Alternate Ship Armor Rule

[Jak Nazryth]

Base on my post in another thread, I decided to start a new thread, so as not to highjack.
Instead of ships armor reducing tonnage (volume) inside a ship (thus deck plan) I would like to propose the following alternative.
Armor increases the mass of a ship, but doesn’t reduce the internal volume.
For every 5% of armor applied to a ship under the canon rules, you simply reduce the piloting skill by 1 when attempting to dodge or any other defensive maneuvering.
So if you have enough armor to equal 15% under canon rules, your ship is at a -3 to piloting skills when trying to dodge. This effect simulates more mass the engines and powerplant have to overcome. Yes you are tougher to damage, but easier to hit.
All other factors including price, TL, and hull design (armor or no armor hull) apply. To simulate a “strengthened hull” for a ship that is to be armored, I would also suggest the same percentage in cost for the basic hull.
So if a hull is designed for 10% armor rating, (8 points TL12, 12 points TL14) then the hull would cost 10% more than a standard unarmored hull cost.
In this way, you can design a hull to have armor, but to save money, you can purchase a ship without it, but then add the armor later if the situation arises.
Anyway, this proposed alternate to the armor rules has not been though through or tested at all. I just came up with the idea.
Any comments? “That’s a great idea Jak” or “Your freaking idiot Jak!!” lol
Thanks.

 

[phavoc]

Hrm.... well, the only issue I see here is that a ship's mass has never factored into the rules. Not to mention that anti-grav has the ability to nullify, to an extent, mass in certain situations. But I see where you are going to reducing the ship's agility by the increase in armor factors.

One point in favor of reducing mass for increased armor is the fact that the additional armor required additional internal bracings and support structure.

I need to review the rules again to figure out which side I should be on.

 

[F33D]

In this way, you can design a hull to have armor, but to save money, you can purchase a ship without it, but then add the armor later if the situation arises.

Where are you adding material if you up armour later?

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Yes. Basically the secondary rule of increased hull cost simulates the stronger structure needed to support armor. While technically added material, it wouldn't add tonnage (GURPS traveller reasoning). The rules state that you cannot add armor to ship hulls that were not specifically designed to take the load of armor. The secondary rule was a simple afterthought the better define the difference between a normal hull and a strengthened hull. The only real game mechanic difference is cost. I don't want to get into uber realism. I know that the overall volume of a hull will increase since you are adding 8"-16" (or what ever it is) of advanced futuristic sci-fi rpg armor, but in game mechanics it doesn't really matter. I'm just trying to find a way to use the GURPS concept of space craft armor withing the existing Mongoose game mechanics.
You could just add the cost and ignore the rest, or add "mass".

 

[F33D]

Okay. I don't see a problem with this method.

 

[Beastttt]

in general ships are built with the maximum mass accounted for when you add in the drives and power plant
so by your reasoning I would just buy larger drives and power plants to overcome the added mass

 

[Captain Jonah]

My thought on this is that every single player scale ship will be running with max armour.

A 200Dton ship pays Mcr1.6 for 5% of crystaliron giving it armour 4. Adding 3 layers gives your tech 12 Free or Far Trader armour 12 for Mcr4.8 extra on top of a ship costing 36 or 50 Million.

Adding Mcr4.8 to the cost of a Far trader isn't going to add much to the monthly mortgage and having armour 12 is huge at that scale. It means than nothing short of a P-beam can scratch the paint and even a Turret P-Beam will do minor damage every other hit.

The -3 penalty to pilot checks to dodge is completely irrelevant. You simply don't bother dodging. Also dodge is limited by the thrust so all those 1G ships don't have much of a dodge to start with, not bothering with the dodge is easy when Nuclear tipped missiles bounce off.

Flying tanks away.

So then every single patrol ship, every Type T, every SDB, in fact every single military type ship needs to be redesigned. Pull those triple turrets and replace them with P-Beam barbettes. Sandcasters, why bother if you are laser proof due to armour. If the civilian ships you chase are all going to be armour 12 missiles become pointless as well so they go away freeing up magazine space as well.

The downsides of this option are far too minor when compared to the benefit. Spread across the mortgage of a player scale ship the armour cost is minor and the penalty to dodge is of no consequence.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Ahhh.... very good point.
Ok, so GURPS mass of armor just won't work with Mongoose Volume armor. (sigh)
Not without a major overhaul at least.
Maybe -1 for every point??? Nah... to difficult to mix the two systems.
It's still hard to see how a tiny sliver (10-15 cm) of an extra layer of protection equals 10 tons of space missing from a free or far trader. (shrug) But those are the rules.
Thanks for the input though.

