C's Space Combat Example And Thoughts

[Chronus]

Hi gang,

Well, my original Space Combat Example thread never made it out of ICU so I thought I'd take the liberty of taking some of its DNA and cloning it.

In other words ...

This maybe a dumb question, but didn't you save it on your computer?

Yup. And hopefully in a "new and improved" model. Even the mighty Mongoose Publishing company doesn't have the power to totally eliminate lame-duck threads in its own forum.

Since there had been some comments and answers to some of my questions, I took the liberty of enclosing the original post snippets in a string of ten asterisks (**********) and then summarizing the results of some of the discussions up to that point.

So then, without further ado, here is the "cut and paste" version of my original "C's Space Combat Example And Thoughts Part I" thread. See? Even the title has been improved!

**********
For the sake of ease and clarity, I decided to pair off two Gazelle Close Escorts, Ship A1 and Ship A2, against two other Gazelle Close Escorts, Ship B1 and Ship B2. All four ship are exactly alike. Their stats can be found on page 123. This is to help maintain a type of "controlled environment" with minimal confusion and to help highlight any potential imbalances within the mechanics. To maintain order, I used (drum roll, please) the Order of Events outline listed on page 146. The results of any die rolls may be fudged to quickly explore an interest or concern of mine. Interjected throughout the results will be my comments and questions as they arise.

Okay, enough blab. Here we go ...

1) SETUP

a) Determine range between ships.

Easy. Let's make this Medium Range since that is one of the ranges where most Space Combat occurs, per page 146.

b) Determine crew positions

I have the following crew on each ship to work with: 3 Pilots, 1 Navigator, 2 Engineers, 1 Medic, 4 Gunners, 1 Officer, 4 Marines. This is based on Average Crew Requirements on page 113. If I use the Full Requirements, it will overload the eight staterooms, even with double occupancy. Whenever a skill check is required, all crew members will have a skill level of 2.

Question: The Full Crew Requirement for Engineers says "One engineer per 50 tons of jump drive, power plant, OR manoeuvre drive" (emphasis mine). Did Mongoose (MG) mean "and" as oppose to "or"? Otherwise, the meaning would be the same as the Average Crew Requirement.

The positions are filled as follows:

Pilot: 1 Pilot
Captain: 1 Officer
Drive Engineer: 1 Engineer (Power Plant), 1 Engineer (Manoeuvre Drive)
Turret Gunners: 1 Gunner for each of the four turrets
Damage Control: 2 Pilots, 1 Navigator (assume they have Mechanic skills)
Marine: 4 Marines
Passenger: 1 Medic (lacks skill for other positions)

Question: Are the Drive Engineer positions simply Damage Control for the drives? I'm assuming "yes" but the rules are not specific about this. If this is not the case, what good are these positions? Why not just dump those engineers into the Damage Control position?

Okay, I'm going to cheat and look ahead here but ...

Question: What crew position is responsible for the Sensor Locks and Electronic Warfare situations on page 150?
**********

There was some discussion on the Navigator being the dude who performs Sensor Locks and such but, IMOHO, the real issue was the Crew Positions themselves. Page 146 only lists the following Crew Positions for Space Combat: Pilot, Captain, Drive Engineer (for each drive), Turret Gunner, Bay Gunner, Damage Control, Marine, Passenger. My beef is that the Navigator (and Medic, as another example), though technically a crew position under starship operations, is not listed as a Crew Position in Space Combat (again, refer to page 146). The final decision, for now, is that the Navigator (and, Medic) IS a crew position that we'll pretend is listed on page 146.

Oh, and we concluded that in regard to the question about Full Crew Requirements, Mongoose meant "and" for the Engineer position.

**********
c) Determine initiative.

The ships all have equal thrust so there is no +1 DM to the initiative roll for anyone. Besides, I would only apply this DM to one on one ship combat. With more than two ships, where do you draw the line on who gets the bonus and who doesn't? Should the higher 50% of the ships in combat get it while the lower 50% do not? Not as far as this GM is concerned! Furthermore, a +1 DM doesn't seem like much. What if one ship had thrust 1 while the other had thrust 6? Should the difference be the DM?

The fleet commander for Fleet A conducts a Tactics (naval) check and rolls a 10 (includes skill +2 DM)! This gives an an Effect of +2!

The fleet commander for Fleet B conducts a Tactics (naval) check and fails with a roll of 7 (includes skill +2 DM).

