Damage Multiplier in the new HG, or One Shot, One Kill

[AnotherDilbert]

Small bay, average damage 98.8:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Medium bay, average damage 333:


Thrice the damage for twice the tonnage compared to a small bay. Finally seems like a good deal?

 

[Arkathan]

So, a barbette does twice the damage at five times the tonnage. Worth it?

It is worth it on certain small vessels where the number of hardpoints is more limiting than the need for tonnage for cargo is.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It is worth it on certain small vessels where the number of hardpoints is more limiting than the need for tonnage for cargo is.

Sure, in some specialised circumstances, such as fighters.

If we include the space needed for the necessary power plant, engineers, and gunners, barbettes will look more appealing. Seems like the authors did their maths reasonably well.


If HG2022 is like HG2017, particle turrets are not default weapons, but optional rules, not really applicable to the Imperium. The choice is then between a laser turret or a particle barbette with longer range. Suddenly it's much easier to choose the barbette.

 

[kevinknight]

So, a barbette does twice the damage at five times the tonnage. Worth it?

Yes, because the limiting factor in this instance is hardpoints, not tonnage. It's not until you get to bays, maybe even to medium bays (since small bays easily fit into a non-jump capable vessel), that tonnage becomes the limiting factor.

 

[kevinknight]

My whole reason for bringing this up is not the general effectiveness of the weapons vs. tonnage/hardpoints/power/etc. It's the large number of one shot/one kill weapons that are now available to be placed in adventure class ships. And please don't give me the 'Do what you want in your Traveller game' line. You have to look at these things from the point of view of new players who pick up the books and start reading them. They're not going to think 'Well, you shouldn't put a medium meson bay in a 400 ton ship because it doesn't fit with the Imperium standards' like us old timers will. They'll just take the rules as written and run with them.

 

[Sigtrygg]

In which case you would outlaw ion weapons and energy shields since neither used to exist within the Third Imperium setting.

The MgT Third Imperium is diverging from the CT->T5 OTU version in some pretty significant ways, but nothing compared to the wafer curveball that MWM threw us in his novel.

A 600t ship with an ion bay, energy shield and a few particle barbettes may be fun to play with.

 

[Arkathan]

In which case you would outlaw ion weapons and energy shields since neither used to exist within the Third Imperium setting.

The MgT Third Imperium is diverging from the CT->T5 OTU version in some pretty significant ways, but nothing compared to the wafer curveball that MWM threw us in his novel.

A 600t ship with an ion bay, energy shield and a few particle barbettes may be fun to play with.

I'm still on the fence about including Gold Cross memberships in Traveller...

 

[MyndkryM]

My whole reason for bringing this up is not the general effectiveness of the weapons vs. tonnage/hardpoints/power/etc. It's the large number of one shot/one kill weapons that are now available to be placed in adventure class ships. And please don't give me the 'Do what you want in your Traveller game' line. You have to look at these things from the point of view of new players who pick up the books and start reading them. They're not going to think 'Well, you shouldn't put a medium meson bay in a 400 ton ship because it doesn't fit with the Imperium standards' like us old timers will. They'll just take the rules as written and run with them.

Hmmm......put me in the "Do what you want" camp.

In fact, I'll amend that to "What was old is now new again" camp, because back in '78 we ONLY had the LBBs...and all the other stuff slowly came later (no internet, very few game stores, etc.). So...yeah, looking at the point of view of new players coming in and picking up the new books and running with them...more power to them. I'm convinced this is how the second gen of game devs came to be, necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[Arkathan]

So, I just ran a game with an 800 ton heavy patrol ship (military, TL 14) with 14 armor, a medium ion cannon bay, a Type III PDB, 3 particle barbettes and three triple beam turrets.
While the bay shuts down a smaller ship if it hits, it will not disable a similarly sized hero ship, even without EMP protections (granted the hero ship was created with a holographic hull, so it has extra power...
The three hundred ton ships it fought most of the night lasted a while and took out its 400 ton Type T Patrol corvettes. At the end of the night, it had a bane on the PDB, leaky fuel, cargo hits and 40 space combat turns before life support fails.
So the combat lasted nearly four hours, and we weren't done yet, so will pick up next time.
The big weapons are scary, but the 14 armor on that beast was far more of a factor than the weapons being OP.
In fact the new weapons make a multi-ship engagement practicable for an evening game.
Now I have to make a deck plan for it before next week so they will have something to board.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

My whole reason for bringing this up is not the general effectiveness of the weapons vs. tonnage/hardpoints/power/etc. It's the large number of one shot/one kill weapons that are now available to be placed in adventure class ships.

You are describing an extreme scenario: Shooting heavy military weapons at cheap civilian hulls. Bays should kill Free Traders. Warships are a different matter entirely.

You are also ignoring attack rolls (to hit), it's far from certain that you hit with all weapons.

A Free Trader with a small bay is a glass hammer. It is also not a trader anymore, as it will not be able to carry enough cargo to be economically viable.

