Ok, we have the CANON 400 ton SDB, the FASA 1,000 ton SDB, and then later on IMTU, the 19,999 ton SDB w/ 6 g, Spinal "J", Armor, etc. Able to eat Tigress class battleships for breakfast. I figured any reasonable Hi-pop, Hi-tech world would have perhaps 1 Megaton of SDBs or even 1/2 megaton of them. After all a starsystem is a really, really big place. IMTU, fighters are ground support only, and the "fighter" is the 400 ton SDB.
System Defense Fleets
- Thread starter Murph
- Start date
An 19,999T SDB would be a wargamer cheat. I'd never allow it in any game I ran. As for being able to eat Tigresses for breakfast, that has to be the result of an egregious flaw in the combat systyem. If it was true, no one would ever build battleships. Since there is ample evidence that OTU governments build battleships aplenty, it can't be true. Most likely increased ship size provides better survivability, enabling a Tigress to take on its cost[*] in smaller ships and fly (or at least totter) away afterwards.
[*] Well, minus the cost of its jump drives. 
Hans
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It became common after TCS came out, and some of the players in my game started setting up their own worlds. Min/max was the rule, since a 19,999 ton ship was not 20,000 and still got +1 rather than +2 to by hit.....If you look at some TCS fleet designs, they all took advantage of the +1 vs +2 and kept the ships under 20k tons. I did not write the rules, I just got run over by them....
An 19,999T SDB would be a wargamer cheat. I'd never allow it in any game I ran. As for being able to eat Tigresses for breakfast, that has to be the result of an egregious flaw in the combat systyem. If it was true, no one would ever build battleships. Since there is ample evidence that OTU governments build battleships aplenty, it can't be true. Most likely increased ship size provides better survivability, enabling a Tigress to take on its cost[*] in smaller ships and fly (or at least totter) away afterwards.
That sort of rules-lawyering is fine for TCS tournaments, but it wouldn't cut it in any RPG setting of mine.[*] Well, minus the cost of its jump drives.
May I suggest my recent JTAS article with the "lemons and cherries" option
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
IIRC, CT:HG 2e combat regarding spinal mounts and weapon and ship sizes meant that:
A size J spinal mount rolled 9 extra damage rolls, minus enemy Armor. I tended to design my 200,000 dTon battleships with as much Armor as I could, hopefully reaching as much as 15 points, but 9 or more would be a foregone conclusion. That reduces extra damage rolls to 0.
A size S starship (200,000-299,999 dTons) mounting a size T meson spinal mount rolls 18 extra damage rolls, minus enemy armor. I doubt a size K starship (10,000-19,999 dTons) could mount 18 points of Armor (requiring 19% of volume at TL-14/15), so that size T spinal mount is going to be ripping up the size K starship.
If you look at the penetration progressions vs. meson screens and configuration, then the size J meson spinal mount is going to fair far worse than the type T meson spinal mount. J penetrates screen 9 on a 9 or better, T penetrates screen 9 on a 5 or better.
Ship vs. ship, the size K starship loses badly.
The simple part is, you can build lots of size K starships for one size S starship, and that makes up any individual size K ship losing to an individual size S ship. This means that building lots of smaller starships with smaller meson spinal mounts could be more effective than building large starships. Rolling higher than a 9 on 2d6 to penetrate the rating 9 meson screen is not that easy, so it will require many more size K starships to be certain. (In T20's starship construction and combat systems, the power of the meson spinal mount means that small starships with small meson spinal mounts absolutely rule the battlefield.)
In my personal opinion, CT:HG 2e starship combat leaves a great deal to be desired. To make large starships as effective as they are "meant" to be would require tweaking the rules for spinal mounts and damage.
Personally, I think the size of the starship should matter against meson guns, with larger vessels able to "take more" because they had more. I also long thought of allowing for ships to purchase Internal Armor for effect vs. meson gun hits, though that hits ship design very hard.
Jefferson P. Swycaffer's famous ATU, the Praesdium, did away with all spinal mounts completely. I think even this would require its own modifications to the combat rules, as turrets and bays, not exceeding factor 9, and firing against very large Armor values, would have great difficulty in destroying enemy vessels.
