What would you like posted next?

[robject]

So very true, FFS is not backwards compatible. It was intended to replace all that came before it, and is all-inclusive. The assumption is that everyone would just follow along, rather than use old, outdated, outmoded, simplistic systems. The assumption, of course, is wrong.

New wine for new wineskins. If FFE/Marc has a vision, then that's a new iteration. I can't say it better than Scott, so I'll quote him.

If T5 goes forward, the only real reason to do this work is to put forwards a new "killer" rule set (which would have to have really simple design rules).

 

[aramis]

Further, MT can use HG designs simply by figuring hits for each area, if using vehicular rules, or unmodified if using the MT-HG combat rules.

 

[robject]

For the moment, I'm thinking that compatability is a good thing. I would, however, like to see that compatability originate from FFS2. The issue is: how far apart are HG and FFS2?

I don't mean as design systems, or by complexity. I mean in results. How far do designs diverge? Not in detail, but in gross results? Is a scout a scout? Does the difference show up with the large, battle-class ships? The mistake-laden Fusion Plus table?

If you took FFS2 ship designs and reformatted them into High-Guard stats, rounding numbers as needed and ignoring the complex bits, how close would they be, and where would they differ?

If they're close, say within 10%, then we can rebuild MT's ship design as High Guard-like tables, with data advice from FFS or FFS2 (or SSDS or QSDS) as needed.

Scott, I think we have to do this before we can rebuild Book 2.

I do not want these to be SSDS and QSDS clones, though. *Shudder*

 

[Scott Martin]

If you assume that an EP is ~100 MW then you are fairly close to compatible for TNE / CT. This will require some "reverse tweaking" of MT to make designs align, although this could be as simple as "multiply these numbers by 2.5 to convert to MT" since MT used the (striker) 250 MW per EP conversion factor

Armour and weaponry is more problematic, and I really can't comment on this until I see a proposal for the T5 starship combat system. I suspect that I will need to chat with aramis on the intricacies of MT vehicle combat, since that is the "gap" in my Traveller GMing.

If you are using a FF&S-like system and want it to be compatible with CT/MT then weapons are either going to get a lot more compact, or the "scale" will need to be adjusted (to much shorter ranges) so that 1 dT weapons can hit a target or carry a reasonable amount of ordinance (a 1 dT "can" will carry a single TNE missile with no room for the gunners station or control systems)

I could go on at length about specifics, but these are specific problems that will need to be addressed. Since all of this inter-relates, making decisions on power will have far-reaching consequences for the rest of the design and combat system, so it should be resolved first.

If we realize that we have made the wrong decision, we can always come back and clean it up later, but we need to realize that we made a mistake, which means calibrating on TL-12 designs, not TL-15 designs (and we should also look at the effects on TL 9-11 designs to make sure that they are still viable)

Scott Martin

 

[robject]

Wow, changing the value of EP. I was thinking about that this morning, while walking my dog. I like the idea, but I'm shocked that you brought it up. I wonder how many people would scream?

Aramis likes to use the vehicle combat system of MT, which relies upon penetration values for weapons (T4-like) and permits neat-o scaling from starships down to vehicles down to personnel. I believe it's from Striker, yes?

MT's actual starship combat rules are straight from High Guard.

Bit scary, calibrating on TL12.

 

[Scott Martin]

MT appears to be striker-derived. The problem with Striker is that the armour is power-series derived (8 factors is a doubling of armour) which is similar to what TNE/T4 do with most damage values being (sqrt(power)*some factor)

I don't know if this is also true for MT, but if so, then thicker armour will have a tendency to quantize in a very nasty fashion, making starship scale weapons largely incompatible with ground-based weapons systems. The HG / Striker interface was... troubled.

This may not be a bad thing, in exactly the same way that you would not expect a sherman tank to duke it out with a WW2 cruiser, but you need to realize the implications of the system proposed.

Aramis (or someone more familiar with MT than ME) could you please clarify whether this is still the case with MT? the easy check is that each 8 pts of armour require a doubling of armour thickness.

I can check this once I get home, but it will take me a while to find the section, and folks who have used this system for a while can probably find it just as quickly as I can find P-Plant yields in FF&S

Scott Martin

 

[Anthony]

The Megatraveller armor and damage values for small arms and personal armor are the same as the Striker values, so I suspect they use the same scale.

As far as compatibility between FF&S and High Guard: they are dissimilar in dramatic ways, because High Guard ignores mass. An armored buffered planetoid can easily weigh ten times as much as a fuel tender of the same displacement, and under High Guard the same M-drive will give them both the same acceleration. Under FF&S, the fuel tender accelerates ten times as fast.

Other than that, FF&S and High Guard have enough differences in their combat systems to result in completely different design principles.

 

[Scott Martin]

Confirmed: MT uses the same armour principles as Striker.

