TNE Design Questions

[snrdg082102]

Evening all,

As some are aware JTAS Contest #24 Unveiled was posted on the GURPS board to, hopefully, get more designs into the contest. The subject is to design a GT Darrian cruiser, specifically the Barekdoldin-class. The specs for the contest are, very abbreviated, the Darrian cruiser is at least GTL-13 and was able to take out some sort of Sword Worlds' installation by itself.

At some point someone, who I can't remember right now, mentioned that the Barekdoldin-class was in TNE: The Regency Sourcebook: Keepers of the Flame p. 92. Having a copy of the book I looked up the design and now I have some questions on the TNE design sequence. Before going further, let me say that I thought the Weapon system rules for TNE were the same as for CT: Book 5: High Guard p. 30, with the exception of the spinal mount.

1 turret per 100 tons of vessel not already allocated to other weapons systems

1 bay per 1,000 tons of vessel, which equals 10 turrets not being installed, and that the bay weapon cannot be the same as the system installed in a spinal mount.

1 Spinal mount containing 1 major weapon, either a particle or meson beam, that forms the spine of the ship. The smallest vessel that is capable of carrying a spinal mount which from CT: Supplement 9: Fighting Ships has cruisers in the size ranges of 20,000 to 100,000 dtons. This last dton range was already violated with the Patrol and Mercenary Cruisers in CT: Book 2.

TNE allows the use of a Parallel spinal mount that permitss the use of 2 or more major weapons, installed parallel to the ship's spine. Spherical hulls can have several spinal mounts parallel and at various angles to the centerline. All other hulls can mount two parallel, facing directly fore and aft, along the ship's spine.

With the background material out of the way here is/are my question(s).

Did TNE alter the Bay weapons rule from CT of 1 bay per 1,000 dtons of hull?

By the rules from CT the Barekdoldin-class can not have a 25 dton missile bay.

What is the minimum bay size available in TNE?

Can someone point me to the TNE source document and pages that outline how to figur out how many bay and turret weapons can be designed in to a hull?

 

[far-trader]

Off the top of my head didn't TNE's FF&S(1) do away with hardpoint limitations? Basically you could install (and custom build) any weapons systems you wanted, as long as it fit in the designed hull. You could designate "standard" turret and barbette sockets to allow quick and easy weapon upgrades while getting a break on the initial cost of the craft by eliminating the weapon from the build.

 

[Badbru]

I concurr with Far Trader. I've owned and exstensively used FF&S v1 for years and have never read anywhere in it any limmitations on weapons, weapons systems, bays, spinal mounts etc etc other than total volume of the ship. That is to say, if you the designer can fit it in, power it, crew it, and still move the ship around then more power to you. I still usually use the one turret per 100 Dtons rule but that's mostly to keep ships in line with the CT and MT converted ships. As for adding bays and spinal mounts I don't charge myself turret sockets for each but power requirements crew size and other considerations of the ship will often require that you stick reasonably close to your CT MT formulae's. Usually there's just not enough space.

So for your specific questions, They seem to have dispensed all "arbatary" rules on what you can fit in your ship. So the 1 bay per 1000Dtons is gone, as is the one turret per 100Dtons.

Yes it can have a 25Dton bay because the designer can fit it in. If you choose I s'spose you could call it a large non standard Barbette but really that's just semantics

As for the minimum bay size? well they have Barbette standard at 6 Dtons so anything smaller than 10Dtons would probably be called a Barbette rather than a Bay. I suppose it would depend on the weapon system installed. Is it missiles, Laser, or PA, or Meson gun? Trainable or fixed mount? etc etc.

That's my interpretation is all.

 

[snrdg082102]

Howdy far-trader and Badbru,

Thank-you both for answering my questions about the weapon system limitation differences between CT/MT and TNE. Grumble, another little difference that makes converting ships between the design systems more difficult, since CT, MT, T4, GT, and T20 use more of the same limitations. Again thanks for the help.