The captain for Ship A1 now rolls 2d6 for Initiative and rolls a 9. With the fleet commander's Effect of 2, Ship A1 has an initiative of 11! According to the table on page 149, Ship A1 will get, on average, 3 reactions per combat round!

The captain for Ship A2 now rolls 2d6 for Initiative and rolls a 2. With the fleet commander's Effect of 2, Ship A2 has an initiative of 4. Ship A2 will get, on average, 1 reaction per combat round.

The captain for Ship B1 now rolls 2d6 for Initiative and rolls an 8. Ship B1 will get, on average, 2 reactions per combat round.

The captain for Ship B2 now rolls 2d6 for Initiative and rolls a 6. Ship B2 will get, on average, 2 reactions per combat round.

GMs may need to keep in mind that the Effect of the fleet commander's Tactics roll are used for the modifiers above. They are not Task Chains. Also, I give the "average" number of reactions per round because a ship may "Burn Initiative", per page 149, to gain more reactions.

The Initiative/Reaction model is, perhaps, one of my greatest concerns regarding Space Combat. In Personal Combat, the Initiative is used only to determine combat order. A character is allowed to react to any number of incoming attacks, per page 60 (see Action Summary). However, in Space Combat, the Initiative is also used to determine the number of reactions a ship can make. A ship with 4 reactions has 4 times the "defensive power" as a ship with only 1 reaction. To make things worse, the Initiative of a ship, and consequently, the number of reactions it can make, DOES NOT CHANGE for the duration of the entire battle! At least, not according to the Order of Events (and, incidentally, not according to Personal Combat either). And on top of all this, the problem is further troubling due to the fact that the characteristics of the ship (thrust rating, number of turrets, etc.) have little to no bearing on the Initiative die roll. A ship with 20 turrets does not have any bonuses, even when fighting a ship with just only one turret. It's a very random crap shoot. I need to keep a serious eye on this.

*** SETUP COMPLETED ***

Okay, time for a little review on ship strategy. All of the ships will attack with beam lasers and nuclear missiles, so they plan to remain at medium range. Their thrust will normally be used for manoeuvre actions, not to increase or decrease the range.

Question: The optimum range is given for various ship weapons on page 111 but what are the penalties for different ranges?
**********

At this point I went into a tirade about how I thought some of the computer programs worked, Fire Control and Evade to be precise. However, some very helpful board members (SSWarlock and, sorry, I can't remember the other person) showed me where I went astray. In a nutshell, I had totally glossed over the Automated Positions, on page 146, in which having these programs would be indispensable. The final conclusion was that the Fire Control/3 programs on these ships will give bonus DMs to the gunners.

I don't recall what we concluded in regard to optimum weapon ranges but I thought I had read somewhere else that MG is working on this.

At this point, I had ended my opening post and engaged in some dialogue with the MGT community. The next snippet came from a later continuation of my Space Combat Example.

**********
As a result of recent posts, ship strategy has been changed. All four ships will continue to attack at medium range. However, they will be able to fire all their weapons per round. This weaponry entails 2 sand-casters, 2 beam lasers and 4 missile racks. Full ship stats can be found on pg. 123.

The Fire Control/3 program will now be in use to provide the Gunners a +3 DM on one attack, +1 DM on three attacks, or some other combination. This program has a rating of 15. Since it is running on a computer with a rating of 20, the Evade program cannot be used at the same time.

Summary of Initiative Score and Reactions allowed (in initiative order):

Ship A1 has an Initiative of 11 with 3 Reactions.
Ship B1 has an Initiative of 8 with 2 Reactions.
Ship B2 has an Initiative of 6 with 2 Reactions.
Ship A2 has an Initiative of 4 with 1 Reaction.

All right then. Onward ...

2. Manoeuvre Phase

a. The position of ships is changed based on their thrust.

As mentioned before, the ships want to remain at medium range so each of their thrust (4 rating) will be allocated to manoeuvring. One manoeuvring "point" can be used to Dock With Another Vessel, Help Line Up A Shot, or Dodge Incoming Fire (pg. 147).

Question: Can a ship perform all three different manoeuvres in one combat round if it has enough manoeuvre?

Based on the description under Dodge Incoming Fire (take note of the word "leftover"), it sounds as if a ship could do either a Docking attempt, or a Line Up attempt, with any number of Dodges. Still, common sense tells me that attempting to dock with another vessel will prohibit the other two manoeuvre types. Could a ship really dock with another vessel while dodging fire and/or lining up shots??! For now, I'm going to assume "no" but feel free to correct me with any spectacular reasoning.