The result of this is that a "bare" penetration at low AV (AV+1) will have enough "oomph" to ppenetrate a small (2.5 mm of steel) amount of additional armour, while the same penetration at a high AV will have enough penetration left over to go through a LOT of additional material (in the meters or tens of meters range at the upper end of the table). This may be an intentional result, it may not, but it wreaks merry he** with component armour, or determining the actual armour of (for example) battledress troops in an APC.

IMO this means that we will want to consider a different armour system from the one that MT uses, although I note that MT uses the formula that I proposed for figuring out how much armour needs to be added (figure out your thickness, multiply by a magic factor for thickness and weight and you're done)

Anthony:
I've been pushing volume-based thrusters for a while now. No-one but the hard-core gearhead really cares about thrust/weight ratios, and one of the strengths of CT was the fact that we didn't care what was *in* a ship, a fat trader loaded with 200 dT of bonded superdense still accellerated at 1G, the same as if it was empty (and a planetoid hulled behemoth with a HG Armour factor of 21 could still pull 6Gs)

If T5 is going to have a combat system compatible with tanks etc. then the "factor" stuff either needs to go away, or a "factor" needs to contribute a specific, discrete amount of penetration / damage. The other alternative is to have a "2 tier" combat system, one at the "starships and deep space" level and another at the "ground engagement" level. While this sounds somewhat scary, the dual mode is just as workable, but would require more bookkeeping in "combined arms" combats. Again, with pre-prepared forms for "standard" ships provided for each of these modes, it shuld be basically seamless (at least from the player point of view) and since most RPG games revolve around a single ship (regardless of how tricked out it may be) preperation of this form (or forms) for the PC's ship should only need to happen once (or be updated *very* periodically after major refits)

Scott Martin

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Look! In that little black box! Is it an RPG? A wargame? No, it's ... !

 

[aramis]

Scott:

caveat 1: The ratings sections of MT give all the needed data for using non-HG combat. Doing so does not integrate with MTHG, but it does exist for the purposes here In the rules.
caveat 2: This presumes that one allows (at +1 diff) pinpoint shots to allow the (Pen more than 0.1AV)=x.1 damage
caveat 3: one does not apply the minimum for exceptional successes.
caveat 4: one does apply the x10 dp multiplier from MT Ref's Screen.

In practice, the top end of the MT personal weapons can get non-penetrating damage in... we're talking LAW and PGMP type weapons.

An MT TL5 MBT is a threat to a low-flying starship... but only on a lucky hit, and only if a critical component is hit. Overflying a squadron/company of armor is not a healthy thing for a sub-kiloton-displacement craft... as 12-24 tanks can usually kill either the PP or the maneuver drive.

A ship's laser can toast an infantry company quickly...

A ship's laser is a decent armament for a SHGBT (superheavy Gravitic Battle Tank)

Trepidas can serve (using MT rules) as LEO-capable air-to-air platforms. Think of them as surface to LEO versions of the Apache.... but with better guns.

TL13-15 MBT's can, in 3-5 tank platoon units, take out 100-200 Td ships. In companies, they are threats to all sub-kiloton ships.

Yes, thick armor is thick armor. However, due to the different handling of armor, you need MUCH thicker armor in MT to be proofed against the heavy weapons than in Striker.

===========
Striker: If AV exceeds Pen by 12, no damage will result, ever.
MT: If AV exceeds Pen by more than 10x the factor, no damage will result.

So: Pen 3 rifles... Max Striker AV penetrated is 14. Max MT is 30. Not going to hurt a starship. Max MT non-pinpoint is AV 6.

Pen 6 HE small arms rounds: Striker pens up to 17; MT normal limit 12, Pinpoint limit 60. Even lightly armored HG designs now at risk; most MT civilian ships subject to pinpoint shots.

The Pen 30 FGMP gets a No-Pen damaging hit on just about all shipping. Pinpoint shots will hurt even main-line battle craft... and does double damage to Battle Dress 12 and lighter armors...

===== =====

Truth be told, several things do make this much different if you change the caveat conditions.

If you disallow pinpoint for minimal damage, many starships can't even hurt each other, let alone be hurt by small arms in the slightest.

If you use the minimum damage by success level, then those pinpoint shots get MUCH nastier individually, but far less so in group fires. I'm good with that, and that is how the rules read...

If you don't use the x10 DP rule, then a scoutship's drives have the same hits as a wuss PC... much better armor, but no more damage capability... and a lucky shot from an ACR (x8 damage from hit, x0.1 damage from pinpoint hit from Pen4 ACR DS, damage base 3 = 8x3/10=2.4; given the pen 6 Damage 4 HEAP, that's 3.2... the minimum for that hit level is 4 points, BTW...) this would represent an aimed, stabilized shot by a sniper, mind you... and the engine can only take about 2 points and still work....

