Some Basic Notes on the Development

[Uncle Bob]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Shoveller:
That's not true at all. Look at the surface of Mars. It's flat but it's completely boulder strewn. There is no way a wide-bodied AFV could get through that.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Looking at the Mars Orbital Surveyer pictures the terrain looks like a mixed bag. But the lander photos look no worse than the Tunisian Desert and a lot better than the Golan Heights, both places where there have been big tank battles.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
And Mars is tame compared to many potential planetary surfaces out there. Canyons, mountains, cave complexes, and techtonically-active landscapes are where biped AFVs would flourish. Remember that biped AFVs would be capable of laying prone when under fire. That reduces it's profile dramatically.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah, taking cover is something that is almost never done in the comics, and rarely in the games. Obviously, it would be important.
However, if Grav vehicles are not available I would expect more stable quadraped walkers to dominate in rough terrain, as quadrapeds do among animals. Bipeds are less stable but more efficient, so they are most often found among plains animals. And there, only in species whose strategy depends on seeing further, even at the cost of being seen.

[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 14 May 2001).]

 

[RazerD]

Races
Any chance more will be included in future supplements?

Homeworld/World and System Building
I've always wanted to see such in any game genre, such as a heaviy warlike society/town would grant bonuses or skills in combat. Great job.

Prior Service
I've heard about this, but since I've never seen a Traveller book I can only imagine what it would be like. I like the inclusion.

Starship Design
Again, something I felt all sci-fi space games should have. With things like this I really believe you guys'll have a lot of success.

Experience
This is the one thing I like most of all. I have never been a fan of "It's a monster. Let's kill it (for experience)." Thanks for giving us role-players an XP system. Now my pacifist Diplomat can advance as fast as the Soldiers.

 

[Rupert Boleyn]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Shoveller:
That's not true at all. Look at the surface of Mars. It's flat but it's completely boulder strewn. There is no way a wide-bodied AFV could get through that. And Mars is tame compared to many potential planetary surfaces out there. Canyons, mountains, cave complexes, and techtonically-active landscapes are where biped AFVs would flourish. Remember that biped AFVs would be capable of laying prone when under fire. That reduces it's profile dramatically.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Most of these environments are the sort of thing that are bad for any vehicle. They're custom made for infantry. What's more a bipedal 'mech is way too easy to see and shoot at from a nice safe distance.

And another strike against them: surface pressure. All that tonnage on little itty bitty feet.


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--
"A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."

 

[The Shoveller]

Rupert: "Most of these environments are the sort of thing that are bad for any vehicle. They're custom made for infantry. What's more a bipedal 'mech is way too easy to see and shoot at from a nice safe distance.

And another strike against them: surface pressure. All that tonnage on little itty bitty feet."

Infantry are ideal, agreed. But infantry support weapons are always necessary in infantry operations. If there is bunker complex in a cave network, big guns will be needed to open the bunkers up that foot soldiers couldn't carry in. A reminder here that the style of mechs I'm suggesting are much smaller than anime or Battletech. They'd would start around 12-15 feet tall and weigh in around 5 tons. As for the weight on the small foot area, anti grav/grav reduction fields would be of assistance there.

 

[Skoo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>A reminder here that the style of mechs I'm suggesting are much smaller than anime or Battletech. They'd would start around 12-15 feet tall and weigh in around 5 tons. As for the weight on the small foot area, anti grav/grav reduction fields would be of assistance there.[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

After reading points/counter-points, here's my Cr0.2 worth.

What is the point of a mech (Heavy Gear sized, for the sake of argument - 12-15 ft)? It's purpose is to (1) protect the pilot, (2) carry heavy weapons into combat, and (3) dish out major damage once in the middle of the firefight. What would be it's estimated cost? Well, considering the armouring required, the complex engineering for joints, load-bearing, shocks, computing, electronics, optics, feedback systems (for the pilot), specialized controls (for arm/hand motions), hydraulics, and powerplant, plus its requirements of speed, mobility, and adapability, let's just say around, oh, MCr5. Tech level to build... say between TL9-10.

