The Compleat "maybe we'll fix that" Requirements List

[rancke]

[Various setting mysteries].

Not quite what I had in mind. Let me give you an example. The ship design system does not allow a ship to carry more than one spinal. Is that because

A) Ships with multiple spinals self-destruct the moment they try to fire more than one at a time.

B) Ships with multiple spinals are not cost-efficient.

c) The Imperium and its rivals and enemies all have a religious ban against ships with multiple spinals/there's a treaty that bans the building of ships with multiple spinals/everyone erroneously believe that ships with multiple spinals are not cost-effective, and here are the rules for multiple spinals in case you want to make up your own TU with ships with multiple spinals.​

See what I mean?

Another example: It's not allowed to build ships with the same kind of weapons in spinal and bays. Is that because it's impossible to do so, because it's a bad idea to do so, or because the combat system can't handle it?

A third example: You can't carry more than two people per 4T of living quarter. Is that because military people will mutiny if they get stacked three to a stateroom, or because the Imperium doesn't like to treat its spacers with undue harshness? Is hot-bunking disallowed because shipping twice the number of people will cause the life support system to break down, and if so, what are the rules for installing extra life support equipment?


Hans

 

[Matt123]

Giving TL15 ships something equivalent to armor versus meson weapons is necessary, yes, but size has to be a significant survival factor in itself.

Black Globes. Expense & rarity preclude using them on all ships, typically only the largest ships. And a Black Globe factor gives 2 levels of armor to all hits, including meson hits.

Factor-2 prevents Fuel tanks shattered
Factor-4 reduces the likelyhood of crew-1 damage to 1 in 36.

Mesons are still nasty, but follow the typical traveller space combat pattern of whittling away at the opponent over the course of several hours.

Size still remains the best defence against automatic criticals. And the use of rare Black Globes, is a good enough reason for the Imperium to prefer 200Kton plus BB's as the use of a black globe-4 will reduce the firepower of the Imperial 200 Kton BB to that of a 120 Kton BB. But, as its a bit of tech not available to the neighbors, I'm picking its worth it.

Size also impacts the ability of the black globe ship to dump absorbed energy, the 200 Kton Plankwell (BG-4 on 40% flicker) can dump 9600 EP per turn (equivalent of 96 Nuke hits). To store that much energy takes the JD capacitors (4000 EP's) plus a further 156 ton of capacitors costing 624 MCr making the minimum cost of fitting a Plankwell 1624 MCr. However given the catastrophic effects of exceeding your capacitor banks and the ease a Plankwell (reduced to Agility-3 by the BG-4) will be hit by nuke Missile-9 bays (on a 3+) I'd suggest significantly more capacitor banks are required. 1000ton gives 36000 EP plus the 4000 JD capacitors for 40,000 EPs. Equal to 400 nuke hits in one turn before destroying the ship and costing 5000 MCr including the BG-4.

 

[Jeffr0]

Space combat is a game of riflemen in a bull ring.

This ties in to the other issue: the likely pre-determination of the result, and how little there is the players can do about it.

HG's abstract system is mostly pre-destined. When the fleets show up, the result is pretty much pre-determined. We as players may not immediately see who is going to win, but at the same time, we, as players, if played reasonably, can't do much to affect the outcome. The fleet organization and composition decided that for us up front. One fleet has enough of an advantage early on with which to prosecute the battle, or the fleets are even enough that the decisions are up to the dice alone.

It's kind of like the card game "War". That game is decided when the deck is shuffled. We as players don't know the result until we play it out, but as participants, we can only really watch it unfold without really affecting the outcome. An HG fleet battle is similar.

From a game design standpoint, this is just plain horrible-bad-wrong.

From a setting standpoint, naval battles are not moments of daring and drama-- they last for hours upon hours while many ships have zero effect on the proceedings as the big ships with the Missile-9 batteries slowly grind each other down with the combat equivalent of sand paper.

