Dogfighting

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

It's part of it's engine system, but it's decided NOT part of it's Maneuver drive? Why? For the Shuttle, the engines are separate, distinct and also have different primary purposes (re-read what I wrote). Taking the absolute most expansive definition, yes, they all "maneuver" the ship. But the mechanical parts of the wing and tail ALSO function to "maneuver" the ship in an atmosphere. Taking your definition then those pieces also must be included in the Maneuver drive. However a more accurate definition is that thrusters and main drive are part of the maneuver SYSTEM. By that they are distinct pieces of a system designed to work together. Using that definition the shuttle's atmospheric control surfaces would also be encompassed within the definition. It's far more elegant and allows for many variations. I don't know why you have such a hard time accepting that thrusters would be a distinct part of the ships maneuvering system.

At no point were we talking about a combat taking place in atmosphere. We were talking strictly a space combat. Wings have nothing to do with anything. Traveller treats wings exclusively as stabilizers, not as control surfaces, and do not work in space.

Oh? And how is this possible? If our scout ship in question is rotating 2 revolutions per second, and it's turret's firing arc is 180 degrees, that means your fighter in question must be able to match the rotation speed through thrust. With no atmosphere or friction to work against, that means it must expend thrust in multiple directions simultaneously in order to orbit the scout ship. Traveller rules do not even fathom this sort of maneuver. And the scout ship double it's axial rotation to 4 revolutions per second, the fighter would have to expend twice as much thrust. Not to mention if the Scout ship is travelling in a simple straight line at say 2Gs, then your fighter must also expend 2Gs of maneuver thrust along the same axis in order to simply maintain it's relative station.

No, the fighter will lose that energy war very quickly. You simply don't want to acknowledge that it takes far less energy to spin a vessel than it takes to orbit around it (which requires a great deal of thrust vectoring/maneuvering). And you refuse to consider that the turreted vessel could perform both pitch AND yaw maneuvers at the same time - the fighter could not hope to match such maneuvers. And all of this maneuvering takes place under newtonian physics rules.

Actually, Traveller rules explicitly allow this sort of maneuver; from any orientation you can thrust in any direction at all. At double the rotation, the fighter would only have to spend twice as much thrust at the same radius; at half the radius, it can use the same thrust. I already accounted for thrusting in a given direction in my previous analysis; actually, for the Fighter Craft, that’s the best-case scenario, because it means that the ratio of remaining available Thrust is in the Fighter Craft’s favor. It would be better if the Ship thrusted more chaotically.

The Fighter Craft wins the energy war because it always has thrust that exceeds its target; for typical examples, anyway. The point you’re trying to argue is that the rate at which a Ship consumes energy to spin in place is less than the rate at which the Fighter Craft does; but Mongoose Traveller doesn’t model that... at all... so long as your ship has power, you can thrust and spin and whatever for as little or as long as you like. More to the point, both ships can do it for at least as long as it takes to kill the other. You’re presenting a baseless argument that sounds like it might be relevant if the math worked out, which it might not, and if Traveller had those rules, which it doesn’t.

 

[Sigtrygg]

So you are saying a fighter can match vector with a ship, and then orbit said ship using thrust to match the rate of rotation of the ship spinning about its axis, all the while also pointing its weapons at the ship and jinking to get the defensive bonus?

Absolute tosh.

Dogfighting is pure cinematic physics at its best and should have a sidebox to explain it as such. It has no place in any of the OTU settings to date.

If anyone wants to use such rules in their game then fine, the physics police are not going to do a Minority Report on you.

 

[Condottiere]

The rules may have to define a dogfight as close quarters combat where the spaceships are in danger of collision or getting in each other's way.

 

[phavoc]

At no point were we talking about a combat taking place in atmosphere. We were talking strictly a space combat. Wings have nothing to do with anything. Traveller treats wings exclusively as stabilizers, not as control surfaces, and do not work in space.

Silly boy. Once again you try to dance around anything that you don't like. Do you know what "system" means? Do you comprehend how various individual elements tied together form a system? Obviously not since you are trying so hard to avoid addressing this, as you've done with other inconvenient facts.

Actually, Traveller rules explicitly allow this sort of maneuver; from any orientation you can thrust in any direction at all. At double the rotation, the fighter would only have to spend twice as much thrust at the same radius; at half the radius, it can use the same thrust. I already accounted for thrusting in a given direction in my previous analysis; actually, for the Fighter Craft, that’s the best-case scenario, because it means that the ratio of remaining available Thrust is in the Fighter Craft’s favor. It would be better if the Ship thrusted more chaotically.

