Spines

[robject]

I was playing around with particle accelerator and meson spines from High Guard, and the expanded list from MegaTraveller, when I decided to adapt them to a Traveller5 mindset.

First, I guesstimated the T5 energy points required per ton of spine, by the very imprecise method of taking a "standard" example in HG and mating it with a "standard" power plant, then mapping tonnage to tonnage for the power plant. I came up with about 20 EP (that's Traveller5 EPs) per ton.

Then I back-calculated likely stage effects and technological progressions for the HG/MT spines, but in the end of that I simply generalized into a number of basic spine volumes mapped to an "oomph" factor.

Basically, then, each weapon class has 24 spines, with a base volume starting at 1,800 to 2,000 tons, and a base cost of MCr1 per ton. Lower energy spines progress by 200 tons per spine letter, and higher energy spines progress by 400 tons (or so) per spine letter.

So, pick a spine by its ID / oomph factor. Then apply stage effects, if any. Then apply range effects, if any. Toss in a hard minimum size of 1,000 tons.

Then build a power plant for it (vol = EP x 3 / 100; MCr1 per ton). Apply stage effects to it, if any.

Fuel required to power a spine (assuming it's usually on standby mode for most of its life) is 40% of the spine's volume, times the spine's efficiency from the stage effects table, if applicable.


Upper Limits

Is 24 spines enough to satisfy the Traveller universe? The Loeskalth planetoid was 50 billion tons. Can you tell me with a straight face that it only had a 2,000 ton spine? And how about planetary defenses? A planet can be seen as a gigantic ship. Why limit spines?

Although I don't have full answers to those questions, I think the spine volume progressions I've outlined take care of most starships' needs.

Consider. The base Type Z Meson Spine in my charts is 13,500 tons. Using Range Effects to increase its range can expand that to 40,000 tons. Fuel is another 40% of that, or 16,000 tons.

At 20 EP per ton, its power plant generates 800,000 EP. A plant of this size would displace (800,000 x 3 / 100) = 24,000 tons.

Total volume, 80,000 tons.

Still piddly for a Loeskalth.

 

[robject]

Azhanti High Lightning

Another example: the Azhanti High Lightning

Now that I have spines, I can try to build a BCS.

A Lightning-class fleet intruder/assault cruiser is commissioned to have Jump-5, Maneuver-2, and 4 layers of armor. Its payload consists of an E-class Particle Accelerator spine, ortillery bays, salvo racks, dual barbette fusion guns, triple turret lasers, triple turret sandcasters, a computer Model/6, good nuclear dampers and meson screens, 80 light fighters, and four fuel shuttles. All of this fits into an unstreamlined hull.

This Battle-Class Ship will be designed payload first.

A standard Particle Accelerator E spine is 2,600 tons. At TL 14, the E spine is commissioned at an Advanced stage, reducing volume to 1,000 tons (the absolute minimum). The power required is 20 EP x 1,000 tons x Efficiency (0.8 for Advanced spines), or 16,000 EP. By calculation, the 16,000 EP power plant displaces 480 tons, and costs MCr 480. Fuel volume is 40% of the spine's volume, or 400 tons, times Efficiency (0.8), equals 320 tons.

40 bay weapons displace 2,000 tons. 40 dual barbettes displace 200 tons. 320 turrets displace 320 tons. The computer Model/6 displaces 6 tons. Dampers and screens use two bays, for 100 tons total. 80 light fighters displace 800 tons, and four fuel shuttles displace another 400 tons.

Total payload volume is 5,626 tons.

Proportional values include: Jump-5, which requires 12.5% h.v., Jump fuel, which requires 50% h.v., Maneuver-2, which requires 2% h.v., Power-5, which requires 7.5% h.v., Power plant fuel, which requires 5% h.v., and three extra layers of armor (the first layer is always free), which requires 12% h.v. Another 2% takes care of the bridge and crew. These elements total 91% of the hull.

Therefore, payload takes up the remaining 9% of the hull. Thus the volume of the hull is

5,626 / 0.09 = 62,511 tons.

 

[rancke]

How about a smaller spinal? I've always felt it strange that smaller ships weren't allowed to use the dodge with one weapon carried as a spinal. (If I ever ran a TCS campaign I would totally let the players do that).


Hans

 

[whulorigan]

Main Weapon

How about a smaller spinal? I've always felt it strange that smaller ships weren't allowed to use the dodge with one weapon carried as a spinal. (If I ever ran a TCS campaign I would totally let the players do that).

The T5 Ruleset has a new weapon size-class called a "Main Weapon" mount, which is essentially a 200 dton super-heavy bay-emplacement. It effectively fills the role of a small spinal (or equivalent) for ACS (Adventure Class) ships (i.e. < 2500 dton).

 

[robject]

As whulorigan notes, the Main Gun fills the gap between bays and spines. With range effects, the Main Gun can span from 67 tons up to 800 tons.

 

[Selandia]

main battery

the main gun mount also allows for ship building closer to 1860-1940 (rough dating, of course) with a "multiple barrel" main battery. In fact, without the need for anti-sub and anti-aircraft wpn, it would be more a the turn of the century concept design; do not take this literally of course. Nothing is quite the same. Still anti-missile are just the thing missing to give a good look to the fighting tops of HMS Dreadnought

Have fun

Selandia

 

[Ulsyus]

As whulorigan notes, the Main Gun fills the gap between bays and spines. With range effects, the Main Gun can span from 67 tons up to 800 tons.