I suggest the following:

Keeping High Guard more-or-less as-is, add an intensity factor to the game. The intensity factor is subtracted from all damage rolls. This factor goes up on most turns. Admirals can save to slow its increase or actively push it as hard as they can. At short range it increases and double the normal rate. At point blank, it increases even faster. This would eliminate more turns where nothing happens due to misses, armor shifting damage rolls to 22+, and/or defenses "parrying" the weapon hits. (It's just too easy for nothing to happen in standard High Guard.) Short range energy weapons passes should scare the heck out of naval captains. What I'd like to see if the missile heavy fleet score some good hits at a few turns at long range... then have a short range turn or three where the spaceships *really* start exploding.

[Edit: each ship can choose to add the intensity factor to either the to-hit bonus or subtract it from the damage roll or some combination of the two-- that would make for a tough decision for some ships while making sure that even "useless" ships can do *something*.]

The emphasis on Missile-9's and padding them with more-or-less "useless" batteries is just stupid. You should either have to pay more for your ammo or else fret over whether you will run out or not-- these 7 hour space battles where the missiles just fly nonstop are silly.

Even Ogre has rules for combining shots-- you can fire several 1-1 volleys or just a couple of 4-1 mega shots. High Guard needs a similar sort of fleet coordination rule. (In Ogre, several units can combine firepower to gain a more effective shot.)

Another area of player choice and tactics would be to (borrowing a page from Honor Harrington) turn the missile volley's into a guessing game where players secretly and simultaneously choose what percentage of missiles to program for guidance and what percentage to set as laser-heads and what percentage to load as distractors.

 

[Matt123]

Another example: It's not allowed to build ships with the same kind of weapons in spinal and bays. Is that because it's impossible to do so, because it's a bad idea to do so, or because the combat system can't handle it?

The combat system couldn't handle it and maintain such a simple USP line. Easy enough to modify.

A third example: You can't carry more than two people per 4T of living quarter. Is that because military people will mutiny if they get stacked three to a stateroom, or because the Imperium doesn't like to treat its spacers with undue harshness? Is hot-bunking disallowed because shipping twice the number of people will cause the life support system to break down, and if so, what are the rules for installing extra life support equipment?

A 2 person stateroom is 2 dton, the other 2 dton is used for communal spaces. 2 dton is around 28m2, assuming a head hieght of say 2.4 m (not a given, is typical house ceiling height), that is a 3m x 4 m single bedroom, like I shared with my brother as kids. Enough for one or two people to live in for weeks and months at a time (perhaps...), but the more people you squeeze in there, the more communal space you will need to provide.

In Marine quarters 6 man bunkrooms in that 3x4 space may be common. Allowing more space for the communal areas to include large open spaces for drilling, PT, weapons drill, small unit tactical lessons, classrooms, etc.

On multiple spinal mounts, I don't see why the angst. Just allow it. It won't break the system. The only 'rule' I'd put in place is that the spinals must both/all fire at one target (janus mounts excepted, but in that case only one may fire, whilst you have to provide EP's for both...).

The HG counter, as it is anyway for spinal armed ships, is escorts.

Oh, and don't forget the first weapon-1 hit will completely knock out the first spinal battery. And that that will be the first damage your ship takes (its attackers choice).

IMO if people want to build ships with multiple spinal mounts, go for it.

 

[rancke]

Black Globes. Expense & rarity preclude using them on all ships, typically only the largest ships. And a Black Globe factor gives 2 levels of armor to all hits, including meson hits.

[More interesting stuff about black globes.]

Good points, but despite showing up on the tables as TL15, black globes are expressly said to be either recovered artifacts or experimental versions [HG:31]. Once the technology matures, anyone with access to it will be able to build them (factors 1 to 4, that is) at TL15; but the Imperium isn't there yet. Neither the Tigresses nor the Plankwells have them, even though a factor 4 black globe would only represent a 0.8% cost increase for the Plankwells and a 0.3% cost increase for the Tigresses. The black globes on the Kokirraks are not replaced when they become inoperable. Black Globes are clearly not an integral part of Imperial battleship design in 1107.

OTOH, if the Imperium could build black globes, expense wouldn't prevent it from installing them in their 75,000T battleships. It would only represent a cost increase of around 2%, well worth it by your arguments.

Black globes would indeed provide a bigger advantage for big ships than for smaller ships, but they're not a major factor in the Imperium's ship designs (and no factor at all in the Solomani and Zhodani ship designs).


