SpineMaker and Battle-Class Ships

[robject]

Roadmap to BCS

[Done] Understanding Ship Components. T5 has a chapter each on understanding Sensors, Weapons, and Defenses. Those chapters frame the chapters on ACS combat and ACS design. So both design and combat have a firm foundation. I think once the errata is applied, they do a good-enough job at describing comprehensive, pan-OTU-spanning ship-to-ship combat in Traveller.

Both design and combat are complex, but given the sheer amount of stuff that can affect combat in Traveller, that's to be expected.

[Draft] SpineMaker. Marc has a draft for spines that is going in the correct direction. I've riffed on it on this forum. The foundation of BCS is SpineMaker. Marc's draft should be thunk over by whoever can be roped into it, and sanity checked, questions asked, and then a "beta" produced.

[To Do] Understanding BCS. The foundations of BCS and BCS combat are chapters such as "Understanding Task Forces", "Understanding Squadrons", "Understanding System Operations", "Understanding Planetary Assault", or whatever is appropriate.

[To Do] BCS Combat and Design. These chapters flow from the Understanding BCS chapters above.


WHAT THIS SAYS TO ME

This suggests to me that BCS is a 64 page supplement with the following chapters:

1. Understanding Task Forces and Squadrons
2. Understanding System Ops
3. Understanding Planetary Assault
4. BCS Design (starts with SpineMaker)
5. Examples ported from Supp 9
6. BCS Combat and Examples
7. Combat Scenario Generator

 

[Reban]

[To Do] Understanding BCS[/B]. The foundations of BCS and BCS combat are chapters such as "Understanding Task Forces", "Understanding Squadrons", "Understanding Fleets", "Understanding System Operations", "Understanding Planetary Assault", or whatever is appropriate.

These are some great chapter headings......

......but I hope they don't define anything too narrowly.


By all means they should reference how its done in the OTU but there are so many ways to "do" Task Forces, Squadrons, Fleets and various Operations depending on TL, culture and objectives that it must be a framework to build on rather than a prescriptive approach.


Understanding Planetary Assault..... does that mean BCS would include an Invasion Earth or Fifth Frontier war type system or subset of rules? Would that be a good way of incorporating that idea you had about defining ground military units in the same way as Squadrons in Fleet Combat Rob?

 

[robject]

it must be a framework to build on rather than a prescriptive approach.

Granted. Mind you, when I wrote this, I wrote it with Marc in mind: he's the one who's going to have to write these or edit the content together.

Understanding Planetary Assault..... does that mean BCS would include an Invasion Earth or Fifth Frontier war type system or subset of rules? Would that be a good way of incorporating that idea you had about defining ground military units in the same way as Squadrons in Fleet Combat Rob?

I think it means BCS will have operational considerations.

Now that I think about it, "Fleet construction" is a separate thing. So, scrub Fleets. I'll go edit them out right now...

Anyway. It makes me think that BCS is primarily about operational warfare, so: oort cloud maneuvers, high guard scenarios, and planetary assault, for example.

I don't know if it would have much logistics in it.

 

[SanDragon]

Granted. Mind you, when I wrote this, I wrote it with Marc in mind: he's the one who's going to have to write these or edit the content together.

Did you borrow it directly or wafer jack a copy?

 

[robject]

New thought about weapons, sensors, and defenses on Big Ships.

The USP abstracted this kind of stuff based on factors. What if the factor scale for BCS were tonnage, in base 10?


...yeah, forget I wrote all that nonsense. T5 already has mechanisms for virtual batteries, and they work in a manner similar to High Guard, just more standardized. Why change that?

 

[mike wightman]

You come full circle back to HG1e...

 

[robject]

You come full circle back to HG1e...

...which I do try to re-read periodically.

What with ACS plus the "XSP" that Wil refined here on COTI, I'm thinking it's more profitable to just build some BCS and see how combat works between them, than to think about it and spin my wheels more.

 

[mike wightman]

Or is it better to design the combat system you want and then design the ship building system with those parameters in mind.

