That won't do. You need maximum or near-maximum armor and/or nuke dampers. Otherwise the larger spinal-armed ships can too easily reduce you by means of secondary missile batteries.
System Defense Fleets
- Thread starter Murph
- Start date
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Agility 6 is mandatory too.
The fact of having no agility, aside from making them more vulnerable, also probably forfeits the +1 initiative for faster ships, so overcoming your +1 due to more ships than your enemy.
That breaks quite a lot Andrew's numbers:
When only half turns are at long range, and the N MG needs only a 5+ to hit (so hiting 5 times in 6, about 84% of time at long range and 4+ (11 in 12, 91%) at short range. They penetrate messon screens on 7+ (21 in 36, 58%). and config is always penetrated. That gives us 87.5% average of hits, and 51% of penetration, so your BRs would kill about 51 MBs per turn.
Also you must take into account the fact that the BRs would have their own missile batteries (let's assume 6 per BR), that would hit nearly automatically and achieve crew result (a 1000 dton ship has only one crew section, IIRC, as with those rules a 1000- dton ship is more vulnerable to crew hits than pure HG rules), and so takes your ship out of commision,about 1 in 12, and downgrading the computer or missile battery nearly always (effectively taking it out of commision it too), so about 5 MBs more per BR would be KO every turn (and I guess crippling ratio would be more than 5 in 6 with such missile bateries). (500 MB/turn taken out by missiles)
If you add those 500 to the 51, you end with 551 (13.77% of your fleet) out of commission per turn. As (according to Andrew's numbers, which I don't question) the MBs take out of commission about 0.4% of your BR fleet first turn (and decreasing, as MBs losses mount), the odds of the battle is now fully reversed.
And don't forget most of the MBs wouldn't be as easily repairable as the BRs, as they would receive 12 criticals per hit (one in three vaporized, the rest taking quite a longtime to repair).
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Well, I think one thing is fairly clear:
High Guard 2 has a nice enough design system, but the actual combat system is a clunky disaster. It's a number-crunching exercise in pitting bizarre designs against each other. For me, it totally fails to evoke an impression of space battles.
I have for quite a while now been pondering how to redo the whole combat system from scratch, while possibly keeping compatibility with the design system. Or whether, more radically, rewind time to 1978 and write a completely new HG except for the character generation bits. I do like HG's level of detail (just right) and elegance of concept as far as the design system is concerned.
High Guard 2 has a nice enough design system, but the actual combat system is a clunky disaster. It's a number-crunching exercise in pitting bizarre designs against each other. For me, it totally fails to evoke an impression of space battles.
I have for quite a while now been pondering how to redo the whole combat system from scratch, while possibly keeping compatibility with the design system. Or whether, more radically, rewind time to 1978 and write a completely new HG except for the character generation bits. I do like HG's level of detail (just right) and elegance of concept as far as the design system is concerned.
I'm affraid any system is just a number-crunching exercice if numbers are high enough.
The only way I see to avoid that is by making a single roll for all the fleet (counting squadrons or fleets against squadrons or fleets) or to play in a board to allow for tactics to be implemented (but try if you dare fo confront 4000 MBs to 100 BRs on a board, or any fleet with 200 fighters, for what is worth).
Well, of course for these extremely large engagements, you'd have to have an extra level of abstraction. But the level of abstraction is not even high enough on the squadron level. As I've written elsewhere, a system that treats both 10-ton fighters and 500,000-ton superdreadnoughts on the same scale has a problem.
In addition to being overburdened with large numbers of batteries and a cumbersome system of cramming ships of widely varying sizes together, High Guard lacks both a true movement system (which was probably a conscious decision) and a proper resource allocation system. The gameplay portion has very little in the way of tactics.
A game in the vein of TNE's Battle Rider, but compatible with CT, would be just about right - preferably with the remaining clunkiness that resulted from BR's adaption from Brilliant Lances removed.
Agreed about a greater level of abstraction that reduces the number of dice rolls, to avoid it becoming a number-crunching exercise.
