Thinking about Starship Combat for T5

[robject]

Ship Combat in Traveller5

I seek the impossible combat system. The fact that is is impossible doesn't stop me from seeking it.

Traveller's rules are primarily about choice and consistency, more or less depending on which part of the system you're working with. So should be combat.

Who Are You?

Three different creative agendas are: consistency; nuanced ships; a good story. With starship combat, I tend to go for nuance and story, usually that order of importance. Perhaps surprisingly, I am less about consistency, even though I insist that all must be consistent with Traveller. Maybe I have a problem defining my terms here.

In short, I am a good play-tester for space combat in some ways, but also an unsuitable play-tester for combat in other ways.

Relationship to Personal Combat

As much as possible, I desire Space Combat to use Personal Combat. If they resemble one another in their flow, then they will be easier to learn and use. Details will vary in expected ways.


Combat Order

Because it requires effort for me to understand combat, I typically desire simple rules with a clear flow, and prefer a lot of detail to be placed as SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS in order that I may understand and refer to the GAME FLOW separate from the individual pieces.

A. SETUP

Fleet Tactics Mod. Like Tactics Mod in Personal Combat, there ought to be a Fleet Tactics Mod here.

Initiative. Like Initiative in Personal Combat, it helps to have a resolution for initiative when it's otherwise not clear.

B. THE COMBAT ROUND

This has phases similar to Personal Combat.

1. Decision Phase. A ship decides what to do - evade, close or open distance, emergency jump, land/launch, screen another ship, or even perhaps Take Cover, as within a sand cloud.

2. Attack. There are at least three types of attacks: Ranged Energy, Boarding (melee), Kinetic. Falling is probably the same as "Impact". "Reentry" might have a reference to Starship Ops.

3. Roll for Damage and Penetration. Multiple damage rolls are made in some cases. I suggest that the simple flow doesn't need Location. Special Considerations can hold the rules for Hit Locations.

4. Inflict Damage. The ship uses its QSP to note damage, just like a character's wounds are applied to its characteristics. In the simple flow, that's all that's used. In more complicated flows, the QSP is updated to characterize its actual damage.

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[robject]

EASY DAMAGE

Here's how I "would like" quick-and-easy damage to work in space combat: I'd like to use the QSP and extensions for damage tracking, much like characters' UPPs are used in tracking their damage.

This means sensor and hardpoint extension blocks might be included, which may result in something rather bulky, meaning maybe it's better to stick with the ship design sheet.

The ship design sheet is another way; however, the sheet would have to be organized into hit locations -- sort of like how the "ship [combat] sheet" is organized. And the slippery slope slides into the shipsheet. Which I don't want to use sometimes. That's the whole point of this post.

So what do I do when I don't want to use the shipsheet? Again, I'm back looking at the QSP.

How about I ignore actual sensor damage during combat, and worry about that after combat is over? Hull hits can suffice as difficulty mods resulting in the loss of sensor capability.

In fact, hull hits can also replace hardpoint damage in a pinch. The number of hull hits is (pick one): (a) the -DM to hit in subsequent rounds, or (b) the difficulty mod to hit in subsequent rounds. (b) is quite harsh, but then, isn't combat supposed to be deadly?

QSP + Armor

That leaves the QSP and Armor.

 

[kilemall]

EASY DAMAGE

Here's how I "would like" quick-and-easy damage to work in space combat: I'd like to use the QSP and extensions for damage tracking, much like characters' UPPs are used in tracking their damage.

This means sensor and hardpoint extension blocks might be included, which may result in something rather bulky, meaning maybe it's better to stick with the ship design sheet.

The ship design sheet is another way; however, the sheet would have to be organized into hit locations -- sort of like how the "ship [combat] sheet" is organized. And the slippery slope slides into the shipsheet. Which I don't want to use sometimes. That's the whole point of this post.

So what do I do when I don't want to use the shipsheet? Again, I'm back looking at the QSP.

How about I ignore actual sensor damage during combat, and worry about that after combat is over? Hull hits can suffice as difficulty mods resulting in the loss of sensor capability.

In fact, hull hits can also replace hardpoint damage in a pinch. The number of hull hits is (pick one): (a) the -DM to hit in subsequent rounds, or (b) the difficulty mod to hit in subsequent rounds. (b) is quite harsh, but then, isn't combat supposed to be deadly?

QSP + Armor

That leaves the QSP and Armor.

Heh, almost sounds like you want the Starfire system.

 

[pendragonman]

You know, a way to map regular Traveller ship components to variables that could be done as a string "ship description" like used in Starfire ship combat WOULD result in a faster combat system.

And scale-able to big ships. The string of variables just gets longer.

 

[kilemall]

Wichita? I was burying family there a few weeks ago.

I was thinking more like the way he wanted to do damage resolution.

 

[pendragonman]

Yes, damage resolution for Starfire. To use something like that you first need a method of mapping existing components to the variables that create the ship strings used in Starfire.

 

[aramis]

If you're using Starfire... use Starfire. TL9=HT1 TLA=HT2, etc.

You lose out on the Traveller ship tech, but get the equally rich Starfire Tech.