Terran Commonwealth -- Book 2 Starship Combat

[PFVA63]

Hi,

This thread brings up alot of old memories of when I first started messing around with Traveller in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Me and my friends started trying to play the game before alot of the supporting supplements and stuff were published and as such I remember spending alot of time trying to design our own ships and draw up some deck plans for them.

One problem I always had was with small craft, because most of my experience with science fiction was from TV or movies where alot of the ship layouts seemed so spacious and huge, with cavernous hangars in comparison to the stuff inside (for example the shuttle bay on the starship Enterprise in Star Trek). However in LBB2 from CT, if I am recalling correctly, the small craft were assumed to more or less only take up just about the same amount of space as they displaced, which I guess meant that they fit within a conformal opening/space in the ship's hull. But I don't recall what if any limits there where on launching and recovering of these small craft.

In High Guard, looking through the book again now, it seems that for ships of less than 1000 dton the small craft would require space equal to there own size in dtons, but for ships over 1000 dtons, the small craft would require space equal to 130% of their own size.

Additionally, craft bigger than 99 dton could be carried at a cost of 110% of their size. Also, LBB5 appeared to place a limit on the number of small craft that could be launched per turn unless the ship includes a fairly large launch tube facility (25 x the size of the largest craft to be launched).

I guess some of these limits could be retrofitted into the LBB2 rules to help address some of the shortcomings of the LBB2.

Another thought is looking at what is in GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars, which also appears to represent fairly early era in Traveller.

In that book, they address both;

- Vehicle Bays - which appear to be like the conformal snug fit spaces from LBB2
- Hangar Bays - which seem to be more like the stuff described in High Guard for ships bigger than 1000 dtons, but here the spave required would be twice the size of the small craft carried.

Both of these also require some small amount of additional space for equipment. GT:IW also provides some rules for launch tubes and maintenance requirements. Specifically, it notes that for any small craft carried, in addition to the pilot and crew of that craft, if more than four small craft are carried you would also need 1 maintenance guy on the mothership plus an additional crewman for each four small craft carried to operate/maintain the vehicle/hangar bays.

Similarly, if more than 10 small craft are carried then you would need 1 additional crewman on the mothership per 10 small craft to act as flight control.

With respect to launch and recovery, for all ships, except those with a Dispersed Structure, a ship can launch one small craft per vehicle/hangar bay per turn, and recover at a similar rate, provided that vectors are matched provided that no small craft was launched from that bay that turn.

A launch tube can launch 40 small craft per turn, and a ship with a Dispersed Structure can launch all its small craft in a turn.

I think that some of these rules could also be co-opting into use in a modified LBB2 system to address some of the issues not addressed in much detail in LBB2 with respect to trying to operate small craft from larger vessels.

With respect to comparing warships to merchant ships, while it is theorectically possible for a merchant ship to mount the exact same armament as a similarly sized warship, I think due to economic reasons, it would probably be very unlikely to see a ship do that in most Traveller Universes.

Specifically, if you look at a Type R Subsidized Merchant with its two hardpoints but no turrets, and you make some assumptions on the percent occupancy of the passenger cabins, then you can make a rough estimate of how much money you would have to make per ton of cargo to break even. If you go ahead and install two triple turrets and a full complement of lasers/missiles/sandcasters then;

- you'll loose two passenger cabins, to accommodate the additional crew,
- you'll increase the cost of the ship, due to the added weaponry, and
- you'll increase operating expenses of the ship, due to the added crew.

Based on my rough calcs, it looks to me that the required freight rate for your cargo could go up as much as 14 to 17%. Similarly, if you were to build a ship identical to the Type R, but with a maximum loadout of 4 hardpoints plus 4 triple turrets and armament, then your required freight rate for your cargo could go up as much as 30 to 36%.

Similar rough estimates for the 600 dt Type M Subsidized Merchant show results of increases along the lines of 12-15% to mount armed turrets on its three hardpoints and provide the required manning, or 24-30% if it were a ship identical to the Type M but fitted out and manned for a maximum loadout of 6 triple turrets.

Looking at these numbers I suspect that trying to arm a Merchant vessel with its maximum possible armament may end up making it too uneconomic to operate against more modestly armed merchant vessels.

With respect to Fighter carrying warships versus those that do not carry fighters, I guess alot of the discussion of ultility depends on what you want the ship to do and how fast the ship can launch and recover its fighters. [Edit] If you end up having to cut back on fighters because of some of the alternate rule ideas from other systems I noted above it may impact the comparison [End Edit]. By not fitting fighters or perhaps outfitting the ship with different small craft, you could potentially develop a faster vessel (J-5 M-6) which could be harder for the fighters or carrier to intercept (both tactically and strategically, especially if you allow for jump governers etc).

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Regards

 

[tbeard1999]

Hi,

This thread brings up alot of old memories of when I first started messing around with Traveller in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Me and my friends started trying to play the game before alot of the supporting supplements and stuff were published and as such I remember spending alot of time trying to design our own ships and draw up some deck plans for them.

One problem I always had was with small craft, because most of my experience with science fiction was from TV or movies where alot of the ship layouts seemed so spacious and huge, with cavernous hangars in comparison to the stuff inside (for example the shuttle bay on the starship Enterprise in Star Trek).

Spaceship shuttle bay sizes on TV were due to special effects and dramatic requirements, rather than a measured consideration of the space that would actually be required. And candidly, Traveller's tonnage requirements for fighters is too small, if Traveller's fighters are similar in size to modern carrier aircraft. A modern F-18 strike fighter would consume about 40 displacement tons, even with wings folded. It would mass 20-25 metric tons, fully loaded. The definitive WWII carrier fighter, the F6F Hellcat, (or the F4U Corsair) would have consumed about 24 displacement tons and mass 6-7 metric tons fullly loaded.

So one fix would be to double or triple the size of fighters. While this makes carriers far less useful, it still does not address my core complaint -- that there is no way for a dedicated military starship to use significant amounts of tonnage for weapons. The designer of Traveller obviously saw this as an unmet need, since High Guard contained elaborate mechanics to do exactly that. My guess is that LBB2 was designed only to handle civilian (and armed civilian) craft and that there was always an intention to add systems to cover military craft.

Since I chose to make my campaign a "proto-Traveller" and to disregard High Guard, I had to add some things to LBB2 to allow for dedicated military spacecraft.

With respect to comparing warships to merchant ships, while it is theorectically possible for a merchant ship to mount the exact same armament as a similarly sized warship, I think due to economic reasons, it would probably be very unlikely to see a ship do that in most Traveller Universes.

Agreed that there is an economic cost for adding guns -- 3 tons per turret (2 for the gunner's stateroom consumption; 1 for fire control). However, this cost is modest, especially when you consider that the gunner and turret need not be carried unless the ship is in a dangerous area. That would cut the cost to 1 ton of fire control. And this doesn't change my essential problem that LBB2 military ships have no way to devote significant tonnage to weaponry. A pure LBB2 navy equipped with LBB2 warships would be a foolish expenditure. A more sensible organization would be a government Merchant Marine service that is armed as well as possible, but that carries cargo and passengers when it's not at war.

