalism</font>
• Interstellar trade exists (Density of trade arguable...)</font>
• long standing imperium</font>
• multiple alien races
  </font>
  • Very detailed alien modules (CT/MT/TNE*), including tech system tie-ins</font>
  • Playable minimalist-design aliens in group products (GT, T4, T20/TNE*) No Tech system tie-ins</font>
  • Multiple alien empires</font>
  </font>

ANd I disagree about putting in the T4 restrictions, unless noted as such. They don't exist anywhere else in Traveller. At least, not yet that I'm aware of.

 

[mike wightman]

Which T4 restrictions do you mean?

And three to add:
</font>

• Nuclear damper technology</font>
• Meson weapon/screen technology</font>
• Acceleration compensators</font>

 

[GypsyComet]

I'd thought Thruster Plate limits were mentioned in MT as well, though in the "forbidden canon" of Starship Operator's Manual, IIRC. This was a horizon limit, though, not an acceleration ceiling, the idea being that it took special ships to effectively service deep space installations, as they were outside even Thrusters ability.

The "Near-C Rock" argument has been done to death elsewhere. The authors of T4's FF&S were as sick of it as I am, and since it always seemed to boil down to "the rules don't say I can't" vs. "the setting says it's never happened", those authors made sure that the rules conformed to the observed setting.

I would prefer to keep reaction drives as an option (even without the above limits), though not necessarily in the simplest incarnation of the design rules. Hard rules for them date to late MT.

 

[rhoneycutt]

I see a problem here....

Is this inventory specific to sci-fi RPG
or is it just for the OTU.

I think that to be useful as a game, The resulting rules/foundations must work for both.

aka, it must work for a reasonably 'hard' science setting of which OTU is but a single example. Firefly could be another example. 2300AD could be another example...and so , and so on. To build things otherwise is to restrict the refs into a single setting whether they like it or not.

The resulting tools must be able to build any number of settings, not just simulate a popular puplished one.

One thing I would want regardless, is for the tech stuff to be rated by mass, and not volume.

Because I am certain that any published rules will not be what I want in a game, the only alternative is to do it myself and not wait on Mr. Miller.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"The resulting tools must be able to build any number of settings, not just simulate a popular puplished one."

No, given that we're talking about a *Traveller* book, the only setting it *must* support is the OTU. Yes, ideally it should include alternate technologies, like FF&S1 did, but that's secondary. Covering specific universes (eg Firefly) may be a copyright/TM problem.

"One thing I would want regardless, is for the tech stuff to be rated by mass, and not volume."

They must be rated by both, and area if applicable.

 

[whartung]

I don't have any severe problem with an FFS system failing to duplicate a real world item, particularly something akin to small arms.

Get mixed up in any conversation with gun enthusiasts while they argue the details and differences between a .38, .40 S&W and .45 ACP pistol cartridge, and then show me a game system that can distinguish between them while at the same time letting you know precisely how effective/ineffective that firearm is against: a block of wood, a small dog, a human being, a civilian vehicle, a tank, and an internal starship hull.

Almost any system is going to fail at the edges while trying to remain balanced and reasonable in the middle.

I never had a problem with Heplar or thruster plates either, as both are a means to add the cinematic element of space travel in to the game, using technologies and physics we can, literally, only dream up.

You want starships to shoot lasers at each other? You're going to need some wacky mirrors, and "gravitic focusing" is simply an end to a means.

It has always been difficult to deal with the physicists in the party. The players arguing how big a door opening is, and how many people can fit at a time, etc. Here you have folks lobbing blob of fusing plasma at each other (or lightning bolts, or whatever), and they're debating the nuances of who can see what and can stand where. Such is the event.

The only real complaint I've had with the high tech FFS designs is simply the technology and its lethality. Grav tanks easily blotted out of the sky, whole populations obliterated by meson blasts, etc.

It's very difficult to keep a combat system simple, yet scalable, yet useful for actual play.

"We fly shuttle NoE, and crest the rise" "Ok, you're picked up by 4 fusion batteries 20 Miles away, who begin to fire speed of light energy weapons at you...you have .0001 seconds to react..."

And then you have the designs that abuse the system. The 19,900 ton ships, etc., playing on breaks in the charts since the systems are not infinitely scalable. All of the systems will have their abusers.

But I do like the idea of a FFS based system, but with some higher level modular components, particularly where you have a marketplace giving solid price reductions for these components, and one the feeds upon itself. Should be no reason we can do a LBB2 ship system using FFS components, where what you lose is efficiency and capability, you gain is costs and economics.

So, lots of modular traders, pleasure and scientific boats, perhaps less so for military. And basically, that's what distinguishes civilian and military grade equipment.

 

[robject]

What he said...

 

[rhoneycutt]

Andrew Boulton:
If all the rules are meant to do is simulate the OTU, then why bother with another set of rules anyways, seeing as what exists already does simulate the OTU. Also, you'd now have to choose which OTU as there seem to be several. And focusing only on the OTU automatically freezes out those who wish to play in some alternate setting. Cpoyright is not a problem so long as an individual does not publish his particular alternate setting inspired by someone else's commercial product. Wasn't one of the joys of the LBB's that you weren't forced into a particular setting, but you built it as you played?
What I meant concerning rating ships for mass instead of volume is determining their acceleration, for example. Heavily armored ships will have less performance than lightly armored ships for a given amount of thrust. Volume means nothing when figuring acceleration. Volume is only important when figuring how much stuff you can cram into a given hull size.

