Fighters!Fighters!Fighters!

[AnotherDilbert]

Building squadrons: It depends entirely on who you are fighting. If they like missiles, you must have massive PD, otherwise PD is dead weight.

Missiles: Either concentrate on missiles or ignore them, don't mix missile armament with other armaments.

Missiles are the most damaging weapon, a single barbette launching nuclear missiles can do 5*(6D-15)=30 damage through armour 15 every round. Missiles can kill any opponent from fighters to battleships. Missiles can kill at any range.

Missiles basic weakness is PD. If the enemy launches a lot of missiles and you do not have PD you are dead in a round or two. You MUST have decent PD. Once you have decent PD you are immune to small amounts of missiles.

E.g. Take the Corsair SSB: It launches 17 missiles per round. If none of them are shot down they can do 17*(6D-15)=102 damage every round. The Hellcats Fusion Gun will do 1D*10-15=20 damage every round.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'll see your Corsair and raise you a Hellcat

A Fusion bay in such a small ship is a hell of a kick! With an average damage of 1DD-15≈20 it seem specially designed to kill my 35 dT fighters...


You should perhaps have Armour 14. Every point of armour counts, especially against turret weapons. E.g. your own PD laser turret does 2D+4 +2(pulse laser) +2(intense focus) ≈ 15 damage - armour. If you raise you armour from 12 to 14 you have reduced the average damage from 3 to 1. There can be a lot of PD turrets around...

You should max out the manoeuvre drive (9G) before adding thrusters, that will save you lots of tonnage. At TL14 you could even tech upgrade it with Energy Efficient to save power.

You could do two Energy Efficient upgrades on the power plant, saving some tonnage.

You can probably do three Fuel Efficient upgrades on the reaction drive.

On the PD laser Intense Focus requires two advantages.

I think the Hellcat is a little oversized at 205? dT.

Fire Control/3 software is slightly more expensive than that (MCr 6).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The Corsair Missile Space Superiority Boat

You really went overboard by including everything here. 17 missiles per round is a lot... The concept is sound, but perhaps slightly cheaper?

You might want some extra ammo for that barbette, 5 rounds of ammo is a bit light?

You haven't included the cost of the missile load ( 12*12[bay] + 5*5[barbette] ) * 0.45[nuclear missile] = MCr 76.

I would avoid the Damper, it only prevents ~28 damage, slightly more than a single nuclear missile (6D ≈ 21). It uses 20 power.

The manoeuvre drive is dimensioned for 225 dT, it should probably draw more power.

Barbette at 4.2 dT?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Unfortunately the Chancellor heard of the Admiralty's newfound enthusiasm for less expensive fighters and ordered the Exchequer to perform a budget review and cut the fat out of the project. In due course a few wet-behind-the-ears PPEs descended on the naval architecture bureau and removed components that they didn't understand muttering about "over-engineered" and "gold-plated toilet seats". After a night's heroic drinking, initiated by a few worried junior naval officers, the budget committee misspelled some numbers (the last 0.5 dT hull is only there to get another Hullpoint). The defence lobbyists vehemently protested the lack of gold-plated anything, until it was finally decided to order more fighters, to insure the usual cost overruns.

this is pretty much how I see EVERY ship, or fighter development program running.

Yes, I agree, but this time we really asked for it when we admitted that cheaper fighters might not always be inferior...

It's also why I could see the birth of the "Drone Mafia"...The logic would be."no pilots, no staterooms for pilots, no food and recreation facilities for pilots," But the battlecry would be " no letters to the families of dead pilots!"

No crews mean a lot less logistics, and leaner combat craft.

But if a good gunner (skill-2, DEX9, so +1; DM+3) can be augmented to (skill-3, DEX12, so +2; DM+5), whereas the best software is limited to (skill-2; DM+2), we have a problem with drones. The meat-sacks will hit a lot more often.

PD performance is dependant on good gunners; Good gunner: 2D+5-8 ≈ 4 missiles killed, Virtual Gunner: 2D+2-8 ≈ 1 missile killed. PD batteries fix this (at great cost).

 

[Nerhesi]

Seeing X beats Y and Y beats Z but Z' wreck X and dont forget about A and A' which can handily defeat Y Z but not X' really gets me tingly down there.

I know Matt shares this exact feeling (minus tingles in the exact location), but honestly I love this.

I can't wait for the final result of all our efforts. Are we going to be the first people on history to achieve perfect balance in a game? Hell no. Are we going to get closer than possibly every other space opera game? probably (and perhaps easily by in a top 10%). This is the result of all our passionate debate, finger wagging, and philosophical pondering.

