I've been quietly observing this thread for a while now (not an easy thing to do, keeping up with it), and there's a few comments I would like to make at no one in particular – simply observations which I think could be relevant to further discussion and inform conversation.
This post is broken into three blocks: an in-depth analysis of the existing Mg2T rules as they exist pertaining fighters, a conclusion of what the consequences of those rules are, and finally, a section with my thoughts on it all. Sections are divided by a horizontal separator for ease of reading.
I'm in agreement with Matt's stance on this; fighters exist in the OTU, and that's a fact. Their nature is such that fleet carriers have enough use to justify their existence, but not a danger enough to larger vessels that they preclude the existence of large ships-of-the-line. Whatever we decide and/or conclude should adhere to these axioms.
A further point of consideration is the Drone Issue™ raised multiple times already. It's interesting to note that drones
do exist in the Charted Space universe, mostly at the employ of the K'kree and the advanced robotics of the Hivers (see the one
Travellers' Digest issue on Shudusham). For some reason, however, the other powers of Charted Space have not adopted them. The meta-reason for this is best exemplified by Ken Burnside's Zeroth Law of Space Combat: ”
Science fiction fans relate more to human beings than to silicon chips,“ which is precisely the point Matt has made, and to which I agree. Sigtrygg might be onto something with his suggestion of leveraging the OTU's progressive change into a more post-human setting and the Wafers as featured in
Names. I think this is an interesting conversation but I have nothing further to add at this point, other than whatever is decided, I think it vital for narrative and game reasons that characters be in the fighters themselves – be it physically or through Wafer tech.
Moving on to the role of fighters, I have a few thoughts which are not novel to this discussion, but to which I can contribute a few things not yet pointed out.
Within the present Mg2T rules, it should be noted that when it comes to raw damage output, getting a second Single Turret will always be a better choice, if available, than upgrading the one turret to a Double or even Triple turret. This might sound odd at first, but I point you to the text of
Double and Triple Turrets, in the
Space Combat section of the Core Rulebook – Page 168:
However, if two or more weapons are of the same type, they may be fired together. One attack roll is made for all weapons being fired, but each additional weapon adds +1 per damage dice to the final damage total.
For example, if a triple turret with three pulse lasers is fired, it will only make one attack roll but will deal 2D+4 damage (two additional pulse lasers each adding +1 per damage dice).
Consider a ship with one Single Pulse Laser Turret; it outputs on average 7 points of damage per turn (min. 2, max. 12). If we make it a Double Pulse Laser Turret, it will now output an average 9 points of damage/turn (min. 4, max. 14). Make it a Triple Turret, and now it does 11/turn (min. 6, max. 16). But what if instead of upgrading this turret, we were to add a second Single Pulse Laser Turret instead? Well, now the ship can output an average 14 damage points every turn (min. 4, max. 24 – mathematically equivalent to 4D). Make them
three Single Pulse Laser Turrets and it now does
21 points per turn on average (min. 6, max. 36 – equiv. to 6D6).
It does becomes clear that,
from a purely damage output standpoint, having another turret is the better option to upgrading the one turret. Ships, however, are limited to one turret per 100 displacement tons. I believe you can already see where I am leading with this – for a same 100 displacement tons, a flight of ten light fighters can bring 10 'single turrets' (actually their equivalent, in firmpoints) to bear versus the 100 dTon ship's one triple turret. As per the above analysis, we know which one has the higher damage output.
Another advantage of the squadron versus the lone ship is that the squadron's offensive potential survives erosion due to damage better than the ship, simply by virtue of each individual fighter being its own vessel. This means that in a fight between ten light fighters and say, a Type-S scout, the fighters will very likely be the victors, albeit not without losses (this aspect, of losses, will be important and I will come back to this later). It should be noted though that I believe, though I have not actually done the math on this, that the larger the tonnage of the lone ship, the less drastic the advantage of the equal-tonnage squadron will become; this is more intuition than fact, however, so maybe take it with a salt-shaker or two.
I have not, of course, forgotten the important fact that the range on small craft-mounted weapons is drastically reduced. The time spent closing in to a target will be of great peril for fighter squadrons, as they can be shot at without even having the basic courtesy of responding fire. During these times, having the acceleration advantage over their quarry will be absolutely vital – a fighter need only sustain a minimum of 1 acceleration point higher than their prey to be able to close in to it; whatever exceeding acceleration it has can then be used to take that number of 'Evasive Action' manoeuvres (Core Rulebook, Page 171):
The pilot of a spacecraft may dodge incoming attacks, so long as the spacecraft has unspent Thrust after movement and combat manoeuvring.
Each point of unspent Thrust will allow the spacecraft to attempt to dodge one attack. The attack suffers a negative DM equal to the pilot’s skill.
