A question on ship design...

[PFVA63]

Hi,

In looking over the final Mongoose Core Rulebook, that I just recieved the other day, I noticed some stuff in the Ship Design section, that I have a question on.

Mainly, it looks like the authors did a pretty good job of putting together a system which allows players to recreate existing/familiar Traveller ships from previous versions while providing some new option and features, but there is something that worry me.

Specifically, it appears that weapon bays follow the same one mount per 100 dtons of ship size that regular turrets do. Additionally, if I am reading correctly they don't seem to have any additional power requirements for bays over what you would have for regular turrets. As such, this would seem to mean that a ship perhaps as small as 200dtons could potentially mount a 50dton meson, particle beam or fusion gun bay, whil only fitting the same Type A Powerplant that a Free Trader uses.

My question then is, is this corect, or have I misinterpreted something?

To allow such heavy (presumable power hungry) weapons on such a small craft without increasing the power requirements of the ship would seem kind of unbalancing to me.

In general, when talking about Traveller related stuff and possible rule changes and additions, I've always tried to keep in mind the rules from the original Traveller's Book 0, which suggested that something along the lines that when you change one part of the rules you have to make sure you haven't unbalanced stuff elsewhere, since everyting is so interconnected.

As such, by allowing ship's to fit large energy weapons, but not pay any additional price in terms of needing additional power to use those weapons seems a little off to me.

Regards

PF

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Based on the rules as published, you are correct.

I am currently designing a Gunboat with exactly that in mind.

An SDB with 6g acceleration, a 50 Ton Bay, and a couple of turrets for defense.

At low TL it mounts a Nuclear Missile Bay, then a Particle Beam Bay then finally a Meson Gun Bay. No power plant differences are required. Doesn't seem right, but that is the way it is written.

Original Book 2 designs had the same issue, but then you couldn't have bay weapons on small ships back then either.

 

[Zowy]

In CT High Guard, one weapon bay could be installed per 1,000 tons of hull. You allso had to pay 10,000 Cr per ton of bay size on top of the weapons cost.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Yep, under MGT, you COULD install 1ea 50 ton bay per 100 tons of ship since it only takes that tonnage and 1 hardpoint. Might make a great defense satellite (scribbles note to self) though.

No extra PP costs are mentioned for any weapons installed. I expect that MGT-HG will correct that some how.

 

[Anonymous]

Didnt COACC have a defence satellite with a bay installed ?

Rog.

 

[cmdrx]

Until MGT-High Guard comes out, I think we will have to fudge the power alocation a bit to prevent such munchkinism. A 100dt Scout packing a Meson Bay? Gah! Sounds like something Ditzie would do.

Here's the house rule I've come up with. The power plant generates as much EP (yeah a High Guard thing) as the rating on the table. Forex a Type A Power Plant on a 100dt vessle makes 2EP, Type B, 4 and so on. This EP can be used to power weapons (as per High Guard: 1EP for a laser, 5EP for that PAW), or to power the M-Drives for agility. As the scale only goes up to 6, you see that the smaller ships will benefit more than the larger. In this system and scale, the larger ships will rely more on missiles and sandcasters than on large energy weapon bays, which should be the domain of Capital ships and therefore use High Guard's power plant system.

On that note. I am wondering if there are any slots available for the private playtest of MGT's High Guard?

 

[hdrider67]

Until MGT-High Guard comes out, I think we will have to fudge the power alocation a bit to prevent such munchkinism. A 100dt Scout packing a Meson Bay? Gah! Sounds like something Ditzie would do.

That ship will suck at defense, though It might work as a raider but a well rounded escort will eat it for breakfast. I'm planning on using Harrington style pods for my larger ships. The ships designed in high gaurd should make some bad missiles with penaids, ECW, and also a big bang.

The power need a fix, though. Stripping it out completely was a mistake. Power limits messy guns like the PA.


Anyone know if HG will deal with vehicle rules as well? I'm building a troop transport / drop ship using modified POPO cutters and a couple of fast boats strapped with Grav Tanks. Numbers suggest I could put a company of Cav in multiple dropzones. I need the rules, though.

