T20 Drednaughts? What is the point?

[jfwking]

I like ships to have fairer fights. By dropping the ship killing damage multiple for meson to x2 (and do the same for fusion as well).
A spinal meson hit does 168 damage and on a crit twice that with no armour reduction. One such hit does severe damage but it takes several more to take down a DN.

I still think D20 is too high for mesons

Also I know normal AR should not count against radiation from meson hits, thats why I said count half the value to allow for internal bulkheads etc between ship sections and the blast point.

Being a sad old wargammer I like my big ships to hang on in a fight while the little stuff goes pop around them. DNs going pop when hit by some light cruiser just upsets me

 

[mike wightman]

It may also be worth considering changing the rules for meson guns so that the AR of the meson screen isn't ignored on a critical hit. The configuration AC bonus (if positive) could be treated as AR as well.

 

[aramis]

Battery rules much the same, but dice were different for many weapons.

Roll to hit.
On Hit, Roll location. If location has no tons left, move down table one line.
Roll damage dice.
Subtract armor effects.
mark as destroyed that many tons of system. When you've dropped below the required tons for a given rating, said rating drops. When all tons are gone, system is destroyed.

If damage, left, next location down table takes remainder.

Critical hits also KO'd the system completely, even tho it could still take damage.

I am not allowed to post it in detail... it was from an early playtest draft of T20, and was Hunter's baby.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Ifigured they would work out about the same until I started number crunching while discussing fighters. Then I found out that a "Regular Gunner" has an 11 added to the to hit roll and ignores the first range reduction. Add a "Regular" Sensor Officer a reasonably competent commander and a Reasonably competent Squadron Commander and your bonuses make a Factor 9 an auto hit against the best AC you can produce in the game. With teh high Crit percentage of a Meson Gun and the high damage potential and the Crit factor of 10, it is starting to look like personal combat in CT. Whoever gets in the first shot wins. You would need two Bays to equal the chance to crit of a Spinal but given the relative size and energy requirements, that isn't a factor. Range obviously becomes a factor. A Spinal Mount has more than twice the range of the Bay. It just means that a Capital ship can't ignore the smaller vessels anymore. And since you can buy 4-6 Cruisers for the price of a Drednaught Dreds are definitely in trouble in this version of Traveller. On a positive note we are back to fighters annoying the big ships while the fleet maneuvers into range. You can ignore Fighters at your peril, Fusion guns crit hard and often, but they are very short range. You can't ignore putting Armor and Nuc Dampers on your Capital ships to makethe fighters work for some damage. PAs still offer no defense besides Armor but don't crit all that often. I can see no point in spinal PA under these rules. PA Bays are likewise not that useful but the PA turrets can be used to great effect by fighters or other smaller craft grouped into squadrons. It may be the same Starship design system but combat just got really, really bloody.

Originally posted by The Oz:
This certainly makes T20 ship combat different from CT/HG. In HG meson bays are worthless against ships defended by meson screens. Even a factor-9 meson bay can only penetrate a factor-2 meson screen with a 12 on 2d6. A factor-3 meson screen is invulnerable to meson gun bays (assuming equal computers, of course).

 

[mike wightman]

Thanks for that Aramis

Now, this problem of big ships being too easy to kill.
It apppears to me that an ordinary ship weapon hit has effects like a vehicle on vehicle critical, i.e. full rolled weapon damage vs SI and roll on the internal damage table.
Why not just scrap the ship weapons critical damage and multipliers altogether. Vehicle weapons don't have them, even though the Vehicle Internal Damage entry suggests they should(this may have been errata).
On a critical hit witha ship on ship weapon ignore AR (except for meson guns vs meson screens as per previous post), all rolled damage affects the SI and roll on the internal damage table.
The critical effects of starship weapons then comes from the internal damage tables only.

 

[flykiller]

I am not allowed to post it in detail... it was from an early playtest draft of T20, and was Hunter's baby.

really. it sounds very close to something I'm working up on my own.

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I am not allowed to post it in detail... it was from an early playtest draft of T20, and was Hunter's baby.

really. it sounds very close to something I'm working up on my own. </font>[/QUOTE]Tons of damage is a logical extrapolation from Bk 2 combat, where a single hit of damage did from 1 (guns) to 20 (fuel) tons of damage. But it still didn't recreate the feel. At the time, and SOLELY based upon PC scale ships (I'd given the PC's a small line of 3 starmercs... A type T, a Gazelle, and an RQ), the rules for SI were better feel-wise than tons of damage. I don't really think many of us were seriously looking at BIG FLEET BATTLES aspects.

One of the agreements for the playtesters was to NOT post rules bits on any on-line system, save for quotes for discussion purposes on the T20 Playtest forum.

