Smaller ships are coming to win us

[nats]

I would say the only ships that are designed using the original Book 2 rules are the ships in the original 3 books - the Scout, etc. All of the rest were done after High Guard and would have been heavily influenced by that release.

Its rather difficult to base rules for a modern sci-fi game on those original books they are so vague and in some places very old fashioned (computers and laser rifle backbacks etc). I love their quirkiness though.

 

[Whipsnade]

Use the tools. Don't let the tools use you.

Beautifully put, GC. HG2 can be used to create a small ship universe just as HG2 can be used to create a universe where fighters work. While HG2 has rules for million dTon hulls and TL F, it doesn't require or demand that you only use million dTon hulls and TL F.

If you want fighters, all you need do is cap tech level. If you want small ships, all you need do is cap tonnage.

Nothing could be easier.

Using the HG2 combat system in a small ship universe provides several benefits too. You've more weapons and defenses to choose from, you can group weapons into batteries, and critical hits can make combat both fast and exciting.

Further illustrating critical hits, the Vargr corsair sports a factor-5 fusion gun battery which means it can inflict critical hits on ships smaller than 500dTon, ships like other corsairs, patrol cruisers, SDBs, subbies, free and far traders, scouts and seekers.

...and a 2000 ton Strike Cruiser...

Great list, Agorski. Thanks for putting it together and posting it.

If you don't mind one proviso, the Zho strike cruiser design found in Expedition to Zhodane and Broadsword is badly broken and some of the other designs may be too.

 

[aramis]

Beautifully put, GC. HG2 can be used to create a small ship universe just as HG2 can be used to create a universe where fighters work. While HG2 has rules for million dTon hulls and TL F, it doesn't require or demand that you only use million dTon hulls and TL F.

If you want fighters, all you need do is cap tech level. If you want small ships, all you need do is cap tonnage.

Nothing could be easier.

Using the HG2 combat system in a small ship universe provides several benefits too. You've more weapons and defenses to choose from, you can group weapons into batteries, and critical hits can make combat both fast and exciting.

Further illustrating critical hits, the Vargr corsair sports a factor-5 fusion gun battery which means it can inflict critical hits on ships smaller than 500dTon, ships like other corsairs, patrol cruisers, SDBs, subbies, free and far traders, scouts and seekers.

The HG system is TOO deadly to small ships. One on a merchant is usually a mission kill.

 

[mike wightman]

I would say the only ships that are designed using the original Book 2 rules are the ships in the original 3 books - the Scout, etc. All of the rest were done after High Guard and would have been heavily influenced by that release.

All the ships in The Traveller Adventure and the ships in the Alien Races modules - apart from the K'Kree - were LBB2 designs. Most of them are unbroken too

 

[Whipsnade]

The HG system is TOO deadly to small ships. One on a merchant is usually a mission kill.

But isn't that the way it should be Wil? Armed merchantmen can slap each other around for hours but, when a real warship arrives, the party is over. Besides even in both LLB2 and Mayday, damage increases rapidly as turrets and their weapons are added.

Look at LBB:2's patrol cruiser. It has six lasers and six missiles launchers along with a computer large enough to run Target and Launch with 3 active program spaces left open. It's going to go through the player's Suleiman, Beowulf, or Marava like green corn through a goose. The merc crusier is even worse. While it has no weapons listed, it can carry up to 24 along with a computer even better than the patrol cruiser's.

Mayday may feature fewer weapons, but the successive damage rule means it's easier to destroy ships outright than in LBB:2.

I don't see how HG2 is that much more deadly. Sure, one volley's critical hits can mission kill a player's ship but the same thing can happen almost as easily in LBB:2 and Mayday.

 

[kilemall]

The HG system is TOO deadly to small ships. One on a merchant is usually a mission kill.

I would agree with that assessment.

Using it out of the box.

However, using range as a to-hit AND damage limiter can change the equation.

 

[kilemall]

One difference between CT and all other systems (I think) is that one could upgrade the computer to run Maneuver/Evade with the -5 modifier, and it will be darn hard to hit that ship.

You'll probably be spending 50% or more of the cost of the ship to do it, but it can make for a more survivable ACS.

 

[aramis]

But isn't that the way it should be Wil? Armed merchantmen can slap each other around for hours but, when a real warship arrives, the party is over. Besides even in both LLB2 and Mayday, damage increases rapidly as turrets and their weapons are added.

Look at LBB:2's patrol cruiser. It has six lasers and six missiles launchers along with a computer large enough to run Target and Launch with 3 active program spaces left open. It's going to go through the player's Suleiman, Beowulf, or Marava like green corn through a goose. The merc crusier is even worse. While it has no weapons listed, it can carry up to 24 along with a computer even better than the patrol cruiser's.

Mayday may feature fewer weapons, but the successive damage rule means it's easier to destroy ships outright than in LBB:2.

I don't see how HG2 is that much more deadly. Sure, one volley's critical hits can mission kill a player's ship but the same thing can happen almost as easily in LBB:2 and Mayday.

No, it's not good drama. Traveller is NOT intended to be a physics sim, it's Space Opera. (Marc noted this recently in an email. Traveller always has been Space Opera to Marc. ) And Space Opera is as much about the drama as the science, if not more so...


HG fails dramaturgically on MANY fronts.