Building mechs *might* be viable if the world that was building them developed without outside contact.

BUT, I will point out that there is a cheaper method of fielding "mechs", especially if the world has contact with the rest of the Imperium... powered armour. The current (canon) version allows for PGMPs and FGMPs to be attached, but I can also see Imperial scientists developing heavier versions capable of carrying larger/deadlier weapon loads into the field (portable rocket launchers, heavy versions of the standard PGMP/FGMP, cluster munitions, SAMs, etc). The cost wouldn't be that astronomical either: standard TL13 power armour and TL15 FGMP costs a grand total of Cr500,000. Ten PA'ed grunts with heavy weapons is probably more dangerous than that lone mech with the large thermal/profile signature.

Although I can see the need for mechs, I can't see a GREAT need. A-grav weapon platforms will rule on worlds where heavy winds are not a major problem. More traditional ground vehicles will rule on worlds where strong winds ARE a problem. Mechs *might* rule on worlds where traversing the ground is difficult (ie, heavily forested, swamped, etc) although I can still see the predominance of PA'ed troopers over mechs in general.

PA... small, cheap (relatively speaking), efficient, deadly. Who needs mechs?

 

[The Shoveller]

There is ALWAYS a need for a weapons platform with a little more ooomph than what is standard to a battlefield environment. If PA troops are the standard force, then you can be sure that EVERYTHING of importance will be armored/protected to a level that the weapons the PA infantry carry are incapable of penetrating targets of importance.

Thus, the mechs are an infantry support platform which will be NECESSARY for the defeat of hardened targets in inhospitible terrain.

The mechs become the futuristic equivalent of the modern-day infantry mortarman.

[This message has been edited by The Shoveller (edited 14 May 2001).]

 

[kzin]

There will always be a need for a more-heavily-armed-than-standard platform, yes. But how does a grav-tank or grav-afv not fit that role among power armor troops?

The one place that grav vehicles would be limited would be in terrain that has very high winds and no terrain features to block the wind or keep the wind above the battlefield. In those places, wheeled and tracked vehicles would do the job pretty cheaply. (plus, I would expect the high wind to affect the large cross section of a mech quite a bit)

Places where people have said a mech would be good are places like in a forest ... and again, I'd say if you can put a mech there, I can put a grav-vehicle there, whether we're talking about grav-tanks, grav-afv's, or maybe even a stap (the single-droid flying platforms from Star Wars Ep 1).

In fact, with grav-vehicles, and an assumption that you can make them as small as a stap, you can pretty much replace any mech design with a similar stap design and not have to develop any special technologies (wrt to the large scale artificial muscles, the joint designs, etc).

If you've got grav vehicles, mechs just don't make sense to develop, IMO.

 

[hunter]

Understand, the idea is to have a modular set of design parameters. One thing that *could* be built would be mechs, if the GM wanted and allowed them. The system itself will be in place for designing any type of vehicle, not mechs in particular.

Hunter

 

[The Shoveller]

Wide-bodied AFVs [tanks] need roads or flat land to operate, whether or not they use anti-grav. They can't operate in woods, swamps, canyons, mountains, caves, etc. Those flying platforms of yours would be high profile sitting duck targets. They couldn't go prone like mechs can. As for "special technologies" good old hydrolics do just fine when controlled by computers. The most difficult technology is the computer software/hardware controlling the movements. We already have robotics capable of sophisticated movements.

I also dispute the cost figures you guys are quoting. By tech level 15, you should be able to get a mech for the cost of 2 or 3 powered armor suits.


<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kzin:

There will always be a need for a more-heavily-armed-than-standard platform, yes. But how does a grav-tank or grav-afv not fit that role among power armor troops?

The one place that grav vehicles would be limited would be in terrain that has very high winds and no terrain features to block the wind or keep the wind above the battlefield. In those places, wheeled and tracked vehicles would do the job pretty cheaply. (plus, I would expect the high wind to affect the large cross section of a mech quite a bit)

Places where people have said a mech would be good are places like in a forest ... and again, I'd say if you can put a mech there, I can put a grav-vehicle there, whether we're talking about grav-tanks, grav-afv's, or maybe even a stap (the single-droid flying platforms from Star Wars Ep 1).

