Ship Design Systems

[robject]

Well, we know that (6) was done (and done well enough) in TNE's Fire, Fusion, and Steel.

We also know that the detailed spreadsheet approach for (7) has been done (for Fire, Fusion, and Steel 2), and most of its users are (surprise!) gearheads.

(8) probably follows as a consequence of combat systems.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

A spreadsheet is almost essential. With it I can put a FF&S2 ship together as fast as a HG one.

 

[robject]

I stand corrected. 'Cause I don't think Andrew is a gearhead.

 

[Ptah]

Originally posted by robject:
Well, we know that (6) was done (and done well enough) in TNE's Fire, Fusion, and Steel.

Nice to see that a part of my wish list already exist. I'll admit my knowledge of TNE is limited to what I see on the internet, but not for want of trying to get a copy. From what I've seen it includes the CT and HG weapons. Did it also discuss such non-CT and non-HG weapons as anti-matter, gravitational weapons (e.g., oscillating repulser/tractor beams), tractor beams, ion weapons, etc. that find a home in some Sci-Fi universes? Was thought given to exploring weapons that might develop if we were better able to manipulate the strong nuclear force, discovered a way to make (even temporarily) magnetic monopoles (which can also provide a basis for photon focusing), create beams of more exotic particles (e.g., positronium which can decay into photons and electrons-antielectrons; quarkonium which among other things can annihilate into gluons; nuclear molecules; etc.)?

We also know that the detailed spreadsheet approach for (7) has been done (for Fire, Fusion, and Steel 2), and most of its users are (surprise!) gearheads.

Not surprised.

I assume the original audience for FFS composed a large percentage of gearheads and hence the market for FFS2 was pre-selected. A spread-sheet with a freindly GUI and shipped with the rules I think would attract non-gearheads as well. I also just want a nicer spreadsheet than the one's I've made myself.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Originally posted by robject:
I stand corrected. 'Cause I don't think Andrew is a gearhead.

I used to be. Still am a bit, but don't have the time.

 

[whartung]

Originally posted by Ptah:
Was thought given to exploring weapons that might develop if we were better able to manipulate the strong nuclear force, discovered a way to make (even temporarily) magnetic monopoles (which can also provide a basis for photon focusing), create beams of more exotic particles (e.g., positronium which can decay into photons and electrons-antielectrons; quarkonium which among other things can annihilate into gluons; nuclear molecules; etc.)?

No, it was mostly alternative drives and power plants. The things you ask for are, basically, part of the combat system and indirectly part of the design sequence. The TNE rule book had rules for all of the weapons in FFS, it just didn't have any actual ships that used them, nor much other information.

The drive and powerplants it added are much easier to add to the system than adding new weapons, particularly weapons that didn't fit well into the basic PEN based damage system of TNE.

 

[aramis]

Respectfully, Rob, 6 Has NOT been done well by TNE's FF&S. Nor by T4's FF&S2.

The alternative techs in FF&S are a handful of drive techs, many of which are real world and most of these were directly from MT sources. The few "extraordinary" ones were wildly afield (Dean Drive, coming to mind). Keyhole drives and hyperspace were not well developed, and while designable, were barely playable as written, too little about HOW they worked.

The weapons list, sequences, however, don't cover APAWS, don't cover DF-EMP weapons. Nor does it cover the HG Repulser nor Tractors, nor Dampers as weapons, nor the MT Disintigrators.

The Powerguns of Hammers' and the Willyguns of Sten are perfect for adaptation.

Further, the personal weapons sequences are sorely off; taking the stats from T2K weapons (done by RW data applied to the damage forumlae), versus doing the same round and barrel length in FF&S...

Of course, I was able to do a Meson Gun Battle Dress unit with it...

 

[robject]

Bleah. I don't know of a lot of people who actually tried to use FFS1 for non-Traveller universes, but stuff was there. I had forgotten about keyhole drives and Dean Drives, too; I was mainly thinking of the stargate. I think the writeups they did describing what's required to do those things was well done, but I see that it's just not as detailed as the OTU stuff.

But then, they're not Traveller, so I didn't expect them to be very detailed.

