A bigger, better Harrier

[RYXlord]

The Harrier can easily handle most small civilian and paramilitary traffic, but runs into trouble punching above it's weight class, or when tangling against serious combat ships. It is outgunned, for example, by the Gazelle-class escorts in Treasure Ship or the Fiery gunships in Peter Vallis' fleet in Honour Amung Theieves. Anything armed and in excess of 600 tons is probably right out. What the Harrier does well is speed and stealth. That gives players agency to pick and choose their battles, which is absolutely invaluable, especially early on in the campaign.

They do also mention (but do not describe) the Wyvern, which was a heavier combat version.

The author was asked about this here and suggested it would be a sub 2,000 dTon hull with pretty much the same design logic.

Oh gosh, I did a whole write up for the Wyvern Corvette for JTAS 18. I built it as a 400 ton gunship employing similar lines and tech but wrote it kind of like the Harrier's angry big brother. I figure while the Harrier slips unseen patrolling for illegal shipping and pirates, the Wyvern is a big brute of a ship shaking down merchants for protection money and chasing off raiders. Plus, of course, they were probably just as bespoke and lavish. We got some really beautiful art of the officer's lounge decked out in full Sindalan finery. If anyone is interested in the Wyvern it might be worth checking out.

 

[Endie]

The Harrier can easily handle most small civilian and paramilitary traffic, but runs into trouble punching above it's weight class, or when tangling against serious combat ships. It is outgunned, for example, by the Gazelle-class escorts in Treasure Ship or the Fiery gunships in Peter Vallis' fleet in Honour Amung Theieves. Anything armed and in excess of 600 tons is probably right out. What the Harrier does well is speed and stealth. That gives players agency to pick and choose their battles, which is absolutely invaluable, especially early on in the campaign.



Oh gosh, I did a whole write up for the Wyvern Corvette for JTAS 18. I built it as a 400 ton gunship employing similar lines and tech but wrote it kind of like the Harrier's angry big brother. I figure while the Harrier slips unseen patrolling for illegal shipping and pirates, the Wyvern is a big brute of a ship shaking down merchants for protection money and chasing off raiders. Plus, of course, they were probably just as bespoke and lavish. We got some really beautiful art of the officer's lounge decked out in full Sindalan finery. If anyone is interested in the Wyvern it might be worth checking out.

Serious question: if you have an 800 ton ship with thrust 5 and armed with lasers and missiles, why wouldn’t the Harrier eventually defeat it without taking any harm by kiting it from PA range and using EW to sweep away each salvo of missiles?

 

[Terry Mixon]

The Harrier can easily handle most small civilian and paramilitary traffic, but runs into trouble punching above it's weight class, or when tangling against serious combat ships. It is outgunned, for example, by the Gazelle-class escorts in Treasure Ship or the Fiery gunships in Peter Vallis' fleet in Honour Amung Theieves. Anything armed and in excess of 600 tons is probably right out. What the Harrier does well is speed and stealth. That gives players agency to pick and choose their battles, which is absolutely invaluable, especially early on in the campaign.



Oh gosh, I did a whole write up for the Wyvern Corvette for JTAS 18. I built it as a 400 ton gunship employing similar lines and tech but wrote it kind of like the Harrier's angry big brother. I figure while the Harrier slips unseen patrolling for illegal shipping and pirates, the Wyvern is a big brute of a ship shaking down merchants for protection money and chasing off raiders. Plus, of course, they were probably just as bespoke and lavish. We got some really beautiful art of the officer's lounge decked out in full Sindalan finery. If anyone is interested in the Wyvern it might be worth checking out.

Nice writeup. One question, should it be listed as TL12? The bonded superdense armor is TL14 and they were built at TL15, weren't they?

 

[RYXlord]

Serious question: if you have an 800 ton ship with thrust 5 and armed with lasers and missiles, why wouldn’t the Harrier eventually defeat it without taking any harm by kiting it from PA range and using EW to sweep away each salvo of missiles?

