Consolidating General tech level advantages and disadvantage - January Update

[Nerhesi]

Got something that is the equivalent of 27 birds with 1 stone...

Issues:

a) We have a lot of repetition in the Primitive & Advanced Spacecraft section of highguard (Energy Efficient, Energy inefficient, Size Increase, Size Decrease, etc
b) Anything not specifically listed in a subsection, can't benefit for this section - even though it would make perfect sense for it to benefit. Also, if you consider future releases of new technology, that would be left out. At the very least almost every ship component should be able to leverage power and size advantages and disadvantages. This also allows us to very easily add Hardened to almost any component, Resilient and so on!

Proposed Solution:

General Advantages/Disadvanatages
These advantages and disadvantages are applicable to any component that is not impacted by operational area or comfort. They can be applied to all drives, plants, weapons, screens, sensors, point defense batteries; but are not applicable to any cargo, fuel, stateroom, bridge or similar systems.

General Advantages
Energy Efficient: This component consumes 25% less Power than normal.
Size Reduction: This reduces the tonnage consumed by the component by 10%.
Hardened: This component is considered Hardened (See Page XX) (Ion weapons mentions Hardened systems, but the only rule that exists is hardening bridge/computer - this will cover everything)
Resilient: The Severity of all critical hits upon a Resilient system are reduced by -1. (I dont think this needs to be a 2 advantage bonus anymore - it's not as impressive as it used to be when it would completely ignore the first critical hit)


General DisAdvantages
Energy Inefficient: This component consumes 30% more Power than normal.
Increased Size: This increases the tonnage consumed by the component by 25%.
Faulty: Whenever the skill use associated with this component results in a natural 2 being rolled, this component breaks down and requires repair (1D hours, Difficult Mechanic Roll). If no skill roll is associated with this component, roll 2D each time it is used to determine if the fault occurs. If the disadvantage is taken a second time, the fault occurs on a natural 2 or 3 being rolled.

 

[AndrewW]

I agree. And did bring this up...

Could also be applied to the alternative drives.

 

[Chas]

A general advantage suggestion that can only be taken as a High Technology advantage.

The cost of the increase of the previous 2 advantages is negated. The component part costs the same as the original.

This would be the analogy of the steam engine. What is just common steel now is so much better than wrought iron of 150 years ago the engine can perform far better designed from cheap existing material, let alone building a titanium pressure chamber.

 

[Nerhesi]

Edited original post language as there were a couple of typos. Hope this makes it in as it was a definite feedback point from more than than on group that I run traveler for.

How come I can make my weapons and engine smaller, but not my crane, sensors (especially when they were like (TL11), towing mechanism, etc

 

[Nerhesi]

Bumping to address concerns brought up by AnotherDilbert.

We really should be looking at this consolidation, and also addressing:

Ensuring disadvantages are punishing enough (such as increased size).
Ensuring budget/prototype costs are punishing enough.
Ensuring we have weapon/screen advantages/disadvantages actually effecting screens, point defense, and so on.
Ensuring that certain powerful advantages can't be stacked (ie are limited to only 1) - example: Long Range.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Budget drives are too cheap.

A 400t trader (J2,M2) costs ~90 MCr.
A 400t trader (J2,M2) with budget drives cost ~60 MCr.

Budget drives become mandatory for civilian designs.


A 1000t warship (Armour15,J4,M9) costs ~650 MCr
A 1000t warship (Armour15,J4,M9) with budget drives costs ~430 MCr
With disadvantage Increased Size we lose a noticeable part of the payload, but at 66% cost / ton we can easily compensate with a larger ship.

Budget drives become mandatory for military designs.

Possibly we could also say that Increased Size is a negligible Disadvantage.

How about
Budget 75% cost
Increased Size +25% size
that way Budget drives are noticeably larger and somewhat cheaper. Civilians might like it, but militaries won't.

 

[Nerhesi]

I think just making sure the disadvantages themselves are REALLY so would be tackling the problem head on Dilbert.

