Space Combat in Traveller #1: Weapons vs Armor

[wbyrd]

In fact, two equal fighters in HG could never hit each other, making the effect of armor (in such dogfights) irrelevant.

A fighter, having only one hardpoint, might be ablet o carry at best a rated 3 missile turret (3 launchers giving factor 2, +1 per TL) or a rated 5 beam one (FG at TL 14+), needing a 6+ to hit in both cases.

Assuming equal computers, and agility 6, this would be raised to 12+, and, once size effect comes to play, 14+, so, no hits achieved to test weapons vs armor effectivity.

MgT is a bit easier to get a hit in...but then you run into the problem of armor trumping firepower....light weapons fitted to small craft are entirely to easy to negate.... 1 or 2 d6 weapons just do not have the punch to deal with any sort of armor.


a fighter with 15% of it's tonnage devoted to Crystal iron armor, and a reflec sheathed hull can ignore pulse lasers, beam lasers and missiles. for a measly 60% of the base hulls cost. with a surcharge of .1 Mcr per ton of vessel for reflec.

what is worse only a 90 ton fighter can a 70 ton heavy fighter fighter can only carry three ship grade Weapons. 30 ton or lighter fighters can only carry a single ship grade weapon, and then power plant type limits the number of energy weapons it can mount..

to mount a particle beam( the only energy weapon capable of punching through two layers of super-dense armor). requires a 70 ton fighter with a Type L-power plant even then it's highest thrust is 6 which means a 20 ton fighter with a thrust 12 drive can outrun it even using a portion of it's thrust rating for reactions....

a dodging fighter at long range(-3DM vs beam laser) being shot at by an avereage pilot ( Pilot 2/gunnery2) has a 1 in 12 chance of being hit... and then a missile or beam laser has no chance of piercing it's armor if the designer dedicated only 10% of it's tonnage to crystal iron.

Which is pretty much what HG comes down to.

During many previous discussions about such things the autokill range has been mentioned.

Basically once you get close enough Traveller beam weapons should be assured of a hit because you can shoot at every possible location a target can be. The other consequence of having light second ranges for lasers is at a range of only a few km they should burn through just about anything.

HG battles model fleets staying at the outer edge of the autokill zone where skill and luck could pay off

Yes, and this makes my eye twitch....I have no problems with Auto-kil as a game mechanic..it makes sense...in a Godzilla v Bambi sort of way. I just prefer the player and the skill of ships crew having a significant role in determining outcomes.

Stand off sniping duels just bore me to tears......which is why I don't design capital ships....For anything but a fleet on fleet scenario, they just seem to be Pretty Set Dressing. There's not even a need to do the math..

If they show up on the scene only an idiot takes on a capital ship, unless he happens to own one himself.. otherwise it's time to use Gallifreyan Tactical Protocol One..run..just run!

 

[robject]

long story short...Under practical conditions where you would have to fight through a dozen committees, and three Senate reviews, of a Typical big ships budget...heavy firepower, and light defenses are going to be more common....

you can see some Senator/ducal adviser.. trying to make his bones Standing up and asking..If you have screens why do you need to spend Millions on armor that will never be touched by hostile fire..we could spend that on(.insert pet public relations inspired project here)

wbyrd, your post had me giggling into my lunch.

I have no problems with Auto-kil as a game mechanic..it makes sense...in a Godzilla v Bambi sort of way. I just prefer the player and the skill of ships crew having a significant role in determining outcomes.

Stand off sniping duels just bore me to tears......which is why I don't design capital ships....For anything but a fleet on fleet scenario, they just seem to be Pretty Set Dressing. There's not even a need to do the math..

Yes.
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[kilemall]

Heh, then there is the 'thinking different' department.

For instance, my fave of making a run at a superduper battleship with VRF Gauss Gun-armed fighters with Californium rounds once the nuclear dampers are sheered off.

A large supercow warship should be meat for fractional-C rock strikes.

Lure Mr. Spacelord Dreadnaught to a gravity well, blow his maneuver drives or even all his fuel off, and let reeentry do it's magic.

 

[flykiller]

Stand off sniping duels just bore me to tears......

trying to come up with a hex-board combat system, 49 hexes wide, with the local star at the center. weapons range is 1 hex per factor. yep, that's right, a factor t can reach out 27 hexes - but at that range it hits with 1 factor. at 26, 2 factors, at 23, 3, etc.

the targeting sensor range limit, however, is 9 hexes for a model 9 computer. that means a friendly ship has to have that target 9 or fewer hexes distant to provide the targeting information for the factor t to engage the target.

whole lotta play there ....

 

[wbyrd]

trying to come up with a hex-board combat system, 49 hexes wide, with the local star at the center. weapons range is 1 hex per factor. yep, that's right, a factor t can reach out 27 hexes - but at that range it hits with 1 factor. at 26, 2 factors, at 23, 3, etc.

the targeting sensor range limit, however, is 9 hexes for a model 9 computer. that means a friendly ship has to have that target 9 or fewer hexes distant to provide the targeting information for the factor t to engage the target.

whole lotta play there ....