If we do go with a separated pen/damage system, we need to adjust armor scale versus pen so that the break points match the ratios.

MT's are When pen is at least:
2xAV = x1 damage
1xAV = 0.5 damage
0.1xAV = 0.1 damage on pinpoint hit only


This is hard to use.
I instead use
1xAV = x1
0.5xAV = x0.5
0.1xAV= 0.1

If we go this way, batteries simply cumulate damage, with no changes to pen...

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Aramis:

A ship's laser can toast an infantry company quickly...

A ship's laser is a decent armament for a SHGBT (superheavy Gravitic Battle Tank)

Trepidas can serve (using MT rules) as LEO-capable air-to-air platforms. Think of them as surface to LEO versions of the Apache.... but with better guns.

These are nice benchmarks...

 

[Scott Martin]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Scott:
<Snip>
caveat 2: This presumes that one allows (at +1 diff) pinpoint shots to allow the (Pen more than 0.1AV)=x.1 damage

I had to look at this a couple of times to decide if this was brilliant or insane. I'm tending towards insane, largely because of MT's lograthmic armour scale. Note that a bunch of this is in the context of "MT the Wargame" instead of "MT as an RPG" where a referee may want cinematic effect.

Think about this one:
With a revolver (nominal penetration 2) you are a threat to a WW2 light cruiser (belt thickness 2")
With a light rifle you are a threat to a heavy cruiser (belt armour 4-5") and with a rifle (Pen 5 although this may be a typo given the errata issues MT is plagued with) you are a threat to any battleship ever built (AV 50 is 31" of steel armour) The ACR with DS ammo (Pen 6) can do damage through the steel blast doors at cheyenne mountain...

I understand that this was written so that a "skilled" player could hurt a heavily armoured opponent, but because of the way that the system is built (with log armour) this is really scary. For "cinematic effect" I can see that you would want something like this, but if I want "Cinema" I'll play Star Hero

If I were to use MT (and ths type of rule) I'd notice that the armour scale was logrithmic, and say that you can make this kind of shot against AV+8 or AV+16 (2x or 4x nominal thickness) or perhaps even AV+26 (10x nominal thickness) this would have the useful side effect of making it possible for a player to use their concealed pistol to hurt (or at least suppress) a heavily armoured opponent.

I *do* really like the ability to glom groups together and treat them as units, although I have a problem with averaging their AV.

The other issue with MT penetration-as-damage that I notice is that by using DS ammunition you can do more damage. If this used the TNE convention of a penetration multiplier, then you could have ACR pen 4, DS pen 2 with a 1/5 AV multiplier (so penetration up to AV 10, but max damage against an unarmoured opponent of 2 dp)

Does this make sense, or am I deeply confused by MT?

Scott Martin

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Scott Martin:
Anthony:
I've been pushing volume-based thrusters for a while now.

My preferred drive is a field effect pseudovelocity (basically, STL warp drive) system, since it's (a) volume-based, and (b) really cuts down on the problem of kinetic kill weapons.

The megatraveller damage system is incoherent, given that it's log-based above a value of 10. A consistent method would be:
DV >= AV+8 or DV >= AV*2 (if AV < 8): Full
DV >= AV: Half
DV >= AV-27 and DV >= AV/10: 1/10 on pinpoint hit.

 

[mike wightman]

Isn't this all a bit too math intensive for a rpg combat system?

 

[robject]

Yes... and no. It all depends on the Burrito Principle: if you can hide the detail for 80% of all encounters, then some complexity for complex situations may be okay. It just depends on how much "Huffman coding" you can do.

Such as presuming PM=1 for small firearms.

 

[aramis]

Essentially, it boils down to this: A pinpoint hit represents exploiting some less armored point.

Now, the 1/10 damage mod puts pinpoint hits well outside the realm of major threats.

Also, given MT (and Striker) high-tech armor materials, I've used designs with AVs into the 70's... beyond even pinpoint hits. Think of a pinpoint hit as dropping a slug into the air intake or periscope glass.

I think (based upon various bits in various places) that MT was done the way it was due to a need to make small arms a threat.

One can, however, easily use a linear scale for armor, and the same basic ideas.

Also, the pinpoint hit rule specifically excludes "uniform rigid armored faces." So if you hide under a DV 50 box, you need at least Pen 25 to get in (which probably represents a spall by a round that can penetrate the square root of the mm of steel equivalent), and pen 100 (ship-scale weapon) to get "Full direct penetration".

