Tigress class dreadnaughts

[rancke]

My 240 missile bays (bearing) are going to make a fair old mess of quite a few of your cruisers too.

"My" cruisers have almost as many hardpoints as a Tigress. Indeed, if my guesstimate of the cost is a bit off, there may be 25 cruisers for a fair equality in missile bays.

But, hey, if you're going to insist on an exchange rate of a couple of cruisers per Tigress, I won't object.


Hans

 

[savage]

The CT Fighting Ships were early designs that we could beat back then. I redesign them form MTU. Everyone should redesign them.

 

[Tobias]

The CT Fighting Ships were early designs that we could beat back then. I redesign them form MTU. Everyone should redesign them.

I'd rather redesign HG2. And then redesign the ships.

 

[mike wightman]

You have to be careful that a redesign doesn't just become a "what I think needs fixing" exercise, and end up creating a load of new problems.

You also have to be carful that the fixes work across the full range of TLs that HG covers.

Despite its flaws HG2 does a remarkably good job of allowing us to design ships across the range of TLs and fighting battles with them. What works at one TL doesn't work as well at others, I like the way the nature of fleets change as you advance through the TLs.

The main issue is that we have had 34 years to play around with it, the designers didn't have that luxury. Subtleties and consequences that are now obvious were probably missed early on. That and the fact that S9 designs are usually pretty poor, broken or just not fit for purpose.

 

[Garyius2003]

The big problem is the Eurisko program (which was a semi AI learnable program) that won 2 TCS tourneys and ruined it for everyone, also taught us using broad strokes how to tweak using lesser methods.

 

[savage]

Yeah. The HG2 redesign has been going on a long time...MT...TNE...GT...T4...T20...MgT...others...T5

30 years ago, a friend of mine showed one of his designs to Marc. It did very well at Gencon. Marc asked if he wanted to publish it and he said no. It wouldn't be convention competitive if everyone figured out the High Guard flaws. So, military secrets are short lived at best.

Seriously, there are two redesign considerations 1. MTU only 2. Convention TCS Competition or published. Since, I ignore the 2nd (those we're the 80s for me) it is pretty easy to just make me happy through home rules and tweaking.

Let's say you MUST have the Tigress in your designs...it MUST be in your MTU. All your players "love" the Tigress art. What would you do to change it and keep its multi-mission (Fleets have budgets like trillion credit squadron)? Less fighters? Modular components? Drop a Jump level? Add armor and or a bigger meson SM?

I could probably tweak my old design now and be happy with the changes after another 10 years of thinking about it.

 

[Theophilus]

Okay, it bugs me that people keep saying the Tigress is Jump-4, yes I know there is a misprint in the text section that says jump-4, but the USP is V5368J4, clearly J-3, and the fuel 190k-40k for PN leaves 150K or J-3. Ta

Take a Pen, fix the misprints in S9 and get over it.

 

[rancke]

The main issue is that we have had 34 years to play around with it, the designers didn't have that luxury. Subtleties and consequences that are now obvious were probably missed early on. That and the fact that S9 designs are usually pretty poor, broken or just not fit for purpose.

That's not the main issue for me. For me the main issue is which paradigm to go with for world-building purposes. And it just occurred to me that it doesn't matter (to me) what the logical ramifications of any set of combat rules are, because I'm not going to run ship-to-ship combat under any set of rules. I'm going to develop the setting material. So as far as I'm concerned, 200,000T+ battleships will trounce 75,000T cruisers and a cruiser-sized battle-rider may be a bit better than a cruiser, but it's still no match for a battleship, whatever the rules say.

So the only thing that worries me, really, is that some future official Traveller writer may, based on the HG combat rules, introduce an incident where 20 Zhodani light cruisers meet a Tigress and wipe the floor with it (I wouldn't mind them winning a Pyrrhic victory).


Hans

 

[aramis]

20:1 SHOULD win, Hans.

 

[rancke]

20:1 SHOULD win, Hans.

But not as easily as the odds Mike quoted imply. Twenty 20,000T light cruisers ought to¹ be decimated by a fight with a ship that out-tonnage them all put together. Indeed, the big ship ought to¹ have at least a measurable chance to win. In short, the sheer bulk of the big ship ought to provide some protection in itself.

¹ In a narrative sense.​

Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Okay, it bugs me that people keep saying the Tigress is Jump-4, yes I know there is a misprint in the text section that says jump-4, but the USP is V5368J4, clearly J-3, and the fuel 190k-40k for PN leaves 150K or J-3. Ta

Take a Pen, fix the misprints in S9 and get over it.

Actually, Errata 07 decided to fix it by upping fuel tankage to 240,000 dTons - which of course leads to the thing being more than 42,000 dTons over size. Me, I agree - cut it back to J3. Nice thing about that option is it gives you 10,000 dT of cargo space, which is room for a regiment and its vehicles.