The Harrier certainly has an advantage in that fight which most ships do not, that's one of it's big advantages, but you have limited actions each round to use the EW suite, limited to either available sensor stations, or limited sensor operators, depending on how you read certain rules. The EW suite furthermoer isn't foolproof and If your enemy is releasing missiles faster than you can put it down, it's a losing scenario. Consider the following situation.

The Harrier is fighting an 800 ton Type-C Mercenary Cruiser armed with 4 triple pulse lasers and 4 triple missile racks.

Let's say that this particular Harrier has a whopping 4 crewmen crowded around the sensor station, the only people onboard not needed doing other things during a fight. Each missile salvo requires a Difficult (10+) Electronics (sensors) task to disarm. You get a +6 from the suite and let's assume your average crewmate has +0 in this, because unless you have dedicated sensor ops, it's not their specialty. We're looking at Effect, so if you roll a 4 or less (16.66%), you get nothing. If you roll 5 (11.11%) you disable 1 missile, if you roll a 6 (13.89%), you disable 2 missiles, if you roll 7+(58.34%) you disable all 3 missiles. Doing the math on the averages, that means 0.9 missiles are getting through each salvo, and there are 4 salvos coming in each round. This means you are taking an average of 3.6 missiles per round, each of which deals 10 damage after factoring in armour. Let's say only half of these missiles actually hit. You're taking an average of 18 damage a round. The harrier has 88 hull points. It goes down 5 rounds after the missiles begin arriving on turn 4.

Conversely the Type-C Mercenary Cruiser has armour 3, so each hit of the particle barbette is doing an average of 21 damage. That ship has 320 hull points. Even if you're landing every shot (and you wouldn't, given the -4 range penalty) it still takes 16 rounds to bring it down. If you're more realistically landing only half the shots, it's twice that at 32 rounds.

Even if you get crazy with it and have a staggering 8 sensops (all hands on deck!), a second group now shooting at the surviving missile swarms, it's still rough. If we apply the same ratio of surviving missiles to missiles launched from the first equation, we see the second group reduces each of the leftover rounds to 22.5% efficiency. That still means 0.81 missiles are getting through each round. Let's say half of them hit. The Harrier is still taking 4 damage every round on average. It lasts 22 rounds and still loses the fight.

At least, if I've done my math properly.

The Harrier is great, but it has only got one real gun and scale counts for a lot. It can't handle big enemy escorts. Where it really shines is slipping past patrols and making sure that the fights it gets into are ones it can win. As the campaign goes on, the pirates need to get bigger guns if they're going to fight big enemies.

Nice writeup. One question, should it be listed as TL12? The bonded superdense armor is TL14 and they were built at TL15, weren't they?

Oh, strange! it should definitely be listed as TL 15.

 

[Geir]

Conversely the Type-C Mercenary Cruiser has armour 3, so each hit of the particle barbette is doing an average of 21 damage. That ship has 320 hull points. Even if you're landing every shot (and you wouldn't, given the -4 range penalty) it still takes 16 rounds to bring it down. If you're more realistically landing only half the shots, it's twice that at 32 rounds.

Don't forget the radiation damage. It's possible for a couple of hits to take out the entire crew, disabled or dead. The particle accelerator is just scary.

 

[Arkathan]

Doing the math on the averages, that means 0.9 missiles are getting through each salvo, and there are 4 salvos coming in each round.

There is only one salvo, but it is four times as big as you describe.
Core'22, pg 172 defines a salvo as all missiles launched by a single ship towards a single target.

 

[Endie]

The Harrier certainly has an advantage in that fight which most ships do not, that's one of it's big advantages, but you have limited actions each round to use the EW suite, limited to either available sensor stations, or limited sensor operators, depending on how you read certain rules. The EW suite furthermoer isn't foolproof and If your enemy is releasing missiles faster than you can put it down, it's a losing scenario. Consider the following situation.

