Even more space combat questions

[kashre]

Hiya, new here

So, I have not run a Traveller game for something like 15 years I guess, and that was TNE. I just got MGT and I'm pretty fired up to play, but I have some noob questions regarding space combat. I could make something up for most of these, I think, but I'm curious what more experienced hands might think, and wondering if I just missed something somewhere.

I've been through all the space combat threads in the first 25 pages or so and haven't really seen answers for these:

1> The rules state that a ship targeted by lasers may fire sand as a reaction. Soo... how do they know when someone is firing an invisible beam at them which they can't detect until it's already hitting them?

2> If you have your evasion software running, it allows one dodge per level of the program with a -1 DM for the target to hit each time. Does this require a roll like a pilots dodge? Does it use up a thrust allocated to maneuver?

3> Am I correct in my understanding of the High Guard rules that fighters can have reinforced hull just like a ship? Thus if you spend 1t for it on a 10t fighter you get 3 hull and 1 structure? That would go along way to keeping the fighter pilot fanatic players happy

Also, does anyone think that most of the space combat that is likely to happen on the scale of the small ships players are likely to have access too is really wimpy and dice-intensive? I'm thinking about declaring that all weapons do a straight 6 damage per "die" they would normally roll to make so you don't always have to spend 20 turns plinking at each others 4 points of armor with your pair of beam lasers. Or eve worse, a couple of fighters with 11 armor and a beam laser each having a dogfight...

 

[barnest2]

The rules state that a ship targeted by lasers may fire sand as a reaction. Soo... how do they know when someone is firing an invisible beam at them which they can't detect until it's already hitting them?

Shhh... Assume it has some sort of aiming beam before increasing to full power for the 'hit'. It doesn't make sense, but it'll do
Alternately, you can have them firing the sand, hoping it is in the correct direction, a long time before any fire comes in. That would make more sense?

If you have your evasion software running, it allows one dodge per level of the program with a -1 DM for the target to hit each time. Does this require a roll like a pilots dodge? Does it use up a thrust allocated to maneuver?

I think make a roll for the computer at base 8 difficulty, -1 per additional attempt. Or give a +1 per dodge to the pilot.
And yeah, it should use thrust.

Am I correct in my understanding of the High Guard rules that fighters can have reinforced hull just like a ship? Thus if you spend 1t for it on a 10t fighter you get 3 hull and 1 structure? That would go along way to keeping the fighter pilot fanatic players happy

*cracks out HG book* Each time you buy a fighter reinforced hull (assuming it is under 40 tons) it will get +3 hull, yeah. But to get the +1 structure, you would have to buy reinforced structure as well. they are independent of each other.

Also, does anyone think that most of the space combat that is likely to happen on the scale of the small ships players are likely to have access too is really wimpy and dice-intensive? I'm thinking about declaring that all weapons do a straight 6 damage per "die" they would normally roll to make so you don't always have to spend 20 turns plinking at each others 4 points of armor with your pair of beam lasers. Or eve worse, a couple of fighters with 11 armor and a beam laser each having a dogfight

This is why fighters should be using particle beams or pulse lasers... But yeah, there will be a big bunch of 'plinking' at low levels. I wouldn't declare damage like that though. Otherwise, there will come a time when you decide to jump them with a pirate ship and they will die, fast
At low levels, you'll get enough rolls over four that it wont take too long really. It should be fine.
I always suggest running a standard combat without changes first, then asking your players if they think it needs any modification.

 

[DFW]

1> The rules state that a ship targeted by lasers may fire sand as a reaction. Soo... how do they know when someone is firing an invisible beam at them which they can't detect until it's already hitting them?

Of course I nixed this as it is quite nuts. If you see a ship that looks hostile, deploy sand or, not. No way to do it as rule says.

2> If you have your evasion software running, it allows one dodge per level of the program with a -1 DM for the target to hit each time. Does this require a roll like a pilots dodge? Does it use up a thrust allocated to maneuver?

I require no roll. But, I require 1/2 maneuver for each level of evasion. (turns are 20 minutes) So an Evasion/2 where the ship has M-2 uses up M-1 for that turn. You can maintain 1/2 forward accel and use the rest twisting and turning.

 

[locarno24]

1> The rules state that a ship targeted by lasers may fire sand as a reaction. Soo... how do they know when someone is firing an invisible beam at them which they can't detect until it's already hitting them?

They don't. There are two possibilities - one, speculative fire (see barnest2's comments), or two, they know they're under fire because....well, they're under fire.

A combat round represents 6 minutes, so a single laser salvo might well take up several seconds - long enough for a defensive gunner to see the initial impacts, go 'bugger, that's a laser, isn't it?' and fire a sandcaster round to mess it up before it does significant damage.

If you have your evasion software running, it allows one dodge per level of the program with a -1 DM for the target to hit each time. Does this require a roll like a pilots dodge? Does it use up a thrust allocated to maneuver?

It doesn't specify. So, strict reading of the rules, no. No thrust, no test - but on the other hand it's not as good as a pilot's dodge manouvre.