If the big ship game scenarios I played in were half that interesting I might play more of them. Unfortunately they have almost always ended up with a set of heavily tweaked dreadnoughts trading main gun rounds while everything else gets out of the way....

 

[flykiller]

what adds to the fun is there are "?" counters in the game.

well, so far it's difficult, because the forward ships approach each other to obtain sensor data (this is the primary role of the cherry-class), then get hit hard by the big guns - they're fully screened and armored but get hit hard all the same - so it's kind of cat-and-mouse. if you add vector to the game then the main bodies drift past each other jinking like mad and blazing away ....

if you like I'll post what I have so far.

 

[wbyrd]

what adds to the fun is there are "?" counters in the game.

well, so far it's difficult, because the forward ships approach each other to obtain sensor data (this is the primary role of the cherry-class), then get hit hard by the big guns - they're fully screened and armored but get hit hard all the same - so it's kind of cat-and-mouse. if you add vector to the game then the main bodies drift past each other jinking like mad and blazing away ....

if you like I'll post what I have so far.

Ooooohhhh pretty counters gimmeeeeee....LOL

It's a tricky scenario to be sure. You would have to be damn careful not to expose your big ships until they had a positive sett of targeting data..and getting your lead elements out of the fray before they get popped like a balloon would be a stone cold pain in the arse.


Swarming the enemy with drones, and fighters to get sensor data, so many ideas......oh yeah that's a problem to get the brain working.

 

[flykiller]

it also has a construction point system. you can get so many points, and build what you like ....

Swarming the enemy with drones, and fighters to get sensor data

hm. I've been focusing on big ships, and ignoring very small ones, because of survivability issues. can't get pilots for suicide missions ... but swarms ... let's see, you could represent them as one counter but they're "spongy" ... specify that spinal mount weapons have no more effect on them than a single factor 9 beam laser battery ... when swatting flies a baseball bat is no more effective than a fly swatter ... give them a -1 or -2 to rolls against them ... they do little damage, are hard to get rid of but not impossible to get rid of ... they would need a carrier, thus detracting from the overall power of the fleet ... hey, might work ....

 

[wbyrd]

It would also give Destryers and lighter ships the need to screen against swarms, and armed drones. Since if you massed drones into a single flight, and counted their attack as a barrage they could inflict serious damage in sufficient numbers.

Armor is great against single large strikes. However, multiple small strikes at close range against unprotected systems such as sensor arrays, and drive plates might be more difficult to defend against with basic armor types. It would be more of a sandblaster/shotgun effect than a bullet.

 

[nobby-w]

In High Guard, two fighters could be adequately armored to the point where they could not harm each other. Is that a "necessary evil" of the nature of Traveller space combat?

In High Guard, two fighters can't actually Hit each other if they have the same type of computer. - 6+ or 7+ to hit depending on the armament, -6 for agility, -2 for size.

 

[McPerth]

MgT is a bit easier to get a hit in...but then you run into the problem of armor trumping firepower....light weapons fitted to small craft are entirely to easy to negate.... 1 or 2 d6 weapons just do not have the punch to deal with any sort of armor.

Aramis once told that in MgT playtest the effect of the to hit roll was added to damage roll also in space combat (as it is in personal combat). it seems that wasn't included in the final edition, but fixes this, at least to a point...

a fighter with 15% of it's tonnage devoted to Crystal iron armor, and a reflec sheathed hull can ignore pulse lasers, beam lasers and missiles. for a measly 60% of the base hulls cost. with a surcharge of .1 Mcr per ton of vessel for reflec.

what is worse only a 90 ton fighter can a 70 ton heavy fighter fighter can only carry three ship grade Weapons. 30 ton or lighter fighters can only carry a single ship grade weapon, and then power plant type limits the number of energy weapons it can mount..

to mount a particle beam( the only energy weapon capable of punching through two layers of super-dense armor). requires a 70 ton fighter with a Type L-power plant even then it's highest thrust is 6 which means a 20 ton fighter with a thrust 12 drive can outrun it even using a portion of it's thrust rating for reactions....

a dodging fighter at long range(-3DM vs beam laser) being shot at by an avereage pilot ( Pilot 2/gunnery2) has a 1 in 12 chance of being hit... and then a missile or beam laser has no chance of piercing it's armor if the designer dedicated only 10% of it's tonnage to crystal iron.

