SpineMaker and Battle-Class Ships

[Spartan159]

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

Aye. My observation was just that even on a smaller hull you don't have to advertise the meson gun, as it can shoot through the firing hull as easily as it penetrates the target hull. And given a large enough hull not necessarily tied to the facing of the ship either.

 

[Hemdian]

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.

Maybe I'm in the minority (and perhaps this isn't the right place to air this) but I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. I'm not interested in a 'beer n pretzels' level game (though I realise that some are) but would like something more meaty.

Back in the day I was quick to adopt the MT ship design system (despite being overly complicated in parts) because CT's B2 and HG seemed more like toys than simulations. CT designs always felt like half the story, missing something that could make you believe they were real places your PCs could adventure. Good enough for a stand alone game, not good enough as an RPG resource.

(Sorry for inturrupting. Just wanted to get that off my chest.)

 

[aramis]

Maybe I'm in the minority (and perhaps this isn't the right place to air this) but I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. I'm not interested in a 'beer n pretzels' level game (though I realise that some are) but would like something more meaty.

Back in the day I was quick to adopt the MT ship design system (despite being overly complicated in parts) because CT's B2 and HG seemed more like toys than simulations. CT designs always felt like half the story, missing something that could make you believe they were real places your PCs could adventure. Good enough for a stand alone game, not good enough as an RPG resource.

(Sorry for inturrupting. Just wanted to get that off my chest.)

You're not the only one.

After about 1995, however, I wanted Bk 5 plus mass. As in, the same number of parameters as MT, but without the added detail layer. And I wanted it to link to a Bk2 kind of combat. I was sore disappointed when hunter's "Tons per hit" proposal went away in T20.

 

[robject]

Maybe I'm in the minority (and perhaps this isn't the right place to air this) but I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. I'm not interested in a 'beer n pretzels' level game (though I realise that some are) but would like something more meaty.

Back in the day I was quick to adopt the MT ship design system (despite being overly complicated in parts) because CT's B2 and HG seemed more like toys than simulations. CT designs always felt like half the story, missing something that could make you believe they were real places your PCs could adventure. Good enough for a stand alone game, not good enough as an RPG resource.

It sounds like you're an actual wargamer. You like verisimilitude in detail.

But, you did mention MT was "overly complicated in parts". Consider rules which gave you what you wanted, and yet was not overly complicated in parts.

There are at least three ways to fix "overly complicated":


(1) Chunking of design rules: re-use effective formulas in different contexts. Use the brain's ability to generalize as a way to keep the ruleset effective but not leggy. T5 does this with generalized tech level improvements. If MT had used that, many of its tables could have been rationalized and simplified without losing anything.

(2) Decimal places. Fewer places of precision makes for easier design, without sacrificing reality.

(3) Storing complexity in combat rules: combat is typically very simple, running through phases with straightfoward tasks. Design decisions don't have to all be numeric: they can modify the rules used. The meson gun is an example of this. It's a major game changer, but effectively it just tweaks one rule that is quick to learn and easy to remember.

 

[elbmc1969]

There are at least [o]three[/o] four ways to fix "overly complicated":

(4) Play Aids. Well-designed play aids can make complicated rules simple to execute, or simply hide the complicated rule from the players. As a low-level example, look at the ship sheets for Squadron Strike: Traveller. The section that shows all of the systems on the ship is the damage allocation table. Because you allocate damage by going along the row, inflicting one point of damage on each system until the strike runs out of damage, the process is very fast.

 

[JFGarber]

I'm not interested in a 'beer n pretzels' level game (though I realise that some are) but would like something more meaty.

I agree. I don't mind a spreadsheet or two--it's a price that I'm happy to pay for the opportunity to have detailed differentiators (sp?). It's those details that help me to imagine the setting.

 

[robject]

It's [detailed differentiators] that help me to imagine the setting.

You've hit the nail on the head. Even further, differentiators plus their in-game effects help define the setting. A Plankwell is not a Kokirrak. Even one Lightning is not quite like another Lightning.

Differentiators imply some level of design detail plus a supporting game effect, and both of those are required.

However, there is a proportion to be considered. Detailed complexity often, but not always, exists for itself, not for a game. And the scope creep is insidious. Some complexities have no backing rule at all.

T4 had a system that let me design a pistol. Once I finished what felt like Physics 101 homework, I had something which was no more differentiated in the game than a pistol already written into the game. Clearly this was the wrong product for me. I know some people really like it still. But it never existed for T4. It existed for itself.

 

[robject]

Banging that drum a little louder: differentiators plus their in-game effects work together to define the setting.


