Huge error in ship combat Manoeuvre Phase

[F33D]

"The Beowulf is 10,000 Kilometres away from a planet (Medium range). It will cost the Beowulf five thrust to close from Medium to Short range. Once at Short range, it will take another two thrust to close to Close range or to back out to Medium range again."

Traveller uses Newtonian movement rules for Real space movement. As such, in the above example, it would take 7 thrust to move BACK to Medium range. NOT 2 thrust as you have to kill the original momentum caused by the first 5 thrust.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

The system works from an RPG standpoint for one on one ship engagements. Oooh, aahh, how banged up do we get, did we nail the pirate ship, etc. Yep, not realistic from a science point of view. System breaks with multiple ships coming/going with different vectors. Yep, ship combat is broken.

I just use the hex map/thrust tracking system from the Classic Traveller game Mayday. Extremely simple to learn, likewise to use. Use the mechanic for every game where tracking thrust and direction would enhance game quality. I just change the hex scale to reflect the game in question so range is just a matter of counting hexes during combat.

 

[F33D]

I just use the hex map/thrust tracking system from the Classic Traveller game Mayday. Extremely simple to learn, likewise to use. Use the mechanic for every game where tracking thrust and direction would enhance game quality. I just change the hex scale to reflect the game in question so range is just a matter of counting hexes during combat.

I think I remember those rules. Haven't played it >30 years. 3 counters per ship, past, present, future?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I just role-play that stuff and don't bother with maps and minis.

 

[F33D]

I just role-play that stuff and don't bother with maps and minis.

That quickly goes down the toilet bowl as far as accurate combat outcomes go.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I just role-play that stuff and don't bother with maps and minis.

That quickly goes down the toilet bowl as far as accurate combat outcomes go.

Just use common sense, if a rule doesn't make sense. It keeps the game going without halting to a grinding boardgame session.

 

[rust]

I just role-play that stuff and don't bother with maps and minis.

It seems that you have the kind of players who find this
acceptable, but there are lots of players out there who
have a habit to start lengthy and game disrupting argu-
ments about the precise location, movement vector and
distance of ships in combat whenever there are no maps
and minis to create a common mindspace and to answer
such questions. And while I personally dislike maps and
minis, I dislike arguments among the players even more.

 

[F33D]

Just use common sense, if a rule doesn't make sense. It keeps the game going without halting to a grinding boardgame session.

Common sense dictates that one has rules that can accurately reflect REALLY basic things like, location during combat. Thus, using a Mayday like tracking system.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I just role-play that stuff and don't bother with maps and minis.

It seems that you have the kind of players who find this
acceptable, but there are lots of players out there who
have a habit to start lengthy and game disrupting argu-
ments about the precise location, movement vector and
distance of ships in combat whenever there are no maps
and minis to create a common mindspace and to answer
such questions. And while I personally dislike maps and
minis, I dislike arguments among the players even more.

I don't let those kind of players into a game. Traveller has a referee for a reason.

Just use common sense, if a rule doesn't make sense. It keeps the game going without halting to a grinding boardgame session.

Common sense dictates that one has rules that can accurately reflect REALLY basic things like, location during combat. Thus, using a Mayday like tracking system.

It comes down to a play style choice. Is the space combat necessarily important to the story? And does a group of players want their combat to be turn-based, or real-time?

 

[Nerhesi]

"The Beowulf is 10,000 Kilometres away from a planet (Medium range). It will cost the Beowulf five thrust to close from Medium to Short range. Once at Short range, it will take another two thrust to close to Close range or to back out to Medium range again."

Traveller uses Newtonian movement rules for Real space movement. As such, in the above example, it would take 7 thrust to move BACK to Medium range. NOT 2 thrust as you have to kill the original momentum caused by the first 5 thrust.

Lol - this is the Huge error?

If you're going to think of this as huge... what are you going to do when you consider multiple thrust spent dodging? Where is that thrust going? net 0? You also do realise that you're making a "huge" error in how you are counting Thrust? Each turn in space is 6 minutes.

Travelling at a constant 1 g for 6 mins gives you approximately 635ish km. 1 thrust. 1 turn.
Travelling at a constant 1 g for 60 mins gives you approximately 63,500ish km. 1 thrust. 10 turns.
Do you see the ranges in rule book?

10 thrust over 10 turns (1 per turn) according to your basic acceleration vs distance equation will get you Distant into CRASH. However, according to Traveller:
It barely gets you from 25k to up to 50k MAX or down from 25k to 10k MAX. This is a GROSS undervalue of the actual thrust spent.

You have to assume there is tons of thrust being spent in various directions that is working against your intended direction. Traveller is actually one of the cleanest ways I've seen combat done because it abstracts it. Ive yet to find a system that uses vector based thrust that stand up to any half-serious scrutiny; especially the second anything takes any sort of evasive maneuvering (because it enigmatically assumes net-zero G total maneuvering along your main intended direction - which is ridiculously laughable).

 

[F33D]

Lol - this is the Huge error?