IIRC, the rampant fighter is allowed to join various fighters to make a larger battery, so incluiding the fighters as squadrons (not individually) as most such games do (in the reampant fighters, the lack of a decent computer breaks the design, though, IMHO)
As traveller is, if you feature movement into the combat, any engagement between to approaching forces would probably be a one or two volleys affair, as if they engage at high speed they have no time to brake and overpass each other soon. If they try to break, having to turn backwards its direction in order to apply full G to brake, Spinals (and most fixed weaponry, for what is worth) are not usable (you must face the enemy to fire them) until you overpassed the enemy force.
I don't know TNE's Battle Rider, so I cannot judge it .
It's just a matter of opinion, and so yours (or anyone else's, for what is worth) is as good or better than mine, but I prefer MT for ship design.
Anyway, combat system is nearly the same (just it includes movement and distances, so adding complexity and acceleration matters and sensors), with nearly all (if not all) the problems we talk about here.
I used to love MT's design system, but in the end I discovered that it mostly gave me higher numbers and more complexity without much to show for it. MT basically ported (most of) STRIKER's detail into the HG design system. I'd rather have it the other way 'round.
Hookey dookey
Behold the "mighty" hamster, tremble at my illogical glory.
You can get around 20 per N rider and J3 tender. We have the figures for the N guns firing so won't repeat them
Riders missiles vs hamster. Hamster can take 12 hits, this requires 97.2 fires at long, 162 fires at short. After allowing for N gun and padding the USP, rider has 5 extra weapon slots. Tight power sadly means you can't get any more repulsors and you *really* need to keep out those missiles so I go with 1 extra missile (total 2) and 4 extra sand (total 5). We'll ignore hamsters active defenses (haven't looked it up, but I think penetration is automatic). However the riders secondaries only kill 1/10th as many hamsters as the meson (and you can not afford to sacrifice the sand to get extra missiles.)
Hamster vs rider: needs 70 (6*9 for the padded USp, + 11 for the N gun and 5 more for the extra slots) wpn-1 hits to kill, that's 3024 fires at long and 4536 fires at short. Active defense defeats 1 from the repulsor and 5/6 from the sand (round it up to 1 as we're giving the riders a break here)
Results when you crunch the numbers
Hamster kills 0.567% of riders and riders kill 0.425% of hamster. It is a lot tighter, but the superiority (on the order of 25%) is still enough to make it clear cut.
I have a nagging suspicion that I can get better results by dropping the armour entirely and going over to config-7 but I've not tested it.
Now you may not like the fact that the missile wins (I don't), you may think this is broken and solely due to the fact that HG doesn't track missile space and cost requirements (I do). But it is HG as written.
ETA: BTW if I were running a game and a player presented me with the Hamster, yes I would ban the thing.
Behold the "mighty" hamster, tremble at my illogical glory.
Code:
Ship: Hamster
Class: Hamster
Type: Missile Ketch
Architect: Andrew Vallance
Tech Level: 15
USP
MK-A1369J2-E39000-33009-0 MCr 1,558.570 1.42 KTons
Bat Bear 1 11 1 Crew: 31
Bat 1 11 1 TL: 15
Cargo: 6.800 Crew Sections: 2 of 16 Fuel: 553.800 EP: 127.800 Agility: 6
Shipboard Security Detail: 1 Pulse Lasers Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops
Architects Fee: MCr 15.586 Cost in Quantity: MCr 1,246.856
Detailed Description
(High Guard Design)
HULL
1,420.000 tons standard, 19,880.000 cubic meters, Needle/Wedge Configuration
CREW
11 Officers, 20 Ratings
ENGINEERING
Jump-3, 6G Manuever, Power plant-9 127.800 EP, Agility 6
AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/9fib Computer
HARDPOINTS
1 50-ton bay, 3 Hardpoints
ARMAMENT
1 50-ton Missile Bay (Factor-9), 1 Triple Pulse Laser Turret
organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3), 1 Dual Plasma Gun Turret
organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3)
DEFENCES
1 Single Sandcaster Turret organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3),
Meson Screen (Factor-9), Armoured Hull (Factor-14)
CRAFT
None
FUEL
553.800 Tons Fuel (3 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, No Fuel Purification Plant
MISCELLANEOUS
18 Staterooms, 6.800 Tons Cargo
USER DEFINED COMPONENTS
None
COST
MCr 1,574.156 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 15.586),
MCr 1,246.856 in Quantity
CONSTRUCTION TIME
126 Weeks Singly, 101 Weeks in Quantity
COMMENTSYou can get around 20 per N rider and J3 tender. We have the figures for the N guns firing so won't repeat them
Riders missiles vs hamster. Hamster can take 12 hits, this requires 97.2 fires at long, 162 fires at short. After allowing for N gun and padding the USP, rider has 5 extra weapon slots. Tight power sadly means you can't get any more repulsors and you *really* need to keep out those missiles so I go with 1 extra missile (total 2) and 4 extra sand (total 5). We'll ignore hamsters active defenses (haven't looked it up, but I think penetration is automatic). However the riders secondaries only kill 1/10th as many hamsters as the meson (and you can not afford to sacrifice the sand to get extra missiles.)
