Core book questions from a new guy. :)

[Enlightened]

I have a few questions from the main book.

1) Do vehicles use personal scale damage or spaceship scale damage?

1a) The G/Carrier on page 103 has a Fusion Gun. Is it the 16D6 damage personal scale weapon from page 101 or the ship scale weapon from page 112?

2) What skill is used to throw knives and what page is it on? Page 65 suggests Athletics (co-ordination) but under the skill description it doesn't mention it.

3) When jumping into a system, you can only jump to the edge of the 100 diameter zone. Earth has a diameter of almost 13,000 km. So the 100 diameter zone is about 1,300,000 km in radius. Meaning that, according to the chart on page 145, a Thrust 3 ship can get from there to the planet in about three hours. Is that all about right?

4) On page 146, it gives "Drive Engineer" as one of the positions on a ship during combat. What would a Drive engineer do in combat? Repair is the Damage Control position. For vehicle combat it gives the example of increasing the Agility of the vehicle but space craft don't have Agility.

5) I don't quite understand Double and Triple Turrents. When it is the Gunner's turn, he can fire all of the weapons in the Turrent (I think) but if he fires more than one does he suffer Multiple Action Penalties? If so, what page details this? Or is it just understood?

6) How much damage is needed to punch through a ship's hull from the inside with personal scale weapons. If 50 points of personal scale damage equals one hull point then would 50 points do it? Would one point of ship scale armor stop 50 points of personal scale damage? Basically, how dangerous is it to use ranged weapons inside a ship? Is there any danger of punching a hole in the hull from the inside?

 

[rinku]

I have a few questions from the main book.

1) Do vehicles use personal scale damage or spaceship scale damage?

Personal scale.

1a) The G/Carrier on page 103 has a Fusion Gun. Is it the 16D6 damage personal scale weapon from page 101 or the ship scale weapon from page 112?

Personal scale again.

2) What skill is used to throw knives and what page is it on? Page 65 suggests Athletics (co-ordination) but under the skill description it doesn't mention it.

Athelics (co-ord) is indeed the skill for any sort of throwing; knives, grenades, rocks, dwarves, etc.

3) When jumping into a system, you can only jump to the edge of the 100 diameter zone. Earth has a diameter of almost 13,000 km. So the 100 diameter zone is about 1,300,000 km in radius. Meaning that, according to the chart on page 145, a Thrust 3 ship can get from there to the planet in about three hours. Is that all about right?

Correct. The table assumes constant acceleration, turnover at the midpoint and then deceleration. The actual formula is D=A(T^2)/4, where D is distance in metres, A is acceleration in m/s^2 and T is time in seconds. For most purposes you can consider 1G to be 10 m/s^2.

4) On page 146, it gives "Drive Engineer" as one of the positions on a ship during combat. What would a Drive engineer do in combat? Repair is the Damage Control position. For vehicle combat it gives the example of increasing the Agility of the vehicle but space craft don't have Agility.

If the ship is going to jump, the J-Drive position will need to be filled. M-Drive also includes control of the ship's artificial gravity, per the skill description. Otherwise, just a specialised repair spot, though there could be role-playing reasons (i.e. drive has been damaged and the engineer is doing something desperate to make it work normally)

5) I don't quite understand Double and Triple Turrents. When it is the Gunner's turn, he can fire all of the weapons in the Turrent (I think) but if he fires more than one does he suffer Multiple Action Penalties? If so, what page details this? Or is it just understood?

Pretty much understood. You're assumed to be tracking one target and firing the guns together (you may wish to withhold some to avoid overkill or save ammo). Point defence *does* include a form of multiple action penalty.

6) How much damage is needed to punch through a ship's hull from the inside with personal scale weapons. If 50 points of personal scale damage equals one hull point then would 50 points do it? Would one point of ship scale armor stop 50 points of personal scale damage? Basically, how dangerous is it to use ranged weapons inside a ship? Is there any danger of punching a hole in the hull from the inside?

Mercenary has some rules about personal scale vs ship scale. Basically, you can combine volleys to try to get enough points to affect a ship, but less than 50 points has no effect. If you were using cutting equipment to breach the hull (or more likely airlock), or something similar, cumulative damage would be appropriate.

There's no danger of a hull breach from casual use of small arms, although they can certainly wreck consoles, breach interior partitions and otherwise cause problems.

 

[Captain Jonah]

I have a few questions from the main book.

1) Do vehicles use personal scale damage or spaceship scale damage?

