Writing prose about ship combat

[robject]

This is me kind of trying to talk through the issues about writing prose about ship combat.

Ship combat in and of itself doesn't seem that engaging, unless it ties in with the experiences of the people in those ships. Otherwise, it's just two tin cans shooting at each other in space.

Right? Or am I missing something?

I mean, isn't this also the concern with ship combat rules as well? The rules tend to reduce to tin cans shooting at one another, with maybe the Gunners being the ones to make any sort of actions... and those actions are typically just reduced to rolling dice rather than making any meaningful decision.

BUT I DIGRESS, because I don't want to talk about combat RULES. I want to talk about WRITING prose around ship combat.

I think invariably this means that the combat part of ship combat is almost background -- it's nowhere near as important as what's happening to the characters going through the event, what's happening to them, and what they're saying, thinking, feeling, and doing.

Any thoughts here?

 

[Timerover51]

I would recommend reading some accounts of ship to ship combat during World War 1 and World War 2 to get some ideas as to how people will react. A lot of them will have accounts of the ship's crew responding to damage. I will concede that you are not going to have flooding problems in space, but loss of pressure will be a major headache.

 

[Leitz]

From a writer's viewpoint all stories are about people's emotional reactions to events right now.

If I were writing prose about a space battle in a game I'd run the battle with the game rules, make notes on what happened when, and then pick the best point of view (POV) character(s) to tell that story. Often it's not the Captain of the ship, though it could be.

 

[mike wightman]

Decisions for deep space engagements:

when to commit active sensors to get a firing solution

wait until passive sensors can give a firing solution

how much to power down to remain as stealthy as possible (it has got to the point that we have to accept there are magic gravitic heat sinks in Traveller, so they should - if configured correctly - be able to mask some heat signature)

how much of the maneuver drive should be used to dodge and how much to alter vector

which firing solution is most likely to predict the target's position when the weapons fire arrives

how much offensive laser fire vs point defence against incoming missiles

how best to deploy sand

is there any debris, space flotsam, lumps of rock that you can use to a tactical advantage.

In the vicinity of space stations, moons and planets combat should be a much more interesting affair than the twenty minute combat round makes it.

Watch the two space combat scenes in The Expanse.

In the first series the assault on the Martian BB is what most Traveller ship combat would be like - lots of sitting around waiting for the incoming missiles and then a frantic exchange of closer range weapons, the firing of point defence

In the second series there is a close range fight around a space station, much more frantic and on a totally different timescale - the first clear shot wins...

hide and seek with bazookas vs dodgeball with bazookas

 

[Fovean]

Perhaps the rules system you're using will inform the style and tone of the prose. I'm guessing you're referring to T5 space combat (which I'm woefully inexperienced at) but as grist for the mill:

CT had 1000 second (16.7 minute) turns. Lots of long pressure-cooker moments of waiting and watching and wondering if your actions will have any effect. Defense (sand) being a likely best offense but then waiting and wondering, tweaking your vector and hoping your missile makes it through to the enemy. A hit will diminish your capabilities but not necessarily knock you out.

MgT has 6 min turns, and can even be 6 seconds in a point blank range dogfight. Same basic feeling but the tension ratchets up due to the shorter time frame. Tracking missiles as they close through the range bands over a few turns also ratchets up the tension. MgT also defines specific actions individuals can do to influence the outcome of given turn - shunting more energy to the drives to allow better evasive action, damage control, initiative DMs through Tactics, EW with sensors, point defense against missiles right before they hit... and a solid hit could hurt really bad.

If you posit a Free Trader versus a Corsair at Long range, the CT telling will be different from the MgT telling of it. Which is likely different from the T5 telling of it.

A house rule IMTU is varying turn length based on range, inspired by GURPS Space. Shorter range, shorter turns until it matches personal combat. So at Long range (6 min) there's a lot of staring at scopes, tracking, squeezing off a shot, back to the scopes... at Short range (1 min) it's much of the same but the accelerated pace interrupts personal interactions and requires more effort to keep an advantage.

Again, just grist for the mill.

EDIT: of course mike wightman posted something wonderfully insightful as I was typing, covering some similar ground

 

[mike wightman]

I think the varying of the turn length depending on range is an excellent way to do it in game - I've dabbled with that myself too. From an authorial viewpoint, writing prose for the battle, ramping up the pressure by making the decisions come thick and fast as ships close would make for very good storytelling I would think.

