What the "High Guard Fix" does to canon LBB2 ships

[Grav_Moped]

Not news to anyone, I'm sure. Still...
The "High Guard Fix" is to replace the 10Td/Pn fuel requirement from LBB2 with the 1%/Pn fuel requirement from LBB5. One would do this because the 10Td/Pn allocation that originated in LBB2'77 was based on a fuel burn rate that entirely ignored vessel tonnage, and LBB5 was (at the time) the only other source for a fuel requirement rule.

You might not want to do it because LBB2'81 stated otherwise, and also because changing the power plant fuel requirement would significantly affect all LBB2 designs -- especially the ones player characters had become used to using.

For example:
Type S Scout/Courier becomes a Type J Seeker that can keep its full jump range, all the staterooms, and the Air/raft -- without needing demountable tanks.

XBoat works under LBB2'81 (where it'd be a broken design otherwise, RAW), and doesn't need to be just an XBoat -- it can have 4G maneuver too.

Type A Free Trader gets an extra 8Td payload.

Type A2 Far Trader gets an extra 16Td payload.

So does the Type K Safari Ship.

Type R (Subbie) gets an extra 6Td payload.

Type M (liner) gets an extra 12Td payload.

Type Y (yacht) gets an extra 8Td payload.

Type C (happy fun ball) gets an extra 6Td payload.

Type T (patrol cruiser) gets an extra 24Td payload.

It doesn't start having negative effects relative to the LBB2 rule until ship tonnage goes above 1000Td.

 

[infojunky]

Ok, my use of the High Guard fix is based on the general adoption of Book5 design in place of Book2.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Ok, my use of the High Guard fix is based on the general adoption of Book5 design in place of Book2.

Then it's not really a "fix" to LBB2, it's simply using LBB5 instead.

 

[infojunky]

Then it's not really a "fix" to LBB2, it's simply using LBB5 instead.

I Like Book2 mostly.

Couple that to I consider Power Plant fuel as fuel to drive the Maneuver Drive, And said drive uses water rather than straight Hydrogen. With that 10 tons of water fits in to the volume of 1 ton of Hydrogen.

 

[kilemall]

<shrug> I just use both, LBB2 for standardized parts universally available vs LBB5 for TL specific customization jobs.

Kind of a you get what you pay for/can support advantage vs rough field maintenance.

One subtle bit I would keep is the scout/military use of unrefined fuel to LBB2 ships only. This would be in keeping with the less efficient but more frontier operations mode of the traditional ACS ships. Civilians of course would have to make those special modifications themselves with attendant risks.

Nice benefit for the scout characters paying for their own fuel away from scout bases or just putting down and pumping in their water.

 

[kilemall]

I Like Book2 mostly.

Couple that to I consider Power Plant fuel as fuel to drive the Maneuver Drive, And said drive uses water rather than straight Hydrogen. With that 10 tons of water fits in to the volume of 1 ton of Hydrogen.

Check that buoyancy, may have to dump fuel to float.

 

[Condottiere]

Gassify the hydrogen.

 

[atpollard]

You might not want to do it because LBB2'81 stated otherwise, and also because changing the power plant fuel requirement would significantly affect all LBB2 designs -- especially the ones player characters had become used to using.

Considering the number of things “broken” in CT Ship Design for the “official ships” … a few dTon difference because of fuel is a drop in the bucket.

Care to HIGHLIGHT 20 dTons of dedicated BRIDGE on the deck plan for each ship in Traders and Gunboats?

RAW:
a Starship must be at least 100 dTons.
Ships 101-200 dTons are treated as 200 tons in LBB2.
Scout Ships ship without a turret.

How many dTons is a scout ship without a turret?
How many dTons is its turret?
How many dTons is a scout ship with a turret?


… I like the LBB5 fuel consumption for all ships. I like 1 dTon minimum for fuel. I like selecting an endurance that makes sense for the ship and its mission (an earth-moon cargo shuttle does not need 4 weeks of fuel).

 

[infojunky]

RAW:
a Starship must be at least 100 dTons.
Ships 101-200 dTons are treated as 200 tons in LBB2.
Scout Ships ship without a turret.

How many dTons is a scout ship without a turret?

100 tons, under book2 turrets don't have volume.

How many dTons is its turret?

It's Fire Control is a Ton.

