What works? How are ships and vehicles armed?

[whartung]

Agreed, better range than any other weapon, but even more importantly, better penetration than anything else.
High-powered lasers basically ignore armour.

The truly "game breaking" nature of lasers is that they scale to enormous sizes. Normally this would be constrained by the mirrors and lenses, but with gravitic focusing, that's all out the window.

On the other hand, if you can have a spinal PA, "why not" a spinal laser. But then you get into issues of beam size, so even with all the power, the beam would be over a larger area, diminishing the value of that power. 10,000Mj in .5mm beam, even with gravitic focusing, just not sure how practical that would be without melting something important on the way.

Maybe its a meter wide beam that is gravitic focused down to pencil lead size.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Spinal Mount Lasers would (most likely) be Beam Lasers that can be "swept" across a hull to slice it apart with ruthless efficiency.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The truly "game breaking" nature of lasers is that they scale to enormous sizes. Normally this would be constrained by the mirrors and lenses, but with gravitic focusing, that's all out the window.

You don't need enormous size, just decent power.

A MCr 1 laser barbette is easily better than a MCr 115 large PA bay:

Both penetrates ~800 points of armour at short range, the laser still does it at maximum range, unlike the PA bay.
The laser emitter itself is tiny, only the capacitor takes any space.

 

[Rupert]

Not really overpowered, but at extremely silly ranges given the other reality-emulation rules attempts.

As written, TNE/FF&S lasers have no cap on power, and their penetration scales linearly with energy, rather than with the square root (which is what every other weapon does), so very large lasers beat everything else. At the low end (turrets) they out-damage and out-range meson guns (and meson guns are rate of fire capped at a lower RoF than lasers or PAWS), and out-range and out penetrate PAWS. The popular fix in the day was to cap laser output energy at 50xTL MJ (which is still a pretty powerful and effective weapon).

Missiles depended on whether you were facing official book designs, or custom-made weapons, and whether the missiles were standard 'book' ones or custom jobs (and also whether you were using TNE/Brilliant Lances or Battle Rider).

 

[Rupert]

The truly "game breaking" nature of lasers is that they scale to enormous sizes. Normally this would be constrained by the mirrors and lenses, but with gravitic focusing, that's all out the window.

At TL13+ (i.e. x-ray lasers) you don't need gravitic focussing, and if you're pumping up the RoF (and you should be), that's a very attractive option because non-gravitic lasers are far more energy efficient.

On the other hand, if you can have a spinal PA, "why not" a spinal laser. But then you get into issues of beam size, so even with all the power, the beam would be over a larger area, diminishing the value of that power. 10,000Mj in .5mm beam, even with gravitic focusing, just not sure how practical that would be without melting something important on the way.

Maybe its a meter wide beam that is gravitic focused down to pencil lead size.

A wide mirror/lens (for range) means that the beam isn't very intense (relatively speaking) at the mount, but is focussed down to be very intense at the target. As there's no atmosphere to get turned to annoying plasma, etc. in space, this would work (aside from the physics bending quality of even non-gravitic lenses, etc., but if you're wanting a realy hard-physics game, Traveller is not for you).

 

[Rupert]

You don't need enormous size, just decent power.

A MCr 1 laser barbette is easily better than a MCr 115 large PA bay:
View attachment 5976
Both penetrates ~800 points of armour at short range, the laser still does it at maximum range, unlike the PA bay.
The laser emitter itself is tiny, only the capacitor takes any space.

It's worse than that. A PAWS has a maximum tunnel diameter of Length x 0.125, so the biggest tunnel that can be fitted in a bay is 16m long by 2m diameter. That gives an effective range of 16 (length) x 1 (length multip[lier) x 3.1416 (area) x 4 (focal mulitplier) = ~201,000 km at TL15, so you'd use a 6 hex range beam pointer.

