Starting a TCS Campaign in 2010...

[brennanraj]

Hi All,

my long term gaming friends have decided that after a break of 15 years we should
return to TCS and run a 3rd campaign. Each has been set in the Islands Cluster
but the rules have evolved each time:

1st Campaign - used almost unmodified HG2/TCS (ie with Striker nukes, JTAS HG suggestions and computers 10% of HG2 size/power)

2nd Campaign - used a "fast-play" version of HG2 that I developed based on likely optimal designs at each TL, a requirement for squadrons and standardized fleet orders eg raid, strike etc a little more like FFW, more detailed in-system operations. More detailed MT-WBH style system specifications.

Now what I'd like is your suggestions for v3?

We have already decided to go back to having HG2 design, ideally unmodified but maybe with some tiny mods. Personally I think that some small tweaks to the HG2 _combat_ system could make the range of optimal ships wider but even more importantly I want in-system operational issues, surface combat and surface-interface issues (a bit inspired by Imperium) to be more important.
All of this is to stretch the ship designs more than basic TCS/HG combat to ensure that more balanced (and more canon-like) ships are more viable. Eg PA spinals should have some role (IMO). OTOH I am perfectly happy with fighters not being line of battle craft.
Oh I'm thinking of bumping all the Island Clusters TLs up by 1 and knocking a 0 off the budgets to keep things a bit more manageable.

So, what do you think?

rgds
rob brennan

 

[bobblanchett]

tcs?

omg I was looking at this atuff just yesterday..
I had a good look at Cynthia higginbothams campaign.. she actually banned meson weapons until players paid a massive premium to research it..
her idea about couriers v merchants for comms was a good one

 

[Whipsnade]

Rob,

I can't believe I missed your post the first time around...

Anyway, I played and ran a lot of TCS during the 80s. No maps, no chits, no need for players to even sit face to face, just paper, pencils, and order slips, it was the perfect multi-player wargame aboard ship. I'm talking dozens of games, definitely over 60, all over a three year period, and most to either military victories and/or surrenders.

Given that experience, let me say that any tweaks to the HG2/TCS are bad unless thoroughly vetted and understood by all involved. What's more, the bigger the tweak the bigger the chances of it not working. For example, you want to add interface and surface combat, right? But you also want to slash the starting budgets. That means your players will have to buy both fleets and armies with less money.

Among other things:

• Fitting interface combat into the HG2 system is going to be very hard because there's no provision for it in the original game. You're going to be bolting on something that isn't quite going to fit and that will cause many problems because your only test will occur during the game.
• Any in-system movement is either going to have to be very stylized or very tedious.
• Kicking the Islands' TLs up by 1 will only serve to let Esperanza out of her cage sooner and at less cost.
• Kicking the Islands' TLs up by 1 will mean each player will have more enemies one jump away. While this will really hurt New Home with her smaller budget and population, it will effect the other players too. They'll need bigger fleets, but you're shrinking their budgets and making them buy armies to boot.

As for workable tweaks, the HG2/TCS variants published in JTAS are well thought out and fairly balanced.

Finally, this is going to seem weird, but there is a wargame for Traveller which covers all of your needs with the exception of in-system movement. It has ship building, military unit creation, strategic movement, interface combat, planetary combat, the whole ball of wax. It's Pocket Empires for T4 and, as a complete design, using it means your tourney won't suffer from hasty, untested, tweaks and houserules.


Regards,
Bill

 

[brennanraj]

Hi Bill

thanks for your comments, I've read your posts with interest as I trawled this board.
I was actually on the playtest team for PE but I had discounted it as too detailed, on
your advice I have now cracked it open and Chpt 8 is certainly interesting.

For me, the HG design sequences are a really nice compromise between complexity
and tweakability. We still talk about the designs from our first TCS campaign. However I
found that TCS was a strategic level game with a ship-level combat system and that
seems a bit cumbersome. In addition I dislike the degenerate munchkin designs
that are encouraged (Rock, Meson sled etc) when the raw HG combat rules are used.
I want to stretch the number of viable design strategies and to ensure there is a role
for a wider range of ship types (than just "pure" fleet actions). Rather than forcing a
lot of referee intervention I'd like to have some rules forcing these things.

