Trillion Credit Squadron

[jrients]

When's the last time anyone here played in a TCS tournament? I'm just curious if the expanded tournament parameters from the adventures reprint is seeing any use. Anybody play out an entire Islands Cluster war? How did it go?

I'm not a big fan of High Guard big ships in my rpg games, but as a wargame it looks kinda neat.

 

[jrients]

When's the last time anyone here played in a TCS tournament? I'm just curious if the expanded tournament parameters from the adventures reprint is seeing any use. Anybody play out an entire Islands Cluster war? How did it go?

I'm not a big fan of High Guard big ships in my rpg games, but as a wargame it looks kinda neat.

 

[Whipsnade]

Jeff,

I ran several TCS campaigns, some concurrently, during various operational deployments while in the Navy. This was in the early to mid 80s so no personal computers were used either.

Take it form me, TCS is a record keeping nightmare, especially for the GM/referee who must have copies of EVERYTHING the players have. Computers will make this easier; I've seen a TCS starter kit of sorts complete with ship designs on line in some sort of MS database format.

Early on, the battles are die rolling - record keeping headaches, especially if you don't limit the number of pilots somehow. The HG2 weapon tables create optimal design solutions at every given TL. Most of those solution favor smaller hulls over 'deathstars' thus requiring more pilots. ForEx: Before powerplants reach a certain power density, nuc missiles are your best bet. That means most naval budgets will have HORDES of missile boats carried by armored tenders. (Even the much maligned sub-100dTon fighter is a ship killer below a certain TL, ~12 IIRC.)

I ran all the campaigns like 'Strat-o-matic' baseball tournies. The players were responsible for two sets of orders per week. They could either fight the battles against each other or have the referee crew fight them according to simple instructions; i.e. break off after X amount of damage, refuse to engage if Y occurs, etc.

For most of the battles we used the statistical battery resolution rules published in JTAS. That let us handle the huge numbers of 'to hit' and 'to penetrate' rolls huge numbers of batteries required. Rolling for 100 laser batteries per each battleship will break your wrist.

As much of a record keeping nightmare as TCS is, you'll be glad that certain things like supply and planetary assaults are either ignored or handled by simple/simplistic rules.

One result I did notice over the course of many games is that new builds; ships laid down after the war begins, rarely proved useful. TL 'leeching'; you take and hold a port with a higher TL than yours long enough to build there, NEVER happened either. Most wars were fought with what the parties brought with them. While repairs mattered, new builds and new tech did not.

Counterpunchers seemed to fair better in many games. There were laways those fellows who would open the game with an all or nothing assualt on a rival. It made for a huge battle and lots of scrap iron. It also usually failed because most folks had monitors in their OOB. (You must build a certain percentage of your budget at TL-1, monitors are a nice way to meet that requirement.) The death or glory boys would always prove easy meat for the counterpunchers.

Many players struck on the idea of hi-gee, double jump, heavily armored 'scouts'. They'd jump into a system and immediately break off from combat by either acceleration or jump after getting a peek at the opposition. (Remember, at long range all you know is the rough size and actual number of ships. However, you can ferret out just what is what after you engage in a few battles.)

Hope all this helps. You're in for a lot of work and a lot of fun!

Have fun,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Jeff,

I ran several TCS campaigns, some concurrently, during various operational deployments while in the Navy. This was in the early to mid 80s so no personal computers were used either.

Take it form me, TCS is a record keeping nightmare, especially for the GM/referee who must have copies of EVERYTHING the players have. Computers will make this easier; I've seen a TCS starter kit of sorts complete with ship designs on line in some sort of MS database format.

Early on, the battles are die rolling - record keeping headaches, especially if you don't limit the number of pilots somehow. The HG2 weapon tables create optimal design solutions at every given TL. Most of those solution favor smaller hulls over 'deathstars' thus requiring more pilots. ForEx: Before powerplants reach a certain power density, nuc missiles are your best bet. That means most naval budgets will have HORDES of missile boats carried by armored tenders. (Even the much maligned sub-100dTon fighter is a ship killer below a certain TL, ~12 IIRC.)