The Harrier is fighting an 800 ton Type-C Mercenary Cruiser armed with 4 triple pulse lasers and 4 triple missile racks.

Let's say that this particular Harrier has a whopping 4 crewmen crowded around the sensor station, the only people onboard not needed doing other things during a fight. Each missile salvo requires a Difficult (10+) Electronics (sensors) task to disarm. You get a +6 from the suite and let's assume your average crewmate has +0 in this, because unless you have dedicated sensor ops, it's not their specialty. We're looking at Effect, so if you roll a 4 or less (16.66%), you get nothing. If you roll 5 (11.11%) you disable 1 missile, if you roll a 6 (13.89%), you disable 2 missiles, if you roll 7+(58.34%) you disable all 3 missiles. Doing the math on the averages, that means 0.9 missiles are getting through each salvo, and there are 4 salvos coming in each round. This means you are taking an average of 3.6 missiles per round, each of which deals 10 damage after factoring in armour. Let's say only half of these missiles actually hit. You're taking an average of 18 damage a round. The harrier has 88 hull points. It goes down 5 rounds after the missiles begin arriving on turn 4.

Conversely the Type-C Mercenary Cruiser has armour 3, so each hit of the particle barbette is doing an average of 21 damage. That ship has 320 hull points. Even if you're landing every shot (and you wouldn't, given the -4 range penalty) it still takes 16 rounds to bring it down. If you're more realistically landing only half the shots, it's twice that at 32 rounds.

Even if you get crazy with it and have a staggering 8 sensops (all hands on deck!), a second group now shooting at the surviving missile swarms, it's still rough. If we apply the same ratio of surviving missiles to missiles launched from the first equation, we see the second group reduces each of the leftover rounds to 22.5% efficiency. That still means 0.81 missiles are getting through each round. Let's say half of them hit. The Harrier is still taking 4 damage every round on average. It lasts 22 rounds and still loses the fight.

At least, if I've done my math properly.

The Harrier is great, but it has only got one real gun and scale counts for a lot. It can't handle big enemy escorts. Where it really shines is slipping past patrols and making sure that the fights it gets into are ones it can win. As the campaign goes on, the pirates need to get bigger guns if they're going to fight big enemies.




Oh, strange! it should definitely be listed as TL 15.

Thanks for putting in the work on a full description of the maths!

Unfortunately, my group has 6 crew members, one of whom (allegedly a doctor) has Electronics (Sensors) 3 and is already investing his experience points into raising it to a fourth level after our first space combat. They've never played Traveller before (except the sensor ops guy himself who played CT in the early 80s) but they're an experienced group who will optimise any remaining risk/fun out of the fight asap.

Anyway, on an average roll, the sensors guy with +6 from the miiltary suite and +3 from his current skill will already have an effect of 1 even on snake-eyes. On an average roll he'll take out six missiles per round, meaning that four triple launchers firing salvos of 12 missiles will on average only get halfway to the Harrier when it starts at PA range without them even turning and burning out of PA range to buy time.

There is another person with one point in sensors but they're also going to be the gunner in the second turret when that is fixed and converted to lasers, so they'll be able to make hits even more unlikely: not as efficiently as if they add a second sensor station but lets optimistically ignore that.

And as @Geir points out, all of this time the PA is irradiating an enemy crew who will quickly see their missiles evaporating in front of them. Within two (average) rounds, a rational captain is going to start pondering surrender, because he'll quickly see that only his fourth salvo will have be likely to land a few hits, and if the Harrier kites to distant range even that won't work, and in the meantime his future kids, assuming he is lucky, will have three legs.

I was kinda hoping someone would point out I was being a dumbo and totally mis-reading the EW rules or something but God help me when the party work out that some poor planetary navy's System Defence Boat* is a risk-free snack for them... Maybe I have found a niche role for fighter-carriers after all!