 

[Sturn]

Why not just use a dton requirement for weapon bays and spinal mounts? Not realistic, but consistant with the 1 turret per 100 dtons rule. A.i., you can give up 5 turrets for 1 bay, or something similar.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I was thinking that each PP letter gives you the equivalent of 6 laser turrets worth of energy (6EP if you will). Bay weapons count as 12 Lasers (like they count as 12 missiles) and bump your PP rating up to add those extra weapons.

Basically, each PP letter will allow 2 triple laser turrets.

You could argue that the Meson Gun bay needs more power than the PA bay if you like and make it bump up another letter. If you put lots of Bays on your ship, or lots of Energy Weapons, you have to up the PP rating (maybe even above 6).

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I kind of like some of the suggestions that have been posted here to address power requirements for big weapons on small ships. In addition to the bay weapons not appearing to have any additional powering impacts on a ship another thing that had begun to concern me is that, by changing from one bay per 1000 dtons from Classic Traveller, to 1 per 100 dtons in the new version (as noted by Zowy) is that it seems like it may end up making alot of existing ships from canon seem under armed in comparison to new vessels that can be designed with these new rules.

anyway, it will be interesting to see how the HighGuard rules for bigger ships addresses this kind of stuff.

Regards

PF

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Well, you still have to fit everything else in the hull.

If you put a 50 ton bay in a 100 ton ship, that doesn't leave much room for the bridge (10 tons) a power plant, a Maneuver Drive, Jump Drive (and FUEL), Staterooms etc. I think you will find that if you want something that can MOVE as well as fight, you will need a minimum of 300-500 tons. Adding a second Bay on a small ship will be just about impossible without significant design limitations (like no Jump and no M-Drive).

 

[atpollard]

Original Book 2 designs had the same issue, but then you couldn't have bay weapons on small ships back then either.

Just 50 Tripple Laser Turrets on a 5000 dTon hull with no additional power requirements.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I just got my copy, and was wondering why they stopped at 2000 ton hulls.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I hope this isn't getting too far off track but in the real world I'm a Naval Architect by training, and although I messed around with Traveller years ago, I've only recently started getting back into it. When I did play, ship design always was one of my favorite parts of the of the game. As such, and recently I've started looking over some of the approximations, formulas, and tables from Traveller to see how they compare to similar areas of ocean-going ship design, mostly just out of curiosity. Some of the stuff I've come across though has been kind of interesting and informative.

Specifically, with regards to electrical power on modern ships, here is a table for a typical DDG that comes from a presentation that I once attended on ship design.

In it, it shows that while the total rated power requirements of all the stuff on th ship that consumes electrical power is over 11.6MW, that total estimated power consumed during different operations is much lower. Specifically, I believe that (looking on the internet) the total installed electrical generating power capability of the ship is only about 7.5MW. The reasons for the difference in these numbers is due to alot of reasons, but the two biggest (I believe) are that;

• there are some things that likely will never be operated at full power together (like the heating system - which is needed for cold weather ops, and the Air Conditioning system - which is needed for warm weather ops)

• most stuff won't typically be run at full power together

In order to do the sizing of an electrical plant on an ocean going ship typically you'll make estimates of something called a "load factor" for different types of equipment, which more or less represents how much power that piece of equipment will draw in a given condition as a fraction of its rated load. Additionally, for most equipment there are different load factors specified for different operating conditions (such as when the ship is at anchor, when its cruising underway, or when its at battle stations)

An interesting thing that you notice from the DDG table that I referenced is that the "total" estimated power requirement for the ship in its battle condition is very similar to its "total" estimated cruise condition, because the power allocated to areas like "Outfit&furnishing/Accommodations" & Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC)" are reduced in the battle condition so that more power can be provided to the main machinery, sensors and weaponry.

Looking at this in Traveller terms, it could maybe be rationalized that for a given spaceship, in normal cruise operations you may have a certain power allocation to stuff like lighting and life support, etc but during battle, these areas might be cut back a little in order to provide power for the weapons and sensors/weapon directors. As such, the fact that the rules don't really require any additional power for a few turrets on a ship, may not be too big a deal. However, if you start putting on really big power hungry weapons on a ship (like energy weapon bays), that may no longer be the case.