This is what I get running Tigress through the HG Shipyard. No surprise, the crew and cost numbers don't match up even though the ship details are identical:

Ship: Dn Tigress - S9-Revised
Type: Dreadnought
Architect: Supplement 9
Tech Level: 15

USP BB-V5368JZ-F90909-967T9-Y MCr 464,872.600 500 KTons
Bat Bear..............5.....B.5R51X Crew: 4911
Bat.....................A....N.AWA1V TL: 15

Cargo: 10,185; Crew Sections: 500 of 10; Fuel: 190,000; EP: 40,000; Agility: 6; Shipboard Security Detail: 500
Craft: 300 x 50T Heavy fighters, 3 x 50T Launch Tubes
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Substitutions: V = 430 W = 50 X = 215 Y = 30 Z = 500

Architects Fee: MCr 4,337.206 Cost in Quantity: MCr 378,128.480

Detailed Description
(High Guard Design)

HULL
500,000.000 tons standard, 7,000,000.000 cubic meters, Sphere Configuration

CREW
387 Officers, 3724 Ratings, 500 security, 300 Pilots

Book 5 Crew Breakdown
Command section: 25 officers and 225 ratings; Engineering section: 145 officers and 1305 ratings; Gunnery section: 106 officers and 953 ratings; Flight section: 4 officers, 300 pilots and 327 ratings; Service section: 100 officers and 900 ratings, 500 security troops; Medical Section: 7 officers and 14 ratings

ENGINEERING
Jump-3, 6G Manuever, Power plant-8, 40,000.000 EP, Agility 6

AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/9fib Computer

HARDPOINTS
Spinal Mount, 22 100-ton bays, 430 50-ton bays, 400 Hardpoints

ARMAMENT
Meson Gun Spinal Mount (Factor-T), 430 50-ton Missile Bays (Factor-9), 100 Triple Beam Laser Turrets organised into 10 Batteries (Factor-9), 100 Dual Fusion Gun Turrets organised into 50 Batteries (Factor-6), 100 Particle Accelerator Turrets organised into 10 Batteries (Factor-7)

DEFENCES
22 100-ton Repulsor Bays (Factor-9), 100 Triple Sandcaster Turrets organised into 10 Batteries (Factor-9), Nuclear Damper (Factor-9), Armoured Hull (Factor-15)

CRAFT
300 50.000 ton Heavy fighters (Crew of 1, Cost of MCr 103.840), 3 50.000 ton Launch Tubes

FUEL
190,000 Tons Fuel (3 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, On Board Fuel Purification Plant

MISCELLANEOUS
2,458.5 Staterooms, 10,185 Tons Cargo

USER DEFINED COMPONENTS
None

COST
MCr 438,057.806 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr 4,337.206), MCr 346,976.480 in Quantity, plus MCr 31,152.000 of Carried Craft

CONSTRUCTION TIME
228 Weeks Singly, 182 Weeks in Quantity

COMMENTS
The Supplement-9 Tigress dreadnought, revised to J3 per the ship code.

 

[rancke]

Actually, Errata 07 decided to fix it by upping fuel tankage to 240,000 dTons - which of course leads to the thing being more than 42,000 dTons over size. Me, I agree - cut it back to J3. Nice thing about that option is it gives you 10,000 dT of cargo space, which is room for a regiment and its vehicles.

Or you could retcon CT's ridiculous power plant fuel consumption rates and cut out most of that 40,000T power plant fuel tankage. Then cut a toe here and a heel there to get the rest of the surplus tonnage removed.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

20:1 SHOULD win, Hans.

Then why bother with the 1?

Whether or not 20:1 wins or loses depends on the base assumptions. Numerical odds alone say nothing if the weapons and tactics don't give some opportunity for the 20 to apply their force. 20:1 doesn't favor 20 swordsmen against one tank in open terrain; the base assumption there is that tech and long-range firepower will defeat numbers. 20:1 DOES favor the light cruisers under High Guard II; in fact, there are good odds the 20 will silence the 1 while only taking a single loss themselves, which leaves the question, "why build something that big if it's just going to lose?" But then, 300:20 also applies: why bother building light cruisers when the game clearly favors missile boats? High Guard's base assumptions favor small and numerous over large and powerful.

Hans correctly points out that there's a discrepancy between what the milieu represents and what Book-5's game rules actually support. If I see a milieu in which Ogres trundle across the landscape, I expect a combat system in which the Ogre isn't going to be taken out by a single shot from an opposing tank gun. Traveller not only gives me Ogres that meet 20 light tanks and die in the first salvo, leaving 19 of the little things to go on their way - it tells me the 19 little tanks can be stopped by 300 guys with rifles, and all the while it claims that the Ogres are the backbone of the fleet.

