Dogfighting

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Excuse my spelling mistake; I typed that from my phone, and I guessed at how it was spelled. Here's the relevant maneuver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandelle

This wouldn't work in space as there is no atmosphere to leverage against. To perform this maneuver a ship that had accelerated for 1 turn in a direction would have to flip and decelerate using it's main engines for 1 turn to come to a relative stop, and only then could it change course to go back in the opposite direction.

You are misunderstanding why I am quoting this maneuver. There are 3 practical things you can alter to shake your opponent:

1. Your rate of forward movement

2. Your orientation

3. Your rate of perpendicular thrust, for turns

While there is no drag in space, you would generally want to change all 3 parameters at once in order to shake your opponent. That's a Chandelle turn, or the inverse of one if you're speeding up instead of slowing down. I'm just replacing drag and lift with Thrust. The maneuver isn't any different just because space is a void.

Finally, Traveller ships do not need to flip to slow down. Not according to Mongoose, anyway.

Now, if you had a craft that was essentially covered with engines, and you fired your engines off to adjust your headings, that would come far closer, but still not be the same.

This is exactly the definition of a Maneuver Drive, according to Mongoose. Internal, but not external, of course. It uses Thrust in all directions in order to maneuver the craft. Rolling, Pitching, Yawing, and all Translation included.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

... so maybe a large bulk frieghter can have some blind spots vs an agile fighter.

A large bulk freighter has enough dTons that it can have enough turrets in the right places to not have this problem; its blind-spots are sufficiently small that you would need to take out a few turrets with missiles first before engaging closely.

 

[phavoc]

This wouldn't work in space as there is no atmosphere to leverage against. To perform this maneuver a ship that had accelerated for 1 turn in a direction would have to flip and decelerate using it's main engines for 1 turn to come to a relative stop, and only then could it change course to go back in the opposite direction.

You are misunderstanding why I am quoting this maneuver. There are 3 practical things you can alter to shake your opponent:

1. Your rate of forward movement

2. Your orientation

3. Your rate of perpendicular thrust, for turns

While there is no drag in space, you would generally want to change all 3 parameters at once in order to shake your opponent. That's a Chandelle turn, or the inverse of one if you're speeding up instead of slowing down. I'm just replacing drag and lift with Thrust. The maneuver isn't any different just because space is a void.

Finally, Traveller ships do not need to flip to slow down. Not according to Mongoose, anyway.[/quote]

That's not a correct statement. MGT, CT and the others all postulate a reaction-based drive system and newtonian movement. So the rule has always been you accelerate half way to your destination and then flip and decelerate to come to a stop - assuming you are wanting to stop. Mainstream Traveller has never postulated a reactionless drive universe.

Thrusters should be incapable of the same amount of energy required from main engines (hence the label 'main'). While aerial maneuvers are similar in space, they still require a change of mindset to offset the differences in place. Aerial maneuvers can count on drag, space maneuvers require equal amounts of thrust energy to offset the previous one - which is a primary factor considering you need main engines to offset main engines. Plus 'shaking' your enemy on your tail becomes much different when you can maintain your current velocity and direction while spinning in place to bring your weapons to bear. In that sense you can never elude them unless your rate of thust is greater. And then it's a matter of how fast you can pull away (all the while being shot at).

What the game system has done is collapse much of the actual science down into a far more simpler model to speed gameplay and enhance the fun factor. 'Dogfights' in space, using real spacial maneuver physics would be rather funny to watch I think. In Traveller a space combat turn is 6 minutes. The idea is that any craft can spin on it's axis, bring even spinal mounts to bear, and then spin back and engage main drives to continue its path. I actually doubt multi-thousand ton ships are going to have THAT capability, but I don't see that part of the game system ever changing. It would have to be revamped and moved to a board-style with turning rates and everything. And even then, assuming you wanted to maintain realism, you would have to keep track of thrust-turns because in order to change directions you'd have to provide equal thrust in the opposite direction just to slow down. Otherwise your turns would be quite far and wide.

Though one could fairly argue trailing at 20,000km while you both tried to turn is the space equivalent of being on someone's tail.

This is exactly the definition of a Maneuver Drive, according to Mongoose. Internal, but not external, of course. It uses Thrust in all directions in order to maneuver the craft. Rolling, Pitching, Yawing, and all Translation included.