How many dTons is a scout ship with a turret?

Again 100 tons.

 

[Grav_Moped]

You read my book!

Considering the number of things “broken” in CT Ship Design for the “official ships” … a few dTon difference because of fuel is a drop in the bucket.

Care to HIGHLIGHT 20 dTons of dedicated BRIDGE on the deck plan for each ship in Traders and Gunboats?

RAW:
a Starship must be at least 100 dTons.
Ships 101-200 dTons are treated as 200 tons in LBB2.
Scout Ships ship without a turret.

How many dTons is a scout ship without a turret?
How many dTons is its turret?
How many dTons is a scout ship with a turret?

I specifically played with that in the 199.5/200Td J4 Scout Transport design I did a couple of years ago.
Without the second turret, it was under 200Td and could be flown with just a pilot and gunner.
With it, it was 200Td and needed not only a second gunner, but also an engineer and medic.

The strict interpretation of this is that the ship is either one that never had the second turret, or is one that had it all along (and the referee would decide which was the case depending on the composition of the player group and roster of player characters).

The loose interpretation is that players can select the crew size by deciding whether or not to install the turret.

… I like the LBB5 fuel consumption for all ships. I like 1 dTon minimum for fuel. I like selecting an endurance that makes sense for the ship and its mission (an earth-moon cargo shuttle does not need 4 weeks of fuel).

I'm not sure about literally using the LBB5 fuel consumption rule in LBB2 ships, since fuel allocation is the main design constraint on maneuver capability in those ships. They ought to use more fuel than LBB5 drives, but not by as much as RAW states -- and specifically, whatever the appropriate power plant fuel requirement is, it should be proportional to power use rather than a flat amount by rating. I agree with your idea of allowing endurance variations, and look at the LBB2 rule as a combination of a best-practices endurance allocation (4 weeks) and a consumption rate (2.5Td per week per Pn actually used).

 

[mike wightman]

There is always the "use the Fire, Fusion and Steel" fix to all these issues...
put another way come up with a better ship design system. Instead of fudges, sticking plasters and convoluted rules interpretations just scrap it and start again.

Many consider the LBB2 pp fuel formula an issue, but then any fuel use rate for a fusion power plant that only needs to generate electricity is likewise suspect...

hardpoints limited by hull volume rather than hull surface area

the bridge is too big, the computer is too big

Use FF&S and all these issues go away.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Care to HIGHLIGHT 20 dTons of dedicated BRIDGE on the deck plan for each ship in Traders and Gunboats?

What's the problem? It was never supposed to be a single control cabin:

LBB2'77, p13:
_ _ A. The Bridge: All starships must allocate 20 tons displacement for basic controls, which include guidance radars, drive and power plant controls, communications equipment, and other devices required for proper control of the ship. Basic controls cost CR 500,000 per 100 tons of hull mass displacement.
_ _ The basic controls do not include the ship's computer, ...

It's the control cabin.
It's communicators, not just a walkie-talkie, but two-way communicators with a range of lightseconds, or perhaps lightminutes.
It's sensors, with a range of a few lightseconds.
It's internal networks, cabled and wireless.
It's drive controls, engineering workstations, perhaps even a drive control room.
Etc, etc, ...

Now duplicate, or triplicate, all systems for fault tolerance. All of the components have to be accessible for maintenance, so add a lot of corridor and access spaces to that.

Many of those components are perhaps only a few m³ here and there, but it add up quickly.

Just like the rest of the LBB2 system it's a very simplified handwave, but it's good enough?

Look at the S7 Scout, with "bridge" areas marked in orange:

Is it 20 Dt? I don't know, but it's a lot more than a 3 Dt control cabin...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Use FF&S and all these issues go away.

Agreed, but we all know nearly no-one can be bothered.

 

[atpollard]

I'm not sure about literally using the LBB5 fuel consumption rule in LBB2 ships, since fuel allocation is the main design constraint on maneuver capability in those ships.

I will take your word for it … my LBB2 was TTB and after playing vector movement only a few times, I hated it enough to never want to use it again. I’d rather flip a coin: heads you win, tails you loose (and get on with the game).

EDIT: I looked up TTB …

“There is no restriction on the number of accelerations which may be made by a fueled ship, but the total acceleration in a turn (in millimeters) may not exceed 100 mm times the rating of the maneuver drive.”