I have personally run a few solo static playtests of CT:HG 2e combat to see how things worked. I never found anyone who actually wanted to play CT:HG 2e combat. While, perhaps, fine for abstractly handling a very small number of small vessels, any attempt to run large battleships immediately bogs down with huge numbers of attack rolls* and often lengthy considerations of how to best assign large numbers of defensive batteries.
* Which prompted me me to think up the idea of massed-battery fire for capital ships, where many batteries are fired together as one for greater effect (i.e. possessing an effective weapon factor higher than 9). This, of course, required allowing massed-defensive battery assignments. The sole benefit obtained from this was reducing the number of rolls involved. I never did playtest it, though.
A size J spinal mount rolled 9 extra damage rolls, minus enemy Armor. I tended to design my 200,000 dTon battleships with as much Armor as I could, hopefully reaching as much as 15 points, but 9 or more would be a foregone conclusion. That reduces extra damage rolls to 0.
A size S starship (200,000-299,999 dTons) mounting a size T meson spinal mount rolls 18 extra damage rolls, minus enemy armor. I doubt a size K starship (10,000-19,999 dTons) could mount 18 points of Armor (requiring 19% of volume at TL-14/15), so that size T spinal mount is going to be ripping up the size K starship.
If you look at the penetration progressions vs. meson screens and configuration, then the size J meson spinal mount is going to fair far worse than the type T meson spinal mount. J penetrates screen 9 on a 9 or better, T penetrates screen 9 on a 5 or better.
Ship vs. ship, the size K starship loses badly.
The simple part is, you can build lots of size K starships for one size S starship, and that makes up any individual size K ship losing to an individual size S ship. This means that building lots of smaller starships with smaller meson spinal mounts could be more effective than building large starships. Rolling higher than a 9 on 2d6 to penetrate the rating 9 meson screen is not that easy, so it will require many more size K starships to be certain. (In T20's starship construction and combat systems, the power of the meson spinal mount means that small starships with small meson spinal mounts absolutely rule the battlefield.)
In my personal opinion, CT:HG 2e starship combat leaves a great deal to be desired. To make large starships as effective as they are "meant" to be would require tweaking the rules for spinal mounts and damage.
Personally, I think the size of the starship should matter against meson guns, with larger vessels able to "take more" because they had more. I also long thought of allowing for ships to purchase Internal Armor for effect vs. meson gun hits, though that hits ship design very hard.
Jefferson P. Swycaffer's famous ATU, the Praesdium, did away with all spinal mounts completely. I think even this would require its own modifications to the combat rules, as turrets and bays, not exceeding factor 9, and firing against very large Armor values, would have great difficulty in destroying enemy vessels.
I have personally run a few solo static playtests of CT:HG 2e combat to see how things worked. I never found anyone who actually wanted to play CT:HG 2e combat. While, perhaps, fine for abstractly handling a very small number of small vessels, any attempt to run large battleships immediately bogs down with huge numbers of attack rolls* and often lengthy considerations of how to best assign large numbers of defensive batteries.
* Which prompted me me to think up the idea of massed-battery fire for capital ships, where many batteries are fired together as one for greater effect (i.e. possessing an effective weapon factor higher than 9). This, of course, required allowing massed-defensive battery assignments. The sole benefit obtained from this was reducing the number of rolls involved. I never did playtest it, though.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Meson gun hits are not reduced by armour - you can carry the maximum amount for your TL and it is worth squat versus the meson gun hits.(page 41 spinal mounts last sentence)
The defence agains meson guns is to not get hit in the first place.
Since the Imperium's TL15 fleet enjoys a significant advantage against its lower TL neighbours this isn't a problem for Imperial ships - they have bigger computers and smaller power plants and have better meson screens.
TL15 ships going up agains TL15 ships is a real problem though.
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Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I would think that realistically the only constraints on SDB size and number in a system would be:
1. Can the economy and population support them? That is, is there enough money and people to pay for operations and a crew or not?
2. Is there sufficent tech level and star port capacity to construct them?
Now, they could be brought in but that would be an expensive proposition. The other question would be their utility. What would their purpose be on a regular (or irregular) basis?
That is, is the system threatened with war? Are pirates or other raiders common? These would raise the need for more defense ships versus a system that hasn't seen a war or pirates in decades or maybe centuries.
1. Can the economy and population support them? That is, is there enough money and people to pay for operations and a crew or not?
