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

[Nathan Brazil]

I just remembered something from my wargaming past that may, or may not (you tell me) bear proof on the value of "fighters". If not laugh at the story:

Long ago in high school days the game Starfire from Task Force Games came out, the one where you could design space combat ships and slug it out. There was a person who was quite good at the game but also quite a prick about it. So I took him up on a his "I can make the best ships." We agreed on a budget and came to battle the next week at the schools game club night. He comes in with 5, I will say well made, dreadnought class ships with all the good defenses, armor, weapons the take up multiple spots in the right spots, the shebang. I put down 20 counters on the board and he starts laughing thinking its a cakewalk, until I tell him each counter represented 10 corvette class ships, the smallest ship class the game had (unless you count the actual fighters/fighter bays from Starfire II and Starfire III games) each with a single laser and the absolute minimum engine, shield, etc. to complete the frame. He thought I was crazy and lying until I showed him my paper with my design, cost and budget (this was before PCs, Visicalc and such). I won because in that game, a ship can only target one enemy ship per round, unless you have a Multitarget Unit (rated 2 thru 5). Yes he had an M5's installed and quite handily destroyed 25 corvettes the first round. But the 200 Corvettes got their licks in destroying 1 dreadnought. I was not going to risk firing at multiple ships ("Concentrate all firepower on that Super Star Destroyer."). Round 2 was 4 DN vs 175 Corvettes. He refused to play round 3+. Well, I said he was a prick. .

The point is: In situations without a ship killer Spinal, (damaged, never developed, ship tonnage too small, small stellar empire budgets, etc.), do fighters (and Riders) regain value simply by throwing enough metal in the sky and thus overloading even multiple fire-control stations or the computer? IIRC that's what to do in CT Book 2 fights. I don't know T5 ACS or BCS well yet. I've gone thru the other stuff more thoroughly.

 

[Spinward Flow]

He brought 5 ships.
You brought 200.

At best, he could destroy 100 of your ships while you destroyed all 5 of his easily (with reserves to spare).
So long as the weapons remain effective(!) then quantity has a quality all of its own.

The problem with Traveller BCS combat is that beyond a certain point, a lot of weapons can be made "ineffective" even if they hit through the application of Sufficient Armor™. There is no way to make meson weapons "ineffective" if they hit and penetrate defenses under the Rules As Written. With meson guns it's All Or Nothing ... and all you need is 1 hit to cripple a target (even a Tigress), meaning that a plentiful supply of smaller Meson Sled combatants will tend to overwhelm a single dreadnaught hull by virtue of the "roll lots of dice!" factor, increasing the odds of that single lucky hit needed getting through. Everything else about a fleet would then become screening elements to protect the capital ship killer Meson Sleds from additional threats (so fighter carriers and the like).

---

A friend of mine introduced me to Starfire a couple decades ago, just to see what I would do with the ship building rules.

I wound up creating O'neill Cylinder space stations that would allow a civilization to colonize star systems without requiring a habitable terrestiral planet (basically needed 500 staterooms and 100 life support, all done in a repeating SSSSSL fashion. Later iterations incorporated a bulkhead for "interior armor" yielding a repeating BSSSSSL module which you just needed 100 copies of to host a minimum size colony outpost.

It's been a while since I made it up (more than 20+ years), so my details pulled from memory might be off (and I haven't looked at the Starfire rules since then) ... but the idea was to build space stations (military ships couldn't be large enough to fit everything needed under Starfire I) large enough to be habitats to meet the colonization rules requirements. Once you had the minimum size space station, it was then just a matter of "building more space stations" to raise the population up to the next tier of colonization. Beyond a certain point, all you needed was resource extraction plus a population and the whole thing turned into a Von Neumann Machine capable of self-replication of space habitats that could colonize a single star system multiple times over (since they weren't tethered to the planetary bodies) that generated net positive economic output for the civilization, increasing wealth "density" per star system above what was typical.

Military protection of the space stations cost extra.

My friend who lent me the Starfire rules to see what I would do with them was gobsmacked ... and even to this day the subject occasionally gets brought up in the context of how it's "Not Safe" to give me access to rules sets because of what I might use them to build.

 

[Swiftbrook]

I just remembered something from my wargaming past that may, or may not (you tell me) bear proof on the value of "fighters". If not laugh at the story:

{snip}

I've used a variation of this argument for years. I think ten 50,000dt cruisers will beat one Tigress anyday of the week. I actually would say that five 50,000dt cruisers could beat one Tigress. In actual combat it might be more like 20 to 2, 40 to 4 etc.

The way I look at it, my fleet of ten 50,000dt cruisers costs roughly half the cost of two Tigress, and they are more versatile day in and day out.