I agree barbettes on ACSs might be problematic, but:

"Barbettes are typically only for military use and not available for purchase by civilians except under unusual circumstances. However, there are unscrupulous ports where they can be obtained on the black market."

The problem you are describing is basically that pirates with illegal military weapons are overpowered compared to civilian ships. Well, of course they are. The Harrier could reduce any ASC to splinters from out of range, while stealthed, so return fire was impossible.

We have always had this problem in Traveller, e.g. with BattleDress and FGMPs in character combat, or nukes in CT ship combat. It's something for the Referee to handle.


Note that this problem could be had in HG2017 too: A double salvo of nukes from a single turret could do 120 damage and kill most small ships in a single round. When military weapons comes into play you have defences or you are dead.

Bays were useless in HG2017 warship combat, basically only spinals, missiles, and fighters were viable ways to hurt the enemy. I see an attempt to boost bays into relevance, which seems to be a good thing. A new balance will be found once we have tried out a few tactics, as usual.

 

[kevinknight]

You are describing an extreme scenario: Shooting heavy military weapons at cheap civilian hulls. Bays should kill Free Traders. Warships are a different matter entirely.

You are also ignoring attack rolls (to hit), it's far from certain that you hit with all weapons.

A Free Trader with a small bay is a glass hammer. It is also not a trader anymore, as it will not be able to carry enough cargo to be economically viable.

Actually, I never mentioned civilian ships. They, of course, will be toast. I was referencing the amount of damage being inflicted by a median shot from the new weapons and the amount of hull damage they would inflict. That could be slightly higher on a military ship, but not to a significant amount (think 10% for reinforced is the only option other than planetoid hulls).

Not ignoring it, simply not wanting to do all the math to factor in all the variables present in a 'to hit' roll. I also didn't factor in the plus to damage from the effect of a successful attack.

Again, never said anything about putting a small bay in a free trader. Adventure Class is a tonnage range (100 to 1000 from my understanding), not a specific vessel.

You mentioned missiles: Yes, they were deadly (and I use 'were' deliberately, they are extremely sub-optimal now since they don't benefit from the damage multipliers) but you had two additional lines of defense against them - point defense fire and electronic warfare. Plus with the way damage is inflicted by missiles/torpedoes armor is a huge deterrent to them.

We tend to run more military oriented campaigns (ran one for several years that went from 1104 to 1110, with the players actively participating in the 5th Frontier War and now we are a year and a half (game time) into the Pirates of Drinax campaign). So when I look at these designs, I tend to approach them from a naval architect's viewpoint on getting the most bang for my tonnage. Below is a 200t SDB, built to TL12 specs. It's damage output is horrendous now for its weight class and that's keeping the particle beams. Could swap it out for a small meson bay and it would be worse in total damage output but better against armored targets.


So, pitting it against itself, now the particle beam bay has gone from doing 9 median damage on a 0 effect hit (6D median roll is 21 minus 12 armor yields 9) to doing 90 median damage. Since the hull has remained the same (88) that went from an annoying hit that inflicts an automatic severity 1 critical to vaporization.

That just seems like an extreme increase in the power of the weapons to me, but it definitely will make the fights shorter...

 

[Sigtrygg]

You are firing a 50t particle bay at a 200t ship, of course the ship will pop, as it should.

I have long advocated for bay weapons to be the weapon of choice to mission kill warship ACS and severely damage escort class to light cruiser.
Turrets and barbettes are for dealing with small craft and civilians.
Large bays and spinals take out capital ships.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Actually, I never mentioned civilian ships.

OK, no civilian ships.

Below is a 200t SDB, built to TL12 specs. It's damage output is horrendous now for its weight class and that's keeping the particle beams. Could swap it out for a small meson bay and it would be worse in total damage output but better against armored targets.

So, pitting it against itself, now the particle beam bay has gone from doing 9 median damage on a 0 effect hit (6D median roll is 21 minus 12 armor yields 9) to doing 90 median damage. Since the hull has remained the same (88) that went from an annoying hit that inflicts an automatic severity 1 critical to vaporization.

That just seems like an extreme increase in the power of the weapons to me, but it definitely will make the fights shorter...

I would say: As it should be. In HG2017 the bay would be nearly useless, no-one used them. A lowly laser turret does in the region of 5 damage (depending on to hit), a bay should surely do a lot more?

Hull points were deliberately set to make warships viable and Riders less viable. Obviously that makes SDB and Riders fragile. A 200 Dt warship will hardly carry any bays.

We have a negative DM to hit for the bay (still?), and the SDB has plenty of dodge capability, so how often does the bay hit?

I get something like:
2D + 3 [Gunner-2, DEX-1] + 1 [Aid Gunner] + 4 [Fire Cont] - 6[VL range] - 2 [Evade] - 3 [dodge] - 2 [bay vs small] = 2D - 5, so we need to roll 13 on the dice to hit for a 0% chance, oops. Or have I missed something (I'm still using HG2017)?

Close in to Long range for a +2 and we hit on 11+ or 8% chance to hit. With a ~50% chance of destroying the target (itself), we are looking at an average 20-25 rounds. Not too quick?

