Fleet Combat/Quite-A-Lot-Of-Credits-Squadron Game?

[locarno24]

In fairness, I'm not sure the exact thrust matters. It's more than a Halaheike-class either way, and the Imperials in that scenario were the defenders - so all they need to do is hold station on the freighters or push out one or two range bands if they want to try and get a low-range-penalty shot at the fighters as they close.

It's repeated on p90, it's definitely part of the Fleet system.

Indeed. Missed it because it's in with the weapons rules, not the attack rules - apologies.
That does raise a question about mixed groups, though, with tonnage on both sides of the dividing lines, and is probably an argument when setting up scenarios for not creating groups of varying tonnage ships.
(I know in this case it doesn't matter as even a DDE is small enough to be 'hard-to-hit' with a bay mount)


I shall have to dig out my old copy of 1st edition Trillion Credit Squadron, if people are interested in a few random other scenarios. It had quite a few scenarios, environments and rules for generating fleet parameters.

[....off-camera rustling noise]

The default fleet rules, I see, were:

~ A maximum of TL-13
~ All ships must be capable of Jump-3 (or have an assigned bay or docking clamp on a ship that is)
~ All ships must be capable of 1G Thrust
~ Refuelling capability is not required (friendly TankRons are assumed to be available)

Costs include:
~ A 1% surcharge on the First-Of-Class as the Architect's Fee
~ A 10% discount for Standard Designs (i.e. a published drawn from High Guard, High Guard: Aslan, Ships of the Reach, or similar)
~ Small Craft

Costs do not include:
~ Fuel
~ Crew Salaries
~ Ammunition*


The 'tiers' of fleet were

MCr 1000 - Patrol
MCr 10,000 - Squadron
MCr 100,000 - Flotilla
MCr 1,000,000 - Fleet




* As per previous discussion, I'm not sure about this one

 

[AnotherDilbert]

In fairness, I'm not sure the exact thrust matters. It's more than a Halaheike-class either way, and the Imperials in that scenario were the defenders

Agreed.

Costs do not include:
~ Fuel
~ Crew Salaries
~ Ammunition*

* As per previous discussion, I'm not sure about this one

They are included in operating expenses, used in TCS Campaign.

 

[locarno24]

Rather off-topic.

It's the same in the basic system: If you launch a salvo of 1000 missiles, 995 or so are guaranteed to hit. Basically missiles don't miss, you shoot them down or they hit. There was extensive discussion during beta...

You know what...I don't think I realised (this being my first real time using 2nd edition instead of 1st edition) how terrifying missiles have gotten.
Now I like the 'shorthand' of "resolve once x effect" for fighter squadrons and missile volleys. Resolving umpty-ump missile attacks was stupid, and even without getting to capital-scale ships the number of missiles and torpedoes fired per turn between corvettes and close escorts in a campaign featuring 1000-2000 dTon warships could quickly become ridiculous.

But....yeah. The auto-hit combined with the sheer damage they do is terrifying.

As a thought experiment, I busted out the Primitive & Advanced Spacecraft section, and built a TL7, 2,000 dTon warship
(kudos to writers, by the way, the new High Guard is very readable if I've not said it before).

This thing, at TL7, costs MCr 1,742.807.

It has Solar Panels, Biospheres and Solar Sails, and a 'Hamster Cage' for its crew staterooms, workshop and medical area, so it has essentially unlimited endurance outside of combat (which is good because it moves around a star system like a geriatric turtle), and when rigging for battle it can pack away everything behind armoured bulkheads and fire up a 3G reaction drive for up to 2 hours.


Most of its cost is due to MCr 600 on point defences - the only way to get a weapon capable of firing point defence at all at TL7 is to field a TL7 Early Prototype Pulse Laser, and having done that you might as well go the whole hog and put them in Early Prototype Triple Turrets - and a further MCr30 on TL7 Early Prototype Civilian Grade Sensors to give it 'only' DM-2 on sensor checks.

A full loadout of TL7 Titanium Steel Armour over a reinforced close structure gives it 968 hull and armour/7, so it's not as flimsy as it might be.

And the reason I'm mentioning this ship is that the last 5 hardpoints are a TL7 large missile bay. Which I couldn't find any reason the ship couldn't mount.
120 Standard-7 missiles might be primitive but....that's kind of hideous.