 

[atpollard]

Look at the S7 Scout, with "bridge" areas marked in orange:

I am pretty sure the “bridge” tonnage includes the crew commons on that particular deck plan.
The forward orange (including upper sensors and control) is probably about 5-7 dTons in that hull shape.
They played fast and loose with the bridges on the deckplans (Not just the “cockpit” portion).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I am pretty sure the “bridge” tonnage includes the crew commons on that particular deck plan.
The forward orange (including upper sensors and control) is probably about 5-7 dTons in that hull shape.
They played fast and loose with the bridges on the deckplans (Not just the “cockpit” portion).

They played fast and loose with everything on those deckplans. The 200 Dt A2 Empress Marava is close to a total of 400 Dt IIRC. The Scout decks are largely outside the hull. None of them are even close to 4 Dton living spaces per person.

Perhaps some of them were made before LBB5'79 established the 1 Dton = 14 m³ ≈ 2 deck squares standard?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Many consider the LBB2 pp fuel formula an issue, but then any fuel use rate for a fusion power plant that only needs to generate electricity is likewise suspect...

The LBB2 power plant fuel formula has two separate but related issues that have little to do with the fact that it's all fiction anyhow.

The first, and most fundamental, is that it's not connected to the device's power output. The same powerplant, with the same output, uses different amounts of fuel in different sized hulls. This is a serious suspension-of-disbelief problem.

The second, but more noticeable, is that in ACS ships -- particularly in the smallest ones -- it represents a significantly higher fuel consumption rate than in any later rule set. This suggests, but only suggests, that the authors concluded that the appropriate fuel consumption rate should be lower than in LBB2 (either version) but chose not to adjust it in LBB2'81.

The problem is that these combine to affect small ship designs in such a way that correcting the problems for plausibility and consistency with later rule sets would break backward compatibility with foundational canon ships.

In '81, they just papered over these problems without really fixing them.

Instead of fudges, sticking plasters and convoluted rules interpretations just scrap it and start again.

I'm left with the problem that the authors faced in '81: "scrapping it and starting over" invalidates what was then 4 years of published product, and is now far more than that. The way I deal with it is to accept that it's wrong, but it's something that we're stuck with for the typical use cases that the canon LBB2 designs represent. Those convoluted rules interpretations are the way to work around the inherent flaws in the rules for unusual cases, without invalidating everything that used the earlier rules.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The Scout decks are largely outside the hull.

Looking at the deckplan in post #12, one could interpret it as the forward upper and lower outside corners of locations 4 and 5 (forward staterooms) being 'clipped off' where they intersect the outer hull -- that is, those rooms aren't 3m x 3m x 4.5m rectilinear boxes. That might explain away up to 3Td of the excess living-space allocation...

Yeah, it's worse than that. But it's where you hang the lampshade (it's wrong, we know it, you know it, but we tried) rather than wave hands (nothing to see here).

The 200 Dt A2 Empress Marava is close to a total of 400 Dt IIRC.

Wrong grid square size?
No?
Ok, I got nothin'.

But I may have a project now... not an original one, let alone unique. But it's something to do.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Looking at the deckplan in post #12, one could interpret it as the forward upper and lower outside corners of locations 4 and 5 (forward staterooms) being 'clipped off' where they intersect the outer hull -- that is, those rooms aren't 3m x 3m x 4.5m rectilinear boxes. That might explain away up to 3Td of the excess living-space allocation...

It's more than clipped a little, even common area behind the staterooms is clipped:

Most of the Upper gallery and cargo hold are outside the hull.

OK, that has never stopped me from using the deckplans...

Wrong grid square size?
No?
Ok, I got nothin'.

I think someone said the designer used very low deck height, or something like that.

 

[Grav_Moped]

It's more than clipped a little, even common area behind the staterooms is clipped:

Most of the Upper gallery and cargo hold are outside the hull.

They almost work as crawl-spaces, particularly the upper gallery and forward hold (if considered to be the access out through the front landing gear well). But it looks like they were an afterthought for game purposes (snapshot/ahl tactics).
Clipping the Air/Raft bay and main cargo hold make them a bit more awkwardly laid out but closer to the expected volume.

OK, that has never stopped me from using the deckplans...

Yeah.

I think someone said the designer used very low deck height, or something like that.

Um. Yeah, I still got nothin'.