Dogfighting

[phavoc]

Something else to consider - if fighters, using reaction drives can zip and zoom faster than anything else, how is it that a missile, whose mass is taken up by a seeker, a warhead and the engine, can't go faster than a fighter? Missiles have no human occupant to worry about silly things like G-compensator, no need for a fusion reactor, no need for armor, no need for any extraneous mass. And a reaction engine has a specific energy output, so more energy and less mess = faster object.

 

[rust2]

... what no other version of Traveller has done - produce one type of ship that automatically beats all the others.

In a way this has happened before, when Lenat won two consecutive Trillion Credit Squadron tournaments (I think in 1981 and 1982) with fleets of High Guard warships designed by his artificial intelligence program Eurisko and was then banned from the third tournament on. A nice story worth looking up. 8)

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Of course, "realistically" there is no stealth in space (of course, there is no reactionless drive in space, either, so I'm totally okay with stealth in Traveller).

Then again, in the rules as currently exist (unless I missed something again, which is entirely possible), "fighters" can't be any faster than any other ship can potentially be, so that advantage is gone as well.

Yes, the stealth thing and the reactionless drive thing are both bogus, according to physics as we know them. Stealth is one of the few concessions I’m willing to make, if only because it varies the tactical gameplay to match options expected by the player. Reactionless drives, however... Atomic Rockets said it best... “Friends don’t let friends use Reactionless Drives in their games.”

While the maximum velocities are the same (the speed of light), the Thrust, and thus, Acceleration, is not. After a ship starts closing in on the speed of light, it’s simply not plausible to catch up with... of course, jumping with so much initial velocity can be very hazardous... they’ll have to stop somewhere... at their convenience, of course. Fighters are fuel limited; they’ll have to back off... not to mention the pilots will have to eat...

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Then again, in the rules as currently exist (unless I missed something again, which is entirely possible), "fighters" can't be any faster than any other ship can potentially be, so that advantage is gone as well.

Fighters are faster because they don’t need Jump Drives and other large ship components, so their Maneuver Drive has less to push, giving them more Thrust.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If fighters are now the threat they are presented in MgT HG2 then navies will have to start thinking about escort class ships which can beat the fighters at their own game.

Fighters are but one of several viable threats. If you go overboard with spinals you are vulnerable to fighters.
In the last public beta missiles threatened to be overpowered.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

And they dump their velocity how? And they achieve stealth in space how?
Even more cinematic rubbish.

Well, ships in space slow down by thrusting in the other direction... duh.

As for stealth, yes, that is Cinematic Rubish, at least according to modern physics, and projected uses of modern technology. It is reasonable, from a Hard Science Fiction perspective, to argue against Stealth. However, Stealth mechanics open up the game to more tactical variety, and mesh well with naive player expectations for there being a matching technology in a futuristic setting. Depending on what I want my game settings to be like, I’ll allow it or not.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

And if they are using reaction drives they are easily spotted at vast ranges and have to move in abeyance to St. Newton.

The movement of Reactionless Drives are Newtonian too. It doesn’t stop being Newtonian Movement just because of the type of drive.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Something else to consider - if fighters, using reaction drives can zip and zoom faster than anything else, how is it that a missile, whose mass is taken up by a seeker, a warhead and the engine, can't go faster than a fighter? Missiles have no human occupant to worry about silly things like G-compensator, no need for a fusion reactor, no need for armor, no need for any extraneous mass. And a reaction engine has a specific energy output, so more energy and less mess = faster object.

Those are called torpedoes. Same warhead, bigger engine, bigger barbette-sized firing mechanism.

 

[phavoc]

Something else to consider - if fighters, using reaction drives can zip and zoom faster than anything else, how is it that a missile, whose mass is taken up by a seeker, a warhead and the engine, can't go faster than a fighter? Missiles have no human occupant to worry about silly things like G-compensator, no need for a fusion reactor, no need for armor, no need for any extraneous mass. And a reaction engine has a specific energy output, so more energy and less mess = faster object.

Those are called torpedoes. Same warhead, bigger engine, bigger barbette-sized firing mechanism.

Torpedoes are torpedoes, missiles are missiles. I wasn't talking about bigger missiles (i.e. torpedoes in Traveller).

Just that missiles should always be faster than fighters because same specific energy with less mass.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

It depends on whether the Power Plant has the same efficiency at the proportional size. Mechanics wise, yes, they should make them faster.

 

[nats]

Dogfighting is not meant to be used as a mechanic when you are fighting large ships. Its as simple as that. If your characters are dogfighting then any ongoing large ship combat in the same areas is largely irrelevant - the ref can easily just make up the results of that. Whereas if your characters are fighting in large capital ships then the dogfighting is irrelevant, and you can simply make up the results of that if you actually needed to know the results, which is doubtful.