3. Combat Phase

a. In order of Initiative, ships can take actions.

I excluded steps b, c, and d for this phase because they appear to be summaries of taking actions as oppose to an ordering of events, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Ship A1 decides to fire her 2 beam lasers, and launch 4 missiles at Ship B1.

The pilot uses a manoeuvre rating to Line Up A Shot to help all his gunners. The wording on page 147 suggests that any bonuses (or penalties) in this task chain will apply to ALL of the gunners. He rolls a 5, +2 DM for his skill, equals 7. That's a -1 DM to all gunner rolls. Hmmmm. Perhaps lining up shots is not such a good thing. A pilot, in this battle, would have to roll a natural 7 for any good to come out of it.

Gunner 1 will apply a +1 DM from fire control to fire his beam laser. Ship B1 decides to React with a Dodge (-2 DM to Ship A1's attack).

The Pilot of Ship B1 rolls an 8 to Dodge. With his skill DM of +2, he succeeds with a 10. Ship B1 now has 1 Reaction remaining for the round.

Gunner 1 of Ship A1 rolls a 12! When you add his skill (+2), subtract from the Pilots Line Up (-1), subtract from his target's Dodge (-2), and add the +1 DM from Fire Control, the total is ... 12! This is an Average Success, according to page 50, but the rules of Space Combat don't elaborate any further on what this could mean. Even if it was an Exceptional Success, I would still only see this as a hit on Ship B1.

Gunner 2 (Ship A1) will apply a +1 DM from fire control to fire his beam laser. Ship B1 decides to React by casting Sand (reduce damage by 1d6). Ship B1 has no more reactions unless she decides to "Burn Initiative".

The Gunner of Ship B1 rolls a 10, plus skill DM, for a total of 12. The canister of sand gets hurled into space, explodes, and sheds its protective "canopy".

Question: Are the effects of sand-casting cumulative when firing more than one successful canister?

Question: Do the effects of sand-casting apply to only incoming laser attacks from the current attacking ship, or does it include all subsequent attacking ships (in the current round) as well?

I'm rather bothered at the idea of firing multiple canisters to acquire an accumulative effect. Granted, a reacting ship may get unlucky by rolling a bunch of 1s, but still ... it seems that equipping a ship with enough sand-casters could make it impenetrable. Then again, ships only have so many Reactions to fire 'em off. For now, I'm going to say they are NOT cumulative, but I'll reserve the right to change my mind.

I'm also making a decision on my last question. See pg. 149, under Fire Sand, where it says, "the damage of EACH beam in the INCOMING ATTACK is reduced by 1d6" (emphasis mine) to understand what I'm talking about. The effects of the sand are to apply only to incoming lasers from the CURRENT attacking ship. Otherwise, a reacting ship would only need to fire one successful canister per combat round.

Gunner 2 (Ship A1) rolls an 8. After all DMs are applied, the total is 10. Another hit!

Gunner 3 will apply a +1 DM from fire control to one missile launch. He rolls an 8. After all DMs are applied, the total is 10. According to the table on page 149, a successful Effect of 2 translates to a "Missile to-hit roll" of 7+.

Hmmmm. I'm getting alarmed as to how confusing this may get. According to the table on page 147, the missiles will reach their destination next turn. I will have to keep track of the "to-hit" number for each missile. I can't resolve any "to-hit" rolls now because Ship B1 may decide to React to the missiles in the following turn, which may add DMs to the die rolls. If I decide to hold off on all the rolls (even the Gunner rolls) until next turn, I'd still have to keep track of DMs (such as the Fire Control DM) that were generated this round for each missile. I'll stick with keeping track of the "to-hit" scores for now but any suggestions to make this easier would be most welcome.

So then, Missile 1 from Ship A1 (A1M1) has a 7+ chance to hit Ship B1.

Gunner 3 launches another missile. The Fire Control program cannot add any more DMs. He rolls a 10. After DMs, the total is 11. This translates to a "Missile to-hit roll" of 7+.

Gunner 4 launches his two missiles. He rolls an 11 and 7. After applying DMs, the "to-hit" results are 7+ and 8+

Question: Page 147 says "Damage is resolved after all attacks have been made in a round." Does this mean after ALL ships conduct their actions, or just the current ship taking actions?

