Boarding

[AnotherDilbert]

With a 70 dT 25G assault shuttle we can carry 12 marines into combat for the paltry sum of MCr300 including carrier.

With a breaching tube we can Dock [Core, p156] as a Combat Manoeuvre and deliver the marines into an enemy ship. An opposed check with a Bane gives us a ~28% (±10% per skill diff) chance of successfully Docking. Since, as far as I can see, we can attempt to Dock every dogfighting attack step we have a reasonable chance to succeed fairly quickly (50% in two rolls, 75% in four rolls, and so on).

So, for the cost of a 40 kT minimum meson spinal cruiser (~GCr 31.7, crew 800) we can deliver 1200 marines for boarding. Some assault shuttles will be lost, but not that many. Most will have docked, disembarked their marines, and be ready to act as fighters within say 5 dogfighting attack steps. A ship with 800 sailors boarded by almost 1000 marines should succumb slowly (an hour or two) but surely.

Boarding seems to be a strong strategy. Sharpen your cutlasses...

Counters:
The assault shuttles are vulnerable to space superiority fighters since the assault shuttles are more expensive, and somewhat weaker.
It will be expensive to add more marines to ships, but much cheaper than to deliver the same number of marines for boarding.

 

[Nerhesi]

I'm glad it is because damn before.... instantly blown out of the sky with any turret while it takes you MINUTES to dig through the hull!

 

[phavoc]

If boarding is that easy, then those strike cruisers will carry 500 marines to kill your boarders. Not to mention a lot of those shuttles are gonna die. Marines are brave, and sometimes stupid. Rarely are they always stupid.

 

[Chas]

Had this one pegged a while back. And why I also made that killer mechanical in the vehicles thread...

 

[phavoc]

Or, if you were a CoDominium cruiser and you were being boarded by Sauron's, you just vent plasma from the reactor through the outer hull passages. Makes a mess of your innards, but does a mite fine job on those pesky boarders and their boarding vessels.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I have to admit I cannot understand how a ship is supposed to attach to another ship that is accelerating at 3 g or above and somehow latch onto the ship and not be spun off by a sharp maneuver. It is an area of the rules we will discuss as a group and decide if the engines have to be down before the ship can be boarded. Otherwise you end up with the 9g boarding bus trying to zip in and punch a hole through the hull and pump in marines. As an option with RAW it may work, and I know Traveller is more space opera then hard science fiction, but the notion of flying through space at multiple g and then matching the movement of an enemy ship long enough to dock or carve a new entry stretches my suspension of disbelief a little bit too far.

Anyone else think boarding during battle should be incredibly difficult? Or has gravitic technology allowed for the marine assault at speed?

 

[Condottiere]

Boarding rockets that attach like limpets and drill into the hull like leeches.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Had this one pegged a while back. And why I also made that killer mechanical in the vehicles thread...

I have missed that. Please remind me?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Anyone else think boarding during battle should be incredibly difficult? Or has gravitic technology allowed for the marine assault at speed?

It is non-trivial, an opposed roll with a Bane is not easy to win. You would absolutely need more agility.

I imagine you get close enough, with close enough speed (quite possible with superior agility and good computers), and then you engage a system that firmly attaches your craft to the enemy ship, such as magnetic "limpets" or a plasma "anchor" that welds itself to the enemy hull. A breaching tube then allows you to burn through the enemy hull and insert you marines into the enemy ship.

Possible, yes. Difficult, yes; choose the difficulty according to prejudice...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Rule problems:

How long does it take to attach a breaching tube?
How many marines can pass through a breaching tube each round?
How does a Force Link Apparatus [HG, p45] work? In the table we have a Pilot Check DM, but in the text it talks about a bonus on the boarding action roll?
How soon can I detach from the enemy?
Can the ship we have docked to fire on the attached assault shuttle?
Can other craft fire on the attached assault shuttle?
Can the attached assault shuttle fire its turrets at other ships or fighters?
Can the boarded ship continue to fight when the crew presumably is repelling boarders?

Luckily we seem to be expecting an entire chapter in High Guard devoted to boarding actions...

 

[Chas]

Had this one pegged a while back. And why I also made that killer mechanical in the vehicles thread...

I have missed that. Please remind me?

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=148&t=118304

Still raw and some of the questions I've already worked out... but fun stuff.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Shameless selfbump.

How does a Force Link Apparatus [HG, p45] work?

 

[MongooseMatt]

We were going to have a whole chapter on boarding in High Guard - but the more I looked into it, the more I could see being added until we had a really bloated chapter and, in the end, I made the decision that High Guard should be about ships, not ship operations (with obvious fuzzy lines between those two).

I think boarding is worth exploring, and I have in mind a sort of mini-game where you use sort of a flow chart comprising various targets and the effects as you accomplish them (something like Advanced Space Crusade, if you ever saw it, but more... Traveller).

This may be a supplement in and of itself, or it may be part of another work (we have a potential coming next year, a very spiffy addition to the Traveller range, being written by Marc's Right Hand Man, Rob Eaglestone), but I felt it worth doing properly and we have at least a workaround in the Core Rulebook for now.

Still, you are getting a dedicated Fighters chapter in its place now