And now, for my entry, the 40-ton "Groupie"

• Interceptor 40-ton Space Cost Power
  Hull Closed Structure, Reinforced -40 2 8
  Armour Bonded SuperDense (15) 4.8 2.4
  M-Drive Thrust 9 - TL13 BUDGET/INCREASED SIZE 3.96 5.94 36
  PowerPlant TL12 - 60 power 4 4
  PP Fuel 1 0
  Reaction Drive TL14 - 16 Thrust 12.8 3.2
  Reaction Fuel TL14 - 5 turns 6.4 0
  Cockpit 1.5 0.01
  Tachyon Cannon TL14 BUDGET/INCREASED SIZE 5.5 7.5 12
  Electronics Basic 0 0
  Computer/15 TL13 0 2
  Evade/2 0 2
  Fire Control/3 0 6
  Totals -0.04 hull remaining 35.05 total cost 56 power used

The first thing we can all agree is on is how terrible I am at posting spreadsheets online. I have no idea how to.

The second is how disgustingly cheap yet effective this craft is and it's sole purpose. A super cheap fighter deterrent. The purpose of this craft is to provide a very effective anti-fighter Fighter. It uses effective weaponry and dedicates thrust purely defensive dog-fighting. It costs 35 MCr only with all weaponry and software included. I attempted to be devious by purchasing budget Manoeuver drives and Tachyon Cannons.

The Drives and Cannons are the two mostly costly components, and Tachyon Cannons guarantee an average penetration against 15 Armour (average damage+Penetration is 17!) while maintaining the effective range of "Close" - so this means I dont have to close distance at all. This why it is the groupie. It hangs around in general annoyance almost uselessness until some other annoying things tries to make fun of your Star/Idol (capital ship), at which point the groupies mob them.

Sorry -just had to come in with something unorthodox and annoying. Please critique the stinginess and effectiveness

 

[Nerhesi]

While super cheap.. they may also succeed in attacking enemy ships if the battle makes it to within Long range - at which point they can immediately burn 1 turn worth of 25 thrust to become negative groupies of the enemy.. hopefully they have their own groupies to counter.

Taking a page from Anotherdilbert as well, we can always create multiple variants like Point Defense Groupies or Long-Distance-Email-Cyber-Bully-Groupies... both of which would be very effective in their rolls.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Seeing X beats Y and Y beats Z but Z' wreck X and dont forget about A and A' which can handily defeat Y Z but not X' really gets me tingly down there.

Everything has a counter, but it is still difficult to kill fighters except with missiles or other fighters.

And now, for my entry, the 40-ton "Groupie"

Interceptor 40-ton Space Cost Power
Hull Closed Structure, Reinforced    -40     2       8
Armour Bonded SuperDense (15)          4.8   2.4 
M-Drive Thrust 9 - INCREASED SIZE      3.96  5.94   36
PowerPlant TL12 - 60 power             4     4 
PP Fuel                                1     0 
Reaction Drive TL14 - 16 Thrust       12.8   3.2 
Reaction Fuel TL14 - 5 turns           6.4   0 
Cockpit                                1.5   0.01 
Tachyon Cannon INCREASED SIZE          5.5   7.5    12
Electronics Basic                      0     0 
Computer/15 TL13                       0     2 
Evade/2                                0     2 
Fire Control/3                         0     6 
Totals [b]-0.04[/b] hull remaining 35.05 total cost 56 power used

Why 40 dT, not 35 dT? You have just increased the cost of the carrier from MCr ~88 to MCr ~100 per craft.

Hull and armour too cheap.

I do not understand your drive calculations. Shouldn't it be 4.5 dT, MCr 6.8, Power 36? You do not really save any money by making the drive 25% larger, but 25% cheaper per ton.

Reaction Fuel 5.6 dT?

Without Radiation Shielding you have a problem with Particle and Fusion.

Holographic Controls gives a free bonus to initiative (if you want it).

The Tachyon saves you 6 power (~MCr 0.4), but costs MCr 1.5 more than a Fusion. the Fusion does a tiny bit more damage, unless the target has neglected Rad Shields or armour, in which case the Fusion is superior. The tachyon uses 75% power, so 9 power?

 

[Nerhesi]

Hull and Armour was too cheap - I calculated reinforced hull at +50% cost. This also drives up the armour cost. Overall it is 1.5 Mcr or so cost for 1-2 points of hull more.. may or may not be worth it now.

I was still in the mindset of older "increased size" calculations - which were only 10% per level, but we fixed that making them actually hurt more (25% and 20%). So these options are no longer valid.
That means the drive is simply 3.6 tons and 7.2 MCr - did I mess up here? 2.0 MCr per ton of drives. And Drive size is 9% of ship size (40 tons)?

