A new vision for High Guard?

[Sigtrygg]

On another thread I posted a completely off the cuff comment about High Guard:

"The next edition of High Guard could have a section of different maneuver drive technologies, from realistic to stutterwarp and gravitic, there could be an FTL drive section with warp, jump, slipstream, stutterwarp, hypergates all sort of stuff...

For ship building you allocate % for FTL drive and let the setting inform what that produces in the setting, or give the referee the tools to decide for themselves.

100t, FTL2, MD 4, PP20, advanced sensor suite, computer 3, 4 staterooms, 10t cargo, 20t fuel, air/raft, 1 hardpoint

The setting decides what FTL 2, MD 4, PP20 mean for that universe."

So I want to flesh this out a bit. First get rid of the sample ships, they should go in a separate book dedicated to their setting. That frees up a massive amount of space.

So, structure of the book.

Construction first, divided into chapters, but here is the bit that resembles FF&S a bit, each chapter concentrates on one facet of ship construction and offers variant technologies for different sci fi paradigms, advantages, disadvantages, options the lot.
To keep it simple the actual quantities to be tracked are % displacement, energy, and cost.

Hull, FTL, M-drive, power plant, fuel, environmental controls, sensor and comms, weapons, defences...

Thus the FTL drive could be rated as 1-10 and have a % cost of...<determined by setting>
the chapter describes different FTL technologies and you could decide to go with stutterwarp, jump drive, foldspace drive, warp drive...

The m-drive is a bit more complicated in that you will need to differentiate between reaction drives and reactionless drives but again the displacement 5 etc are setting dependent.

So referees will have the tools to not only build ships for the Third Imperium and T2300, and any setting they want to flesh out themselves.

Keep it simple, offer lots of options.

 

[ross]

I think it’s a fantastic idea. The problem is it can’t be simple and offer a lot of options. Every single option adds a layer of complexity overall. That being said a Traveller shipyard book would be a neat product for Mongoose. Actually, it could be a series of books. One that is just construction for the third Imperium, one for 2300, one for Pioneer, etc. The books wouldn’t have any combat rules, but could have a lot of setting material centered around ship construction, shipyards, and manufacturing techniques.

 

[Vormaerin]

I think it’s a fantastic idea. The problem is it can’t be simple and offer a lot of options. Every single option adds a layer of complexity overall. That being said a Traveller shipyard book would be a neat product for Mongoose. Actually, it could be a series of books. One that is just construction for the third Imperium, one for 2300, one for Pioneer, etc. The books wouldn’t have any combat rules, but could have a lot of setting material centered around ship construction, shipyards, and manufacturing techniques.

This is what it is now, kind of. There's High Guard, which is basically the Third Imperium with some contamination, there's the Aerospace Engineer's books for 2300, and presumably Pioneer will have it's own thing for ships.

What we are hoping for is a big book of shipbuilding that lets you share all the common elements and have an array of options for the things that are different.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Precisely, the construction rules say the FTL drive is this %, the M0drive is this % etc.

The variant tech fluff then lets us describe how it works for our setting

existing settings can then be used as examples, and supplemental books for those settings can have complete designs, deckplans and setting variations.

 

[collins355]

I like it, takes the "alternative technologies" bits of FF&S a step further and could create a truly universal ship design system for Mongoose products.

 

[MasterGwydion]

This would be brilliant. Most importantly keep the math simple. Don't let it turn into FFS. I loved that book, but as I have gotten older, I don't want to math that hard anymore... lol

 

[collins355]

This would be brilliant. Most importantly keep the math simple. Don't let it turn into FFS. I loved that book, but as I have gotten older, I don't want to math that hard anymore... lol

I understand entirely, but as I've said numerous times before, provided you supply an easy to use spreadsheet the math just melts away. Look at the MGT High Guard spreadsheet we have on this forum - which is fanmade and everyone uses all the time. Imagine a professionally done one that came with the Mongoose equivalent of FF&S.
But, for sure, there is no need to make things more complex than they need to be.

 

[ross]

I understand entirely, but as I've said numerous times before, provided you supply an easy to use spreadsheet the math just melts away.

In my opinion (whatever that is worth) this isn't true. Spreadsheets are complex and specific animals. They lack context, they lack explanation, and they lack any descriptive elements. I can use spreadsheets to a point, but my mind doesn't generally work that way and it's a slog. Something like this site is a lot more usable to me than any spreadsheet.