I also think any design sequence should be universal for any ship/vehicle from skateboards to planet busting battleships. It all depends on size, materials and what you hang off the hull/chassis/frame. Spaceships are vehicles, so there shouldn't be a seperate system for them.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"And focusing only on the OTU automatically freezes out those who wish to play in some alternate setting."

That's a risk you take when you choose not to use the OTU. How "frozen out" you are depends on how different you've decided to make YTU. Feel free to write up and submit your alternate tech. It may get included.

"Wasn't one of the joys of the LBB's that you weren't forced into a particular setting, but you built it as you played?"

Up to a point. Some things were hardwired into the rules (jump drive, no FTL comm, etc).

"What I meant concerning rating ships for mass instead of volume is determining their acceleration, for example."

Jump drives and thruster plates are rated based on volume. That's just the way they work. There's nothing stopping you from changing that IYTU.

 

[Scott Martin]

Hi Andrew

I would have to disagree: If "T5" uses the same underlying structures as TNE / T4, then my "Alternate Universe" doesn't change at all: if your universe uses a smaller subset than "official" traveller then you keep not using the relavant pieces. If your universe uses more stuff than the OTU, they you will still need to integrate the home-grown pieces.

(rant)
Most of the problem that people seem to have is the MT "Broke" LBB traveller (was not really backwards compatible) and TNE "Broke" MT AND LBB Traveller. This breaks the "official" universe for players just as badly as Traveller variant universes. IMO if the "official" Traveller doesn't want to keep hemmoraging players to GURPS then deciding on an underlying archietecture and sticking with it is needed (/rant)

If you are using TNE or T4, thrust is based on mass while jump performance is based on volume.

This IMO is a very nice contrast: the FTL "universe" is volume-limited, while the Newtonian "universe" is mass based. This means that building SDB's (designed to be non-ftl capable) with mass-effective armour (ice planetoid or fibreglass armour) instead of volume-effective armour makes sense.

FF&S also uses the same design and subcomponent sequences for all vehicles (spacecraft, tanks, aircraft etc.) The major problem with the system is that it is very "fine grained" so without a lot of "foundation" work (building complete sensor arrays, building starship weapons and control systems, building missiles for your turret to fire etc.) you can't actually build anything. This is a significant issue in why folks (like Robject) aren't enamoured with FF&S: LBB-2 allowed people to build a starship in a half hour after opening the book, while FF&S can take days to do the same. Changing the underlying structure (again) means that all the work constructing the subcomponents so that you *could* build LBB-2 stlye (albiet LBB-2 + spreadsheet). I'm willing to put in a moderate amount of effort doing component design to support the success of T5 if it is going to remain TNE / T4 compatible: if T5 is another "ground up" redesign, then my "Universe" will fork at TNE and any components that are built to support my universe become unavailable to other Traveller players (unless they also throw up their hands and say "to hell with it, I'm playing version "X") This fragmentation of Traveller is aparrent on this board, with a large number of players who have already been alienated from the newer "Canon" settings. This is where I should point out that while I like the TNE *ruleset* I think that the TNE *universe* sucks. But then this is a discussion on design systems, not settings...

Things I'd most like to see in FF&S-3 would be small nuclear (fission) plants: this would allow the construction of escape pods and small sensor drones / platforms at lower tech levels (below Tech-13) as well as a return to the finer-grained sensors: the Real World(tm) has fairly significant consequences for one side haviong a 10% advantage in sensor effectiveness, and T4 only has "order of magnitude" sensor increases.

Scott Martin

 

[mike wightman]

I like the way T4 tried to reconcile the tech paradigm changes between CT-MT-TNE by having HEPlaR as a lower TL solution, while the MT thruster plates could kick in at higher TLs.

IMHO the golden age 3rd Imperium allowed thruster plate maneuver drives at lower TLs because the high tech worlds supplied the parts - TL of a world didn't matter for annual maintenance, only starport type. That A or B starport could be on a TL7 or 5 world and still maintain and build ships or smallcraft.

By TNE the high TL industrial base was gone, hence the lower TL solution.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Scott Martin:
Most of the problem that people seem to have is the MT "Broke" LBB traveller (was not really backwards compatible) and TNE "Broke" MT AND LBB Traveller. This breaks the "official" universe for players just as badly as Traveller variant universes. IMO if the "official" Traveller doesn't want to keep hemmoraging players to GURPS then deciding on an underlying archietecture and sticking with it is needed.

IMHO High Guard broke LBB ships long before MT , but I agree completely with your underlying architecture point.

FF&S also uses the same design and...
<snip>

I agree with this as well.
An add on to the BL Technical Architecture booklet which has FF&S designed weapon systems at a range of TLs would have helped out a lot of casual ship designers.