Anyway I've found lots of good suggestions on this board that parallel lines I was
thinking (eg adding the target size DM to the internal explosion table). I actually also
like your old misunderstanding that planetoids can't exceed TL in armour. I think that
that would make them more balanced.
I have yet to see anything that seems to justify PA spinal weapons as viable- any ideas on that?

rgds
rob

 

[bobblanchett]

power projection:fleet

what about using these campaign rules and resolving combat with HG2?

 

[brennanraj]

Yep, I have considered that.

However I think that PP: Fleet is still a bit patchy. I liked many aspects of the FFW rules that it incorporates. I am less keen on the economics and logistics rules. It certainly has some stuff I'm probably gonna steal, eg paying for admirals, the way fleet strategy skill interacts with planning level and _wow_ the campaign crew quality rules. I like them because they are quite simple and they give a strong reason to not treat all crew as robots to be sent to their doom in space combat.

Actually I've now worked through the HG2 combat tables again and
the changes I am thinking of adopting there are:

1. Limit total armour to TL (ie planetoids get cheap/free armour and if buffered good meson defence but _no_ invulnerability). This tones down rocks while still making them useful.
2. All rolls on internal explosion table are modified by the size code (target size DM) of the ship under attack. This is to make canon-style large ships better, to reduce the impact of fuel tanks shattered.
3. (this is a biggie so look away now if HG2 is sacred to you) I am going to make Meson Guns add a damage table DM of +1 for each 5 points of armour a ship has, and each 5 pts of armour will reduce the extra rolls a spinal MG gets for factors above 9, and each 10 pts of armour will reduce the number of criticals inflicted by MG on ships whose size code the firing weapon factor exceeds.

The rational for this is that armour represents structure/bracing as well as the "hide" of a ship. A ship with a stronger structure is more likely to be able to sustain MG fire. It also tones down MG, and hence makes PAs a bit more attractive. It also makes config 7 meson sleds less effective since they wont even stand in line vs MG fire as well as more balanced ship designs.

Finally the combio of these effects mean that if you can design a 75kton+ ship with at least 10 pts of armour then it is immune to spinal MG crits and Fuel Tanks Shattered results inflicted via the Internal Explosions table. This in turn means that it is only vulnerable to absolutely huge MGs and hence it is worthwhile putting in redundant systems to give such a ship real resiliance. IMO thats a lot more like canon than the standards optimal rock + 20kton ish meson sleds. I think it also results in a wider range of viable designs.
It also makes Crew hits the most likely way to disable these big ships but frozen watches can mitigate that, perhaps I'll use the JTAS rules on Crew...but perhaps not.

rgds
rob

 

[Matt123]

I have yet to see anything that seems to justify PA spinal weapons as viable- any ideas on that?

Critical hits on Destroyers, Cruisers & 20,000tn Meson sleds. Defeating fleets is often like peeling away the layers of an onion.

I'd be interested in participating in a vanila game, including current errata. My reservation is similar to Bill's, but also with the knowledge that HG/TCS requires a huge time commitment by all participants. Your proposal is more akin to a playtest of neat ideas, with even greater commitment required and reducing chances of the game ever being completed.

If you get it up & running, keep us posted. Be interesting to see how the ideas pan out.

 

[Whipsnade]

Critical hits on Destroyers, Cruisers & 20,000tn Meson sleds. Defeating fleets is often like peeling away the layers of an onion.

Rob,

Matt gave you the same answer I would have. (I'm embarrassed I missed your post, by the way.)

People usually complain about HG2 design contests "devolving" into endless rounds of Rock, Paper, & Scissors. That example is a good one, but we too often forget that, while Rock always defeats Scissors, it is always defeated in turn by Paper. In other words, the more you're specialized the easier you can be defeated.

Fleets need balance in their weapon choices because you never know what the other fellow is building. One poster at ct_starships once wrote that PA spinals keep the other fellow "honest". You can build nothing but uber-specialized 20K dTon Meson Gun death sleds only to see them swamped by another uber-specialized design. If you had a few PA spinals along, however, you could lap up those designs like a pangolin does with ants.


Regards,
Bill

P.S. And as Matt wisely points out, a TCS campaign can take ages, especially if your players are designing their own ships.