And the same pretty much goes on for vehicle combat and grav vehicle combat. In 99.9% of the cases the core rules for these things will be suitable. Its hardly ever likely that you will need to combine vehicle and character foot combat or grav vehicle and character foot combat. If you are playing something where the rules need to reflect all these combined cases you really want to be playing a tactical wargame not Traveller. Once any vehicles are introduced into a combat its likely to be pretty damn lethal for any foot troops, its just not a very fun scenario unless the characters spend the whole time hiding from the vehicle.

Traveller is meant to be role playing game on a very small personal scale, its meant to reflect personal issues within huge events but the results of the huge events mean very little when you are dealing with individual characters. The problem with v1 was that it started to lose sight of this. You started getting all these daft rules for dealing with dynasties and capital ship fleets. They are really not necessary. The referee can make a hell of a lot of that up on the spot and the characters will not know either way. And thats the way it should be.

Yes I did a litlte bit of playing capital ship battles with the old CT High Guard and I tried a ship miniature game based on the old CT Book 2 starship rules. That was sort of fun but there is no way you can use that stuff in a role playing game. Its just going to bog the whole thing down and not be fun for most of the players. That was an old game. The v2 Mongoose game should retain the strength of small scale character rules and not dwell on these other ancillary things that dont really fit into a role playing game.

 

[Nerhesi]

Nats - you're absolutely right. This is why MgT HG2 has went to significant distance to abstract and create separate fleet combat rules.

In the Fleet-combat rules that are part of MgT HG2, we will notice only two modifiers specific to fighters/small craft:

A) -2 to attack craft under 100-tons with any weapon other than a turret/barbette.
B) -2 to attack craft under 100-tons, if they're in the same "sector" as you, and you're over 100-tons (aka not a small craft).

That is it. So basically, the cinematic possible -8 to hit a fighter only exists under the core rules, not the fleet/large engagements.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Creating a system that allows players to interact with the Traveller Universe on a myriad of scales is not hard. But it is work, and by failing to perform that work, Mongoose has shipped a shoddy product.

Mechanics exist to enable gameplay. If you want gameplay between People and Vehicles, you need mechanics to support it. If you want gameplay between Fighter Craft and Ships, you need mechanics to support it. If you want gameplay between People and Ships, you need mechanics to support it.

So... we already know that, if we want to do these things, we need proper mechanics, so that things stay balanced. So, do we want to do those things? Given that several of us have already answered “Hell yes!” to that question, your dismissal of this blatant gap in the rules is outright nonsense.

Handwaves are for things that are genuinely improbable; for instance, destroying Earth-sized insects with Starships, Vehicle weapons, or even ranged weapons. You’re mostly limited to doing area-of-effect on them, driving over them, or swatting or stomping on them. Trying to shoot them is just plain implausible.

But when any two things interact on a regular basis... People, Vehicles, Starships, Fighter Craft... there should be rules!!! How hard is that to understand???

 

[FallingPhoenix]

Creating a system that allows players to interact with the Traveller Universe on a myriad of scales is not hard.

The lengths and lengths of discussion this has already gone through with no end in sight seems to suggest otherwise...

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Creating a system that allows players to interact with the Traveller Universe on a myriad of scales is not hard.

The lengths and lengths of discussion this has already gone through with no end in sight seems to suggest otherwise...

Just because the work isn’t hard, that doesn’t mean it isn’t work, and that game developers aren’t lazy, or simply incompetent.

This discussion isn’t about, “What Dogfighting system should we make?”; it’s about, “Is the Dogfighting system broken, and does that matter?”. With regards to, “Is the Dogfighting system broken?”, we are just about all in agreement. It’s “Does that matter?” that we vehemently disagree on, with the system apologists in the one corner, and the playability & functionality die-hards in the other. An argument about whether a Dogfighting system matters says nothing about how easy or difficult it is to make.

 

[FallingPhoenix]

Creating a system that allows players to interact with the Traveller Universe on a myriad of scales is not hard.

The lengths and lengths of discussion this has already gone through with no end in sight seems to suggest otherwise...

Just because the work isn’t hard, that doesn’t mean it isn’t work, and that game developers aren’t lazy, or simply incompetent.

This discussion isn’t about, “What Dogfighting system should we make?”; it’s about, “Is the Dogfighting system broken, and does that matter?”. With regards to, “Is the Dogfighting system broken?”, we are just about all in agreement. It’s “Does that matter?” that we vehemently disagree on, with the system apologists in the one corner, and the playability & functionality die-hards in the other. An argument about whether a Dogfighting system matters says nothing about how easy or difficult it is to make.

Fair enough.