 

[dragoner]

It's still hard to see how a tiny sliver (10-15 cm) of an extra layer of protection equals 10 tons of space missing from a free or far trader.

Because materials thickness is a common abstraction of how armor works, wherein actual engineering there would be materials, construction (including material density), structure, etc.; a whole field to cover, and not so simple and to be mostly wrong about it all as I have noticed when games try to get technical.

 

[hdan]

For another version of Traveller ("book 3" classic traveller, which has no armor), I'm trying a version of ship armor that essentially blocks the first hit to a certain location. (Shameless plug for my sleep little blog: http://hdangaming.blogspot.com/2012/10/traveller-musings-adding-armor-to-lbb2.html)

Given how personal armor works in Classic Traveller, your suggestion to make armor a -DM to be hit makes some sense. I'm not sure how it would interact with Mongoose-style damage though.

The fact that MgT firmly puts lasers into "paramilitary" weapon status, where they cannot realistically damage an armored warship (or even many fighters) is one of the things I don't care for about MgT. If you embrace the idea that the particle beam is the real "entry level" military weapon, and lasers are there for point defense against missiles and for use by unarmored ships, the RAW work out well enough.

It just takes a little of the adventure out of the system from my perspective. I want my Traveller to be the kind of universe where a 400t Subbie could be outfitted as a useful Q-ship, and a squadron of converted Type-S Corsairs can terrorize a system. Patrol Cruisers are fast and dangerous, and a 2000 ton ship is a monster.

But I digress.

 

[dragoner]

I want my Traveller to be the kind of universe where a 400t Subbie could be outfitted as a useful Q-ship, and a squadron of converted Type-S Corsairs can terrorize a system. Patrol Cruisers are fast and dangerous, and a 2000 ton ship is a monster.

I think it is more about the "universe"; it can be that way if you move somewhere else than say the Spinward Marches, but if you want it to be that way in the entire universe, then that is a big change.

 

[hdan]

I want my Traveller to be the kind of universe where a 400t Subbie could be outfitted as a useful Q-ship, and a squadron of converted Type-S Corsairs can terrorize a system. Patrol Cruisers are fast and dangerous, and a 2000 ton ship is a monster.

I think it is more about the "universe"; it can be that way if you move somewhere else than say the Spinward Marches, but if you want it to be that way in the entire universe, then that is a big change.

Not if I stick to CT LBB 1-3.

Though of course you make a good and valid point - MgT's ship armor works fine as it is to prevent small civilian and paramilitary ships from harming real warships. After all, what good is a .50 caliber machine gun (or even a 5" gun, really) against a battleship? Yet those same weapons will tear apart your average civilian boat or ship.

Back to Jak Nazryth's subject though. I think armor should take up tonnage (as it does in the RAW), and we should bring back Agility to make large ships harder to maneuver, regardless of their theoretical acceleration rating. The larger the hull, the more extra Power required to get the same level of responsiveness. Maybe a huge ship can do 6G, but it might take the whole turn to charge up its grav plates enough to reach that speed, whereas a fighter could switch accelerations on a dime, making it easier to dodge incoming fire.

 

[dragoner]

I want my Traveller to be the kind of universe where a 400t Subbie could be outfitted as a useful Q-ship, and a squadron of converted Type-S Corsairs can terrorize a system. Patrol Cruisers are fast and dangerous, and a 2000 ton ship is a monster.

I think it is more about the "universe"; it can be that way if you move somewhere else than say the Spinward Marches, but if you want it to be that way in the entire universe, then that is a big change.

Not if I stick to CT LBB 1-3.

Though of course you make a good and valid point - MgT's ship armor works fine as it is to prevent small civilian and paramilitary ships from harming real warships. After all, what good is a .50 caliber machine gun (or even a 5" gun, really) against a battleship? Yet those same weapons will tear apart your average civilian boat or ship.

Back to Jak Nazryth's subject though. I think armor should take up tonnage (as it does in the RAW), and we should bring back Agility to make large ships harder to maneuver, regardless of their theoretical acceleration rating. The larger the hull, the more extra Power required to get the same level of responsiveness. Maybe a huge ship can do 6G, but it might take the whole turn to charge up its grav plates enough to reach that speed, whereas a fighter could switch accelerations on a dime, making it easier to dodge incoming fire.

Now we see the evolution from LBB2 to HG2 all over again, adding agility, etc.. :wink:

The point I was trying to make is that it doesn't have to be all or nothing, that big ship/small ship aren't mutually exclusive as I have seen it come down to in many arguments; the galaxy is a big place. In the little corner I've carved off, I use a both mentality, and my fall back is always CT since buying that little black box 31 years ago.

