LeperColony
Traveller Card Game Dev Team
Personally, I've always found the idea of huge dreadnoughts to be kinda cool...
Why all the hate for large ships?
- Thread starter LeperColony
- Start date
LeperColony
Traveller Card Game Dev Team
Oh yeah, for sure. I really like his ship designs. I meant "hate" in a humorous way. In a larger sense, I guess what I'm asking is if there is something people don't like about big ships, or if there is a particular appeal to the way the universe would have to work with only small ships.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I wouldn't say I've seen hate, probably distaste as much as anything. For me it's a bit belief suspender snapping and a bit pointless excess.
For the first part there's the stress properties to consider that make huge ships a bit unrealistic, at least without losing some percentage to structural integrity which the rules are too simple to factor.
For the second part it's "Why build a super dreadnought?" ...if 100 (or 1000, or 10,000, or... ) smaller ships can field the same performance and firepower? And in Traveller they pretty much can. An armada allows more tactical options than a single death starship and can't be taken out with a single shot by a lone interface fighter*.
IF Traveller required a minimum hull size for certain advantageous installations then I could see it but the rules are too undifferentiated for that. Maneuver, Jump, even most weapons can be maxed on a hull from 10tons up. The only minor advantages come from Bays (needing 1000ton hull, still a small ship) and Spinals (needing about 10,000ton hull, and arguable still a small ship). What's the point of building a 100,000ton destroyer? Or a 1,000,000ton super destroyer? And those don't even come close to the tonnage of the BIG HollyWood spaceships.
* obvious Star Wars reference, but at least in that universe the Death Star had to be that big (presumably so at least) because it was the minimum size one can build an ion cannon (?) with enough punch to obliterate a whole world in one shot... not that such a weapon makes a lot of sense in the first place, and again because an armada would have been superior in every way, imo
For the first part there's the stress properties to consider that make huge ships a bit unrealistic, at least without losing some percentage to structural integrity which the rules are too simple to factor.
For the second part it's "Why build a super dreadnought?" ...if 100 (or 1000, or 10,000, or... ) smaller ships can field the same performance and firepower? And in Traveller they pretty much can. An armada allows more tactical options than a single death starship and can't be taken out with a single shot by a lone interface fighter*.
IF Traveller required a minimum hull size for certain advantageous installations then I could see it but the rules are too undifferentiated for that. Maneuver, Jump, even most weapons can be maxed on a hull from 10tons up. The only minor advantages come from Bays (needing 1000ton hull, still a small ship) and Spinals (needing about 10,000ton hull, and arguable still a small ship). What's the point of building a 100,000ton destroyer? Or a 1,000,000ton super destroyer? And those don't even come close to the tonnage of the BIG HollyWood spaceships.
* obvious Star Wars reference, but at least in that universe the Death Star had to be that big (presumably so at least) because it was the minimum size one can build an ion cannon (?) with enough punch to obliterate a whole world in one shot... not that such a weapon makes a lot of sense in the first place, and again because an armada would have been superior in every way, imo
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In a rpg sense, a super-dreadnaught is a dungeon crawl mostly. I think there is a textural difference to the themes between of the big/small ship dichotomy universes. Though I think a lot of what the threads are about is keeping the game simple, just LBB1-3; being a big fan of CT I can see why.
Traveller has always aimed for "Semi-Realistic"... and big ships ain't.
A big ship that has a single drive cluster will be breaking structural spars under 1G at about 50KTd. Depending upon hull-form, at 10KTd. Square-Cube law.
Meaning your structure volume (ignored outside of TNE & T4) needs to climb as the 1.5th power of the volume.
Or, you build big ships as a cluster of sub-ships bound together, but then you hamper maneuverability... and make combat damage take off whole sections.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Nah - the magical acceleration compensators deal with all that.
steventirey1985
SOC-12
With Traveller limiting ships to a single spinal mount, and weapons topping out at the 100 ton bay (I think thats the biggest, not sure though), and armor having a maximum amount you can put on a ship, there is no real benefit to really big ships. Why make a 500 thousand ton ship when 10 50k ton ships can have the same amount of armor, more firepower (10 spinal mounts compared to only 1), and the ability to be in 10 different locations at once? Not to mention, losing one won't be a big impact on your fleet as compared to loosing he 500k ton ship. As it is, a fleet of smaller ships with the same total tonnage as the huge ship is better.