The Fighter Craft wins the energy war because it always has thrust that exceeds its target; for typical examples, anyway. The point you’re trying to argue is that the rate at which a Ship consumes energy to spin in place is less than the rate at which the Fighter Craft does; but Mongoose Traveller doesn’t model that... at all... so long as your ship has power, you can thrust and spin and whatever for as little or as long as you like. More to the point, both ships can do it for at least as long as it takes to kill the other. You’re presenting a baseless argument that sounds like it might be relevant if the math worked out, which it might not, and if Traveller had those rules, which it doesn’t.

Traveller doesn't model movement consistently, which you know and have already pointed out. The game system, because it's a game and the movement mechanics are rather simplistic and simply applies thrust numbers. I don't understand how you can bleat so much elsewhere about the game system NOT correctly applying science to the system and then turn around and try to use the same game system to justify a point that only you seem to think is valid. Since you want to cite Traveller movement rules, you've just proven yourself wrong. Under the rules the turreted ship can act like it has 360 field of fire. That, by the way, is actually in the rules.

And you still haven't stated where in the rules that it states a ships thrust from its' M-drive emanates in a 360 sphere and not from where the engines are. Even assuming the drive tech is reactionless, the rules clearly state that it still follows newtonian movement rules. Thursters..... makes total science since... C'mon, yanno you wanna agree with me here.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

So you are saying a fighter can match vector with a ship, and then orbit said ship using thrust to match the rate of rotation of the ship spinning about its axis, all the while also pointing its weapons at the ship and jinking to get the defensive bonus?

Absolute tosh.

Dogfighting is pure cinematic physics at its best and should have a sidebox to explain it as such. It has no place in any of the OTU settings to date.

If anyone wants to use such rules in their game then fine, the physics police are not going to do a Minority Report on you.

It doesn’t need to “jink” to get a defensive bonus; it just needs to get on the side of the Ship with no turret on it to fire back from; we’re talking a full hemisphere here. No “jinking”, just plain outmaneuvering.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Silly boy. Once again you try to dance around anything that you don't like. Do you know what "system" means? Do you comprehend how various individual elements tied together form a system? Obviously not since you are trying so hard to avoid addressing this, as you've done with other inconvenient facts.

No, you’re trying to dance around what you don’t like. First, you try to define what Traveller calls a Maneuver drive as not a Maneuver Drive. Then, you try to move the setting of a space combat to the setting of an air combat, for the sake of finding some kind of “home field advantage”; except we both know we were talking about space combat, and not air combat, for which the physics are entirely different.

Traveller doesn't model movement consistently, which you know and have already pointed out. The game system, because it's a game and the movement mechanics are rather simplistic and simply applies thrust numbers. I don't understand how you can bleat so much elsewhere about the game system NOT correctly applying science to the system and then turn around and try to use the same game system to justify a point that only you seem to think is valid. Since you want to cite Traveller movement rules, you've just proven yourself wrong. Under the rules the turreted ship can act like it has 360 field of fire. That, by the way, is actually in the rules.

And you still haven't stated where in the rules that it states a ships thrust from its' M-drive emanates in a 360 sphere and not from where the engines are. Even assuming the drive tech is reactionless, the rules clearly state that it still follows newtonian movement rules. Thursters..... makes total science since...

If the game system had a separate “Agility” characteristic, it would still have blindspots; it would just be more obvious where they were. In the meantime, any arbitrary limit on the ship rotating about an axis, which is necessary for basic game balance, produces a fixed radius, within which, the Fighter Craft can out-turn the Ship’s rotation. A turreted ship has 360 degrees of traversal; it does not have the 180 degrees of elevation required to hit a full sphere’s worth of targets, because the hull is in the way. The other hemisphere is a blindspot that can be exploited by the Fighter Craft. None of this is non-Newtonian.

The High Guard rules clearly depict ships thrusting in directions in which they are not pointed, as a gameplay example. Facing changes are not required to apply thrust. All spacecraft may do so arbitrarily.

 

[Infojunky]

Well that went all circular....

I am still trying to figure out how One Dogfights with ships in a vacuum.... Do both sides call each other up and decide to have a fight in a specific location?

Honestly Dogfighting Breaks both the engagement and Physics models....

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Also, Fighters do not need to attack 60-times a round to take apart a ship.