For high-skilled pilots, the onus to the incoming attack can actually exceed that achievable with Evade/x software, which is capped at Evade/3 – fighters should still
absolutely have the best possible Evade/x software, due to the small but extremely important distinction that the number of 'Evasive Action' manoeuvres is capped by thrust, whereas the Evade/x software applies , and I quote: “to all attacks.” (Core Rulebook, Pg.161).
It should be noted thought that whether to apply maximum thrust to close range as fast as possible versus spending it taking Evasive Action will depend entirely on the tactical situation at hand and the capabilities of the squadron's prey. Taking Evasive Action is probably the better choice against smaller tonnage vessels, which have less turrets and, therefore, less shots to hit the squadron with every turn, rather than a multi-kiloton vessel that can spare fifteen shots for each of the fighters.
Finally, the other aspect I wish to bring attention to is what happens once the fighters have closed to their engagement range – why, the much-maligned Dogfighting rules come into play, of course! The way dogfighting works is that for each turn of dogfight combat, the ships involved make an opposed piloting check, with modifiers for ship tonnage, number of enemies involved in the dogfight, and ship's thrust. I replicate the DM table below:
| Ship is 50 tons or more | -1 |
| Ship is 100 tons or more | -2 |
| For every 100 tons more than 100 tons | -1 |
| For every additional enemy in the dogfight after the first | -1 |
| Ship’s Thrust | +1 per point of Thrust dedicated to dogfighting |
It becomes very clear that it is mathematically impossible for any ship larger than a few thousand tons to win a dogfight against a fighter, let alone a squadron. Upon the winner, a DM+2 for every attack against the loser is awarded. Upon the loser, a DM-2 to every attack is imposed, equivalent to having the winner of the dogfight running Evade/2 software. If combined with in-build Evade/x software and Evasive Actions, this can turn the task of hitting the fighters nearly impossible for the lone ship. Of course, large ships with hundreds of turrets all concentrating fire on a single fighter will inevitably hit and destroy its target simply due to the law of big numbers, not to mention the fact that after a certain amount of armour, the weapons fighters can equip will simply not be able to punch through to the target before the entire squadron is wiped out.
Taking all of the above into account then, what role do I believe fighters have in the OTU
operating under the Mg2T rules as they presently exist?
First, take note of their lethality to small ships – their role in customs roles has already been pointed out, but I do also believe that they would have a role in fleet engagements: absolutely tearing apart the likes of Type-T patrol craft, Gazelle Close Escorts, and Destroyer Escorts such as Chrysanthemum- or Fer-de-Lance-class vessels. This would allow the larger, line-of-battle ships to concentrate fire on their peers to remove them from the fight as quickly as possible, without all the while having to be receiving fire from the small fry, as the fighters are keeping them otherwise occupied. As previously pointed out, fighter craft also have an obvious role as screening elements themselves, especially with the Point Defence rules on page 104 of
High Guard 2022.
I feel like the true value of fighters – again –
operating under the Mg2T rules as they presently exist, is their nature as a diffuse blob of damage-dealing capability that is very hard to neutralise in one swift volley. You can erode it, yes, but it takes time to completely mission-kill it.
So what do I think of all this? I think the existing rules put fighters in a place where they can exist in the OTU but not achieve prominence or even mainstream appeal to the Naval Powers of the setting – which matches the fiction. That is not to say I think they're perfect and have no need or space for improvement; quite the contrary, actually.
One thing I feel needs to be addressed in some form is the attrition rate of fighters, and their essentially cannon fodder role. Were this a wargame of the likes of
Striker, I feel some sort of rule to handle the possibility of squadrons being routed and fleeing would be called for. As a tabletop RPG focused on personal-scale engagement, that's not very straight-forward to implement.
Another thing I've noticed is that, because Mg2T Traveller does not have a 'Declare Fire' phase
before all attacks are roled, if a ship blows up mid-attack phase, the attacking ship can simply switch targets and continue firing without 'wasting' fire on an already committed-to but mission-killed ship, whereas if all fire had its targets declared
before attacks were rolled, the 'wasted' fire would greatly benefit squadrons and their dispersed nature – do you concentrate all your turrets on a single fighter to maximise the chances of it being insta-killed, at the risk of wasting declared fire, or do you fire at multiple fighters and risk destroying none? Again, this is better for a wargame than a TTRPG oriented to small scale, personal combat, as 'wasted' fire introduces a frustration point to the players.
These are significant game design hurdles to overcome, for which I won't even
pretend to have answers for. Though whatever is done with fighters, I do think that better sensor rules are one of the ways space combat – for fighters and bigger ships alike – could be improved relative to the current ruleset. Sigtrygg's idea is an interesting starting point for that, though it might need a bit if trimming/simplification for the usual TTRPG audience.
In the end, I do think fighters could be massaged a bit more so they're in their best shape, but I don't think they're in as dire a position as some might think they are.
And also, I do apologise for the comically ginormous wall of text. I uh–
I got carried away.
)