While this could be a very interesting universe, it isn't what I want for *my* universe.

Actually, that is not entirely true. My campaign will feature a rebellion by a group of systems that have armed their government merchant service.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi, a couple thoughts...

Hi,

A couple thoughts come to mind. First, if I am remembering LBB2 indicates while LBB2 indicates that double occupancy is allowed in some special cases (such as exploratory ships, privately owned ships and warships), I believe that in general it is not allowed for non-military starships. Thus, the cost for adding a turret to a commercial vessel is actually 5 dt per turret, not three, though you may do things differently in your Traveller Universe.

As I noted previously, when I ran the numbers for some standard Traveller Merchant ships, the impacts on vessel economics was surprisingly large when you add weaponry because of this.

Specifically, for a Type R Merchant without any armament, if I could assume 100% occupancy of my passenger staterooms with High Passengers and a 100% full cargo hold, I would only have to make 938Cr/ton on the cargo to break even (if I did the math right). Similarly if I instead assumed 100% occupancy but with Mid-Passengers, it would work out to 1018Cr/ton (I think).

I realize that these numbers don't necessarily reflect realistic operating conditions, but they are useful in comparing craft, and are similar to "Required Freight Rate" calcs that sometimes get done for modern merchant ships, where you estimate how much you would have to charge per ton to break even based on some notional loading concept.

If I were to add triple turrets to just the two hardpoints stipulated on the Type R vessel and fit 2 beam lasers, 2 missile launchers and two sandcasters, the amount of money I'd have to make per ton assuming 100% High-Passage occupancy would be 1101 Cr/ton or an increase in 17%. Assuming 100% Mid-Passage occupancy it would be 1161Cr/ton or an increase of 14% over the Required Rate with no armament. Looking at this another way this works out to about an additional 28,600 to 32,600 Cr per trip that you would have to bring in to break even.

This is due in part to the added costs of the weaponry and turrets, the added costs of the additional crew, and the lost revenue from the passengers displaced to accommodate the added crew. It does not include any additional costs for software for the computer to target the weapons etc.

As I noted previously, I also looked at a vessel identical to the Type R but with four harpoints, and four tiple turrets, with four beam lasers, four missile racks and four sand casters, and those required freight rates came out to 1278CR (all High-Pass) or 1319Cr (all Mid-Pass), or 36% and 30% respectively. This equates to a need for an additional 65500Cr to 57500Cr per trip (if I did the math right).

As such to me that seems a big impact.

As you note, it may be possible to not fit the added weaponry and turrets until they are needed, which could reduce the cost and impact when they are not needed, but I would suspect that this would take some time and you may also have to pay the full price of the weapons, turrets, and conversion up front unless you can get a loan.

Anyway, just some thoughts. With respect to fighters I have also started looking over some of the designs you posted about in another thread, and hopefully I will add my thoughts/comments on them to that other thread shortly.

Regards

PF

 

[tbeard1999]

Hi,

A couple thoughts come to mind. First, if I am remembering LBB2 indicates while LBB2 indicates that double occupancy is allowed in some special cases (such as exploratory ships, privately owned ships and warships), I believe that in general it is not allowed for non-military starships. Thus, the cost for adding a turret to a commercial vessel is actually 5 dt per turret, not three, though you may do things differently in your Traveller Universe.

You are correct re commercial ships. Double occupancy is allowed on military starships. I don't think that this affects my basic contention, however.

My contention is simply that there's no way for military starships to devote tonnage to weapons, other than turrets or fighters. This means that large, dedicated non-carrier military starships are absurd. They will have lots of cargo or passenger space available and will be indistinguishable from armed merchantmen. Indeed, as I noted earlier, it would be staggeringly wasteful for a navy to deploy dedicated large combatants (other than carriers). They should also carry cargo to defray costs.

I really can't say it any plainer than that.

And my contention is independent of whether it would be economically feasible to arm merchant ships. In any sort of sane economy, *required* weaponry would simply be added to the cost of providing starship service (in the same way that stores in high crime areas have higher prices reflecting the losses due to theft and the cost additional security measures).

Since the Book 2 economics are completely broken (see my other posts addressing that), appealing to those economics doesn't get me very far.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10748 Fixing Book 2 Starship Economics
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=10749 Fixing Starship Economics Redux
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=5086 Fixing Starship Economics

 

[PFVA63]

the point about economics I was trying...

Hi,

The point about economics that I was trying to make is that regardless of the system you decide to use, adding a maximum loadout of weaponry will make a ship appreciably more expensive to operate than if it doesn't have weaponry, or even if it is armed but only modestly, because of three things;

- you have added to the purchase price of the ship and weaponry which you will have to pay for either as an increased monthly payment for the total ship & weaponry package, or as a large lump sum if you choose to buy and install the weaponry later
- you have added to the operating cost of the ship because of the increased crew
- you have decreased the revenue earning potential of the ship because of the need for a gunner and stateroom plus fire control for each turret added.

As you note, "In any sort of sane economy, *required* weaponry would simply be added to the cost of providing starship service". However the correlary to this is probably also true, a ship owner/operator is probably only going to increase his operating costs if he has to and a potential passenger is only going to pay a premium to his travel costs if there is some benefit to him/her.

As such, unless the universe the ship is operating in is so lawless and dangerous, and the navy is so incapable of protecting commerce, that the operator has to give his ship maximum armament, there is little reason to believe that he will, if other operators are operating their ships with less armament and either making more profit, or charging lower rates.

Reruning the economic calcs with the values you recommend in one of your other posts, provides similar numbers as before for the Type R Merchant. Specifically, using your economic recommendations a fully armed Type R Merchant will have a required freight rate 12 to 15% higher than an unarmed Type R Merchant (if I did the math right) while a maximum armed 400dt Merchant ship identical to a Type R but with its maximum possible load out would have a required freight rate 26 to 32% higher than the unarmed Type R Merchant (using the assumptions on percent loadout etc that I indicated in my previous posts).

Regards

PF

 

[tbeard1999]

Hi,

The point about economics that I was trying to make is that regardless of the system you decide to use, adding a maximum loadout of weaponry will make a ship appreciably more expensive to operate than if it doesn't have weaponry, or even if it is armed but only modestly...

I understood your point and agree with it. But the fact that arming merchant ships imposes a cost does not address my complaints with the LBB2 design systems.

 

[PFVA63]

There seems to be about two ...

Hi,

I guess there seems to be two interelated issues for small ship/LBB2 type universes here that your suggestions are trying to address;

• First, in LBB2 there is little difference between Merchant Ships and Warships, with nothing to prevent a Merchant ship from being armed just as powerfully as a Warship

• Second, for relatively large warships in LBB2, if you assume Jump 4 and Maneuver 4, there would be alot of excess space available inside.