My 1323 campaign zone:

 

[F33D]

and we should bring back Agility to make large ships harder to maneuver, regardless of their theoretical acceleration rating. The larger the hull, the more extra Power required to get the same level of responsiveness. Maybe a huge ship can do 6G, but it might take the whole turn to charge up its grav plates enough to reach that speed, whereas a fighter could switch accelerations on a dime, making it easier to dodge incoming fire.

Physics wise twice the mass would require twice the power. If the drive is rated for 60/m/sec/sec, that's what it is. Doesn't matter if it is a 10 ton fighter or a 100,000ton battle cruiser. They should apply to hit DM's based on size. A 10 ton fighter with 6 G's will move more than its length with 1 second of accel whereas a 100,000 ship won't. So, MUCH easier to target the large ship, on top of it being a larger target...

 

[hdan]

If the drive is rated for 60/m/sec/sec, that's what it is. Doesn't matter if it is a 10 ton fighter or a 100,000ton battle cruiser.

If (hypothetically - the rules are silent on this) it takes a megaton ship many minutes to charge up its gigantic thruster plates to 6g but a fighter can do that in seconds, it becomes easier to predict the probability sphere of the large ship. But provided thruster plates are "instant on" and attitude control is rapid enough, then obviously they're the same as you say.

 

[CosmicGamer]

If (hypothetically - the rules are silent on this) it takes a megaton ship many minutes to charge up its gigantic thruster plates to 6g but a fighter can do that in seconds, it becomes easier to predict the probability sphere of the large ship. But provided thruster plates are "instant on" and attitude control is rapid enough, then obviously they're the same as you say.

Perhaps the rules are not silent if it requires a change to the combat rules for one option but not the other?

Physics wise twice the mass would require twice the power. If the drive is rated for 60/m/sec/sec, that's what it is. Doesn't matter if it is a 10 ton fighter or a 100,000ton battle cruiser. They should apply to hit DM's based on size. A 10 ton fighter with 6 G's will move more than its length with 1 second of accel whereas a 100,000 ship won't. So, MUCH easier to target the large ship, on top of it being a larger target...

Distance measured by the size of the target may be relatively different but I believe distance traveled overall is the same? So wouldn't issues be unrelated to thrust?
Large vs small:
- Should it be easier for sensors to "lock" onto a larger target and hence allow greater precision for predictive software and targeting?
- Weapons being a few hundred yards from the center of a small target might miss but the same level of inaccuracy on a large target could still hit.
Since we are on the issue of size...
- If a weapon can hit and take out the Jump drive of a J4 2000 ton ship (drive is 100 tons) shouldn't the same weapon do more than take out the 15 ton J4 drive of a 100 ton ship? In other words, if a weapon can blast a hole in the side of a large ship that is big enough for a small ship to fly through, shouldn't a small ship hit with the same weapon be pulverized? Armor and other factors being equal.

 

[F33D]

- Weapons being a few hundred yards from the center of a small target might miss but the same level of inaccuracy on a large target could still hit.

That was my point.

Since we are on the issue of size...
- If a weapon can hit and take out the Jump drive of a J4 2000 ton ship (drive is 100 tons) shouldn't the same weapon do more than take out the 15 ton J4 drive of a 100 ton ship? In other words, if a weapon can blast a hole in the side of a large ship that is big enough for a small ship to fly through, shouldn't a small ship hit with the same weapon be pulverized? Armor and other factors being equal.

Depends on how you play it. Inop vs. vaporized. Surface jump grid damage vs. internal compartment hit. But yes, the damage system needs a total overhaul. Including the Barrage rules which are fairly nonsensical. On larger warships the Bridge is going to be buried in the center of the ship and you'd have to (short of meson hits) destroy the ship to hit it.

 

[F33D]

If the drive is rated for 60/m/sec/sec, that's what it is. Doesn't matter if it is a 10 ton fighter or a 100,000ton battle cruiser.

If (hypothetically - the rules are silent on this) it takes a megaton ship many minutes to charge up its gigantic thruster plates to 6g but a fighter can do that in seconds, it becomes easier to predict the probability sphere of the large ship. But provided thruster plates are "instant on" and attitude control is rapid enough, then obviously they're the same as you say.

Once a ship is thrusting along, there is no charge up time. It is accel per second. So, the rules aren't really silent on it. Otherwise it would be accel per 2 second or something. Now in MT it had the agility rule. There was no explanation as to how it worked. (because it made no sense really) Then, the Star ship Op Manuel came out and gave rules on "over clocking" M-drives. I think as a way of accounting for this. Can't remember though.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Hrm.... well, the only issue I see here is that a ship's mass has never factored into the rules.

It was a factor in Traveller: The New Era in the Fire, Fusion and Steel design sequences.