 

[flykiller]

Tons of damage is a logical extrapolation from Bk 2 combat, where a single hit of damage did from 1 (guns) to 20 (fuel) tons of damage. But it still didn't recreate the feel. At the time, and SOLELY based upon PC scale ships (I'd given the PC's a small line of 3 starmercs... A type T, a Gazelle, and an RQ), the rules for SI were better feel-wise than tons of damage. I don't really think many of us were seriously looking at BIG FLEET BATTLES aspects.

I am. well, more like I'm trying to come up with a single system that continuously handles any size of ship. damage by tonnage seems the way to go. once you start with that premise then effects and criticals can be tweaked into place very easily, and it rewards larger weapons and larger ships which seems intuitively appropriate. the choke point is that each individual vessel must have its own separate surface, interior, combined, and facing (does anyone ever consider facing and aspect?) hit locations, taking into account hull shape and size, for such a tonnage-damage system to work properly, and that doesn't seem easy to do on a vessel without a deckplan. I have a set of rules that might address that, I just have to test them. if they don't work I have enough of my own deckplans that I can just use those. it's good to be able to show the players just how their ships are oriented, what's exposed and what's not. still, it would be nice too to have something general.

One of the agreements for the playtesters was to NOT post rules bits on any on-line system, save for quotes for discussion purposes on the T20 Playtest forum.

I'm hip. I won't ask you what you were testing or how it went, or even to "contribute to a general discussion". I'm just jabbering. but if hunter is working on something that is similar to mine then I'll want to finish it as soon as possible.

 

[BetterThanLife]

I am seriously, IMTU, considering making nothing do more than 2x damage on a Crit, (All the personal weapons are X2.) remove the +5 Critical threat to spinal mounts and ignoring the 5 extra dice at the Strategic level. (Scaling down the time at Strat level?) I hadn't even bothered to add the extra 5 dice for shooting on the Strategic scale in the example. On a Crit are those multiplied as well? Is that both Regular damage and Radiation damage? (I don't see why it wouldn't be.)

With that in mind IMTU then a Crit from a Spinal Meson mount will shatter a ship under 1000 tons, render a Destroyer Combat ineffective. (Any Light Cruisers or Carriers under 25KTons would also be combat ineffective.) And Severly damage a Cruiser or Dred. But it won't outright kill a Capital ship. 544 points of damage on an average roll. (The 5 more dice would still kill a Cruiser outright and with a good roll kill a Dred.)

The draw back is that makes fighters easy to hit but if armored difficult to kill with the secondary weapons. A Crit from a Factor 9 Nuke missile salvo will still kill a fighter but it will take a dozen hits with non Crit salvos. (Though it will probably go combat ineffective with the internal hit rules long before then.)

To me this looks like the best patch for the system. At least small ship engagements won't be running around for hours missing all the time. Like in HG.

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Thanks for that Aramis

Now, this problem of big ships being too easy to kill.
It apppears to me that an ordinary ship weapon hit has effects like a vehicle on vehicle critical, i.e. full rolled weapon damage vs SI and roll on the internal damage table.
Why not just scrap the ship weapons critical damage and multipliers altogether. Vehicle weapons don't have them, even though the Vehicle Internal Damage entry suggests they should(this may have been errata).
On a critical hit witha ship on ship weapon ignore AR (except for meson guns vs meson screens as per previous post), all rolled damage affects the SI and roll on the internal damage table.
The critical effects of starship weapons then comes from the internal damage tables only.

 

[The Oz]

IIRC, big TRAVELLER ships have always been easy to kill (at least mission-kill) in every system since HG. This is just how it is in the TRAVELLER universe. The only consolation is that it's usually taken a fair-sized ship to do the killing (since you needed a fair-sized ship to carry the lethal spinal meson gun).

I use a house rule in TCS combat that I developed/borrowed from TNE/FFS#2 where meson screens act as armor against meson gun fire on an "incomplete" penetration of the meson screen. Even this just cuts down on the number of big ship kills, it doesn't eliminate it.

I find it more interesting that T20 fighters are apparently more dangerous than in any previous incarnation of TRAVELLER. Do T20 fighters pay for their increased usefulness by being more vulnerable to return fire when they operate as squadrons? Can a factor-9 weapons battery kill more than one fighter at a time from a squadron?

 

[mike wightman]

To me this looks like the best patch for the system. At least small ship engagements won't be running around for hours missing all the time. Like in HG.

Looks good to me too. I'll try it out a few times and see how it plays.

As an aside, as someone who has bought both printings of the game to date, it would be nice to be able to see the playtest files/forum to see how it all came together, or at least remove the confidentiality order now the game's in print.