Thesis: design has become complicated because the rules aren't doing their part.


Now then, are there differentiators for a ship escorting other ships? How about for playing a true high guard position during a refueling situation? If the rules handled this better, then our design options for these scenarios might be clearer.

So we can have detailed design, and yet if the rules can't keep up, then the solution isn't to make design more detailed, but to make the rules support Traveller better. Consider that rules need to do their share.

Also, consider that there's a synergy when both the design system AND the rules support the setting. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. When one is weak, the other becomes stressed.

That's why I think design became so complicated. It's trying to compensate, so we can play in the Traveller setting. But it falls short.

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[robject]

Another thought.

A Broadsword has, say, 17 data points. A fighter, maybe 7 or 8. So the total on the good guys' side is 17 + 16 = 34 data points to use and keep track of.

A Shivva has, say, 14 data points. Three Shivvas therefore totals 42 data points.

It looks to me as though 40 data points per side is enough to run a game for a couple of hours, whether it be a Broadsword and its fighters, or a squadron of capital ships.



On the other hand, consider Fifth Frontier War. Counters have four data points each, but you typically have more than 10 counters per side in the game, right? I don't remember offhand, but supposing you had 20 counters per side. That would be 80 data points. Granted you don't look at all 80 points all the time, AND you can chunk the data relatively easily when each counter only has 4 bits of data on it (there's chunking at work, by the way).

So, chunking is a level game designers can use to bring in more complexity, without increasing the mental load on players.

 

[aramis]

Except that, at the scale of 5FW, you're miscounting the data.

A 5FW counter has TWO data points of note: Class and status; the duplicated datapoints across the same class don't count - so the class is 4, and then double the number of members of that class. The Counter marks a third data point - location.

Much more juggling in Imperium playing the one side (who have more classes) than the other.

In Bk2, however, the status of each weapon is a datapoint or two (Ammo, undamaged/damaged), as is each weapon's type (M/BL/PL/SC/PA, plus the drives - Rating + 1 datapoints each drive (Letter, minimum letter for each rating loss)... And while each class has some overlap (weapon types, thresholds) and some are easy enough to just look up when needed...

Bk 2 is subject to serious tactical decision response... what you do matters.

HG is not responsive to tactical decisions. So the high data load (caused by the rating reduction damage system) climbs as ships are damaged and cease to be to reference standard, and it has very low tactical decision value, so, it's really really not a good system for an RPG combat system. And it is too complex to replace the incredibly abstract, Tactics hardly matter at all, systems of Imperium and 5FW.

So the question is - can you come up with something that maintains tactics, while reducing the complexity? (The best boardgames I've seen on that score were Federation Space, Full Thrust, and Starfire.)

 

[mike wightman]

My thoughts.

A realistic space combat sim with the weapon ranges Traveller has as standard will not involve much in the way of tactics.

It will be more a logistical matter to get your assets to where you need them to be before weapon range is entered.

This is why planets and gas giants become choke points, and why the High Guard position is required to screen you refuelling ships.

A high closing velocity engagement may only give you a couple of turns within weapon range, requiring you to do a lot of damage in a very limited time frame.

Deliberate maneuvering to battle will involve enemy fleets choosing a low closing velocity so they can change effective weapon range and have several turns of trading firepower.

The HG1 rules actually had more 'tactical' options in that you could break through a line by spending four turns at short range.

 

[aramis]

Note that HG 2 doesn't specify ranges, and Bk2's ranges are functionally FAR less than the theoretical maximums, due to the penalties for range and the 2d6 throw.

 

[Hal]

Note that HG 2 doesn't specify ranges, and Bk2's ranges are functionally FAR less than the theoretical maximums, due to the penalties for range and the 2d6 throw.

Didn't the later versions of Mayday actively peg the High Guard Ranges into Bk 2 ranges?

 

[mike wightman]

Yes it did.

 

[robject]

*Thread Resurrect*

The constraints, as far as I can tell are:

COMBAT

High Guard 2-style Combat

Laying aside the wargame angle (I can see a Battle Rider for T5), the basic combat model of BCS is to resolve combat efficiently. This suggests the abstract High Guard 2 and Trillion-Credit Squadron way of doing things. Functional, not sexy.

Attacks have to consider:
(a) configuration
(b) agility
(c) screens
(d) TL
...and will have to deal with size in a consistent way.

T5 already handles Screening, so that's a bonus.

Another add-on would be Flanking: an agile close-range maneuver that maximizes the safety of the attacker: on success, it bypasses a spine and results in fewer batteries bearing on the attacker. Colloquially called "getting in the shadow" of a ship.