Multi-mount main gun fittings sounds like an excellent mid-point. Would they EP for EP be a match for an a PA spinal mount of similar power? If so then there's a justification for having something like the BSG from the recent series. I can still picture some of the scenes where BSG or the Pegasus were pounding away at the dirty rotten Cylons with their main batteries, let alone the secondaries pumping fire out at the incoming fighters and missiles.

 

[robject]

Multi-mount main gun fittings sounds like an excellent mid-point. Would they EP for EP be a match for an a PA spinal mount of similar power?

That remains to be seen. My initial opinion is "no". My opinion, however, doesn't count for much, because I think Marc already knows what the differences are between a Main gun and a Spine gun.

 

[Ulsyus]

That remains to be seen. My initial opinion is "no". My opinion, however, doesn't count for much, because I think Marc already knows what the differences are between a Main gun and a Spine gun.

Are we whistling in the face of the cyclone then?

 

[robject]

Are we whistling in the face of the cyclone then?

That's the way I like it.

But that's not quite right. In the spirit of The Traveller Book, when a few people independently come up with ideas, then come together, you might have added value.

Marc works like that, too. It just depends on how "decided" he is. And since I have seen very little written down from Marc on BCS, I figure there's a lot up in the air.

 

[Ulsyus]

I do like the idea of having something that's a bridge between spinal mounts, or possibly as an alternative to the lesser models. It also represents the option of having alternative design philosophies, which itself allows for differentiation between species and/or states.

I had imagined at one point a series of small spinal mounts on a very large vessel, which carried them in something like turrets. Never got around to trying to design a vessel with them, but the image was interesting.

So, if multi-mount main gun fittings weren't EP for EP be a match for an a PA spinal mount of similar power, could there be advantages to fitting them anyway? Redundancy and survivability resulting from battle damage? Better opportunities for aiming? Counter-escort cruiser, or counter-cruiser BB?

 

[Selandia]

all of the above?

p 408
CommCaster and Battery fire

Versatility might be you reason. You could spread over many small targets or focus on one large target. Even if focussing on one target, you may have a shotgun effect or a powerfull punch

have fun

Selandia

 

[robject]

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).

Okay, nothing new there -- very much in the spirit of High Guard.

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?

So Marc has been thinking about multiple spines as well.

 

[robject]

Oh, this one's even better.

On the one hand, I don't want to be too complex. ​

​

On the other, I envision an upper end for BCS ships at the 10^10 tons (= 20 km long x 3 km thick?) or (= 6 km sphere planetoids). Such ships have multiple Mainweapons.

​

(pause to consider lots of options and processes).​

​

The simplest system is that each MainWeapon has its own power plant.
​

​

The order-of-magnitude 10^10 tons is.... the Loeskalth planetoid.

Works for me.


Here's a later thought:

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.

 

[robject]

...and now I found a one-page draft on spines that Marc wrote back in 2011 that I had completely forgot about. Here it is in a nutshell:

* Three form factors: Spine, Dish, and Bay
* Each weapon type is restricted to one or two form factors
* Ranges same as ACS weapons
* Additional "weapon": Fighter Launcher (Spine or Bay only)
* For a big enough ship, we allow multiple main weapons/ spinal and others.

 [FONT=Arial]MAIN WEAPON TONNAGES[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]Base System[/FONT]
    [FONT=Arial]   TL    Code    Spine       Dish          Bay[/FONT]
  
  [FONT=Arial]   10        A        4500       9500       8000[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   11        B        4000       9000       7500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   12        C        3500       8500       7000[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   13        D        3000       8000       6500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   14        E        2500       7500       6000[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   15        F        2400       7000       5500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   16        G        2300       6500       5000[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   17        H        2200       6000       4500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   18        J         2100       5500       4000[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   19        K        2000       5000       3500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   20        L        1900       4500       3000[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   21        M       1800       4000       2500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]Enhanced System = the weapon fires twice
[/FONT]
    [FONT=Arial]   TL    Code    Spine       Dish          Bay[/FONT]
  
  [FONT=Arial]   10        N        8500    18500    15500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   11        P        7500    17500    14500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   12        Q        6500    16500    13500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   13        R        5500    15500    12500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   14        S        4900    14500    11500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   15        T        4700    13500    10500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   16        U        4500    12500       9500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   17        V        4300    11500       8500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   18        W       4100    10500       7500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   19        X        3900       9500       6500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   20        Y        3700       8500       5500[/FONT]
  [FONT=Arial]   21        Z        3500       8000       5000[/FONT]

 

[slugoz12]

big turrets

I was wondering if a really large ship (megaton battlewagon), could maybe be fitted w/smaller spines in turrets, similar to early 20th century wet navy capital ships?

 

[robject]

I was wondering if a really large ship (megaton battlewagon), could maybe be fitted w/smaller spines in turrets, similar to early 20th century wet navy capital ships?

Yes.

 

[robject]

The direction is currently to set a minimum size for the smallest Capital Guns, and allow designers to fit as many as they need into a design.

The assumption is that certain missions work better with several guns, and some work better with one big gun. But very big ships will have room regardless.

 

[tjoneslo]

I was wondering if a really large ship (megaton battlewagon), could maybe be fitted w/smaller spines in turrets, similar to early 20th century wet navy capital ships?

Well then they're not really spinal weapons anymore (by definition). They're oversized turret weapons mounted in an oversized turret.

 

[slugoz12]

big guns

Well then they're not really spinal weapons anymore (by definition). They're oversized turret weapons mounted in an oversized turret.

Agreed, I guess I was just looking for the flexibility in the rules for what I would like to do. Maybe a better approach would be to have really big versions of the non-spine weapons? Is that being discussed somewhere I have missed?