SpineMaker and Battle-Class Ships

[robject]

First, some guidelines. Then we can start brainstorming.

BCS. Building BIG ships.

The foundation of BCS is the set of weapons/spinal mounts.

Specify SpineMaker first. Spine is indeed a Payload or a Package. We need to NOT think of putting weapons /spines on a ship and instead think about building a transport mechanism around a weapons package.

Then we need a mechanism that adds (in some sequence) the things we need to transport it. Specify a Spine, specify performance (J, G, endurance, crew level, TL) and a series of formulae will tell us what to add.

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Since everything is on the table, and we want to be able to make this a table top game as well...
I ask the following questions/present the following concepts.

Every ship as built around a central weapon or set of weapons, or around a mission.

We need a set of standard sizes for Primary Weapons from A to Z, actually from 0 or 1 to Z.
We need to then assign capabilities to these primary weapons (and power requirements, if any).
I believe that Dreadnought all-big-gun style ships are probably superior, but we need to allow other building strategies.

A single ship with multiple spinal mounts, either in parallel, or pointing in many directions.
A single ship with multiple sizes of weapons, perhaps a Main Spinal and many smaller "spinals."
A million-ton planetoid hull could easily manage many 10,000 ton spinals pointing in many directions.
A single ship may need multiple spinals just to be able to bring to bear Stasis/Jump Inducer/ etc other effects as it needs them.

An efficient ortillery ship is more efficient if it has multiple guns to fire.
An efficient seigecraft benefits from having several railguns firing in tandem.
Or is it better to have each tube an individual ship?

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SpineMaker

Weapon Type.
Size.
Other Identifiers. Double Barrel, Fore and Aft (Janus, I like that). etc.
Stage Effects.
Range Effects.
Mount.

There is a lot to think about. We need to think this through in detail. We have to be able to build a viable spine that fits onto a minimum BCS ship, or a weapon for the death star.

Let's assume a Spine at a minimum requires

Its own independent power source
Some sort of an effect generator with or without an enhancer (the "tube")
Some sort of control mechanism and operational crew.
If required, a fuel source
If required, a Magazine with reloads.

Let's also assume that we can define the output of the Spine in some terms of Damage or Effect at Space Range= 7.

Define the Standard Effect of the Weapon associated with a Size and its other minimums.

That is the Standard Weapon. Make sure it all works with Range Changes and with TL Stage Effects. Ideally, a sophisticated Spine (higher TL effects) at a lower Space Range = 5 or 3 or so produces the Smallest of Spines. If you set that at 2,000 tons, you make it not installable in an ACS ship.

and you have standards to work from for the other size ranges.

 

[Spartan159]

Regarding pointing in various directions, if the ship is large enough it could support free moving "deep" meson spinal mounts. Sphere diameter = spinal length. I seem to recall the imperial palace had one or two of those.

Then there is the whole modular design... detachable spinal mounts anyone?

 

[Reban]

Haven't some of these parameters become redundant if BCS is compatible with Starship Combat?

Magazine space doesn't matter because rounds aren't counted and Janus mounts have no game effect because facing or pointability isn't tracked with range bands.

 

[robject]

Haven't some of these parameters become redundant if BCS is compatible with Starship Combat?

Magazine space doesn't matter because rounds aren't counted and Janus mounts have no game effect because facing or pointability isn't tracked with range bands.

The behavior of spines in combat is undefined at the current time. Therefore, everything is on the table.

Fleet combat, operational combat, and planetary assault are all undefined at the current time. Therefore, everything is on the table.

Here's what we know of spines.

They're big and bad.

What they are like is largely dependent on the ship's mission. Different spines are used in different contexts.

They cause lots of painful damage. In High Guard, we called that critical hits.

Configuration changes their effect.

Magazine space matters with kinetic projectiles (!).

 

[Bloo]

If facing doesn't matter in a round of combat, then a spinal weapon is a (presumably) slower rate of fire weapon.

Likewise, a turret is just a weapon that can fire more often.

And given the ability to have a facing independent of your velocity vector (unless you're accelerating), facing probably should be irrelevant.

The only reason to have a spinal weapon is something that needs a longer launch system (rail, tube, etc.) to launch dumb rounds ballistically (along the facing vector, or on a newtonian type plot to slingshot, hit the far side of a planet or whatever) or beam weapons (also including focal devices for a beam weapon, such as a tube full of lenses to focus a laser ray).