(bold is mine)

At TL 15 you can fit a PB even in a 20 dton fighter:

Item	Description	notes	dton	MCr
Hull	20 dton, streamlined	Hull:0 Structure: 1	.	1.32
Armor	Bonded Superdense	15 points	2.5	1.5
Maneuver sP	TL 15 gravitic	Thrust 14	6.75	36
Power plant sP	TL 15 fusion	Rating 14	4.725	24
Computer	model 4	rating: 20	-	5
Electronics	Basic Military	DM:0	2	1
Cockpit	2 crewmember	Pilot, Gunner	3	.2
Weapons	Triple turret: 1 PB	Accurate, Variable Range, Very high yeld	.9	5.5
Fuel	12 hours	.	.125	-
Software	manuever	rating 0	-	included
.	Evade/1	Rating 10	-	1
.	Fire Control 2	Rating 10	-	4
Totals	.	.	0	75.52

Quite expensive, true, but quite effective. I used all the options in page 53 for volume reduction (see that the PB, having 6 upgrade points, can only be reduced to TL+1). See that if standard, its price is reduced to MCr 67.968; and if rules for retrotech (CB page 91, right sidebar) are allowed for starship design (MongoseMat was silent about that), its cost would be only MCr 0.625, instead of MCr 5.

In small ship combat, it would fight with gunner + 3 (accurate, Fire Control) DM, while in Capital Ship Combat it will have a + 5 to barrage (accurate, fire control, very high yeld), crew quality aside, while its armor gives it high survivality (except against mesons, but if you forcé enemy's messons against your fighters you already achieved some result)

 

[wbyrd]

I may be reading the rules differently..

As I understand the rules ....
HG modified armaments rules requires,a particle beam to be mounted in a triple turret. (3 weapon slots) and the 70 ton hull is the smallest which has 3 slots for ship grade weapons.

You could mount a 5 ton particle barbette on a fighter as small as 40 tons... but that burns two energy weapons slots,( minimum reactor Type L) and takes up five tons.

I may be reading the rules conservatively, since I have to get my work past my playtester/editor with minimal fuss.

 

[McPerth]

I may be reading the rules differently..

As I understand the rules ....
HG modified armaments rules requires,a particle beam to be mounted in a triple turret. (3 weapon slots) and the 70 ton hull is the smallest which has 3 slots for ship grade weapons.

You could mount a 5 ton particle barbette on a fighter as small as 40 tons... but that burns two energy weapons slots,( minimum reactor Type L) and takes up five tons.

I may be reading the rules conservatively, since I have to get my work past my playtester/editor with minimal fuss.

The fact that it specifies that a PB barbette uses 2 such weapons slots make me thing that a PB turret (being smaller) only uses one, despite needing a triple turret (as it's hard for me to beileve it needs more than the larger barbette).

Same reasoning makes me thing that a PB only needs a PP sG+, as a laser needs, as a PB barbette would need the sL PP you say. In fact, I don't see any reason precluding to install a PB in the light fighter shown in MgT:HG page 95...

 

[McPerth]

In High Guard, two fighters could be adequately armored to the point where they could not harm each other. Is that a "necessary evil" of the nature of Traveller space combat?

See that, in any case, this does not happen only with fighters. In fact, a duel among two SDBs will be a remake of the fight among the USS monitor and CSS Virgina. Both sides will pound each other, to no avail, until they run out of ammo (something that will never happen in HG, BTW).

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, perhaps HG 2 should have another range zone added.

Contact - at contact range agility can not be applied as a defensive DM, weapons with a factor of 9 or less no longer suffer the +6 DM on the damage table.

 

[McPerth]

Hmm, perhaps HG 2 should have another range zone added.

Contact - at contact range agility can not be applied as a defensive DM, weapons with a factor of 9 or less no longer suffer the +6 DM on the damage table.

I'd rather call it Visual (leaving contact for boarding actions), but otherwise it seems a great idea, IMHO.

 

[flykiller]

I'd rather call it Visual

at that point no computer would be necessary.

 

[McPerth]

at that point no computer would be necessary.

But would be helpful (though maybe its modifiers halved). See that computer also assumes all the software in LBB2 combat system, as well as ECM, etc...

Another particularity about his range could be that nukes might be dangerous (only radiations, not surface explosión) for the firer too (without atmosphere, gamma radiation reaches quite far, though I'm not sure how much).

 

[boomslang]

I'd rather call it Visual (leaving contact for boarding actions), but otherwise it seems a great idea, IMHO.

Note that at these closer ranges employing battlefield weapons becomes an option; stuff from CT Book 4, Striker, FF&S, and so on can all come into play.

Imagine the look on the enemy's face when the main hold pops open and unloads a volley of a hundred or two anti-tank rockets at them.

Back in the day I used to build Q-Ships out of old Type Rs and A2s that would pack a battlefield meson accelerator or four aboard anywhere convenient so the SpecOps IN crew could "repel boarders" with extreme prejudice.

Good times, good times.

 

[mike wightman]

Which ties back into my idea for a meson missile - what if a 5t drone equipped with a battlefield meson gun can make it to visual range...

Your fighters become useful for intercepting these things before they can make it to the capital ships