Specifically, I have an article on something called the "Navy High Energy Laser Weapon System" from a few years back. Mostly it appears to be a laser based weapon for ocean-going shipboard use that was intended to fit within the same area on a ship as a 5in gun module to minimize ship impact. However, the big difference between it and a gun module appears to be that a 5in gun only has a maximum electric load of about 180kW whereas the laser had a max electric load of 400kW (or 222% that of the gun). In addition, the laser also had some more hefty water requirements etc than the gun.

As such, I wouldn't expect the battle condition electric load requirements for a ship mounting one of these high-energy lasers to be similar to the ship's cruise load condition (like it was for the baseline gun and missile armed DDG that I noted above).

In Traveller terms, this is kind of how I see weapons bays as being on small ships. If the bays are high-energy weapons like fusion guns, meson guns or partical accelerators, I'd expect them to draw more power than just a regular triple laser turret, and as such, even if a laser armed ship doesn't require extra power to fire its weapons, I would expect a ship armed with the bigger high-energy weapons probably would require more power.

Anyway, I know that's probably getting a little off track, but I thought it might be of interest to show how Traveller design rules might be similar or different to modern warship stuff.

Regards

PF

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

So, in Battle Stations, the lights get dimmed, the heating/cooling systems are reduced (raising the average temperature in crew areas at least).

Sounds like good background info.

I think my houserule is going to be that you have to bump the PP by 1 letter if Energy Weapons are mounted in Bays, but that it is not required for turret weapons. Until High Guard comes out and makes all of this obsolete!

 

[PFVA63]

I think my houserule is going to be that you have to bump the PP by 1 letter if Energy Weapons are mounted in Bays, but that it is not required for turret weapons. Until High Guard comes out and makes all of this obsolete!

Hi,

I think I'll probably do something along those lines as well.

Regards

PF

 

[Golan2072]

I don't have the book yet, but I'm getting the feeling that a possible solution would be to require each bay to take a number of hardpoints equal to its tonnage divided by 10. A 50-ton bay would take up 5 hardpoints and a 100-ton bay would take up 10 hardpoints.

 

[Matrix Cypher]

I have just ported the play test doc info on power. Seems to work ok.

 

[Libris]

The starship rules are pretty cool and I jumped right in and designed a 1,200 dton Corvette; twin Meson bays, 5 triple PA turrets, and 5 triple beam laser turrets. Problem comes up on three points.

1. One 'bay' takes the place of one 'hardpoint"
2. Power requirements I imagine would be 'a lot'
3. Insufficient computer power to run the ship at maximum efficiency.

The last one is a major one. Not so much for normal running about but certainly for Fire Control on larger ships.

Any ship worth the name of "Warship" should be running Intellect, Evade/3, Auto-Repair/2 and Fire Control/5 for every gun. This would require a computer of rating 80. I think Fire Control need to be integrated at the hardpoint level and have a Master Fire Controller software in the main computer. Just make the level the magnitude of the number of turrets it can control. MFC/1 10 turrets, MFC/2 100 turrets, MFC/3 1000 turrets, MFC/4 10000 turrets.

On the other hand I might just wait for High Guard...

 

[simonh]

I don't have the book yet, but I'm getting the feeling that a possible solution would be to require each bay to take a number of hardpoints equal to its tonnage divided by 10. A 50-ton bay would take up 5 hardpoints and a 100-ton bay would take up 10 hardpoints.

That's the way the old Book 5 (High Guard) used to do it. Quite a few of the problems I'm seeing here were already solved in Traveller over 25 years ago. In fact I don't realy see why Mongoose included a Book2 style ship design system when they already had a new High Guard edition in the works.

I must say I am intrigued by the Mongoose edition of Traveller. Their overall approach seems to be reasonable, but I'm going to bide my time. After jumping into MRQ with both feet, I'm definitely going to take a much more cautious approach this time round and wait to evaluate the errata and actual play reports before making any investment.

Simon Hibbs