 

[collins355]

In my opinion (whatever that is worth) this isn't true. Spreadsheets are complex and specific animals. They lack context, they lack explanation, and they lack any descriptive elements. I can use spreadsheets to a point, but my mind doesn't generally work that way and it's a slog. Something like this site is a lot more usable to me than any spreadsheet.

That is great, but there is no reason a professional spreadsheet cannot be set up to look like that website. I don't mind either way - the point is you can hide all the maths from the user and they just select options from menus or whatever. The maths is all behind-the-scenes - but the magic is in the maths.
Now you have a consistent design system that any author/GM/player can use and get results that are comparable with any other design made using that system.

 

[Vormaerin]

By themselves, spreadsheets are limited and lack detail. By itself, a sourcebook of the complexity of FF&S is going to have limited uptake.

A FF&S style book that came with a plug & play shipbuilding calculator lets you both explain what things are and why you would want which options AND plug those options in so you don't have to do the math yourself.

That said, I don't think it is necessary to do a full FF&S level of shipbuilding, though that gives you a lot of options that a simpler system doesn't, especially with sensors & weapons mounts.

You could do the current High Guard style ship building with, for example, options for FTL travel like
1) Jump Drive works this way and requires this much engine and that much fuel
2) Warp Drive works this other way but only requires some other quantity of fuel.
etc

You, as the game master, would have to make decisions about what you want your world to be like. But you are doing that anyway. The alternative is buying a different game or, at least, a different starship building book every time you want to change up your setting's tech paradigm.

Right now we have High Guard, the Aerospace Engineer's Handbook, and at least a couple Cepheus engine ship building books that use alternative FTL techs. Plus the Traveller Mindjammer book, which has some stuff on their ships.

Deleting the dubious fleet combat system and the Third Imperium specific examples reduces the size of the High Guard book by more than half. The book's like 280 pages, only 100 of which are currently ship building stuff. 30+ are fleet combat and another 150 are Third Imperium specific ships. So it's not like there's a lack of page count to make a more comprehensive TRAVELLER ship building book, instead of a Charted Space ship book.

 

[collins355]

Of course, the other thing besides a relatively straightforward shipbuilding system that the original CT/High Guard had was a serviceable fleet battle system that actually reflected the design decisions you were making in the shipbuilding bit of the book (I'm ignoring the character generation stuff that was also in there).
My ideal High Guard next edition from Mongoose would have the generic Traveller (note: not/not Third Imperium-specific) shipbuilding system and a complementary fleet combat system.

 

[Vormaerin]

A fleet combat system would be incompatible with a non setting specific design book, I would think. Fleet combat would be different if you have reaction drive ships, stutterwarp ships, or reactionless drive ships. As well as the different sorts of weapons that might be allowed in the setting.

I would rather that the "Fighting Ships of the Third Imperium" have the fleet combat rules for that setting, for instance. Because all those sample ships and fleet combat mechanics are useless to whomever doesn't pick that exact combination of drives, screens, and weapons options.

 

[collins355]

A fleet combat system would be incompatible with a non setting specific design book, I would think. Fleet combat would be different if you have reaction drive ships, stutterwarp ships, or reactionless drive ships. As well as the different sorts of weapons that might be allowed in the setting.

I would rather that the "Fighting Ships of the Third Imperium" have the fleet combat rules for that setting, for instance. Because all those sample ships and fleet combat mechanics are useless to whomever doesn't pick that exact combination of drives, screens, and weapons options.

Fair enough.

If you're active in starship wargaming though, you'll be aware that there are several existing rulesets that are flexible enough to cover fleet combat using a variety of different settings and technologies. This has, in fact, been reasonably common at that scale of combat.

But, if people want a single high level generic starship design system and would rather have a multitude of setting-specific fleet combat systems, go for it...

 

[Sigtrygg]

I can think of a few games that have different versions of ship combat due to the very different nature of ship movement - vector based or not. The old game Alternity springs to mind, its pdf Warships supplement offered different versions of combat. For fleet combat it is a matter of what scales you want to use, weapon effectiveness vs defences, how fast the ships are.

I can think of several ways to do this such that you could run vector based, movement point based or even a combination. Weapons vs defences are again setting specific in detail, but they are just numbers.

 

[Vormaerin]

But, if people want a single high level generic starship design system and would rather have a multitude of setting-specific fleet combat systems, go for it...