2. Is there sufficent tech level and star port capacity to construct them?
Now, they could be brought in but that would be an expensive proposition. The other question would be their utility. What would their purpose be on a regular (or irregular) basis?
That is, is the system threatened with war? Are pirates or other raiders common? These would raise the need for more defense ships versus a system that hasn't seen a war or pirates in decades or maybe centuries.
O
Omnivore
Guest
As I'm currently working on an alternate High Guard rule set, I'm glad I caught this post. I believe I may have a workable solution that, while adding a small bit of additional book keeping, hopefully addresses it.
Add a Cumulative Armor Damage item to the combat result data sheets. Each time a roll is made on the Surface Explosion Damage Table, add one to the CAD count. If adding one to the CAD count would result in its value exceeding the ship's Size Code, reduce the armor value by 1 and reset the CAD count to 0. Armor may not be reduced below 0. Allow Armor to be repaired during any Damage Control step, with any successful repair resetting the Cumulative Armor Damage count.
Not a bad idea, but futile if the criticals usually take out a ship in the first few shots.
You really need to have a size-related way to reduce the number of critical hits meson beams deliver. Perhaps allow meson screens to increase in relative effectiveness with the size of the ship.
Hans
From experimentation with HG I've found having armour reduce automatic criticals and extra damage rolls for meson guns works pretty well. They're still pretty lethal but the hit = kill for virtually any meson goes.
T20 already did a HG rating using alternate combat system with both critical mode hits and with cumulation of damage. It works rather well, aside from the quirks of d20...
I'm affraid your reasoning fails in several places:
Already answered By Mike Wingman. Mesons are unaffected by armor, so your J rated MG still rolls 10 times* in Interior Explosion table, so shattering your fuel tanks (and so crippling your starship) quite often (you need a 5 id 2d6, so 1 in 9 will do that result).
The only true defense from MG (aside from agility and meson screens) comes from the Black Globe, but it so affects your own ship that its usefulness is in doubt.
* The rules say ... inflict an extra damage roll (on each appropiatate table) for each letter by which their size exceeds 9 (emphasis is mine), so a J rated MG makes 9 extra damage rolls, if you add the basic one, it inflicts 10 damage rolls.
You may not armor your ship by more than your TL, so, unless unsing planetoid or buffered planetoid configuration, you cannot reach armor 18 (unless your ship is TL 18+).
Due to the lethality of the MG, the first one to hit and penetrate the enemy ship will probably cripple it, regardless the relative sizes.
As implied in all I said before, agreed on this.
And also fails (IMHO) in that most of ships crippled are so for loss of fuel, computer or PP, but very few of them are actually destroyed (I talked about that on other threads).
In big ships battle, more ships are taken out for Fuel Tanks Shattered hits in interior explosion tables than by criticals, but they are usually taken out in the first few shoots as you say.
Already answered By Mike Wingman. Mesons are unaffected by armor, so your J rated MG still rolls 10 times* in Interior Explosion table, so shattering your fuel tanks (and so crippling your starship) quite often (you need a 5 id 2d6, so 1 in 9 will do that result).
The only true defense from MG (aside from agility and meson screens) comes from the Black Globe, but it so affects your own ship that its usefulness is in doubt.
* The rules say ... inflict an extra damage roll (on each appropiatate table) for each letter by which their size exceeds 9 (emphasis is mine), so a J rated MG makes 9 extra damage rolls, if you add the basic one, it inflicts 10 damage rolls.
You may not armor your ship by more than your TL, so, unless unsing planetoid or buffered planetoid configuration, you cannot reach armor 18 (unless your ship is TL 18+).
Due to the lethality of the MG, the first one to hit and penetrate the enemy ship will probably cripple it, regardless the relative sizes.
As implied in all I said before, agreed on this.
And also fails (IMHO) in that most of ships crippled are so for loss of fuel, computer or PP, but very few of them are actually destroyed (I talked about that on other threads).
In big ships battle, more ships are taken out for Fuel Tanks Shattered hits in interior explosion tables than by criticals, but they are usually taken out in the first few shoots as you say.
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RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
Ok, I missed the last sentence. Sorry about that.
Maybe that had something more to do with my old internal armor idea than I had currently assumed.