Also, the x1/10 damage puts most pinpoint hits in the fractional hit range... typical direct slug weapons do damage 3... so x0.1 is 0.3 base, 0.15 (=0) on exact, 0.3 (=0) on made by 1, 0.6 (=1) on made by 2-3, 1.2 (=1) on make by 4-7, and 2.4 (=2) on made b y 8. So, given short range (Simple), Pinpoint (Now Routine=7+) one needs an 11+ to actually damage, and a 15+ to do more than one point, on 2d6 + (Dex/5 (FRD)) + Skill.
Since most fire occurs at routine base, that puts only the best snipers (DM+7 between stat and skill) able to get damage in the two point range... hitting small exposed components, like, say, cracking a connection on the radiators for PP hits, or breaking a grid nodule. Longer ranged fire can't get more than a single hit, due to the DM+8 limit.

On a MBT, the equivalent is cracking a cotter pin or bolt on the running gear, dropping a round into the weapon's traverse or elevation joint, or otherwise doing those annoying but rare shots.

I don't think the logarithmic nature hit Joe and Gary...

I think pinpoint was originally meant for things like shooting the face of a BD troopie, or hitting the controls of the air-raft, or shorting the grav plates, or similar.

Switch to linear armor, and the system works just as well.

Also, remember, Pen is also logarithmic. (Striker.)

It makes for good play. Without the pinpoint hits, only the baddest hand-helds have any chances against a ship, or even a MBT. It's not exactly realism, but it's good for play.

And I have used MT as a wargame.

Averaging AV is just fine... most of the time, the AV difference in units is nil anyway...

 

[Scott Martin]

Originally posted by Aramis:
<SNIP>
I don't think the logarithmic nature hit Joe and Gary...
<SNIP>
Switch to linear armor, and the system works just as well.

Also, remember, Pen is also logarithmic. (Striker.)

Switch to linear armour and the mechanics of the system works better.

One of the main issues is that damage from a kinetic weapon is somewhat lograthmic. If you feel like wading through the math, look here: http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Miscarmr.htm

If you double the calibre of a weapon you will roughly double its penetration, but this round has 4x the energy. so penetration (at least of solid slugs against homogenous plate defences) approaches (sqrt (energy) ) The previously referenced article deals with multiple plates and angles of incidence, so my examless have simplified matters to be point blank fire at a target face 90 degrees to the angle of incidence.

To back this up a bit: 8" gun penetration at PB is 12 inches, 16" gun penetration is 32.62" (http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-45_mk6.htm and http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.htm) note that the 8" round uses a ~100 lb propellant charge, while the 16" round uses roughly a 660 lb charge, so the energy difference is roughly a factor of 6, the penetration difference is roughly a factor of (sqrt (6) )

This means that penetration approximates some constant x sqrt(energy) against linear armour. Striker used log armour *and* log penetration.

It makes for good play. Without the pinpoint hits, only the baddest hand-helds have any chances against a ship, or even a MBT. It's not exactly realism, but it's good for play.

And I have used MT as a wargame.

Averaging AV is just fine... most of the time, the AV difference in units is nil anyway...

You'll notice I provided an alternative for "pinpoint" fire that actually maps to Striker log armour, I'm still trying to come up with a good alternative to "armour averaging" for a heterogenous group... I think that this is a good mechanic, and we should steal the idea for T5, I'm just trying to figure out a good way of doing it that allows the combination of *any* units (a good example would be a merc battledress equipped force used as a "stiffener" for a bunch of colonial levies)

<Edit> My real issue with MT armour is that the game mechanics of "half" or "10x" isn't what you would logically expect. I'd exect this to be either half or 10x the thickness, or protection. In actuality because of the scale for armour values (linear to ~10, then logarithmic) this varies wildly: 10x AV of 2 (the difference between 2 and 20) is a significantly different *factor* than 10x an AV of 6 (the diffeerence between 6 and 60) </Edit>

Scott Martin

 

[robject]

I see the same thing as Wil; when working with conglomerate units, such as infantry, there's not really any difference in AV.

There might be a larger difference with small craft and starships, but I suppose if it's a concern then you just choose your groupings differently. Voila.

 

[mike wightman]

Why are conglomerate unit rules needed for a RPG?

For a wargame supplement possibly...

 

[aramis]

Because a major subgenre of Traveller has always been Mercenary Units.

Very few games really do the military genre well. MT does, at least using the conglomerate rules.

It also allows you to use "Police Squads" as squads, and not have to track individual constables.

See, in MT Conglom, I can just multiply "Officer McDuff" and his Hits and Damage by the size of the squad. They act as one, fire as one. Take damage as one.

See, the problem I've found is that most other RPG's using conglomerate units go between individuals and one size of unit only. MT's works not only with any chosen size unit, but also with mixed unit sizes. Your PC need not be put into a squad in MT mass combats... sure, if a company fires at him, he's toast, but that's pretty likely anyway. But my 3 squads versus your platoon are just fine. Or my 15 platoons versus your 3 Battalions.

If you haven't done the Mercs & Marines genre, you might not see the value. Once you have, however, it makes others pale.