To me, it reads "after all ships". If not, why bother stating this? It seems rather intuitive to resolve damage as the hits occur. On the flip side, if damage is resolved after all ships take their actions, then why have the ships conduct their actions in Initiative order? This would be in opposition to what we see in Personal Combat wherein a high Initiative rating can interrupt someone else's action. Consequently, I have decided to resolve damage now.

For the first beam laser attack, the damage (2d6 according to page 111) is 7. The armor rating on all these ships is 8, so no damage occurs.

For the second beam laser attack, the damage rolled is 12 (Ship A1 is very lucky). Ship B1's armor absorbs 8 points which means 4 points inflict damage. For his protective sand, Ship B1 rolls a 3. The final damage is 1. According to the table on page 150, this results in a single hit. Two dice are rolled on the Location Table (pg. 151) and ... KABOOM! ... a 4 is rolled, resulting in a hit on the Manouevre drive (thrust reduced by 1 and is down to 3).

Okay, here's another potential problem with determining the Initiative only at the beginning of a battle. Remember, once the Initiative is set, it remains static for the rest of the battle. The exception, of course, pertains to Burning Initiative, but even this only lasts one round. Doesn't it seem strange that a ship who has its M-Drive reduced to nothing would still retain its Initiative throughout the battle? Well, at least the thrust, and Manoeuvre ratings, will be affected.

Will this new damage affect the thrust/manoeuvre calculations we did earlier for Ship B1 for this round? Do I need to recalculate them? I don't see this, based on the Order Of Events outline. These results will be used in the next Manoeuvre Phase.
**********

That ended my second episode for Space Combat before Mongoose tried to forever destroy all my hard work (Hey, I've done some IT work ... I understand). Consequently, there was, perhaps, one post afterward but I cannot recall the details.

As usual, MGT community, please show me where I may be going wrong. I'm already thinking about other ways in which the rules are trying to explain sand-casting. An example of Space Combat from Mongoose or one of its play-testers would be REALLY helpful. How did they conduct all this? Am I on the right track? To be continued (unless there is a total lack of interest in this thread).

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Regarding rolling damage at the end, I think the intent was to allow all ships to use their equipment in this round, then knock it down for the next round.

So, just because ship 1 is hit 4 times before it can fire a weapon, it is still allowed to fire it's weapons before damage is rolled (destroying it's weapons). Does that make sense?

Personally, I would have the ship reroll initiative each round with a DM of their current M-Drive rating.

Also, a damage to a drive or PP, should reduce the drive LETTER not the effect. That way if you want to put a higher letter drive that gives you 3 hits before you are reduced in performance, you can. CT worked that way and it was a valuable tactic for military ships.

Sand should be against one ship's attack. Remember, combat rounds are quite long and ships ARE accellerating throughout the battle, even if they are not changing range. Once sand is fired, it doesn't accelerate with the ship any more and will be "left behind". I WOULD allow stacking of sand if a player wants to waste the Reactions.

GENERAL COMMENT:
Reactions are fine for small ships, but with larger (heavily armed) ships, the number of reactions doesn't seem to match the increased performance for these ships.

Using Chronus' sand example. If a ship has 5 triple Sand Casters available, but only 1 reaction, does that mean he can only fire 1 Caster? Or does the reaction mean he can fire all 15 Casters, but only at one target? Neither seems to make much sense.

 

[Chronus]

Thanks for posting, RTT.

Regarding rolling damage at the end, I think the intent was to allow all ships to use their equipment in this round, then knock it down for the next round.

But then what is the point in conducting combat in initiative order? Initiative order is important in Personal Combat because you may get a shot at someone which prevents your target from shooting back ... no? Isn't this the same idea in Space Combat, or am I missing something else?

Personally, I would have the ship reroll initiative each round with a DM of their current M-Drive rating.

I'm wondering about this myself but will need to conduct more tests first.

Also, a damage to a drive or PP, should reduce the drive LETTER not the effect. That way if you want to put a higher letter drive that gives you 3 hits before you are reduced in performance, you can. CT worked that way and it was a valuable tactic for military ships.

Agreed, though MGT's method dispenses with having to look up letters in a table, which is kind of nice IMOHO.

Incidentally, your description here sounds based upon CT experience only and is not in the MGT Space Combat rules at all. Is this a house rule you plan to implement, or are you talking this way because you have not yet received your MGT copy? :? 8)

Sand should be against one ship's attack. Remember, combat rounds are quite long and ships ARE accellerating throughout the battle, even if they are not changing range. Once sand is fired, it doesn't accelerate with the ship any more and will be "left behind". I WOULD allow stacking of sand if a player wants to waste the Reactions.

