Unbreaking High Guard

[kilemall]

I agree that you wrap the fuel tankage around the more critical internal systems as extra protection where possible.
It goes armour - fuel - internals.

Have you ever messed around with Renegade Legion:Leviathan?

No can't say that I have.

 

[McPerth]

I guess I just have to fundamentally disagree with this.

I don't consider a spinal weapon to be a big hose that's slowly ablating the target ship over time. It's not a shotgun using birdshot against a bear. It's using a slug against a duck. It's the 16" gun off the New Jersey hitting a Destroyer. You're the bug, I'm the hammer. You can skitter about as fast as you like, and I will continue to come down on you. Eventually, I will hit you.

I fully agree with you, tough the example I give (as told in other threads) about it as comparison is another:

to me, the Spinals are like the rams in Ironclads age: a potentially decisive weapon (usually one hit one kill), but difficult to use and dangerous to try to bring to bear while the less devastating (per hit) but more numerous artillery (secondaries, mostly missiles, in this casae) are still active.

A nuclear weapon is a fast expanding ball of nasty energy. A meson blast is a pre-expanded ball of nasty energy.

Most attacks are a ball (or lance, in the case of a laser) of energy that detonates with expanding force, crushing and tearing through things, but consuming energy as it goes. That's not what a meson attack is. A meson attack is the closest that Traveller has to a Star Trek transporter beaming down in to solid rock. One moment, there are no particles. The next they're all intermixed. It's a trillion tiny explosions within a sphere (a rather large sphere in large meson gun case).

As it says in Striker. "Everything within the radius is destroyed." If a ship is penetrated with a meson gun, the mesons are interacting with the armor, with the air, with the water, with the fuel, with the people, consoles, wires, pipes, tubes, fried chicken, potatoes and gravy. All of it, at the same time. The armor is on fire, the air is on fire, you are on fire, your skin, your hair, your heart, your brain, all of you.

Big Mesons crit more against smaller ships because the meson radius is bigger, thus destroying more of the ship in one gulp.

Since you're trying to make mesons less effective it's ok to let the screen let some slip through. I wouldn't want them near me at all, personally, which is why I'm content on the screens stopping them wholesale.

While this is quite true in atmosphere, where the expanding air in the fireball and shock wave may be devastating, I guess those firballs will be less in vacuum. The shock produced by an explosión is dependant on the density of the médium (that's why torpedoes are quite more dangerous than artillery), and if the médium is vacuum only the direct exposition (and radiation) will affect your ship.

Of course, in the case of mesons, where the explosión is inside the ship, the own ship's atmosphere makes them so devastating, but i na sameller ship, if the "explosión sphere" is largr than the ship, only the part inside it is really relevant (expet, maybe, for radiation effects).

My principle dislike is the need for statistical resolution for battles - I much prefer the idea of only one roll to hit and one roll to penetrate per weapon system rather than for every single battery bearing.

Fully agreed in your dislike for statistical resolution. That's why I like the MgT:HG (at least in 1E, I have not seen MgT2E:HG) barrage rules for the secondaries (though spinals on it are less devastating).

This does not mean I believe it to be a flawless system, as my long discussions in MgT forum clearly show...

(1) end to the unlimited supply of missiles and sand canisters: you need to put in a magazine to hold them, and this takes up ship space.

Fully agrees to here. For one battle match, the point you say about magazines taking space it's the main part of it; fro a more strategic campaign, the cost of those nukes (that I don't expect to be cheap) would be another important limiting factor, as a battle will be quite expensive, even if the ship's damages are minimal.

 

[Carlobrand]

(1) end to the unlimited supply of missiles and sand canisters: you need to put in a magazine to hold them, and this takes up ship space

Fully agrees to here. For one battle match, the point you say about magazines taking space it's the main part of it; fro a more strategic campaign, the cost of those nukes (that I don't expect to be cheap) would be another important limiting factor, as a battle will be quite expensive, even if the ship's damages are minimal.

While we're fixing broken things, let's bring up nuclear missiles. For all the worry about unlimited supplies, they don't do much. Something that one-hit kills a tank, no matter how heavily armored, barely attracts the notice of a capital ship, or a destroyer, or even a fighter (unless they're in large batteries, in which case they do the same damage that HE missiles would). You fire off a thousand missiles, you take out one weapon - maybe, if his armor isn't so thick that he shrugs it off. Cost-benefit analysis doesn't look good there, and not very realistic considering even the baby ones are delivering gamma energy equivalent to 6 tons of TNT to the point of impact. It's a bit of a logic fail when a 10-dTon tank is destroyed on impact by a single missile while a similarly armored 10 dTon fighter walks away with maybe a damaged turret - and maybe not that.

Some of that could be addressed with one of the fixes to the armor rules we discussed earlier, but it's still pretty obvious the nuke is anemic. They wanted to nerf it down enough that it wouldn't outclass dreadnoughts, but I think they took that a bit farther than needed.