Even playing it out 'longhand', at very long range, with military countermeasures and a naval-grade crew, you only average an effect of 5 on a 10+ check (7+6+2=15). So you might swat 15-20 missiles with ECM (depending on how initiative sequencing of missile launch and missile hits works) but that's it.

An equivalent sized ship is unlikely to pack more than 15 point defence turrets. Even assuming they're all triple laser weapons and again naval crew), that's probably an average of 3-4 missiles each (7+2+2=11)

Combine the two and you're looking at about 55 missiles making it to the target less Evasive Action and Evade software.

7+1 for Smart = 8 so it's basically remaining missiles = effect and the base damage is 14 minus the target's armour with a standard missile.

I know that (1) canon Imperial Navy ships are often not well designed, (2) they have the sensor and acceleration advantage against this thing so can't be brought to battle against their will, but it feels kind of wrong that a ship from a world that isn't capable of building gravetic technology or jump drives seems able to blow away a latest-generation Imperial DDE in one salvo - put nukes in the tubes and you'd have a fair chance of cracking one open even if it had armour 15.

....I'm hoping there's an error in the logic there somewhere. This thing is 7 tech levels lower. It should be like taking on a bronze age trireme with an SSN.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, a light twenty millimetre technoligical level six autocannon, at a quarter tonnes each, four of which could be mounted in a one tonne pop up turret.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

In theory, a light twenty millimetre technoligical level six autocannon, at a quarter tonnes each, four of which could be mounted in a one tonne pop up turret.

Only weapons less than 250 kg can be mounted four to a Dt.

Light Auto Cannon has a mass of 250 kg, so can only be mounted one to a Dt.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You know what...I don't think I realised (this being my first real time using 2nd edition instead of 1st edition) how terrifying missiles have gotten.
...
But....yeah. The auto-hit combined with the sheer damage they do is terrifying.

Quite, it's one of the three main weapons in basic combat: Spinals, Missiles, and Fighters. Fighters are mostly nerfed in Fleet combat, leaving Spinals and Missiles as the most important weapons.

As we have seen in this thread, if missiles can hit we can ignore lesser weapons, such as lasers and Particle.

As a thought experiment, I busted out the Primitive & Advanced Spacecraft section, and built a TL7, 2,000 dTon warship
(kudos to writers, by the way, the new High Guard is very readable if I've not said it before).
...
....I'm hoping there's an error in the logic there somewhere. This thing is 7 tech levels lower. It should be like taking on a bronze age trireme with an SSN.

No, nothing wrong with your reasoning. Tech level differences are not all that dramatic in MgT2, unlike CT.

You are also comparing an optimised TL7 craft with a random bag of components at TL15. A reasonable TL15 missile frigate would fare better.

P.S. A better way of killing missiles is probably Fragmentation missiles. Max the capability to launch missiles, and load up a mix of missiles. Doesn't work against torpedoes though.

 

[Condottiere]

Good thing light autocannons are technological level six, at seven you could reduce their volume by ten percent, each.

 

[locarno24]

You know what...I don't think I realised (this being my first real time using 2nd edition instead of 1st edition) how terrifying missiles have gotten.
...
But....yeah. The auto-hit combined with the sheer damage they do is terrifying.

Quite, it's one of the three main weapons in basic combat: Spinals, Missiles, and Fighters. Fighters are mostly nerfed in Fleet combat, leaving Spinals and Missiles as the most important weapons.

As we have seen in this thread, if missiles can hit we can ignore lesser weapons, such as lasers and Particle.

Lasers, yes, but it's quite a change of mentality to be ignoring particle artillery. I'm more used to barbette and bay-mount particle guns being the 'main weapons.
In fairness, the fact that in 1st edition, a missile with a nuclear warhead only delivered the same punch as an available-to-civilians-no-questions-asked pulse laser was always a bit weird.

As a thought experiment, I busted out the Primitive & Advanced Spacecraft section, and built a TL7, 2,000 dTon warship
(kudos to writers, by the way, the new High Guard is very readable if I've not said it before).
...
....I'm hoping there's an error in the logic there somewhere. This thing is 7 tech levels lower. It should be like taking on a bronze age trireme with an SSN.

No, nothing wrong with your reasoning. Tech level differences are not all that dramatic in MgT2, unlike CT.

You are also comparing an optimised TL7 craft with a random bag of components at TL15. A reasonable TL15 missile frigate would fare better.