In fact, with grav-vehicles, and an assumption that you can make them as small as a stap, you can pretty much replace any mech design with a similar stap design and not have to develop any special technologies (wrt to the large scale artificial muscles, the joint designs, etc).

If you've got grav vehicles, mechs just don't make sense to develop, IMO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[The Shoveller]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hunter:
Understand, the idea is to have a modular set of design parameters. One thing that *could* be built would be mechs, if the GM wanted and allowed them. The system itself will be in place for designing any type of vehicle, not mechs in particular.

Hunter<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thank You. I don't want to force people into using mechs if they don't want to use them. I just want them to be available.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by The Shoveller:
Wide-bodied AFVs [tanks] need roads or flat land to operate, whether or not they use anti-grav. They can't operate in woods, swamps, canyons, mountains, caves, etc. Those flying platforms of yours would be high profile sitting duck targets. They couldn't go prone like mechs can.

Grav vehicles rule in rough terrain. They can do pop-ups - you hide behind the terrain (hill, trees, whatever) except when you need to shoot or spot your opponents. Spotting, of course, is something you use drones or infantry for.

Think of grav vehicles as tanks and/or APCs that move like helicopters.

In fact, that's another advantage they have over mechs: they move faster. *Much* faster.

 

[kzin]

Shoveler:

Any space you can maneuver a mech into, I can build a grav vehicle to fit into the same space, whether it's a dense forest or a cave. If the obstacles become so close together that a grav based vehicle can't be made to fit there, then you wont be able to put a mech there either, because it'll be small enough that only infantry can go there.

As for conventional tanks and roads ... they don't need roads. They need _relatively_ unbroken terrain. Yes, conventional (wheeled or tracked) tanks can't go into a dense forest, but a dense forest wont have high winds, either (otherwise the forest wouldn't be able to grow there in the first place). So, again, if the forest allows mechs it allows grav vehicles.

As for hydraulics ... hydraulics are a terrible mechanism for providing vehicle motivation. Hydraulic systems are relatively bulky, inefficient, and fragile (and the large systems are very slow). Sure, by tech level 15 you'll have lots of advances. But how will they compare to the alternatives? If they're better, why are we still using the alternatives?


The only place you wont be able to put a grav vehicle is in a high wind location. A high wind location is going to have relatively flat terrain because otherwise the wind wouldn't be able to build up velocity there. So, a conventional vehicle is more than likely to fit that terrain (and wont require _any_ postulated major advances in technology to build them).


(note: I'm not arguing that the system shouldn't allow you to build mechs ... I'm all for system flexibility for placing it in other settings. Nor am I arguing against mech-dominated settings (like battletech). I'm saying that a setting we already know isn't dominated by mechs probably doesn't have them as anything other than oddities and failed experiments (that failed because they weren't a better alternative to other battle field technologies) because if they were good enough to have them as regular tech, then they'd have them everywhere ... and if they're not good enough to dominate the setting, then other technologies we already know are part of the setting make it such that mechs don't have a niche that isn't adequately addressed by other systems)

(in other words, I'm not arguing against the rules supporting mechs, I'm arguing against the idea that came up that the traveller setting might have mechs in it as anything other than an oddity. We know the setting does have grav vehicles and conventional vehicles, so we know that the technologies for building mechs aren't so much better that they dominate the setting ... and if if they're not that much better then there's no reason not to use conventional or grav systems to solve those problems. We've already got widespread grav vehicles, and only a very narrow range of situations where the grav vehicles don't work and those situations are already being addressed by this age old technology ... why bother building up a new technology that is essentially redundant (and we know from context doesn't have the promise of being so much better than the existing tech)).

Though, I suspect if we're still not connecting on the issue, there's not much point in saying much more ... I'll certainly read what other people have to say about it, but I doubt I'll post anymore on the subject of mechs in the travelller setting.