 

[mike wightman]

I agree. Looking at the black globe rules you see how much energy is dumped by weapons into a black globe screen - for a nuke it is 100 x factor.

My solution is to treat nukes as factor A+ weapons so they don't get the +6DM on the damage table, but continue to get their -6DM.

They also get a number of hits equal to their factor.

 

[kilemall]

While we're fixing broken things, let's bring up nuclear missiles. For all the worry about unlimited supplies, they don't do much. Something that one-hit kills a tank, no matter how heavily armored, barely attracts the notice of a capital ship, or a destroyer, or even a fighter (unless they're in large batteries, in which case they do the same damage that HE missiles would). You fire off a thousand missiles, you take out one weapon - maybe, if his armor isn't so thick that he shrugs it off. Cost-benefit analysis doesn't look good there, and not very realistic considering even the baby ones are delivering gamma energy equivalent to 6 tons of TNT to the point of impact. It's a bit of a logic fail when a 10-dTon tank is destroyed on impact by a single missile while a similarly armored 10 dTon fighter walks away with maybe a damaged turret - and maybe not that.

Some of that could be addressed with one of the fixes to the armor rules we discussed earlier, but it's still pretty obvious the nuke is anemic. They wanted to nerf it down enough that it wouldn't outclass dreadnoughts, but I think they took that a bit farther than needed.

The volume rules I was referring to helps with that- even at TL15, going Armor 15 on a small craft ends up taking 48% of volume, and TL14 Armor 14 is 90% volume. That will balloon up the fighter so that far fewer can be carried, and at a certain point the critical hits start adding up to not worth it.


As for nukes, I have the luxury of detaching myself from the tyranny of those tables and their flaws and multiple frustrations and die rolling. An individual nuke does 1000 tons of damage and penetrates like a spinal weapon, so in my system the bigger costs are justified. But, I'm also making PD somewhat easier, and ships are going to tend to carry more lasers and repulsors just as much for the kinetic effects of conventional missiles as nukes.



I find the loss of a dreadnaught's Maneuver drive to dinky weapons far more egregious. That's what pushed me over the edge to ditch that resolution.

 

[kilemall]

I agree. Looking at the black globe rules you see how much energy is dumped by weapons into a black globe screen - for a nuke it is 100 x factor.

My solution is to treat nukes as factor A+ weapons so they don't get the +6DM on the damage table, but continue to get their -6DM.

They also get a number of hits equal to their factor.

Nicely elegant for those that want to stay with most of the table resolution.

 

[mike wightman]

<These are house rules for clarity.>

I have three lines for weapon USP.

Top line is for spinals and nuke bays,
second line is for bay weapons
third is for turrets.

Bays don't get the +6DM on the damage table either, this makes bay weapons a bit more dangerous than a turret battery of equivalent factor.

 

[whartung]

Bays don't get the +6DM on the damage table either, this makes bay weapons a bit more dangerous than a turret battery of equivalent factor.

They don't?

I thought anything <= factor 9 was impacted by the DM. Doesn't say anything about the source being a bay weapon or a turret. At least not in the "DMs for Damage Tables" section.

In a quick glance, I don't see anything about Bays standing out in the combat section.

 

[kilemall]

They don't?

I thought anything <= factor 9 was impacted by the DM. Doesn't say anything about the source being a bay weapon or a turret. At least not in the "DMs for Damage Tables" section.

In a quick glance, I don't see anything about Bays standing out in the combat section.

He's saying that's his homebrew rule to handle the 'should be' force of turrets vs. bays vs. spinals vs. nukes.

 

[mike wightman]

Exactly - this is an IMTU thread.

I want a trinity of weapon systems:

spinals and nukes vs capital ships - but the suffer from the agility DM
bays - good against escort ships
turret batteries - good as point defence and vs smallcraft.

 

[Carlobrand]

...My solution is to treat nukes as factor A+ weapons so they don't get the +6DM on the damage table, but continue to get their -6DM.

They also get a number of hits equal to their factor.

I like that. Gives them a nice punch while not being too overwhelming for capital ships. Makes them behave like nukes when they hit something unarmored. If you're doing any kind of size-based armor adjustment, you almost have to have capital ships 'cause smaller craft are getting hit hard by the nukes, but the capital ships below TL14 are still finding nukes a significant factor. I presume rolls less than 2 equal 2.

Regarding armor, if the aim is to create a situation where the armor factor represents roughly the same armor thickness, I ran numbers based on the volume of a sphere and the volume of a sphere 1/2 meter smaller and then 1 meter smaller, and I hit pretty close with a 1/2/4/8/16 bit, which is to say whatever your starting point is, the L-P needs twice the percentage of the Q+, the B-K need four times as much, and so forth. I was thinking I'd set the Q+ to require 1/4* the indicated %, the L-P 1/2* the indicated %, the B-K 1* the indicated %, the 1-A 2* the indicated *%, the 0 4* the indicated %. Definitely makes fighters vulnerable, especially if you play with the "agility only applies to spinal mounts" bit.