Looking at the second issue first, in general the use of Fighters is a fairly clever approach to addressing this concern especially if offensive power is your primary objective. for some smaller ships though (like your ANZAC Frigate) an armed Gig, ship's boat, or something similar and some Marines might be of more use, especially for missions like enforcing blockades/interdicted zones and/or conducting boarding ops.

However, if I were to implement the use of Fighters and Carriers in a LBB2 type setting, there are probably some chages in your suggestions that I would consider. Specifically;

I would provide more hangar space for maintenance, etc. In general if you were to look at a car as an example, you ould make a garage for it that is more or less exactly sized to house that car. However, you would only be able to access and service the parts of the car you could reach from inside the passenger cabin.

Alternately you could make the garage the same length, width, and height as the car, and because the car has some shape to it, the volume of the garage would be a little bigger than the volume of the car. However, now you could fit a different type of car into that slot, as long as its the same length, width and height (or less) than the original car. You would still be somewhat constrained in maintenance and access though.

If you were to instead make your garage the same length as your car + about 2 to 3 ft or so, and the same width + 2 to 3 ft or so, and the same height + 1 ft or so, now you would have some access space to walk around it and check the tire pressure, open the hood and check the oil etc. Additionally, if it were a large garage that housed several cars each of which you provided this enlarge space for, then if you had to do major maintenance you could push some of the other cars closer together to give yourself even more space around the car you are working on.

For a fighter on a space warship, a similar set up would seem desirable to me, especially considering that you may need to access the underside of the craft to fit missiles, as well as accessing other parts of the craft to repair battle damage etc.

Therefor I would strongly suggest making the space allocated to a fighte maybe on the order of at least twice the size of the fighter. Note that this will also help address that the fighter (like a car) may have parts that protrude from the main body (like mirrors on the car or fins and canopies onn the fighter), and that trying to make the hold conform to its shape would not be reasonable.

Next I would consider more stores for the fighters, including fuel and other incidentals. With respect to fuel, I believe that LBB2 suggests that small craft fuel tankage be equal to 0.001 t / (G turn), where G is the G rating of the craft and turns are the number of 10 minute combat turns the craft is running at the G rating. So 1t of fuel equals 100 G turns or 1000 G minutes. thus a 6G fighter could run for 16.7 turns or 167mins at maximum g on 1t of fuel (if I did the math right). As such, if a carrier is going to deploy for up to a month at a time, it seems like the carriers might burn through a fair amount of fuel in that time. I do believe tht LBB5 and maybe other rule systems may have reduced the fuel requirements for small craft, but it may well be worthwhile to do some calcs and check out whether it seems like the ship is carrying enough fuel, combat stores, and spare parts for whatever notional type of fighter operations that you envision.

I'd also add additional space for a ready room, etc. Although the 2 to 4 t per person space allocation provides for some additional common spaces, it provides the same amount of space regardless of if the crew members in question are pilots, ship's troops, or regular crewmen. However, it seems to me that a ready room for pilots is kind of a specialty type space and as such may not be something that would normally be allocated to a ship and thus to assume that it could be accommodated within that 2-4t per person allotment may not be viable.

I would also suggest adding some ship board crew to act as flight controllers, etc. If a carrier has somewhere between 30 and 60 fighters onboard, tracking them while in space and coordinating launch/retreival, as well as coordinating re-arming etc as well as other operations may require a dedicated crew above and beyond the ship's crew or the fighters maintenance staff.

With respect to bays, these also seem to be another good approach to addressing some of the concerns outlined above. However, I don't really agree with the approach that you outlined that you are using in your Traveller Universe and I would probably follow something more along the lines of what is in LBB5, GT:IW or one of the other Traveller Rulesets.

I've previously addressed most of my main concerns with the way it appears that you are implementing bays, but for summary;

- it appears that you have not addressed any additional power requirements for the bays, and as such have assumed that eventhough a Z type powerplant would normally be required to power Jump 2 Maneuver 2 5000t ship without any bays, it can just as easily power the same ship with 25 100t bays (if I have read your stuff correctly). This is fairly hard for me to reconcile. As such, if I were to allow for bays in LBB2 type ships, I would probably try and come up with some way of addressing the potential additional power draw of the weapons in those bays and either require a larger power plant on the ship, or maybe an additional powerplant that could be dedicated to providing the additional power.

- by adding so many bays to a ship, it appears to me that you would have to make numerous openings in the hull and its unclear to me what impact that this would have on the structural integrity of the hull, not to mention what impact it may have on laying out the spaces in the hull and how they might interrupt such basic things as how basic systems are run through the hull. for reasons like this I would be more inclined to accept some of the limitations on how many bays a ship may carry based on the size of the hull, that are outlined in the other Traveller rulesets like LBB5 w
etc.

- By allowing the ship to be so densely packed with armament, including allowing a full complement of turrets to be carried in addition to the bays (as opposed to reducing the number based on the amount of space allocated to the bays) it raises two concerns. First its unclear what impact the bays may have on clear fire arcs and danger space/keep clear zones for the turrets and vice verse, as well as its unclear how damage is handled. Perhaps you addressed this somewhere that I didn't see, but with such a densely packed amount of wepons on a ship it would seem that the possibility of a hit inflecting damage to a weapon would increase and perhaps even that a hit may end up damageing more than one weapon per hit due to collateral damage.

- Finally, the approach that you have taken for your BB Virginia class with its 25 100t bays and 50 turrets appears to notionally give the ship the same firepower as a 30,000t LBB5 ship (if it were designed without a spinal mount). In general this seems like it could be somewhat unbalancing to a game.

Finally, with regards to the first issue I brought up above, its not clear to me that any of these changes necessarily change the potential for a Merchant ship to be armed just as heavily as a Warship, except maybe for the fact that the Merchant ship will have to dedicate more space to its crew. While I don't think it would be a good idea to arm a Merchant ship with fighters or weapons bays, I don't recall seeing any restriction in your suggestions that they can't. As such, I believe that in theory you are still in a situation where a Merchant ship could be as heavily armed (or fairly close to as heavily armed) as your warships. Obviously I doubt that this would ever occur as it doesn't seem to make economic sense, but as I noted previously even if ships are only armed with turrets, I think that economics would prevent Merchant ships from being armed as heavily as warship. Additionally, you could restrict Merchant ships from mounting bays or fighters, though you could also just as easily restict the number of turrets that a Merchant ship could carry as well, if you wanted.

Finally, two last comments. With respect to a command staff on a ship (like your CV Indefatigable), as I noted earlier I'd suggest adding some additional staff, and maybe even a command bridge for him, and if a ship is going to carry any crew or troops in low berth but there is a good chance that they will have to be woken up to perform some duty it would seem like a good idea to me to provide some sort of space for them to recouperate, dress, and wait etc because it wouldn't seem likely to me that they would necessarily be pressed into action immediately, and they may need some place before and after a mission to plan, wait, debrief, and/or unwind etc.

Anyway, as I said before everyone probably does things differently and these are just some thoughts on how I would likely do stuff differently from what you have suggested if I were to implement the use of fighters, bays and such in a small ship Traveller universe.

