5FW: Why?

[rinku]

It usually does come back to missiles, really.

Smallest ship that can carry a bay, carried by a bigger ship in bulk. Basic SFB Kzinti doctrine.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Yes, but that's not how the rules work. In Traveller, that's just the excuse for the pilot getting to fire and fly at the same time. The pilot the still has to make a Gunnery skill check.

Gunnery skill check - looking at the target icon and pressing the right button...

 

[Sigtrygg]

To each their own. As long as they are part of the official setting, they have to at least make sense to play and be enjoyable for the players the want to use them. If that’s not you, don’t use them.

They don't make sense if they have special plot armour and special attacks.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If you don’t use them, that perfectly cool. That are part of the system though, so I don’t feel bad trying to make them better for those that do want to use them.

Why should they be better?
Surely they should be bound by the same rules as other ships.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Which reminds me that in Babylon 5, there is only one engagement between capital ships where one side has fighters in the air and the other doesn't, and it ends very badly for the side without. Their tactical doctrine seems to be that your fighters are mainly there to protect you from their fighters.

That's what the script said would happen...
didn't several of the fighters ram the capitals or am I remembering the wrong battle?

 

[Sigtrygg]

We’ll have to disagree on that. I’ll keep pushing for change and let the Mongeese do whatever they feel is best.

So you would rather lose people for a feeling? if there is a massive market out there for star fighters in the Third Imperium I have never seen it.

 

[Sigtrygg]

On this, I would say possibly in the running of a merc campaign or a pirate campaign, you may have a ship like the 300-ton TL-12 Pirate Carrier which carries fighters. Some of the party stays in the ship and others mount an offense or defense in their fighters. It has 61 tons of cargo, so lots of space for stolen loot.

At this scale fighters are useful.
Fighters make great ground support and anti-armour.
Fighters are a threat to paramilitary and civilian ships at the ACS scale.

Obviously, this is on a PC-scale viewpoint, not a Fleet-scale.

PC scale fighters are useful, fleet scale they have a different role and if you want to survive as a fighter pilot that does not include a death star run...

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have never understood the fighter-role for missile defense. 1 Light Fighter is 10 tons and takes up a total of 11 tons for docking space, unless you use clamps. They costs 9.4MCr each. How many missiles can they shoot down in one volley? We'll be kind and say 3 missiles per salvo per fighter. A Type-III Point Defense Laser Battery is only 20 tons, so just less than 2 fighters worth of space, cost 10MCr and are good for an average of 21 missiles per salvo.

Fighters are clearly not a good choice for missile defense.

They increase your number of turrets...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Well that one is easily answered. A laser defense battery uses up a hardpoint. A fighter group does not.

Yeah, it's good value for money, but can't shoot anything but incoming missiles and torps. As written I don't think they can even shoot at small craft. I would see the two working in tandem. If there's a strike target, the fighters hit it. If there's not, they're on CAP and anti missile duty, supplementing the point defence.

I was interested to discover from Shannon Applecline's history of Traveller that during the development of Traveller Marc used SF book cover art and illustrations to show the others where he was coming from. One of those books was the pre-release novelization of Star Wars (1976. I was given a copy as a Christmas present that year, well before the movie came out in May 1977). You can't totally separate Star Wars influences from Traveller, and I'd include space fighters in that. It would be a very rare Traveller player or Referee who had not seen Star Wars before they had played the game, even in 1977.

Note that the 10t fighter was not in 77 classic, fighters were not added until HG79.

Another thought relating to that... while starfighters have become the iconic cool things from Star Wars, they're pretty much used as patrol craft and against small ships or other fighters. So we see a small freighter battling TIE fighters in what seems like a balanced fight (although they let them go deliberately). We see X-Wings and Y-Wings dogfighting with TIEs to keep them away from a very specific attack run. We see ground based batteries disabling a naval ship to allow the transports to jump out, and later more chasing of the Falcon by TIEs. It's not until the end of the third movie that we even see fighters and bigger ships together. And it's *still* almost all fighters dogfighting other fighters... but with some strike craft now (B-Wings). Which is probably what Traveller fighters are REALLY intended to do - take out those smaller torpedo and escort craft.