FF&S2 allowed circular PAWS, but they only had improved damage, not range. As it also changed lasers to not have improving penetration modifiers with energy, it also changed the balance between them. Pity that the book is so hard to use.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's worse than that. A PAWS has a maximum tunnel diameter of Length x 0.125, so the biggest tunnel that can be fitted in a bay is 16m long by 2m diameter. That gives an effective range of 16 (length) x 1 (length multip[lier) x 3.1416 (area) x 4 (focal mulitplier) = ~201,000 km at TL15, so you'd use a 6 hex range beam pointer.

Thanks, I had missed that.

You can get slightly more default range (at less damage) with an N-PAW, rather than a C-PAW:


So, the PA bay will penetrate armour ~85 @ ~7 hexes.
The laser barbette will penetrate armour 816 @ 80 hexes.

 

[Spinward Flow]

So, the PA bay will penetrate armour ~85 @ ~7 hexes.
The laser barbette will penetrate armour 816 @ 80 hexes.

There's a mildly famous phrase that covers this kind of "game mechanical whoopsie!"

Broken As Intended™

 

[Rupert]

Thanks, I had missed that.

You can get slightly more default range (at less damage) with an N-PAW, rather than a C-PAW:

The column for C-PAWS is for single mode only C-PAWS. All N-PAWS use the other (worse) column. This is noted just above the table itself, so unfortunately, N-PAWS will continue to suck.

Mind you, in my experience the main limitation of small PAWS is actually their limited damage, capped by tunnel length. Note that meson guns have the opposite problem - their range is capped by length, but damage is based on diameter (though not explicitly, this is how it works out) and there's no cap on meson gun diameter.

Large spinal PAWS are weird, too - they end up really thin, and the tunnel takes up a tiny (for its performance) volume.

By the way, unless you're giving a space combat weapon a huge RoF (400/800), it's not really worth worrying about damage past 40 hexes, because you can't hit anything much past that anyway without the bonus from very high RoF. This would be to the detriment of very long ranged lasers if focal array volume was actually very significant.

Oh, also, large PAWS and meson guns need more crew, lasers only ever need the gunner (and they might be sitting at a MFD, controlling multiple lasers).

Basically, while I love FF&S, it wasn't exposed to enough munchkins during playtesting. I'd probably cap lasers at something quite low, like TL x 25 MJ, which allows all the listed 'standard' lasers, but not anything much more powerful than those. This keeps lasers as the preferred turret weapon, but prevents them overshadowing spinal PAWS and meson guns (PAWS and meson bays will probably still suck, though). Alternatively, fixing the armour penetration divisor is an option, but that doesn't fix the range issue, and it probably makes small ones too weak or allows large ones to remain too strong.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The column for C-PAWS is for single mode only C-PAWS. All N-PAWS use the other (worse) column. This is noted just above the table itself, so unfortunately, N-PAWS will continue to suck.

Ha, I managed to screw that up too... Thanks. Fixed.

By the way, unless you're giving a space combat weapon a huge RoF (400/800), it's not really worth worrying about damage past 40 hexes, because you can't hit anything much past that anyway without the bonus from very high RoF. This would be to the detriment of very long ranged lasers if focal array volume was actually very significant.

Yes, of course, but it's practically just pouring more power. The difference in the weapon systems are not all that great.

Basically, while I love FF&S, it wasn't exposed to enough munchkins during playtesting.

Presumably, but lasers is the only major problem that I can remember for starships. I guess it's even worse for vehicles, as you can use even higher powered cartridge lasers.

I'd probably cap lasers at something quite low, like TL x 25 MJ, which allows all the listed 'standard' lasers, but not anything much more powerful than those. This keeps lasers as the preferred turret weapon, but prevents them overshadowing spinal PAWS and meson guns (PAWS and meson bays will probably still suck, though).

Still to good at high tech?
TL-15:

Even a laser turret with a 180 MJ pulse is much better than the PA bay.

Alternatively, fixing the armour penetration divisor is an option, but that doesn't fix the range issue, and it probably makes small ones too weak or allows large ones to remain too strong.