Now, if there were weapons (or other things) only larger ships could mount, or let really big ships mount spinal weapons as "really huge turrets" (if a 10,000 ton ship can have a spinal mount, why can't there be 10,000 ton turrets? Other then being ridiculously big, whats the problem?), or better/more armor then smaller ships, then big ships may become more viable.
Its not really that big ships are hated. Its that while the system allows them to be built, there is no good reason to build one.
Now, if there were weapons (or other things) only larger ships could mount, or let really big ships mount spinal weapons as "really huge turrets" (if a 10,000 ton ship can have a spinal mount, why can't there be 10,000 ton turrets? Other then being ridiculously big, whats the problem?), or better/more armor then smaller ships, then big ships may become more viable.
Its not really that big ships are hated. Its that while the system allows them to be built, there is no good reason to build one.
At one G? You're serious about that? One cannot build a structure larger than 50Kdt on an earth-type planet IYTU? Or presumably, not even larger than 10Kdt because a skyscraper probably isn't the most advantageous hull form?
EDIT: We did have this discussion before, didn't we? And I did demonstrate that using these formulas, it is quite possible to build large ships with several Gs of acceleration in Traveller, didn't I?
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LeperColony
Traveller Card Game Dev Team
Does TNE's system change things at all, or can small ships do everything big ships can in that system as well?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Tut tut, you should know better than that.
It is established canon that Traveller ships are equipped with acceleration compensators that negate manoeuvre acceleration effects for the ship.
If you like I'll quote chapter and verse but I think you already know it
For me, its not so much 'big ships', as masses of weapons, really, masses and masses of weapons.
But I think also, I can imagine what a small ship might be like, an organic warship the likes of which I'm familiar with from modern naval documentaries. When I imagine a big ship, I get images of the interior of the Death Star, or some vast floating office block. Of endlessly repeating decks, you know, like the AHL!
But I think also, I can imagine what a small ship might be like, an organic warship the likes of which I'm familiar with from modern naval documentaries. When I imagine a big ship, I get images of the interior of the Death Star, or some vast floating office block. Of endlessly repeating decks, you know, like the AHL!
Anyways: If I had free hand to re-imagine Traveller, it would be a medium-ship universe, with a typical Battleship at about 20,000 dtons, instead of ten times as large as it is in the OTU. My reasons:
- Smaller ships are not suitably impressive. For a "big" science fiction universe, it is somewhat of a letdown if the biggest ship is smaller than even a comparably modest modern-day cargo vessel.
- On the other hand, for the canonical ship sizes, the scaling does not work very well. A ship in the "PC-size" range is simply an insignificant speck, instead of being a normal-sized escort. In my medium ship universe, a ship of 400 tons would be in the destroyer escort range - a credible warship, if a small one.
- Rules-wise, ships in the lower range of 10s of kdtons are the upper limit of what you can reasonably manage if you're keeping the current number of weapons per hull size.
- Smaller ships are not suitably impressive. For a "big" science fiction universe, it is somewhat of a letdown if the biggest ship is smaller than even a comparably modest modern-day cargo vessel.
- On the other hand, for the canonical ship sizes, the scaling does not work very well. A ship in the "PC-size" range is simply an insignificant speck, instead of being a normal-sized escort. In my medium ship universe, a ship of 400 tons would be in the destroyer escort range - a credible warship, if a small one.
- Rules-wise, ships in the lower range of 10s of kdtons are the upper limit of what you can reasonably manage if you're keeping the current number of weapons per hull size.
I like big ships and I can not lie
You other brothers may deny
That when a ship jumps in with a spinal in your face
You get ....
Well maybe I took that a bit too far.
I enjoy the focus on small and medium ships simply because from an RPG point of view they make sense. For my fleet battles, yeah baby bring me a 1 MegaTon dreadnought. Under HG rules, though one you can mount the most powerful spinal for your TL plus a full array of weapons, anything larger is stategically unsound. Numbers are far better in HG.