That said, I still want my Tigress dreadnoughts around. They're just cool.

-Swiftbrook
Just My Thoughts

 

[AnotherDilbert]

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

Quite like T5.10 (B2, p166):

In Atmosphere. Particle Accelerators operating in atmosphere (attacking a target which is in atmosphere) use World Range R=. The beam is reduced in effectiveness by 1D of Damage for each layer of atmosphere (Range Band).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I've used a variation of this argument for years. I think ten 50,000dt cruisers will beat one Tigress anyday of the week. I actually would say that five 50,000dt cruisers could beat one Tigress. In actual combat it might be more like 20 to 2, 40 to 4 etc.

Yes, in HG they would, as demonstrated:

Well, I sent 10 contrived 7500 ton "Battler Riders" (i.e. Agi 6, computer 9, Meson J, damper 9, meson screen 9, 15 Armor), simply the smallest J gun I could make, against a Tigress, and they killed it in the first round.

As far as I understand T5 BCS aims to make things better for the battleship.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The point is: In situations without a ship killer Spinal, (damaged, never developed, ship tonnage too small, small stellar empire budgets, etc.), do fighters (and Riders) regain value simply by throwing enough metal in the sky and thus overloading even multiple fire-control stations or the computer?

Not really. You successfully exploited a quirk in the rules to generate a situation where he could not target your ships, but you could target his.

The one-shot one-kill weapon is a problem for big ships, no matter how big or well-defended they are they die just as easily as a small cruiser or rider. With one-shot one-kill weapons you would have killed his big, bad battlewagons even easier.

The more generalised lesson of your experience is probably: "cost-efficient" generally beats "best-of-everything" designs.

 

[whartung]

He brought 5 ships.
You brought 200.

I believe the newer Starfire rules mitigate this problem somehow, I just don't know the details.

I know for ST 3rd Edition, missile were king. Missiles, missiles, and more missiles, making "balanced" designed uncompetitive.

The singular problem with space ships is simply that for many performance characteristics, size does not matter. In High Guard, a 10 ton ship can be M6, Agi6 and a 500,000 ton ship can be M6, Agi 6. "Tigress class Fighter" .

And, of course, that's the battle being fought here.

Typically, the singular advantage of a large ship is that all of its fire can be combined in to a single salvo. In SF terms that means more missiles can hit the target at the same time and overwhelm point defense. First one missile at a time, Point Defense can be very effective. Fired 100 at a time, less so. HG only has that concept a little bit, in that lasers can only be fired once in defense, regardless of where the salvo came from. If a ship has 10 batteries of lasers, and 20 missile hits are coming in, in HG it doesn't matter if those missile come from fighters or cruisers (assuming they're all the same factor).

So, in that sense, "bigness" only goes so far in HG. The singular benefit of bigness is the lowing of crits from spinal mounts. But, honestly, once ANY crits are hitting, after a certainly point it doesn't much matter. It does not many crits to disable a ship, so at some point making bigger hulls just becomes diminishing returns. But the J guns against the Tigress demonstrated how little the Tigress size benefited (granted, this was because of the special feature of the meson gun over a PA). Armor is probably more important than size.

Typically the anti swarm mechanic is something outside of the design process. "Not enough pilots", "The maintenance on 100 1000 ton ships is higher than maintenance on 10 10000 ton ships.", etc.

Because here on earth, while we know that the US fleet had a bad wargame against a bunch of patrol boats with Anit-ship missiles, as far a utility for projection of power, a bunch of little boats don't work. But they certainly can sting. The modern navy CV and such are as big as they are for a reason, despite all the doom and gloom about missile vulnerability. Pretty sure the navy planners aren't just sitting in a room and going "Oh, well, I guess we're just humped and there's nothing we can do about it."

I don't see the Navy making a bunch of little missile boats.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Armor is probably more important than size.

Hull code: L (20,000 tons) + 14 armor takes no automatic critical hits from a Spinal-T (TL=15).
L ... M N P Q R S T

So if you're wanting to not take automatic critical hits from a Particle-T hit, you want a minimum of 20,000 tons for your hull and Armor: 14-15 (under LBB5.80 automatic crit rules). You still get all the "normal" extra hits from a Spinal-T, but at least you aren't taking bonus crits "for free" from it.

Against a TL=14 Particle-S you only need hull code: K + 14 armor to take no automatic critical hits.
K ... L M N P Q R S

Note that under LBB5.80, hull codes: L-P (20,000 to 50,000 tons) receive a +1 to be hit modifier due to their size, while hull codes: B-K (200 to 10,000 tons) receive a +0 to be hit modifier due to their size. Consequently, the 10,000-19,999 ton hull code: K is potentially a "sweet spot" to aim for in the design of spinal sleds (both particle accelerator and meson) in order to combine "enough" armor with a large enough hull size to mitigate "as much unnecessary extra free damage" from spinal mounts as necessary.