You would have to taper off penetration, damage, and range.
Penetration and damage would be fairly easy, just make sure they multiplied together obey the same power law as other weapons.

The obvious solution is to disallow gravitic focussing, as that is listed as optional tech. Here TL-15:

Still great range, but damage and penetration tapers off.
A laser bay is still dangerous for small ships at extreme range, but requires a massive amount of power.

On the other hand lasers would be completely nerfed at TL-12 and lower...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Alternatively, fixing the armour penetration divisor is an option, but that doesn't fix the range issue, and it probably makes small ones too weak or allows large ones to remain too strong.

You would have to taper off penetration, damage, and range.
Penetration and damage would be fairly easy, just make sure they multiplied together obey the same power law as other weapons.

After some thought and experimentation:
Cap the Range Factor at 100. No more unlimited range at TL13+.
Replace intensity I = DE / R² with I = 10 × √(DE / R²), giving the same result for DE = 100 MJ and tapering off intensity, hence damage and penetration for higher powered lasers.

Result at TL=15 (standard turret and barbette included for comparison):


and TL=12:


Seems about right?
The turrets and barbettes are about where we would expect them.
The high-powered bay laser is a fearsome weapon, but still no unlimited range and still vulnerable to sandcasters.
Lasers are high penetration, but low damage, as expected.

 

[Rupert]

Still to good at high tech?
TL-15:
View attachment 5983
Even a laser turret with a 180 MJ pulse is much better than the PA bay.

That's why I noted that bays will continue to suck. But at least there won't be spinal lasers.

You would have to taper off penetration, damage, and range.
Penetration and damage would be fairly easy, just make sure they multiplied together obey the same power law as other weapons.

That's the complicated way, and it means having to choose some point (probably about 144-150 MJ, as that's about where canon turret lasers sit), and accepting that if more powerful lasers are weakened, less powerful lasers will get a buff. That means the damage conversion for anti-personal lasers will also need to change.

The obvious solution is to disallow gravitic focussing, as that is listed as optional tech. Here TL-15:
View attachment 5984
Still great range, but damage and penetration tapers off.
A laser bay is still dangerous for small ships at extreme range, but requires a massive amount of power.

Anything does with that RoF, and non-gravitic focussed lasers are the least power hungry beam weapon.

On the other hand lasers would be completely nerfed at TL-12 and lower...

And that's the problem, given the idea is to have it look at least somewhat like earlier versions. Having TL13+ ships utterly dominate lower TL ones simply by standing off out of reach is a possibly interesting setting, but it's not Traveller as it was in CT/MT.

 

[Spinward Flow]

And that's the problem, given the idea is to have it look at least somewhat like earlier versions. Having TL13+ ships utterly dominate lower TL ones simply by standing off out of reach is a possibly interesting setting, but it's not Traveller as it was in CT/MT.

For one thing, in LBB5.80 combat ... lasers are "best" at short range and "worse" (-1DM to hit) at long range.

 

[mike wightman]

Have you tried adapting the laser equations over at Atomic Rockets?

Beam Weapons - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Have you tried adapting the laser equations over at Atomic Rockets?

FF&S lasers are built on real physics, but as that didn't lead to workable space weapons (unless extremely short wavelengths are used) gravitic focussing were introduced.

But, no, I'm not interested in building a new system...

 

[whartung]

I think the plan seems sound.

You have to consider the attenuation of the laser over distance. The ranges are, like, greater than 10 Lunar diameters. Which is far away!

And, years ago, I recall the story about shooting a laser from the earth to the moon, and by the time it gets there it's, like, 14 feet in diameter.

Mind I have no idea if they've managed to reduce that today, especially by orders of magnitude, but it readily demonstrates the problem.

 

[Rupert]

I think the plan seems sound.

You have to consider the attenuation of the laser over distance. The ranges are, like, greater than 10 Lunar diameters. Which is far away!