 

[The Shoveller]

Kzin, I don't know if I'd trust your vehicle engineering skills. You can't seem to engineer putting up a post without getting duplicates

Kzin: "The only place you wont be able to put a grav vehicle is in a high wind location."

I don't know why I didn't bring this up earlier, but I tell you exactly where you can't use grav vehicles. Against an enemy who uses projectile weaponry. A standard 20th century Browning .50 cal HMG would knock a platoon of grav vehicles around like pool balls on a billiards table. Any type of explosion will knock them into the next county. They would suffer little damage from these hits, but they simply wouldn't be stable enough to use as a weapons platform on a battlefield that uses anything but beam weapons.

K: "Any space you can maneuver a mech into, I can build a grav vehicle to fit into the same space, whether it's a dense forest or a cave."

A grav vehicle would be floating above the surface of terrain mentioned. A mech should be hugging the terrain. The grav vehicle is a much higher profile target.

One final point on powered battlearmor infantry. A lot of the cost of those suits would be in miniaturizing all those components into a man-sized suit while still making it durable enough for a battlefield environment. Think desktop PC vs. laptop PC. The more I think about it, the less I feel a mech will cost. You're only trying to shrink systems down to that 12-15 foot/5 ton range I was discussing. I think the initial cost of powered battle armor might be about the same as a mech in the final analysis. A mech would consume more energy, of course. You are basically trading off the advantage of smaller size [harder to hit] for the advantage of greater firepower.

 

[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Shoveller:
Wide-bodied AFVs [tanks] need roads or flat land to operate, whether or not they use anti-grav. They can't operate in woods, swamps, canyons, mountains, caves, etc. Those flying platforms of yours would be high profile sitting duck targets. They couldn't go prone like mechs can. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't think of Grav tanks as "Tanks". Think MBT armor on Helos. Skim NOE 2 m above treetops, drop down on any thiin spot.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I also dispute the cost figures you guys are quoting. By tech level 15, you should be able to get a mech for the cost of 2 or 3 powered armor suits.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Canonically, Battle Dress ranged from 0.25 MCr to about 2MCr. Striker lists BD as KCr350. MT has a variety of types. TNE has several, again in th 0.5 to 2MCr. (Under TNE, I built a suit for MCr15 that could kill anything given enough time: it had a meson gun; armor would not help!) Battle Dress is essentially Limb-in-limb mecha... powered armor.When you can do that, walker mecha are already come and gone. Especially when some of these suits mass in Metric Tons. (See TNE for those)

Only CT lacked walkers in the rules.


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-aramis
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Smith & Wesson:
The Original Point and Click interface!

 

[aramis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Shoveller:
I don't know why I didn't bring this up earlier, but I tell you exactly where you can't use grav vehicles. Against an enemy who uses projectile weaponry. A standard 20th century Browning .50 cal HMG would knock a platoon of grav vehicles around like pool balls on a billiards table. Any type of explosion will knock them into the next county. They would suffer little damage from these hits, but they simply wouldn't be stable enough to use as a weapons platform on a battlefield that uses anything but beam weapons.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Double check your masses; a 12.7mm isn't going to phase a grav vehicle any more than it will a helo. And we've got helos which fire >100 rds per sec of 20mm, with 2cm accuracy at 500m benched, and 10cm at 100m in flight. More than sufficient. And this with only late TL 8 tech. And anything big enough to shake it about will spall and kill it anyway. One other caveat: the firer experiences more recoil than the target, except with RAP munitions, due to simple physics... and these flying fortresses can make speeds making all helos look slow. With the kind of computers needed for the grav tank's power plants, there's enough power to handle autocorrect for drift and incoming fire nudges.

Also, look at tthe tanks of the gravitic battlefield: Fusion guns. Tac Nukes. ECM suites to die for. Chameleon surface treatments. You can't hit what you can't see. And speaking of seeing, battlefield meson guns; if it hits you, you die. Armor helps not. Meson screens are multi-tons monsters.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Kzin: "Any space you can maneuver a mech into, I can build a grav vehicle to fit into the same space, whether it's a dense forest or a cave."