Using Chronus' sand example. If a ship has 5 triple Sand Casters available, but only 1 reaction, does that mean he can only fire 1 Caster? Or does the reaction mean he can fire all 15 Casters, but only at one target? Neither seems to make much sense.

Allowing 1 reaction to fire off 15 casters with cumulating effects would be WAY over kill, IMO. Even if only half of the Gunner checks were a success, that would be 7d6 points of damage removed from all incoming laser attacks! Ships with decent Gunners will have even better odds.

Since the best turret weapon can only produce 3d6 + crew hit of damage, and the best bay weapon can only produce 6d6 + crew hit of damage, even a ship with 9 casters (3 triple turrets) and decent gunners would be virtually impenetrable. :shock:

To be fair, there are no rules for spinal weapons which would cause more damage. But I like to think that the rules are complete for the 2000 ton ship scale they represent.

I suppose this could also be used to make an argument for using missiles which have been toned down from CT.

 

[Chronus]

Ooops. I forgot. The rules say that one reaction can be spent to fire off one canister of sand to reduce the damage of incoming lasers by 1d6.

I guess that settles the 15 casters in 1 reaction question.

 

[BITS Dom]

Actually, isn' the max a turret can do in a single shot 9d6 (as in three particle weapons firing together) or 6d6 (3 beam lasers together)?

(Although the beam / pulse / missile relationship is seriously different to CT!)

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Drive letters come from the design rules. At higher tonnages, there are several drive letters that give you the same performance. In CT, there was a reason why you would want to pick one of those higher drive letters. Since damage reduced drive letters by 1, a military ship often would have a drive that could take several hits before loosing any performance. Under MGT, there is no reason not to pick the smallest possible drive (lowest letter) for the desired performance, so most of the table is unnecessary data.

In CT High Guard, the performance was reduced and there were no drive letters.

MGT seems to take the middle ground, where 4 hits will disable the largest drive and the smallest drive.

 

[SSWarlock]

Oh man, I'd forgotten about that CT rule. It didn't really require looking up the chart because when such a design tactic was used, the maximum size installation for the desired performance was often taken. In MongTrav rules, that gives about a leeway of 4 hits before the device was knocked down a letter grade.

The core rules do allow the installation of backup facilities..I think of the house rule under discussion along the same lines as hardening a computer against radiation hits.

Of course, using the house rule will lead to longer space battles.

 

[Chronus]

Actually, isn' the max a turret can do in a single shot 9d6 (as in three particle weapons firing together) or 6d6 (3 beam lasers together)?

My understanding is that the "to hit" check is performed for EACH weapon on the turret, just like in the old CT rules.

So then, for a triple turret with three beam lasers, you would roll the dice three times to see which ones hit its target. You would then roll 2d6 damage for each hit but each roll for damage is separate and not cumulative. Therefore, each 2d6 of damage would have the target's armor and sand factors cutting into it.

Drive letters come from the design rules. At higher tonnages, there are several drive letters that give you the same performance. In CT, there was a reason why you would want to pick one of those higher drive letters. Since damage reduced drive letters by 1, a military ship often would have a drive that could take several hits before loosing any performance.

Again, I agree. A higher letter pick during design most often resulted in a more durable drive. My point was that MGT's method is easier to conduct for space combat. In CT's space combat, you had to look up the drive letter (in the design section) to see if a performance hit had occurred whenever a drive was hit.

Consequently, MGT's rules also seem to put more importance on having backup systems.

Oh man, I'd forgotten about that CT rule. It didn't really require looking up the chart because when such a design tactic was used, the maximum size installation for the desired performance was often taken.

I presume you're strictly talking about the construction of military vessels. I can easily see most custom trader ships being built with the lower drive letter (for the same performance) to keep the cost of the ship down and to allocate more tonnage towards cargo, staterooms and such.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Regarding looking up the drive letters, it never really slowed us down (for the couple of years we used it before HG came out).

Since you are dealing with a single ship, the players just put all the info on the back of their 3x5 card of ship data (remember those?!). It didn't really slow things down. As the Referee, it usually fell to me to get that data for the pirate ship or SDB they were trying to avoid.

 

[AKAramis]

Regarding looking up the drive letters, it never really slowed us down (for the couple of years we used it before HG came out).

Since you are dealing with a single ship, the players just put all the info on the back of their 3x5 card of ship data (remember those?!). It didn't really slow things down. As the Referee, it usually fell to me to get that data for the pirate ship or SDB they were trying to avoid.