Regards

PF

 

[tbeard1999]

Hi,

I would provide more hangar space for maintenance, etc. In general if you were to look at a car as an example, you ould make a garage for it that is more or less exactly sized to house that car. However, you would only be able to access and service the parts of the car you could reach from inside the passenger cabin.

An assumption that you make is that the tonnage listed for fighters is indeed their actual displacement. However, since the LBB rules explicitely state that they are carried at their rated tonnage, I think it's reasonable to infer that the rated tonnage is the tonnage required to operate the fighter, including adequate space for maintenance access.

Since my designs are legal per LBB2, there would need to be a compelling reason to do as you suggest. And I just don't see one. Please recall the naval environment that I am envisioning -- 1930s-early 1940s where the carrier and the battleship are the main capital ships. When I think of a carrier, I think of a large carrier with a potent fighter wing. If we double or triple the space required by fighters, we will significantly reduce the number of fighters that a 3000 ton hull can carry (and still have decent jump capability). Somehow a mighty CV with 24 fighters just doesn't impress me. As it is, my "mighty" warships are rather modest in size (a 3000 ton hull would be about 60 feet long, 75 feet wide and 40 feet high -- about the length and beam of the Pennsylvania class battleships WWI era US battleships). The effective 3000 ton limit on hull size (if you want anything like a reasonable jump rating) makes me extremely reluctant to increase the tonnage of canon fighters.

And as I noted, gearhead arguments are wasted on me. As I said, I have little interest in FFS, GURPS Vehicles or the other gearhead tomes, and even less interest in using them as persuasive authority for modifications of LBB2.

In addition, you have made a number of assumptions about the nature of the weapons systems, the actual volume of fighters, etc., that are not supported by canon. While they are certainly reasonable, I submit that it's just as reasonable -- and far less hassle -- to assume that fighters *can* be maintained at their rated tonnage, that weapons bays don't consume an unreasonable amount of surface area and that the starship power plants produce sufficient power for any weapons the ship can mount, etc.

With respect to fuel, I believe that LBB2 suggests that small craft fuel tankage be equal to 0.001 t / (G turn), where G is the G rating of the craft and turns are the number of 10 minute combat turns the craft is running at the G rating.

"The fuel tankage listed for each craft is sufficient for four weeks of operations." Page 27, LBB2 (2nd ed.).

I also note that the subsidized merchant carries enough fuel for itself only; no additional fuel tankage is alocated for the fuel for its 20 ton launch. The same is true of the subsidized liner, the yacht and the patrol cruiser. The mercenary cruiser does carry 48 tons extra fuel for "small craft and long term operations". Since its 2 cutters require a whopping 2 tons of fuel each, the rationale seems strained to me.

In any case, let's keep the issue in perspective. If a full fuel load was carried for the Indy's fighter wing, you're talking about 60 tons of fuel. This is well within the ~200 cargo capacity of the ship. It's also a relatively insignificant burden for the ~3 fleet logistics ships that typically accompany an Indy battlegroup.

This is a point to bear in mind -- the carrier is *not* the only ship in a carrier task force. Some ~600 tons of supplies would be carried by the 3 Neptune class stores ships that accompany the carrier. If it were necessary to carry extra fuel for fighters, fuel for 1 month's operations for the fighter wing would take up 10% of the storage space. Munitions would average 300kg per fighter per mission, or about 20 tons per Alpha Strike (all 60 fighters). So munitions for sustained combat missions would dwarf the fuel requirements. 5 days of sustained combat operations (assuming 2 missions per day) would consume 200 tons of munitions and 15 tons of fuel. This is barely within the cargo capacity of the Indy class carrier (normally, about 6 missions worth of munitions are carried). Each Neptune class stores ship will add about 5 days sustained combat operations.

Since Book 5 imposes a very strict limit on individual ship size, a large carrier will have no choice but to carry a lot of stuff on escorts.

I'd also add additional space for a ready room, etc.

As noted, the stateroom tonnage includes allocations for such spaces. I see no reason to penalize carriers by requiring them to allocate even more space to personnel.

And as I also noted, I've always considered that a hull's rated tonnage is the actual *useable* tonnage after allowing for accessways, common areas, ship's locker, etc.

Also, the reality of space travel in the Traveller universe is that it is frighteningly expensive. Additional space and personnel like you suggest would be very expensive. I suspect that economics would force ships to automate as much as possible and pack people in as much as possible.

However, I don't really agree with the approach that you outlined that you are using in your Traveller Universe and I would probably follow something more along the lines of what is in LBB5, GT:IW or one of the other Traveller Rulesets.

Yeah, I'm getting that.

- it appears that you have not addressed any additional power requirements for the bays

Since there is no stated power output for CT fusion power plants, nor any stated power requirement for CT weapons, there is no way to address this without writing (or borrowing) rules. I'd rather just assume that there's sufficient power.

- by adding so many bays to a ship, it appears to me that you would have to make numerous openings in the hull

As I noted earlier, the exact nature of "bays" is undefined. Therefore, your objections are based on assumptions that have not been agreed to.

Finally, the approach that you have taken for your BB Virginia class with its 25 100t bays and 50 turrets appears to notionally give the ship the same firepower as a 30,000t LBB5 ship (if it were designed without a spinal mount). In general this seems like it could be somewhat unbalancing to a game.

Since I'm not using LBB5, this objection is irrelevant. You might as well complain that my ships carry more armament than the starship Enterprise, the Battlestar Galactica, or the Space Cruiser Yamato. Of course, I may not have been clear that High Guard is not precedent. But it isn't. It's a completely different design sequence, with completely different results in most cases. Its assumptions are that ships can range up to 1 million tons -- 200 times the maximum size of LBB2 hulls (and 333 times the size of long range LBB2 hulls), so it isn't of much use to me.

In addition, your contention that the weaponry of Virginia class battleships is somehow "unbalancing" is unsupported. It is true that a 3000 Virginia class battleship has a whole lot of firepower. But that's why it's called a "battleship". And it can be defeated by a carrier (or by another Virginia, or by a 4000 ton monitor, or by a 4000 ton SDB, etc.).

Finally, with regards to the first issue I brought up above, its not clear to me that any of these changes necessarily change the potential for a Merchant ship to be armed just as heavily as a Warship

I really don't see how this is so hard to understand. Allowing tonnage to be directly allocated to weapons will allow a warship of X tons to be better armed than a typical merchant ship of the same tonnage, since the merchant ship must devote considerable tonnage to cargo and staterooms.

Doesn't seem too complicated to me.

 

[PFVA63]

Some comments/clarifications

Hi,

I guess alot depends on how each person chooses to play things in their universe.

For small craft like Ship's Boats, Pinnances, Cutters, and Shuttles, pg 15 of LBB2 does indeed state that the table included there "shows the tonnage required to be devoted to hangarage or stowage. Additionally, later on pg 17 the information on these craft state that a Ship's Boat displaces 30tons, a Pinnance displaces 40tons, a Cutter displaces 50tons, and a Shuttle shuttle displaces 95tons which are identical to the values listed on pg 15.