 

[mike wightman]

Twenty ATGM infantry sections versus one tank is a fairer analogy, or switch the cruisers int he example to PA or just bay weapons.

And HG is meant for squadron versus squadron or ships us ship, one light cruiser stands no chance, a pack of them do.

The setting details are Imperial propaganda based on prior experience, they haven't fought a TL15 enemy yet so the flaws in big battle ships aren't as obvious. Or rather, the setting designers didn't recognise these issues because they didn't have 30 odd years to pick the book apart.

Nor do I recall a mention of a lone battleship holding out against vastly superior odds, oh wait the battle cruiser at the battle of the two suns..

 

[Condottiere]

This is the basis for the battlerider doctrine.

 

[mike wightman]

Or you could retcon CT's ridiculous power plant fuel consumption rates and cut out most of that 40,000T power plant fuel tankage. Then cut a toe here and a heel there to get the rest of the surplus tonnage removed.


Hans

This should have been done years ago.

In '77 CT the fuel was reaction max for the m-drive. HG1 stated the m-drive was a fusion rocket so the pp fuel makes a bit of sense (totally implausible with known laws of physics).

It no longer makes any sense with the reactionless m-drive to insist on such ridiculous fuel rates.

 

[mike wightman]

But not as easily as the odds Mike quoted imply. Twenty 20,000T light cruisers ought to¹ be decimated by a fight with a ship that out-tonnage them all put together. Indeed, the big ship ought to¹ have at least a measurable chance to win. In short, the sheer bulk of the big ship ought to provide some protection in itself.

¹ In a narrative sense.​

Hans

Give me a rough outline of how you picture your TL14 Zhodani light cruiser, I'll design one and match them against a tigress and its fighters. See what happens.

The parameters so far are a meson G, screen 6, agility 6 hence manoeuvre 6 and no larger than 19,999t.

 

[aramis]

This should have been done years ago.

In '77 CT the fuel was reaction max for the m-drive. HG1 stated the m-drive was a fusion rocket so the pp fuel makes a bit of sense (totally implausible with known laws of physics).

It no longer makes any sense with the reactionless m-drive to insist on such ridiculous fuel rates.

actually, the HG2 fuel rates are rather small for the amount of energy generated by the M-Drive, provided one ignores the striker conversions.

At present, even a 0.01% recapture over cost of fusion is looking to be unlikely - but a stable 0.01% return over cost would be sufficient to justify building fusion power plants, given the incredible energy cost to hit fusion, and the low costs of fuel. And that's the rough rate for HG2 PP fuel rates given the Striker 250 MW/EP. (But that 250 MW/EP is probably a bit too low for what it can do.)

Really, 1 EP should be several GW large, simply to account for even the first second of acceleration.

 

[Tobias]

Yeah. The HG2 redesign has been going on a long time...MT...TNE...GT...T4...T20...MgT...others...T5

I don't really see it.
MT: Was simply a - poorly thought out - adaption of HG2 combat to MT's design system.
TNE/BR: An entirely new system with little connection to HG (if the designer's notes are to believed.)
GT: Its own system.
T4: Okay, here I have to confess that I never really paid any attention to how T4 handled capital ship combat. Was this ever elaborated upon anywhere?
T20: Ditto.
MgT: I haven't playtested it, but from the looks of it, it's a cumbersome mess, and not at all related to previous versions of High Guard.
PPF: Lacks a certain amount of granularity and is too fiddly for really large ships (works better with combatants up to cruiser size.)

In many ways, HG2 already is the "fix which made things worse" to HG1. HG1 did have a few idosyncracies that I agree needed to be addressed, and it lacked some features - such as weapons and screens consuming energy - which I agree were a sensible addition in HG2. However, it also had some rather good aspects which should have been kept:
- Armor being treated as a defense to be penetrated rather than a DM on the damage roll; a result of which was that PA spinals were not the mostly useless niche weapons they were in HG2.
- In fact, in HG1, every weapon type was useful, and not just in the highly artificial game artifact sense of padding out the USP.
- Single factors for each weapon type instead of the humongous number of batteries HG2 gives us.
- Hull configuration actually had disadvantages (other than a marginal price increase) to offset advantages vs. meson guns.
- No breakpoints for size with no disadvantages resulting in 19,999-ton ships. Although HG1's method of simply not taking into account ship size at all is not how I'd balance this. I prefer breakpoints which offer both an advantage (more difficult to hit) and a disadvantage (less resistant to damage), which should be a rather easy fix to apply.

 

[mike wightman]

I would love to know why HG1 was replaced so quickly with HG2 - did they actually have two different versions of the game in development and sent the wrong one to press first?

The meson gun wasn't such a monster under HG1 either.

Come to think of it the setting description Hans keeps referring to (half a sentence in S9 ) makes a lot more sense using HG1 as the ship paradigm.