 

[Condottiere]

Has to make sense from that universe's laws of fisics.

Just because in a dogfight time flows sixty times faster, doesn't mean your pea shooter can fire sixty times more.

Capacitors need time to recharge, and the power plant only produces a set amount of energy.

 

[pendragonman]

Has to make sense from that universe's laws of fisics.

Just because in a dogfight time flows sixty times faster, doesn't mean your pea shooter can fire sixty times more.

Capacitors need time to recharge, and the power plant only produces a set amount of energy.

And just what is that set amount of energy that your power plant produces? I don't know, there is nothing in any of the rulebooks besides those covered by the 2 versions of Fire Fusion and Steel. CT certainly doesn't give you the megawatts nor does Mongoose or T5

Given the amount of handwavium in the game with regards to power generation, I don't think that is really an issue. Unless and Until the game gets into the actual distribution of the number of watts of power generated by the ship, cycle times are somewhat mute.

To do this, we would need design sequences that tell us how much power each system and subsystem of a ship uses and needs, we would need to know the recycle times of capacitors of various tech levels, we would need design sequences for power generation systems and subsystems that rate their output ranges and what, exactly, damage to a power subsystem does to the power generation as a whole.

Traveller tried this approach in TNE. Notice that we have since returned to the more abstract design methods.

So, we apply the power generation handwavium as less a physics problem and more of a role play problem of only firing when there is an optimum solution when at longer ranges, and stress firing at knife ranges.

At long ranges, optimal solutions take longer to occur and so I can see the turn being a longer telescope of time and at close/knife ranges the turn being much much shorter. This is actually in keeping with how T5 describes the combat round as a variable length of time.

 

[kilemall]

Might consider what I was working up for CT/HG combat drama/choices.

1000-second turns broken into 100-second actions.

Power allocation, percentage of power to agility, EW/sand type obscuration vs. firing, etc.

Ship damage drama.

Large scale maneuver choices dealing in approach rates, which factor in higher damage value AND potentially devastating hair-raising kinetic damage.

From a writer's perspective, you always convey meaning and what's scary via your characters.

That moment when the captain dumps all defensive fire and agility power to charge and fire the spinal mount early and surprise the enemy should be a terrifying experience.

 

[kilemall]

And just what is that set amount of energy that your power plant produces? I don't know, there is nothing in any of the rulebooks besides those covered by the 2 versions of Fire Fusion and Steel. CT certainly doesn't give you the megawatts nor does Mongoose or T5

Er.

CT/HG has EPs, and Striker gives us a conversion rate.

The MW/GW bits is not necessary except for descriptive flavor, the EPs can be used as is.

 

[pendragonman]

Er.

CT/HG has EPs, and Striker gives us a conversion rate.

The MW/GW bits is not necessary except for descriptive flavor, the EPs can be used as is.

If you read the post I was answering, the OP was positing that we need proper physics for this telescoping of the time of a round when we change from long range/long turn time to short range/quick turn times.

To have the physics be proper, we need the MW/GW bits for consistency and my position was that since power allocation is at worst hand waved at, we can use the time telescoping as a role play point instead of needing to fight the physics.

Please read the post I was responding to.

 

[Brandon C]

And just what is that set amount of energy that your power plant produces? I don't know, there is nothing in any of the rulebooks besides those covered by the 2 versions of Fire Fusion and Steel. CT certainly doesn't give you the megawatts nor does Mongoose or T5

GT:Starships covers the output of powerplants, the storage of capacitors, and the requirements of many systems, all in MW.

 

[mike wightman]

If you read the post

I have read your post - the very first line of which is:

And just what is that set amount of energy that your power plant produces? I don't know, there is nothing in any of the rulebooks besides those covered by the 2 versions of Fire Fusion and Steel. CT certainly doesn't give you the megawatts nor does Mongoose or T5

The bit in bold is your error, CT does give a conversion for EP to MW.

One HG EP = 250MW, that's 250,000,000 joules per second.

One beam laser requires 250MW.

A free trader has a 500MW reactor, A Tigress has a 10TW reactor. All the info you need is there.