(Still debating whether agility should apply to missiles.)

<These are house rules for clarity.>

I have three lines for weapon USP.

Top line is for spinals and nuke bays,
second line is for bay weapons
third is for turrets.

Bays don't get the +6DM on the damage table either, this makes bay weapons a bit more dangerous than a turret battery of equivalent factor.

I like this. Also thought instead about giving bay weapons a bonus equal to their factor. Means they get more powerful as the armor gets more powerful with increasing tech levels, which is usually the way the contest between armor and weaponry goes. Also considered some sort of bonus for the particle accelerator barbette/turret, given its power consumption - maybe a -3 (i.e. a net +3 DM after the penalty).

Means you've got to up-power the particle accelerator spinal. I thought maybe give them a -1 damage bonus per 100 EP. That gives them some serious teeth, not as nasty as a meson but, given they're more likely to score a hit and don't have to deal with a meson screen or configuration, they're serious contenders, especially as cruiser weapons.

A lot depends on what you're doing about the armor because, if you play around with armor adjustment by any of the methods discussed, you get pretty heavily armored battlewagons.

 

[aramis]

<These are house rules for clarity.>

I have three lines for weapon USP.

Top line is for spinals and nuke bays,
second line is for bay weapons
third is for turrets.

Bays don't get the +6DM on the damage table either, this makes bay weapons a bit more dangerous than a turret battery of equivalent factor.

That's canon in MT and T20 versions.

 

[Carlobrand]

That's canon in MT ...

Did I miss a supplement or an erratum? MT inverted the table and then gave bonuses only to the spinals and nukes, which as near as I can tell gave the same results as High Guard's table with the penalties to weapons of factor 9 or less.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Did I miss a supplement or an erratum? MT inverted the table and then gave bonuses only to the spinals and nukes, which as near as I can tell gave the same results as High Guard's table with the penalties to weapons of factor 9 or less.

No, you are correct. In MT only spinals and nukes get DM +6, not bays even if they are factor-A.

 

[McPerth]

Did I miss a supplement or an erratum? MT inverted the table and then gave bonuses only to the spinals and nukes, which as near as I can tell gave the same results as High Guard's table with the penalties to weapons of factor 9 or less.

In fact, I guess Aramis means that what is canon in MT is the fact you can have spinals, bays and turrets of the same weapon in diferent lines (in fact ,the only weapon you can have all three is PA, but you can have Spinal and bay MG in the same ship, or Fusion bays and turrets in the same ship, just to give some examples).

No, you are correct. In MT only spinals and nukes get DM +6, not bays even if they are factor-A.

I'm afraid you're wrong here. The damage tables DMs (RM, page 94) says:

If the weapon inflicting the hit has a UCP factor of 9 or less, apply a DM of -6

So, it's not being a bay or a Spinal what gives this DM, but being factor 9-. If you have a bay with factor A+ (e.g. TL16 100 dton meson bay), or even if you have a turrets battery with a factor A+ (only posible with 30 TL16 blasers), you don't have the DM.

What is only given to spinals, no matter the factor of any bay, is the multiple damage rolls.

 

[mike wightman]

Note you can get high TL factor A missile bays too, which get both the bonus for being a nuke and a bonus for being factor A...

this is pretty much what inspired my house rules, grant bays the bonus regardless of factor and they become more effective than a battery of turret weapons of equivalent factor.

The disadvantage I gave them is they are affected by target agility.

So IMTU HG80

spinals - affected by target agility
bays - affected by target agility but get the bonus on the damage table (nukes being the special case already discussed)
turrets - unaffected by target agility.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm afraid you're wrong here. The damage tables DMs (RM, page 94) says:

If the weapon inflicting the hit has a UCP factor of 9 or less, apply a DM of -6

This sentence has an erratum:

Page 94, left column, DMs for Ship Damage Tables, second entry (correction): Replace “If the weapon inflicting the hit has a UCP factor of 9 or less...” with “If the weapon inflicting the hit has a UCP factor of A or more, apply a DM of +6.”

This seems to be corrected in late printings, like my printed copy of the RM:

Yet the scans I have shows:

Is my computer pranking me?

 

[mike wightman]

Depends on which version you have electronically...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Depends on which version you have electronically...

MT CD-ROM Issues (Aug 2010)?

 

[mike wightman]

The other thing you need to 'unbreak High Guard' is a tactical movement system, not as detailed as Newtonian (although it has it be compatible) but allowing for some maneuvering. High Guard 79 had more rules for this than High Guard 80 - my own house rules use range bands...