No, it's not. Maneuver drives operate the same as reaction-based, they are at the rear of the craft and 'push' it forward - just don't go digging any deeper because there's no underlying physic framework to explain it. Accept it and move on. And that's how it's been with every version, including MGT. I have looked before and it's hard enough to even find bare mention of thrusters anywhere. With the new emphasis on the extra speed bonus made available by reaction drives this tenet is only being reinforced (personally I don't think the path they are going down is a good one, but I've already voted and been overruled on that one - it's sci-fi, and people want more zip using high-burn thrusters).

The combat system has never gone into that sort of detail regarding maneuvers during combat. It's always been at a high level and not necessarily even a correct reflection of the physics universe model that has already been defined. We use the stripped-down gaming version.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

That's not a correct statement. MGT, CT and the others all postulate a reaction-based drive system and newtonian movement. So the rule has always been you accelerate half way to your destination and then flip and decelerate to come to a stop - assuming you are wanting to stop. Mainstream Traveller has never postulated a reactionless drive universe.

I have never debated Newtonian movement; it's Newtonian; always has been, always will be; replace one force with another to get the same results, or not, as the maneuvering needs of the pilot dictate. With regards to the Maneuver Drive, however your correctness ends at Mongoose Traveller. Read your rules; the Maneuver Drive is not required to operate according to these very traditional expectations; they don't even need to be at the rear of the ship, and can be in the very middle of the hull, surrounded by anything on all sides.

Thrusters should be incapable of the same amount of energy required from main engines (hence the label 'main').

I agree with this in theory, but it is not supported by the rules. If you want to advocate a rule change in order to support this point of view, go ahead, I'll back it; but Fightercraft will still end up beating Scouts to a pulp, for production design criteria reasons. If a Fightercraft design can't beat a Scout, it won't get produced.

While aerial maneuvers are similar in space, they still require a change of mindset to offset the differences in place.

This is called "training", and is the minimum requirement for you to have a skill rank of 1 in Spaceship Piloting.

In that sense you can never elude them unless your rate of thust is greater. And then it's a matter of how fast you can pull away (all the while being shot at).

That's exactly what I told you already.

What the game system has done is collapse much of the actual science down into a far more simpler model to speed gameplay and enhance the fun factor.

Yes. And, therefore, evaluation of the maneuverability of the craft can only be done according to the existing rules. There's no "agility" that isn't Thrust.

The combat system has never gone into that sort of detail regarding maneuvers during combat. It's always been at a high level and not necessarily even a correct reflection of the physics universe model that has already been defined. We use the stripped-down gaming version.

And yet, you want to magically impart some "agility" not present in the rules to Scouts to win your argument. Either constrain your argument to the existing rules, or advocate a rule change, and we can postpone our disagreement until we have better math to work with.

Yet again, you have tried to completely dodge using actual numbers to support your point of view.

 

[Nerhesi]

And yet, you want to magically impart some "agility" not present in the rules to Scouts to win your argument. Either constrain your argument to the existing rules, or advocate a rule change, and we can postpone our disagreement until we have better math to work with.

Yet again, you have tried to completely dodge using actual numbers to support your point of view.

He's not imparting any magical agility - he's merely pointing out the fact that you're not providing proof either. Without your personal preference for magical agility for fighters, then agility is simply thrust. Like you have stated - the game doesn't differentiate between agility and thrust.

I think what you're missing here is it's fine that we dont have agility in here - it is inherent in the difficulty penalty to hit small-craft for bays and spinal weapons. It is also inherent in that a dog-fight pretty much guarantees a -8 to hit the small craft. A penalty of EIGHT. Just because it isn't your unrealistic blind-spot hiding or seperate agility stat for fighters, it doesn't matter. You have a -8 to hit fighters when they get within TEN (10) kilometers... TEN!!


Fighters will have more thrust from rocket boosters. They can dodge more WHILE closing the distance. This is a huge bonus.
Fighters will win most dogfights mostly without even needing to roll - due to thrust and bonus for being smallcraft.
Fighters will be more difficult then other ships to hit with bay and spinal weapons.

Thats enough to simulate their agility.

 

[phavoc]

I haven't yet seen you prove anything. Multiple versions of Traveller dispute your statements. If you don't want to acknowledge this then that's ok. There is no law against it.

But it would appear that your argument is singular and without support. You may, of course, continue to espoused it. Though I doubt your snark is going to win you many converts.

I for one am done with this thread.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

He's not imparting any magical agility - he's merely pointing out the fact that you're not providing proof either. Without your personal preference for magical agility for fighters, then agility is simply thrust. Like you have stated - the game doesn't differentiate between agility and thrust.

He is when he's saying Thrust has nothing to do with pitching, rolling, or yawing the Scout, and doesn't limit those actions to a finite, surmountable number.