Am I correct in my understanding of the High Guard rules that fighters can have reinforced hull just like a ship? Thus if you spend 1t for it on a 10t fighter you get 3 hull and 1 structure? That would go along way to keeping the fighter pilot fanatic players happy

As noted, reinforcing hull and structure are independent. I'm a bit of an advocate of reinforced hull - it's a great buy, but it's also a nice mechanic to represent shields (i.e. a damage tank that still allows damage to systems before failing).

Also, does anyone think that most of the space combat that is likely to happen on the scale of the small ships players are likely to have access too is really wimpy and dice-intensive? I'm thinking about declaring that all weapons do a straight 6 damage per "die" they would normally roll to make so you don't always have to spend 20 turns plinking at each others 4 points of armor with your pair of beam lasers. Or eve worse, a couple of fighters with 11 armor and a beam laser each having a dogfight

As noted, this is more an issue with how you use the design system. You can make ironclad fighters but then you should make sure the opposition has guns to match and it all evens out*. With the standard core rulebook ship designs it's generally not too bad. If you actively design/select ships with massive armour and pansy guns you really have only yourself to blame.....

* e.g. an armour 11 fighter must be at least TL11 - so why the hell is it using just a beam laser?

 

[apoc527]

It's not a strict reading of the rules, but I find adding Effect to damage really helps counteract the plinking issue.

 

[SSWarlock]

It's not a strict reading of the rules, but I find adding Effect to damage really helps counteract the plinking issue.

Same here. And it make the skills of individual characters just that much more important in the game.

 

[kashre]

* e.g. an armour 11 fighter must be at least TL11 - so why the hell is it using just a beam laser?

Well, the official books seem to be full of examples of terribly designed ships. Like the Vargr fighter in the sample for "Fighting Ships" with a beam laser and 12 points of armor, or the Corsair from the core book which has 3 beam lasers for offense on a 400t hull.

But that doesn't bother me *that* much, since that can be explained away by bureaucratic malfunction letting crappy designs go to production.

It's also kind of difficult to build a logically built budget fighter without giving it huge armor just because a cheap-o fighter won't have the anything to spend volume on other than fuel, cargo or armor. And as a military craft I just cant see giving a fighter 2-3 tons of cargo instead of 2-3 tons of armor.

Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[locarno24]

the Corsair from the core book which has 3 beam lasers for offense on a 400t hull

Yes. 3 Beam lasers. Obviously. It's a standard type P, guv.

What? The empty hardpoints? Well, they're empty, aren't they?

Oh, those extra gunner's consoles? No. No idea. I would never condone fitting pop-up particle turrets. That'd be illegal.....

 

[barnest2]

Yes. 3 Beam lasers. Obviously. It's a standard type P, guv.

What? The empty hardpoints? Well, they're empty, aren't they?

Oh, those extra gunner's consoles? No. No idea. I would never condone fitting pop-up particle turrets. That'd be illegal.....

Quoted for Win!

 

[apoc527]

Also in the core book, beam lasers do 2d6, not 1d6, so it actually makes sense for the corsair to mount those. Personally, I haven't adopted the HG rule change for turret lasers because they just don't work for me.

 

[locarno24]

that's a fair point, actually. If making a fighty corsair I suppose you'd swap them out for Accurate, High Yield pulse lasers - cost the same and are closer to the original beam laser in effect.

 

[kashre]

Also in the core book, beam lasers do 2d6, not 1d6, so it actually makes sense for the corsair to mount those. Personally, I haven't adopted the HG rule change for turret lasers because they just don't work for me.

Actually, that is a totally good point i hadn't considered... thanks i still think it's a crap design though.

I finally recruited one of the players to help play out a few different scenarios using different rules tweaks. If anyone is interested this is what we settled on:

Fighters can be fitted at construction with launch rails for missiles.

I'm using a light missile = 1d6 and "heavy missile" = 2d6 system which I saw suggested by someone on this board. Forget who, but it was a great suggestion because missiles As Written seem a lot on the weak side, imo. I also gave them armor penetration.

After playing it out a few times I decided i actually like having weapons do a straight 6 points per damage die rather than rolling with effect added in even. Damage control is easy enough that even if you trash a system the engineers get it back up soonish, and it makes space combat more tense and shorter, both good things IMO.

Just in case space combat is TOO deadly this way, a ship which has its last structure destroyed doesn't explode (usually), rather is usually left as a wreck with surviving crew trapped inside. So even of my PCs get their butts kicked they can be rescued/taken prisoner and the game can continue.

i went with the "gravitic focusing" technobabble from the TNE system for lasers, which has the effect that instead of a thin column of death there is a big hourglass shaped beam that only has a lot of damage potential at the focal point. This gives me a good excuse for sand as a reaction to incoming fire, as the ships sensors detect that it's in the beam, and as the focal point sweeps toward the ship the energy density goes up and a "we're about to get lasered" alarm goes off, spuring the gunner to fire sand. Because really, that's the only way i can imagine sand really working... if it bursts out of a canister it will disburse quickly, and a maneuvering ship will leave it behind quickly as well.

