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

[whartung]

Use FF&S and all these issues go away.

The question actually becomes can Book 2 be converted to an FF&S style equation based build system.

And then it's "Well, if you're going to do that, why not just use Book 5".

And finally, "how can I use armor and energy weapons in Mayday".

TNE and FF&S certainly solved all of those issues, but with admittedly some added complexity.

Something between Brilliant Lances and Battle Rider could be nice, which is where Mayday kind of sits. Simple vector movement, ablative damage (i.e. ships degrades over time) vs fractional damage location, and, oh yea, crits kill everything.

 

[kilemall]

The question actually becomes can Book 2 be converted to an FF&S style equation based build system.

And then it's "Well, if you're going to do that, why not just use Book 5".

And finally, "how can I use armor and energy weapons in Mayday".

TNE and FF&S certainly solved all of those issues, but with admittedly some added complexity.

Something between Brilliant Lances and Battle Rider could be nice, which is where Mayday kind of sits. Simple vector movement, ablative damage (i.e. ships degrades over time) vs fractional damage location, and, oh yea, crits kill everything.

Hmmm, my choices turned out to be

crits only disable (engineering drama),

armor no pen no damage which reduces a helluva lot of rolls,

damage is tonnage based adjusted downward for further range or upwards for missiles’ cumulative vee,

below 100000 km gets into suicide ranges for energy weapon combat, higher levels of damage/pen,

50%/value 1/disable damage stepping,

hull damage means losing streamlining, several crits and potentially breaking up the ship (a typical fate for ACS ships at a big ship dance),

and since it’s all tonnage damage I can use both LBB2 and LBB5 ships in the same system.

Got to do vee maneuver to get ranges and relative missile impacts.

Reduces most rolls by a factor of 5-10 at least, but certainly not down to Mayday simplicity. My goal is player drama and that IMO requires a certain amount of systems/resource damage/choice/repair.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The question actually becomes can Book 2 be converted to an FF&S style equation based build system.

Yes, of course. T5 did.

TNE and FF&S certainly solved all of those issues, but with admittedly some added complexity.

And added some problems, such as the only viable weapon was very high-powered lasers IIRC. They easily overpowered any defence, had better range than you could hit the enemy, and even small ships could do great damage to battlewagons. Why bother with silly things like nukes and meson guns?

FF&S is better as an explanation of how tech works, than an actual build system...

 

[Grav_Moped]

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

But then again, maybe not. Looking at the canon A2 is causing me some serious internal conflict.
Sure, I can try to correct it for size, but the internal layout is just annoying. And fixing that would make it "not canonical".

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Th S7 Far Trader is just a Far Trader, not the only Far Trader. By now both the Beowulf and the Empress Marava are equally canonical, in both A1 and A2 versions.

Make a better one!

 

[mike wightman]

The original far trader is jump 2 m1 pp1 (BAA) with 50t of fuel.
The revised version made necessary by the HGisation of the pp requirement is 222 (BBB) with 60t of fuel.
If you look at S7 you will see they actually mix them up too.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Th S7 Far Trader is just a Far Trader, not the only Far Trader. By now both the Beowulf and the Empress Marava are equally canonical, in both A1 and A2 versions.

Make a better one!

That's easy, and I'll probably get around to it at some point. But I'm not tackling the easy problem, I'm looking at the hard problem: resize the deck plans while roughly keeping the topology consistent with the Marava.

I mean, the first easy fix is to eliminate the drive bay access corridors on either side of the cargo hold, and replace them with a single one crossing above the cargo hold through the fuel tanks. But that changes the tactics of shipboard combat...

 

[atpollard]

That's easy, and I'll probably get around to it at some point. But I'm not tackling the easy problem, I'm looking at the hard problem: resize the deck plans while roughly keeping the topology consistent with the Marava.

I mean, the first easy fix is to eliminate the drive bay access corridors on either side of the cargo hold, and replace them with a single one crossing above the cargo hold through the fuel tanks. But that changes the tactics of shipboard combat...

The core idea of the ship is a two-deck central cargo hold with an upper walk along both sides.
Make it all CARGO in the center with narrow catwalks along both sides like in an industrial warehouse. That allows crew to walk along the top of a layer of TEUs on the lower level.

