[Deneb Sector] 2000 dT Huscarle Cruisers

[Old School]

I get your point (pun intended) that point defense is an action, not an attack, but I can't find the logic in a weapon who's only advantage is its accuracy suddenly loses that accuracy when you need it most. So I give beams a +2 advantage over pulse lasers in point defense.

As for beam lasers usefulness against fighters, that depends whether you're fighting Another Dilbert designed fighters, or you're fighting the canon light fighters from the books. Obviously a heavily armored target would require a different weapon.

And for either laser, the tech level is low enough that the long range advanced design should really be standard. I do agree that for the combination of size, cost, damage, range, and accuracy, nothing beats a triple pulse laser, especially with the long range tech advantage.

As for servants, yes their common areas are by all means separate (heaven forbid), but that separate can be the other side of a wall given the limitations of a starship. My 50 ton "emperor's suite" module design, for example, includes two staterooms for servants, 2dtons for servant's common area, a double luxury stateroom for the noble, a studio, 2 dton training room, a briefing room, 6 dtons entertaining area for the noble, and 2 dtons cargo. The entertaining areas would have one discrete door in the corner where the servants can access their own common area and staterooms. Or they can use the main door out of the module into the ship's corridor, and then access their common area from the corridor.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So I give beams a +2 advantage over pulse lasers in point defense.

Not unreasonable, but still a house-rule.

As for beam lasers usefulness against fighters, that depends whether you're fighting Another Dilbert designed fighters, or you're fighting the canon light fighters from the books.

Not just me, I'm afraid. I think most of us agreed armour was very useful on fighters; see this fighter design thread from beta: http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=118672.

It's not really fair to fight standard civilian designs against our own improved warship designs.

I wouldn't consider unarmoured craft, such as the 10 Dt fighter or the Patrol Corvette, military but civilians that would barely rate as target practice for real warships.

 

[Old School]

Count me as one of those who agrees that fighters should carry heavy armor under the current design rules. The standard designs don't, however. So it depends on who and what you are fighting.

I kinda have an issue with heavy armor on the fighters as a design concept. With the RAW, I hardly ever design a small craft without heavy armor, as it takes up so little space. I guess that's a function of rules designed around volume rather than mass. I've considered a house rule that limits the armor on smaller vessels to get around this, something that would be a function of dtons to maximum armor. The idea that a 10 dton craft doesn't pop when taking a solid hit from a triple pulse laser or an average hit from a particle barbette bothers me.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Count me as one of those who agrees that fighters should carry heavy armor under the current design rules. The standard designs don't, however.

The Heavy Fighter, that is actually carried on Imperial warships i.e. a military design, does have max armour. And the Deployment Shuttle has max armour (at a little lower TL).

It's only the light fighter that lacks armour

 

[Bardicheart]

Some design notes seem in order regarding some of my choices about lab space and so forth.

When I started coming up with this "concept" I began basically with two things. First was my read of the Deneb sector and the various rivalries between the different noble factions. Some of these nobles are Solomanni in origin, others are Vilanni and there are even some Vargr nobles just to keep it interesting. Second, there's a heavy influence conceptually from Fading Suns, a setting I personally love. In Fading Suns each of the various noble houses (5 major and a many more minor ones) had a different design style for their ships, but particularly the five major houses (Decados, Hawkwoods, Hazat, Li Halan and Al-Malik), that was both a stylistic difference in the hull shape and style as well as different preferences in weapons and ship equipment. The Li Halan ships all have chapels onboard. The Al-Malik love missile boats and on many of their ships its nearly the only type of weapon system they have. The Hazat have some of the best soldiers and marines, their ships tend be more spartan and military inside and are generally set up for boarding (all ships are but theirs tend to be better at it). I wanted to design some different huscarle ships for the Deneb sector that followed those general concepts.

So starting with the Reinhardt's they're sort of geeky nerd nobles, noble scientists. So their ship, the Voshtar, had plenty of labs. Sure you could combine a few of those labs, but that's not their style. Extra workshops means plenty of space for doing repairs, machining parts, etc. The ship carries 1 more engineer than is actually required as well. Those were choices influenced by how I thought the Reinhardt "style" would influence the design. Count Karl Reinhardt almost seem to expect the Voshtar would need exceptional damage repair capability and designed the ship to be resilient; which turned out to be a bit prescient of him, or maybe he just knew his enemies well.

