Extended Power Plants

[smiths121]

Might being going blind could not see this in an older topic.

Anyone considered the fuel usage for power plant AA to DD, as there is no table in high guard.

Capital ships are 2/3rd of the power plant size, which fits in closely with the values in the core rulebook for power plants.

My thoughts would be:

AA 48
BB 52
CC 60
DD 64

Anyone tried to make a 1800 ton jump 6 - ship?

 

[BP]

Prices and tonnage are fairly easy to extrapolate:

Tonnage
M-Drive = n x 2 - 1 for n above 1 (1 = 2 tons)
P-Plant = n x 3 + 1

Cost
M-Drive = n x 2
P-Drive = n x 8

Where - n is the sequential numeric value represented by the code - i.e. A=1, B=2, .., Z = 24 (remembering I and O are skipped).

There may be a more general formula for M-Drive tonnage (to handle special case above when M-Drive = A).

As for the performance by hull table - that looks like some kind of simple curve (the others being simply linear).

Not having this data is rather absurd - since higher tonnage ships can be designed for J-6...

AND making 3 systems to handle spacecraft designs is pretty pathetic - not to mention using tables where simple (ala HG) formulas would have sufficed - these are after all design system rules, not RP ones, so tables are rather silly...

 

[AndrewW]

AND making 3 systems to handle spacecraft designs is pretty pathetic - not to mention using tables where simple (ala HG) formulas would have sufficed - these are after all design system rules, not RP ones, so tables are rather silly...

Agreed, the High Guard capital ship drive and power plant formula's for example could have worked for small craft and non capital ships as well.

 

[smiths121]

Agree a lot of the tables could be replaced by formulas. Having said that, your formulas do not hold for the AA-DD drives in High Guard. We have a table for the tons, performance and cost - so easy to use. We do not have a table in High Guard edition 1, edition 2 or SRD for the power plant fuel usage, which is what I was asking about.

Drives AA-DD break the formulas. Type Z M-Drive is 47 tons which is (24 x 2)-1 as you put forward. You would therefore expect the AA drive to be (25 x 2) -1 = 49 tons, but it is 51 tons. BB should be 51 tons, and is 55 tons - so there is a "jump" (not the FTL kind) in the formula.

Power plant fuel is probably easy to calculate but not stated. I think (not looked for exceptions) the table in Core Rules is Excel/OpenOffice Rounddown (2/3 * power-plant tonnage,0).

I can see why the 3 "similar enough to take for granted/different enough to cause a mistake" ship constructions would annoy, I actually do not mind the three similar rules for ship construction. Even with all the faults, I think Mongoose have done a better job of scaling construction from 10 tons to a million than the original CT Book2/High Guard. Never played with MT, TNE or T4 - let alone the GURPS/T20 so I many be talking absolute rubbish! Discuss - less than 200 words.

Mongoose - Any chance of of a power plant fuel requirement table in the LBB version of High Guard?

 

[BP]

Actually the Drive Costs table (Core pg 107) is identical to the Drives and Power Plants table in the original CT Book 2 (pg 22 in my edition) - except the silly 2 ton M-Drive A which in the CT version is only 1 ton (as it should be following the formula).

The Performance table only matches CT up to 600 tons - then it is quite a bit incompatible with the old CT tables (which did kinda suck as well - again tables instead of formulas - CT did have J-6 up to 2000 tons, but then had missing J numbers at higher tonnages).

A number of folks have mentioned that the numbers fall in line with HG capital ship formulas and the designer even said that the intent was a smooth transition between standard and capital requirements, but the last I checked there was quite a discontinuity.

I have contemplated just using HG formulas with slight modifications instead of the silly tables - this also avoids having to make rationalizations about intermeditate sizes (like 150 tons) of standard designs.

 

[BP]

...Having said that, your formulas do not hold for the AA-DD drives in High Guard. We have a table for the tons, performance and cost - so easy to use. We do not have a table in High Guard edition 1, edition 2 or SRD for the power plant fuel usage, which is what I was asking about.

Sorry - misread your post and never noticed the table in HG for Extended Drive Ratings on pg 43 (well, probably intentionally ignored it given how wrong it was).

Actually, I believe I have this on my HG errata list waiting for the official post Matt mentioned earlier (Mercenary just coming up recently).

 

[smiths121]

Actually, I believe I have this on my HG errata list waiting for the official post Matt mentioned earlier (Mercenary just coming up recently).

Good stuff - have to buy the LBBs to see if my figures are right

As we are not discussing tons of fuel for power plants..........

AND making 3 systems to handle spacecraft designs is pretty pathetic - not to mention using tables where simple (ala HG) formulas would have sufficed - these are after all design system rules, not RP ones, so tables are rather silly...