What I liked about HG1 was that there one only one roll for each weapon factor rather than the massed batteris of HG2 requiring lots of dice or statistical resolution. If statistical resolution for weapon fire is required it should be baked into the weapon factor in the design evaluation stage.
HG1 almost did this but the rules for it were a bit wonky.

 

[robject]

Ship "design" is really already mostly there (there's only a few ways to "do design"). So yes, combat informs design.

 

[aramis]

Ship "design" is really already mostly there (there's only a few ways to "do design"). So yes, combat informs design.

There are quite a few, unless one is stuck in simulationist mode...

I've even seen (and toyed with myself) generating ships much like characters.

the methods that are popular in the industry:

Fiat - no design system

Fiat + - No design system, but a design evaluation system

Point Building - much like GURPS Character Gen - not often used.

Size based - either volume or mass - setting the limits

Random Rolled - only used in a couple really odd games, but yes, it HAS been done.

Fixed hulls plus options - see also Star Frontiers ...

There's plenty of room to adjust ship design to match the desired combat feel.

 

[robject]

So here's my thoughts about a 3"x5" ship card.

Movement is like Mayday, but is in task forces like Battle Rider.

Damage tracks: components lose effectiveness as they get hit.

Abstracted components, where possible.

A most-significant component list based on ship size range. Larger ships get to list more components:

Ship Volume    Comps  Track Len
Ftr Squadron     1       1
800 - 1500t      3       1
1600- 4900t      4       2
5  - 15k         4       3
16 - 24k         4       4
25 - 59k         5       4
60 - 99k         6       4
100-290k         6       5
300 - 390k       7       5
400 - 490k       7       6
500 - 900k       8       6
1m - 1.9m        8       7
2m - 3.9m        9       7

Components are rated by target number. Better components (e.g. TL and battery size) get better TNs, and may do twice or thrice damage in extreme cases. (Alternately they could be DMs instead, but I want to trade that for rolling more. I may change my mind.)

Apply the two defensive modes from ACS directly to BCS: anti-beam rating and anti-missile rating. To hit, your attack must succeed, and the defender must fail his applicable defense roll(s), (if he can make any). Attack tasks roll nD < TN, n=range in hexes/bands. When both sides are only in one task force, the battle uses range bands; if there's also nothing significant around in the environment, then movement is completely abstracted, where the ship with greater maneuver gets to decide whether to open or close distance by 1 band at the start of each round.

Defensive tasks roll 1D < TN and defend against every applicable attack.

The jump drive is either "working" or "damaged". Damaged jump drives can be repaired.

The ship's current maneuver rating is represented by one die. Damaged maneuver drives can be repaired.

One of the attack dice rolled is red. It specifies what gets damaged on a hit:

1. Drives.
2. Beams.
3. Missiles.
4. Anti-Beams.
5. Anti-Missiles.
6. Other.

In all cases, if there are multiple components in the category, the attacker picks which component is damaged. Once a component's damage track is completely covered, the component is considered destroyed.


When all defenses are destroyed, the next hit destroys the ship. This typically happens when multiple damage levels are assessed against the final defense, which exceed the number of its remaining layers.

Tigress-class Dreadnought             AGL 5

COMPONENT       -- DAMAGE TRACK --
Meson (3x)      24 20 16 12  8  4
PA (3x)         16 13 10  8  6  5
Missiles (3x)   18 15 12 10  8  6
Anti-Beams A     3  3  3  2  2  1
Anti-Beams B     3  3  2  2  1  1
Anti-Missile     3  3  3  2  2  1    
Hangar           8  7  6  5  4  3
Sensors         10  8  6  5  4  3
                                      JMP 4

Damage Penetration and Strafing

Smaller ships do one level of damage when they hit. Cruisers (10,000t and up) do two levels of damage, and also damage the next adjacent component. This is written with a (2x) next to each weapon. Dreadnoughts (100,000t and up) do three levels of damage, and also damage both adjacent components. This is written as (3x) next to each weapon.