*Edit: actually, with manuevre 9, SDBs are maybe a rare example of something at a peer level where a couple of them could do real harm to the Harrier.

 

[Endie]

I should probably make more of a "what ship build gimmicks/combos would you use to challenge that crew in the Harrier?" Obviously I can kill them, of course, but what opposition would make for interesting peer-level fights to throw in amongst the regular, piratical, one-sided encounters?

I have plenty of ideas for interesting encounters once the other ship is boarded, of course, and that's where the interest will be on most occasions. But to keep the combat element interesting, what would you throw at them occasionally? SDBs and multiple fighters make sense, I think, but what else? The Harrier's superb sensors and high tech level make surprise a bit less likely but it might work every now and then.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I should probably make more of a "what ship build gimmicks/combos would you use to challenge that crew in the Harrier?" Obviously I can kill them, of course, but what opposition would make for interesting peer-level fights to throw in amongst the regular, piratical, one-sided encounters?

I have plenty of ideas for interesting encounters once the other ship is boarded, of course, and that's where the interest will be on most occasions. But to keep the combat element interesting, what would you throw at them occasionally? SDBs and multiple fighters make sense, I think, but what else? The Harrier's superb sensors and high tech level make surprise a bit less likely but it might work every now and then.

The ship is in pretty poor condition. Be a shame if something important broke in the middle of the fight.

 

[RYXlord]

There is only one salvo, but it is four times as big as you describe.
Core'22, pg 172 defines a salvo as all missiles launched by a single ship towards a single target.

Goodnesss, what a blunder. I guess it's been a while since I've missile salvo'd at the table.

With that correction in mind, it changes matters somewhat, as there is now one salvo of 12 instead of 3 salvos of 4. Because each salvo can only be targeted once per round, this means there are four opportunities to countermeasure before the missiles hit. Running similar math about the percentage chance of each dice roll and how many missiles that would eliminate from the swarm, the EW is 74% effective, meaning if it's getting EWed once every round, the final number of missiles to get through is 3.59. If half of those hit, it's still 17.95 damage, which kills the harrier in 5 rounds after the missiles start arriving.

Don't forget the radiation damage. It's possible for a couple of hits to take out the entire crew, disabled or dead. The particle accelerator is just scary.

The hull of a ship decreases radiation exposure to those inside by 500. The Harrier's attack deals 2D x 60 rads. Anything less than an 8 on that dice is going to get absorbed by the hull. What is going to happen is 72.22% of the time, it's going to bounce off the hull, 19.44% of the time it's going to deal 60 or 120 rads, causing 1D (av 3.5) damage, and 8.34% (11+) of the time it's going to do 180 or 240 rads, inflicting 2D (av 7) damage. It's enough to injure, but you'd have to get lucky to debilitate, especially given that the enemy crew effected would be determined by where the blast hits. If you irradiate the bridge one shot and the engineering the next, it's not going to stack.

Rad is juicy and it gives you a chance to make a decisive blow on a high roll, but it's unreliable. The reason Meson weapons are so brutal is because the armor penetration ignores radiation shielding and hull protections entirely, so you're dealing lethal rad doses on over half your hits.

Thanks for putting in the work on a full description of the maths!

Unfortunately, my group has 6 crew members, one of whom (allegedly a doctor) has Electronics (Sensors) 3 and is already investing his experience points into raising it to a fourth level after our first space combat. They've never played Traveller before (except the sensor ops guy himself who played CT in the early 80s) but they're an experienced group who will optimise any remaining risk/fun out of the fight asap

I was more presenting a generic 'stock' Harrier than your specific game table, but sure, let's see what that would look like...

