T5, Traveller, the Fighter, the Battle Rider, and the Dreadnought

[Spinward Flow]

think Space: Above and Beyond meets Black Sheep Squadron.

Black Space: Sheep Above Beyond the Darkness

 

[Dragoner]

My thought is: we decide what we want that to look like. Do we want unlimited torpedo batteries?

Within the governing logic of being plausible? It is difficult to deny that a planet could be armed enough to keep any fleet at bay, though then one could also posit marine landings, with fighters as air support. So it actually sort of works. Then again we did HG fleet vs fleet back in the day, with CT. I was also a player in Barnes Thomas' game, and he wanted to do some of the new TCS too, having written it, it was good, though I didn't have the time back then.

 

[Dragoner]

Black Space: Sheep Above Beyond the Darkness

Princes and Roses: Beyond the Wall of Sheep

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Regarding the historical use of fighters during the Interstellar Wars period:
So....
What was the deal with the preference of the Vilani Imperium using missile turret fighters even though they were a few TL above the Terran Confederation and the Terran's preference for lasers. Was it the interplay of missile vs lasers, naval philosphy or Vilani control vs. Terran independence (missiles require a carrier to store reloads and thus a economics dependence on the carrier and its overlords, laser weaponry much less so), payload delivery (every missile could be a nuke in the MT range vs. lasers cannot destroy square miles of civilization in many shots.)

The big enchilada: Though IW was a GURPS campaign, how do these ideas translate into the T5 ruleset? Also, how does your navy look without Meson Guns? The Vilani Imperium at best used Particle Accelerators which were mostly useless for planetary pacification as the Vilani had a distinct preference for "shirtsleeve" worlds?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

What was the deal with the preference of the Vilani Imperium using missile turret fighters even though they were a few TL above the Terran Confederation and the Terran's preference for lasers.

As far as I know that comes from the boardgame Imperium. At a guess it was just a random way of differentiating the Terran and Vilani units. The units had "beam attack" and "missile attack" factors, the Terran units were generally stronger at beam attack but weaker at missile attack, while the Imperial units were more balanced.

So that bit of canon more-or-less predates Traveller itself, or at least the official 3I campaign.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I am well aware of its origins. I have 3 versions of Imperium sitting in my basement. That it predates the Golden Age should be irrelevant as The Interstellar Wars are one of "The Important Eras of History" in T5 Book 1, p.13. I count it part of the campaign. To me, that is much the same as saying, "The history of those 20 rings? Meh, that was in this Second Age of Middle Earth. No one I know talks about. It's not important."

I was specifically asking for in-universe thinking on the matter. Then the big part was the how well does that in-universe philosophy mesh with T5 ruleset.

So that bit of canon more-or-less predates Traveller itself, or at least the official 3I campaign.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I am well aware of its origins.

Sorry, I misunderstood the point of your question.

I was specifically asking for in-universe thinking on the matter. Then the big part was the how well does that in-universe philosophy mesh with T5 ruleset.

The answer is simple and obvious: There is no connection to the rules, it's just fluff written in complete disregard of rules, or perhaps the rules are written in complete disregard of the story. As is standard in RPGs, especially early ones.

 

[robject]

^ This. GDW, and later FFE, settle on a vision for how things work in particular eras in Charted Space. The vision stays consistent with Loren's Rule #3, but it's hard to sync with other rules.

 

[aramis]

Correct, I'm just waving the RAW flag for this.

In Starfire they do this at the ship level with a thing they call "data link" letting groups of ship fire as one, and defend as one. It's a technology with cost, and limitations of how many ships can be linked. I also know later on they got rid of the individual fighter, and just made squadrons of them (I think) as an abstract unit.

They did that in Ultra... prior, it was move as a group, activate as a group, fire individually... And the Ultra rules are complex mathy nastiness that's not really any faster than rolling the 1d10 per fighter in batches.
It's worth noting also that SDS has reissued 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eds in PDF...

 

[robject]

What was the deal with the preference of the Vilani Imperium using missile turret fighters even though they were a few TL above the Terran Confederation and the Terran's preference for lasers. Was it the interplay of missile vs lasers, naval philosphy or Vilani control vs. Terran independence (missiles require a carrier to store reloads and thus a economics dependence on the carrier and its overlords, laser weaponry much less so), payload delivery (every missile could be a nuke in the MT range vs. lasers cannot destroy square miles of civilization in many shots.)

It could be the Ziru Sirka's somewhat heavy-handed preference for bombarding worlds to keep them pacified? Hence the need for more missiles = more things to launch missiles?

Then the Terrans were less into bombarding worlds, and more into disabling Ziru Sirka ships??

The big enchilada: Though IW was a GURPS campaign, how do these ideas translate into the T5 ruleset? Also, how does your navy look without Meson Guns? The Vilani Imperium at best used Particle Accelerators which were mostly useless for planetary pacification as the Vilani had a distinct preference for "shirtsleeve" worlds?

GURPS: Interstellar Wars is, as far as I know, canonical (and well done). Therefore its concepts are directly usable by other rulesets, including Traveller5 and, if they go there, Mongoose.

Beams (including the Particle Accelerator spines) on the Ziru Sirka ships were, I assume, not for planetary pacification -- which is why their counters generally rate high in the "missile" rating on the boardgame Imperium.

 

[whartung]

It's worth noting also that SDS has reissued 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eds in PDF...

Yea, I bought the 3E again. I have delusions of trying run one of those late ISW4 scenarios with a gazillion ships flinging billions of missiles at each other.

