Starship Combat IYTU

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Cymew:
... and none is working from a 10dton craft to a 10Mdton one.

Cymew,

Show me a single set of naval wargame rules that handles both rowboats and supercarriers.

Traveller has had two levels of ship combat for most of it's life; PC-level and Strategic-level. This is due to the scale issues that every game must deal with.

I can either model Operation Barbarossa on any number of different levels; infantry squad, armor company, brigade, division, etc. What I can't do is put all of those levels in a single game and have it remain playable.

Really amazing, considering what's the name of the game, and how central it is to wander the stars in an hostile universe!

Then stick to the PC or 'rowboat' level ship combat rules. The sad truth of the matter is that the actions of individuals do not matter in operational or strategic level games.

I'm stunned.

And I'm stunned that anyone would seriously believe that the actions of 4 or 5 players would make a scintilla of difference in battle between several megatons of Traveller warships. Their 'signal' would be drowned out in all the 'noise'.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Cymew]

Eh? Bill, you've read much more into my post than intended!

I know there are two "layers" in the rules, since Book2 and Book5. They address different areas.

My problem is that they don't seem to portray the same universe, and no other rules since them have solved it better. This I find curious.

I have no illusions about 4 guys in a Free Trader changing the course of the 3I. That's why I never understood the interest in high politics in the 3I.

 

[Scott Martin]

Hi Liam

The "Playing with Ships" part is that if you aren't a gearhead, the chances of you frequenting "the fleet" is pretty low, so there is a selection bias in posting the query in this forum to favor more ship combat than the "average" campaign.

I looked at T20 rules for starship combat, said "eek" and ran away. That said (I'm a hard-SF buff, which is whi I won't use T20 starship combat) I can see why having starship combat act exactly like personal combat would be attractive to GM's and players alike.

Cymew:
I find that Brilliant Lances is a nice little game (especially if you use the variant sensor and fire control rules) but does not handle "huge" ships well. You are not the only one to notice "Binary Starship Universe" disorder: I also find that LBB-2 and HG seem to talk about different universes. The core of "Big Ship vs Little Ship" universe discussions often seems to boil down to "are you using HG or LBB-2"

I like FF&S because it removes a lot of the arbitrary design constraints of HG and LBB-2 (1 turret per 100 Dt) but it loses a LOT of usability in complexity, much of which is unneccisary (IMO anyway)

Bill:
HG does handle little ships all the way to big ships (Rowboats and Battlewagons) but you've got to admit that combats between ships in HG and LBB-2 are *vastly* different, and unless you knew that they were the same game, you probably wouldn't guess that they were related

Scott Martin

 

[aramis]

The various editions definitely do describe different "realities."

I've used Bk2 on range bands, Bk2/Mayday, MT-HG, MT-Vehicles+Mayday, BL/TNE, T20, and rarely, HG+Mayday.

Of the bunch, my favorite was from the T20 Playtest: the Tons of Damage system.

VEHICLE AND SHIP DAMAGE LOCATIONS
Damage that penetrates the hull and/or armor of a vessel is applied to interior systems and components. Begin by rolling 1d20 on the appropriate Ship
or Vehicle General Hit Location tables below. Once a specific system or component has been identified, all damage is applied against it as SIP damage.
If there is more damage left to allocate after applying the damage to the specified system or component, the damage ëwashes overí to the next
component or system down on the Hit Location table. This process should be repeated until all damage has been applied, or a Special hit location result
occurs.
For example, a ship is hit for 40 points of damage, and eventually determines that it has been hit in the Cargo Hold. The ship only has a 20 ton
cargo hold installed, and it is now destroyed (as are all goods stored therein) but leaves 20 points of damage to still be applied. The next location down
on the Main Compartment Hit Location table from the Cargo Hold entry is Hull Hit Only, No other effect. The ship has 30 points of Hull SIP points
remaining, and thus applies the remain 20 points of damage against it.
For example, a Jump-2 capable 1000-ton ship is hit for 6 points of damage in its jump drive. The ship has installed 30 tons worth of jump drives. 6
tons of damage is applied against the 30 tons leaving 24 undamaged tons, and the Jump drive is reduced to Jump-1.

Damages are pretty much T20 damages.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Scott Martin:
HG does handle little ships all the way to big ships (Rowboats and Battlewagons) but you've got to admit that combats between ships in HG and LBB-2 are *vastly* different, and unless you knew that they were the same game, you probably wouldn't guess that they were related

Scott,

LBB:2 and HG2 are not the same game, but they are in the same setting. They're not the same game because they handle different scales.

Advanced Squad Leader and Panzerblitz covered the same WW2 Eastern front battles, the same 'setting' as it were, but each of those separate games covered it so differently that the battles they share might as well have been different ones.

LBB:2 covers small numbers of small ships. Because the number of units used is small and the number of systems aboard them is limited, LBB:2 combat can focus on things like vector movement, computer programming, missile movement, and detailed player interaction without adversely effecting the game play.