1a) The G/Carrier on page 103 has a Fusion Gun. Is it the 16D6 damage personal scale weapon from page 101 or the ship scale weapon from page 112?

2) What skill is used to throw knives and what page is it on? Page 65 suggests Athletics (co-ordination) but under the skill description it doesn't mention it.

3) When jumping into a system, you can only jump to the edge of the 100 diameter zone. Earth has a diameter of almost 13,000 km. So the 100 diameter zone is about 1,300,000 km in radius. Meaning that, according to the chart on page 145, a Thrust 3 ship can get from there to the planet in about three hours. Is that all about right?

4) On page 146, it gives "Drive Engineer" as one of the positions on a ship during combat. What would a Drive engineer do in combat? Repair is the Damage Control position. For vehicle combat it gives the example of increasing the Agility of the vehicle but space craft don't have Agility.

5) I don't quite understand Double and Triple Turrents. When it is the Gunner's turn, he can fire all of the weapons in the Turrent (I think) but if he fires more than one does he suffer Multiple Action Penalties? If so, what page details this? Or is it just understood?

6) How much damage is needed to punch through a ship's hull from the inside with personal scale weapons. If 50 points of personal scale damage equals one hull point then would 50 points do it? Would one point of ship scale armor stop 50 points of personal scale damage? Basically, how dangerous is it to use ranged weapons inside a ship? Is there any danger of punching a hole in the hull from the inside?

Questions on a Sunday morning and I haven’t started my second coffee yet :shock:

1 and 2. Covered by Rinku.

3. Yep, a man1 ship takes some 6 hours to get from 100D to the planet on average. It gets worse though, a Jupiter sized gas giant is 120,000Km diameter, that’s a 120,000,000km 100D zone, a day or more of flight time to skim for fuel.

4. Main rule book page 54 gives examples of drive engineers in combat. Increase ships thrusters output to gain +1 Manoeuvre rating for a turn for extra speed or another point of agility for dodge. Or perhaps boasting the power plant output for a turn to give your lasers one turn of firing with the high yield special effect. Just watch out for those double one rolls as shutting down your power plant mid combat will not make the rest of the crew happy

5. A gunner may fire the weapons under his control once in offensive fire. If the gunner is in a turret he may fire his one, two or three weapons once against an enemy. If using the ships fire control computer function to give multiple turrets to a single gunner he may fire each weapon in as many turrets as he controls.

For example a gunner in a triple laser turret fires three lasers during the offensive fire stage, a gunner using fire control 3 to control two triple lasers and a triple missile turrets may fire a total of 6 lasers and three missiles at an enemy. There are no penalties for firing multiple weapons but each weapon may only be used once offensively.

Defensively a gunner may fire the weapons under his command at incoming missiles (or boarders ), he fires till he misses and suffers a -1 for each cumulative shot. This is a fuzzy area with regard to multiple weapons. The gunner with 6 lasers fires at incoming missiles in the defensive stage, does he get 6 shots or one?

Myself I rule that he fires at a single target but adds +1 for each extra weapon he is firing together, this means our gunner using both triple laser turrets on point defence gets +5 to hit and -1 per shot cumulative. He fires till he misses then all defensive fire from the turrets under his control is finished. Multiple gunners make separate attacks so two gunners each with one triple laser would start at +2, the first gunner fires till he misses then the second gunner fires till he misses.

6. 50 points in a single hit or weapons fire specifically being targeted against a single point on the hull. Random weapons fire will not breach the hull unless it can do 50+ damage in a single hit. For example several machine gunners firing at a ship as it flies overhead will not breach the hull. A platoon firing ACRs at the Imperial starburst painted on the hull may do so. Each weapon after the first adds half its damage but a large pinch of “ref call” is needed here as the rules as written allow 50 people to punch through a ships hull.

Weapons such as PGMPs and FGMPs can breach an un armoured hull or bulkhead in a single shot making them dangerous in shipboard fire fight. Mostly marine boarding squads will not carry these but beware as many squads will have a support gunner with FGMP and he can use his battledress sensors to spot you through the walls and since his FGMP can just about punch through a bulkhead there really is no where to hide.

Note that armoured hulls add 50 points to the total needed, a Free trader with 4 armour requires 250 points of ground scale damage to breach. Each full 50 points counts as 1 point of star ship damage so hitting a Fat Trader with 50 points of infantry weapon fire will cause a single hit on the surface table. In the case of armoured ships areas like the airlocks and windows remain vulnerable but breaching one of these requires aimed fire and will not get the +4 to hit for firing at a star ship scale target.