You other brothers may deny
That when a ship jumps in with a spinal in your face
You get ....
Well maybe I took that a bit too far.
I enjoy the focus on small and medium ships simply because from an RPG point of view they make sense. For my fleet battles, yeah baby bring me a 1 MegaTon dreadnought. Under HG rules, though one you can mount the most powerful spinal for your TL plus a full array of weapons, anything larger is stategically unsound. Numbers are far better in HG.
Yes, I DO want the quote. The Acceleration compensation systems I've seen quoted would have to either (1) induce a reactionless acceleration (which the relevant text in TNE does not provide for) or (2) transfer the momentum.Tut tut, you should know better than that.
It is established canon that Traveller ships are equipped with acceleration compensators that negate manoeuvre acceleration effects for the ship.
If you like I'll quote chapter and verse but I think you already know it
the dynamic loads (not the static, but dynamic) are impressive. And, except for T4 & TNE, all design systems essentially have no internal structure, only a skin and floors...
And the dynamic loads are what bends the spars. A Traveller 1G vessel has to be able to thrust at 1G AND come about in 20 minutes or less... 6 minutes in MGT. 1000sec in TNE. And, within that same timeframe, still manage to generate it's full thrust... which in MT, means being able to come about in 10 minutes, in MGT, in under 1.
For reference, the Nimmitz masses some 100,000 tons. The same as a 10,000Td lightly armored ship. Not the biggest thing built, but one of the biggest shell-loaded designs out there... and she'll break under 1G dynamic loading.
As for TNE: you can't make big CT style warships (100KTd & up) under TNE, as you rapidly run out of room both for internal structure volume and for radiator area.
One should note also that the GComps don't affect needed structure mass in TNE/T4... and so shouldn't in any other edition.
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Hi
Like others I don't think that I hate large ships, but as others here have suggested, to me I kind of loose focus with ships that are too big.
With major warships being so large and PC ships being so small, it gets hard for me to relate the two together. However, if they are closer in size then its easier for me to visualize that a battleship may be 20-50 times the size of a simple Scout/Courier. As others have noted, as well, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to medium sized ships either.
Based on some calcs and stuff I had done previously I was able to figure out that the total enclosed volume of the US Navy's LSD-41 Landing Ship comes out to a value just a bit above 5000 Traveller dtons. As such, that kind of makes things easier for me to get a grasp on just how big a space ship a 5000 dton ship might be. And, as such maybe a 10,000 or 20,000 dton ship may not be so hard to envision either, but a 100,000 dton or greater begins to seem much too big for me to really get a grasp on.
Regards
Pat
Like others I don't think that I hate large ships, but as others here have suggested, to me I kind of loose focus with ships that are too big.
With major warships being so large and PC ships being so small, it gets hard for me to relate the two together. However, if they are closer in size then its easier for me to visualize that a battleship may be 20-50 times the size of a simple Scout/Courier. As others have noted, as well, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to medium sized ships either.
Based on some calcs and stuff I had done previously I was able to figure out that the total enclosed volume of the US Navy's LSD-41 Landing Ship comes out to a value just a bit above 5000 Traveller dtons. As such, that kind of makes things easier for me to get a grasp on just how big a space ship a 5000 dton ship might be. And, as such maybe a 10,000 or 20,000 dton ship may not be so hard to envision either, but a 100,000 dton or greater begins to seem much too big for me to really get a grasp on.
Regards
Pat
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
For me, Big Ships exist, but don't feature overtly in my games - they remain off-stage. They're 'big sticks' owned by the military. If PCs do something stupid, there's a ship waiting in the wings to blast them to atoms.
That's their advantage, but their disadvantage is they're just too tiring to generate - let alone to map and fight with.
I agree about the pointlessness of really big ships with the existing rules (except perhaps as carriers for medium size riders) but then I allow multiple spinals and I have no objection in principle to 5 and 10kt bays...
That's their advantage, but their disadvantage is they're just too tiring to generate - let alone to map and fight with.
I agree about the pointlessness of really big ships with the existing rules (except perhaps as carriers for medium size riders) but then I allow multiple spinals and I have no objection in principle to 5 and 10kt bays...