Let's try:

Take a fighter:
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=901993#p901993
35.5 dT, M-9, R-16, Modular barbette, e.g. Tachyon barbette.
Cost about MCr 40 + another 37 for the carrier ≈ MCr 77.

and an escort:
2900 dT, J-4 (2+2 w. drop tanks), M-9, Armour 15, Hull 1276.
1 Large Plasma-pulse bay, 14 Quad Pulse Laser turrets, 2 × 90 dT defensive modules.
Let's choose a Point Defence module and a Nuclear Damper Module with another 5 laser turrets.
Cost about MCr 2220 + 260 for the modules ≈ MCr 2480.
[I built this to test the fleet system, it's not optimised against fighters.]


Take three escorts for MCr ~7500, about equal cost to a single carrier with 100 fighters (MCr ~7700).
So let's fight three escorts against 100 fighters.


We start at Very Long range. The fighters can either move into range as fast as possible (3 rounds), leaving little thrust for Evasive Manoeuvres, or take 4 rounds having more thrust over for Evasive Manoeuvres. Let's start with taking 3 rounds and dodging once per round. The escorts can the fire twice, at Very Long Range and Long Range before the dogfight.

The escorts have vastly superior sensors and can achieve Sensor Lock at will. I will assume they have Sensor Lock.

Very Long:
Laser: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] +2[pulse] -4[range] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = ±0 to hit.
Damage: ~0.33 average, with a boon this becomes ~0,65 damage.
Second shot at the same fighter: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] +2[pulse] -4[range] -2[evade] -0[no dodge] = +5 to hit.
Damage: ~2.59 damage, or with a boon ~3.71 damage and 50% chance of a critical hit.
Shooting 5 turrets at the same fighter is 0,33 + 4 × 2,59 ≈ 10,7 damage and 2 + 10,7/17 ≈ 8 criticals, with some armour and hull crits that is a kill. With 3 × 19 = 57 turrets available we kill 11 fighters.

Long:
Laser: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] +2[pulse] -2[range] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = +2 to hit.
Damage: ~1.55 average with a boon.
Second shot at the same fighter: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] +2[pulse] -2[range] -2[evade] -0[no dodge] = +7 to hit.
Damage: ~5,53 damage with a boon and 79% chance of a critical hit.
Shooting 3 turrets at the same fighter is 1,55 + 2 × 5,53 ≈ 12,6 damage and 1,6 + 12,6/17 ≈ 9 criticals, with some armour and hull crits that is a kill. With 3 × 19 = 57 turrets available we kill 19 fighters.

Bay: To hit: +6[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[bay vs small] -2[range] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -3 to hit, hit on 11+. With a boon that is 20%.
Second shot at the same fighter: To hit: +6[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[bay vs small] -2[range] -2[evade] -0[dodge] = +2 to hit, hit on 6+. With a boon that is 89%.
Shooting twice at the same fighter, the chance of survival is (1-20%) × (1-89%) ≈ 9% or 91% kill. With 3 × 8 = 24 shots available that is about 11 fighters killed.

So before the dogfight the escorts kills 11 + 19 + 11 ≈ 41 fighters. 59 fighters survive to dogfight.


Dogfight:
The escorts disperse so we get 3 dogfights. The fighters automatically win the dogfights. The fighters have 3 Thrust over for Evasive Action. The ships have no Thrust over, so no dodging.

Fighters: Tachyon: To hit: +5[crew] +0[software] +1[aid] +2[dogfight] -3[evade] -0[dodge] = +5 to hit.
Damage: ~6,0 average w. boon.
59 fighters do 59 × 6,0 ≈ 354 damage or 354 / (3 × 1276) ≈ 9,2% of the enemy force.

Ships: Laser: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[firing into another dogfight] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -2 to hit.
Damage: ~0,19 average with a boon.
Fourth shot at the same fighter: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[firing into another dogfight] -2[evade] -0[no dodge] = +3 to hit.
Damage: ~2,17 damage with a boon and 19% chance of a critical hit.
Shooting 9 turrets at the same fighter does 3 × 0,19 + 6 × 2,17 ≈ 13,6 damage and 9 criticals => kill. The ships kill 57 / 9 ≈ 6 fighters or 10% of enemy force each round.

Bay: To hit: +6[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[bay vs small] -4[firing into another dogfight] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -5 to hit, hit on 13+. With a boon that is 0%.
Fourth shot at the same fighter: To hit: +6[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[bay vs small] -4[firing into another dogfight] -2[evade] -0[dodge] = +0 to hit, hit on 8+. With a boon that is 68%.
Shooting 4 shots at the same fighter we kill about 4 fighters or another 6,8% of the enemy force.


With 6 s rounds the fighters would slaughter the ships, with 6 minute rounds the ships might win. With better tactics the fighters might win, with better ships the fighters might lose.