As far as the sensor stations, the rules for that and for bridges are a bit vague but its what we have. We know that bridge sizes get larger as the ship gets bigger (to a point) and that it is assumed to generally have 1 sensor station per 1000 dT of hull. Beyond that things turn in to very muddy "guidelines" which I'm not a fan of (I'm an old wargamer, I like solid, clearly written rules). Since the Voshtar was to be both a flagship and high tech I gave it four extra sensor ops allowing it a pretty solid amount of EW for its class. Compared to an actual Navy cruiser which might have 30 to 75 sensor ops standard (depending on the size of the cruiser), the Vosthar's ability is insignificant but it was never intended to take on anything larger than 2000 dT.

Karl Reinhardt designed the noble deck with his own preferences in mind. He didn't plan on bringing along any servants, he envisioned the three stewards that are part of the crew should be more than sufficient to take care of whatever needs, whims, etc. noble passengers might have. (With three, there should always be one on duty, so if some noble wants a martini, extra dry, shaken not stirred with olives from Ishiri at 3 AM, there's someone who can do that.) The space for personal staff (and note that distinction) was intended for things like a personal bodyguard (which in Karl's case happened to be a Knight), personal assistant (whom he trusted, since she knew nearly as much about Karl's finances and holdings as he did) and so forth. Since space was limited, he included room for staff that were essential and needed to be brought along. Now other noble house designs might do things differently and when I get to some other cruiser designs I intend to have some fun with that.

For another of the designs, the Farhadi, I plan on making them heavy on missile boats. The Ermingard are brawlers, preferring to get in close and slug it out and then board. The Harada I haven't figured out yet, but I'd love to have some elements that make them distinctive and showcase their Japanese heritage. Maybe come up with others as ideas present themselves (a Vargr noble design should be fun!). In addition for each I want to come up with some sort of physical style for their ship, preferred general shape and so forth. To me it would be interesting and fun to have an area where you had such well developed styles of ship to game in.

So, in some cases yes I could squeeze more out of it by making the design more efficient, but if I keep going down that road then all you end up with is a single "ultimate" design and that's not my actual goal. The limits on weapon choices will dampen this a bit, which is one reason I mentioned things like "heavy lasers" and so forth, but I'll make do with what is available while staying within the restrictions of the Deneb setting.

All in all I'm having fun with the whole concept and hoping I'll be able to come up with both deck plans and some 3D models to do it justice. Plus I'm learning a thing or three in the process.

As always, appreciate all the feedback, its been instructive to say the least.

 

[Condottiere]

Bridges haven't been realy been described in this edition, though getting rid of the two percent requirement made a lot of sense.

The difference between a ten tonne and a sixty tonne bridge aren't clear, and virtualization can get rid of that tonnage, so it can't be the inherent basic sensors.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

We do have some hints.

E.g. the 40 Dt bridge from the Fer-de-Lance:

I would call that plenty of space for a few extra workstations.

 

[Condottiere]

You actually need interfaces for:

1, Piloting
2. Astrogation
3. Internal security and life support
4. Engineering
5. Communications
6. Sensors
7. Weapons control

I think if was Fire Fusion And Steel that separated it into individual workstations that were added as required.

 

[Old School]

I dont know that security and life support need interfaces. Could be handled through theengineering console or as a warning that pops up on all consoles. And up until you decide to bail out, the astrogstor should also be on sensors or comms. Always a little strange that sensor ops and countermeasures/comms are not show as required crew on combat vessels. Anytime you are at 40 tons or above, I’m going to allow a couple of extra sensor operator stations on the bridge. Makes more sense than basing them off the tonnage of the ship.

 

[phavoc]

I think you are on to something with your design. Mostly because you've gotten a really good start on the backstory of the why. Imagination and detail sell designs, not spreadsheets.

Some of the things you are running into (e.g. what is, or isn't canonical) is the continued bane of Traveller. My advice to you is to design it how you wish. Unless you are going to try and sell this under the official TAS rules, who cares? As long as YOU are happy with the design, and any players, that's what counts. Sharing with the rest of the Traveller community is strictly up to you.

You'll also find some of the enhancements and other things you are wanting to mount on your ship also have problems in many of the rule sets. Again, go with what you think makes the most sense for you.