The focused laser system has the added benifeit of agreeing with practical real-life experience i have with (small) industrial cutting lasers, so I can have consistent answers for those tech geek players who always want me to explain how everything works, even though I really have no clue what weaponized lasers are like.

I'm not sure I like the fact that fighters can get armored the same as starships either... shouldn't armor effect be by thickness, not volume? TL11 fighters with 11 points of armor, 3 points of hull and a structure point are just too durable unless i pull out the particle cannons every time they show up. But I'm not sure what to do about it.

 

[hdan]

Re: Armor

I don't like Armor 11 "boats" either. It seems to me that the thickness of that armor would be thicker than the whole 10t fighter! I'd like to see an additional limit on armor, like the TL limit. Something like, "each armor point costs at least 1 tons of space." (probably different numbers depending on the armor type. It might make sense to calibrate against a 100t hull, since I'm not convinced the armor formula was originally intended for use on boats.)

I might try re-building some of the known high-armor fighters with this system to see how they turn out.

Re: damage

Interesting to hear your appraisal of the "just apply 6 points per 'D' of damage" in actual play. It seems sensible to me, and it allows pulse (or beam if you don't accept HG's changes) lasers to always do a hit of damage to those Armor 11 fighters if they can connect. That gives you a good reason to have pulse lasers around in addition to giving you better chances to hit at close range.

From an RP perspective, if you don't mind extra complication, you might add this:

If you hit with a marginal success (+0 effect), then you roll the dice
If you hit with a normal success, (+1 or more effect) you "max" the dice.
If you hit with a critical success (+6 effect), you max the dice and ignore armor.

Alternately (and a bit more fiddly IMHO), you could allow each to-hit "effect" to max one dice. So if you roll a 10, (+2 effect) then you would max out up to two damage dice and roll the rest. So a laser would hit with max damage, but a particle weapon would hit with 2d+12. If you have some sort of damage boost on the weapon, it might auto-max the first dice or something.

Just thinking out loud here.

 

[DFW]

Re: Armor

I don't like Armor 11 "boats" either. It seems to me that the thickness of that armor would be thicker than the whole 10t fighter!

It would be interesting to figure the thickness for a small craft & a star ship

 

[rust]

It would be interesting to figure the thickness for a small craft & a star ship

If I remember it right, the Fire, Fusion & Steel supplement for Traveller
New Era has the necessary informations and formulas.

 

[DFW]

It would be interesting to figure the thickness for a small craft & a star ship

If I remember it right, the Fire, Fusion & Steel supplement for Traveller
New Era has the necessary informations and formulas.

That would only work for that rule set unless, figuring the armor tonnage was identical to MGT.

 

[rust]

That would only work for that rule set unless, figuring the armor tonnage was identical to MGT.

Hmmm ... knowing which percentage of a ship's volume made of a certain
armour material gives which armour value in MGT, for example armour
value 2 for each 5 % of titanium alloy, and comparing this with the results
of the formulas from FF&S, it should be possible to determine whether the
two systems are basically identical, only similar or completely different,
and if they are close enough to each other one should be able to calculate
the thickness of an armour in MGT ... - but I am far too lazy to try that.

 

[hdan]

Hmmm ... knowing which percentage of a ship's volume made of a certain
armour material gives which armour value in MGT, for example armour
value 2 for each 5 % of titanium alloy, and comparing this with the results
of the formulas from FF&S, it should be possible to determine whether the
two systems are basically identical, only similar or completely different,
and if they are close enough to each other one should be able to calculate
the thickness of an armour in MGT ... - but I am far too lazy to try that.

Or....

Assume a 100 ton ship is the "baseline" for the armor thickness. However many tons of armor it takes to get (for example) 4 armor at 100 tons is the minimum amount of matter that it takes to get that armor value. So a boat that wants 4 armor pays for it at the 100 ton displacement.

If you're using crystaliron, then you quickly find that more than a point or two on a small fighter is impractical, costing 2.5 tons for 2 pts. Larger fighters (40 tons or so) can afford the space to armor up though.

Why 100 tons? Why not? More seriously, assume 100 tons is a sort of structural break-even point in some way, since smaller vessels cannot withstand jump.

But hand-waving aside, I suspect that the armor scaling rules were not originally intended for boats, and this is a possible "fix".

 

[AndrewW]

[If you're using crystaliron, then you quickly find that more than a point or two on a small fighter is impractical, costing 2.5 tons for 2 pts. Larger fighters (40 tons or so) can afford the space to armor up though.

For a 10 or 20 ton fighter it's 4 points per ton for crystaliron. Not always impractical, I've put 13 tons of bonded superdense on a 10 ton fighter.

 

[far-trader]

...I've put 13 tons of bonded superdense on a 10 ton fighter.

Wait... what?

"Yes yes, it's bigger on the inside, the pool is that way. Why don't you go swim a couple laps while I figure out how the Daleks keep coming back from total annihilation... "