Hans

 

[Matt123]

(It's just too easy for nothing to happen in standard High Guard.)

lol, much more likely to happen at the 'training' Billion credit level than the Trillion credit credit level where you will find you need to start using statistical resolution. Stuff starts happening every turn without fail, but the criticism then becomes 'there is no luck factor...'.

I like your intensity DM idea. That would add an interesting element to the game. You may find though that fleets are then designed to hold back for as long as possible, to accumulate the best modifiers before committing the heavy hitters.

 

[rancke]

The combat system couldn't handle it and maintain such a simple USP line. Easy enough to modify.

My point was that the rules don't explain that and that it might be a good idea if they did.

A 2 person stateroom is 2 dton, the other 2 dton is used for communal spaces. 2 dton is around 28m2, assuming a head hieght of say 2.4 m (not a given, is typical house ceiling height), that is a 3m x 4 m single bedroom, like I shared with my brother as kids. Enough for one or two people to live in for weeks and months at a time (perhaps...), but the more people you squeeze in there, the more communal space you will need to provide.

The rules say you can't carry more than two per stateroom. When the PCs want to carry twice as many passengers in order to earn twice as much money, are they unable to do so because the life support system can't handle it, or able to do it but liable to fall afoul of the Imperial authorities? And if it's the former, can they install additional life support equipment and get their ship licensed to carry more passengers? And if it's the latter, what happens when they start carrying passengers between the Commonality of Kedzudh and the Thoengling Empire?

No need to suggest answers here. I'm merely propounding that it could be a good idea to consider such things when revising the rules. When is a rule a reflection of the laws of nature, when is it a reflection of man-made laws, and when is it a game artifact that doesn't imply what it seems to imply for the setting?


Hans

 

[Matt123]

Black globes are expressly said to be either recovered artifacts or experimental versions [HG:31].

... but the Imperium isn't there yet. Neither the Tigresses nor the Plankwells have them, even though a factor 4 black globe would only represent a 0.8% cost increase for the Plankwells and a 0.3% cost increase for the Tigresses. The black globes on the Kokirraks are not replaced when they become inoperable. Black Globes are clearly not an integral part of Imperial battleship design in 1107.

OTOH, if the Imperium could build black globes, expense wouldn't prevent it from installing them in their 75,000T battleships.

My view & I'll happily accept it may not be shared, is that Fighting Ships is so flawed it can only be construed as a piece of Imperial propaganda / misinformation.

In that vein IMTU the Imperium has secret fledgling BG production facilities and since the Fifth Frontier War, the ability to fit their very large BB's (maybe others) with BG's. The propaganda on the Kokirraks BG's I take with the same pinch of salt as the description where it states the Kokirrak can achieve J4 whilst only carrying 30% jump fuel.

HG pg 31, does not preclude secret Imperial BG production facilities... There could be an adventure there for someone, escort the latest shipment of BG's from Core to the Marches.

 

[rancke]

My view & I'll happily accept it may not be shared, is that Fighting Ships is so flawed it can only be construed as a piece of Imperial propaganda / misinformation.

I disagree and would not accept that construction as a basis for discussion unless instructed to do so by Marc Miller and his minions.

EDIT: To elucidate: Fighting Ships has some good information and some bad information. The bad information should be ignored because it is bad, not because the bit next to it is bad, and the good information should most definitely not be ignored just because the bit next to it is bad.

And how do you distinguish between good and bad information? Bad information is demonstrably bad. Everything else is good until and unless it can be demonstrated that it is bad.

HG pg 31, does not preclude secret Imperial BG production facilities...

Of course not. It expressly mentions experimental devices. Obviously these must be produced somewhere. What it does preclude is the existence, in 1107, of black globes that are not either recovered artifacts or experimental devices. Experimental devices are not yet ready to be mass produced. That's why they're still experimental. Hence the obvious corollary that black globes are not an integral part of Imperial battleship design in 1107. I don't really need any additional evidence to support that, but it's nice that whatever evidence there is, however flawed it may be, does support it.


Hans

 

[Birdrock]

I disagree and would not accept that construction as a basis for discussion unless instructed to do so by Marc Miller and his minions.

Not yet, eh?