I think when I tried to fix it once for Avenger/Mongoose, I looked at a roll-on/roll-off ramp at the front as the primary cargo access. (my design never got far and was abandoned).

 

[Grav_Moped]

The core idea of the ship is a two-deck central cargo hold with an upper walk along both sides.
Make it all CARGO in the center with narrow catwalks along both sides like in an industrial warehouse. That allows crew to walk along the top of a layer of TEUs on the lower level.

I think when I tried to fix it once for Avenger/Mongoose, I looked at a roll-on/roll-off ramp at the front as the primary cargo access. (my design never got far and was abandoned).

Looked like a single deck of cargo under a single deck of fuel, at least the one I saw.

 

[Condottiere]

Alphabet drives are off the shelf products.

I kinda suspect the reason that free traders are two hundred tonne hulls, is because that's the optimal use of engineering, and possibly the bridge volume.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Alphabet drives are off the shelf products.

I kinda suspect the reason that free traders are two hundred tonne hulls, is because that's the optimal use of engineering, and possibly the bridge volume.

Absolutely. The LBB Standard Hull discount gives 200Td hulls a cost advantage when built for J1/1G/Pn-1; the 400Td Standard Hull is built for J2/2G/Pn-2 (with room to go up 1 letter of power plant). At J1/1G (Type R) it's only slightly better on a cost per payload ton than the Type A, and costs more up front.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The Scout is the cheapest way into space.
The Free Trader is the cheapest ship with a significant payload.
Profitability and opportunity starts at 400 Dt.
Basically LBB2 starts at 400 Dt, apart from marginal designs like the Scout and Free Trader that depend entirely on very rebated standard hulls. Note that a Fat Trader would still be profitable with a custom hull.


Free Trader (all cargo):

AL-2211111-000000-00000-0       MCr 32,9         200 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=3
batteries                                            TL=9
                         Cargo=122 Fuel=30 EP=2 Agility=1

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                   122        36,5
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined      200 Dt          2          200          
Configuration       Cone               2                     10
Scoops              Streamlined                                

                                                               
Jump Drive          A                  1    1      10        10
Manoeuvre D         A                  1    1       1         4
Power Plant         A                  1    1       4         8
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-1, 4 weeks            1      30          
                                                               
Bridge                                      1      20         1
Computer            m/1                1    1       1         2
                                                               
Staterooms                                  3      12         1,5
                                                               
Cargo                                             122          
                                                               
Nominal Cost        MCr 36,50            Sum:     122        36,5
Class Cost          MCr  4,02           Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 32,85

Barely profitable:

Estimated Economy of Ship     Standard                                    
       Ship price     Down Payment         Mortgage       Avg Filled
        MCr 32,85        kCr 6 570          kCr 137              80%
                                                               
Expenses per jump                       Revenue                
Bank                 Cr 65 700          High            Cr      0
Fuel                 Cr 15 000          Middle          Cr      0
Life Support         Cr  6 000          Low             Cr      0
Salaries             Cr  5 760          Cargo           Cr 96 000
Maintenance          Cr  1 314                                  
Berthing             Cr    200                                  
                                                               
Summa               kCr     94                         kCr     96
                                                               
     Income potential per jump     kCr 2                  
  Yearly yield on down payment      0,8%

Fat Trader (all cargo):

AL-4211111-000000-00000-0       MCr 63,0         400 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=4
batteries                                            TL=9
                         Cargo=263 Fuel=50 EP=4 Agility=1

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                   263        70
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined      400 Dt          4          400          
Configuration       Cone               2                     20
Scoops              Streamlined                                

Engineering                                        25          
Jump Drive          B                  1    1      15        20
Manoeuvre D         B                  1    1       3         8
Power Plant         B                  1    1       7        16
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-1, 4 weeks            1      50          
                                                               
Bridge                                      1      20         2
Computer            m/1                1    1       1         2
                                                               
Staterooms                                  4      16         2
                                                               
Cargo                                             263          
                                                               
Nominal Cost        MCr 70,00            Sum:     263        70
Class Cost          MCr  7,70           Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 63,00