 

[arcador]

What is the difference in the math in 6s vs 6m rounds? Isn't everything the same, just taking far more time?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Yes, there is a lot of difference if you want hard science rather than cinematic.

6 seconds worth of thrust vs 6 minutes, the difference in range scale for a 6s turn vs a 6m turn and the rate of fire.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

What is the difference in the math in 6s vs 6m rounds? Isn't everything the same, just taking far more time?

I modelled the slightly contrived situation of each ship shooting at fighters dogfighting another ship. I guess that we cannot do that with 6 s rounds, since dogfights only work at Close range.

Ships: Laser: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[firing into another dogfight] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -2 to hit.
Damage: ~0,19 average with a boon.
Fourth shot at the same fighter: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -4[firing into another dogfight] -2[evade] -0[no dodge] = +3 to hit.
Damage: ~2,17 damage with a boon and 19% chance of a critical hit.

In a dogfight the "-4[firing into another dogfight]" would be changed to "-2[lost dogfight] -6[ship in dogfight]", so much worse for the ships.

Ships: Laser: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -2[lost dogfight] -6[ship in dogfight] -2[evade] -5[dodge] = -6 to hit.
Damage: 0,0 average with a boon.
Fourth shot at the same fighter: To hit: +5[crew] +3[software] +1[aid] -2[lost dogfight] -6[ship in dogfight] -2[evade] -0[no dodge] = -1 to hit.
Damage: ~0,37 damage with a boon and 0% chance of a critical hit.

And the ships are chance-less.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

People like to argue that Ship-scale battles “include a lot of missing”. How do things work out if we assume the Ships do damage at some smaller, varying rate that averages to the damage they would have done by the time of the first Starship round?

 

[alex_greene]

The original intent was that the dogfighting rules should apply on a vehicular combat timescale, which is to say using the personal combat timeframe and the vehicular movement speed bands and ranges. Both spacecraft and fighters should be operating on a vehicle scale, with the spacecraft being far less manoeuvrable than the fighters.

Equivalent images:-

- An attacking force mounted on horseback swarming around a group of circled wagons;

- A squadron of small, agile aeroplanes attacking a large, wallowing ocean-going ship such as a freighter;

- Attack helicopters decimating a mobile, but slow-moving, tank unit.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Repeat after me - Traveller fighters are not and never have been analogous to aeroplanes. They are motor torpedo boat equivalents.

The MgT authors have a fixation with cinematic Star Wars visual range aeroplane like fighter on fighter combat. The 'reality' of Traveller has always been very different.

Anything in visual range in starship scale combat should be autohit.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Maybe in atmosphere, they might resemble modern thrust-vectoring tugboats... But with no drag in space to slow them down, they coast.

 

[Infojunky]

Repeat after me - Traveller fighters are not and never have been analogous to aeroplanes. They are motor torpedo boat equivalents.

In book 2 and Mayday a fighter is indeed a Torpedo Boat.

The MgT authors have a fixation with cinematic Star Wars visual range aeroplane like fighter on fighter combat. The 'reality' of Traveller has always been very different.

Yes, that is my whole point.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Sigtrygg is referring to “motor torpedo boat” as in a WWII Patrol Torpedo Boat. Moreover, he’s referring to them being high drag vehicles where constant thrust equals constant velocity. To which, I reiterate; only in atmosphere... or liquid, for submersible craft.

 

[Condottiere]

If you're going to allow fighters ten phases to an ordinary ship's one, you have to slow their movement down to ten percent, and their effective firepower likewise.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Maybe in atmosphere, they might resemble modern thrust-vectoring tugboats... But with no drag in space to slow them down, they coast.

Wow, you really don't understand my point at all do you?

Sigtrygg is referring to “motor torpedo boat” as in a WWII Patrol Torpedo Boat. Moreover, he’s referring to them being high drag vehicles where constant thrust equals constant velocity. To which, I reiterate; only in atmosphere... or liquid, for submersible craft.

You couldn't be more wrong. I have not mentioned drag etc. you bring up that re herring.
The MTB was actually a pre-WW1 threat, so much so they invented a whole new class of ship to deal with them - the torpedo boat destroyer, later shortened to destroyer.

What I am referring to is that in Traveller ship combat smallcraft have filled the niche occupied by MTBs in surface naval combat, there is not and never has been an aeroplane analogue in Traveller ship combat. Not until MgT and its fixation with cinematic, 'unrealistic', setting changing fighter paradigm.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Well, I clearly misunderstood you, but your post was vague. You should have said they occupied the strategic niche that such torpedo boats filled, rather than let your point be so easily misunderstood.