500 and 1000 Ton Bays

[Solomani666]

500 and 1000 ton bay weapons. This is a niche I would like to have seen filled in the HG rulebook.

Anyone else feel this way?

Are their any MGT rules that fill the gaping hole between 5000+ ton spinal mounts and 100 ton bays?

 

[atpollard]

Someone once suggested a battleship model for Traveller Starships:

100 ton Bay equivalent to 16" guns
10 ton Barbette equivalent to 4" guns
1 ton Turret equivalent to Quad 50 or 20mm AA guns

(Drop all spinal mounts.)

Just an idea to think about.

 

[Solomani666]

Someone once suggested a battleship model for Traveller Starships:

100 ton Bay equivalent to 16" guns
10 ton Barbette equivalent to 4" guns
1 ton Turret equivalent to Quad 50 or 20mm AA guns

(Drop all spinal mounts.)

Just an idea to think about.

Then a modern battleship would have 60+ main guns and 1000+ secondary guns!

 

[BP]

Spinal Mounts are like cruise missiles in that analogy

As to the OPs question - don't really see the need. Ten 100 ton bays = one 1000 ton bay. Given the scale of things, the extra personal and 1% fire control tonnage is irrelevant, especially as these can partake in barrage attacks, yet be dispersed for purposes of damage.

Spinal mounts are balanced against larger numbers of bays in several limiting aspects... putting another 'class' of weapon scale in between the bays and the spinal mount would necessitate a difference in mechanics if one wants to maintain that balance. It would also probably require support in the combat mechanics.

If one doesn't care about those aspects - by all means - anything goes.

 

[Solomani666]

Spinal Mounts are like cruise missiles in that analogy

As to the OPs question - don't really see the need. Ten 100 ton bays = one 1000 ton bay. Given the scale of things, the extra personal and 1% fire control tonnage is irrelevant, especially as these can partake in barrage attacks, yet be dispersed for purposes of damage.

Spinal mounts are balanced against larger numbers of bays in several limiting aspects... putting another 'class' of weapon scale in between the bays and the spinal mount would necessitate a difference in mechanics if one wants to maintain that balance. It would also probably require support in the combat mechanics.

If one doesn't care about those aspects - by all means - anything goes.

Ten 100 ton bays [does not]= one 1000 ton bay [except in volume].
A single 10d6 weapon does way more damage than 10 x 1d6 weapons.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

No bay weapon does 1d6 dam, and your analogy assumes that damage inflicted will increase arithmatically with size of bay, which is not necessarily the case. As has been pointed out, bays can be fired in barrages.

Personally, will be sticking with 50t and 100t bays, and spinal mounts.

But, in YTU change as much as you like. 1000t splurge bays may be the way ahead.

Egil

 

[Solomani666]

No bay weapon does 1d6 dam, and your analogy assumes that damage inflicted will increase arithmatically with size of bay, which is not necessarily the case. As has been pointed out, bays can be fired in barrages.

Personally, will be sticking with 50t and 100t bays, and spinal mounts.

But, in YTU change as much as you like. 1000t splurge bays may be the way ahead.

Egil

Smaller weapons do less damage because of armor. This is also factored into barrage attacks.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

That is where spinal mounts become important.

You are still assuming that, just because a bay is bigger, the damage will increase in direct proportion to the size of the bay, it doesn't work like that, consider, a particle beam turret inflicts 3d6 dam, a particle beam bay (50t) inflicts 6d6, not 150d6.

The handwavium is that there is a maximum size for bay mounts, beyond which additional dtons make no difference to the functionality, so it is not cost efficient to build bigger, instead more individual units are added.

Egil

 

[locarno24]

You can consider a 300 dTon bay to be a WWI style triple turret, I guess.

The only modification I'd make is to allow multiple spinal mounts that are mobile (i.e. don't need a line up spinal mount check) with a size increase - a 5000 dton spinal particle mount occupies a lower proportion of a 500,000 dton super-capital-ship than a laser turret does of an S-Type Scout, after all

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

You can consider a 300 dTon bay to be a WWI style triple turret, I guess.

I tend to think that this is best represented by 3x 100dt bays, after all, the WWII triple turret carries 3 identical guns (say 16"), not one 48" gun.

There is an interesting point about hugh warships, huge space stations and ground based spinal mounts, how many spinal meson guns could be based on the moon? How much power would be need to run them?However, I will keep things like that for dramatic effect, not wargame simulations!

Egil

 

[locarno24]

Kind of what I meant.


In terms of trainable "spinal mounts"; I'd maybe take a lead from the turret rules - a pop-up turret (which includes the volume for the weapons) takes up three times the volume of a fixed mount.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

The idea of a larger bay weapon might be a good alternative to a Spinal Mount.

I also agree that proportionately, only allowing one SM per ship makes no sense when you get into the million ton range of ships and stations.

Personally, I houserule that you can mount one SM per 100,000 tons of ship; they are still like fixed weapons and the pilot has to line up the shot, but you can have more than one on the really big boys.

So a 1 MTon space station would be able to mount TEN spinal mounts. THAT is some serious planetary defense and that doesn't count what can be mounted on the planet itself.

