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

[kevinknight]

This weekend I ran some numbers on the damage when you factor in the new multipliers. A trend I noticed was that it would seem that fights are changing from the old Ship of the Line duels where two vessels slug it out, wearing away their opponent, to more like modern jet fights where the first person to hit wins. If that is the intention for the official MgT version, then so be it, but I just wanted to be sure this was fully thought through. I've created a short chart showing some of the weapon effects and what they are capable of one shotting with a normal hit (this assumes a 0 effect on the attack roll and the damage roll is the median value or greater). Ion weapons assume a power output of roughly 50 points per 100 tons. The two damage columns reflect the target have 0 armor or having 12 armor and the subsequent one shot tonnage the weapon is capable of. Also, keep in mind that this is a SINGLE shot from a SINGLE weapon. A vessel will more than likely have other weapons or even multiple weapons of the same type.

​	Damage​	Median​	Dmg vs 0​	Dmg vs 12​	One shot 0​	One shot 12​
Barbettes​	​	​	​	​	​	​
Fusion​	5D​	17​	51​	24​	100​	60​
Ion​	7D​	24​	72​	72​	150​	150​
​	​	​	​	​	​	​
Small Bay​	​	​	​	​	​	​
Fusion​	6D​	21​	210​	150​	500​	350​
Ion​	6D​	21​	210​	210​	400​	400​
Meson​	5D​	17​	170​	170​	400​	400​
Particle Beam​	6D​	21​	210​	90​	500​	200​

You can easily put a 50ton small bay into a 200ton system defense boat.
I like the way the multipliers work, but feel they are too high, instead of 3/10/20/100, maybe be 2/5/10/50. My point here is that I don't want starship combat to devolve to who wins the initiative roll...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Have the new rules been playtested or were they just invented without a thought to the outcome? Have they been thoroughly playtested by pitting peer to peer fleets against each other, then fleets from different TLs, because if not how do you know the rules work?

 

[paltrysum]

Working as intended. Unless you're using turret weapons, gone are the days of lengthy battles of attrition. Barbettes and bays mean business now.

We inserted this phrase into the barbettes section: "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." Allow barbettes in your adventure-class ships with caution. They hit hard. We also reduced the performance gap between barbettes and bays. It was a chasm before; now you have a more linear progression.

Bay weapons in HG2 allowed for critical hit farming with their enormous DM+4 when attacking targets of 3,000 tons or more. In previous Mg2e books, you rarely see medium and large bays installed (unless they were missile bays) because they were not very effective and did not seem to have a well-defined job. HG2022 has removed the big to-hit DM and put the Damage Multiplier into play instead, putting ball firmly in the gunnery crew's court. If they can hit, they can wreak incredible damage.

A small bay can take out a typical frigate or destroyer escort in 1-4 hits. A medium bay can do the same to a destroyer. Large bays one-shot destroyers and make quick work of cruisers. Spinal mounts, with their negative DMs to hit smaller ships, are designed to handle the largest ships of the fleet.

Fleet engagements are quick and dirty affairs, in which potential combatants estimate the measure of their opponent from a distance, choose to engage or not, and if so, the ensuing battle usually happens quickly with immense amounts of damage wrought in short order and trillions of credits of battleship hull laid to waste within minutes.

You cited ion barbettes in your example. The HG2022 version is not much more powerful than the HG2, which did 2Dx10 damage. But all the others are made much stronger by the Damage Multiple.

 

[Condottiere]

Merchantmen hate it.

Popup barbettes

 

[shammond42]

Working as intended. Unless you're using turret weapons, gone are the days of lengthy battles of attrition. Barbettes and bays mean business now.

Interesting. I'm thinking I might want to stick to the old rules for Deepnight Revelation. You don't really want the ship to be destroyed in a single naval engagement, that could bring an early end to the campaign.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Energy shields are now baseline technology in the Third Imperium (TL14 for ship scale, TL 15 for personal shields, I am assuming there will be vehicle scale shields too), perhaps it is time to redesign ships like the Element class cruiser to the modern paradigm.