Quite profitable, even with 25 Dt wasted in Engineering:

Estimated Economy of Ship     Standard                                    
       Ship price     Down Payment         Mortgage       Avg Filled
        MCr 63,00       kCr 12 600          kCr 263              80%
                                                               
Expenses per jump                       Revenue                
Bank                Cr 126 000          High           Cr       0
Fuel                Cr  25 000          Middle         Cr       0
Life Support        Cr   8 000          Low            Cr       0
Salaries            Cr   8 160          Cargo          Cr 208 000
Maintenance         Cr   2 520                                  
Berthing            Cr     400                                  
                                                               
Summa              kCr     170                        kCr     208
                                                               
     Income potential per jump     kCr 38                  
  Yearly yield on down payment      7,5%

 

[Condottiere]

You don't really get a lot of alternatives in Classic, except Alphabet off the shelf, and percentage based customized.

It should be noted, that prohibition of less than hundred tonne jump volume hasn't come into effect, yet, though one tonne engineering volume is.

 

[atpollard]

<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.

While I agree in principle, doesn't LBB5 actually represent more "Scout/Military" ships and LBB2 represent more "Civilian" ships ... so that logic should allow UNREFINED FUEL in LBB5 ships (where Fuel Purifiers are available in the rules). The Type S being a LBB2 exception to the Civilian Majority ship paradigm.

 

[atpollard]

There is always the "use the Fire, Fusion and Steel" ...

Has anyone EVER successfully used FF&S?
I can never design a ship twice and get the same results.

 

[atpollard]

Yes, of course. T5 did.

Thus the vast number of Fan Designed T5 ships (just like all the Fan Designed Ships for FF&S)
... There is a REASON LBB2 and LBB5 remain popular for designing Starships [Mongoose figured that out].

 

[atpollard]

Alphabet drives are off the shelf products.

I kinda suspect the reason that free traders are two hundred tonne hulls, is because that's the optimal use of engineering, and possibly the bridge volume.

There is an OFT IGNORED rule in some (if not all) versions of LBB2 that states that Drives and Power Plants (and ONLY Drives and Power Plants) may be placed in ENGINEERING ... and all those "Standard Hulls" have fixed "Engineering Section" volumes. I can't remember ever seeing a design that listed "unused engineering space" in the design, but I can remember a LOT of "standard Hull" discount prices.

It goes without saying that I have also never seen an OFFICIAL deck plan that seemed to follow that rule, either.

 

[atpollard]

It should be noted, that prohibition of less than hundred tonne jump volume hasn't come into effect, yet, though one tonne engineering volume is.

I ALWAYS wanted to challenge that ... and even found ways within the rules to make a small craft that inflates up to 100 dT just before it jumps.
I just never found a reason for anyone to build one other than DARPA or NASA or Skunkworks just proving that it can be done. It does NOTHING that the Type S doesn't already do except fit in a Small Craft Hanger.

 

[Grav_Moped]

There is an OFT IGNORED rule in some (if not all) versions of LBB2 that states that Drives and Power Plants (and ONLY Drives and Power Plants) may be placed in ENGINEERING ... and all those "Standard Hulls" have fixed "Engineering Section" volumes. I can't remember ever seeing a design that listed "unused engineering space" in the design, but I can remember a LOT of "standard Hull" discount prices.

It goes without saying that I have also never seen an OFFICIAL deck plan that seemed to follow that rule, either.

Type R. Its drives (Size C) are bigger than they need to be for rating-1, but even then the engine room fits Size D drives (rating-2).

 

[Condottiere]

I ALWAYS wanted to challenge that ... and even found ways within the rules to make a small craft that inflates up to 100 dT just before it jumps.
I just never found a reason for anyone to build one other than DARPA or NASA or Skunkworks just proving that it can be done. It does NOTHING that the Type S doesn't already do except fit in a Small Craft Hanger.

Solar sail, or solar panel, extensions, and since we're at classic, coated or implanted lanthanum grid.

Volume enclosed with fuel condom, though those extensions that recreational vehicles have could also work.