Weapons capable of doing 50+ damage fired inside the hull will inflict damage on the star ship internal table but IMHO are not powerful enough to do structural damage and any roll of structure does no special damage. Hull damage however is entirely possible and should be counted as normal.

 

[Enlightened]

5. A gunner may fire the weapons under his control once in offensive fire. If the gunner is in a turret he may fire his one, two or three weapons once against an enemy. If using the ships fire control computer function to give multiple turrets to a single gunner he may fire each weapon in as many turrets as he controls.

For example a gunner in a triple laser turret fires three lasers during the offensive fire stage, a gunner using fire control 3 to control two triple lasers and a triple missile turrets may fire a total of 6 lasers and three missiles at an enemy. There are no penalties for firing multiple weapons but each weapon may only be used once offensively.

Pretty much understood. You're assumed to be tracking one target and firing the guns together (you may wish to withhold some to avoid overkill or save ammo). Point defence *does* include a form of multiple action penalty.

First of all, thank you much for the reply.

About the turrents, I want to confirm, so there ISN'T a multiple action penalty? It seems really strange to me that there isn't but officially there isn't, right?

 

[Captain Jonah]

5. A gunner may fire the weapons under his control once in offensive fire. If the gunner is in a turret he may fire his one, two or three weapons once against an enemy. If using the ships fire control computer function to give multiple turrets to a single gunner he may fire each weapon in as many turrets as he controls.

For example a gunner in a triple laser turret fires three lasers during the offensive fire stage, a gunner using fire control 3 to control two triple lasers and a triple missile turrets may fire a total of 6 lasers and three missiles at an enemy. There are no penalties for firing multiple weapons but each weapon may only be used once offensively.

Pretty much understood. You're assumed to be tracking one target and firing the guns together (you may wish to withhold some to avoid overkill or save ammo). Point defence *does* include a form of multiple action penalty.

First of all, thank you much for the reply.

About the turrents, I want to confirm, so there ISN'T a multiple action penalty? It seems really strange to me that there isn't but officially there isn't, right?

Nope, you get to fire as may weapons as you have slaved to your control once only during the ofensive stage of the starship combat turn. Your multiple target penalty only applies when firing point defence. Though I would say you would get a multiple target penalty if you are splitting fire from the weapons under your control. For example with the gunner with 6 lasers and 3 missiles under his control, if he fires the missiles at a target at distant range and the beams at one at medium range that would be two targets and -2.

Main rule book page 147:
Firing Beam Weapons
To fire a beam weapon, the gunner must make a successful Gunner (turret) or Gunner (capital weapons) check, modified by the range to the target (see page 148). When targeted by a beam weapon, the enemy ship may react by dodging, firing sand or triggering screens (see Reactions). A gunner may fire any or all of the weapons in his turret or bay but each turret or bay may only fire once per round. If the attack is successful it will inflict damage. See Damage on page 150. Damage is resolved after all attacks have been made in a round.

Its not mentioned but general consensus is one to hit roll per weapon not per turret.

Page 149:
Point Defence
Turret lasers can be used to destroy incoming missiles. The missiles can only be destroyed in the moments before they strike the spacecraft as they are too small and fast-moving to effectively target at greater ranges. The gunner must make a Gunner (turrets) check against the missile. If successful, the missile is destroyed. A gunner may keep making Gunner checks against missiles until he misses an attack; each attack suffers a cumulative –1 penalty. Attacks may be directed against different incoming missiles.

 

[Enlightened]

3. Yep, a man1 ship takes some 6 hours to get from 100D to the planet on average. It gets worse though, a Jupiter sized gas giant is 120,000Km diameter, that’s a 120,000,000km 100D zone, a day or more of flight time to skim for fuel.

I think you have one too many zeroes on there.

The 100 diameter zone for a planet 120,000 km in diameter would extend out to 120,000x100=12,000,000 km

4. Main rule book page 54 gives examples of drive engineers in combat. Increase ships thrusters output to gain +1 Manoeuvre rating for a turn for extra speed or another point of agility for dodge. Or perhaps boasting the power plant output for a turn to give your lasers one turn of firing with the high yield special effect. Just watch out for those double one rolls as shutting down your power plant mid combat will not make the rest of the crew happy

The +1 maneuver thing or the high yield laser thing aren't actually written on page 54, but I can see how that is what coulod be done with the skill and the position in combat.