Mass Fire

Task forces have the ability to focus several attacks together. It's like a normal attack, except the damage penetration is half the total ratings of the attacking weapons, rounded down. (This means it's pointless to have a two-ship massed attack, by the way). Strafing is limited to the lowest capability.

 

[robject]

First attempt: Tigress vs. Tigress. Combat lasted several rounds, and both ships wore each other down inexorably. I had not, however, added the double- and triple- damage rule. This rule will speed up combat -- better I think.

I haven't added in sensor and fighter rules, nor boarding, repair, tactical pools, mass fire, morale, nor leaders.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Lurky McLurker.

Still watching, not sure I agree with the Component restrictions, but otherwise I am liking it.

 

[robject]

I've mocked up versions of the Lightning-class Frontier Cruiser and the Nolikian-class Battle Rider, but I haven't run combat with the new multiple-damage feature. The Nolikian in particular is telling in that it can pack a wallop, but it's clearly nowhere near as durable as a dreadnought. This is a fine line to walk, since it should be able to threaten dreadnoughts. Supplement 9 is my friend.

Component limits

Limits on number of components (i.e. you only record the most important things of your ship), size of damage track, and number of locations (damage levels) damaged per hit are all used to express how a ship's volume is used. In other words, you could design a ship by picking the components you want at the strengths you want them, and that should tell us the ship's volume. Probably, TL strongly influences the target numbers. Damage level is probably a coarse predictor of hull volume: 2x for cruisers, and 3x for dreadnoughts. Thus number of components and damage track size might combine to determine a hull multiplier... say C x T / 10 = Multiple.

Take the Tigress, for example. 8 components at high strengths with damage tracks of depth 6. The weapons are all 3x damage. MOV 5, JMP 4 (or 3?). All those result in a TL15 volume of 500,000 tons. Reduce the damage depth, or the number of components, or damage levels, MOV, or JMP, and the volume decreases. The least powerful unit would have 1 low-strength component with a damage track depth of 1, MOV 1, JMP 0. Too slow for a fighter wing.

So, you could have a craft with 8 components, a damage track of depth 6, but only 1x damage levels, which might displace 4,800 tons. That sounds like too much durability for such a small ship, though: a Tigress ought to squash it flat without so much as a yawn. I'd have to play around with the numbers. On the other hand, the Sloan-class Escorts are supposedly with the 154th in order to buy the Nolikians time to deploy, implying that even if they are weak, they are nevertheless useful for one or two combat rounds of delay.

 

[robject]

The damage track is really nice to have. The card doesn't need another line for armor: damage tracks pull double duty in representing armor and capability degradation at the same time. That's a win-win.

Maneuver or Agility or whatever it will be called might need a d12, since its rating can exceed 6. I'm not afraid of that.

Having the target numbers directly on the card is nice, too. TL and DMs are embedded into them, while some graceful performance degradation curve can be applied based on the type of thing taking damage. That's done during design evaluation. And thus we don't need another line of data for the TL -- but note that there may be caveats due to TL difference. For example, if your TL doesn't allow meson screens, then you have to know not to roll defense when attacked by meson guns. That sort of thing.

So the ship card looks like a strange kind of Book 2 ship.

 

[robject]

Combat session 2. Eight Sloan-class escorts attacked one Lightning-class Frontier Cruiser. The Sloans have higher-tech weapons, resulting in easier attack tasks, and superior maneuver. The cruiser has more powerful weapons, and better endurance. Nevertheless, the escorts set the attack range, which minimized the cruiser's chances of hitting, and as a result they wore it down.

Session 3. Much the same. Four Sloans against one Nolikian; while matched in technology, the Nolikian has superior maneuver, defenses, and armor, and more powerful weapons. Nevertheless the escorts wore away at its defenses. It managed to neutralize one Sloan with one shot and beat another one down significantly, but several good shots by the Sloans damaged its spine and its secondaries...

It may have been too easy for the Sloans to damage spines.

On the other hand, ton for ton the forces are not necessarily unevenly matched against the Sloans.