 

[Enoki]

I suggest reading this author's books then:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Monsarrat

Start with The Cruel Sea

Then read

H.M.S. Marlborough Will Enter Harbour

The later is a gripping novel of a ship enduring massive damage and the crew dealing with everything that entails trying to get safely back to port.

 

[Condottiere]

You got two basic weapon types, energy and missiles.

Energy moves at the speed of light, which means it happens before you are aware of it, and missiles take a while to arrive, so you can contemplate death approaching, especially if you know that your ship defences and countermeasres are inadequate.

 

[robject]

Regarding rules, it's only important to know that it's Traveller. At least for the stuff I'm writing. Anything more could distract -- unless for some reason it becomes super-important to actually communicate a rule to the reader. I consider that bad form unless very carefully handled -- again for the stuff I'm writing anyway.

I'm not writing a technical overview of Traveller rules. Not for this, anyway.

I would recommend reading some accounts of ship to ship combat during World War 1 and World War 2 to get some ideas as to how people will react. A lot of them will have accounts of the ship's crew responding to damage. I will concede that you are not going to have flooding problems in space, but loss of pressure will be a major headache.

Good advice. Thank you.

 

[ovka]

Ship combat in and of itself doesn't seem that engaging, unless it ties in with the experiences of the people in those ships. Otherwise, it's just two tin cans shooting at each other in space.

Right? Or am I missing something?

I mean, isn't this also the concern with ship combat rules as well? The rules tend to reduce to tin cans shooting at one another, with maybe the Gunners being the ones to make any sort of actions... and those actions are typically just reduced to rolling dice rather than making any meaningful decision.

BUT I DIGRESS, because I don't want to talk about combat RULES. I want to talk about WRITING prose around ship combat.

I think invariably this means that the combat part of ship combat is almost background -- it's nowhere near as important as what's happening to the characters going through the event, what's happening to them, and what they're saying, thinking, feeling, and doing.

Any thoughts here?

After reading through this entire thread (mostly regarding rules), my short answer is that you are correct.



Going a bit longer, it is possible to use the rules to write some of the prose (but the numbers don't matter). What is the captain doing and why? What is the gunner doing and why? What is the medic doing and why? What are the fire-control teams doing and why?

You get the point. Ultimately, though, a good story *will* be about the people, which gets me back to "you are correct." :rofl:

Cheers,

Baron Ovka

 

[whartung]

Make sure you hunt down some of the late issues of ADBs game magazine Nexus where they have fiction describing Star Fleet Battle scenarios. Later on, they made it a requirement that the stories had to be rules correct. They couldn't make stuff up outside of the rules.

When they added that stipulation, these stories are excellent examples on how to not write anything. Man, are they dry and tedious.

 

[kilemall]

If you read the post I was answering, the OP was positing that we need proper physics for this telescoping of the time of a round when we change from long range/long turn time to short range/quick turn times.

To have the physics be proper, we need the MW/GW bits for consistency and my position was that since power allocation is at worst hand waved at, we can use the time telescoping as a role play point instead of needing to fight the physics.

Please read the post I was responding to.

I certainly did, Wightman covered what I was primarily responding to about the assertion there is no baseline for power allocation, there is.

What isn't done is discrete range effects, range bands don't do it for me. Also had to look hard at the computer DM,and still not settled on sticking with the HG damage tables, they are problematic.

The system I worked up is a full maneuver system that is precisely designed for creating ship combat drama, with tactical choices and consequences driving the sort of prose the OP is looking to generate. I don't know whether T5 has that possibility, but I suspect not given the abstraction ethos on other matters.

In any event, for the purposes of power allocation mechanics, EP alone works, in my opinion it does not need to be listed in the full MW/GW valuation, not unless you are insisting on using crunchier systems then CT/HG/Striker. But the conversion rate IS there for that version if there really seems to be a need.

 

[Ulsyus]

What 51, Leitz, Mike and Enoki said.

Pulling some of that together, rather than trying to write about an entire engagement, particularly if it's colour for rules or illustrative for a scenario, picking just a component could be the way to go.

Given that the turns, at least in T5 parlance, are 20 minutes long, covering a few different elements could be done for all of the things that need to be described for a single turn. Mike's list is excellent for generating the sorts of thinks that need to be described, and while they might be simplified for game purposes, none of them are necessarily simple in themselves.