Hamster vs rider: needs 70 (6*9 for the padded USp, + 11 for the N gun and 5 more for the extra slots) wpn-1 hits to kill, that's 3024 fires at long and 4536 fires at short. Active defense defeats 1 from the repulsor and 5/6 from the sand (round it up to 1 as we're giving the riders a break here)
Results when you crunch the numbers
Hamster kills 0.567% of riders and riders kill 0.425% of hamster. It is a lot tighter, but the superiority (on the order of 25%) is still enough to make it clear cut.
I have a nagging suspicion that I can get better results by dropping the armour entirely and going over to config-7 but I've not tested it.
Now you may not like the fact that the missile wins (I don't), you may think this is broken and solely due to the fact that HG doesn't track missile space and cost requirements (I do). But it is HG as written.
ETA: BTW if I were running a game and a player presented me with the Hamster, yes I would ban the thing.
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They're agility 3 or 4.
J3 would be a better standard.
and at J3
TL15 design
TL __ Td __ MCr ____ EP System
7 _ 1000 ___ 80.0 ___ 0 Flattened Sphere (A6)
7 ___ 20 ____ 5.0 ___ 0 Bridge
F ___ 26 __ 200.0 __ 12 Model 9fib (J)
E ___ 50 ___ 12.0 ___ 0 50 Missile Bay Factor 9 (9/1/1)
9 __ 170 ___ 85.0 ___ 0 MD 6=17%
D ___ 40 __ 160.0 ___ 0 JD 3=4%
F __ 100 __ 300.0 _ 100 PP 10=10% 90EP
7 __ 100 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 PPFuel
7 __ 300 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 JFuel
F ___ 20 ___ 50.0 __ 10 Damper 9 10EP
F ___ 40 ___ 60.0 __ 18 Meson Screen 9 18 EP
7 ___ 44 ____ 5.5 ___ 0 Staterooms x11
F ___ 90 ___ 99.0 ___ 0 AV8
======================================================
F _ 1000 _ 1056.5 __ 60
Crew: PNM 9E 10G = 22x2=44
Missile Corvette
LM-A636AJ2-809900-00009-0
Batt. _______________ 1
Bear. _______________ 1
Agil 6
Now, chopping down the PP fuel to just shy of 3 weeks and pushing up armor:
TL15 design
TL __ Td __ MCr ____ EP System
7 _ 1000 ___ 80.0 ___ 0 Flattened Sphere (A6)
7 ___ 20 ____ 5.0 ___ 0 Bridge
F ___ 26 __ 200.0 __ 12 Model 9fib (J)
E ___ 50 ___ 12.0 ___ 0 50 Missile Bay Factor 9 (9/1/1)
9 __ 170 ___ 85.0 ___ 0 MD 6=17%
D ___ 40 __ 160.0 ___ 0 JD 3=4%
F __ 100 __ 300.0 _ 100 PP 10=10% 90EP
7 ___ 70 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 PPFuel 19.6d
7 __ 300 ____ 0.0 ___ 0 JFuel
F ___ 20 ___ 50.0 __ 10 Damper 9 10EP
F ___ 40 ___ 60.0 __ 18 Meson Screen 9 18 EP
7 ___ 44 ____ 5.5 ___ 0 Staterooms x11
F __ 120 __ 168.0 ___ 0 AVB
======================================================
F _ 1000 _ 1125.5 __ 60
Missile Corvette
LM-A636AJ2-B09900-00009-0
Batt. _______________ 1
Bear. _______________ 1
Agil 6
that's factor 8 or 11 armor, Dampers at Factor 9, and Meson Screens at 9, agiligty 6 and computer 9.