A related add-in would be Breakthrough: another agile close-range maneuver that does not maximize safety, but rather tries to run behind the line of battle to attack the reserve.


Massed Fire

Massed fire becomes critically important for BCS in two ways:
(a) Incredible amounts of energy can be bought to bear in a single attack. Any armor rating can potentially be overcome.
(b) Mass-fire dramatically reduces the number of attacks made.

Massed fire increases the chances to hit, as well as the damage inflicted. A hundred bay weapons firing together have a significantly better chance of doing damage -- and more damage -- than a hundred bay weapons firing separately.



TL Affects Everything

TL implies breakthrough technologies as much as new weapons. Attacks succeed less often, and defenses are at a distinct disadvantage, when your opponent has a better TL.

Missiles Penetrate Defenses
(This is actually only a continuation of point #3)

Especially true for ships equipped to take a lot of damage themselves when getting extremely close to their targets.

Particle Accelerators Are Useful

PAs may have validity after the meson gun, due to two things:

(a) The meson gun cannot attack at short range, while the PA can.
(b) A nuclear damper requires two mounts (is this still true?), which means the largest damper possible on a ship will not be as effective as the largest meson screen possible on that ship -- all else being equal (caveat emptor).

Weapons Have Development Curves

Especially for the major weapons, technology affects the design of starships in ways unrelated to mission. Meson guns, for example, are useful at introductory TLs, due to poor defenses. They resurface around TL 14-15, when miniaturization allows smaller warships to pack a big punch. PAs, meanwhile, are stand-off weapons, enjoying the benefits of ranged attacks.


Kill Zone

As range decreases, and as the number of massed guns increases, the likelihood of scoring hits increases. This can in some cases create a "kill zone".

 

[robject]

DESIGN

(1) CT High Guard is the template.
(2) Upended to easily allow payload-driven design.[FONT=arial,helvetica]
[/FONT](3) Expanded hull sizes, component systems, and TLs, per T5.[FONT=arial,helvetica]
[/FONT](4) Spines are expanded into a Maker system.
(5) Bays are managed in batch-tonnage notation, rather than singles.
(6) Turret and barbette groups are managed with a point-defense notation.
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SpineMaker

A spine's "letter" maps to its damage rating, while volume and power depends on the weapon and its TL. Other effects may alter the spine further (range, configuration, etc). A dedicated power plant is required.

The output is a set of default spines close to the lists in CT, and a wide range of alternatives.

Contrived, fake example: take a Standard PA "A" Spine - call it 4,000 tons, Rating A (10), requiring 40,000 EP (these are T5 EPs, not HG2 EPs). The K40 F+plant and operations space required to power and run it is 4,000 tons, for a total spine package volume of 8,000 tons.


Bays

The table for Bay Weapons changes when used with Traveller5. "Attack factor" in Traveller5 is actually the Target Number, and is more strongly related to tech level. What's more, ships by default have distributed power systems, meaning non-spine weapon emplacements have their own internal power plants, charging capacitors, etc. Finally, there are fewer restrictions about what can go in a bay, with one exception: meson guns can only be mounted as a "main" gun or a spine.

Batch Tonnage Notation. Each bay has an attack bonus and a damage rating. When bought in bulk, the total number of guns, total attack bonus, and total damage is recorded in a way that makes combat faster. For example, enough large bays bearing on a target can bypass the need to roll to hit. Thus what could be recorded is simply the damage and range for that battery.


If you were to express this in High Guard terms, the bay weapon tables (plus a "main weapon" table) might look like this:

200-ton Main Gun 
Weapon       TL  7 8 9 A B C D E F G H J K L M   MCr
---------------- -----------------------------   ----
Missile          J K L M N P Q R S T U V W X Y   20.2
KK Missile             M N P Q R S T U V W X Y   23.0
Salvo Rack             M N P Q R S T U V W X Y   30.0
Ortillery                  P Q R S T U V W X Y   35.0
Rail Gun                   P Q R S T U V W X Y   32.0
PA                       N P Q R S T U V W X Y   22.5
Meson Gun                    Q R S T U V W X Y   25.0
Plasma Gun             M N P Q R S T U V W X Y   21.0
Fusion Gun                 P Q R S T U V W X Y   21.5
Tractor/Pressor                    T U V W X Y   25.0
Jump Damper                    R S T U V W X Y   35.0
Jump Inducer                         U V W X Y   21.0
Disruptor                              V W X Y   35.0
AM Missile                                 X Y   25.0
Stasis                                       Y   25.0