Some things to consider - warships are just that, meant for war. Small ships don't have much space for luxury or even redundancy. Destroyers having extra space for passengers will be odd, based upon real-world experience. Only larger warships have the tonnage to be able to afford to have entire compartments set aside for nothing but the occasional odd passenger. Were your ship to have flag accommodations it would be much more likely for it to have available staterooms. Now, the introduction of Nobles and their need for attendants throws things out of whack a bit. They don't logically fit into a warship design (in other words they are a political/social construct and not a military one). So if your ship were to carry a Noble, or be owned by one, having an 'owner aboard' sort of cabin set aside strictly for them, as well as attendant space, makes sense. It's a waste of tonnage, but the things we do for politics...

 

[Old School]

Agree with everything Phavoc wrote regarding the ship design. Knowing it is a noble’s plaything in addition to a warship does make it a bit odd, but it fits the setting of squabbling nobles wonderfully. When you drop from J-4, the imperium standard for warships, to J-3, you free up a lot of room for luxuries and toys (not to mention armor and weapons).

 

[Bardicheart]

Like I said, for every 1,000 dT of hull HG 2e states there should be 1 sensor op minimum. But then doesn't list them in the crew requirements, there's no monthly salary given for them, nor do any of ship designs have them listed, so that needs to be updated.

So for example: the Atlantic class heavy cruiser from HG 2e should have a minimum of 75 sensor ops as part of its bridge / operations crew. But there are no sensor ops listed as part of the crew (which would be another 38-75 staterooms, plus 75 escape capsules, plus 75 dT of common space minimum). That requirements could be reduced by 1/3, as per the rules, but I'm not experienced enough with 2e capital ship warfare (as in 0% experience with it atm) to know really whether that would be a good idea or not. It would have been nice to see it explained in HG 2e, or perhaps a future "fighting ships" or "sector fleets" book. It would be nice to know what the "standard" compliment should be.

Anyway, even at 25 sensor ops, that's still way more capability than the wee Voshtar. Just to throw in some reference on topic. :lol:

I think you are on to something with your design. Mostly because you've gotten a really good start on the backstory of the why. Imagination and detail sell designs, not spreadsheets.

Some of the things you are running into (e.g. what is, or isn't canonical) is the continued bane of Traveller. My advice to you is to design it how you wish. Unless you are going to try and sell this under the official TAS rules, who cares? As long as YOU are happy with the design, and any players, that's what counts. Sharing with the rest of the Traveller community is strictly up to you.

You'll also find some of the enhancements and other things you are wanting to mount on your ship also have problems in many of the rule sets. Again, go with what you think makes the most sense for you.

Some things to consider - warships are just that, meant for war. Small ships don't have much space for luxury or even redundancy. Destroyers having extra space for passengers will be odd, based upon real-world experience. Only larger warships have the tonnage to be able to afford to have entire compartments set aside for nothing but the occasional odd passenger. Were your ship to have flag accommodations it would be much more likely for it to have available staterooms. Now, the introduction of Nobles and their need for attendants throws things out of whack a bit. They don't logically fit into a warship design (in other words they are a political/social construct and not a military one). So if your ship were to carry a Noble, or be owned by one, having an 'owner aboard' sort of cabin set aside strictly for them, as well as attendant space, makes sense. It's a waste of tonnage, but the things we do for politics...

Thank you! Its been a fun way to introduce some ships with more style and character and some interesting quirks. I'm hoping to do a total of 5-6 2000 dT cruiser designs, maybe some 2000 dT troop transports, some 1000 dT escort destroyers and some 400 and 800 dT smaller escorts and gunboats to round it out. Each with different designs built around a differing "design philosophy" and all intended to be owned by noble "houses" in Deneb as part of their huscarle fleets. That's not to say a player couldn't acquire one or three such ships, maybe as a minor noble them self or just buy them or through "other" means. I've no idea how long it will take me to do all that, I could probably spend the next year coming up with all that and the models to go with it, so we'll see how it goes.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

I agree that the ‘one sensor operator per 1,000 dt’ thing is weird, for all the reasons you mention. A cruiser would have a sizable portion of its crew dedicated to sensors, not to mention a battleship! And all the space they’d require! No way they could all fit within regular bridge tonnage.

The Element Cruiser book gives the main hulls 8 sensor stations, explicitly written on the stat sheet, and from the looks of it none assumed included due to tonnage. Exact number of operators differ with size of ship, but they’re split between sensor & comms operators from the flight department and gunnnery sensor technicians and electronic warfare operators from the gunnery department. Neither individual operators nor (especially) stations come near the 50 assumed operators due to the size of the Ghalalk (50,000 dt).