This just once again points to the necessity of having meson screens "do more" than act as a bubble membrane type of protection. Bare minimum, meson screens ought to be behaving like "armor" in the mitigation of meson gun hits (meson screen factor is +DM to meson gun damage result rolls, -1 automatic critical hit per meson screen factor) to represent a "defense in depth" and not just a "candy shell" defense that amounts to a Block? (Y/N) result and nothing more.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Hull code: L (20,000 tons) + 14 armor takes no automatic critical hits from a Spinal-T (TL=15).
L ... M N P Q R S T

And, as you note, they become more vulnerable to mesons and missiles, apart from being bigger and more expensive, with bigger and more expensive tenders, hence fewer hulls in combat, hence an easier to kill fleet.

High Guard rock-paper-scissors at its finest!

This just once again points to the necessity of having meson screens "do more" than act as a bubble membrane type of protection. Bare minimum, meson screens ought to be behaving like "armor" in the mitigation of meson gun hits (meson screen factor is +DM to meson gun damage result rolls, -1 automatic critical hit per meson screen factor) to represent a "defense in depth" and not just a "candy shell" defense that amounts to a Block? (Y/N) result and nothing more.

And as soon as you get a DM+4 (DM+6 for crew), mesons can no longer inflict unrepairable critical hits, but only repairable normal hits, and then they are not worth the steep price.

As all hits are now repairable it is difficult to end the fight, if you can design a fleet defensive enough to repair hits faster than the enemy can inflict them, which I strongly suspect we can. You certainly can at TL-12 (hello, Eurisko).

Spinals needs to inflict devastating damage to be worth it, and they are an iconic part of Traveller. On the other hand battleships can't be destroyed by a single shot, or they are not worth it... Somehow battleships needs a major defensive advantage over smaller ships, yet spinals should be the main way of defeating them.

 

[Condottiere]

The ability to soak up damage, hence the rule of thumb to make them immune to their own main armament.

 

[whartung]

And as soon as you get a DM+4 (DM+6 for crew), mesons can no longer inflict unrepairable critical hits, but only repairable normal hits, and then they are not worth the steep price.

The only DM that applies to mesons is +6 for Factor <=9. With the +6, there's 9% chance of a crew hit on the interior explosion table, and that's a ship killer (out of the fight, can't repair, barring frozen watch).

The game is getting through the screens and configuration. The low end bay mounted mesons are better for ortillery purposes than ship killing.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The only DM that applies to mesons is +6 for Factor <=9. With the +6, there's 9% chance of a crew hit on the interior explosion table, and that's a ship killer (out of the fight, can't repair, barring frozen watch).

Yes, of course, but Spinward Flow suggested using meson screen factor as armour against mesons, which is what I commented on.

If you expect to survive meson strikes, your ship should have spare computers, screens, and crew.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The low end bay mounted mesons are better for ortillery purposes than ship killing.

Agree.

Loading up with meson bay weapons would wreak havoc against surface installations that lack meson screens. You could have enough of them to essentially "carpet bomb" a terrestrial surface so as to devastate large areas in detail ... and just keep doing it (since all you need is EP, not ordnance) for as long as necessary.

Locations with meson screens would "betray their presence" due to the very protection offered by those meson screens ... at which point the "big guns" need to be brought up to take on those hardened defenses. Supplementary to that would be the landing of troops in an attempt to take out any deep sites through use of infantry, rather than exclusively using meson ortillery from orbit. A dispersed landing force (lots of small craft) might suffer some losses during descent, but most of them would be able to get through for a landing (rate of fire working against the deep site defenses in that case).

After that, it's just a slog to get the job done and mop up.

 

[Condottiere]

It could be a fluid defence, with bayed meson guns embedded in submarines.

 

[mike wightman]

Many years ago suggested 'fixes' to HG80
1 - ship hull size modifier if positive is the additional number of hits required to downrate a system factor - so ships with a +1 require 2 hits to reduce a factor, this does not apply to reducing the number of batteries which are still reduced 1 for 1.
2 - agility is not a defensive DM applied to turret mounted lasers
3 - put the fuel tanks shattered result where it belongs, on the critical table, replace it with a crew hit
4 - meson screens act as armour does for reducing extra hits and crits.
5 - much of this requires expanding the USP with additional lines to separate weapons into spines, bays and turrets.
6 - crew hits do not mission kill a ship, they provide a universal -DM pre level of crew degradation (note the additional damage capacity of capital ships it would require 3 crew hit on a Tigress to warrant a -1DM)
7 - fighter squadrons combine their weapons to result in a higher factor.
8 - in addition to their current effects nuclear missiles do not get the DM on the damage table for being less than factor A.