HG2 cover large numbers of large ships. Because numerous units can be used and a large number of systems are aboard each unit, HG2 must generalize several factors LBB:2 hihglights. Vector movement is replaced with range bands, computers reduced to a single factor, missiles move 'magically', and player interaction limited. These trade-offs are made to ensure game play.

Because LBB:2 and HG2 tackle different scales, they are different games. Because they each tackle a different scale, they each have a different focus. Complaining that one is not like the other is like complaining that you HMG counter and weapons squad from Advanced Squad Leader doesn't amount to anything in Panzerblitz.

We should also remember that between the release of LBB:2 and HG2 Traveller changed. LBB:2 doesn't mention the Imperium once while HG2 does so very often. Rules were added and changed too because HG2 was an advancement on and a fleshing out of LBB:2 just as Mercenary was an advancement on and a fleshing out of LBB:1.

That limits the forward compatiability(1) of LBB:2 designs but does not limit the backwards compatibility of HG2 designs. You can very easily drop HG2 ships into the LBB:2 combat rules. And, if you have several hours of free time, you can use LBB:2 to fight a battle with large numbers of HG:2 ships. Of course, if you're interested in saving some time, you fight large battles with large numbers of large ships with the rules designed for that scale; HG2.

YMMV.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - GDW tried to smooth over what forward compatiability issues they could. Each LBB:2 was 'rebuilt' with the HG2 rules for instance.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Of the bunch, my favorite was from the T20 Playtest: the Tons of Damage system.


</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />VEHICLE AND SHIP DAMAGE LOCATIONS
Damage that penetrates the hull and/or armor of a vessel is applied to interior systems and components. Begin by rolling 1d20 on the appropriate Ship
or Vehicle General Hit Location tables below. Once a specific system or component has been identified, all damage is applied against it as SIP damage.
If there is more damage left to allocate after applying the damage to the specified system or component, the damage ëwashes overí to the next
component or system down on the Hit Location table. This process should be repeated until all damage has been applied, or a Special hit location result
occurs.
For example, a ship is hit for 40 points of damage, and eventually determines that it has been hit in the Cargo Hold. The ship only has a 20 ton
cargo hold installed, and it is now destroyed (as are all goods stored therein) but leaves 20 points of damage to still be applied. The next location down
on the Main Compartment Hit Location table from the Cargo Hold entry is Hull Hit Only, No other effect. The ship has 30 points of Hull SIP points
remaining, and thus applies the remain 20 points of damage against it.
For example, a Jump-2 capable 1000-ton ship is hit for 6 points of damage in its jump drive. The ship has installed 30 tons worth of jump drives. 6
tons of damage is applied against the 30 tons leaving 24 undamaged tons, and the Jump drive is reduced to Jump-1.

Damages are pretty much T20 damages. </font>[/QUOTE]Now that could have been a good way to do it...

I take it that each point of rolled damage is 1 ton of hits?

 

[Liam Devlin]

Hi Scott!

The "Playing with Ships" part is that if you aren't a gearhead, the chances of you frequenting "the fleet" is pretty low, so there is a selection bias in posting the query in this forum to favor more ship combat than the "average" campaign.

I looked at T20 rules for starship combat, said "eek" and ran away. That said (I'm a hard-SF buff, which is whi I won't use T20 starship combat) I can see why having starship combat act exactly like personal combat would be attractive to GM's and players alike.

Thank you Scott for clearing that up.
'Matter of fact, I do gearhead our campaign ships (I managed to make a more workable T20 version of the Lucifer-class FASA designed 900dt DE actually, as well and some of our players also did some decent frontier Reft 600dt J2 & J-3 freighters themselves.)

As for "large ship actions", we tend to be in the small ship-to-ship dynamic. And yes, I do tend to run it like a ground melee combat. Seemed easier, more cinematc, as I've stated on other posts about our TNE-era set storyline, "story is King".

The large-shp dynamic is usually mentioned in passing (we witnessed one Vampire fleet of 30+ ships get hammered by a Puppeteer-strained flotilla of 16 ships, and left them to it, and moved away to our jump point while these two warring bands had at each other.--In short, its window dressing. Nothng our one ship and 10 player characters could have altered.

YMMV. Thanks again tho!

 

[aramis]

Bill:
Bk2 won't generate the same results as bk 5 for the same number and designs of ships.

Bk2 is a progressive hits model
Bk5 is a criticals only model.

VERY different paradigms. BL and BR have the same issues (and reasons). BL is cumulative relatively minor hits, while BR is criticals only.

And the actions of a few should (but seldom do) have profound effects on the battles... the captains and their orders.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Bk2 won't generate the same results as bk 5 for the same number and designs of ships. Bk2 is a progressive hits model. Bk5 is a criticals only model.

Aramis,

The emphasize different things because they handle different scales.

VERY different paradigms.

VERY different scales, right?

BL and BR have the same issues (and reasons). BL is cumulative relatively minor hits, while BR is criticals only.

Different scales again.

And the actions of a few should (but seldom do) have profound effects on the battles... the captains and their orders.