Minions have no more authority in these matters than the rest of us.

 

[Enoki]

Crew quarters were mentioned. I think this would be a flexible item. First, in many cases staterooms would be an 'officer only' thing. The crew would more likely be berthed in open bays to save room. A standard stateroom per the ship design rules is rougly 3 meters on a side or a 10 x 10 foot space (give or take). That is about the size of a typical bedroom in a house. On a ship today (US military etc.) that would be sufficent space for 6 crew at a minimum in three deep bunks. Now you do need some common spaces like heads (bathrooms), galley, recreational area/ lounge etc., but these would be common for a good number of the crew.
I cannot see where crewmen would be given the luxury of two to a room staterooms if it took up alot of space that could otherwise be better utilized. I would also think that this would be more true for planets with living conditions where people already had limited space, governments that treated society more harshly, ones with limited resources, or those where living in tight quarters was just commonly done.

One thing that the rules don't currently take into account is space for other activities the ship has to have. There has to be office space, shops for maintnenace, that sort of thing. These cannot be crammed into some odd nook or cranny. I can't see some major warship not having the capacity onboard to carry out repairs of equipment and not having say, the equivalent of a post office, chapel, pay office, offices for the command staff, a sick bay, etc.

So, on some races and planet's ships more space would be used for crew while on others they might very well be packed in like proverbial sardines. The degree of habilitity would likely also vary. On some world's ships conditions would be pristine or near surgical while others might tolerate a higher level of "dirt." The same would go with expected levels of food, recreation, etc.

I really think that given the nature of the Imperium and the Traveller universe in general you would find a very big range of habitability on starships and warships in general depending on where you were, what planet you were looking at etc.

I could easily visualize a warship where using 5 staterooms results in space for 25 crew (roughly 4 staterooms in area) and the remaining space devoted to a head, common galley (with other crew spaces enlarging it), and a small lounge.

 

[McPerth]

You still have to make it proportionally more expensive for a small ship to carry a big screen than for a big ship. As it is, the biggest expense of carrying a screen is the power requirement, which is directly proportional to the size of the ship. Unless you change that, your heavy cruiser is going to be as well armored as your battleship, leaving us with our original conundrum; why build battleships at all?

EDIT: probably your battleship would have a larger meson gun than a cruiser, so, having lower penetration numbers, it's likely to reduce meson screen armor value quite more than the cruiser, partially offseting the advantage for cruisers when fighting battleships. END EDIT

Another proposal someone has made in the various threads is to treat 'fuel tanks shattered' as 'fuel tank shattered' and give a fixed amount (I personally suggested a variable amount based on the factor of the weapon producing it) of fuel lost.

This would help a lot BBs and even Cruisers against BRs , as they carry quite a lot of more fuel (the same amount that gives the BRs advantage in other fields), and would make refueling once exit jump even more a priority than now.

Another example: It's not allowed to build ships with the same kind of weapons in spinal and bays. Is that because it's impossible to do so, because it's a bad idea to do so, or because the combat system can't handle it?

This is fixed in MT. I cannot tell you about other versions of Traveller.

A third example: You can't carry more than two people per 4T of living quarter. Is that because military people will mutiny if they get stacked three to a stateroom, or because the Imperium doesn't like to treat its spacers with undue harshness? Is hot-bunking disallowed because shipping twice the number of people will cause the life support system to break down, and if so, what are the rules for installing extra life support equipment?
Hans

I guess you could fill more poeple in your starship, but cramped conditions would lead to mental stress an uncomfortability. Perhaps a modifier for confort level would be in place if you allow more people (this was used in 2300 AD).

OTOH, if the Imperium could build black globes, expense wouldn't prevent it from installing them in their 75,000T battleships. It would only represent a cost increase of around 2%, well worth it by your arguments.

You must take into account that all armor modifiers given by the BG are also given to enemy.

Should 3I equip with BG all its spinal carring ships, the result would be the same as giving it to all enemy ships, as if you have them on, you give the enemy an advantage equal to yours (or higher, as they don't lose agility), and if you turn it off to avoid that, why do you want it?