• Only two meaningful decisions per turn - range and target.
• One hit usually ends it all - which makes the Space Operatic convention of engineer emergency repairs pretty moot.
• Lots of missing by civilian ships at civilian ships, even ones that aren't in defensive erratic maneuvers. (This engenders Frustration more than suspense.)
• Crew Skills are explicitly minimized in effect - which is counter to the genre.
• The point where skill matters in play is primarily in the design step.

Book two, by comparison...

• More meaningful choices
  • being inherently a 2d paradigm, movement choices (especially if programmed) become more meaningful.
  • Computer programming is a cluster of meaningful decisions in and of itself
  • Ammunition limits make missile fire a meaningful decision
  • Which gunner gets which weapon is a meaningful decision, as his skill may matter
• Cumulative damage: Performance erodes slowly rather than all at once - a not uncommon factor in the Naval Battles which the space opera genre usually is grounded.
• Damage is repairable in combat. Which adds to meaningful choices (who repairs what) and drama (will he repair it in time?).
• Hits are relatively common. Which is itself a limbic system reward for the player.
• Crew skills and player skills both matter most of the time.

 

[Whipsnade]

No, it's not good drama.

I understand and focusing on drama in a RPG is a good thing.

HG fails dramaturgically on MANY fronts.

HG2 is BCS and LBB:2/Mayday are ACS. The two cannot fully mesh. I understand that and accept it despite having fooled around with mash-ups for over three decades now.

 

[nobby-w]

You can use High Guard and still keep a Small Ship setting by simply not using the larger hulls. Stop at 5k like Book 2 does, or stop at 10k and ignore the spinal weapons. ...

I've done various iterations of 'small ship' house rules with smaller factor A-G (or so) spinal weapons designed to fit into sub-10,000 ton hulls, and 2t and 3t barbettes for lasers (e.g. 2t gives +1 to factor and -2 to damage, and 3t gives +2 to factor and -3 to damage).

Also, using the Book 2 computer rules smooths out the computer-related TL bonuses and penalties quite a bit. This game me a 'small ships' setting that works quite nicely.

 

[GypsyComet]

I've done various iterations of 'small ship' house rules with smaller factor A-G (or so) spinal weapons designed to fit into sub-10,000 ton hulls

One of the nastiest big ship HG fleet configurations uses 9,800 ton ships, IIRC.

My purpose in ignoring HG spinals entirely is to essentially replace them with bays. Look at the Vlezhdatl. That big open maw at the front would be a spinal mount if the ship were 20,000 tons, but at 2,000 tons that's a bay weapon. In a small ship universe, a bay weapon can easily be as terrifying as a large ship universe spinal. More so at the high end of small ships, since a ship can technically carry more than one. In a Small Ship Setting I might limit designs to one 100-ton Bay per 5,000 tons (and cap hulls at 10,000 tons).

Military ships are going to spend the volume on weapon bays, while civies won't. And since there are things you can mount in a bay that don't ever fit into turrets, the military ships have the lethality edge they are supposed to have.

 

[robject]

HG fails dramaturgically on MANY fronts. [Emphasis mine -r]

dramaturgy ‎(usually uncountable, plural dramaturgies)

1. (theater) The art of dramatic composition for the stage.

I learned a new word today! I LOVE it!

 

[robject]

Hits are relatively common. Which is itself a limbic system reward for the player.

Movement and rolling damage tend to be rewards to players.

 

[The Oz]

I once made up an extended list of turret, barbette, and bay weapons that covered all HG weapons in sizes from 1, 2, and 3-dton turrets, 5-dton barbettes, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500-dton bay weapons. The 500-dton bays could run up to HG factor-E for some weapons (meson guns, beam lasers, sandcasters).

I created costs, energy points, and extended the beam and missile combat tables to allow for the heavier weapons.

Used with my house rule about turrets (any weapon has a turret's field of fire if it is 1/100th the size of the ship [or smaller], otherwise the weapon is a spinal weapon and had all the restrictions on a spinal) it makes designing small ships more fun.

 

[Timerover51]

How long are some of the ranges of the energy weapons?

 

[SanDragon]

I would agree with that assessment.

Using it out of the box.

However, using range as a to-hit AND damage limiter can change the equation.

I seem to recall lasers being -1 to hit at far and missiles being +1 to hit at far. Or did I confuse CT with MT again?

dramaturgy ‎(usually uncountable, plural dramaturgies)

1. (theater) The art of dramatic composition for the stage.

I learned a new word today! I LOVE it!

Dang. And I thought aramis pulled it out of that thin air he lives in...

 

[aramis]

I seem to recall lasers being -1 to hit at far and missiles being +1 to hit at far. Or did I confuse CT with MT again?



Dang. And I thought aramis pulled it out of that thin air he lives in...

Thin air? I'm at 159m MSL... Just high enough to not worry about sea level rise. (Backyard drops about 3m... so it's about 155m MSL. At least, that's what Google Earth shows.)

 

[maksimsmelchak]

dramaturgy ‎(usually uncountable, plural dramaturgies)

1. (theater) The art of dramatic composition for the stage.

I learned a new word today! I LOVE it!

Very histrionic... In the sense of the word, not the person.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[mike wightman]

How long are some of the ranges of the energy weapons?

In which rule set? They change depending on which version of Traveller you are using.

 

[aramis]

Very histrionic... In the sense of the word, not the person.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

At one point, several people I gamed with were theater majors or minors. Made for some interesting near-LARP sessions...