In player scale battles the actions of the players should have profound effects on the outcome. That is why the players are playing after all. That is what LBB:2 provides more of; the hot pilot, the accurate gunner, the one-roll-fix-it engineer.

In large scale battles the actions of the players get subsumed unless they are in top command positions. Ease and speed of play requires such a model at such a scale. For the players, large scale battles are more akin to random events than they are to role-playing situations.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Scott Martin]

Hi Bill

You are doing an excellent job of explaining why I think that T5 should concentrate on a "LBB-2 like" system first: HG is a nead add-on, but most players just aren't involved at that level. If T5 is trying to be an RPG instead of a wargame, it should nail the role playing aspect before worrying about how to model the rest of the universe including things like fleet actions and the acts of empires.

As you have so eloquently pointed out, from the POV of players, the actions of "state" may as well be random events.

I will admit to having run a campaign where I did use random events to determine the course of a war in the vicinity of the PC's, and later figured out how to justify the ebb and flow of the action around the events that the players had witnessed, and I'll do it again.

I suspect that even high command feels like thier armies are being tossed by the wind, and it is only long after the battles are fought that they are reconstructed to appear to be the neat orderly engagements that they are portrayed as...

Scott Martin

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Scott Martin:
You are doing an excellent job of explaining why I think that T5 should concentrate on a "LBB-2 like" system first: HG is a nead add-on, but most players just aren't involved at that level.

Scott,

I cannot agree with you more strongly. T5 should first concentrate on player scale combat in all it's forms - land, sea, air, and space. Large scale combat, whether it be the abstract system of LBB:4, the minis rules of Striker, or any of the ship combat rules like BR or HG2, should come later.

As you suggested, T5's 'motto' should be; Role-playing First. The wargames can follow in due course.

I should also point out that HG2 is in reality two rules books. There is a ship design book and a large scale ship combat book. T5 could easily present an update of HG2 ship design without presenting an update of the large scale combat system.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[aramis]

No, Bill, different concepts of how damage affects a craft.

Bk5 covers the Bk2 scale, and more. It's not scale. It's a difference in fundamental understandings of what constitutes damage.

In Bk5, a hit will reduce a rating or do nothing at all.

In Bk2, damage is cumulative, and may or may not drop a rating now, but due to cumulative damage tracking, the end result is VERY different, not to scale, but due to the underlying concept of how damage is done and tracked.

Likewise, BR can be used to resolve BL scale battles, but due to criticals only damage, the CDIII/StrikerII/TNE/BL damage system's cumulative damage process is absent.

In both cases, the non-cumulative damage process DOES make larger combats possible, but in both cases, Bk5 and BR, the rules are not an abstraction of Bk2 nor TNE/BL damage systems, but an entirely different understanding of damage.

T20 is, BTW, very much a criticals only system, with a token hits to destruction mechanic. I've seen the hits reduced to 0SI... but that was due to players using weapons of serious overkill.

Pure difference of scale is using MT's large scale combat rules (Ref's Companion) versus the straight combat rules; a pure abstraction to larger scales.

Another case of difference of scale is Striker versus AHL... fire teams versus individuals as the fundamental movement unit. Not as obvious, but a clear difference.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Bk5 covers the Bk2 scale, and more. It's not scale. It's a difference in fundamental understandings of what constitutes damage.

Aramis,

Which I mark down to the differences in each games' scale.

Yes, you can run single ship duels with HG@. The combat rules in HG2 were developed with large battles involving large numbers of large ships however. Imposing a culmulative damage track on each ship involved was a non-starter. A different damage mechanism was employed becuase of the scale.

Here's a poor analogy. I fire at a single tank in Advanced Squad Leader and all sorts of different things can happen to it. The tank counter is just one of a few on the map at the same time so the record keeping isn't too much of a bother. Culmulative damage can work.

I fire at a company of tanks in Panzerblitz and only three results can occur; they all are missed, they all are suppressed, or they all are destroyed. That's a case of limited results imposed in a few large steps or 'critical hits'.

That analogy isn't the best but it shows how damage mechanisms are effected by a game's scale.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[aramis]

Game scale coupled to playability is going to force such concessions. Yes.

But Panzerblitz doesn't scale down to the single tank. HG Does.

A cumulative damage system measuring 10's of hits can and does play much the same as single hit for larger craft, whilst allowing the SAME damage concept, so HG was not forced to be a non-cum system; it was a design decision.

In Bk2, a drive hit on MD's does two tons of damage, JD's does 5 tons, and PP does (IIRC) 3tons. In HG, a hit on a JD does anywhere from 1 ton of damage to 1000 tons of damage, MD thrice that. PP is 1 to 4 times that.

A "Big Bk 2" game would be better served by saying "Total up all the hits for the current turn, divide by scale factor rounding normally, apply as that many hits on scale. One winds up with less abstraction than HG, but playability in a wide range with results comparable to playing under Bk2.

Scale does not inevitably result in change in damage modes. MT personal/vehical rules scale from single man to multi-ton battleships just fine, and handles regimental scales just as well as individuals. I use it that way often.