5FW: Why?

[Terry Mixon]

Does the more competent missile have a warhead?

One assumes like the others that it is loaded with a warhead. @Geir would have to confirm.

 

[rinku]

Combat effectiveness is the key here. Bang for buck against expected targets.

Another thought is to design the booster and droid fighter to be able to slot into a standard 10 ton launch tube setup. Send Apollo and Starbuck when human ingenuity is important, but killer bots when destruction is all that's required.

But also hardpoint based missiles and torps. The starting point of this digression was, after all, adding firepower after you've filled up your normal weapon allocation. So you should have those too.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Combat effectiveness is the key here. Bang for buck against expected targets.

Another thought is to design the booster and droid fighter to be able to slot into a standard 10 ton launch tube setup. Send Apollo and Starbuck when human ingenuity is important, but killer bots when destruction is all that's required.

True.

I could make the missile better with advanced fire control. I’ll have to add that tomorrow.

Edit: just checked and it doesn’t have enough slots for it. A torpedo, on the other hand, does.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I can get you a robotic gunner that’s a lot cheaper and more effective.

Not a bad idea actually.

 

[rinku]

It shouldn't need long range sensors much. At least not on a basic killer model. Everthing would be about better rolls to hit at close range.

 

[rinku]

You can build an AWACS or scout model, or send a normal fighter to do that stuff.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, you have billions and trillions of humans that could be trained as fighter pilots.

Do it correctly, and you'll never run out of competent volunteers.

 

[Terry Mixon]

In theory, you have billions and trillions of humans that could be trained as fighter pilots.

Do it correctly, and you'll never run out of competent volunteers.

Until the ratio of them getting killed under the current rules scares them off. I have no idea what it would be, but I’d imagine it’s high.

 

[Condottiere]

It worked for the Empire.

The real question is, what is substantially cheaper?

According to Traveller rules, the one thing we can't pirate, is software.

 

[rinku]

Arrrr.
You're not piratin' hard enough, me lad!

 

[rinku]

Also, what's the cost for a brain in a jar fighter?

Too grimdark?

 

[Condottiere]

Life support might become too complex.

All you need for a default human is a supply of recycled oxygen.

 

[rinku]

Until the ratio of them getting killed under the current rules scares them off. I have no idea what it would be, but I’d imagine it’s high.

Ehhh. Train em on video games and propaganda and ship them out in bulk reefer space trucks. Defrost and deploy as required.

Tell them they're doing a sim, Ender's Game style.

(I was going to say Charted Space could use a real evil empire that does this sort of stuff, but then I remembered we have the Solomani...)

 

[Sigtrygg]

I could agree with nerfing the maneuverability of large craft. That would make sense as massive as they are.

The Gerald R Ford is pretty maneuverable... ask the F-18 that just fell off during "high g" maneuvers

but back to Traveller, in a universe with acceleration compensation the ship with the biggest engine is the most maneuverable, so you would need to remove yet another "realism" for the "cinematic cartoon pew pew".

No dogfighting in Newtonian space battles either... and definitely no handbrake turns.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Could We simply double the acceleration of ships smaller than 100 tons, including missiles and torpedoes? That would make them faster than everything else as fighters should be. What would the other effects of this change be?

Big ships have bigger engines, the square cube law in action. Or do we remove that as well for the sake of "pew pew"?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Missiles and torpedoes are already faster than ships (except the slow 6g ones). I wouldn't want to mess too much with the mechanics, but allowing a higher limit - still requiring 1% m-drive per g, but capping say TL11 at 10 instead of 5 (but capping compensators at 5?) for small craft might make for some interesting design choices.

even more fun (or not) - making it at least 1 ton per g, so you have some designs that are mostly engine and power.

You just build warships the same way and call them battle riders...

 

[Sigtrygg]

I think we'd want to keep it that way, so increasing the missiles/torpedoes as well would be required. That way you could keep the dynamic of a small craft with a M-Drive + R-Drive "afterburners" still being able to outrun missiles, but it isn't easy.

They can't outrun a laser, particle accelerator, fusion gun...

 

[Sigtrygg]

You would also have to do something to make agility matter more. The current fleet combat just aggregates PD so that it vaporizes a certain amount of appropriate targets.

The point of making fighters more agile would be to make agility actually make them survivable. If it doesn't do that, it obviously doesn't serve the purpose.

Agility is the ability to move your ship length in a random direction such that a light speed weapon can not automatically hit it.

Small craft should be more agile, but it doesn't matter too much since the weapon systems on the large ship are much longer range than the weapons on the figher.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Ehhh. Train em on video games and propaganda and ship them out in bulk reefer space trucks. Defrost and deploy as required.

Tell them they're doing a sim, Ender's Game style.

(I was going to say Charted Space could use a real evil empire that does this sort of stuff, but then I remembered we have the Solomani...)

Actually this is what the Imperium does...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Figuring out how things work in Fleet Combat is a waste of time since @MongooseMatt said that the current fleet rules are just a placeholder. So, let's skip fleet combat rules and focus on just the standard ship combat rules. If they have higher Acceleration, then they could put more of that acceleration into evading attacks.

Only up to a certain range, once inside that range then a lightspeed weapon should automatically hit.