 

[Galadrion]

If ships are allowed multiple spinal-"class" weapons, is there anything to say that all of them on a given ship must be identical? This could be useful for modelling smaller weapons on a really big ship which are, nonetheless, much bigger than any carried by any ACS ship (or, indeed, bigger than any ACS ship). In this way, you could design something like one of David Weber's planetoid-class ships which can wade into combat lashing out with weapons which dwarf a battleship's spinal mount, and then let go with their really big guns...

 

[Vladika]

Why not allow multiple spinals in parallel?

This may at first seem odd until you think about the low probability of a hit and penetration of smaller to medium meson spinals in HG.

Why not allow however many parallel spinals to fire on the SAME target should the designer so choose? This increases the chance of a hit and a penetration.

If you can put in One 7000dton Meson T then why not Seven 1000dton Meson Js?

Not saying I would, or why I might, but, if I wanted to, why not? (EPs would be quite high so as for practical, I might go for two mounted "shotgun" fashion.)

Also, why not a Meson/Particle Accelerator "over and under"? Or pair with a rail gun/ mass driver?

Again, why isn't the argument, ability is.

 

[Bloo]

This may at first seem odd until you think about the low probability of a hit and penetration of smaller to medium meson spinals in HG.

Why would you give such weapons a low probability of a hit? That would not be inherent to a weapon design.

 

[Fovean]

Why would you give such weapons a low probability of a hit? That would not be inherent to a weapon design.

I believe Vladika is pointing out that "smaller" spinals in CT HG have less chance of inflicting critical hits than "larger" ones do, I believe based on their attack factor. Therefore they have a "low probability" of being as effective as their larger brethren. (I'm sure that I'll be summarily corrected if wrong... )

@ robject, those quotes that open this thread are quite intriguing. Too bad they weren't part of T5 beta, at least to my knowledge. Regardless, to me it begs a completely different design philosophy for BCS, the tabletop comment being most revealing. If BCS is meant to be compatible with tabletop play then I believe we're talking fleet engagements. Otherwise we'd have vector/hex movement for ACS ships, no?

I think what most had hoped for was a true integrated system that allowed ACS/BCS ships to be designed in tandem, ie, a scalable design system. But apparently the two are meant to be separate and distinct...?

Since T5 has a sort of plug'n'play design system for vehicles/small craft/ACS, why not continue that trend for BCS, but translate the results into tabletop-compatible numbers? Designing a BCS ship then becomes as easy as an air/raft (though a longer process). But then maybe the hull tonnage of a BCS ship becomes a multiplier on all aspects of attack/defense which can be compared to the opponent, giving a DM or Difficulty for damage? Use opposing TL as a +/- DM to assets.

I don't know the T5 ACS rules well enough yet to give a concrete example but I hope you get my drift.

 

[Vladika]

I believe Vladika is pointing out that "smaller" spinals in CT HG have less chance of inflicting critical hits than "larger" ones do, I believe based on their attack factor. Therefore they have a "low probability" of being as effective as their larger brethren. (I'm sure that I'll be summarily corrected if wrong... )

Pretty much correct. Assuming the target is maxed out for defense against the Meson (Size, Configuration, Agility, Screens, Computer etc.) The chances of a hit + penetration of configuration + penetration of screen was less than 3%. ALL of these conditions had to occur before the firing weapon could inflict damage.

Personally, I'd rather have multiple firing ships, but, should the allowed number of Pilots be small, multiple spinals would be a solution.

 

[Bloo]

Ok. I haven't even looked at Traveller starship combat rules in a very, very long time.

 

[robject]

I think a spine on a small BCS (say 3000 tons, or even smaller) is something more than a "main" gun on an ACS. The reason I think this is not because of size -- a main gun can be relatively large for an ACS -- but rather of classification. "Spine" is separate from "main". So, a spine must have characteristics that a main gun lacks. Probably, that special something is an extra amount of "oomf".

Moving on from there, it seems to me that Marc wants the spine to be designed in a manner similar to ACS weapons: pick a type, pick a range, pick a stage. The added element here is that a Size is also selected.

I suspect there will be something like a set of base sizes (A-Z) and then a set of multiplying modifiers; this is in the spirit of ACS. Alternately, the spine size is simply chosen, in hundreds of tons or whatever.