You mentioned missiles: Yes, they were deadly (and I use 'were' deliberately, they are extremely sub-optimal now since they don't benefit from the damage multipliers) but you had two additional lines of defense against them - point defense fire and electronic warfare. Plus with the way damage is inflicted by missiles/torpedoes armor is a huge deterrent to them.

Agreed armour is a good defence, especially against small weapons like turrets or missiles. But there can be a lot of them...

Take the same SDB with missile armament, a bay and a barbette, so launching 17 missiles. Launch at VL range where the bay has a problem hitting. Manoeuvre to keep the range constant, don't let the particle SDB creep up on us.

Round 1 launch 17 nukes, they arrive round 5. Unless the crew is very good ECM isn't doing much, let's say 1 missile per round as a guess, so 13 missiles can attack. The SDB has no PD capability. 13 missiles attack, with a +13 DM and a dodge, perhaps 10 missiles hit. Each missile does average 9 damage for a total of 90 damage. Same order of magnitude as the bay...

Ok, the missile damage is highly variable and easier to mitigate with defences, but on the other hand reaches longer range and will hit. A missile SDB will kill a Particle SDB before it can get into range to be able to hit. Advantage missiles, I would say...


Note this is an iffy size for a missile SDB, I would rather make it a bit bigger, to make the salvo weight higher, to lessen the relative effect of ECM.


TLDR: The bay now does roughly comparable damage to missiles, but at shorter range and with worse to hit. I would say the bay is still not overpowered?

 

[Arkathan]

I think Evade 2 is a bit optimistic for a TL 12 SDB. That TL 12 Comp only has 20 bandwidth, and evade 2 is 15, leaving only room for Basic fire control 1.

With the new PDBs you need a LOT of missiles in a salvo to get any through... or get lucky and get a bane on that system with a lucky critical that leaves one point of damage after armor.
3D was usually more than enough to fend off two patrol corvettes or a bay, but now the high tech one is 6D (4D for TL 12). Get a couple or three and TL appropriate sensor upgrades and options and missiles are toast.
Of course, if you don't have either, the target is toast.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think Evade 2 is a bit optimistic for a TL 12 SDB. That TL 12 Comp only has 20 bandwidth, and evade 2 is 15, leaving only room for Basic fire control 1.

Agreed, but so is FireCntr-4. In general I would say Evade takes precedence since it affects all attacks, not just one, but it is of course situational. If Evade can prevent any hits, even if the enemy is maxing FC, it is probably a good idea, unless your only hope of winning is a quick lucky hit.

With the new PDBs you need a LOT of missiles in a salvo to get any through... or get lucky and get a bane on that system with a lucky critical that leaves one point of damage after armor.
3D was usually more than enough to fend off two patrol corvettes or a bay, but now the high tech one is 6D (4D for TL 12). Get a couple or three and TL appropriate sensor upgrades and options and missiles are toast.

Overwhelm the PD with double or triple salvoes, making sure that several salvoes reach the target simultaneously.

Investing in sensors is generally a good idea, but TL-12 doesn't give you all that much more to work with. The proposed SDB already has good sensors.

Can't crits be repaired at the end of the round any more? If they can, a random crit is mostly harmless.

Of course, if you don't have either, the target is toast.

Quite, that's my point. Missiles are still a credible threat, so you have to consider that and spend resources countering that threat. The proposed SDB would have to give up its bay to fit a PD battery, making it kind of pointless. The best it can do is a laser turret, which is probably not enough.


The damage multipliers have just boosted bays enough to be A credible threat, not the only threat. They still have a disadvantage in targeting small ships. Fighters and missiles can kill anything, spinals can only kill large ships, and bays can only effectively kill medium to large ships.


I don't see how barbettes fit into this yet, they boost barbette fighters, but also barbettes as fighter defences. Are they good enough to make significant damage to ships?

 

[Arkathan]

Against the 14 Armor heavy patrol craft I set against my players, their particle barbettes were doing most of the damage.
Against their lightly armored NPC support craft, the barbettes were ripping them apart, but over several turns, not a one shot and kill.

 

[Alqualonde]

Lets not forget that anything bigger than 5k dT can (and should) have up to twice the usual max in armor (HG2022 - p12, Military Hulls). Suddenly the bays have to penetrate an AV30 on Imperial ships... Not impossible for medium & large bays (and small particle bays) but it will reduce the effectiveness.
One stupid question, is it possible to have a fixed mount barbette or bay? Would it modify the volume/cost of the weapon?

 

[AndrewW]

One stupid question, is it possible to have a fixed mount barbette or bay? Would it modify the volume/cost of the weapon?

Turrets and fixed mounts use the same type of weapons but whereas a fixed mount can only fire at targets directly ahead of it, a turret rotates and can engage any target in sight.

So nope, no barbette or bay weapons on a fixed mount.
Stupid questions are those that don't get asked.

 

[Arkathan]

... is it possible to have a fixed mount barbette or bay? Would it modify the volume/cost of the weapon?

If a small craft is 70+dtons, it can replace its 3 firm points with one fixed barbette.