As such I have always assumed that this means that the values listed on pg 15 for these craft represent having them fit within a kind of conformal opening within the hull the same size as their total tonnage, and other later Traveller rulesets that I have used appear to more or less address vehicle bays and hangars in similar ways.

I believe that this is also borne out by info provided in Supplement 7 "Traders and Gunboats" (which I believe is mostly based on LBB2) which shows deck plans for some of these craft plus a 20ton Launch, and based on these deck plans and other data in that book it appears that;

- the 30ton Ship's Boat has an internal volume of about 29tons,
- the 40ton Pinnance has an internal volume of about 33 to 37tons (not including the tail fins and semi retractable wings),
- the 50ton Cutter has an internal volume of about 55tons,
- the 20ton Launch has an internal volume of about 16tons,

Additionally in "Azhanti High Lightning" (AHL), which although its a LBB5 design, shows conformal docking bays for the ship's gunboats and launches.

As for fighters I really haven't been able to find any info on them designed to LBB2 rules, so I'm not sure what one will look like, but I had kind of just assumed that they would be handled similarly to the other small craft listed above.

With respect to LBB2, I suspect that maybe we are not looking at the same version of the book and perhaps maybe mine is older or something, because in the version that I have on pg 17 it states that "All non-starships consume fuel at the rate of 10 kilograms (1/100th of a ton) for each G of acceleration for ten minutes, regardless of mass or cargo carried", which equates to 100 G-turns of maneuver (or 1000 G-minutes) per ton or for 1ton of fuel. At 6G's this equates to only 16.7 turns of maneuver per ton which does not seem like much.

Additionally I would assume that fighters might be flown more extensively during a deployment than other small craft, with perhaps a couple contiuously kept on station (on a rotating basis) as a form of combat air/space patrol. As such, I kind of would assume that they may need much more fuel during a deployment than normal other types small craft.

For comparison the info in my copy of LBB2 it shows that;

- a 20t 1G Life Boat carries 5t of fuel (25% it size)
- a 30t 6G Ship's Boat carries 9t of fuel (30% it size)
- a 40t 5G Pinnance carries 12t of fuel (30% it size)
- a 50t 4G Cutter carries 15t of fuel (30% it size)
- a 95t 3G Shuttle carries 9t of fuel (9.5% it size)

Additionally as you note, "The mercenary cruiser does carry 48 tons extra fuel for small craft and long term operations" and my copy of LBB2 indicates that its Pinnances have a fuel requirement of 12tons each, this 48tons would equate to one reload of fuel per small craft.

As you note, your support ships can be used to replenish the carrier, but I would suspect that to do so, there will have to be tankage onboard the ship to transfer the fuel to, as I wouldn't expect the fuel would be pumped directly from the replenishment ships through the carrier and directly to the fighters themselves. As such that is why I would suggest adding a fuel tank onboard the carrier at least equal to one refueling for the fighters (if not more) if I were to try and build one to rules based mostly on LBB2.

Since, as I mentioned above, I can't find anything in LBB2 or specifically based on LBB2 on fighters I've had to make most my assumptioons based on data from LBB5 or later sources. As such, for reference LBB5 indicates that fuel tankage on a small craft can never be less than 1 ton, and in Adventure 5 "Trillion Credit Squadron" it provides info on an 8.5ton fighter with an agility of 0, and a 1.02ton fuel tank, but it does not appear to address endurance (or how long this fuel will last). In LBB5, fuel tankage for small craft based on Power Plant number and vehicle mass, so I would expect that a larger or more agile fighter would be expected to require more fuel than this.

For reference I believe that the WWII era USS Essex carried about 700t of aviation fuel and 626t of aviation ordnance, or in other words the two capacities were very similar in size.

Because all the data that I have been able to find on fighters appears to come from LBB5 or later, that is the reason why I would probably consider looking into the rules from this (or other later rules sets) if I were to try and incorporate fighters on a LBB2 ship, specifically including things such as requiring that small craft can be carried on ship's greater than 1000tons be carried at a rate equal to 130% of their mass (if not even more), as I have noted previously.

Additionally, with respect to LBB5, if I am recalling correctly I believe that you said you have used the LBB5 rules for crew requirements, and on pg 33 of the 2nd Edition it indicates that "If the ship has any launched craft, it should have a flight control oficer..." which would address my suggestion for an air traffic control/landing officer, if you have included this in your calcs.

Similarly, since you stated that the CV Indefatigable carries a Commodore to act as a fleet commander, it would seem logical to me that he would require some sort of staff to support him as I wouldn't expect him to do all the work associated with commanding the fleet himself, and the normal bridge crew would likely be tied up with doing the normal stuff that a crew on a 3000t warship would be required to do. Putting this into 20th century terms I believe that most ships that carry a fleet commander would have space for him and his staff, and potentially a separate command bridge for him, which is why I would suggest one if you are intending to make the ship a fleet flagship, as I believe that you suggested.

Looking at "Azhanti High Lightning" (AHL), the 15ton Rampart Fighters that they show appear to be 12m long and have a folded up diameter of 3m which equates to an actual volume of about 14ton, but the center fuselage appears to be only about 2m in diameter (or so), so there may in fact be some space around the craft (especially forward of the wings but not so much aft) for external access contained in the 15tons allocated for these fighters, however if you look at the size of the actual hangars in the deck plans for the vessel, the total volume of these spaces are substantantially bigger than the total size of the fighters carried. Specifically, if I've done the math right from the deck plans it looks like the hangars for the 66 15ton fighters total to about 1860tons plus another 360 tons for ready rooms and pilot debriefing rooms, etc.

With respect to 1930's and 1940's era aircraft carriers, while some ships had fairly large capacities, the capacity of many of the other ships of this era actually were much more modest in the range of 20 to 40 or so aircraft, and as you note a 3000ton ship in Traveller isn't really that big, and as such I wouldn't think that a 20 to 30 fighter capacity wouldn't necessarily be that bad.

Regards PF

 

[PFVA63]

A couple other things

Hi,

With respect to bays, even if we differ on assumptions on surface area requirements, 100t is still 100t and as such 25 100t bays would equate to 1/2the internal volume of a 5000t ship, and unless you are assuming something significantly different than what is stated in LBB5, I would expect them to be along the lines of what is described there where it states that thay are "large areas near the skin of the ship's hull" and that "The weaponry in bays is easily removed and replaced by other bay weaponry as the need arises". As such, whatever else you assume about them, it seems that if you are going to fit 25 of them on a 5000t hull, then the hull would be densely packed with armament located "near the skin of the ship's hull" with the ability to remove them and replace them with other weapons, which leads to my concerns about "arcs of fire" and "stay clear zones", the potential for collateral damage, and openings in the hull (even if the actual opening sizes differ than my previous assumptions).