 

[aramis]

Well, Stargates are canonical TL 20+ (Secret of the Ancients)

 

[robject]

And in fact, I used them in a very limited way in a Rebellion-era campaign (a nail mission to Black War-plagued Zarushagar's Depot) to cover a sector-sized distance in a short time. I just didn't specify how they worked (figuring they're near enough to jumpdrivelikeness that I could cook up requirements if necessary). (At that time, I didn't know that FFS1 talked about them).

Man, now I want to build "subway" maps through the Grand Imperium...

 

[Scott Martin]

If they're possible at (relatively) low tech, I can see them linking High-Pop worlds. Reasons are wholly economic:

1) Cost for maintenance is more than offset by reduced costs for fuel

2) Transports can devote more volume (since jump is volume-based, not mass-based) to actually carrying cargo, so a given transport will be more cost-effective

There are a few military reasons as well, but they're pretty much self-explanatory.

I'm planning on using "modified" lower-tech stargates IMTU to reduce fuel requirements: a jump "stabilized" by a pair of stargate-like structure reduces jump fuel usage, while a "real" stargate becomes available at higher tech levels (probably based on the keyhole drive instead of stargates proper, and enforcing the ~1 week per transit requirement)

If stargates allow transport faster than 1 week/jump then they become *vital* military installations, and a significant commercial edge for systems that have them.

Scott Martin

 

[Scott Martin]

Aramis:

IMO CT A-PAWS are more than a tad silly: the actual amounts of "matter" accellerated by a PAW is probably in the milligram range for a big PAW, so the CT "A-PAW hit destroys ship" is a bit hard to swallow for ships that can take hits from nuclear missiles and survive. I (personally) was glad to see them disappear. I think that *missiles* with antimatter warheads would probably be the first "Weapon" developed for use of antimatter, and this would probably appear around Tech/14 with small enough fusion plants to allow the missile to generate its own containment field. Thas said, *I* wouldn't want to be crew on the ship carrying them...

One of the things that I liked about Traveller in general (and FF&S-1) is the consistent attempt to keep "Zap Guns" out of the universe. Don't get me started on Meson Guns, but other than (IMO) that they've done a pretty good job.

Most of the "exotic" weapons can be modeled either as a PAW, "Energy" (Fusion / Plasma) or laser based weapon, since TNE and later systems all use the "pump lots of energy into the target and make it go 'boom'" design sequences. More energy = sqrt(more damage)

Scott Martin

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi Scott !

Just to be curious: What exactly do You think is the problem with A-PAWS ?

 

[Scott Martin]

A-PAWS kill a ship if they hit it. "Zap"

The amount of antimatter "payload" that an A-PAW could accellerate to relativistic velocities would be in the milligram range at best.
Since the hull armour on many MT ships could arguably *take* a contact hit from a nuke (see note below) this struck me as silly. Even more silly was the fact that A-PAWS appeared before antimatter warhead missiles. This led me to the conclusion that "zap guns" were cool (sell product) but logical extensions of physics were too uninteresting to add.

(math warning)
Admittedly 1 mg of antimatter should result in a about 90 gigajoules of impact energy, but at relatavistic velocities (.99C+), 1 mg of *anything* will result in 45 gigajoules of energy (e=MC^2 for your "conversion" energy , Ek=1/2MV^2, V~C, Ek=1/2MC^2) At "best" you triple your impact energy, but this would be at the cost of a lot of fancy gear to ensure you didn't blow your PAW to bits with any "remnant" antimatter, and I'd be really interested to see how they get 100% "perfect" recombination when converting the C-PAW to an N-PAW for vaccum use. This is less of an issue for a "normal" PAW, since you probably don't care if you collide with a few charged particles, but is more of an issue when those particles are so "energetic" (Perhaps twin PAWS, one negatively charged, one positively charged)
(/math warning)

The pragmatist in me suspects that simply making a bigger N-PAW would give you the same effect for less cost and less risk. If you're willing to take the risk, why not use missiles with a real payload (grams to kilograms) of antimatter: a 1 g payload kicks your contact yield to 90 TJ (alomst 10^17 J) and a kilogram gives you another three orders of magnitude. At the tech level available, powering the missile with a fusion reactor capable of doing the containment is a no-brainer (See the HEPLAR missile designs starting at Tech-13, all powered by a fusion plant) and I bet you that it's a lot more cost effective to fire 1,000 missiles than to build a platform capable of mounting an A-PAW. My current (T-13) missile corvette design should be able to cram in about 80 missiles (I'm still tweaking the design) on a roughly 300 Td hull: that's 12 300Td corvettes against the cost of a massive battleship We can do an analysis on the number of corvettes and missiles the BB can kill, but I'm pretty sure that 3 missile corverttes/kiloton of cap ship (or more accurately, 240 nasty missiles/Kton of cap ship) will make life difficult for the capship.