Gonna have to disagree. There is so much different between roles that small can capital ships perform, and small ships are an extreme (give 10 is the smallest and 1,000,000 is the biggest) extremes tend to be different, and I like the way Mongoose have done it.

M-Drive - 1-30 tons man 2 is 5% of ship tonnage. Capital ship is 1.25%. However a 10-30 ton craft can thrust at 12-16, so should always be able to get the best range for the flight. As the size of small ships scale up, so they tend towards capitial ships.

I think because o the subtle differences the three rulesets - Mongoose have actually given the sub 70 ton fighter some life above TL12/13, at least in numbers. Spacecraft are logical, with lots of options, and capital ships are abstracted - to take into account 100s or 1000s of guns.

Now if only I could convince someone to play it through!

Actually the Drive Costs table (Core pg 107) is identical to the Drives and Power Plants table in the original CT Book 2 (pg 22 in my edition) - except the silly 2 ton M-Drive A which in the CT version is only 1 ton (as it should be following the formula).[/quote/

I think the performance chart is "based" on CT. As you suggested CT sucked after 1000 tons, where your next hull "jump" point was 2000 and then up in 1000s. The performance chart in MGT just puts the bit in between for more granularity - at least for 1000-2000.

 

[BP]

Gonna have to disagree. There is so much different between roles that small can capital ships perform, and small ships are an extreme (give 10 is the smallest and 1,000,000 is the biggest) extremes tend to be different, and I like the way Mongoose have done it.

No problem with the concept - and no reason a proper formula couldn't handle the entire range (just like in real life) - it actually is much like CT, but refined a bit and with the higher G small craft option.

The implementation, though, is disjoint at the top end of the standard and the bottom end of the capital designs - for which any rationalization is lame at best. The performance curve on the small versus standard likewise could have been done better.

Three systems with overlap is ok, though unnesssary, given the roles, if there was no discontinuity - i.e. performance of small craft tapered off at or past the 100 ton mark; standard design tonnage vs. capital didn't discretely jump at an exact tonnage. Consistency of range definition issues could have been avoided using formulas as well.

I love the >6G fighter concept. Wish they had carried this over into the larger vessels (leaving fighters the fastest, with drastic tonnage/costs where used for larger vessels to come closer to fighter speeds). Good, simple formulas could have done this - handling all three systems and allowing for the trade off balances - cost / tonnage / features - that are both logical in a roleplay sense and make the game playable.

Now if only I could convince someone to play it through!

Referring to Capital ship combat (or more general)?

A recent poll resulted in only 1 of 27 respondents stating they thought they did Expanded Space Combat correctly, and the majority obviously not groking the rules.

 

[smiths121]

I did some analysis of power plant + m-drive tonnage and cost to see how broken the 3 different ship designs are, and to see what the curve looked like.

put it up for now @ http://www.essess.org.uk/analysis.htm

There seems to be some jumping around in the 100-900 ton range, particularly at odd speed numbers. Think this is there in the original CT rules.

I think the transition from core rules to capital ships is ok, AA-DD drives look like they are about right and bring 1400-2000 tons ships down towards the % tonnage of Capital ships.

I thought there was a problem with small craft power plant and m-drive, as they are much bigger than the type A power plant and m-drive fitted on a 100 ton ship written in the core rules. However the larger small craft can mount more turrets, so will pack a much bigger punch. It does not matter what % drives use on a large fighter, as it is only going to be in the air for a few hours, and is designed to get guns to optimum range.

20 tons appears to be the best tonnage for a light fighter, rather than the traditional 10 tons.

Although the chart lets a 30 ton fighter have 16 thrust, it actually takes 29.7 tons to move speed 15. Your better off with a 20 ton frame at thrust 11 or above. I think this needs to be looked at in the new version of High Guard (BP are you tracking errata?).

So initally posted about the AA-DD power plant, come to the conclusion there are a few tweaks that need to be made in the small ship design rules, particularly the 30 ton frame.

 

[BP]

I did some analysis of power plant + m-drive tonnage and cost to see how broken the 3 different ship designs are, and to see what the curve looked like.

put it up for now @ http://www.essess.org.uk/analysis.htm

Nice work - thanks for sharing.

The graphic chart could show the disjoints at the transition tonnages using three bars - at those points at least. It masks the small to standard disjoint right now.

Of course, these don't show what happens when the tonnage is not discrete - which will look quite horrible till one hits the capital ship range. This has been the case not only from using tables, but not simply basing the tables on simple curves (formulas - which are the basis anyway).

This is the area of biggest disjoint - try the cost differences between a 2000 ton standard design and a 2001 ton capital ship design!

P.S. - I'm personally tracking 'errata' so that when Mongoose asks for it there will be some to provide in a concise manner.