I ran all the campaigns like 'Strat-o-matic' baseball tournies. The players were responsible for two sets of orders per week. They could either fight the battles against each other or have the referee crew fight them according to simple instructions; i.e. break off after X amount of damage, refuse to engage if Y occurs, etc.

For most of the battles we used the statistical battery resolution rules published in JTAS. That let us handle the huge numbers of 'to hit' and 'to penetrate' rolls huge numbers of batteries required. Rolling for 100 laser batteries per each battleship will break your wrist.

As much of a record keeping nightmare as TCS is, you'll be glad that certain things like supply and planetary assaults are either ignored or handled by simple/simplistic rules.

One result I did notice over the course of many games is that new builds; ships laid down after the war begins, rarely proved useful. TL 'leeching'; you take and hold a port with a higher TL than yours long enough to build there, NEVER happened either. Most wars were fought with what the parties brought with them. While repairs mattered, new builds and new tech did not.

Counterpunchers seemed to fair better in many games. There were laways those fellows who would open the game with an all or nothing assualt on a rival. It made for a huge battle and lots of scrap iron. It also usually failed because most folks had monitors in their OOB. (You must build a certain percentage of your budget at TL-1, monitors are a nice way to meet that requirement.) The death or glory boys would always prove easy meat for the counterpunchers.

Many players struck on the idea of hi-gee, double jump, heavily armored 'scouts'. They'd jump into a system and immediately break off from combat by either acceleration or jump after getting a peek at the opposition. (Remember, at long range all you know is the rough size and actual number of ships. However, you can ferret out just what is what after you engage in a few battles.)

Hope all this helps. You're in for a lot of work and a lot of fun!

Have fun,
Bill

 

[Cymew]

If someone would put together a TCS with a more interesting combat system than HG, and remove the idiotic "best build" in the ship generation I think it would be the coolest thing imaginable to play online via submittable orders on a webpage.

If I somehow find myself with 1 year or so of free time I might even be tempted to design it myself...

 

[Cymew]

If someone would put together a TCS with a more interesting combat system than HG, and remove the idiotic "best build" in the ship generation I think it would be the coolest thing imaginable to play online via submittable orders on a webpage.

If I somehow find myself with 1 year or so of free time I might even be tempted to design it myself...

 

[mike wightman]

So we need a combat resolution system inbetween High Guard and Imperium/FFW/DN/IE.

Attack factor - split into spinal, bay, and turret factor

Defence factor - agility, screens, defensive bays, defensive turrets, and armour.

A damage resolution system that can degrade each of the above factors before killing the ship, or a big enough hit could mission kill a ship outright.

 

[mike wightman]

So we need a combat resolution system inbetween High Guard and Imperium/FFW/DN/IE.

Attack factor - split into spinal, bay, and turret factor

Defence factor - agility, screens, defensive bays, defensive turrets, and armour.

A damage resolution system that can degrade each of the above factors before killing the ship, or a big enough hit could mission kill a ship outright.

 

[The Oz]

I find myself thinking of a combat system built on Avalon Hill's old classics, War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific.

Ships are rated for:

beam firepower (spinals)
missile firepower (bays and turrets)
screens (meson and nuke damper)
point defense (all other bays and turrets)
armor

The value is how many dice they throw when using that rating.

When attacking, ships roll the dice for the attack attribute they are using (missiles at long range, both missiles and beam at close range). Missiles hit on a "6" and beams on a "5" or "6".

Each hit produces 1d6 of damage. Screens are the only defense against beam damage. Screens, armor, and point defense all stop missiles.

Each die of defense "hits" on a "5" or "6" and if it hits it stops 1d6 points of damage.

Here is a possible ship counter for such a game (thanks, Berka!!!!)