Okay, so looking at the corrected rules, in which it is one salvo of 12 and not 4 salvos of 3, running the averages, your +3 sens op is going to reduce the missile swarm from 12 to 6. Over the next few rounds as the missile makes its way towards you, your other sensor op (who appear to be 0, since you said your sens 1 is on the guns) reduce these missiles my 26% each, meaning when it gets to you, you're still dealing with 2.43 missiles per round, on average. If half of those hit, it's 12.15 damage a round on average, destroying the Harrier in 8 rounds once you start taking damage.

If you have a triple point defense pulse turret (total bonus +5) is going to reduce it about the same as your good sense op, so that's a 50% reduction. On average you've got 1.43 getting in per round, 0.715 hitting you, and 7.15 damage, which isn't a lot, but it still takes you down in 12 rounds.

If you turn and flee from the missiles, you could drag things out, giving yourself an extra round or two to EW, reducing it by a further 26% each, but those are rounds you're not going to be doing damage to the enemy ship.

I was kinda hoping someone would point out I was being a dumbo and totally mis-reading the EW rules or something!

Well, it depends on if you read the bit in High Guard (53) where it says about Sensor Stations "With only a single sensor station, the ship can only perform one of these tasks in a given round." to mean one task or one type of task.

I should probably make more of a "what ship build gimmicks/combos would you use to challenge that crew in the Harrier?" Obviously I can kill them, of course, but what opposition would make for interesting peer-level fights to throw in amongst the regular, piratical, one-sided encounters?

Have you considered throwing them into a mirror match? Have a small, fast, stealthy ship go after them that uses the same dirty tricks they do.

 

[Geir]

I'd forgotten the radiation damage rules as currently written. So they're less dangerous than I remember... and its doesn't explicitly say that they scale, so the 2D x 60 applies equally to a fusion turret weapon as to a particle barbette as to a meson spinal or a nuclear bomb. And the 10 meter rule doesn't really work well even in a 30 meter scout ship. So I'm not sure it's an improvement, other than making clear that the person shooting the weapon isn't irradiated by it.

But I mean, clearly, a radiation hull protects against 1000 rads and 12 x60 is only 720, so those ships, as written would be completely immune.

For some reason I was using 2D x100 for the PA barbette, but that was years ago and I can't remember where I pulled that from. But now I don't know what to think about the current rules. Other than as written, get radiation shielding and as long as the enemy doesn't have a meson gun, you're fine??? Or did I miss some other fine print?

Edit: Found the old rule from the old Core book:
"Anyone close to the firer, target and the line of fire in-between the two will receive 2D x 20 rads, multiplied by 5 for Spacecraft scale weapons."
That's where I got it.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I should probably make more of a "what ship build gimmicks/combos would you use to challenge that crew in the Harrier?" Obviously I can kill them, of course, but what opposition would make for interesting peer-level fights to throw in amongst the regular, piratical, one-sided encounters?

I have plenty of ideas for interesting encounters once the other ship is boarded, of course, and that's where the interest will be on most occasions. But to keep the combat element interesting, what would you throw at them occasionally? SDBs and multiple fighters make sense, I think, but what else? The Harrier's superb sensors and high tech level make surprise a bit less likely but it might work every now and then.

Anything which has anti-radiation shielding. A Even a Far Trader with just two turrets could put out a comparable amount of damage per round. At that point the decisive factor becomes the maneuver drive; the Harrier can dictate range, but the fight will take extra time -- and the amount of time elapsed since the attack starts affects what sort of system-defense response the pirates need to avoid or deal with.

An SDB with anti-rad shielding is a serious threat.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

An SDB with anti-rad shielding is a serious threat.

As a house rule I have planetoid hulls double the hull shielding effect from 500 to 1000 and buffered planetoids triple it to 1500. A planetoid monitor would stand up well to the Harrier it seems under that house rule.

If lunar regolith can be used to shield a lunar base why not a planetoid hull?

 

[J. L. Brown]

As a house rule I have planetoid hulls double the hull shielding effect from 500 to 1000 and buffered planetoids triple it to 1500. A planetoid monitor would stand up well to the Harrier it seems under that house rule.