 

[Solomani666]

You are still assuming that, just because a bay is bigger, the damage will increase in direct proportion to the size of the bay, it doesn't work like that, consider, a particle beam turret inflicts 3d6 dam, a particle beam bay (50t) inflicts 6d6, not 150d6.

Never said I expected damage to go up proportionatly. When you miss quote people like that you are being irrational. Stop that, it is very annoying.

Now back to the topic please...

 

[Solomani666]

No bay weapon does 1d6 dam, and your analogy assumes that damage inflicted will increase arithmatically with size of bay, which is not necessarily the case. As has been pointed out, bays can be fired in barrages.

Personally, will be sticking with 50t and 100t bays, and spinal mounts.

But, in YTU change as much as you like. 1000t splurge bays may be the way ahead.

Egil

I never claimed any bay weapon does 1d6.

I never made any claims as to how much damage a larger bay would do compaired to a smaller one.

"Bays can fire in barrages"...Like Duh...

The damage was just an example to make a point.


Read what I said, not what you think.

 

[BP]

...Read what I said, not what you think.

What we write is always subject to interpretation. Re-read what you wrote and what he wrote

He never claimed you said a bay weapon does 1d6 - only pointed out that it does not. Perhaps you only thought he did because your prior post could be construed as saying such.

Also - your own contradictory words:
'Smaller weapons do less damage because of armor.'
'I never made any claims as to how much damage a larger bay would do compared to a smaller one. '

You keep asking for feedback - and people keep giving it to you freely - and constructively. This board is quite good for that.

Your response above was intentionally rude (and without cause), and you keep reposting about the same topics when the responses don't match exactly what you want to hear - something else that is also generally considered rude in any medium.

If your posts are being misread - you can always try to clarify them - there is no post limit.

 

[AlphaWhelp]

Spinal Mounts are not 5000 tons. If you had, say, a 5001 ton capital ship, a 5000 ton spinal mount would leave you with 1 ton left over. Spinal Mounts are variable in tonnage. You can have a 500 ton Spinal Mount, or a 1000 ton Spinal Mount.

eghads, I have suddenly bridged the gap between 100 ton bays and 5000 ton Spinal Mounts.

 

[barnest2]

Where does it say you can have a 500 ton spinal mount. I do believe that most are 2-8000 tons or some such

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Spinal Mounts are not 5000 tons. If you had, say, a 5001 ton capital ship, a 5000 ton spinal mount would leave you with 1 ton left over. Spinal Mounts are variable in tonnage. You can have a 500 ton Spinal Mount, or a 1000 ton Spinal Mount.

eghads, I have suddenly bridged the gap between 100 ton bays and 5000 ton Spinal Mounts.

Not sure where you get this from, smallest spinal mount in HG is 3000dt, though you could reduce that a bit using higher TL, you won't get that down to 500t.

Egil

 

[Solomani666]

...Read what I said, not what you think.

What we write is always subject to interpretation. Re-read what you wrote and what he wrote

He never claimed you said a bay weapon does 1d6 - only pointed out that it does not. Perhaps you only thought he did because your prior post could be construed as saying such.

Also - your own contradictory words:
'Smaller weapons do less damage because of armor.'
'I never made any claims as to how much damage a larger bay would do compared to a smaller one. '

You keep asking for feedback - and people keep giving it to you freely - and constructively. This board is quite good for that.

Your response above was intentionally rude (and without cause), and you keep reposting about the same topics when the responses don't match exactly what you want to hear - something else that is also generally considered rude in any medium.

If your posts are being misread - you can always try to clarify them - there is no post limit.

Pointing out that no bay weapon does 1d6 is in direct response to my post, because of context infers that he is claiming I said such. Ortherwise his comment is nonsensicle.

There are no contradictory statements in the post. I said "more" but never said "how much". You are a nit-picker and that probably makes you a very annoying person.

I would be happy to hear any feedback on 500 ton and 1000 ton bays and not someones opinion about something they feel I said.

Posting off topic comments is rarely constructive however freely given.

Since the thread was started by me, maybe they should ask for clarifications if they don't understand the question or start their own thread. There is no post limit.

Rude is when the thread creator asks you not to post off topic comments and you do so anyway.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

...Read what I said, not what you think.

What we write is always subject to interpretation. Re-read what you wrote and what he wrote

He never claimed you said a bay weapon does 1d6 - only pointed out that it does not. Perhaps you only thought he did because your prior post could be construed as saying such.

Also - your own contradictory words:
'Smaller weapons do less damage because of armor.'
'I never made any claims as to how much damage a larger bay would do compared to a smaller one. '

You keep asking for feedback - and people keep giving it to you freely - and constructively. This board is quite good for that.

Your response above was intentionally rude (and without cause), and you keep reposting about the same topics when the responses don't match exactly what you want to hear - something else that is also generally considered rude in any medium.

If your posts are being misread - you can always try to clarify them - there is no post limit.

BP, agree with your comments, much more diplomatically phrased than my response would have been, but amounting to the same.

Egil