And, years ago, I recall the story about shooting a laser from the earth to the moon, and by the time it gets there it's, like, 14 feet in diameter.

Mind I have no idea if they've managed to reduce that today, especially by orders of magnitude, but it readily demonstrates the problem.

A hex in TNE is 30,000km (~0.1 Light Seconds), and maximum theoretical range for a beam weapon is 80 hexes. The practical range if the target capable of any manoeuvre at all (i.e. isn't on an unpowered tracjectory/orbit) is a bit over half that, depending on target size, target evasion, firer's fire control, weapon rate of fire, & etc.

That means that Earth's 100 diameter limit is about 43 hexes, and thus everything inside it is reachable by orbiting laser systems and large deep-site meson guns. So, if you've ever wondered why anyone would try a sub-100 diameter jump, now you know.

 

[Badenov]

So has anyone actually played this out with CT ships? I don't have TNE, so can't comment on any of that discussion. The limitations for TCS seem wildly arbitrary and not how ships would be made if they were intended to be matched against enemies intent on maximizing firepower. This is all at TL15, because if I'm going to optimize, I'm going to optimize, and there's too many things that TL15 brings to the table to focus on lower TL first.

I keep getting wrapped in circles:
The most efficient in terms of cost per spinal is a 10,000T SDB with a Meson N, and you can get 12 in a J-3 carrier for just under 250,000MCr (including the riders). They're Agility 6 and Size +0, so a Spinal Meson needs a 10 to hit them, and a Pilot 3 makes that an 11. That's a difficult hit.

But the 10,000T SDBs can be hit more easily by a 20,000T ship with a Spinal Particle T, which gets one auto-crit for size and hits on a 7 or better against the above SDBs. The auto crit is not a guaranteed kill, but it's a good chance of either pulling a ship's teeth or leaving it helpless for follow-up hits with a meson. Perfect for hunting down the 10,000T SDBs, though at 20,000T, they're +1 to be hit.

So if I bump the 10,000T Meson N SDBs to 20,000T, they're no longer subject to auto-crits from Particle Spinals, but they're +1 easier to hit for size and you can only cram half as many into the carrier. That +1 still makes them a 10-or-better target, which is far from guaranteed, but they take twice the hits as they used to compared to the 10,000T versions. So one other benefit of moving up to 20,000T is I can upgrade from a Meson N to Meson R, though I have half the spinals I had perviously in my carrier, so half the firepower. The Particle spinals still hit and degrade my weapons, but they don't auto-crit, so not super useful and my defense should focus on Meson Spinals. Ironically, without the Particle Spinals in the opposition, those original 10,000T Meson Spinals are a better pick: the smaller ships are cheaper, harder to hit, and cram twice as many into my carrier space.

I'm only dealing with SDBs and riders at this point because I think Jump-capable warships are at too much of a disadvantage: As I understand it, the Fuel-1 hit takes 10% of your total fuel capacity. If you've just spent a week in jump, your Jump tank is empty and your power plant fuel is 1 week lower. That means 2-3 Fuel-1 hits (depending on ship specifics) with that Particle Spinal will take you out. Three is unlikely, but 2 is entirely possible given 19 rolls, and neither case is worth the risk when it takes 10 hits at 10% per hit for the SDB to get takes out by a fuel tank kill.

So I seem to be in a spiral of 'If the enemy has X, I should Y, and knowing what an enemy has in a system is absolutely vital to the tactical choices you make about what to bring to a fight.

 

[whartung]

So has anyone actually played this out with CT ships?

Try it and see. Grab a spreadsheet, knock out some ships, contrive a couple of fleets, point them at each other and let the dice fly.

After a few rounds you should have a feeling how it's going to go.

Let us know what you find out.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So has anyone actually played this out with CT ships?

It's called TCS = Trillion Credit Squadron, one of the classic Traveller adventures.

Yes, it's been done, many times...

One tournament-winning fleet can be found in JTAS#10.