We would write them out like so:

[ A ][B 1][ C ][D 2][ E ][F 3]

So we had the letter and the rating in the box.

 

[Chronus]

Okay, continuing on where I left off. It is now Ship B1's turn. Her Gunners will attack Ship A1 to get revenge. Noticing the poor results of Ship A1's attempt to line up a shot, B1 decides not to duplicate the manouevre.

Ship B1 decides to fire his beam laser.

Ship A1 decides to react with a Dodge: DM +2 Pilot Skill. The final result is a 11. This will subtract 2 from B1's beam attack.

Ship B1, Gunner 1 fires his beam laser: DMs are +2 Gunner Skill, + 1 Fire Control, -2 Dodge. The final roll is 8. Just barely!

Ship B1 decides to fire his 2nd beam laser (Gunner 2).

Ship A1 decides to react with a Dodge: DM +2 Pilot Skill. The result is a 10.

Ship B1, Gunner 2 fires his beam laser: DMs are +2 Gunner Skill, + 1 Fire Control, -2 Dodge. The final roll is a 6. A miss.

Ship B1 has her last two gunners launch their missiles.

Gunner 3 uses the remaining Fire Control DM and rolls a final total of 8. Missile B1M1 has a 8+ chance to hit next turn.

Gunner 3 fires the other missile and rolls an 8. Missile B1M2 has an 8+ chance to hit next turn.

Gunner 4 fires his missiles and rolls a 5 and 6 respectively. These last two missiles have a 10+ chance to hit next turn.

Ship B1 rolls for damage for her beam attack. Ship A1 uses her last reaction to launch sand and rolls a 13! The beam damage will be reduced by 1d6. A1 rolls a 6! A very lucky ship indeed!

B1 rolls 2d6 to get a 2. The sand easily absorbs all the damage.

Ship B2 duplicates ship B1's actions against Ship A1.

Ship B2 decides to fire her 1st beam laser.

Ship A1 decides to "burn initiative" to gain a reaction to dodge. Her initiative is lowered to 9 for the next round (still high enough to maintain an initiative edge). She adds her +2 Pilot Skill and the final, modified roll is an 11.

Ship B2, Gunner 1 fires his beam laser: DMs are +2 Gunner, + 1 Fire Control, -2 Dodge. The final result is a 6. Miss.

Ship B2, Gunner 2 fires the ship's 2nd beam laser. Ship A1 does not want to burn any more initiative so the DMs for B2 are +2 Gunner and +1 Fire Control. B2 rolls a final total of 11. A hit!

Now for B2's missiles. The results are as follows:

B2M1 gets an 8 (DM +2 Gunner and +1 Fire Control). It will need 8+ to hit next turn.
B2M2 gets a 10 (DM +2 Gunner only). It will need 7+ to hit next turn.
B2M3 gets a 10 (DM +2 Gunner only). It will need 7+ to hit next turn.
B2M4 gets a 9 (DM +2 Gunner only). It will need 7+ to hit next turn.

B2 rolls damage of 5 for her successful beam attack. Since all these ships have an armor rating of 8, the damage is easily absorbed.

Hmmmmm. Ship armor is very handy but could it possibly knock the whole Space Combat ruleset out of balance? A ship only needs to devote 15% of its hull to Bonded Superdense armor (a rating of 18!) to make it invulnerable to all turret and missile attacks. This certainly does not seem like a huge sacrifice for a fighting ship. Then again, it would take another 15% (total of 30%) of its hull devoted to armor in order to make it invulnerable to bay weapons. And even then, the meson guns would still get through since they ignore armor. Perhaps this will all work out after all.

Ship A2 can finally come to A1's assistance.

She fires her 1st beam laser at B1. B1 decides to "burn initiative" to dodge the attack. B1 rolls a 5 (including DM +2 Pilot Skill) and fails to make an effective dodge.

A2 Gunner 1 rolls with DMs of +2 Gunner and + 1 Fire Control. A 10. Hit.

A2 Gunner 2 rolls with DMs of +2 Gunner and + 1 Fire Control. A 9. Hit!

The missiles are launched with the following results:

A2M1 gets a 6 (DM +2 Gunner and +1 Fire Control). It will need 10+ to hit next round.
A2M2 gets an 11 (DM +2 Gunner). It will need a 7+ to hit next round.
A2M3 gets a 6 (DM +2 Gunner). It will need a 10+ to hit next round.
A2M4 gets a 9 (DM +2 Gunner). It will need a 7+ o hit next round.