Might make an interesting series for future JTAS - updating the fleet - the old (CT S:9 based) ship classes but designed to the modern HG2022 paradigm standards.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sounds like spinals are pointless now...

Bays were pointless in HG2017 (except missiles of course).


Superficially it seems barbettes does the most damage per ton of weapon, so would be the weapon of choice. They also have many to hit rolls, so more chances for crits, negating dodging, and ease of splitting fire over several targets. Why use larger weapons?

If ships are easily killed, why use them? Fighters can mount barbettes, and even if you lose them the carriers with the bulk of the crew can survive.

 

[Arkathan]

While we are on the subject,
How do damage multipliers work with deflector screens?
Do they subtract before or after the damage modifier?
What about missiles? Before or after multiplying effect?

 

[Condottiere]

Energy shields?

I guess combat lasts as long as the shields can soak up damage.

 

[Arkathan]

Energy shields?

I guess combat lasts as long as the shields can soak up damage.

Shields absorb damage. They have a set pool that recharges a certain amount each turn.
Deflectors roll to deflect each turn. The question is, at which point do deflectors deflect? We know it is after armor deductions, but is it before or after Damage Multipliers?
My guess is before, or they'd be nearly useless except on hero vessels outside fleet engagements, but you know what ASSuming anything will get you...

 

[MyndkryM]

Shields absorb damage. They have a set pool that recharges a certain amount each turn.
Deflectors roll to deflect each turn. The question is, at which point do deflectors deflect? We know it is after armor deductions, but is it before or after Damage Multipliers?
My guess is before, or they'd be nearly useless except on hero vessels outside fleet engagements, but you know what ASSuming anything will get you...

Reading Angle Screens (Gunner) on pg. 41, the Screen Gunner gets to use their Effect result as a multiplier.....so after???? Attack multiplied damage vs defense multiplied absorption?

 

[paltrysum]

Screens do not have a multiplier.

 

[Arkathan]

Screens do not have a multiplier.

But does the Weapon damage multiplier go on before or after the Deflector roll?
and to clarify, the dice for the deflector(s) are combined to roll the check and that effect is multiplied by the count of the dice rolled to reduce damage, so an 8 is zero, and two deflectors against one attack with a check of ten reduces damage by 8?
The wording is a bit obscure and until reading MyndkryM's post and re-reading the box, I was thinking you rolled the dice and used the roll to reduce damage, like weapon damage.

 

[Tupper]

But does the Weapon damage multiplier go on before or after the Deflector roll?
and to clarify, the dice for the deflector(s) are combined to roll the check and that effect is multiplied by the count of the dice rolled to reduce damage, so an 8 is zero, and two deflectors against one attack with a check of ten reduces damage by 8?
The wording is a bit obscure and until reading MyndkryM's post and re-reading the box, I was thinking you rolled the dice and used the roll to reduce damage, like weapon damage.

My read is that screens go *before* multipliers. See p29, Damage Multiples:

“After a hit is scored, roll damage, subtracting armour and other countermeasures from the total. Be sure to subtract AP from the armour before reducing damage. Multiply the remaining damage by the Damage Multiple for the final damage.”

That means that an effect 1 angle screens with a meson screen will have good odds of stopping a fair sized spinal meson gun hit. Of course a *failed* angled screen check won’t do any good… or if you roll snake-eyes for the screen’s 2Dx10, some damage could sneak on through.

 

[kevinknight]

Working as intended. Unless you're using turret weapons, gone are the days of lengthy battles of attrition. Barbettes and bays mean business now.

We inserted this phrase into the barbettes section: "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." Allow barbettes in your adventure-class ships with caution. They hit hard. We also reduced the performance gap between barbettes and bays. It was a chasm before; now you have a more linear progression.