Example:

Size disadvantage? +25% per level
Energy Inefficient? +50% (or even +100% as energy is cheap) per level
Inaccurate? -2 to hit
Late Jump? 50% further from gravity inflence/well

I'd also increase the cost on prototype by like.. magnitude. maybe 500% and 1000% Keep in mind this means getting a Meson gun when everyone else is using particle or particle when everyone else is using pewpewlazors

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Agreed.

Except Inaccurate, DM-1 is probably enough, that is really bad. Note that Accurate is 2 Advantages.

A generic size penalty for prototypes is difficult. On turret weapons nobody cares, on spinals it is crippling.
A generic cost penalty for prototypes is difficult. On cheap components nobody cares, on spinals it is crippling.
If you just make it expensive enough, nobody will use Prototypes.

 

[Nerhesi]

If you just make it expensive enough, nobody will use Prototypes.

I think that would make them worthwhile. Nobody - except those people who want to be the only people to have it. You dont want military vessels mounting 200x prototype turrets for example. But you could see a spec-ops or huscarl vessel mounting a prototype Meson weapon back during the First Imperium.

We also need to clarify that Spinal Weapons don't use these advantages/disadvantages, as they have their own TL table of what changes from TL-3 to TL+4

 

[AnotherDilbert]

OK, I see what you mean.

I was toying with prototype TL16 armor on TL15 warships. I found it too expensive (except on fighters).

But it was cheap enough for me to consider putting on every destroyer.

So, by your definition, it was too cheap. Agreed.

 

[Condottiere]

Prototypes should have reliability issues, and prone to failure.

Which would make hyperspacing with homebuilt and prototype drives an extreme sport.

 

[Nerhesi]

I've updated to make sure the values are correct as per your recent changes. Not to mention saves space and creates that consistency across systems.

Each separate system will then only need to list their specific high/low tech advantages/disadvantages! In my experience, it is one of the big gripes from players where they ask.. "how come technology improvement only affects the 4 things listed in this book". This makes us forward thinking; so should you introduce a the plush-toy launcher, a giant singularity drive, some new sensors package, etc... then we are covered as we have designed something with future changes in-mind already

 

[PsiTraveller]

What would the disadvantage of TL16 prototype armour be AnotherDilbert? I was thinking of needing +50% more tonnage. You get the Meson protection, but it has to be layered pretty thick.

No disadvantages given for armour.

 

[AndrewW]

What would the disadvantage of TL16 prototype armour be AnotherDilbert? I was thinking of needing +50% more tonnage. You get the Meson protection, but it has to be layered pretty thick.

TL16 armour offers some tachyon protection not meson.

 

[Nerhesi]

What would the disadvantage of TL16 prototype armour be AnotherDilbert? I was thinking of needing +50% more tonnage. You get the Meson protection, but it has to be layered pretty thick.

No disadvantages given for armour.

Honestly - I think thats a good thing. With potentially game breaking ability (at least in the OTU), I think armour is one of those things that you probably dont want the "experimental kind". Remember the Armour value for TL16 Molecular would be 20 max (new TL+4 max) - and I think we know it simply doesn't exist in the OTU. As you can tell, I'm kinda happy to ignore it because armour-to-damage is one of those super well balanced, source of many discussions topic,.. going up 5 armour, and you suddenly are almost immune to missiles and all barbettes etc etc

So yeah.. Down with Molecular armour! booo! (or at least, down with experimental armour!)

 

[GhengisRexx]

Can we add to this list advantages/ disadvantages for Sensors and Computers. A TL 15 shipyard making TL11 Computer/15 should probably get a pretty huge discount. Ditto for Sensors. I almost think the price and power might go down as TL goes up.

 

[Nerhesi]

Can we add to this list advantages/ disadvantages for Sensors and Computers. A TL 15 shipyard making TL11 Computer/15 should probably get a pretty huge discount. Ditto for Sensors. I almost think the price and power might go down as TL goes up.

This is exactly why I'm saying we should have a general advantages/disadvantages list. It can be applied to pretty much anything that takes up "space" Electronics, other internal or external components, etc