Yes, based on the rules for ship movement in Real Space it is. Unless one is not conversant with the math of it. Otherwise, it doesn't match at all. Comparing the system to other games is utterly irrelevant as this is an INTERNAL rules screw up.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

especially the second anything takes any sort of evasive maneuvering (because it enigmatically assumes net-zero G total maneuvering along your main intended direction - which is ridiculously laughable).

Yep. Using Pilot skill to evade other ships is just one of those story things like Clark Kent being about to shoot lasers from his eyes or bounce x-rays off of things.

Traveller is not a simulator. Never could have been. It's purely a plot device for role-play use. Players thinking Traveller is a playable dice board game (like Twilight Imperium 3) or video game on paper (like D&D 4) will be disappointed.

 

[DickTurpin]

Traveller spaceship movement has always been flawed. The word "Thrust" is used interchangeably as both speed and acceleration, the gravity effects of nearby planets and stellar bodies are ignored and the entire universe is squished down into a two-dimensional "flatland". This was done to simplify the game so that each turn was not bogged down by an hour of grinding through mathematical formulas to figure out where everything was supposed to by at that exact moment.

Groups that are interested in adding more realism to the movement and combat portions of the game now have access computers that can quickly churn out the values required if they wish. Combat will change dramatically, being much more like the combat scenes in David Weber's Honerverse; where ships spend time maneuvering to get both a position and relative velocity for their missiles to hit before combat actually begins. This can be very interesting for those who want space combat to be an intellectual exercise, more like a chess match; but it could be agony for those players who just want combat resolved quickly so they can get on with the role-playing aspect of the game. Both methods are equally valid.

A few game mechanics would have to be adjusted for a more "real world" combat system. For instance, smart missiles would be able to make multiple attacks against a target only rarely since they would have to burn turns of acceleration to turn back around after a miss. Giving them a +1 to hit to reflect the guidance system might be a better option.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I think I remember those rules. Haven't played it >30 years. 3 counters per ship, past, present, future?

Yes, thats the one. The most complex part in setting up ahead of time. Basically does the gravity well from hexes adjoining a planet cause enough impact to alter the vector of your spacecraft by one or more actual hexes over the course of a turn and determining how many hexes movement does 1g/2g/etc. give you at the scale selected. It is basically the Classic Traveller Book 2, put on a hex map with a different scale. Some will quibble about that last statement, but the similarities are close enough. I toss everything out of Mayday except the movement system.

 

[hdan]

Traveller spaceship movement has always been flawed. The word "Thrust" is used interchangeably as both speed and acceleration, the gravity effects of nearby planets and stellar bodies are ignored and the entire universe is squished down into a two-dimensional "flatland".

*Mongoose* Traveller spaceship movement has always been flawed. Classic Traveller did in fact use Thrust and momentum correctly, accommodate gravity (somewhat abstractly), etc. It wasn't *that* grind-y (though I did learn basic vector math from CT long before my math class covered it.)

I haven't tried playing MgT space combat in a real RPG group yet. When it comes up, I'll have to decide if I want to do it "right" (preserving momentum) or the MgT way (easier for non-physics minded players to understand).

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Not sure what all the glamour is about playing Cinematronics Space War on hex paper. I'm thinking if I ever saw a space movie that used such ship movement in it.

 

[locarno24]

Yes, well, the whole space combat movement thing is a bit of a fudge anyway - it also falls apart the moment you have two enemies (or groups of enemies) moving in divergant tracks.

Personally I find you can run combats narratively without too much mapped detail. Only if there's a real possiblity for some cunning manouvre and actual tactics beyond "hit the deck and pray you don't get shot" do you really need maps.

I tend to work for space combat on two principles:

1) If it's a simple combat (i.e. 1 vs 1) and no-one's too bothered, I will accept that the basic movement rules are flawed but that they work for the purposes of a quick game. You are correct that closing range, then changing your mind and opening it again should take more thrust, but the desire to do so rarely occurs in game - generally one side is seeking to close the range (either to zero or to a shorter optimal weapon range than their opponent) whilst the other tries to keep it open.

2) If I actually give a damn about accuracy - and the combat is more important (i.e. it's not an 'engagement in passing' but is a big focus of the session's story), then I'll use the vector movement rules from High Guard.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

2) If I actually give a damn about accuracy - and the combat is more important (i.e. it's not an 'engagement in passing' but is a big focus of the session's story), then I'll use the vector movement rules from High Guard.

How do you handle docking with another ship? Are both ships stationary? Or are both travelling 17,000 mph around a planet (guys, keep moving your docked chits on the hexmap around my planet here) kind of deal?

 

[locarno24]

Essentially, can you match their position (easy) and speed (less easy) to within the accuracy I can be bothered to track in the game (i.e. nearest thirty degrees or so and nearest full move unit a turn).

To be honest, that's usually not an issue, because boarding actions rarely occur unless it's a single helpless (and usually already disabled) ship - in which case the core rulebook works just fine (as above, it's two objects, with one closing to adjacent range of the other).

 

[MongooseMatt]

This is not an error or a screw up, it is _entirely_ intentional, for reasons others have cited above.

We want to have fun playing Traveller, not a maths lesson (same reason we banned formulae in the rulebooks - yes, we understand there are many who like them, but it scares the normals).