Hardpoints per 100 dTons

[WhiteWolf]

Ok. I know this has been around since CT, but can someone please explain to me why they came up with one hardpoint per 100 dTons? :roll:

If a little fighter can have multiple canons and missles why is that a 100 dTon ship (Scout Ship) can only have one turrent to defend/attack with? I would think at least you could have one hardpoint per 50 dTons.

 

[Golan2072]

In CT-LBB2 you have one attack roll per weapon (not even per turret - but per specific weapon), so too many turrets means too many attack rolls per combat turn. So this might be a way to mitigate the issue for smaller ships; for bigger ones (especially 1,000 dton or more) it still exists big time.

 

[WhiteWolf]

I thought the damage went up for every gun you had in a turrent slot, so if you had two-gun turrent it would do double the damage if you hit? Otherwise I don't see why you would invest in more then one gun per turrent.

It appers that Mongoose has modifed the rules from the CT. Yeah! Not sure how it will work out though since I have not tested the combat system out for ships. :shock:

 

[hdrider67]

I think Mongoose (unless this will be addressed in a later book) missed an opportunity to do some weapon scaling.

A missile fired from a 5Kt ship of the line is not likely to be the same missile fired by a 100Ton scout.

Aside from the fact that a larger ship has a bigger frame to support larger weapons, it also has to kill opponents in its own class, most of which will have spent some tonnage armoring up.

Personally, I think of bay weapons less as launching a flight of missile as launching a single or a pair of large missiles that have longer range, more explosive energy, and EW capabilities used to dodge defenses.

The same goes for laser arrays. If a ship puts out far more EP then it ought to be able to house several upscaled energy weapons for offense and still have some anti-missile laser slots left over.

Imagine if the Iowa sported the same 3" guns found on a frigate. What would be the point?

 

[towerwarlock]

Actually what bigger ships can do is group the multiple weapons into batteries for battery fire. So while the 100Dt scout can only fire 1 - 3 missles depending on the armament, the 1000dt ship would fire a battery of several missiles in a salvo and rip someone up.

 

[hdrider67]

I don't know that they'd make much more than a dent in the non-nuke configuration. You can fit 12 missiles into a dton of area. These won't pack much of a punch, even with advanced explosives. About the only way I could see them liberating very much energy is if they were fusion warheads.

If I'm building a 10Kt heavy cruiser, the second thing I make sure it gets (after high acceleration) is a thick skin. 20% of the hull gives me a ship with 16 points of armor. This doesn't even take into account my EW scrambling the incoming missiles or the close in defenses of my lasers. Of the 12 launched missiles, the attacker would be lucky to get a quarter past my active defenses.

Now, here's where I have to do some guesswork. MGT playtests stated a basic missile did X1 damage and that a 50dT fusion gun did x4+8. In the new preview I only get the fusion gun stats and it seems like they converted the X4 to 4D and migrated the +8 in as another die for 5D.

Following this change for the missile would *probably* meand the missile gets an individual damage of 2D at the most.

12 points of damage vs my 16 point skin.

That missile barely scratched the paint.

Rather than use a 1/12th ton missile, why not a one ton missile, or two half dT missiles launched from a 50 ton bay? Then you get a missile capable of punching a hole in a capital ship. Obviously a missile that large (and it's really not all that big) isn't going to be a D6 or D12 missile but the damage could easily be increased by an additional D6 for each 3 missile slots used (3D for a .5dT or 6D for a one ton missile).

I don't think this would effect game balance much because you simply don't attack a 5kt warship with a 100dT scout and expect to survive.

I'm glad the question came up, though. I think I just wrote my first MGT homerule and I haven't even received my book yet.

Thanks!

 

[hdrider67]

Here's a quick and dirty 200dT light cruiser using my homerules and the playtest (which I know has changed). Like I said, this is probably a bit off on numbers but I have so much cargo left over that I have to be well within the limits of the system.

The "Lightning" is a 2kt light cruiser meant for picket work and patroling shipping mains. It is capable of J3 and 3G accelleration. The ship has a 50% turret and bay configuration giving it the ability to be very flexible in its use of force. The ship mounts four triple turrets (2 missile racks and one sandcaster each), six triple laser batteries for close in defense, six 50dT bays (three on port and three on starboard) each capable of launching 2 half ton capital missiles. It also mounts two particle beam bays on each side). Defensively, the ship fitted with 8 points of crystaliron armor.The "Lightning" carries a crew compliment of 50 sailors and 25 marines.

Lightning: 2000dT light cruiser
2000dT hull
20% armor -400dT
Type-R plant and drives -135dT
Fuel -432dT
Bridge -20dT
Electronics -3dT
Crew accommodation / staterooms -170dT
Fuel Proccessing -24dT
2X ships boats -60dT
10 turrets -10dT
10X 50dT bays -510dT
Turret armories -6dT
Bay armories -240dT
Cargo 50dT

When I have a full set of rules, I might have to fiddle with this a bit. Even if I do, this would be a pretty believable lightweight warship in its class. It's not going to be in the fight for long (only 15 launches for the major missile systems) but it's not designed for a slug fest, either.

I did see something troubling in the preview when I threw this together. The final book seems to have mixed up some more tables with regard to range and damage. It seems the fusion gun and particle beam damages have been mixed up.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I think Mongoose (unless this will be addressed in a later book)

Such as High Guard?

 

[hdrider67]

I think Mongoose (unless this will be addressed in a later book)

Such as High Guard?

LOL. Fair enough. I guess you needed to have *something* left to write about!

Still, did the numbers get mixed up for damage on the Fusion Gun and Particle Beam? In the PT, the Fusion gun was shorter ranged and did more damage. Now the damage looks reversed.