I even have a start on the software to parse the ship design and print out expanded fleet lists.

Still need to tweak some downloaded counter sheets to change the IDs so I can make the hundreds of counters.

One of them has 855 ships on the allied side, and 904 ships on the bug side -- plus clouds of fighters and gunboats.

 

[whartung]

The question of planetary defense has to be addressed. There needs to be a mechanic to reduce such defenses, notably Deep Meson sites. But also the idea that there could be 10,000 Factor 9 missile batteries. Or a zillion PA on any vacuum world.

 

[robject]

The question of planetary defense has to be addressed. There needs to be a mechanic to reduce such defenses, notably Deep Meson sites. But also the idea that there could be 10,000 Factor 9 missile batteries. Or a zillion PA on any vacuum world.

(1) As a first pass, note that Imperium includes planetary defenses which must be destroyed before occupying a world. Representing a maximum of TL 10 or so, I think they are not especially formidable, but they are a little stubborn.

(2) Inductive Step. Presumably, siege engines are employed while the attacker is neutralizing the defensive fleet. Thus the world's defenses represent remnant elements which cannot be reduced. Siege engines are beyond the resolution of Imperium gameplay, of course.

=> The reason I have to assume this, is because planetary defenses are relatively undefined and assumed. This is doubtless related to the focus of the game.

(3) Additionally, Imperium has nice rules for representing the unwillingness of a world to remain occupied.

 

[agorski]

So if you have fighters in squadrons or flights who says they all have to be the same type? If each fighter has a datacaster to link to all the others, then you can have a command fighter with the big computer and the others can have better weaponry.

 

[Spinward Flow]

It could be the Ziru Sirka's somewhat heavy-handed preference for bombarding worlds to keep them pacified? Hence the need for more missiles = more things to launch missiles?

Then the Terrans were less into bombarding worlds, and more into disabling Ziru Sirka ships??

Which brings up the question of what weapons are permitted to perform ortillery services.

LBB5.80 changed the bombardment rule to allow only Missile Bays to be loaded with deadfall ordnance for orbital bombardment. No other weapons are even mentioned as being options for orbital bombardment of surface installations.

I mean, I would like to think that spinal mounts are capable of orbital bombardment, but the rules need to "say that" ... so what does T5 have to say are weapons which can be used in the orbital bombardment role?

 

[robject]

Spines absolutely should be able to bombard; and, there are actual ortillery weapons in T5 specifically for "pacifying" worlds (from orbit).

The happy thing is that Marc suggests that dreadnoughts can have ortillery weaponry as the principal weapon. It's a kind of monster-bay-spine-monster-thing. This is not in the T5 books, but is in a SpineMaker draft Marc is thinking over. So it ain't official. But...

Cue images of Centauri mass drivers from Babylon 5...

---

Some time after he drafted SpineMaker, he then wrote Agent of the Imperium, which introduces this new siege capability that is disturbing and distant. Kind of a near-C-rock service from a planetoid belt, for scrubbing worlds with extreme prejudice. Perhaps they can scrub with less-than-extreme prejudice?

 

[Spinward Flow]

Cue images of Centauri mass drivers from Babylon 5...

can have ortillery weaponry as the principal weapon. It's a kind of monster-bay-spine-monster-thing.

Technically speaking, you could use Launch Tubes (usually used for fighter craft) to "throw rocks at them" rather than a dedicated spinal mount or weapon bay.

The "rules" allowing that to be done aren't there to connect the dots with, but that's how I would address the issue instead of making a dedicated "weapon" system for it.

 

[Condottiere]

Spinal railgun.

Range would be open.

Actual muzzle velocity would determine if point defence would have an effect.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Which brings up the question of what weapons are permitted to perform ortillery services.

Ortillery is a weapon type. Railguns can also explicitly perform ortillery tasks. Both use the Ortillery skill to operate.

PAs are degraded by atmosphere, so not very suitable.

LBB5.80 changed the bombardment rule to allow only Missile Bays to be loaded with deadfall ordnance for orbital bombardment. No other weapons are even mentioned as being options for orbital bombardment of surface installations.

See CT Striker for rules for tactical orbital bombardment. Most ship's weapons can attack targets on the ground, but are degraded by atmosphere as usual. Meson's disregard matter, including atmosphere, planets, or hills, so works perfectly well against planetary targets. IIRC lasers work, but not as area artillery, but for direct attack on specific targets.

I mean, I would like to think that spinal mounts are capable of orbital bombardment, but the rules need to "say that" ... so what does T5 have to say are weapons which can be used in the orbital bombardment role?

T5.10 says weapons can attack targets that are sensed and in range, no specific limitation to space only. Some weapons are specifically degraded bu atmosphere, e.g. PAs. Presumably most weapons can attack ground targets, just as in Striker.

Short ranged weapons, such as Lasers, have a default range of 50 km, so would only be able to attack from a pretty low "orbit".

 

[tjoneslo]

PAs are degraded by atmosphere, so not very suitable.

Some hyper-detailed rules for other games assign a armor value to a planetary atmosphere based upon density.

So vacuum and trace would rate a 0, very thin is 4, thin is 8, Standard is 12, Dense is 16, (numbers have been made up for discussion purposes and not reflective of any real analysis). So you can fire any weapon you like on a planetary target, but they get to add the atmospheric armor to their protection, above and beyond anything else.

Under water adds another layer of armor, as would being underground.

It's also the reason hiding in the Gas Giants is effective. Not just because you can't see the SDB, but you can't fire on them either.