High Guard 2016 Edition vs High Guard 2022 Update

[IanBruntlett]

Hi,

I have High Guard 2016 and am wondering what the differences are between it and High Guard 2022 Update? Do the updates merit buying the new 2022 update?

Also, does it have an index and/or glossary?

TIA!


Ian

PS... I've moved my page about Free Software to GitHub, the link is in my signature below...

 

[agentwigggles]

As compliled by Technetium

1. INTRODUCTION
   - Descriptions of standard/streamlined/dispersed hulls moved to Ship Design
   - Added 'Known as Destroyer Escorts in Imperial Navy parlance' to Frigate description
   - Added Fleet Escort to Military Ships, described as 'Similar in function to Destroyers, but larger and more capable.'
   - Assault Carrier description changed to 'A well-armed and armoured carrier used to transport large numbers of troops for planetary assaults.'
   
   
   
   
2. [1:58 PM]
   SHIP DESIGN - Create A Hull
   - Adds an option to reduce construction time by up to 90% on ships >50,000t, by building them modularly.
   - Construction time can be reduced based on TL, reducing by 10% per TL above 11. So TL 12 can reduce to 90%, TL 13 to 80%, and so on.
   - Ships can now be a minimum of 5t, rather than 10t.
   - Armour Volume Modifier added, increasing the tonnage of armour based on configuration. Streamlined has +20%, Sphere has -10%, Close Structure has +50%, and Dispersed Structure has +100%.
   - Close Structure no longer increases Hull Points
   - Military Hull added, only available to >5,000t ships; increases cost of hull by +25%, but allowed for double the normal maximum armour to be fitted.
   - Armour costs changed; now proportional to the tonnage it consumes, not the cost of the hull. Titanium Steel is MCr0.05 per ton, Crystaliron is MCr0.2, Bonded Superdense is MCr0.5, and Molecular Bonded is MCr1.5.
   - Added Armour Tonnage Multiplier; Ships of 5t - 15t consume 4x tonnage for armour, 16t - 25t consume 3x, 26t - 99t consume 2x, and >=100t consume the same.
   - Emissions Absorption Grid removed, replaced with Stealth (Basic), with the same stats. Cannot be stacked with other Stealth options.
   - Stealth renamed Stealth (Improved), with the DM changed to DM-2, and Superior Stealth renamed Stealth (Advanced), and made TL 14.
   - Stealth (Enhanced) added; TL 12, DM-4 to sensors, MCr0.5 per ton of hull.
   - Solar Coating added (it's complicated, I ain't explaining it here).
   
   
   
   
3. [1:58 PM]
   SHIP DESIGN
   - Details on G-Compensation added; a ship with a 4G M-Drive installed can compensate for 4Gs of thrust, and no more. Details on G-LOC that come about through the use of R-Drives come later.
   - R-0 drives added; 1% of hull, TL 7.
   - Details on R-0 drives added; they require 0.25t of fuel per hour of thrust, regardless of ship size (apparently?)
   - Ships >100,000t require an additional 20t for every additional 100,000t of the ship.
   - Command Bridge changed; it now adds a flat 40t and MCr30 to an existing bridge.
   - Specifies that software is limited to the TL of a ship, not the computer.
   - Specifies that primary and backup computers cannot be run concurrently.
   - Crew reduction for larger ships is limited to engineers, maintenance, gunners, administrators, and sensops. Medics and Officers are calculated after reducing other roles.
   - Ships between 5,001t - 19,999t can only reduce crew to 75%, 20,000t - 49,999t to 67%, 50,000t - 99,999t to 50%, and only 100,000t+ ships can reduce crew to 33%.
   - Sensor Operator crew role added. Salary of Cr4,000, requiring Electronics (Sensors) skill. 1 per 7,500 tons of ship for commercial craft, 3 for military.
   (edited)
   
   
   