Keep up the good work with your ship designs! The progress is an entertaining read, the stat sheet and backstory are very interesting and I really look forward to the deckplans later on! Plus all the interesting side discussions this thread keeps spawning

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The sensor operators were IIRC added after discussions late during beta.

Since the Core book was already published and all the ships in HG done, perhaps they didn't want to start over with the example ships?

 

[Old School]

Agreed, plus they wanted to keep the ships as consistent as possible with prior designs. A larger ship should absolutely take advantage of increased bridge size and sensor power with more operators, but I think you get to diminshing returns pretty quickly. Logically at some point youve used up all you sensor capacity.

Sean, I look forward to seeing deck plans as well as your next design!

 

[Condottiere]

https://api.ning.com/files/M3VFGUjA3Dvc1f*E-byJY5sehKHTv7BkjWBaPW19rD0QCNls6zWLWJoiDWyqniweWWDKLusqxxbDIZPKKdayfoC6mRJrFx7s/masonic_room_flash_gordon_resistance2010.jpg

I think the Sensor Department is overstaffed, unless you're including maintenance and three watches.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A larger ship should absolutely take advantage of increased bridge size and sensor power with more operators, but I think you get to diminshing returns pretty quickly.

You can easily use up a lot of sensor operators. Each operator only gets one action.

E.g. a cruiser is fighting 10 destroyers. To establish Sensor Locks on all the destroyers you need 10 operators. To break the locks established by the destroyers you need another 10 operators. If each destroyer launches a missile salvo every round and they take 5 rounds to arrive, you have 25 missile salvoes to EW every round requiring another 25 operators. With some reserve you need 50 operators in this scenario. Add a few fighter squadrons and you may need even more operators...

 

[baithammer]

Considering the distances in combat and need to use sensors to engage targets, the gunners would be sensor operators.

 

[Condottiere]

You prioritize.

Or virtualize.

 

[steve98052]

I really like the story behind the design. That makes it all so much more interesting. I also like the idea of designing it to the story, rather than designing it to the precise details of a rule set.

I worked on a similar philosophy, and made a point of designing a ship that worked in two disparate design systems (Mongoose 2 and GURPS Traveller) to get something that matched a design concept more than one that matched quirks in rules.

I also think that every widely produced standard design -- even more than a cost-is-no-object one-of-a-kind design -- would have a lot of design optimization and thought put into it. Something as widespread as a Scout or Free Trader should be absolutely min-max perfect, or it wouldn't be as widespread. The Scout should be the Volkswagen Beetle of small starships, and the Beowulf the Ford F series of small utility starships. The Yugo of starships is just not going to be everywhere in Charted Space.

I'm using those analogy names on the basis of sales and approximate purpose. The Corolla brand name has sold more than the Beetle, but it's really a series of cars with the same name, while the Beetle is enough the same car that a 1936 Beetle body could be fit on a 2003 New Beetle chassis or vice-versa.

I used the Yugo as a classic dud vehicle model because although the Edsel was more famous as a flop, it was more a marketing failure than a bad car, and the Yugo was a really bad car. (A gamer friend back in the day, tempted by the low price, bought one new, and soon wished he had bought a decent used car instead.) Of course the Yugo of starships could bea good player character ship; each of its many faults could be an adventure seed, and the campaign goal could be, "Earn enough money to buy a decent ship, and sell this beater to someone who can't afford any better."

Back on topic, I agree that large combatant ships (including armed merchants, not just military ships) need lots of sensor operators, because sensor operations are an integral part of space combat (as I envision it, whether rules spell it out or not). But since large numbersof sensor operators are staff for combat, I think they'd be roughly synonymous with gunners; in their roles as sensor operators, they acquire targets (and try to keep the ship from being a target),while as gunners they push the "fire" button and keep their weapons in good repair.

("really dear, did you actually need to bring all those suitcases... 30 suitcases for a 2 day visit seems a bit much. :shock: :lol: )

This reminds me of my evil ex-girlfriend. Once on a two week trip she brought two suitcases, one for clothes and personal items, the other for shoes. I hadn't observed her packing, so I was just puzzled by the amount of stuff. But on arrival I was astounded by the number of shoes, and counted them: 15 pairs for 14 days. (And her shoe collection was way down the list of reasons I often refer to her as the "evil ex-girlfriend". I may use her as a model for the adventure patron from hell some time.)