Good call on the missing P.P. fuel - an ommission that should be in the errata. And perhaps even the figures used for AA - DD as you pointed out.

Otherwise, I don't consider most of these mistakes - with the possible exception of the 2 ton vs 1 ton M-Drive, but that could be intentional. I do consider them design 'flaws' in terms of ease, flexibility and believeability. While one can 'rationalize' the current approach - no one would question a simpler more rational approach, except on the grounds of exact matching to prior works - something the current design also does not achieve. It gives a nice nod to it, nothing more.

The systems (MGT/CT) are 'compatible' (I'd say more like comparable), not identical. Which personnally I prefer - they have been streamlined, added to and otherwise enhanced. A few minor tweaks and simplifications would now go an even longer way IMHO.

 

[smiths121]

This is the area of biggest disjoint - try the cost differences between a 2000 ton standard design and a 2001 ton capital ship design!

I had a go - cost is really screwed, and I think I know why.
Take a look at http://www.essess.org.uk/costs.htm

These actually have a curve!
The cost of a jump drive tends towards 2.0MCr per ton at 2000.
The cost of a m-drive tends towards 0.5MCr per ton at 2000 tons.
The cost of a p-plant varies by TL but 8-10 is same cost as 11-14 but bigger.

The table in High Guard page 63 has M-Drive at 0.5MCr, and J-Drive is 2.0.
This makes M-Drive 1/4 the cost, but they are smallest drive.
This makes J-Drives 4 times the price and they are biggest drive.

Looked back at CT Book 5, and M-Drive were 0.5MCr per ton, but 4-5 times larger than MGT.

I reckon the table on page 63 has the M-Drive and J-Drive costs swap.
If you swap them, the curve will flatten out and the difference between 2000 and 2001 will be insignificant.

 

[BP]

Wow - thanks again... (FYI: your link is missing the s at the end of cost (..\costs.htm - I used this)

And yes, cost is really screwed This is what I ran into when designing for a contest.

Your curves tell the story - the design rules come from simple curves - with irrational disjoints when put in tables (possibly simply mistakes due to the added editing effort). An additional issue is the silly system of giving a letter code - totally inconsistent with most other things which used hex - instead of just stating the rating for the given hull (1-6 or above - simple and also fits hex nicely if one wants to pursue that).

Look at the starship examples - they vary by ship and by books as to whether the drives are 'coded' or simply rating is stated. It should be obvious the codes are worthless (by themselves they require a table to lookup and other tables to be useful in design). One can also see the difficulties with the use of AA-DD and the capital ship codes.

Further, as far as I can tell, MGT dropped ship profile coding, so this is meaningless - just state tonnage. Look at the tables in HG - they state tonnage in most cases, or a code range. The code range requires looking at the code table - what an absolute waste and added burden. Not to mention, loss of granularity at the higher end (to cram numbers into an artificial alphabetic encoding).

Given this is a roleplaying game - and not a RW technical simulation system - the small craft tables really look silly. Again, a simple set of formulas would have done a much better job (with tables for common cases if desired - but lets face it when CT was first out calculators where a luxury few had).

P.S. - I don't generally like to compare to CT, since there are so many differences (For capital ships, MGT M-Drive tonnage is way down from CT, while J-Drive is identical; Jump drives are half as expensive, while M-Drives are the same for G-3 and above; but HG ships start at >5,000 tons).

 

[smiths121]

Edit - removed -waste of space.

 

[BP]

I'm confused (not that that's in any way unusual!) :? :lol:

Me things something got lost...

 

[smiths121]

Yep something got lost - my sanity.
Had timeouts about 7:15 whilst posting and thought I had copy my post onto the clipboard, put obviously copied your post and not mine and just cut and paste and submit - very poor.

My post should have been................

I think I blathered in my previous post and did not make my point very well :roll:

I think the "Manoeuvre MCr/ton" row and "Jump MCr/ton" row on the Drive Potential table on page 63 are swapped.

My rationale is:
From the costs.htm file you kindly fixed the link for.

M-Drive K (thrust 1 on 2000 ton has a cost per ton of 0.55MCr/ton.
J-Drive K has a cost per ton of 2.11MCr/ton.

M-Drive DD (thrust 6 on 2000 ton) has a cost per ton of 0.52MCr/ton.
J-Drive DD (thrust 6 on 2000 ton) has a cost per ton of 2MCr/ton.

This makes the difference between 2000 ton and 2001 ton ship far less.

I reckon it should be added to your errata list.

 

[BP]

Oh thanks - actually got your point earlier (I was mostly ranting still about codes and tables).

And yes - your fix is probably in order and would make the transition a bit smoother...

In fact, I've been hoping to come up with some simple formulas for inhouse use and your plots are inspiring me to get back to that...

P.S. - you can edit your posts and fix the link and the useless post...