With respect to internal hull space, I'm not sure that I see anything in LBB2 to suggest that "a hull's rated tonnage is the actual *useable* tonnage after allowing for accessways, common areas, ship's locker, etc". In some ways this may be in contradiction to your other statements on fighters that "since the LBB rules explicitely state that they are carried at their rated tonnage, I think it's reasonable to infer that the rated tonnage is the tonnage required to operate the fighter" and "fighters *can* be maintained at their rated tonnage" (which impies access space around them), since applying these two statements to other small craft would suggest that;

- if the small craft's "rated tonnage is the actual *useable* tonnage after allowing for accessways, common areas, ship's locker, etc" then the total volume of the craft would have to be greater than its rated tonnage, however

- if the statement about fighter tonnage applies to other small craft then inferring "that the rated tonnage is the tonnage required to operate the fighter" or small craft, would imply that the actual volume of the fighter or other small craft would have to be less than or equal to the rated tonnage of that craft.

As such, I'm not fully convinced that I would concur with your statement that your "designs are legal per LBB2" without seeing more on this.

Also as I noted previously, if 2t per person is considered adequate for a normal warship crewman, to account for all the mess decks, berthing, etc for that crew member, then for a pilot for whom you would have to include not only these same mess decks, berthing, requirements, etc but also additional spaces like ready rooms and such (which you would not need for regular crewmen), which is why I would suggest adding more space for them if I were trying to design a carrier based mostly on LBB2 rules.

Similarly, if a Type Z power plant is considered the size needed to give a normal ship enough power to drive its Maneuver drive to Maneuver 2 plus power the largest normal loadout of weapons that a 5000t ship would be expected to carry under LBB2, then if one were to try instead to fit so much more weaponry on that hull, I would strongly feel that much more power generating capacity would be required on the ship, and as such that is why I would suggest requiring incorporating additional power capacity into the ship if you were to allow so much weaponry on that size hull.

My comment of "unbalancing" refers to the fact that I feel you are allowing your warship to gain a major capability without paying the full penalty for it. Perhaps comparing it to a LBB5 ship is distracting from this issue, but the point I was trying to point out that by not considering the added power requirements of all this weaponry you are gaining a capability that I feel you haven't fully paid for, and that if your were you would likely require a much larger ship.

Specifically, looking at this a different way, your 5000t heavily armed Battleship only requires as much power as a 5000t merchant ship but I would really suspect that the 50 triple turrets and 20 fusion bays plus the other 5 missile bays would require much more power than any 5000t merchant ever likely would.

In the base LBB2 system, since the total amount of weapons installed is not a big portion of the ship, as you have previously noted, having both ships have the same power requirements isn't necessarily as big a deal as in this revised case where so much armament has been added. And as such, by allowing the warship to now mount so many weapons within its hull while not requiring the ship to have to potentially fully pay the price for that, I feel that you have unbalanced the design system, as either the merchant ship is paying for a power capacity it will never use, or the warship is getting something partially for free.

Finally, with respect to your last comment, what I was trying to get at is that, as I tried to point out in previous posts in order to be profitable, its highly unlikely that a merchant ship will ever mount as much weaponry as a similar sized warship, in your proposed rule system or in the base, unmodified LBB2 starship design rules. Additionally I beleive that from the data I provided previously this holds true regardless of the whether you use the economic data straight out of CT or the modified economics that you suggested in your other posts.

However since you had previously made the comment that "In any sort of sane economy, *required* weaponry would simply be added to the cost of providing starship service" I was simply trying to point out that nothing I had seen in what you are suggesting appears to specifically prohibit a merchant ship from mounting fighters or bays and as such taking things to a somewhat illogical extreme, a merchant ship owner could still make his ship overarmed, and hence unprofitable in either your proposed rules or in the orginal CT rules.

Anyway, as I said it probably just depends on how each person chooses to play things in their universe, but I just wanted to explain/clarify why I would do things a bit differently than you.

Regards

PF

PS Sorry, had to break the post into two parts

 

[tbeard1999]

Hi,

I guess alot depends on how each person chooses to play things in their universe.

For small craft like Ship's Boats, Pinnances, Cutters, and Shuttles, pg 15 of LBB2 does indeed state that the table included there "shows the tonnage required to be devoted to hangarage or stowage. ... As such I have always assumed that this means that the values listed on pg 15 for these craft represent having them fit within a kind of conformal opening within the hull...

You are entitled to your assumptions. I simply don't agree with you.

I believe that this is also borne out by info provided in Supplement 7 "Traders and Gunboats"

The deckplans in Supplement 7 are notoriously flawed. In particular, several ships have far more space on the deckplans than their tonnage allows. So I wouldn't hasten to rely overly much on Supplement 7, especially when you are attempting to overrule the plain language of LBB2 by inferring from Supplement 7 deckplans.

As for fighters I really haven't been able to find any info on them designed to LBB2 rules, so I'm not sure what one will look like, but I had kind of just assumed that they would be handled similarly to the other small craft listed above.

A more reasonable assumption would be to assume that they are handled exactly like the rules say they are. Which is how I handle them, unless I explicitely cary from LBB2. In the case of fighters, I made a number of operational changes to them so that there could be more than one class of generic "fighter". But when carried on ships, I handle them per LBB2 and see no reason to vary that.

With respect to LBB2, I suspect that maybe we are not looking at the same version of the book and perhaps maybe mine is older or something, because in the version that I have on pg 17 it states that "All non-starships consume fuel at the rate of 10 kilograms (1/100th of a ton)..."

You are referencing the 1977 printing of LBB2, which was superceded by the 1981 printing (which is what I go by). THe 1981 printing states that each craft carries sufficient fuel for 4 weeks operations.

Additionally, with respect to LBB5, if I am recalling correctly I believe that you said you have used the LBB5 rules for crew requirements...

I am not above picking out parts of LBB5 for convenience. However, there are no LLB5 ships in my universe, so your comparisons with them are no more rational than comparisons with the USS Enterprise, the Galactica or the Space Cruiser Yamato.

Similarly, since you stated that the CV Indefatigable carries a Commodore to act as a fleet commander, it would seem logical to me that he would require some sort of staff

Given that the crew of the Indy is 212 and that there are stateroom spaces for 220 plus the admiral (assuming double occupancy), there's sufficient space for a few aides. I am not interested in wasting further time on this point. Anyone who wants the admiral to have more staff can change the design specs (or erect a few collapsible staterooms in the cargo hold).

 

[tbeard1999]

With respect to bays, even if we differ on assumptions on surface area requirements...

Not interested in further discuassions about surface area.

With respect to internal hull space, I'm not sure that I see anything in LBB2 to suggest that "a hull's rated tonnage is the actual *useable* tonnage after allowing for accessways, common areas, ship's locker, etc".

Which would be why I clearly stated that this was an *assumption*. YMMV.

As such, I'm not fully convinced that I would concur with your statement that your "designs are legal per LBB2" without seeing more on this.

<shrug>

Excepting, of course, things I've added to the design rules. Other than the occasional math error or typo, and of course, the rules additions I've made, the ships should comply with LBB2. If there have been variances, I've documented them (the main one that I can remember being that tug pods don't have navigators and using High Guard crew guidelines for large combat ships).