And yes, I'm trying to slant the universe (at least my universe) back towards the "small ship" universe of yore, but this is a big part of the reason that (non-carrier) naval combatants has shrunk in the post WW-2 era: if one missle can take out your ship, then more, smaller ships are a better idea.

Note on Nukes in CT/MT:
Since CT/MT didn't have bomb pumped lasers, they had to assume that you were really lobbing nukes at each other. Have you ever tried to kill a cap ship with nukes using HG? it takes a LOOOONG time if said ship is armoured.

Scott Martin

 

[mike wightman]

High Guard really underpowered missiles compared with CT IMHO - especially when you get a look at how lethal the missiles from the Missiles Special Supplement could be.

I'm all in favour of missiles being able to kill large ships, hence the need for all those point defence systems, nuclear dampers etc.

When a capital ship detects the missile swarm inbound there should be a moment of concern - can we stop that many

It also provides an extra reason for having small, agile escort vessels or fighters that can help with the missile interception.

GT does this well I believe, and allowing contact detonating missiles (nuke or HEAP) or KKM in TNE does this also.

 

[aramis]

Scott:
The APAW is delivering more energy on target for similar volume (and thus maintenance time, by the rules). Cost is therefore irrelevant to the military mind.

Making a "Bigger NPAW" is not likely to be practical in some situations.

Besides, tripling the EOT vs an NPAW in roughly the same space is well worth it.

 

[Ptah]

Scott Martin:

And yes, I'm trying to slant the universe (at least my universe) back towards the "small ship" universe of yore, but this is a big part of the reason that (non-carrier) naval combatants has shrunk in the post WW-2 era: if one missle can take out your ship, then more, smaller ships are a better idea.

It makes sense then that missiles could fill this role nicely, and/or a "zap" weapon, as you put it, that has a hard time targeting smaller ships. The "zap" missile is also another possibility, which I think you've worked out, where one missile (not just one salvo) can take down the largest ship. So you are aiming for carrier based fleets I presume?

 

[Ptah]

Sigg Odra

When a capital ship detects the missile swarm inbound there should be a moment of concern - can we stop that many

I heartily agree with this, for me the emphasis being on swarm, as I like to slant MTU to massive battleships suported by escorts.

I also like the idea of the missile being deadlier at short range so there should be concern if a squadron of enemy fighters penetrate the fleet's fighter screen.

The combat system alteration being, missile defenses are very good at taking out incoming missiles (due to increased vulnerability to fire not necessarily increased susceptability), so missiles fired at short range have a much better chance to hit. This provides a role for the fighter/a more heavily armored missile delivery vehicle.

I like escorts so much in my modified version of HG combat I've added an escort "box" to the force "box" with rules geared to supporting designs of escorts. Actually two designs, one anti-figther, one anti-missile.

 

[Scott Martin]

Hey Ptah

No, Fighters are too small to be a real threat: their sensor range and endurance is so limited that they are "easy meat" for larger vessels.

I'm more envisioning lots of "PT-boat" sized combatants supporting larger specialty-built ships. There are only two roles I can see for "Big Ships" in this type of environment:

1) Really nasty bristling with point defence monsters (obvious)
2) Invasion, Support, Transport or Merchant vessels

If you are building one of the aformentioned monsters then you are playing a dangerous game: you can stop N missiles, but a N+1 you loose a lot of investment.

I can actually see the Imperium favoring "Big Ships" if only because they can afford to lose a big ship to every small ship their opponents can field and still come out (economically) ahead. Possible exceptions being the Solly's and Zho's, but if *they* can be convinced to build big ships too, then there's no problem maintaining a balance of power.

This assumes a somewhat cynical view that the "Major" powers are more interested in keeping the "minor" powers in line than actually expanding their borders against other major powers.

Scott Martin

 

[whartung]

Ok, I give. Please define PAW, C-PAW, and N-PAW. I'm assuming PAW == Partical Accelerator Weapon, ala Bay and Spinal mounts, but C- and N- leave me blinkered.