Damage for A2's two laser beam hits come up with the following rolls: 6 and 8. The armor from B1 absorbs both attacks.

Wow! With armor like this . . . I could be in for a really long battle. I may only get to the missile detonations and then will have to quit. We'll see.

Okay, folks. My next post will cover ship actions. Again, please point out any inconsistencies or errors that I may have produced.

 

[SSWarlock]

Interestingly, extrapolation of the Performance by Hull Volume table (pg 108) to hulls larger than 2000 dtons shows that single drive designs (i.e. no backups installed) max out in performance at 4800 dtons.

Also, Hulls of 4400 dtons are fragile in that they can be disabled with a single hit to Power Plant or M-Drive, assuming no backup drives are installed. And backups would do nothing more than be disabled themselves in one hit..not an economical option in merchant vessels.

 

[simonh]

Interestingly, extrapolation of the Performance by Hull Volume table (pg 108) to hulls larger than 2000 dtons shows that single drive designs (i.e. no backups installed) max out in performance at 4800 dtons.

Also, Hulls of 4400 dtons are fragile in that they can be disabled with a single hit to Power Plant or M-Drive, assuming no backup drives are installed. And backups would do nothing more than be disabled themselves in one hit..not an economical option in merchant vessels.

I was in Orc's Nest (a games shop in London) on Friday picking up my copy when a guy turned up and said "ooh Traveller - I used to play that at University20 years ago. Is this a new edition?" so I found myself giving a sales pitch - yes everything you need is right here. it's much like the old Traveller you remember but with streamlined and more playable rules. Yes starship design and combat rules are all here as well... etc.

Having read through my copy of course there are limitations to the game as-is, but I have to be fair to Mongoose here. It really is everything you need to play Traveller and for that guy it's ideal. I want more extensible design and combat systems that extends down to small craft and up to ships of the line, but to get complete and playable mechanics into the basic rules require some compromise and I think they did a decent job.

Having said that, the combat system needs to be seriously re-engineered and playtested. The design system needs the same and needs to adopt a more Book5 approach, with some MT or later refinements as the basic system has (in particular batteries of turrets to make gunnery crewing and combat management requirements more tolerable).

I have to be frank and say here that Mongoose have a mixed track record on such delicate balancing acts, but I am by nature an optimist and overall the basic rules give reason to be hopeful. I suspect that the guy in the game shop actually represents a majority of the game's audience, far more than my own demographic, and I think he got a great game that I hope brings him back into roleplaying again.

Simon Hibbs

 

[SSWarlock]

It really is everything you need to play Traveller... I want more extensible design and combat systems that extends down to small craft and up to ships of the line, but to get complete and playable mechanics into the basic rules require some compromise and I think they did a decent job.

Exactly! This is the first Traveller game engine rewrite since MegaTraveller that I've been intrigued enough by to want to GM a campaign and that's saying quite a bit since I've played every version and am a bit of a gearhead.

The core book, IMO, is perfect for campaigns that focus on small PC/NPC groups rather than large-scale interplanetary wars and is a great introduction for those of us anticipating the release of Mercenary and High Guard.

 

[apoc527]

Has anyone else had problems causing damage in the basic ship combat system? Do we know anything about how Mongoose HG will change things (i.e. has anyone from Mongoose commented on it)?

I tend to unfairly ignore space combat in my sci-fi RPGs, mostly because actually playing out space combat can be an exercise in frustration and take way too long. In my Star*Drive game run with Alternity, I only semi-play out the battles. Even in that system, which until now the only sci-fi game I would ever play, it can be hard to play out full space combats (though ships are pretty weak compared to weapons, so at least it goes fast).

 

[Chronus]

Also, Hulls of 4400 dtons are fragile in that they can be disabled with a single hit to Power Plant or M-Drive, assuming no backup drives are installed. And backups would do nothing more than be disabled themselves in one hit..not an economical option in merchant vessels.

I can't follow your logic here.

First, I'm not sure it would be safe to extrapolate the rules beyond the 2000 ton range. Then again, you're the GM in your game so you can insist that it is safe. :wink:

Second, and more importantly, I don't see how/why a single hit on the M-Drive or Power Plant (or even the J-Drive) would disable it. According to page 151, the M-Drive and PP can each take 3 hits before getting disabled/destroyed. Backup systems would behave the same way, no?

in particular batteries of turrets to make gunnery crewing and combat management requirements more tolerable

I came across an article by a British "critic" the other day who thought that the "to hit" rolls were done on a per turret basis, not per weapon basis. In other words, a triple beam turret would have one roll. It it hits, damage for all three beam lasers were applied. Furthermore, he lumped all the damage for the 3 together. This made armor penetration more feasible.