   
4. [1:59 PM]
   WEAPONS AND SCREENS
   - Barbettes now consume 3 firmpoints, instead of 2.
   - Sustained damage is now left constant; always at 10% increments.
   - Critical hits on large ships are now expanded on; crew/cargo are now measured in percentage lost, as opposed to total destruction.
   - Frozen Watch implemented, for 'repairing' crew critical hits
   - Laser Drill is now 2D, AP 4
   - Fusion Gun, Particle Beam, and Plasma Gun all brought out of Exotic Technology chapter. Stats unchanged.
   - Railgun was added; Short range, 2 Power, 2D AP 4 damage, MCr1.
   - Damage multiples implemented; 3x for Barbettes, 10x/20x/100x for Small/Medium/Large Bays, and 1,000x for Spinals. All non-turret weapons adjusted to accommodate.
   - Orbital Strike Mass Driver/Missile bays imported from ECC, and Meson/Repulsor bays imported from Exotic Technology.
   - Inherited Orbital Bombardment/Strike traits from ECC; Orbital Bombardment gives DM-12 to maneuvering targets, and use Blast 100. Orbital Strike has DM-8, and does not have any Blast trait.
   - Details on the Radiation trait. For large vessels, give DM-1 on all actions for every 10% of its hull lost to Radiation weapons. Increase to 40% for ships with Radiation Shielding.
   - 'Multiple Warheads Incoming' box changed to have one on-duty sensop for every full 7,500t instead of 1 every 1,000t.
   - Spinal Weapon Range Adjustments added; Spinal weapons become less accurate at close ranges, becoming worse as the firing ship grows larger.
   - Mass Driver spinal imported from ECC.
   - Anti-Torpedo missiles added; eliminates 1D torpedoes from an incoming salvo.
   - Ion missiles/torpedoes imported from The Glorious Empire.
   - Sandcasters now work on all DEWs.
   - Anti-Personnel canisters added, dealing 3D damage to everyone around the ship.
   - Intercept scores on PD batteries doubled.
   - Gauss batteries added; lower power & cost, but suffer against higher-thrust targets.
   - Small weapons now cost Cr5,000 to mount, Cr50,000 to operate remotely.
   (edited)
5. [1:59 PM]
   SPACECRAFT OPTIONS
   - Adjustable Hull added, allowing a ship to mimic any other of a similar tonnage and configuration.
   - Pressure Hull imported from The Great Rift.
   - Module Hulls were added; half cost of a typical hull, as they are not designed to operate as typical spacecraft.
   - More detailed solar energy systems added (twinned with Solar Coating).
   - Concealed Manoeuvre Drive added; half thrust and increased tonnage & cost to reduce detectability to zero.
   - Details on G-LOC added.
   - Fuel/Cargo Containers & Ramscoops imported from The Great Rift.
   - Barracks reduced in size to 1t per person.
   - Detachable Bridge changed to a minimum size, changed to +20% of a bridge's original size.
   - Sensor Stations can now only be installed on ships < 7,500t.
   - Mineral Detection Suite now consumes 1t.
   - Clarification, Type V docking clamps can fit 2,001t ships or more.
   - More detailed Common Area options added
   - Gaming Spaces removed.
   - Training Facilities no longer consume power.
   - TL requirement removed for Vaults.
6. [1:59 PM]
   SPACE STATIONS
   - Chapter moved to after Spacecraft Options.
   - Stations with non-grav hulls can be of unlimited size.
   - Command And Control Centres added, which are the same size as the standard bridge, but cost twice as much.
   - Sensor Operator added to Crew table, same as described before.
   - E-Class ports no longer require Basic sensors. Or anything else.
7. [1:59 PM]
   CUSTOMISING SHIPS
   - 'Primitive And Advanced Spacecraft' removed; replaced with this chapter.
   - Specifies that a component may have advantages or disadvantages; not both.
   - Increased Power for Power Plants now requires 2 Advantages.
   - High Yield & Very High Yield specify that they are not applicable to missiles/torpedoes.
   - Long Range specifies that it may only be fitted once. Not sure why, that was implied.
   - Adds detail on refitting ships. Removing major systems costs 50% of their original cost, removing and installing new ones costs 150% of the new system. Removing minor systems costs 10%, and installing new ones costs 110%. It takes 1/4 the normal construction time for these refits to take place, reduced by other means as normal, and only takes as long as the longest job to be completed.
8. [2:00 PM]
   THE SHIP'S COMPUTER
   - Anti-Hijack bandwidth requirements increased.
   - Adds Battle Network software, allowing sensor hand-off to longer ranges.
   - Virtual Mining software removed. (But my NFTs!)
9. [2:00 PM]
   SENSORS
   - Chapter added.
   - Details on DMs provided by TL differential, passive/active sensors, operation of ship systems, transponders, extended arrays, stealth, etc.
   - Sensor hand-offs added. Should one ship in a squadron succeed in a Sensors check where others failed, it can pass on that information, so long as it has 1 bandwidth free for each ship to receive, and the receiving ship has 1 bandwidth free. Cores multiply this by 10, so a ship with a Core mounted can provide 10 ships with information using only 1 bandwidth.
10. [2:00 PM]
    EXOTIC TECHNOLOGY
    - Hop/Skip Drives added; Essentially J-Drives with 10x and 100x range. All other restrictions apply.
    - All weapons adjusted to accommodate Damage Multiples.
    - Tachyon Weapons moved from Weapons.
    - Tractor Beams removed, replaced with Repulsors (in Weapons chapter).
    - Neutron Laser spinal added.
    - Energy Shield's TLs all reduced by 2.
11. [2:00 PM]
    BELT MINING
    - Chapter removed. There are rumours of a new book about belt mining coming out at some point, however.
12. [2:00 PM]
    CREW ROLES
    - Chapter added. Expands on all crew roles, and gives examples of what typical tasks each might face whilst aboard ship.
13. [2:00 PM]
    CREATING DECK PLANS
    - Example changed to a Empress Marava Far Trader. Also, less detailed. It kinda sucks, NGL.
14. [2:01 PM]
    FIGHTERS
    - Safe docking with a Recovery Deck is reduced to a Routine check instead of Average.
15. [2:01 PM]
    FLEET BATTLES
    - Renamed from 'Capital Ship Battles'.
    - The rules are changed utterly, I can't summarise them here.
16. [2:01 PM]
    BOARDING ACTIONS
    - Chapter added.
    - Boarding rules imported from Specialist Forces, with some minor changes to make them more general-purpose.
    - Heavy-Duty Cutter changed to 6 from 5 Cut Rate.
    - Rules on stray fire disabling systems, igniting fuel, etc.
17. [2:01 PM]
    SPACECRAFT OF THE THIRD IMPERIUM
    - Ships updated to new rules.
    - Ultralight Fighter, Torpedo Boat, Military Gig, various Cutter Modules, Jump Shuttle, Nishemani Corsair, MK Mora, Valiant Light Cruiser, Hadrian Battle Rider, and Galika Megula Megafreighter added.
    - Gig, Asteroid Ship, Annic Nova, and Gionetti Light Cruiser removed.