The extra point of Agility is only for vehicles though, I think. Because space craft don't have Agility.

So some things that an Engineer could do are:

1) Give +1 maneuver for a round (This seems like the Power Plant specialty)
2) Allow high yield laser shots for one round (This also seems like the Power Plant specialty) What exactly are the damage bonuses for "high yield" shots? Is it up to the GM (which is OK too)?
3) Estimate an enemy ships tonnage and thus number of possible hardpoints, etc. (This is the Maneuver Drive specialty)
4) Make a jump to get away (This is the Jump Drive specialty)
5) Other inventive things that the players say they want to try.

 

[Enlightened]

Main rule book page 147:
Firing Beam Weapons
To fire a beam weapon, the gunner must make a successful Gunner (turret) or Gunner (capital weapons) check, modified by the range to the target (see page 148). When targeted by a beam weapon, the enemy ship may react by dodging, firing sand or triggering screens (see Reactions). A gunner may fire any or all of the weapons in his turret or bay but each turret or bay may only fire once per round. If the attack is successful it will inflict damage. See Damage on page 150. Damage is resolved after all attacks have been made in a round.

Yeah, I read that in the book but was confused about whether it inteneded that to mean that it over rode the multiple action penalty rules or not. I mean, I understood that they COULD fire all the weapons. I just didn't know whether or not it was without penalty.

But thanks to you guys, it's all clear now.

 

[Captain Jonah]

3. Yep, a man1 ship takes some 6 hours to get from 100D to the planet on average. It gets worse though, a Jupiter sized gas giant is 120,000Km diameter, that’s a 120,000,000km 100D zone, a day or more of flight time to skim for fuel.

I think you have one too many zeroes on there.

The 100 diameter zone for a planet 120,000 km in diameter would extend out to 120,000x100=12,000,000 km

4. Main rule book page 54 gives examples of drive engineers in combat. Increase ships thrusters output to gain +1 Manoeuvre rating for a turn for extra speed or another point of agility for dodge. Or perhaps boasting the power plant output for a turn to give your lasers one turn of firing with the high yield special effect. Just watch out for those double one rolls as shutting down your power plant mid combat will not make the rest of the crew happy

The +1 maneuver thing or the high yield laser thing aren't actually written on page 54, but I can see how that is what coulod be done with the skill and the position in combat.

The extra point of Agility is only for vehicles though, I think. Because space craft don't have Agility.

So some things that an Engineer could do are:

1) Give +1 maneuver for a round (This seems like the Power Plant specialty)
2) Allow high yield laser shots for one round (This also seems like the Power Plant specialty) What exactly are the damage bonuses for "high yield" shots? Is it up to the GM (which is OK too)?
3) Estimate an enemy ships tonnage and thus number of possible hardpoints, etc. (This is the Maneuver Drive specialty)
4) Make a jump to get away (This is the Jump Drive specialty)
5) Other inventive things that the players say they want to try.

12,000,000. 120,000,000. Its close enough

Sorry agility for ships is dodge which is limited by maneuver drive rating hence red lining the drive to get another point of thrust,

High yield is one of the advantages for weapons from high guard. Reroll any ones on the damage dice. Or very high yield and reroll ones and twos but that may leave your power plant glowing a nice shade of red

Estimating a targets size is a sensor thing since the engineer would need to be using the sensors to see it

More likely would be the engineer looking at a ship and either having a good idea or guessing about its internal layout/deck plan from its obvious hull shape and emissions. Plus an engineer with access to the ships sensor displays on a monitor in engineering could with a high(ish) roll (-2) be able to judge the damage inflicted on the enemy by its actions when hit and the area where it was hit.

I.E. Ships engineer. Good hit there lads, got him right in engineering, drive strength hasn't dropped so you must have just hit the hull. Or Very good hit there, he is venting air so his hull if gone and that hit square on engineering. Lots of debris but his thrust hasn't dropped. I think you may have got his jump drive.

 

[Enlightened]

Sorry agility for ships is dodge which is limited by maneuver drive rating hence red lining the drive to get another point of thrust,

But Agility is a thing that adds +DM to piloting checks (page 103).

Estimating a targets size is a sensor thing since the engineer would need to be using the sensors to see it

More likely would be the engineer looking at a ship and either having a good idea or guessing about its internal layout/deck plan from its obvious hull shape and emissions. Plus an engineer with access to the ships sensor displays on a monitor in engineering could with a high(ish) roll (-2) be able to judge the damage inflicted on the enemy by its actions when hit and the area where it was hit.