I kind of like his idea on how it works but I don't see it supported in the rules that way. Furthermore, I'm not sure how this would work with mixed turrets, wherein one of the weapons is a sand-caster. I'll post the link if and when I can find it.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Nuclear Missiles also help defeat the armor.

BUT, I think the rules are sort of designed this way. Without armor (merchants) you are vulnerable to weapons fire, for a bit of armor you can make yourself immune to lasers and non-nuke missiles. Lots of armor and it takes Bay weapons or the fabled Spinal Mounts to take you our (or Meson guns).

If the combat sequence described above had been 1 Gazelle against 2 Far Traders, the battle might be over by now. Gazelle wins.

 

[Chronus]

Nuclear Missiles also help defeat the armor.

:? :?:

Not any better than beam lasers. Both do 2d6 of damage. Nukes only have the addition of a radiation crew hit. If your armor is 12, nukes ain't gettin' through to do any ship damage.

I'm not sure how the crew hit would be resolved. Would it still apply, even if all the damage from the nuke was absorbed by the armor? I would have said "yes" but the radiation rules on page 142 make me think otherwise. How can the crew be affected if no breakthrough of the armor occurs?

If the combat sequence described above had been 1 Gazelle against 2 Far Traders, the battle might be over by now. Gazelle wins.

I quite agree. In fact, armor seems to be a rather significant factor. The Gazelle class is the only ship in the book with a rating of 8. The others either have 4 or 0. She certainly is a formidable opponent, easily capable of knocking out 2 Far Traders.

In fact, I'm tempted to play out and post a battle between a Gazelle class and a Mercenary class ship. Of course, I'd armed the Merc with a full compliment of particle/nuke/sand turrets but leave the Gazelle as is in the book. In spite of being out-gunned, I cannot help but wonder if the Gazelle would give the Merc a serious beating due to her higher armor.

 

[Chronus]

Continuing on with our example . . .

4. Ship Action Phase

Ship A1 performs a sensor lock on B1. The roll is a 2, plus 2 for Sensors skill, which results in a 4. Fail! Ship A1 is not used to that!

Ship B1 does the same, locking on A1. The roll is an 11, plus 2 for Sensors skill, which results in a 13!. Success! B1's gunners will have a +1 DM on future attacks.

Ship B2 does the same, locking on A1. The roll is an 8, plus 2 for Sensors skill, which results in a 10. Another success.

Ship A2 does the same, locking on B1. The roll is a 7, plus 2 for Sensors skill, which results in a 9. Another success.

Okay, these DMs are to be applied next round. But should it really work this way? I'm beginning to think that the Ship Action Phase actually works concurrently with the Combat Phase. These DMs should have probably been applied in this first round of combat. Once again, folks ... live and learn!

Also, I had decided to have the Navigator of each ship perform the Sensor checks. This means that they are not in the Damage Control party. I decided this back when some fellow forum members helped clarify the crew positions, but forget to post the change. Sorry.

Ship B1 has a hit on its manouevre drive that it will attempt to fix. The roll is a 6, plus 2 for Mechanic skill, makes 8. This results in one hit getting repaired ... all that is required. Ship B1 is at full capacity again.

Hold on a minute. Just how crazy should I get with this? These ships have two members in Damage Control. What if each ship had five? That's 5 potential repairs a turn, with each attempt repairing up to a possible 3 hits! The rules say that an attempt is made on one system, so the number of hits repaired should only be applied to one system and not mitigated to others, right? I must conclude that destroyed systems can, therefore, be jury-rigged to eeek out a bit more life (how else could a spectacular success repair 3 hits of damage?). My real question is how many times a system can be jury-rigged? If 2nd, 3rd or even more attempts can always be made on subsequent rounds then we can easily have a ship that's constantly repairing itself, making it more invulnerable. I'm going to conclude that once a repair check on a system fails, no further attempts can be made (except on future hits). Otherwise, space battles may end up becoming extremely long affairs indeed!

5. Go to step 2.

We did it! One full round of (albeit lopsided) space combat has been performed. My next post will, hopefully, move quicker. I plan to wrap up this example by completing the next round ... we want to see what happens when the missiles reach their targets, don't we? 8)