Take the space ranges from ACS, and the sizes from BeastMaker just for fun. That gives us these scale factors:

FR=x1/3
SR=x1/2
AR=x1
LR=x2
DS=x3

Small=x1/10
Standard=x1
Large=x10
Vlarge=x100
Gigantic=x1,000
Colossal=x10,000
Vcolossal=x100,000


Now let's think about what the "typical" small size should be for spines -- including power, fuel, and crew requirements. When I think of typical, I think of the spines in High Guard, and like the sound of the 3500t TL13 model for the PA. With fuel and power plant, it comes out to be around 5,300 tons, I think.

But, for argument's sake, say a typical spine for BCS is 10,000 tons, and includes everything it needs to fire itself (power, fuel, crew). If that's the Standard A spine, then the smallest spine is

FR Small A = 1/3 x 1/10 x 10,000 = 300 tons.

Now, assuming a table of spines goes from A to Z, with the A as 10,000 tons, and the Z as 240,000 tons, then the largest spine in this range is

DS Vcolossal Z = 3 x 100,000 x 240,000 = 72 billion tons.

Big enough for a death star?

 

[robject]

Taking things one step further. Suppose we grabbed a K spine (100,000 tons) and wrapped some drives around it.

Maneuver-4: 4% minus one ton.
Jump-4: 2.5% plus 5 tons.
Jump fuel: 40%.
Power-4: 1.5% plus 1 ton.
Power fuel: 4% per month.

Drive volume would be (4% + 2.5% + 40% + 1.5% + 4%) + 5 tons.
I.E. 52%.
Engineering crew space would be (52%/5) = 10.4%.
(Check: a 50t jump drive would require 1 engineer, which is 5 tons, i.e. about 10%).

So, drive + crew volume would be 62.4%.

Total volume is therefore 100,000 / (1-0.624) = about 266,000 tons.

If we added about 80,000 tons more payload, this might be the Tigress.


Invariant Drive Requirements

Note that regardless of the payload size, the drive requirements for a Jump-4, Maneuver-4 ship are always 62.4%. Perhaps only a table is needed, with Jump rating on one axis, and Maneuver rating on the other, to quickly know the percentage of volume required to support the given performance.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Stage Effects.

I can't help but notice how you mention Staging effects for Spines, but yet you never use them in your examples. Can we please see some Staging in future examples? Please.

Oh and I agree on the difference between Spines and Mains, but what is that? Damage, Criticals, Mods? I think that should get difined quick. My first thought is Mods, since Criticals from what I gather are further damage rolls or increased effect in High Guard (I never really played it) and ACS Combat already has that mechanic. Second is Damage, basically Spines do like 1000D base compared to a Main's 100D base.

As a total aside, part of me is thinking upa design for a multi-Main gun armed ship with one or more of the Mains being Deployable. :devil: Not sure what use an Extendable Main gun is but when I do look out.

 

[robject]

Oh and I agree on the difference between Spines and Mains, but what is that? Damage, Criticals, Mods? I think that should get defined quick. My first thought is Mods, since Criticals from what I gather are further damage rolls or increased effect in High Guard (I never really played it) and ACS Combat already has that mechanic. Second is Damage, basically Spines do like 1000D base compared to a Main's 100D base.

Quick decisions come from one person, not a committee. These forums are, almost by definition, the worst kind of committee. Don't expect a decision.

I don't think T5 needs to copy High Guard's Critical Hit rule to get the OTU. I also think spines don't necessarily have to do an order of magnitude more hits than other weapons, ton for ton. Remember, even though added armor is not computed logarithmically (every layer is the same volume -- this is a reasonable abstraction), ship designers tends to put armor into ships in a logarithmic fashion (because you can't always get what you want).

I think the problem can be solved with the expansion of an existing rule: spines cause enhanced strafe damage: hits to contiguous locations on a hull at full strength. This satisfies both superiority over other emplacement types, and the concept of critical hits -- if it can penetrate armor, then it will do so in a swath of destruction.

For example, an ACS with a Main Meson Gun fires and hits a target. The target receives (say) 100 hits at location 0; the shot penetrates and does damage. Since the shot penetrates, adjacent locations also receive half damage and of course bypass armor. If they do damage, then locations adjacent to that get half of those hits. And so on.

Now a BCS with a Meson Spine fires and hits a target at location 0; because it's a Spine, locations -2, -1, 0, +1, and +2 all receive 100 hits from the spine. Strafe damage. Assuming locations -2 and +2 cause damage, then adjacent locations -3 and +3 receive half damage as hits, and if they do damage, locations -4 and +4 receive half of those damage points as hits, and so on.

Extra oomf.

Now looking at the emplacements table, you don't have to add a zero to the hits inflicted by a spine. It could be 100 hits per letter, though - that would be plenty devastating.