We all understand they're just WW2 planes in space, with the ships as carrier/battleships... but it's a rare space opera that doesn't do that, from Doc Smith onwards.

The lensmen series was the first sci fi book series I bought, loved those books at the time

 

[Sigtrygg]

Their commonly higher thrust compared especially to starships comes to mind, especially as add ons to shooty ships. They can potentially intercept targets that the mothership can't reach in time, especially in a situation where the mothership doesn't want to fire on it. Send in a few fighters to try to knock out their engines.

There is nothing in the rules to prevent putting maximum m-drives and maximum reaction drives on capital ships. For a very long time all Traveller ships had the 6g limit. I didn't see that change for fighters until T4 I think it was...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Standoff smallcraft and small ships with torpedoes and missiles ARE a credible threat. Fighters are a counter to those - your point defense can attempt to stop the ordnance itself, but the firing ships are out of range of it and your big guns can't or have trouble targeting those.

Why send manned fighters when you can stick an AI in a missile, build bigger missiles...

 

[Sigtrygg]

So, we could follow current American doctrine, stealthify our fighters, stuff them full of sensors, and engage beyond visual range.

Or just send missiles in the first place...

 

[Sigtrygg]

If they can't see you, you're unlikely to need armour.

There is, as yet, no stealth in space.

Jump drives and fuel go together, and for that it all needs to add up to at least a hundred tonnes.

Don't put jump drives and jump fuel tanks on your warships - the battle rider doctrine.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I would coast in.

With no active sensors how do you target the enemy?

Then, make a run for it once I expended my missiles.

You can't outrun lasers...

 

[Sigtrygg]

The point of protection is the capability to absorb damage from your opponent, giving you enough time to finish him off, before he does the same to you.

In the the calculus of power, performance, and protection, erring on the side of protection, tends to pay off, in the long run.

It didn't help the Tiger tank...

 

[MongooseMatt]

To briefly go back to the original part of this thread (!), Martin has just done an interview as part of the Mayday celebrations, in which he talks a bit about the background of the FFW and what has been involved in writing it:

 

[Condottiere]

1. Try and identify your issues with Traveller smallcraft in the fighter role.

2. Do they actually matter?

3. Can you overcome them?

4. In terms of performance, power, and protection, the Panzerkampfwagen Sechs, probably was a Teutonic compromise in terms of what was achievable in their industrial base.

5. Had they stuck with that with mass production, the Soviets might have had a real problem.

6. Considering the cost and size of sensors, you probably could turn them passive.

7. As well as sensor hand offs from platforms that are outside engagement range.

8. Or, disposable.

9. In theory, missiles outrange lasers.

 

[MasterGwydion]

They increase your number of turrets...

They do, but having extra turrets for missile defense isn't really helpful until you have enough turrets to take out more missiles than a PDB can do. Also, if you spend about the same amount of money, you can buy 1 fighter or 1 PDB. PDB, Type III stops an average of 21 missiles per salvo. A fighter averages 3 and only if the missiles are fired far enough away to allow for a 3-round travel time and only if the fighters are in the correct spot to engage the missiles.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If you have hull volume available but you have used all your hardpoints then every fighter you carry is an additional turret. It's not an either or it is in addition to...

 

[MasterGwydion]

If you have hull volume available but you have used all your hardpoints then every fighter you carry is an additional turret. It's not an either or it is in addition to...

Then lose the whole idea of hardpoints. If needed for balance increase the size of the weapon systems, then you will never have a situation where you have 30% of your hull volume still available but have no room to add more guns. Look at the old Iowa-class Battleships. 3 - 16" guns in triple turrets (likely bay weapons in Traveller terms), 20 - 5" guns in double turrets, 80 - 20mm Oerlikon Cannons, 49 - 20mm quad-mounted Bofors, etc.

I am guessing that they used actual battleships as the inspiration for Traveller battleship, just adjusted to space flight. If the Iowa-class Battleships were spaceships, they would be 57,000m3 or 4,072ish tons. That gives you a maximum of 40 hardpoints. The ship above would require 152ish hardpoints, almost 4 times as many as would be able to be had in Traveller.