A grav vehicle would be floating above the surface of terrain mentioned. A mech should be hugging the terrain. The grav vehicle is a much higher profile target.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hugging? Try Mireing. Surface area of foot is a square relationship to overall size. Mass is a cubic function. Much bigger than a Gear, and it won't stay on concrete. (Some wisecracker once figured out that the Battletech Atlas should sink some 6 feet into concrete roads... at a walk.) And you can only increase the relative size of the foot so much before it becomes a liability.

And, grav is ubiquitous. To the point of Grav Belts, by TL 14. TL 12 on is the grav era, by traveller canon. Unless MWM is revising the TL tables, the culmination of technologies makes those mechs in the trees just as valid a target as the grav tanks overhead, but the tanks can make orbit if they need to, can be dropped from orbit alongside the Battledress Drop Troops (which, by my read of the CT sources, are elite units).

In woods: the grav tank executes a popup, checks for 10+ km, and drops back down. slogs along amidst the trees; unlike a helo, no rotors to foul on the trees. Pops up again every so often. Lands whenever it needs to to pick up water for cracking into H2 and 02, fuel and air. It can operate in any weather that doesn't smash it to bits. It can withstand hits from a 10cm at point blank. In bugout mode, it can make mach 0.5 or so. It has sensors equivalent to most small spacecraft. and it costs some MCr10-20. In most ways, it's really a SSTO attack helo in role, with much of the defenses of a tank. Plus, it can double as an interceptor. And a deforester (with an RPA, it can level a forest in hours!). And it hybridizes by lack of design diffierences Light Cav, Air Cav - anti-armor helos, heavy cav, and MBT. And grav APC's likewise. The Trepida is canon.

Your mechs
a: can't get to orbit without gravitics.
b: don't need legs if they have gravitics.
c: can't do popups, so trees block their LOS near permanently.
d: have lots more stuff (shapewise) to catch on trees and brush.
e: have ground pressure, so can't go to the neighboring bogs, swamps, marshes.
f: are too big for open field; the added height makes them too easy to spot in the open, by comparison to a wide low tracklayer.

Now, for Combat and Civil Engineering, yeah, i can see mechs all over. Heck, lifters similar (but slower) to the one in Aliens do exist... currently prototypes. Intended for loadinng and unloading of awkward bulky but not-too-dense cargos fromm constrained spaces. For construction, they'd be a godsend. (A forklift can't hold the sheets at a convinient angle for you...). Any mech that goes fast won't go prone without MAJOR advances. Slow and flexible, well forget meeting any enemy not already on the defensive. B)

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-aramis
========================================
Smith & Wesson:
The Original Point and Click interface!

 

[The Shoveller]

Aramis: "Double check your masses; a 12.7mm isn't going to phase a grav vehicle any more than it will a helo."

I think it's you who need to double check their masses. How does anti-grav work? It temporarily reduces the mass of an object in an anti-grav field. How do you make a big object float? You wrap it in a field that will reduce it's mass to nothing. A helicopter does not lose mass when it flies. It's rotors provide upward thrust which overcomes the helicopter's mass. Tons of helicopter mass being pulled down by gravity get overcome by tons of thrust provided by the rotors pulling up. The mass of the helicoper still exists when it fires or is hit by weapons fire. The mass of a grav vehicle doesn't exist inside an anti-grav field. No mass to absorb the energy from the speed times mass impact formula equals grav vehicle billiards.

Actually, this really does open game tactics up a WHOLE lot. You have lots of different weapon systems who have different strengths and weakness. Tactics is much more interesting when one has to make decisions regarding unit performance tradeoffs.

 

[Magnus Robot Fighter]

D20 Traveller!!! I am psyched for the following reasons:

1. Ease of learning the system. I've just introduced my 2 youngins (ages 6 & 8) to D&D3E (D20). While we could try roleplaying Jedis, we now have the option of using my most favorite Sci-Fi RPG (from my youth) with a minimal learning curve.