Unrelated Side Note And perhaps this mechanic could be the benefit of the pulse laser -- it attacks two locations at full strength. I'm going to suggest that to Marc.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Nasty.

Quick decisions come from one person, not a committee. These forums are, almost by definition, the worst kind of committee. Don't expect a decision.

I don't think T5 needs to copy High Guard's Critical Hit rule to get the OTU. I also think spines don't necessarily have to do an order of magnitude more hits than other weapons, ton for ton. Remember, even though added armor is not computed logarithmically (every layer is the same volume -- this is a reasonable abstraction), ship designers tends to put armor into ships in a logarithmic fashion (because you can't always get what you want).

I think the problem can be solved with the expansion of an existing rule: spines cause enhanced strafe damage: hits to contiguous locations on a hull at full strength. This satisfies both superiority over other emplacement types, and the concept of critical hits -- if it can penetrate armor, then it will do so in a swath of destruction.

For example, an ACS with a Main Meson Gun fires and hits a target. The target receives (say) 100 hits at location 0; the shot penetrates and does damage. Since the shot penetrates, adjacent locations also receive half damage and of course bypass armor. If they do damage, then locations adjacent to that get half of those hits. And so on.

Now a BCS with a Meson Spine fires and hits a target at location 0; because it's a Spine, locations -2, -1, 0, +1, and +2 all receive 100 hits from the spine. Strafe damage. Assuming locations -2 and +2 cause damage, then adjacent locations -3 and +3 receive half damage as hits, and if they do damage, locations -4 and +4 receive half of those damage points as hits, and so on.

Extra oomf.

Now looking at the emplacements table, you don't have to add a zero to the hits inflicted by a spine. It could be 100 hits per letter, though - that would be plenty devastating.


Unrelated Side Note And perhaps this mechanic could be the benefit of the pulse laser -- it attacks two locations at full strength. I'm going to suggest that to Marc.

That is nasty, simple and I like it.

 

[robject]

My Blind Side

This thread hit me where it hurts: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=34376

The essence of it is the challenge I see to BCS. This may not be the challenge seen by others; it's my personal bent, my blind spot, my tunnel vision.

The Challenge. Using only a pencil and one sheet of paper, design a pair of fleets in 15 minutes each, and fight them in the context of a selected interstellar war scenario in 45 minutes' time.

For example, fleets can follow various philosophies:

1. Jump Capable Fleet for a given amount.
2. Battle Rider Fleet without jump capability for the carried units.
3. Battle Rider Fleet with Jump 1 for the riders.

...and these philosophies affect the outcome of course.

Fleets are made up of capital ships with different weapons loadouts, including spine configurations and point defense, auxiliary craft, including escorts, and so on.

In short, capital ship design gives you a rich design suitable for Traveller (not just the OTU, but Traveller), but paradoxically doesn't require a spreadsheet.

And that gets back to my "how much detail is enough detail" thoughts. That's why I had those thoughts to begin with.





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[mike wightman]

I keep coming back to the conclusion that for BCS you need the ratings on the ship chits from the boardgames rather than the factors and obscene numbers of secondaries from HG2.

 

[robject]

I keep coming back to the conclusion that for BCS you need the ratings on the ship chits from the boardgames rather than the factors and obscene numbers of secondaries from HG2.

You're soooo right. I've posted thoughts on COTI on that, as well.

It comes down to the simplification of the ship. How many pieces of data are too many?

I've guesstimated the number to be around 7, plus or minus two. Once you get to 10 discrete pieces of data, you've gone too far.

The solution, I think, is to chunk data with the rules.


Tigress
Pieces of data:
1. Spherical
2. Dreadnought
3. TL15 or Computer Model/Whatever.
4. Jump 3 or 4 or whatever
5. Maneuver 5
6. Big Honking Meson Spine
7. Fighter wings
8. Buttload of screens
9. Buttload of dampers
10. Buttload of anti-missile bays
11. Buttload of anti-missile turrets
12-99. Other things I can't remember.


Too much.

So the question is, how much can you derive from just a few pieces of data? Can you infer the Tigress from 7 pieces of data?

 

[Hyphen]

Regarding pointing in various directions, if the ship is large enough it could support free moving "deep" meson spinal mounts. Sphere diameter = spinal length. I seem to recall the imperial palace had one or two of those.

Three illustrated, therefore probably four. But the point of that thing was to be COMPLETELY over the top.