If lunar regolith can be used to shield a lunar base why not a planetoid hull?

I am not a fan of the 'Anti-Rad Shielding = complete immunity' approach in 2e. I am probably going to house rule it as 'basic hull has some rad shielding by TL, extra amounts of anti-rad (again, better by TL) can be bought similar to armor'. Ditto for 'Hardened' systems being immune to Ionic damage.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Add some leakage, xD leaks through. Or make the effectiveness of the shielding a variable roll.

 

[Geir]

I am not a fan of the 'Anti-Rad Shielding = complete immunity' approach in 2e. I am probably going to house rule it as 'basic hull has some rad shielding by TL, extra amounts of anti-rad (again, better by TL) can be bought similar to armor'. Ditto for 'Hardened' systems being immune to Ionic damage.

It doesn't correspond to the blue box on HG'22 p. 31 either, where 40% hull damage will give you crew DMs even with radiation shielding, so some simple scaling should considered.

I don't know, maybe one person affected per starship D of damage done? And back to 2D x100 for bays and above? That way, you'd get immunity from barbettes with radiation shielding, but not bigger weapons and you wouldn't need to worry about scaling the 10 meter thing - it would go up all the way to spinals without any math... uh, 2000 D damage, uh, 2000 people get hit... (hey it's a spinal weapon, it's gonna burn).

 

[J. L. Brown]

It doesn't correspond to the blue box on HG'22 p. 31 either, where 40% hull damage will give you crew DMs even with radiation shielding, so some simple scaling should considered.

I don't know, maybe one person affected per starship D of damage done? And back to 2D x100 for bays and above? That way, you'd get immunity from barbettes with radiation shielding, but not bigger weapons and you wouldn't need to worry about scaling the 10 meter thing - it would go up all the way to spinals without any math... uh, 2000 D damage, uh, 2000 people get hit... (hey it's a spinal weapon, it's gonna burn).

The problem there is ships (even of similar tonnages) can have vastly different numbers of people aboard. I think the simple way is just 'X rads get through; everyone is affected'. 100 (or some other specified number) rads worth of anti-rad armor takes up a fifth the cost and tonnage of a single point of normal armor. Anti-ion armor works the same way. Maybe make it affected by TL by a simple TL/10 multiplier.

 

[MasterGwydion]

This is the problem with the "aim for the middle" mindset of current Traveller. When you want to shoot a tear gas cannister through a building window, you aim for the building window, not just the building. Traveller would like you to believe that with all of this advanced targeting that will exist in the future, the average shot fired at the enemy is fired not caring where the shot actually hits. Every shot should be a targeted shot on a part of the ship. Just like every shot taken with a firearm in real life. In real life, when shooting at a person, we want to hit them in the torso, so We aim at the middle of the torso. If you want to hit them in the head, you aim at the center of their head, adjusted for multiple variables, but yeah. So why is the default in starship combat, "I shoot the ship"? Why is it not, "Target their jump drive" or "Target their power plant" as the default?

If you shoot at a particular part of the ship, then determining where to apply the Radiation Damage is easy.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, you have six minutes to track, predict, aim, and shoot at a target.

Centre mass would ensure that it hits the spacecraft, even while, presumably, the pilot twists and turns trying to avoid presenting a predictable target.

 

[MasterGwydion]

In theory, you have six minutes to track, predict, aim, and shoot at a target.

Centre mass would ensure that it hits the spacecraft, even while, presumably, the pilot twists and turns trying to avoid presenting a predictable target.

You are not twisting and turning in space. This isn't Star Wars. If you accelerate for 5 rounds, it takes you 5 rounds to stop also. Remember that when you turn, all you really did is alter the direction of gravity that your ship is falling into. There are no aerodynamic controls surfaces with whip your ship from one side to the other, just gravity and the slow change in direction that results from that.