 

[john_q_traveller]

As, @agentwigggles noted, there are quite a few differences.

Yes, it does have an index, though it is only one page.

IMO, it is not worth buying the new version. In fact, I would recommend the previous version over the current version.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

Thank you for pointing out the Virtual Mining Software- I was just looking for that for a supplement I am fleshing out

 

[Tupper]

I think it's a pretty nice upgrade. A lot of rules got tidied up, especially for big ships. All the ship designs have 2D maps as well, which is more useful for gaming. The ship designs make more sense too (e.g. most military ships now have radiation shielding).

 

[paltrysum]

I think it's a pretty nice upgrade. A lot of rules got tidied up, especially for big ships. All the ship designs have 2D maps as well, which is more useful for gaming. The ship designs make more sense too (e.g. most military ships now have radiation shielding).

I agree wholeheartedly. But I’ll admit to just a bit of bias.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I just noticed in the update, the text under 'Manufacturing plants' (page 67) has been changed -- and not for the better.

The old rules from 2016 High Guard (page 61) included the following: 'At TL10, advanced technology doubles the amount of goods produced by a plant while halving the crew needed, while TL13 plants produce triple the amount of goods while quartering the crew needed.' This has been removed.

Also anti-missile (sorry, 'fragmentation') missiles each eliminate exactly one missile from an incoming salvo; whereas anti-torpedo missiles each eliminate 1d6 + effect torpedoes from an incoming salvo. That seems completely backwards.