I did say that the combat rules need some tweaking to function "correctly". However, I never liked these combat rules in the first place. Combat for large ships takes too long to resolve, there is almost nothing in the way of maneuver and position, and there are rules holes that make small ships and weapons more effective than they were "meant" to be.
Which is a big part of the discrepancy.
Which is exactly why the combat system must be suffering from an egregious flaw. Because if that was actually the case "in reality", navies wouldn't build big battleships in quantity (A few for special purposes, sure, but not in quantity). However, we know for a fact that navies in the OTU do build big battleships in quantities. Ergo, the first ship to hit and penetrate the enemy meson screens will probably not cripple it if it is sufficiently big.
Alternatively, bigger ships have screens that are much harder to penetrate than smaller ships.
Alternatively, ship screens reduce the number of criticals inflicted even if penetrated, the bigger the ship the greater the reduction.
Alternatively, big ships ignore some criticals on the assumption that the amount of energy that will devastate a 20,000T ship will only devastate 10% of a 200,000T ship.
Hans
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Or it could just be that we haven't actually accepted a few of the realities of the OTU and HG's rendition of it.
The Imperium has always enjoyed a TL advantage against it's neighbours and this has a big effect on design parameters and big ship survivability.
The most effective fleet changes with TL, and at less than TL15 a ship designer has to trade between armour, agility and jump rating.
If the designs in S9 are anything to go by (broken design not withstanding) the Imperium has yet to learn the lessons of a war fought with TL15 ships. Post FFW I would imagine a much more effective TL15 fleet would be built from the lessons learned, but for now (pre MT rebellion) the fact remains Imperial TL15 warships are more survivable against meson armed TL14 opponents so the big ship isn't revealed as the white elephant it has become in a TL15 vs TL15 conflict.
The Imperium has always enjoyed a TL advantage against it's neighbours and this has a big effect on design parameters and big ship survivability.
The most effective fleet changes with TL, and at less than TL15 a ship designer has to trade between armour, agility and jump rating.
If the designs in S9 are anything to go by (broken design not withstanding) the Imperium has yet to learn the lessons of a war fought with TL15 ships. Post FFW I would imagine a much more effective TL15 fleet would be built from the lessons learned, but for now (pre MT rebellion) the fact remains Imperial TL15 warships are more survivable against meson armed TL14 opponents so the big ship isn't revealed as the white elephant it has become in a TL15 vs TL15 conflict.
I was not defending it, just remembering how rules are written
Alternatively, the amount of energy is enough to devastate a 200 kdton ship and you're just overkilling when using it against a 20 kdton ship :devil: (anyway, fusion energy is cheap, and as you have nothing more adequate...)
One place the size has importance is when confronting PA spinals. Sometimes we forget not all big ships are MG armed, some carry PAs (don't ask me why, as they have no real advantage I've found in the rules, but that's how OTU ships are). When hit by such a Spinal, a 20 kdton ship would suffer more criticals than a 200 kdton one (they may even overcome armor on the former).
Ah, so below TL15, big meson-armed ships do have a significant advantage over smaller meson-armed ships? The whole neither-armor-nor-size-helps-agains-meson-spinals thingy don't apply against TL12-14 meson spinals?
Because otherwise, ship designers have had 3000 years to figure out that there's a problem.
Without it, of course, they've "only" had a century.
Big TL15 ships may have a better chance against medium-sized TL14 ships than big TL14 ships have, but is the chance significantly better? If you put a Tigress up against 10 50,000T TL14 ships, does it have a better than 50% chance of blowing them all away?
Otherwise your argument is invalid.
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Below TL15 if you want a meson gun in the battle that can mission kill you have to build a big ship to carry it. They are much larger weapons and require much more of the power plant dedicated to powering them so a big ship is needed to carry them.
Not so at TL15 where the power plant size reduction and the smaller size of the meson gun means you can get them in much smaller ships.
The mid range meson guns at TL14 stand almost no chance of penetrating a #9 meson screen, especially taking the computer DM into effect.
really? The imperium has been at TL15 for 3000 years?
Exactly my point. The Imperium has only been at TL15 for a century or so and as a result haven't built an effective TL15 fleet yet because they haven't had the war to reveal the flaw.
An unbroken Tigress design with a #9 meson screen would be able to make a significant dent in those 10 50k TL14 meson armed battleships.
Then it's valid
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