I.E. Ships engineer. Good hit there lads, got him right in engineering, drive strength hasn't dropped so you must have just hit the hull. Or Very good hit there, he is venting air so his hull if gone and that hit square on engineering. Lots of debris but his thrust hasn't dropped. I think you may have got his jump drive.

I see that, but the book gave the example of an Engineer (maneuver drive) roll allowing one to guess at the tonnage of a ship on page 54. I'm guessing they meant from looking at it through a portal or something.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Sorry agility for ships is dodge which is limited by maneuver drive rating hence red lining the drive to get another point of thrust,

But Agility is a thing that adds +DM to piloting checks (page 103).

Estimating a targets size is a sensor thing since the engineer would need to be using the sensors to see it

More likely would be the engineer looking at a ship and either having a good idea or guessing about its internal layout/deck plan from its obvious hull shape and emissions. Plus an engineer with access to the ships sensor displays on a monitor in engineering could with a high(ish) roll (-2) be able to judge the damage inflicted on the enemy by its actions when hit and the area where it was hit.

I.E. Ships engineer. Good hit there lads, got him right in engineering, drive strength hasn't dropped so you must have just hit the hull. Or Very good hit there, he is venting air so his hull if gone and that hit square on engineering. Lots of debris but his thrust hasn't dropped. I think you may have got his jump drive.

I see that, but the book gave the example of an Engineer (maneuver drive) roll allowing one to guess at the tonnage of a ship on page 54. I'm guessing they meant from looking at it through a portal or something.

Ignore any mention of agility, for starships you are generating another point of manoeuvre which can be used to either increase the ships speed or too give you another dodge. Previous versions of Traveller used Starship Agility, I sometimes get them confused due to Old Age

Yep the example says about guessing the tonnage. Most of my players would get a bit annoyed at being told something like that, its like saying you are a qualified mechanic so only you can say what the engine size is of that car over the there, the rest of us just ignore all the sensors and pretend we don't know that Far Trader looking ship is a 200dton Fat Trader :wink:
I prefer to give players meaningfull things to do not something like estimating the tonnage of a ship by eyeball

 

[Enlightened]

Thanks. I have a much clearer understanding of all of this now.

 

[Kromodor]

Ressurecting old topic.

Question:

* What is considered for one attack?
Are all beam weapons 1 attack, or each Turret \ Bay firing is 1 attack?

I think it's more reasonable, each Turret \ Bay to be 1 attack.

* Are lasers used in offense, capable of been used as point-defense, the same round?
I.e. if we have 3 lasers, do we need to "save" lasers for point-defense?

According the rules, we can use lasers for both attack and reaction-point defense. I mean, I don't see written restrictions.

* We are limited to 1 reaction per attack, right?
I mean if they use beam weapons against us, we can't spare 3 reactions and apply Dodge, Sand and Screens? Or Can we? I'm reading and seeing no limit on spaceship reactions, considering each one has it's own limit (turrets fire once, dodge use thrust and so on)

 

[DFW]

[In the case of armoured ships areas like the airlocks and windows remain vulnerable but breaching one of these requires aimed fire and will not get the +4 to hit for firing at a star ship scale target.

That's incorrect. There is no unarmored part of the hull in the rules. That would be a house rule.

 

[AKAmra]

Ressurecting old topic.

Question:

* What is considered for one attack?
Are all beam weapons 1 attack, or each Turret \ Bay firing is 1 attack?

I think it's more reasonable, each Turret \ Bay to be 1 attack.

* Are lasers used in offense, capable of been used as point-defense, the same round?
I.e. if we have 3 lasers, do we need to "save" lasers for point-defense?

According the rules, we can use lasers for both attack and reaction-point defense. I mean, I don't see written restrictions.

* We are limited to 1 reaction per attack, right?
I mean if they use beam weapons against us, we can't spare 3 reactions and apply Dodge, Sand and Screens? Or Can we? I'm reading and seeing no limit on spaceship reactions, considering each one has it's own limit (turrets fire once, dodge use thrust and so on)

I'd be interested in the answers to these questions too. I have some opinions, but I'll defer to those more knowledgeable.

Also, thanks Captain Jonah, your explanations and personal take on the rules are great.

 

[Kromodor]

Interesting,

I believe this topic gives out pretty much many of details about the questions I asked.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=41907&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=reaction&start=0

The only problem is that we must 'decipher' it (the combat from page 2).