 

[The Oz]

I find myself thinking of a combat system built on Avalon Hill's old classics, War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific.

Ships are rated for:

beam firepower (spinals)
missile firepower (bays and turrets)
screens (meson and nuke damper)
point defense (all other bays and turrets)
armor

The value is how many dice they throw when using that rating.

When attacking, ships roll the dice for the attack attribute they are using (missiles at long range, both missiles and beam at close range). Missiles hit on a "6" and beams on a "5" or "6".

Each hit produces 1d6 of damage. Screens are the only defense against beam damage. Screens, armor, and point defense all stop missiles.

Each die of defense "hits" on a "5" or "6" and if it hits it stops 1d6 points of damage.

Here is a possible ship counter for such a game (thanks, Berka!!!!)

 

[mike wightman]

I like it Oz.

Which number on the counter is which factor?

Would it be better to give missiles either a better chance to hit or cause more damage, since they can be stopped by screens, armour and point defence?

How do you think damage should be applied?

Roll on a table or select a factor on the counter to reduce for each point of damage?

Biggest question is how to determine the factors from your ship design system of choice?

Should there be separate counters for escorts, or for the whole escort squadron?

Should fighters have one counter per squadron?

I like it

 

[mike wightman]

I like it Oz.

Which number on the counter is which factor?

Would it be better to give missiles either a better chance to hit or cause more damage, since they can be stopped by screens, armour and point defence?

How do you think damage should be applied?

Roll on a table or select a factor on the counter to reduce for each point of damage?

Biggest question is how to determine the factors from your ship design system of choice?

Should there be separate counters for escorts, or for the whole escort squadron?

Should fighters have one counter per squadron?

I like it

 

[The Oz]

I'm sorry to not have finished my previous post; I had to change monitors (I'm having video trouble with my computer today.... <sigh>).

The upper left number is Beams
The upper right number is Missiles
The lower left number is Screens
The lower right number is Point Defense

I would apply damage as a single counter that reduces all the combat factors (except Armor) by the value of the counter. When all factors are reduced to zero, the ship is destroyed. Jump and Maneuver are reduced to half when the ship has taken half damage to its largest combat value.

I wouldn't even bother with escorts or fighters, in such a system. They are assumed to be there and doing their jobs, but it's the big ships that do the fighting. Carriers could add their fighters onto their Missiles value or their Point Defense value; maybe they could even decide how to split that up from turn to turn?

As for rating the ships, I'd use something similar to the system I came up with for rating HG ships in FFW terms. Beams would be based on the size of the spinal mount, missiles on how many factor-9 equivalent missile batteries a ship has, Screens on the screen factors, etc, etc, etc.

One thing that has occurred to me is that you could use special designators (asterisks, for instance) to signify things like ships with big spinal particle accelerators (which would then not be affected by Screens, but would be affected by Armor) or to show ships that have only nuke dampers but not meson screens (or vice versa).

One simplification would be to have the defenses simply reduce the damage done by their rating; this would give missiles more of a chance to do some damage. But I like the die roll; the more chances for luck to come into play, the more fun I think the game is.

We could give missiles and beams the same chance "to-hit". It should take a lot of missiles to do any serious harm to a major warship, however.

I can think of all kinds of "Chrome" rules to add in: escorting ships with other ships, jumping into/out of battle, having a "reserve" of ships out of the line of fire, damage control, etc.

As it is, I am thinking of a combat system like that of WAS/VITP where ships are lined up and just shoot at each other, with die rolls for whether combat is at long or short range. But this could easily be adapted to a "range-band" system or even a hex-based movement system. I would make missile ranges much longer than we see in regular TRAVELLER, enough to make it at least plausible for ships to stay out of range and bombard an enemy with floods of missiles.

 

[The Oz]

I'm sorry to not have finished my previous post; I had to change monitors (I'm having video trouble with my computer today.... <sigh>).