So if I have violated a specific provision of the LBB2 design rules other than above, please identify them.

Similarly, if a Type Z power plant is considered the size needed to give a normal ship enough power to drive its Maneuver drive to Maneuver 2 plus power the largest normal loadout of weapons that a 5000t ship would be expected to carry under LBB2, then if one were to try instead to fit so much more weaponry on that hull, I would strongly feel that much more power generating capacity would be required on the ship, and as such that is why I would suggest requiring incorporating additional power capacity into the ship if you were to allow so much weaponry on that size hull.

Again, since there are *no* rules for power consumption in LBB2, I am not interested in writing them. Nor am I interested in wasting further time on this point.

My comment of "unbalancing" refers to the fact that I feel you are allowing your warship to gain a major capability without paying the full penalty for it.

Then don't use my rules additions. I am comfortable with my changes to LBB2; I am not interested in re-writing LBB2 so that it becomes another gearhead tome. Even if I agreed with your complaints -- and I don't, as noted -- I'd have to change LBB2 into Fire Fusion and Steel to address them. It's unreasonable to expect me to do that. If yoiu don't like my designs, then don't use them.

If you find specific flaws, such as miscalculated costs, tonnage, etc., then I'm all ears. If I've violated rules regarding crew sizes, drive requirements, etc., then I want to know. But I'm not interested in recreating FFS.

...in order to be profitable, its highly unlikely that a merchant ship will ever mount as much weaponry as a similar sized warship, in your proposed rule system or in the base, unmodified LBB2 starship design rules/

I have been clear as to what my objections are and have repeated them ad infinitum. Nor have I disputed your contention above. I am therefore unwilling to continue re-stating my position. Please re-read my posts and if you have something new to say on the subject, I'm all ears.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi...

Hi,

I apologize if I have in any way made you think that I am criticizing how you choose to run your Traveller universe. I think I've been pretty consistant and clear in stating in my posts that these are mostly just some different ideas that I would have if I were trying to modify the LBB2 rules for some of the issues you have discussed, that you or anyone else reading the thread might want to consider.

If my posts seem wordy or redundant its mainly either because I wanted to try and make sure that the context of why I was suggesting what I had suggested is clear, or that it wasn't clear to me from the responses I had read, that the point I was trying to originally make was clearly understood and therfore I wanted to try and reword it to see if I could better get my point across.

Specifically, with regards to the reference to LBB5 rules on crewing from the last set of posts I made, I wasn't trying to compare your designs to designs from LBB5 (or any other system), but rather I was trying to note that since you had indicated that you were using LBB5 rules for crewing, they already address one of the issues that I had brought up about having an air/space flight controller type member of the crew to address operating so many small craft from the ship. Thus if you had already incorporated this into your designs, that had been addressed.

With regards to forums in general, it was my impression that by posting your thoughts here you were making them available to open discussion by anyone interested in commenting, and nowehere (do I believe) have I suggested that your ideas are wrong, but just that I had some other ideas along similar lines that you, or anyine else reading the thread, could also consider.

Specifically, many threads on these forums often spawn alot of interesting discussions, and being an open forum, no one is under any requirement to accept all that anyone else states. However, being an open forum I believe that someone else posting there thoughts on ideas discussed in the thread and any possible alternate ideas and concepts that they may have is very valid, and anyone is free to consider or ignore those alternate ideas and concepts as they wish.

As such, I don't really believe that is any need for you to feel compelled to restate your positions on these matters.

In some ways this is very much along the lines of other posts on these forums where people are discussing other existing or proposed rulesets like Mongoose Traveller, T5, or anything else along those lines, where many people have contributed their input, and many people have expressed altering viewpoints, but all the posts have pretty muchly contributed to the discussion, and anyone reading is free to consider or ignore any of what has been written by anyone else.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[Irrational]

It may be too late, but I had a thought about this. Suppose you subtract cargo & hangar space from the ship's total tonnage when figuring the ship's total hardpoints? That way, a 3000 ton commercial ship with half its tonnage devoted to cargo only gets 15 hardpoints. You can give the scout special dispensation to keep its one hardpoint

 

[PFVA63]

That's another interesting approach

Hi,

Yhat's another interesting approach that I hadn't considered.

Regards

PF

 

[tbeard1999]

It may be too late, but I had a thought about this. Suppose you subtract cargo & hangar space from the ship's total tonnage when figuring the ship's total hardpoints? That way, a 3000 ton commercial ship with half its tonnage devoted to cargo only gets 15 hardpoints. You can give the scout special dispensation to keep its one hardpoint

Don't like that because (a) it isn't particularly logical; (b) it would require a ship that had excess tonnage to refrain from using that tonnage for cargo if the designer wanted maximum weaponry; and (c) it would require reworking all of the existing designs. Oh, and it would create odd differences in capabilities, like letting passenger carrying ships be far better armed than cargo haulers.

And of course, it fails to really address my core complaint -- that there's no effective way for a warship to dedicate tonnage to weaponry other than by carrying fighters.

 

[tbeard1999]

Hi,

I apologize if I have in any way made you think that I am criticizing how you choose to run your Traveller universe.

Oh, I'm a big boy and can handle criticism, although I prefer for the criticism to be well supported. What I rapidly tire of is repetitive critiques that do not address the points that I have made several times.

Specifically, many threads on these forums often spawn alot of interesting discussions, and being an open forum, no one is under any requirement to accept all that anyone else states. However, being an open forum I believe that someone else posting there thoughts on ideas discussed in the thread and any possible alternate ideas and concepts that they may have is very valid, and anyone is free to consider or ignore those alternate ideas and concepts as they wish

Just so we're clear here, I became annoyed with you repeating arguments that I *agreed* with, but that did not address the original arguments I made. And despite repeating my arguments, you appeared to ignore them and repeat your own arguments, which by that time were (a) uncontested and (b) not particularly relevant.

Or so it seemed to me. If I have misunderstood, well, sorry about that.

 

[Bob Weaver]

computers

As I'm gearing up for a new Traveller campaign, I've become intrigued by the "Proto-Traveller" concept and the more I think about it, the more I like it.

On to the starships. One obvious difference between Book 2 and High Guard is the limit on hull size – 5000 tons. And given the drive tables, 3000 tons is an effective maximum for military starships, since it’s the largest hull that can achieve Jump, Power and Maneuver-4. Since even a 3000 ton starship is so big that the players can’t possibly defeat it in battle, I have no problem with the size limits.