2. Ease of doing crossovers. I realize that some will shudder at the prospect of wizards casting 'Stinking Clouds' down starship corridors or a single mercenary wasting an 18th level wizard with one shot from a FGMP-15, however we did try cobbling the systems together (CT & AD&D1E) and the results were less than satisfying. T20 makes this much easier and cleaner to do.

3. This can't help but be good for keeping the Traveller experience alive. From 1979 to 1983 I bought just about every Traveller product made. Since 1983, I've purchased a grand total of 3 Traveller products; TNE core rules, the High Lightning (TNE, I think) supplement and GURPS Traveller Core rules. That's it folks. I had considered buying more GURPS stuff but decided not to as I felt I could use D20 Star Wars rules with all of my old Traveller stuff. That's alot of conversion time that would take away from gaming time. Now, I'll just buy the T20 stuff.

Many, many, many thanks to the folks putting this together.

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"It's still alive?" - Rammas Artimer, Arch Mage

 

[Uncle Bob]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Shoveller:
I think it's you who need to double check their masses. How does anti-grav work? It temporarily reduces the mass of an object in an anti-grav field.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wher did you get this? You are describing the Inertialess Drive of John Campbell, discredited before 1930, even in Science Fiction (chemical reactions, and thus biological ones, fail to work without inertia. The crew die instantly.)

A grav vehicle negates weight, not inertia. The grav "pods" are the equivalent of helicopter rotors. So a forty-ton tank, hit by a long burst of .50 from a mama duece moves aside at . . . 10x45gx900m/s=405 kg/m/s, or just over 10 mm/sec. I am not impressed.



[This message has been edited by Uncle Bob (edited 15 May 2001).]

 

[The Shoveller]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Wher did you get this? You are describing the Inertialess Drive of John Campbell, discredited before 1930, even in Science Fiction (chemical reactions, and thus biological ones, fail to work without inertia. The crew die instantly.)

A grav vehicle negates weight, not inertia. The grav "pods" are the equivalent of helicopter rotors. So a forty-ton tank, hit by a long burst of .50 from a mama duece moves aside at . . . 10x45gx900m/s=405 kg/m/s, or just over 10 mm/sec. I am not impressed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bob, show me one place where I said "inertialess" in a post. Those are words you conjured out of thin air.

Bob, an anti-grav field works by negating the effect of gravity on an object. What happens when an object isn't effected by gravity? It's weightless. How does that happen? The anti-grav field hides the mass of an object from the object from which gravity eminates. Inside that anti-grav field, the object has no mass in respect to the gravity-eminating body. When freed from gravity, the object can be knocked about the atmosphere like so many kid's balloons.

An object can't have the properties of both having huge mass and not having any mass at the same time. If an object becomes weightless, it takes on all the other characteristics of the loss of mass as well.

You guys are trying to claim the properties you want from anti-grav while attempting to discard the inconvienent ones. Definitely a case of attempting to have one's cake and eat it, too.

 

[Magnus Robot Fighter]

My comments prefaced by "MRF:"

Hit Points
There will not be Hit Points as per the D&D and D20 system rules. It will be much closer to CT. There will be some, but very limited increase per level

MRF: I think can succeed in this regard by keeping the hitpoints/per level to D3 or D4. I honestly would prefer that you keep this as close as possible to the WotC Star Wars rules for hitpoints. The more you depart from it the less it looks like a D20 system. You can offset this with a brutal critical hit system.

Psionics
Very close to CT Psionic rules, but some modifications

MRF: Cool, I'm not a fan of the current D20 (D&D) psionics system. I like it just fine as an add-on to the character, not a class.

Combat
Much easier to die than in D&D or D20 System, with changes to what were Hit Points.

MRF: Again, you can just beef up the critical hit system. Yep, 150 HP Conan can be killed by a hit from a plasma gun.

PS, I'm not certain how this will look when posted as I made comments in the body of the note I responded to.

Sorry if I messed it up.


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"It's still alive?" - Rammas Artimer, Arch Mage