Things I'd most like to see in FF&S-3 would be small nuclear (fission) plants: this would allow the construction of escape pods and small sensor drones / platforms at lower tech levels (below Tech-13) as well as a return to the finer-grained sensors: the Real World(tm) has fairly significant consequences for one side haviong a 10% advantage in sensor effectiveness, and T4 only has "order of magnitude" sensor increases.

Scott Martin

I like these ideas too

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I completely agree that the biggest problem with FF&S1/2 was the need to design everything yourself. A book of predesigned standard components is essential.

 

[rhoneycutt]

any rules that do not provide for any and every form of Traveller, from LBB's and MT, through TNE, T4 and Gurps will simply fragment the fanbase further. That base is already fragmented enough and may cause newcomers to stumble.

Rules must be separated from the setting, but allow that the many variations to the OTU setting be played without having to write new home-brew stuff. Even if the differences are added in, FF&S fashion, as alternate rules/techs.

There are other problems with the OTU, IMHO, but they are too far entrenched to do anything about (UWP's)

 

[GypsyComet]

I've said so elsewhere, but the goal that T4's design systems were aimed at is probably the ideal.

Three levels, mapping approximately to Book 2 (simple components), somewhere in the HG-to-MT range (more components with some things like drives going "custom", plus non-drive power considerations and mass are added), and FF&S/Striker (anything that can reasonably be customized has a design sequence).

For the most part, the simplest should be part of a base edition release, and should, as with Book 2, fit into a handful of pages at most. Alternately (or in addition, to facilitate the interaction between complexity levels) the two lower levels would share a book of their own with the space combat rules. Think of this as Book 2 and Book 5 melded into one volume, but with the two ship building systems cross-integrated so if someone wants to take a stock simple design and do a "Millenium Falcon" to it, they can without starting from scratch.

Finally you have the DIY book, which reiterates ship design only in the points where this level of detail varies from the middle system (for example, M-drives will look more efficient here because they no longer include access/maintenance space, while the other levels included it).

T4 failed to reach this goal for the Traveller masses for several reasons, one of which was that the three steps occured in the wrong order. Also, all three were written under withering deadlines.

edit:
As noted by Mr.-voiced-by-Sebastion-Cabot, such a project needs to be either intimately connected to T5, OR be universal enough to cover AT LEAST all the technology and options that have been considered Canon across the editions. This means, most obviously, providing HEPlaR and Thrusters, 1-ton "hull wart" turrets and TNE's "cans", CG that will allow *anything* to land given enough time, and an explanation, however dangerous, for why TNE could fit a useful jump drive into hulls smaller than 100 tons.

Much harder than *designing* these things would be the other holy grail of this project: back-processing designs from this project into the edition of the user's choice. I think it *can* be done, but not in any kind of hurry.

 

[Scott Martin]

Hey Gypsy Comet

The other issue is the chicken - egg problem.

Unless the T5 design team puts in a herculean effort to build an enormous set of components for the "Book2/Book5" analogue, then the "base edition" with simple components will be missing a LOT of pieces. The "Design" part of Brilliant Lances *really* annoyed me, since there was such a lack of gear presented, and missiles were (imo) completely freaking useless. Releasing the FF&S equavalent early will run into the same pitfalls as TNE: by the time that the player base has had time to build the tech for the universe, it has stagnated or (in this case) been superceded by the *next* version.

This is why I think that the best way to do this (logistically) is to make "T5" very similar to either T4 / TNE OR LBB traveller / MT, so that you can leverage the work done in previous versions of Traveller. At a MINIMUM this means that you cannot have any significant changes to the power generation, thruster, armour/materials, life support or jump design sequences. Significant changes in weapon design will seriously set back conversion work, but won't be show-stoppers.

If T5 is backwards compatible, then I suspect taht there are a lot of folks out there who would be delighted to have their favorite setting / equipment / navy become "Canon" in exchange for permission to use said setting / hardware in a (for profit) product. This immediately gives whoever is handling the Traveller "brand" (presumably Mark Miller) access to tens of person years of development and playtesting, for minimal cost. This could also be done as the RPG equavalent of an "Open Source" product, with rights to the (paper or PDF) version transferred to the "brand" in exchange for inclusion in the "official" universe. This second option would allow distribution of the "raw" content in electronic form (even non-typeset PDF) and probably serve to increase the player base (think of it as free advertising). Baen Books uses a variation of this model, with the first book(s) in a series being free for download, a digital book market, and a traditional hardcopy market all happily coexisting.

"Worst Case" from my point of view would be the aformentioned "redesign" at which point I (and yet another chunk of the remaining player base) will just say "to hell with this" and continue on with their universes based on previous versions of Traveller.

More than my $0.02, but I doubt that I'm the only person out there who has spent hundreds (or thousands) of hours into their universe to have "the world change" on them. I don't have a lot of time to play anymore, but am more than willing to "update" my universe as it gets digitally transcribed. If this update is too time consuming, then I simply won't bother. That loses the "Franchise" my support, and continues the fragmentation, as people wonder why no-one seems willing to update to the "latest and greatest" version.

Scott Martin