You cited ion barbettes in your example. The HG2022 version is not much more powerful than the HG2, which did 2Dx10 damage. But all the others are made much stronger by the Damage Multiple.

And well they should. However, Traveller is a roleplaying game, not a wargame. Having weapons available on ships that can reduce the same sized or even larger vessels to scrap in one shot doesn't make for a very fun roleplaying experience.

"Allow barbettes in your adventure-class ships with caution."
We are currently playing the Pirates campaign. The stock ship provided to the players comes with a Particle Beam barbette right out of the box. While I don't feel that one is particularly over powered, other campaigns are even more geared towards military vessels, further increasing the chances of one shot, one kill weapons being installed on vessels.

You make a comment about a linear progression of damage. Unfortunately, the new weapon rules make it more of an exponential progression of damage. This is from the effect of both increasing the base damage the weapons cause and increasing the multiplier. Below is a chart showing the Particle Beam weapon progression that could conceivably be installed on an adventure class ship.


Due to the ambiguity of what was 'official' in the previous version of High Guard, I don't think most people used the Ion weapons. I know we didn't. However, with the changes making them official (which I agree with), their effect needs to be examined closely.

One of the tests I do on ship designs is to pit a vessel against a copy of itself. In the previous version, some of the stock ship designs were laughable. I remember one fighter with 12 armor and armed with a beam laser. It could literally fight a clone of itself all day with neither ship taking any damage. Now I feel we've gone the opposite direction.

Just to be clear, I like what has been done with HG2022. Lots of nice changes and additions. I just don't want to see starship combat reduced to who wins the initiative roll, as I've stated before. If everyone is restricted to turret weapons, true, that's not going to happen, but that's also boring and doesn't reflect the 'realities' of starship combat where militaries vie to outdo their opponents. And if we progress the storyline to the 5th Frontier War or even the Rebellion, there will be more and more military class vessels brought into play.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

 

[Arkathan]

My read is that screens go *before* multipliers. See p29, Damage Multiples:

“After a hit is scored, roll damage, subtracting armour and other countermeasures from the total. Be sure to subtract AP from the armour before reducing damage. Multiply the remaining damage by the Damage Multiple for the final damage.”

That means that an effect 1 angle screens with a meson screen will have good odds of stopping a fair sized spinal meson gun hit. Of course a *failed* angled screen check won’t do any good… or if you roll snake-eyes for the screen’s 2Dx10, some damage could sneak on through.

Thanks. I missed other countermeasures.

 

[AndrewW]

"Allow barbettes in your adventure-class ships with caution."
We are currently playing the Pirates campaign. The stock ship provided to the players comes with a Particle Beam barbette right out of the box. While I don't feel that one is particularly over powered, other campaigns are even more geared towards military vessels, further increasing the chances of one shot, one kill weapons being installed on vessels.

Of course the 2nd edition Harrier was designed long before the updated High Guard. (Shortly after the 2nd edition High Guard actually.)

 

[Sigtrygg]

Perhaps it could be updated to the new paradigm, with a new deck plan and a bit of art - a nice free download (like was done for Death Station) or minimum price pdf or an article in the next set of JTAS...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You make a comment about a linear progression of damage. Unfortunately, the new weapon rules make it more of an exponential progression of damage. This is from the effect of both increasing the base damage the weapons cause and increasing the multiplier. Below is a chart showing the Particle Beam weapon progression that could conceivably be installed on an adventure class ship.
View attachment 765

As they must be, why else would you use large weapons. I see this:


Note that armour skews this considerably, and should be the default. Military weapons should be evaluated shooting against warships with armour.



Effect will affect these results in favour of smaller weapons. Large weapons must do this much damage to be even remotely worth it.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

To see how effect changes the results we have to look at average damage at each to hit roll, something like this:
Turret, average damage 5.58:


Barbette, average damage 10.7:


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