 

[Spinward Flow]

1 - ship hull size modifier if positive is the additional number of hits required to downrate a system factor - so ships with a +1 require 2 hits to reduce a factor, this does not apply to reducing the number of batteries which are still reduced 1 for 1.

Reasonable. Also gives larger hull sizes a reason to be larger.

2 - agility is not a defensive DM applied to turret mounted lasers

Sensible.

3 - put the fuel tanks shattered result where it belongs, on the critical table, replace it with a crew hit

Good idea.

4 - meson screens act as armour does for reducing extra hits and crits.

Black Globes work as +2 armor vs everything per factor (up to amount of flicker being used).
If Meson Screens worked as "+2 armor vs meson guns" per factor they would be FAR more effective as a meson deterrent.
However, you would probably need to reorganize the tech levels for meson screens.
The LBB5.80 progression of TL 12(1), 13(2), 13(3), 14(4), 14(5), 14(6), 15(7), 15(8), 15(9) would become an excessive tech level advantage in terms of factor allowed at each tech level. You would probably want to do something more akin to how spinal mounts progress their factors, resulting in a meson screen factor tech level progression of TL 12(1), 13(2), 14(3), 15(4), 13(5), 14(6), 15(7), 14(8), 15(9) so as to not overbalance the meson screen protection opportunities quite so heavily in favor of the spinal mounts (which already have enough advantages as it is)

5 - much of this requires expanding the USP with additional lines to separate weapons into spines, bays and turrets.

Not really. Only spinal mounts can have factors above A.
If you wanted to get deliberate about it, you could probably introduce bold and italic into the USPs, such that spinal mounts receive bold font, and bays receive italicized font in print. Of course, that only works with publishing where you have a fixed width per character font so do don't have to resort to the use of the CODE tags here on the forums in order to accomplish the necessary spacing to present the information reliably.

6 - crew hits do not mission kill a ship, they provide a universal -DM pre level of crew degradation (note the additional damage capacity of capital ships it would require 3 crew hit on a Tigress to warrant a -1DM)

Clever.

7 - fighter squadrons combine their weapons to result in a higher factor.

Agreed. It also helps speed up combat to a significant degree and prevents fighters with limited weapons having a sort of technological planned obsolescence.

8 - in addition to their current effects nuclear missiles do not get the DM on the damage table for being less than factor A.

Disagree.
The -6 DM for being nuclear (which offsets the +6 DM for being less than factor A) works just fine as is. No need for change there.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Many years ago suggested 'fixes' to HG80
1 - ship hull size modifier if positive is the additional number of hits required to downrate a system factor - so ships with a +1 require 2 hits to reduce a factor, this does not apply to reducing the number of batteries which are still reduced 1 for 1.
2 - agility is not a defensive DM applied to turret mounted lasers
3 - put the fuel tanks shattered result where it belongs, on the critical table, replace it with a crew hit
4 - meson screens act as armour does for reducing extra hits and crits.
5 - much of this requires expanding the USP with additional lines to separate weapons into spines, bays and turrets.
6 - crew hits do not mission kill a ship, they provide a universal -DM pre level of crew degradation (note the additional damage capacity of capital ships it would require 3 crew hit on a Tigress to warrant a -1DM)
7 - fighter squadrons combine their weapons to result in a higher factor.
8 - in addition to their current effects nuclear missiles do not get the DM on the damage table for being less than factor A.

So, in essence you want the standard meson riders to be rocks? Battleships are slightly sturdier, but are easily immobilised by nukes, and then dead meat, as they can't increase armour the same way riders can.

And laser fighters can easily hit and destroy each other with size crits, but still not do anything much to ships?


I don't really see what problem you are trying to solve? Mesons still produce Internal Damage, hence crits, even if slightly less of them. Ten riders will still handily beat a BB, that is suddenly also much more vulnerable to nukes. Lightly armoured warships will just disappear in a cloud of nukes.

Even if we remove Fuel Tanks Shattered, a meson spinal hit is very likely a kill by crits. Sure a BB might survive one meson hit or even two if it's very lucky, but more numerous riders will generate a lot more hits anyway.

 

[kilemall]

Might consider that Rob is attempting to help Marc create a new game and you aren’t beholden to that damn set of tables.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Might consider that Rob is attempting to help Marc create a new game and you aren’t beholden to that damn set of tables.

Those who do not learn from past mistakes are pro.ne to repeat them ...