100-ton Bay
Weapon       TL  7 8 9 A B C D E F G H J K L M   MCr
---------------- -----------------------------   ----
Missile          G H J K L M N P Q R S T U V W   10.2
KK Missile             K L M N P Q R S T U V W   13.0
Salvo Rack             K L M N P Q R S T U V W   20.0
Ortillery                  M N P Q R S T U V W   25.0
Rail Gun                   M N P Q R S T U V W   22.0
PA                       L M N P Q R S T U V W   12.5
Plasma Gun             K L M N P Q R S T U V W   11.0
Fusion Gun                 M N P Q R S T U V W   11.5
Tractor/Pressor                    R S T U V W   15.0
Jump Damper                    P Q R S T U V W   25.0
Jump Inducer                         S T U V W   11.0
Disruptor                              T U V W   25.0
AM Missile                                 V W   15.0
Stasis                                       W   15.0

50-ton Bay
Weapon       TL  7 8 9 A B C D E F G H J K L M   MCr
---------------- -----------------------------   ----
Missile          C D E F G H J K L M N P Q R S    5.2
KK Missile             F G H J K L M N P Q R S    8.0
Salvo Rack             F G H J K L M N P Q R S   15.0
Ortillery                  H J K L M N P Q R S   20.0
Rail Gun                   H J K L M N P Q R S   17.0
PA                       G H J K L M N P Q R S    7.5
Plasma Gun             F G H J K L M N P Q R S    6.0
Fusion Gun                 H J K L M N P Q R S    6.5
Tractor/Pressor                    M N P Q R S   10.0
Jump Damper                    K L M N P Q R S   20.0
Jump Inducer                         N P Q R S    6.0
Disruptor                              P Q R S   20.0
AM Missile                                 R S   10.0
Stasis                                       S   10.0

Hull

Price per ton varies with configuration:

Configuration    Base Cost + MCr per kiloton
---------------- ---------   ---------------
Planetoid            0            10
Cluster              0            20
Braced               0            30
Unstreamlined    MCr 2            30 
Streamlined:     MCr 2            60
Airframe:        MCr 2            80
Lifting Body:    MCr 4            120

Drives

Please observe TL restrictions, stage effects, and fuel efficiency, per Traveller5.

                        Rating
          Base    1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9 
Maneuver         1.0%  2.0%  3.0%  4.0%  5.0%  6.0%  7.0%  8.0%  9.0%
Jump        5 +  2.5%  5.0%  7.5% 10.0% 12.5% 15.0% 17.5% 20.0% 22.5%
Power            1.5%  3.0%  4.5%  6.0%  7.5%  9.0% 10.5% 12.0% 13.5%

Total volume = Base + Percentage x Hull Volume.

Crew and Life Support

Crew Module. 25 tons, MCr 4. Provides 4 months' life support for 10 crew at comfort -2 (which is not a problem for military vessels). The "naval crew module" consists of five 2 ton staterooms, five 1 ton spacer niches, 6 tons' worth of crew lounge, 1 crew common fresher, a storage locker, and 2 tons of long-term life support.

 

[robject]

COMBAT PHASES FOR CONSIDERATION

Phase one is for sensor tasks, boarding, and jump.

Phase two is missile launch/move. Anti-missile defenses may stop missiles at this phase, before the missiles attack, and in this respect T5 combat is backwards from HG combat. Anti-Missile tasks are "easy", but have heavy DMs:

1D < Missile Size.

Typical missiles are Size 5, but range from 2 to 6. Mods range from -2 to +high values (when launched at uncomfortably close ranges and operator guided). I believe this is potentially the "Death Star" scenario.


Phase three is for non-missile attacks. Similar to phase two, anti-beam attacks (e.g. sand) attempt to neutralize these attacks in this phase. Anti-Beam attacks are "easy", but the Devil's in the DMs:

1D < TL Delta.

TL Delta is, of course, defender's TL minus the attacker's TL. This is modified by the mount for the defense, which typically ranges from -2 to +2 but can range further.


Beams that are not blocked then make their attacks:

nD < Target Number

n = range bands to target.
Target number = TL + [characteristic + skill] + [target size - range to target].

Battery Fire. Any number of weapons of the same type may share an attack roll. One weapon is the lead weapon; if it hits, the others hit as well. Total hit is the sum of the weapons. Batteries can span multiple ships by establishing a Commcaster connection during phase one.

Phase four is the ship movement phase.

Phase five is where all weapons which were not blocked, hit. Damage and damage control is done here.
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[mike wightman]

The constraints, as far as I can tell are:

COMBAT

1. High Guard 2-style Combat

Laying aside the wargame angle (I can see a Battle Rider for T5), the basic combat model of BCS is to resolve combat efficiently. This points to the abstract High Guard 2 model.