The upper left number is Beams
The upper right number is Missiles
The lower left number is Screens
The lower right number is Point Defense

I would apply damage as a single counter that reduces all the combat factors (except Armor) by the value of the counter. When all factors are reduced to zero, the ship is destroyed. Jump and Maneuver are reduced to half when the ship has taken half damage to its largest combat value.

I wouldn't even bother with escorts or fighters, in such a system. They are assumed to be there and doing their jobs, but it's the big ships that do the fighting. Carriers could add their fighters onto their Missiles value or their Point Defense value; maybe they could even decide how to split that up from turn to turn?

As for rating the ships, I'd use something similar to the system I came up with for rating HG ships in FFW terms. Beams would be based on the size of the spinal mount, missiles on how many factor-9 equivalent missile batteries a ship has, Screens on the screen factors, etc, etc, etc.

One thing that has occurred to me is that you could use special designators (asterisks, for instance) to signify things like ships with big spinal particle accelerators (which would then not be affected by Screens, but would be affected by Armor) or to show ships that have only nuke dampers but not meson screens (or vice versa).

One simplification would be to have the defenses simply reduce the damage done by their rating; this would give missiles more of a chance to do some damage. But I like the die roll; the more chances for luck to come into play, the more fun I think the game is.

We could give missiles and beams the same chance "to-hit". It should take a lot of missiles to do any serious harm to a major warship, however.

I can think of all kinds of "Chrome" rules to add in: escorting ships with other ships, jumping into/out of battle, having a "reserve" of ships out of the line of fire, damage control, etc.

As it is, I am thinking of a combat system like that of WAS/VITP where ships are lined up and just shoot at each other, with die rolls for whether combat is at long or short range. But this could easily be adapted to a "range-band" system or even a hex-based movement system. I would make missile ranges much longer than we see in regular TRAVELLER, enough to make it at least plausible for ships to stay out of range and bombard an enemy with floods of missiles.

 

[Cymew]

Any WAS/VITP inspired rules must have some inherent quality of goodness!

Your system looks really interesting, though.

Anyway, what was most annoying with HG/TCS was the possibility calculating that extreme configurations was a game winner and then build just zillions of those ships. That killed my interest in the HG/TCS combo and I've waited for someone more talented and well read in HG than me to remove that oddity.

 

[Cymew]

Any WAS/VITP inspired rules must have some inherent quality of goodness!

Your system looks really interesting, though.

Anyway, what was most annoying with HG/TCS was the possibility calculating that extreme configurations was a game winner and then build just zillions of those ships. That killed my interest in the HG/TCS combo and I've waited for someone more talented and well read in HG than me to remove that oddity.

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Anyway, what was most annoying with HG/TCS was the possibility calculating that extreme configurations was a game winner and then build just zillions of those ships. That killed my interest in the HG/TCS combo and I've waited for someone more talented and well read in HG than me to remove that oddity.

Between us, Sigg and I came up with several "house" rules that would remove most of the current oddities in HG. Basically it involved reducing the effectiveness of meson guns and allowing bigger ships to absorb a lot more damage (especially to their drives and powerplants).

They're on the board here, somewhere....

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Cymew:
Anyway, what was most annoying with HG/TCS was the possibility calculating that extreme configurations was a game winner and then build just zillions of those ships. That killed my interest in the HG/TCS combo and I've waited for someone more talented and well read in HG than me to remove that oddity.

Between us, Sigg and I came up with several "house" rules that would remove most of the current oddities in HG. Basically it involved reducing the effectiveness of meson guns and allowing bigger ships to absorb a lot more damage (especially to their drives and powerplants).

They're on the board here, somewhere....

 

[Ptah]

The Oz, that is a very cool system. I'd love to try it. Is it somewhere here on the forums or on a web site?

Only been here for about an hour and have already found many amazing things on this site.

 

[Ptah]

The Oz, that is a very cool system. I'd love to try it. Is it somewhere here on the forums or on a web site?

Only been here for about an hour and have already found many amazing things on this site.