P.S. A better way of killing missiles is probably Fragmentation missiles. Max the capability to launch missiles, and load up a mix of missiles. Doesn't work against torpedoes though.

True, but I suspect it'd still pretty rapidly devolve into a mutual annihilation fest with launch capacity dramatically outweighing tech level. The ship wasn't specifically optimised so much as "I have space for a 500 dTon missile bay. Is that any good?......Holy jeebus that thing's terrifying!"



I agree on fragmentation missiles being efficient - firstly they're a garuanteed 1-for-1 kill and secondly at VL or D range you can get potentially get several countermissile launches off per incoming wave, but ultimately you're firing a missile the same size as a standard ship-killer from a launcher with the same volume as the one firing shipkillers, so it's a break-even prospect at best - any frag missile you fire could instead have been another shipkiller fired at the enemy.

Oh. Reading through high guard again, torpedoes have gotten a lot more space-efficient (1/3 of a dTon instead of 2.5 dTons!). And standard torpedoes are actually cheaper shot-for-shot than standard missiles. So....yeah. Massed torpedoes might well be as scary or scarier, since multiwarhead torpedoes are basically "what point defence?"

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Good thing light autocannons are technological level six, at seven you could reduce their volume by ten percent, each.

Quite, we can reduce volume, not mass.

We can of course reduce the 1 gun in 1 Dt to 0.9 Dt.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Lasers, yes, but it's quite a change of mentality to be ignoring particle artillery. I'm more used to barbette and bay-mount particle guns being the 'main weapons.

MgT1 was quite different in space combat.

True, but I suspect it'd still pretty rapidly devolve into a mutual annihilation fest with launch capacity dramatically outweighing tech level.

Yes, but also a question of magazine capacity. If you have 12 battery-rounds, and I have 24 battery rounds and almost as many launchers, I win.

Oh. Reading through high guard again, torpedoes have gotten a lot more space-efficient (1/3 of a dTon instead of 2.5 dTons!). And standard torpedoes are actually cheaper shot-for-shot than standard missiles. So....yeah. Massed torpedoes might well be as scary or scarier, since multiwarhead torpedoes are basically "what point defence?"

Torpedoes are very sensitive to ECM in basic. You must launch a lot of torpedoes (hundreds) to do more damage, cheaper, than missiles.

 

[locarno24]

Having a 50/50 mix of Fragmentation and Standard missiles seems like a good basis. Fragmentation - I note - is a 15G thrust missile, so it can act as countermissiles or it can be sequenced into normal fire for time-on-target with slower standard shots.

Torpedoes are very sensitive to ECM in basic. You must launch a lot of torpedoes (hundreds) to do more damage, cheaper, than missiles.

And to 'defence' in fleet combat. Anything which removes a torpedo is obviously going to do much more than removing a single missile.

 

[Condottiere]

Torpedoes are meant to kinetically punch through heavy armour; guided missiles can nibble you to death.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Having a 50/50 mix of Fragmentation and Standard missiles seems like a good basis. Fragmentation - I note - is a 15G thrust missile, so it can act as countermissiles or it can be sequenced into normal fire for time-on-target with slower standard shots.

Depends on the expected enemy. If the enemy is missile-happy, yes.

Frag missiles do relatively little damage, so are useless against heavily armoured targets (in basic at least).

Torpedoes are very sensitive to ECM in basic. You must launch a lot of torpedoes (hundreds) to do more damage, cheaper, than missiles.

And to 'defence' in fleet combat. Anything which removes a torpedo is obviously going to do much more than removing a single missile.

ECM works that same for all missiles, including torpedoes, so has relatively greater impact in a torpedo salvo of about one third the size.

Note that ammunition costs in HG are per Dton, compare standard missiles with Core. A single torpedo is more expensive than a missile, but since you launch fewer of them they are cheaper per salvo.

 

[locarno24]

True, but A TL15 ship that's maxed out on armour has a pretty meaningful chance of taking damage from even a standard missile, let alone an advanced one.

The torps vs missiles argument was significantly more relevant in 1st edition, where a 2D6 damage nuke would bounce off an armoured TL12+ warship entirely, so simply throwing more of them at it didn't achieve anything.

Note that ammunition costs in HG are per Dton, compare standard missiles with Core.

Ah. Missed that.