The second obvious difference is the weaponry and (lack of) armor. Civilian and military craft use the same systems and weaponry. And there’s no armor. This means that the players’ ship might be able to handle a small military ship, which is a good thing. Book 2 also makes fighters the most efficient weapon system. A stock Book 2 fighter takes up 10 tons and can deploy 3 missile racks (9 missiles total) or 1 laser. Even allowing for the space consumed by its pilot and mechanic (1 stateroom), and a couple of tons for ordinance, spares and fuel, a ship can deploy at least 6 fighters per 100 tons. That’s 18 missile racks, plus (say) 3 more in the triple turret that the ship gets with that 100 tons. So on a per-ton basis, a carrier can pack far more firepower than a non-carrier. This means that Book 2 navies will be built around carriers, much like modern navies, which I like. The situation will be much like naval warfare from 1942 through the early 1960s, which I like. It also means that the players will often face fighters rather than starships. I like this as well, since fighters can be coped with in small numbers by a ship the players might have.
Unfortunately, there’s a major problem with Book 2 when it comes to military starships. The problem is that a Book 2 starship cannot dedicate *any* tonnage to weaponry other than fighters. And since non-fighter weaponry is limited to 1 turret/100 tons, a starship will be utterly overmatched by fighters. A 1000 ton cruiser, for instance, will have 10 triple turrets. 200 tons worth of fighters (12) will have up to 36 missile racks by comparison. This means that there’s really very little reason not to put fighters on *every* military ship. Lack of pilots might be a tempting excuse to limit fighters, but it doesn’t satisfy me. The USA, with a population of 300 million and a modest military budget has several thousand Navy and Marine combat pilots (and the Air Force has thousands more). Given that a 3000 ton carrier can carry about 60 fighters, it’s clear to me that a pilot shortage won’t be much of a problem. An exception might be a massive wartime expansion ala the US Navy in WWII. But even there, the US turned out many thousands of trained combat pilots.

So while I want carriers to be the major combatants, I also want there to be a reason for non-carrier military starships.

The next post will discuss my rules modifications to achieve this goal.

Tbeard,

I am wondering about your premise of fighters as effective ship-killing platforms. It seems that you have not taken into account the effects of the computer programs available to a large warship versus a small fighter. They change the equation.
Let me demonstrate:

I have a 1000 ton Bk2 Ship, the "Panhandle":
4G
No armor
It mounts 10 turrets, 6 with tri-beams and 4 with tri-missiles.
A model/6 computer loading these programs:
maneuver/evade-6 (-5 dm)
target (req)
gunner (add say DM +1)
predict-5 (DM +3)
ECM (missiles fail on 7+)
Anti-missile
Launch (req)
Multi-target-3 (engage 3 targets)

compare with your fighter, which is considerably better than the Bk2/Starter Trav fighter.

Heavy Fighter – 6-G, 20 tons, 2 beam lasers, 4 missiles, MCr36. Can fire 4 missiles or AFMs per turn, each at a different target.

assuming still a model/1 (CPU 2 Storage 4)
loading:
m/e-5 (add say dm -2) because some maneuver program is required
launch (req for missiles)

By your first post, a comparable 1000 ton carrier can carry twelve of these little fellows. That does seem like a lot of firepower. However, read on.

Oh, I'd note that fighters are not particularly easy to kill in Book 2, considering their tonnage. A fighter is destroyed on a drive hit, about 27% of the time. It's out of action on a weapon/critical hit -- 16% of the time. So on average, it will take 2-3 hits to kill it. This means that 10 fighters (100 tons) will require about 25 hits to destroy.

I disagree with your assessment of how hard it is to kill a Bk2 fighter. Please refer to Bk2, page 34, the Hit Location Table. If we assume that Drive and Weaponry hits 'kill' a fighter, and Cabin hits are of no effect because the pilot is in a Vacc Suit, then on any roll other than 7,8 or 9 a fighter is 'killed'. That comes to 41% Cabin hits and 59% 'kill' hits. One hit kills a fighter 60% of the time.

The Panhadle's fire mission per turn:
The beam turrets can fire at 3 targets, or two turrets per target. That's six beams at each fighter. Possible overkill. Each beam fires at +4 (predict and gunner programs) reduced to +2 by the fighter's m/e program. Still, on a 8+ to hit base, reduced to 6+, each beam has a 72% chance of hitting. One of those six will hit and 60% of those hits will be kills. (.72*.60=.43) Six shots produces (6*43%) 2.59 kills per round.


The missile turrets can also fire at 3 targets, or 1@6 and 2@3 missiles. Same DMs apply, since fighters have no sandcasters and no ECM. Again, each weapon is 72% likely to hit, 60% likely to kill. Assume 2-3 kills per round.

That's four to six fighters gone in one round. Now let's look at the fighters.

Fighters fire 2 beams and 4 missiles each. (BTW, 4 ML per turn? where do they stow all these missiles?)
Beams fire with NO positive DMs (no programs for it) and a DM -5 (from m/e-6). This now requires a roll of 13 to hit, which is impossible. Your fighters beams are completely ineffective.
Missiles fire with NO positive DMs and a m/e DM of -5. In addition to that, the Panhandle's ECM program means 58% or so of missiles fired at it will fail. The missiles are possibly even more ineffective than the beams.

To summarize, it doesn't matter how many fighters the carrier brings along with it, they will drop like flies and do no damage to the Panhandle at all. Ship-based weaponry has computer support behind it which is unavailable to fighters. This does not, I admit address your question of how to make battleships more effective vis a vis carriers. But it does show that fighters are not as effective weapons platforms as they initially appear.

Best Regards,

Bob W

 

[pendragonman]

Bob,

So, in your assessment above, the carrier does not either follow the fighters in or lead them in to engage the Panhandle? (I know that this is a Star Fleet Battles concept, but by strictly following LBB2 design sequences the 1000 ton CV still has its own 10 turrets to add to the broadside weight of the fighters) This would allow at least the fighters to engage the missile launches towards the CV from Panhandle. Further, can ship's turrets engage the fighters at ranges under 1000 meters? I know that the fighters still have to reach that range, but...

And isn't there some modifier to hit for the fighter pilot's ship's boat score? I thought there was somewhere, but I could be remembering someone's house rule.

 

[Bob Weaver]

Bob,

So, in your assessment above, the carrier does not either follow the fighters in or lead them in to engage the Panhandle? (I know that this is a Star Fleet Battles concept, but by strictly following LBB2 design sequences the 1000 ton CV still has its own 10 turrets to add to the broadside weight of the fighters) This would allow at least the fighters to engage the missile launches towards the CV from Panhandle. Further, can ship's turrets engage the fighters at ranges under 1000 meters? I know that the fighters still have to reach that range, but...

And isn't there some modifier to hit for the fighter pilot's ship's boat score? I thought there was somewhere, but I could be remembering someone's house rule.

Pendragonman,
I did leave out the interaction between battleship Panhandle and the carrier, specifically because my point was that fighters are not effective against large warships, and as such do not add anything to the carriers combat power. I fully agree with TBeard's point that Bk2 as written does not permit battleships to outgun carriers. But adding gobs of fighters contributes nothing. The BB can freely ignore them if they have the computer power to operate the high-end offensive & defensive programs.

The 'ships boat' mod you are thinking of is in High Guard, not Bk2. Also, Bk2 rules do not make any provisions for close range. The only range DMs are negative ones for long-range shooting.

Best Regards,

Bob W