For J2, I'd get max armor of 15, and comfy quarters.
Which is why I pitted it against a J3 tender. It doesn't have a damper because the extra survivability is simply not worth the extra cost.
Well I'll be a monkey's uncle
I won't bore with the exact details of the calcs (will post them if anyone wants). But you can get about 30 of these J4 things for the same cost as an N gun rider and J4 tender.
The result come out to:
Riders kill 0.347% of gerbils
Gerbils kill 0.680% of riders!!!!!!
Yes I have allowed for the fact that each missile hit has a 3.665% of killing the boat outright. The the combination of the decrease in cost and increase in survivability vs mesons more than makes up for the increased vulnerability to missiles and allows for you to move up to J4.
ETA: Just to be sure I redid the calcs allocating all five extra slots on the riders to missiles.
Riders kill 0.679% of gerbils
Gerbils kill 0.737% of riders
Closer but still the Gerbils still come out ahead quite clearly.
Code:
Ship: Gerbil
Class: Gerbil
Type: Missile Ketch
Architect: Andrew Vallance
Tech Level: 15
USP
MK-A746AJ2-039000-33009-0 MCr 1,116.750 1.3 KTons
Bat Bear 1 11 1 Crew: 31
Bat 1 11 1 TL: 15
Cargo: 16 Crew Sections: 2 of 16 Fuel: 650 EP: 130 Agility: 6 Shipboard
Security Detail: 1 Pulse Lasers
Architects Fee: MCr 11.167 Cost in Quantity: MCr 893.400
Detailed Description
(High Guard Design)
HULL
1,300.000 tons standard, 18,200.000 cubic meters, Dispersed
Structure Configuration
CREW
11 Officers, 20 Ratings
ENGINEERING
Jump-4, 6G Manuever, Power plant-10 130.000 EP, Agility 6
AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/9fib Computer
HARDPOINTS
1 50-ton bay, 3 Hardpoints
ARMAMENT
1 50-ton Missile Bay (Factor-9), 1 Triple Pulse Laser Turret
organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3), 1 Single Plasma Gun
Turret organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3)
DEFENCES
1 Single Sandcaster Turret organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3),
Meson Screen (Factor-9)
CRAFT
None
FUEL
650 Tons Fuel (4 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
No Fuel Scoops, No Fuel Purification Plant
MISCELLANEOUS
18 Staterooms, 16 Tons Cargo
USER DEFINED COMPONENTS
None
COST
MCr 1,127.917 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 11.167),
MCr 893.400 in Quantity
CONSTRUCTION TIME
125 Weeks Singly, 100 Weeks in Quantity
COMMENTSI won't bore with the exact details of the calcs (will post them if anyone wants). But you can get about 30 of these J4 things for the same cost as an N gun rider and J4 tender.
The result come out to:
Riders kill 0.347% of gerbils
Gerbils kill 0.680% of riders!!!!!!
Yes I have allowed for the fact that each missile hit has a 3.665% of killing the boat outright. The the combination of the decrease in cost and increase in survivability vs mesons more than makes up for the increased vulnerability to missiles and allows for you to move up to J4.
ETA: Just to be sure I redid the calcs allocating all five extra slots on the riders to missiles.
Riders kill 0.679% of gerbils
Gerbils kill 0.737% of riders
Closer but still the Gerbils still come out ahead quite clearly.
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Well the Gerbil is a highly "artificial" ship and like the Hamster, I'd ban (or at least require a redesign) if a player presented them in a campaign.
Gerbil vs Gerbil? Obviously mutual destruction. However assuming the fight stays at long range (both sides are maximum effectiveness there), 82 fires are required to score the 12 wpn-1 to kill via attrition and there a 1.018% that any missile fire will kill a Gerbil outright.