 

[mike wightman]

T4 uses TNE's system. You can have as many turrets/bays of whatever size up to the surface area/power/crew limitation imposed by the hull size.
In FF&S2 there is a table of standard turret sizes, which are equivalent to CT turrets with a tonnage of between 1 and 6 tons. The standard bay size table lists 25t, 50t, 75t, 100t, and 250t bays!!!
Like TNE you can also have multiple large fixed mounts (up to 80% of the length of the ship) or one full length spinal mount.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Sigg Oddra,

Thank-you for your post and you are also correct about T4. I guess I better start looking better at what I cut and paste from other documents. Um, I know it was those darn web germlins that put T4 in the sentence when I was not looking

.

Again my thanks for setting me straight on the T4 issue. Which leads me to the question: Is there a similar table or text in TNE that I am missing?

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
T4 uses TNE's system. You can have as many turrets/bays of whatever size up to the surface area/power/crew limitation imposed by the hull size.
In FF&S2 there is a table of standard turret sizes, which are equivalent to CT turrets with a tonnage of between 1 and 6 tons. The standard bay size table lists 25t, 50t, 75t, 100t, and 250t bays!!!
Like TNE you can also have multiple large fixed mounts (up to 80% of the length of the ship) or one full length spinal mount.

 

[mike wightman]

Hi Tom,

Is there a similar table or text in TNE that I am missing?

I can't find anything like it in Brilliant Lances or FF&S1

 

[snrdg082102]

Thank-you Sigg Oddra for looking, I had hoped that I may have missed something while looking through my opwn copies of FF&S (1st & 2nd editions) and BL. Do you think that Battle Riders might have something that modified the other rules?

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Hi Tom,
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Is there a similar table or text in TNE that I am missing?

I can't find anything like it in Brilliant Lances or FF&S1 </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[mike wightman]

Sorry Tom,
I can't find anything in Battle Rider to modify anything. It doesn't have its own construction rules; just conversion notes for TNE ships designed using BL or FF&S.

 

[snrdg082102]

Thanks again Sigg Oddra for your efforts and getting me straight on various matters.

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Sorry Tom,
I can't find anything in Battle Rider to modify anything. It doesn't have its own construction rules; just conversion notes for TNE ships designed using BL or FF&S.

 

[mike wightman]

No probs Tom

As an aside, I hope that T5 ship design continues the TNE/T4 way of doing things

I've played around with T20's ship design system and you could easily get rid of the hardpoint limitation and instead rely on power plant EP output to limit the weapons on a ship

It's also a little strange how T20 sticks to some of HG's limitations (spinal mount can't be the same as a bay weapon, bay weapons can't be the same as turrets) which are a direct result of the USP format restrictions rather than any "real world" limitation. MT, by using a different ship USP format removed these restrictions - T20 could have done the same IMHO.

 

[savage]

IMTU I've taken the stance that 1turret/100dt and 100dt bay/1000dt is a general rule of safety. Vessels that exceed armed hardpoint/100dt or 50dt bay/500dt are overgunned and increase opportunities
for catastrophic battle damage. Of course they can put out a significant higher amount of damage.

I do this for balance. So that older designs and TNE/T4 don't pound on everything at the same TL without issue. Otherwise, the opportunity to hit
a power conduit or magazine also increases.
Savage

 

[mike wightman]

Oops, I should have mentioned the other great leveler. Single turrets cost 1 ton, double turrets 2 tons, triple turrets 3 tons, just like FF&S2

 

[far-trader]

<ediot>

I meant to type <edit> but got a grin out of my typo so I left it to share

Hey, ouch that hurt! Blast it Savage be more careful when you hurl inspiration around like that

I likes it I do

Ties in with an earlier problem/idea I had and wasn't sure what to do with. I was looking for ways and means to increase the Structural Integrity of ships (select certain ships for mtu) using T20.

Your solution just screams reduce SI for weapons over the "safe" limit. It could maybe be as simple as treating the ship as that much smaller for SI calculations. For example a 400ton ship with 6 turrets is 2 turrets over the safe limit so for SI its treated as a 200ton ship.

Naturally this solves my earlier dilemma too. If a ship is below the "safe" limit its SI is increased. For example a 400ton ship with only 2 turrets (like the old Sub Merch) would be treated as a 600ton ship for SI calculations.