 

[Tobias]

A side note, people: Please don't use the Tigress as a typical example when comparing prices. It is a white elephant even among dreadnoughts. The optimum size for a TL 14-15 Jump-3 platform with 5-6 Gs and near-maximized protection carrying an S or T spinal meson gun is between 100ktons and 300ktons. The Imperial Kokirrak class and the Zhodani Viepchakl class (included in PP:F) are better examples of "typical" dreadnoughts.

Regards,

Tobias

 

[BetterThanLife]

Fighters still die in large numbers. But you can only kill them individually. (At least in my read of the rules.) A couple of Cruisers make short work of 100 fighters. (Even over armored and over powered stuff that I tend to design.) By the time they get to effective range they tend to be few in number. The problem with squadroning your fighters is that Counter measures work well. 100 fighters grouped into 10 squadrons firing on one cruiser will tend to not do damage due to countermeasuers of the Cruiser. (Sand or Point defense fire vs missiles.) The exception to this rule is PA weapon armed fighters. Against a poorly armored target, equiping your fighters with missiles and Laser heads it is a better option to take 100 shots instead of 10 shots. Something will get through, instead of nothing getting through. PAs being the exception that proves the rule. (Though against real armor it still won't manage much damage. IE. AR10 will reduce the damage to 1D12-4 and 1D10-4, or Strategic scale 2D12 and 2D10. AR15 reduces it to 1d12-9 and 1d10-9 or Strategic scale 1D12-4 and 1D10-4. Still some damage but not all that much. Problem is Missiles inbound on the fighters are nastier and have much longer range. Fighters have no real defense except armor. But at least they can do some damage. Since Spinal Meson mounts are basically equal above H You can use less power on the spinal mount and devote more space and power to defense of a Capital ship.

Originally posted by The Oz:
IIRC, big TRAVELLER ships have always been easy to kill (at least mission-kill) in every system since HG. This is just how it is in the TRAVELLER universe. The only consolation is that it's usually taken a fair-sized ship to do the killing (since you needed a fair-sized ship to carry the lethal spinal meson gun).

I use a house rule in TCS combat that I developed/borrowed from TNE/FFS#2 where meson screens act as armor against meson gun fire on an "incomplete" penetration of the meson screen. Even this just cuts down on the number of big ship kills, it doesn't eliminate it.

I find it more interesting that T20 fighters are apparently more dangerous than in any previous incarnation of TRAVELLER. Do T20 fighters pay for their increased usefulness by being more vulnerable to return fire when they operate as squadrons? Can a factor-9 weapons battery kill more than one fighter at a time from a squadron?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually I am thinking I will leave the extra 5 dice in for strategic level, except for Crits. Justification is a Crit is a sudden short hit that happens to hit just right. (Keeps the time and distance right.) After all the Arizona and Prince of Wales both went to the bottom by a bomb going down the stack, extra bombs wouldn't have made much of a difference. All the other Battleships at Pearl Harbor were put back into action. Only the Oklahoma not actually seeing action in WWII after Pearl Harbor. (And the Oklahoma turned turtle.)

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> To me this looks like the best patch for the system. At least small ship engagements won't be running around for hours missing all the time. Like in HG.

Looks good to me too. I'll try it out a few times and see how it plays.

As an aside, as someone who has bought both printings of the game to date, it would be nice to be able to see the playtest files/forum to see how it all came together, or at least remove the cofidentiality orde now the game's in print. </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[BetterThanLife]

Only reason I thought of the Tigress is the size. Even as 500,000T under the T20 rules as written it goes down, totally destroyed by one Crit from any spinal Meson weapon. (And is rendered combat ineffective by a crit from a 100T Meson Bay. Two Crits from bays Vaporizes it.)

Originally posted by Tobias:
A side note, people: Please don't use the Tigress as a typical example when comparing prices. It is a white elephant even among dreadnoughts. The optimum size for a TL 14-15 Jump-3 platform with 5-6 Gs and near-maximized protection carrying an S or T spinal meson gun is between 100ktons and 300ktons. The Imperial Kokirrak class and the Zhodani Viepchakl class (included in PP:F) are better examples of "typical" dreadnoughts.

Regards,

Tobias

 

[Theophilus]

As I said in the other thread, my hang-up is still the price/ vs effectiveness arguement. While it's true you may kill my fighters by the hundred's, at over 244,000 Mcr each for the Perisher I can build over 6000 "bombers", With three missiles each that's over 18,000 missiles. If only 1% make it thru, that's still 180 hits.

On the other hand, I can build 9900 Dryad fighters, Can anyone say "divine wind" boys and girls?

Obviously, a "Dread Naught" with no armor had better dread something or it won't last long.