So 100 Gerbils firing at another 100 Gerbils will kill about 2.2 of them.
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Assuming no nukes, a whole lot of missiles rolling to hit.
With nukes, a lot more of them failing to hit because they were unable to detonate or detonated prematurely.
If this ship was to be used, I'd change the dual plasma gun turret by a single fusion gun one. That would give you a factor 5 battery where you have a factor 3 with the same tonnage, crew and energy needs, and even would save you MCr 1.
Agreed here.
I believe this design to be worse than the hamster, as usually the same tender that carries the BRs will carry a significant fighter screen, and this design would be quite vulnerable to them (if we assume each tender to carry about 5 BRs and 200 fighters, you'll be facing 4000 fighters too).
Assuming them armed with fusion guns (factor 5) and computer 9, they'd hit you on a 10+ (16.7%), overcoming your sandcasters on a 1+ , so damaging you 16.7% times, most of them weapons or maneover hits, that will seriously downgrade you effectiveness (for factor 8 missiles, the possibility to overcome a factor 9 damper is halved, and if reduced to 7, it is just 1/6 of a factor 9).
Against them, you could face your factor 3 lasers and factor 5 fusion (if you changes as I suggested before, as I assume you could spare your 1 dton and 1 EP needed tor the conversion). Lasers will hit on a 13+ (assumed agility 6 and size 0), and fusion on a 12+ (if they are plasma guns, 13+), so you will mission kill (any hit will, as you'll roll 3 criticals if the fighters are unarmored) about 2.8% of your firing...
EDIT:Off course, fighters will only fire at short range, but so will they be fired (your lasers being useless against them), but guess who will have now the +1 for more ships
NEW EDIT: numbers are wrong (and quite so). Fixed on post 124 this same thread. http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=388064&postcount=124 Sorry
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A single weapon-1 hit already reduces their chance to hit drastically, and that is exactly what you would be going for with secondary missile fire. At long range, this would drop a missile boat's chance to hit and penetrate from ~7% to ~2.3%.
Also I have no idea how you figure you can only fit 2 missile batteries on a rider. I have 4 on one of my standard designs, and I could easily push that to 8 and still have soak batteries.
At long range, the rider's 8 batteries would achieve weapon-1 results on two missile boats per turn on average.
In this case almost every hit by a secondary missile battery would immediately disable them. (Also, unstreamlined ships require you to have a support infrastructure in the form of tankers, which is likely to offset the cost savings.)
Of course, as I said, against such ships you would use particle accelerators, not meson guns. You can fit a T-factor PA spinal to a rider about the same size, it hits on 7+ and inflicts 10 automatic criticals on a size-A, armor-E ship. So roughly it would take out one missile boat every two turns (using your designs, more actually, since they do not have backup computers or bridges) by means of crippling criticals.
And naturally, any kind of buffered planetoid rider can still kill missile boats as long as the fuel lasts for the engagement.
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Better would actually be to drop to one plasma. The secondaries provide no useful defense or offensive capacity, they're just there to soak up wpn-1 results.
Ahhhhh, and in here lies the true problem with most all of these arguments. Yes you build you fleets around missiles (or meson or PAs), but you need balance. Missiles can beat mesons, mesons can beat PAs, hopefully if you look at it, PAs can beat missiles (I know Tobias thinks they can, but not tested it). All these pit X vs Y or this is the biggest ship killer arguments are moot, because nothing can fight unsupported.
If you bring along X number of fighters with your riders, presumably that gives the gerbils X value to spend on something to counter the fighters. If you bring along X number of PAs to counter the Gerbils, the Gerbils can spend X on countering the PAs. Yes I think if you really test the system *as written*, the best option is to build your fleet round missiles, but they can not stand unsupported, nothing can.
Though to be honest, I've been of the opinion that the rules as written are seriously broken in regards missiles and in my own games I hobbled them long ago with magazine requirements (though nowadays I'd do it with cost too); so I haven't fought an "as written" game for over 15 years. I've been working on hobbling mesons too recently in an effort to make big ships last longer. I've not found the right balance, but I hope to get there.