The main reason I envison for not to equip your 75000 dton battleships with BG, aside from price, that as you say is not so great, would be the need of installing more energy sinks on your ship, and I doubt you can afford that in a J-4 75000 dton.

As we are trying to fix the rules, not only to point what fails on them, I'd suggest two changes to the BG rules:

1) Missiles are not affected by BG on the firing ship, as the explosion of their warheads is outside it.

2) As I assume the weapons fire is very short bursts, not along the 20 min a turn represents, I also assume at least one of them can be synchronized with the BG ficking. So main weapon (spinal) is not affected (or less affected) by own BG.

 

[rancke]

EDIT: probably your battleship would have a larger meson gun than a cruiser, so, having lower penetration numbers, it's likely to reduce meson screen armor value quite more than the cruiser, partially offseting the advantage for cruisers when fighting battleships. END EDIT

You forget that one of the major (apparent) disconnects between the rules and the setting is that by the rules the battleship won't have a larger meson gun than the heavy cruiser (I use the qualifier 'heavy' to indicate the smallest practical starship that has the biggest meson gun available) and its defenses are not significantly more effective than the heavy cruiser either.

This is fixed in MT. I cannot tell you about other versions of Traveller.

I can't see any real life reason why it should be impossible to have different kinds of bay weapons on the same ship. But the point I was trying to make was that when revising the CT rules, it would be a good idea to examine the implications and ramifications of the rules and either change them to reflect "reality" OR acknowledge that the rules don't reflect "reality" but we're sticking to them anyway because they work better.

It's not that I mind that sort of rules, provided there are good sound reasons (such as 'playability') for them; I just don't want them to be used to "prove" that it's impossible to do something that it's manifestly not impossible to do.

Oh, and if you can't answer the question "if it's possible to do it that way, why are people doing it this way?" then it may be a good idea to change the rule even if it works.

The main reason I envison for not to equip your 75000 dton battleships with BG, aside from price, that as you say is not so great, would be the need of installing more energy sinks on your ship, and I doubt you can afford that in a J-4 75000 dton.

That may or may not be a good reason not to equip your heavy cruiser with BGs even if you can build them in numbers (I'd want someone to test it out before taking it as gospel). But the reason why the Imperium doesn't put them into many of its ships is that it only has a couple of thousand artifact BGs (less any that has gone on the blink over time) and can't build them in large numbers yet.


Hans

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Crew quarters were mentioned. I think this would be a flexible item. First, in many cases staterooms would be an 'officer only' thing. The crew would more likely be berthed in open bays to save room. A standard stateroom per the ship design rules is rougly 3 meters on a side or a 10 x 10 foot space (give or take). That is about the size of a typical bedroom in a house. On a ship today (US military etc.) that would be sufficent space for 6 crew at a minimum in three deep bunks. Now you do need some common spaces like heads (bathrooms), galley, recreational area/ lounge etc., but these would be common for a good number of the crew.
I cannot see where crewmen would be given the luxury of two to a room staterooms if it took up alot of space that could otherwise be better utilized. I would also think that this would be more true for planets with living conditions where people already had limited space, governments that treated society more harshly, ones with limited resources, or those where living in tight quarters was just commonly done.

One thing that the rules don't currently take into account is space for other activities the ship has to have. There has to be office space, shops for maintnenace, that sort of thing. These cannot be crammed into some odd nook or cranny. I can't see some major warship not having the capacity onboard to carry out repairs of equipment and not having say, the equivalent of a post office, chapel, pay office, offices for the command staff, a sick bay, etc.

So, on some races and planet's ships more space would be used for crew while on others they might very well be packed in like proverbial sardines. The degree of habilitity would likely also vary. On some world's ships conditions would be pristine or near surgical while others might tolerate a higher level of "dirt." The same would go with expected levels of food, recreation, etc.

I really think that given the nature of the Imperium and the Traveller universe in general you would find a very big range of habitability on starships and warships in general depending on where you were, what planet you were looking at etc.

I could easily visualize a warship where using 5 staterooms results in space for 25 crew (roughly 4 staterooms in area) and the remaining space devoted to a head, common galley (with other crew spaces enlarging it), and a small lounge.

the common answer i have seen to this one is that not all the Dtonnage space used by a "stateroom" is used in the physical stateroom itself, but in the communal areas, kitchens, games rooms, etc that a large ship would have. MgT says that a 4 Dton stateroom is only 2 Dton of actual stateroom, and 2 Dton of corridors, common areas, vending machines, etc.