What does everybody think? Where's the abuse potential? Does it break at kiloton levels? It seems pretty simple and elegant to me but right now its still got that glow of wondrous newness

D'oh, I'm still in TNE land Oh well, share and share

I guess I'll go post this suggestion in a more apt loci or two (or twenty ) for more feedback. But hey any feedback here is welcome too.

 

[mike wightman]

TNE has always struck me as a return to the small ship paradigm (which I always preferred). Trying to duplicate some of the TNE ships in T20 requires much bending of the rules

This idea of yours is a good one to help flesh out "small ships" and add variety.

(I still think that armour should increase the SI for number of turrets/bays purposes )

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
<snippage>

(I still think that armour should increase the SI for number of turrets/bays purposes )

Hey that's right, I think I did see you did mention that. Did I say anything about it then?

Oh well in any case I probably didn't see it in this light at the time. So more armor could add to SI which in turn could be used to measure the new "safe" limit for hardpoints. Yeah, I like it, even if (or because of ) the added complexity/gearheadedness.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by far-trader:
Your solution just screams reduce SI for weapons over the "safe" limit. It could maybe be as simple as treating the ship as that much smaller for SI calculations. For example a 400ton ship with 6 turrets is 2 turrets over the safe limit so for SI its treated as a 200ton ship.

Naturally this solves my earlier dilemma too. If a ship is below the "safe" limit its SI is increased. For example a 400ton ship with only 2 turrets (like the old Sub Merch) would be treated as a 600ton ship for SI calculations.

What does everybody think? Where's the abuse potential? Does it break at kiloton levels? It seems pretty simple and elegant to me but right now its still got that glow of wondrous newness

The only problem I would see is the explanation WHY the SI is decreased. Is it because the way you add in the extra turrets is to bore holes in the ship structure (not very true form an engineering viewpoint, but ... it is plausible enough) ... or is the problem that when you fire the turrets you get a problem?

If its the second then I could see players arguing that they will hold off firing and therefore get an increase in SI.

Of course I could be being too nitpicky about this. Just saying it is so for game balance is really a good enough idea as is ... but then this is a TNE forum right?

 

[far-trader]

Hmm, yes, good points Falkyn.

I'll admit my first impression was the very non-technical "well just make a hole" or "stick it on the side there" approach to upgunning. You know, the way the PC's "will" do it

I think its accepted that Traveller Spacecraft are ballon structures, getting all their SI from the skin of the craft much like modern cars no longer have a chassis frame but a unibody. FF&S(1) at least did break down the Structure and Skin but still didn't address things like cross beams and such so even there I think its a stressed skin or similar design. I guess you could allow that any required bracing is buried in (or made up by) bulkheads but that part of the design wasn't covered (though I learned recently that GT does do some bulkhead calculations). Oh yes, a point I had one and then kinda wandered

Anyway I think you could make an argument that the standard hull is limited to the number of holes (and how big, like bays and spinals) you can make in it and that it could tie into the whole SI rating for T20 and maybe TNE/FF&S Structural Ratings (to bring it back to TNE I posted this idea in "The Fleet" and "T20 - Traveller for the D20 System" when I realized while it was born here it was pretty much an illegitimate child

).

I don't think firing the turrets would be much of a stress problem, unless we're talking a PC duct tape and chewing gum solution to mounting it

 

[savage]

Falkayn,
Yes. But through the hull you have power conduits and magazines. These additional structures do cause issues leading to a failure of structural integrity.

Far Trader,
Glad, I could use bricks online.
Have to admit I use a T20/CT/TNE mix for combat.
I'm fond of the old critical damage charts. One option is increasing the internal damage when taking internal hits. Things change when the armour/hull is breached.
There are several options to this home rule. One favorite is...
- the "% overgunned" as a damage bonus factor. 10%=+1 etc...


Savage

 

[ganymede]

That's why they have hardpoints, so the mount for the turret is part of the structure... But of course, if you look at it that way, if the frame incorporates a huge number of hardpoints, it might even be stronger....

Now try this: use that SI mod you cooked up and apply it as a difficulty modifier for the design! if the architect can pull it off, Bravo!otherwise, penalize the design by maybe implimenting the "Lemon" rules from Shadowrun's (Gasp! Not Sh-Sh-Shadowrun!) Rigger books. perhaps add maneuver mods or damage control penalties due to poor design if the design fails.