Reaction fuel should actually be 6.4 dT.

Rad-shielding... sure +1 MCr. Although would it matter with the current very unrealistic we all shoot the same fighter with X fighters until it dies? Or would we then have the valid tactic of saying shoot each fighter just once in hopes of doing enough radiation damage to cause trouble... anyways, its 1 MCr, so sure.

Holographic Controls gives a free bonus to initiative (if you want it) - True - its near free anyways.

And of course - Fusion with improved range is superior.. unless you somehow end up against that guy that mounts screens on his fighters just to be rude. Which currently doesn't mean much, but I'm sure in squadron combat, would completely shut down the effectiveness with whatever aggregate rolls we would have. However, until then.. sure fusion

I end up total new cost of 36.57 after I correct hull/armour costs, drop all budget attempts, add rad shielding and change to fusion. Still super cheap I would think. Too sleepy to attempt the 35-ton version but I think we would have less than 5-turns of Reaction drive because we lose 5 tons but we dont save 5 tons.

Alright - who wants to try the super cheap Laser-Drill using fighter? 15 tons? 10? lol

 

[Chas]

The Corsair Missile Space Superiority Boat

You really went overboard by including everything here. 17 missiles per round is a lot... The concept is sound, but perhaps slightly cheaper?

I'll return to this but as mentioned not too fussed here about the price for now. There could be Superior Stealth versions of this vessel.

You might want some extra ammo for that barbette, 5 rounds of ammo is a bit light?

Yes, I had noted that and thus the reason for the last remark in the post. Could definitely do with some cargo space for ammo and when the rules firm up I'll make some hard choices and redo the build.

You haven't included the cost of the missile load ( 12*12[bay] + 5*5[barbette] ) * 0.45[nuclear missile] = MCr 76.

Still mulling this in terms of what would be the full complement of missiles and happy to leave it out in terms of it would often be mission specific - though I know you guys want something to compare apples with apples.

I would avoid the Damper, it only prevents ~28 damage, slightly more than a single nuclear missile (6D ≈ 21). It uses 20 power.

This was included more of a case that I want the damper to work the way I hope it does (and to see if I could get it in) much like the way I put the torpedo bombers up, which were the first trial build I did with the firmpoints. It would be a genuine combat boost if it was removing 2D from each missile it receives while doing full nuclear missile damage to it's enemies. But in many ways the ship is a good fit for a damper, the key point for this vessel is to avoid attritional damage. As an intruder it expects to beat say the two heavy fighters on patrol, but it has to do it taking as little damage as possible. The intruder will take many small amounts of damage as it deals with patrols and the defences of a small commercial asteroid base and pruning the damage really helps. Taking 20% damage and picking up a couple of bad criticals means the end of the mission.

The manoeuvre drive is dimensioned for 225 dT, it should probably draw more power.

Correct, good catch.

Barbette at 4.2 dT?

Barbette = 6 tons (5 tons internal + 1 ton turret) x .7 (triple size reduction advantages) = 4.2

 

[AndrewW]

Barbette = 6 tons (5 tons internal + 1 ton turret) x .7 (triple size reduction advantages) = 4.2

Where does it say a barbette takes 6 tons? Barbette =! turret.

 

[Chas]

Barbette = 6 tons (5 tons internal + 1 ton turret) x .7 (triple size reduction advantages) = 4.2

Where does it say a barbette takes 6 tons? Barbette =! turret.

Barbettes are effectively heavy turrets. A barbette uses a
single Hardpoint, and requires the Gunner (turret) skill,
but also consumes additional tonnage inside the ship,

By saying also and then repeating additional I've always read this to mean it is a turret plus 5 tons internally. Happy to be corrected.

 

[Nerhesi]

The additional tonnage in the ship is the 5 tons

We never account for tonnage of weapons "outside the ship". That is why a triple pulse laser turret and a single beam laser turret are the same "size" internally (1 ton)

 

[Chas]

The additional tonnage in the ship is the 5 tons

We never account for tonnage of weapons "outside the ship". That is why a triple pulse laser turret and a single beam laser turret are the same "size" internally (1 ton)

Righto, but certainly that needs a rewrite. Questioning why then bother saying "inside the hull" specifically for barbettes and not say anything for turrets. There should be a line there for turrets that says it is one ton "inside the hull" and removing the emphasis in the barbette blurb which is unnecessary.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I end up total new cost of 36.57 after I correct hull/armour costs, drop all budget attempts, add rad shielding and change to fusion. Still super cheap I would think. Too sleepy to attempt the 35-ton version but I think we would have less than 5-turns of Reaction drive because we lose 5 tons but we dont save 5 tons.