 

[aramis]

The sole reason for no mixing classes of weapons of the same size on a design was due to the USP... The MT USP fixed this, but at the cost of (1a) No longer being 3 lines of texts, (1b) taking most of a page, (2) requiring 3 entries per type, but at the benefit of (3) being human readable, as all entries are labeled.

 

[aramis]

the common answer i have seen to this one is that not all the Dtonnage space used by a "stateroom" is used in the physical stateroom itself, but in the communal areas, kitchens, games rooms, etc that a large ship would have. MgT says that a 4 Dton stateroom is only 2 Dton of actual stateroom, and 2 Dton of corridors, common areas, vending machines, etc.

That's been present since CT. Tho' many CT staterooms are roughly 3x4.5x?? meters (they're often under the curved or less than full height areas).

 

[McPerth]

The sole reason for no mixing classes of weapons of the same size on a design was due to the USP... The MT USP fixed this, but at the cost of (1a) No longer being 3 lines of texts, (1b) taking most of a page, (2) requiring 3 entries per type, but at the benefit of (3) being human readable, as all entries are labeled.

The fact that in MT you need a full page instead of just 2-3 lines to describe a starship is true even if unarmed, so the fact of several weapons mounts of the same weapon cannot be blamed for that.

And actually, the only weapon that can have the 3 entries filled (unless you want to use TL18+, in which case also disintegrators) is PA, as for all other weapons there's only one or two variants.

Of course that gives a more human readable description (at cost of paper space), as when you stay for a time without playing/designing HG designs, it's quite possible you have to consult what each number means every time you want to decipher one (at least that's what happens to me, and there is quite a lot since I designed HG ships...). For a unused player that reads a MT design, he knows nearly instantaneously what each phrase means, as they needn't to be deciphered

 

[Birdrock]

I don't think a compact format matters anymore. Machine parseable is nice, but we don't have to compromise any more. Even CT had a one page sheet.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

On the topic of habitability stuff, here is a link to a US Navy document and another to a fairly old AIAA space station document.

http://doni.daps.dla.mil/Directives...ral Outfit and Furnishing Support/9640.1A.pdf

http://www.spacearchitect.org/pubs/AIAA-63-139.pdf

Both give recommendations for volume or deck square footage requirements.

One thing to keep in mind though is that on modern ocean going naval ships there is a move on to increase habitability even further. Specifically I believe that on ships like the new US Coast Guard cutters they have tried to accommodate almost everyone into either single, double, or quad staterooms (with a very limited number of 6 person staterooms that I believe were initially intended only for transient berthing). I believe that the initial plan (at least) was also for something similar for the LCS type vessels as well.

As such, for something in the relatively far future like Traveller, I guess that there are at least two concerns. One being physically how small a space you can accept (based on basic factors like provided a sleeping space, sanitary space, and life support spaces, while on the other hand there is a secondary concern of what (for want of a better term) is socially acceptable.

Specifically, its my understanding that one of the reasons for the increasing habitability standards on modern warships is to try and make it easier to retain well trained and experienced personnel, who could probably afford to live reasonably comfortably shore side in a commercial job (based on their skill levels) rather than being crammed into a bunkroom with a dozen or more coworkers onboard a ship.

As such, even if you could physically cram your crew into a certain size there could be other reasons for setting size limits.

Just some thoughts.

Regards

PF

 

[dean]

Spinal weapons ought to be directly tied to the ship's size and configurations. There should be some variance as well; for example, larger PA's tend to have more energy output. Naturally, a needle or wedge would have an obvious advantage over a close structure, but let's not forget that spheres or flattened spheres could potentially use a spiral accelerator path to achieve higher energies.

Perhaps meson guns need a large aperture and therefore and inappropriate to needles but would be best on a cone???

Secondary large mounts could certainly be added to the largest sized ships as well. Why couldn't a 500,000 dton sphere have multiple PAs that would usually be mounted spinally on a 10,000 dton ship?