I would still argue with a few more maneuver options than the HG abstract system gives us. Keep them abstract still (no need for vector movement at this level of resolution), but definitely have rules for breaking through the line of battle, flanking et.

2. TL Affects Everything

Attacks succeed less often, and defenses are at a distinct disadvantage, when your opponent has a better TL.

Agreed, but with the caveat that this is often due to the development of brand new offensive or defensive systems

3. Missiles Penetrate Defenses

Especially true for ships equipped to take a lot of damage themselves when getting extremely close to their targets. Are suicide squadrons possible?

Sorry but no. Missile defences are getting to the point here in the real world that they can not penetrate an active defense system without first attacking the defence system itself.
Point defence gattling lasers will make short work of missiles, even in swarms.
A breakthrough in missile technology would be required... see comment above
Suicide squadrons are always a possibility but surely it is a much better idea to go the drone missile route instead (see MgT)
A higher TL missile becomes a small craft with its own countermeasures to defeat anti-missile weapons - sand cannisters, ablative hull, layered armour, eccm etc.

4. Particle Accelerators Are Useful

PAs may have validity after the meson gun, due to two things:

(a) The meson gun cannot attack at short range, while the PA can.
(b) A nuclear damper requires two mounts (is this still true?), which means the largest damper possible on a ship will not be as effective as the largest meson screen possible on that ship -- all else being equal (caveat emptor).

This is another TL dependent thing. At some TLs the spinal PA is the battle decider, while at higher TLs advances in damper and armour materials make the PA less useful.
Note that in HG2 it is the meson gun that is the short range weapon by the way, and also lose the mindset that the meson gun is a battle winner - it isn't. It only starts to come into its own when screen technology lags behind (early TL of introduction) and at higher TLs where smaller more powerful meson weapons allow you to build more smaller hulled spinal meson warships. Even then meson guns have really low hit chances and maximum screens make penetration difficult too.

As to dampers requiring two mounts, in HG ship mounted damper screens do not take up turret or bay spaces, but they could well require two locations for the damper projectors within the hull (the 20t damper is actually two 10t units, one at the front of the ship and one at the back).

5. Massed Fire

Massed fire means incredible amounts of energy can be bought to bear in a single attack. Any armor rating can potentially be overcome.

In fact there should be an autokill range - if a laser can cause one hit at a range of a light second, at a range of a few km it will burn through the most armoured of hulls.

 

[robject]

@Mike

I'm going to have to put together some errata to post to T5.09 about space weapons.

 

[robject]

Modeling the development of a spinal gun is a tricky thing.

There is the TL Stage effect: as TL increases, the spine volume decreases. As the spine volume decreases, its energy requirement decreases, and so the power plant required to power it gets smaller. At the same time, the power plant itself - at least in its early stages of development - grows more efficient, and so the power plant becomes even smaller.

The primary importance of all of this is the Meson Spine. At its TL of introduction, the meson spine may be klunky, but the meson screen is even less useful. Thus meson spines rule the day. However, Meson Screens catch up quickly, and then we have stalemate.

At TL15 the Meson Spine crosses a size threshold, and it creates a new paradigm of small-but-deadly warships. One example of this is the Nolikian-class battle rider.

T5.09 says the Meson Gun and Screen are TL12 inventions. If this is true, then this must happen:

1. "Advanced" spines must be compact, as in 25% of the original spine volume.
2. "Standard" Screens must be relatively poor at stopping attacks.

It might be better to submit an errata and claim that the Meson Guns and Screens are standard at TL13, forcing TL12 ships to use Early screens and relatively large spines. This would make more sense in that "Early" production models are expected to be substandard.



THEREFORE

1. Meson Screens (and maybe even Meson Spines) should be "Standard" at TL13, forcing TL12 to use Early versions.
2. Stage Effects for Spines and Screens may be their own thing:

TL-1 Early. Volume x 2. DM-2 or something...
TL+0 Standard.
TL+2 Modified. Volume / 2. DM+2 or..
TL+3 Advanced. Volume / 3. DM+3 or ...

Volume is spine rating (A=1000, B=2000, ... Z=24,000).
That's an abbreviated table of course.

If a "C" meson spine displaces 3,000 tons at TL13, then at TL12 it displaces 6,000 tons, but at TL15 it displaces 1,500 tons.

Needs work. I have several variations on the above in various states of completion.


SCREENS AND EMPLACEMENTS

I like screens using emplacements for more "oomph". But they need tuning.