I think you have forgotten to upgrade the fusion gun? At 35,5 dT you get a cost of MCr ~34, instead of MCr 36.5. You either have to squeeze a some component at the cost of a MCr or so or accept 4.9 rounds of reaction fuel. You lose two hull points.

I admit I am mostly concerned with the cost of the carrier. You see a MCr 36.5 fighter, I see a MCr 136.5 fighter.

It's an interesting concept with a come-and-get-it escort fighter. You should definitely be able to beat strike fighters built to close the range and then fight.

The only problem I see is if you have a battleship, a carrier, and some fighters and the enemy has two carriers and more fighters. The enemy fighter could probably gang up on your fighters, quickly kill them, and then kill the battleship.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The additional tonnage in the ship is the 5 tons

We never account for tonnage of weapons "outside the ship". That is why a triple pulse laser turret and a single beam laser turret are the same "size" internally (1 ton)

Righto, but certainly that needs a rewrite. Questioning why then bother saying "inside the hull" specifically for barbettes and not say anything for turrets. There should be a line there for turrets that says it is one ton "inside the hull" and removing the emphasis in the barbette blurb which is unnecessary.

It is a common mistake in many editions of Traveller. A bit of clarity is always welcome.

 

[wbnc]

Sooo someone mentioned ultra cheap laser drill armed fighters they are cheap, But I could have created much cheaper fighters by dropping their performance and armor. as it is they can burn at thrust 16 on full burn, for up to an hour. and cruise at thrust 11 for a month the 10 ton fighters can move at full burn for up to 3 hours. Think of them as the Traveler version of the F-104, engine, gun, pilot. not much else.

I present the
10 ton Bumbleflit armed Utility pod
10 ton Fireflit Figther
and
5 ton Sandfly Armed Security Pod

The Sandfly is over armored by a bunch... But when the sales agent shot one at point blank with a military grade pulse laser and it survived .... a few hundred thousand credits extra seemed like a steal. of course the enhanced version would feature an upgraded pulse laser..but that would require the paperwork for a military weapons system.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The Belter "drilling pod"
Available for only MCr 2. At a compact 3.6 dT it fits in a 4 dT Docking Space, such as for a standard air/raft.
Strong drive to haul external load of up to 60 dT at 0.5 G. 9G without cargo.
Well protected against flying pieces of ore, Armour 15.
Radiation shielded and with a fiberoptic computer to withstand the hard radiation of a stellar storm.
A high capacity m/10 computer and a m/5 backup to insure the reliability required in demanding environments.
Mount and power for any laser, I mean Laser Drill, of your choice. Laser not included.
Internal space for an Astro-Mech Droid. (0.08 dT ≈ 1 cubic metre)
No license or registration required for this piece of industrial machinery. Laser may require permit or registration in your jurisdiction.

TL 15               HullP 1,3                  2,1093  
                        Desired  Rat  #  dTonn  Cost  Power
Hull                                      3,6          0,7
Config  Sphere               3    3            0,099  
Hull strength  Light         1    1        
Armour  Bonded Superdense   15   15       0,4  0,119 
Rad Shielding                1    1            0,090

ManœuvreD HiTech,2*EneEff    9    9   1   0,3  0,810   1,6
PowerP                                1   0,3  0,534   5,3
Fuel, Power                  4  126   1   1,0    

Cockpit                      1    1       1,5  0,010  
    Holographic              1    1            0,003  
Comp         m/10            2   10   1        0,160  
Backup Comp  m/5             1    5   1        0,030
    /fib                     1    1            0,095  
Sensor Basic
External Cargo Mount 60 dT                     0,060
Fixed Mount                                    0,100

 

[Chas]

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water...

The Privateer Assault Carrier was built as a sister ship to the Corsair. Able to fit in the same hanger or clamping dock the Privateer was also cunningly designed such that its profile is almost identical to the Corsair at distant ranges. Many ship have been fooled by the close match till the ship has gotten into shallow scan range.

The fundament premise of the craft combination is simple - firepower, firepower, firepower. There's no such thing as too much firepower.

And the payload x 2

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The K2 Fast Fighter is a beauty!

Given that missiles are not dependant on Gunnery skill to hit, it makes a perfect match for drone fighters.

 

[wbnc]

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water...

The Privateer Assault Carrier was built as a sister ship to the Corsair. Able to fit in the same hanger or clamping dock the Privateer was also cunningly designed such that its profile is almost identical to the Corsair at distant ranges. Many ship have been fooled by the close match till the ship has gotten into shallow scan range.

The fundament premise of the craft combination is simple - firepower, firepower, firepower. There's no such thing as too much firepower.

And the payload x 2

I shall contemplate this on the Tree of Whoa!