I would wager a fair bit that far more people build starships than do fleet battles.

 

[Sigtrygg]

By a county mile...

truth be told I doubt if many ever fought HG fleet vs fleet battles, I/we got bored with the lack of tactical movement and so invented a more "interesting" movement system, and over the years I have invented even more.

I've reduced HG80 batteries bearing by changing the logarithm for turret batteries to reduce the number of dice rolls for capital ships, I've tried converting HG USPs to FFW/Imperium combat factors and use full vector movement... I've even tried to fix HG79 combat factors

I like boardgame/wargames, miniature wargames, but the reality is during role playing sessions I use a homebrew PC scale ship combat system that needs no more than a few counters or a white board to show relative positions and a ruler or lined paper to track range bands. Ship combat is resolved as quickly as personal combat with every PC having something to do if possible.

If we want to spend an afternoon or evening wargaming a ship combat then it is out with the hex board, miniatures, counters and I have dozens of rule systems to choose from, not to mention the homemade rulesets.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah. I play lots of wargames. Mostly historical, but I've done my fair share of space stuff like SFB, F&E, Fifth Frontier War, and the like. Never thought it was particularly interesting to have my PCs be ship crew in a fleet battle.

It would be nice if there was a fun, useful fleet combat game for the ships you could build for Traveller. I just think it probably ought to be it's own product with the support that entails, rather than squeezed into the ship building book at the expense of both.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Yeah. I play lots of wargames. Mostly historical, but I've done my fair share of space stuff like SFB, F&E, Fifth Frontier War, and the like. Never thought it was particularly interesting to have my PCs be ship crew in a fleet battle.

I agree, I can count on one hand how many ship combat sessions I've run during a role playing session that involved breaking out Mayday or the like. Much better to use a PC centred resolution method.

It would be nice if there was a fun, useful fleet combat game for the ships you could build for Traveller. I just think it probably ought to be it's own product with the support that entails, rather than squeezed into the ship building book at the expense of both.

Power Projection comes close, Squadron Strike Traveller comes even closer - particularly if you want the full 3d battlespace... great game.

I have a conversion of Victory at Sea that can handle squadron vs squadron up to small fleet action, if I can manage the conversion I am sure Matt can do better.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

On another thread I posted a completely off the cuff comment about High Guard:

"The next edition of High Guard could have a section of different maneuver drive technologies, from realistic to stutterwarp and gravitic, there could be an FTL drive section with warp, jump, slipstream, stutterwarp, hypergates all sort of stuff...

For ship building you allocate % for FTL drive and let the setting inform what that produces in the setting, or give the referee the tools to decide for themselves.

100t, FTL2, MD 4, PP20, advanced sensor suite, computer 3, 4 staterooms, 10t cargo, 20t fuel, air/raft, 1 hardpoint

The setting decides what FTL 2, MD 4, PP20 mean for that universe."

So I want to flesh this out a bit. First get rid of the sample ships, they should go in a separate book dedicated to their setting. That frees up a massive amount of space.

So, structure of the book.

Construction first, divided into chapters, but here is the bit that resembles FF&S a bit, each chapter concentrates on one facet of ship construction and offers variant technologies for different sci fi paradigms, advantages, disadvantages, options the lot.
To keep it simple the actual quantities to be tracked are % displacement, energy, and cost.

Hull, FTL, M-drive, power plant, fuel, environmental controls, sensor and comms, weapons, defences...

Thus the FTL drive could be rated as 1-10 and have a % cost of...<determined by setting>
the chapter describes different FTL technologies and you could decide to go with stutterwarp, jump drive, foldspace drive, warp drive...

The m-drive is a bit more complicated in that you will need to differentiate between reaction drives and reactionless drives but again the displacement 5 etc are setting dependent.

So referees will have the tools to not only build ships for the Third Imperium and T2300, and any setting they want to flesh out themselves.

Keep it simple, offer lots of options.

I was in after reading the third paragraph. I was trying to come up with something similar, but your solution is far more simple and elegant.
Like when you're writing software, and realize you can replace 3 pages of code with one line.

 

[collins355]

Sounds like no one wants a fleet combat resolution mechanism. So we’re left with kludges like the Pirates of Drinax solution. Fair enough but it does make me scratch my head at the endless ship designs for battle wagons and fleet carriers that are never going to be used.