I think what you're missing here is it's fine that we dont have agility in here - it is inherent in the difficulty penalty to hit small-craft for bays and spinal weapons.

We do have an analog for agility; it's Thrust; any Thrust not used for propelling the craft along the current velocity vector is an analog for agility.

Just because it isn't your unrealistic blind-spot hiding or seperate agility stat for fighters, it doesn't matter.

The blindspot isn't unrealistic; it's entirely realistic. A ship cannot shoot through itself! Period! You may be trying to argue that taking advantage of the blind-spot is impractical; at which point, you're failing to understand my arguments again. The radius of the helical roll is the margin of error; the dogfighter has a better margin of error to execute the same maneuver because his Fightercraft has more Thrust. So he doesn't need to execute the same maneuver exactly, and can correct for it at a larger radius; so long as his maneuver is within that wider margin of error, he can maintain his blindspot. And considering he only has to improve upon a 50% chance of being shot while at close range, things are very good for him.

You have a -8 to hit fighters when they get within TEN (10) kilometers... TEN!!

If you're trying to argue that the -8 is good enough already, I don't care about the modifiers constructed from the existing model of combat. Things like these blindspots are where dogfighting lives. Combat is always about exploiting asymmetrical advantages; if we're going to change the scale of combat to this "close combat" version of space battle, we have to correct the underlying assumptions that don't mesh with this different combat model. Otherwise, the spirit of what dogfighting is is lost.

Fighters will have more thrust from rocket boosters. They can dodge more WHILE closing the distance. This is a huge bonus.
Fighters will win most dogfights mostly without even needing to roll - due to thrust and bonus for being smallcraft.
Fighters will be more difficult then other ships to hit with bay and spinal weapons.

Thats enough to simulate their agility.

Numerically, yes, this is satisfactory; gameplay wise, it leaves much to be desired.

 

[hdan]

Huh, looks like the forum ate my reply.
If it *does* come through, I realized that I was off by a factor of 2, against my argument.
Though since my results showed that you need more than 10x the normal acceleration range to keep out of the arc of a ship only 1km away, I still think I was justified.

(In case the old message is gone for ever, the jist of it was this: a 1g scout ship can roll 90 degrees in around 2 seconds, so a fighter needs to be able to move more than its range from the ship in 2 seconds to stay ahead of the "fire arc". At 1km range, which is the edge of adjacent range in Traveller, that takes an acceleration of 50g or so, rounding all constants)

 

[Nerhesi]

Huh, looks like the forum ate my reply.
If it *does* come through, I realized that I was off by a factor of 2, against my argument.
Though since my results showed that you need more than 10x the normal acceleration range to keep out of the arc of a ship only 1km away, I still think I was justified.

(In case the old message is gone for ever, the jist of it was this: a 1g scout ship can roll 90 degrees in around 2 seconds, so a fighter needs to be able to move more than its range from the ship in 2 seconds to stay ahead of the "fire arc". At 1km range, which is the edge of adjacent range in Traveller, that takes an acceleration of 50g or so, rounding all constants)

Thanks Hdan - hopefully this finally puts to rest this blindspot ridiculousness.

Dog-fighting is no longer about blindspots - but because with todays 180-degree off-the-rail missiles and tomorrow's turrets, it really wont matter. Add to that the fact that blindspot-ing is impossible (as Hdan has indicated above), we can put this topic to rest.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Huh, looks like the forum ate my reply.
If it *does* come through, I realized that I was off by a factor of 2, against my argument.
Though since my results showed that you need more than 10x the normal acceleration range to keep out of the arc of a ship only 1km away, I still think I was justified.

(In case the old message is gone for ever, the jist of it was this: a 1g scout ship can roll 90 degrees in around 2 seconds, so a fighter needs to be able to move more than its range from the ship in 2 seconds to stay ahead of the "fire arc".

I would very much like to see the math on this, please.

At 1km range, which is the edge of adjacent range in Traveller, that takes an acceleration of 50g or so, rounding all constants)

To me, that just means that the dogfighting range rules need to be adjusted; while "air combat" certainly takes place at these distances, no pilot would call that "dogfighting".

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Dog-fighting is no longer about blindspots - but because with todays 180-degree off-the-rail missiles and tomorrow's turrets, it really wont matter. Add to that the fact that blindspot-ing is impossible (as Hdan has indicated above), we can put this topic to rest.

Either blindspotting is relevant, or there's no justification for having dogfighting gameplay mechanics. Either the details matter, and warrant a reduction in scale to negotiate those details, or they don't, and no reduction of scale has value. Dogfighting is about these details. Without them, it's not dogfighting.