 

[klingsor]

What I am very interested in seeing if the vast dichotomy between the small character scale ships such as most of the classic Traveller designs and vast, many thousand ton freighters and warships will still exist. Amusingly given the oft cited parallels between Firefly and Traveller you can see a nice example of this in Firefly between the Firefly class and the huge Alliance ship in the episode ‘Safe’.

The Kinunir always seemed to fall between the two groups. I suspect she was designed to be something big and powerful but when the later High Guard warships came along they were so much bigger that the Kinunir class colonial cruiser was only slightly bigger than a Chrysanthemum class DE. Oops.

Personally I would rather like to see the ships being limited to the smaller sizes but realistically I cannot see this happening.

 

[Ishmael]

In my opinion, number of turrets, bays, etc*. should be based on the surface area of a ship's hull, not its volume.... and within a surface area limit, pack on as much as you can fit.

*includes area taken up by thrusters, radiators, landing gear, sensors and anything else you're brave enough to list or can fit in your spreadsheet.

 

[AKAramis]

In my opinion, number of turrets, bays, etc*. should be based on the surface area of a ship's hull, not its volume.... and within a surface area limit, pack on as much as you can fit.

*includes area taken up by thrusters, radiators, landing gear, sensors and anything else you're brave enough to list or can fit in your spreadsheet.

TNE did that. Big ships couldn't meet CT performances due to radiator limits. (The radiators too up too much hull, so many turrets got converted to many fewer barbettes, due to the effects of the square-cube law.)

Also, it made ship design yet another level more of a pain.

Compare the primary axes of design by edition
Bk2: Volume, Performance, Price
HG/T20: Power, Volume, Performance, Price
MT: Power, Volume, Mass, Performance, Price
TNE/T4: Power, Volume, Mass, Surface Area, Performance, price.

But I've always liked Bk2 save for the lack of power rules

 

[hdrider67]

I'm trying to reliably kill a "big" 1600dTon ship with its identical twin and a 50dT missile bay with pretty much no success. If I fire small numbers of better missiles (2 missiles doing 4D or a single doing 7D) the 9 point defense turrets chew the incoming missiles up. Firing a flight of 12 1D missiles has no effect at all.

My bigger missiles made the assumption that going from 1/12th of a ton to 1/6th added a die and each two missile volumes above that added an extra die. My other assumption was that a 50dT bay fires a maximum of 1dT of missiles.

The problem is with 9 pulse laser turrets, the flights of twelve would get hammered on the way in. a pair of missiles stood little chance of even getting to the target.

The question is how to fix it without breaking the already printed system. I could add more firepower to the 50dT bay (as would seem appropriate) since only 2% of space is being taken up by the ordnance itself. I could also stay within the 12 missile value limit but radically increase what a bay weapon does for damage (and how much magazine space it takes up).

Or I can wait for the book because the play test document is probably all wrong and my assumptions for damage are being derived from a bad source.

Dang, I need to lay off the coffee. I need to call the shipping people to see if my package is here yet.

Can someone get me the SRD? ;-)

 

[Ishmael]

TNE did that. Big ships couldn't meet CT performances due to radiator limits. (The radiators too up too much hull, so many turrets got converted to many fewer barbettes, due to the effects of the square-cube law.)

Also, it made ship design yet another level more of a pain.

Compare the primary axes of design by edition
Bk2: Volume, Performance, Price
HG/T20: Power, Volume, Performance, Price
MT: Power, Volume, Mass, Performance, Price
TNE/T4: Power, Volume, Mass, Surface Area, Performance, price.

But I've always liked Bk2 save for the lack of power rules

yep, which is why I use FFS1 ( for now )
at least until I rewrite everything over time to suit me
( I think it over-complicates some areas while it glosses over others )
I just prefer things to be a bit 'harder' than CT... a matter of taste
I also don't care if performance doesn't match other's editions.
I'm happy..just stating my opinion

hmmmmmmmm...little ships pack more firepower per volume
using C.Thrash's hull structure stuff limits big ship's accel and agility
......could fighters be possible? lol

 

[WhiteWolf]

Ok. I have an answer to my question. I would like to see Mongoose define how many d-tons a hard-point is. Once this is defined I could replace cargo space for another hard-point.

I have thought about a house rule that allows two turrents per hard point, so on the scout ship I could have a turrent above and below if wanted.

 

[AKAramis]

Ok. I have an answer to my question. I would like to see Mongoose define how many d-tons a hard-point is. Once this is defined I could replace cargo space for another hard-point.

I have thought about a house rule that allows two turrents per hard point, so on the scout ship I could have a turrent above and below if wanted.

They take no tonnage... they are just a abstraction and limit that was perpetuated through CT and MT, and into MoTrav and T20...

What you mount at that hard point may take space... but the hardpoint itself is none.

 

[atpollard]

Ok. I have an answer to my question. I would like to see Mongoose define how many d-tons a hard-point is. Once this is defined I could replace cargo space for another hard-point.

I have thought about a house rule that allows two turrets per hard point, so on the scout ship I could have a turret above and below if wanted.

Beware, that way lies madness.

A hardpoint is an area on the hull of a ship that has been structurally reinforced to withstand the extra force of mounting a turret through it (the actual turret on the outside and the motors to control it and access space on the inside.)

If you truly want to 'calculate' hardpoints using anything except the official "1 per 100 dTons" rule, then be prepared to determine the surface area of the ship and how close you can punch holes in a structural shell and still maintain its integrity. Do not forget to allow surface area to accommodate the space swept by the turret and weapons as they turn. Watch out for clear arc of fire (it would stink to shoot your own tail off.) Remember that each access hatch will require reinforcing like a 'hardpoint' as will each drive exhaust and each fuel scoop.

Personally, I would stick with 1 hardpoint per 100 dTons. Anything else is just too much work.