 

[mike wightman]

Where are you going to get all the pilots from?
Sorry, where are you going to get all the suicidal pilots from?

Certain death goes a little bit beyond thrill seeking, IMHO.

Drone or even robot piloted ships, perhaps, but unless you have a planet full of fundamentalist
religeous "straight to heaven/oblivion" types your pool of would be pilots is going to be very small.

 

[cmdrx]

Back from holidays and just following this thread.

I have been playing with the ship combat rules for T20 for some time and I agree it is way too deadly. Spinal mounts are almost(?) always guaranteed a hit on any ship and the crit range is too high. Did anyone catch that "if spinal mount increase threat range by 5" rule? Meson spinals crit on a 10!?

Average roll to hit with a spinal, lets say a Type N, is 10(skill of gunner)+22(USP)+9(Successful sensor lock)+5(Succesful Command) or a 46!
This assumes a 6th level gunner with 9 ranks of gunnery and a stat of 12 for the +1. The Commander has a total leadership skill of 15 and will always make the check.
The way the rules are, a spinal gun is devestating at nominal range hitting ANY target, and can still hit and destroy ships by sniping away at far, far range!
Assume the gunner has Heavy Metal and the nominal range is 150,000km(not that -2 to hit realy matter. "Hey cap'n, watch me blast that Tigress in orbit around Pluto!" The reduce damage per range band takes care of this (more later).

I've done some home rule brewing to suit my taste in combat (those big ships shouldn't just light up so easily like that!)

1. Ignore the +5 for spinals rule. 16d damage is enough as it is. Meson spinals threat/crit on a 15 not 10. Even then this may be too high.

2. Degrade Weapon damage by 1 dice per range band.
That means meson spinals have a max range of 16 range bands, but even at half that, a meson screen will soak the dice. (See house rule #3 below) Total range 16x75Kkm is 1.2Million Km(80hex)

3. Double the AR of Meson Screens to make them more effective. Meson Screen 9 = Meson AR18. 16d20-18 = 1d20-3. Painful(usualy a 17SI), but not debilitating if the shot penetrates.

4. There should be some form of protection from PAW besides just Armour. I've made Sandcasters able to absorb some PAW fire, but at 1/2AR. Reason? PAWs are messed up by atmospheres, so why not the crystals in sand?

5. Bring back the USP v. dt Rule from HG.
Before I do any SI damage calculations, I roll x amount of rolls on the "Special" internal damage subtable based on the Weapon USP - Ship displacement number from HG. The "Special" chart is exactly the same as the criticals from HG. Subtract 1 roll for every 2AR, as per HG. Subtract 1 roll for every range band beyond the first. I do this becasue I am lazy and want to see if the ship survives to justify an SI roll. if it blows up, why bother rolling SI? Also if a critical is rolled, and the SI done doesn't frag the ship, I roll on the special table instead of normal internals. Spinals get the +40 on this table!

It is very possible to roll a cripling hit on this chart and still roll crappy SI. Handwave for this: Your shot was so good that it fragged the system but left the hull and structural supports relatively intact.

Just some of my ideas and house rules. As always YMMV.

 

[cmdrx]

Oh, forgot to mention:

Reduce Crit multipliers to x5 for mesons and x3 for fusion guns. Spinal Meson gun crits then do a max of 16x20x5 or 1600SI with an average of 800. 800SI is enough to put a 300,000dt ship out of action.

Merely suggestions. As always YMMV.

 

[BetterThanLife]

It would only take 50-100 more missile armed fighters than the ship has in point defense. (In the Perisher's case, that would be 142 if you include the Sand Casters.) So the 450 fighters from the Fleet Carrier in TA7 can generally kill two perishers at once if they were all bombers and armed with Laser Heads. (Standard HE would probably do the trick but lets just make sure. I wouldn't use Dryads they go down to fast. Armor my fighters to 14 or 15 and they will generally survive 3 hits from a factor 9 missile bay. (Barely). Armor the Dred to factor 10 or more and the fighters are virtually useless. then you would need Laser Heads and more than 2000 fighters armed with missiles than the Battleship has in Point Defense. (And 10 for every point defense weapon.) Then you still probably won't get the damn thing.

Originally posted by Theophilus:
As I said in the other thread, my hang-up is still the price/ vs effectiveness arguement. While it's true you may kill my fighters by the hundred's, at over 244,000 Mcr each for the Perisher I can build over 6000 "bombers", With three missiles each that's over 18,000 missiles. If only 1% make it thru, that's still 180 hits.

On the other hand, I can build 9900 Dryad fighters, Can anyone say "divine wind" boys and girls?

Obviously, a "Dread Naught" with no armor had better dread something or it won't last long.