MgT 1 BCr Squadron Tournament

[The Chef]

hangs head in shame...

Nonsense! Was a perfectly legitimate mistake... nice to see someone was paying that much attention!

Its more fun calculating the interior volumes for deckplans and trying to keep things sanely on a 1.5m x 1.5m x 1.5m cell layout!

Thats what i am doing at the moment, but having difficulty with the physical size to dton ratio...

having read through the description from Octagon a couple of times now, this is a supurb way of showing how exactly space combat works. If this torney is run again i'll definetly be submitting a couple of craft.. once i've reinforced the hulls somewhat

Chef

 

[Golan2072]

This was very exciting to read - a real, dramatic sci-fi space battle!

It was also very informative from a ship-design perspective. Heavy armor ruled the day and meant that missiles, lasers and fighters were of marginal effect, as opposed to the particle bays and barbettes that played the main roles in this drama.

I wonder how this would've looked if one side or both had nukes, and/or torpedoes instead of standard missiles...

 

[BP]

Well, heavy armour certainly can neutralize regular missiles and 1d6 damage lasers, however, it would be prudent to bear in mind that these ships were designed with specific restrictions in place and this was but one example of the possible outcome...

This tournament restricted skill DMs to 2 and TL to 12 - limiting DM benefits for computer+skill. It is important to note, that with the right DMs, even 1d6 lasers and basic missiles can have a reasonable chance at taking on heavy armour, all it takes is one damage point to get though and the destruction is the same for that single hit as it would be for any other weapon (baring radiation effects). And these weapons are dirt cheap comparatively.

And all that armour came at a significant cost in tonnage as well as MCr. After subtracting drives and fuel it was almost 30% of the remaining tonnage. If the rules had required J-4 instead of J-3 I would have had a hard time getting that much armour and still being so weapons powerful or have enough space for crew.

My squadron and that of Far Trader's weren't designed simply to win - we both had other motivations - I just wanted to have the 'biggest' gun I could within the rules - and Far Trader wanted to see how upgraded, off the shelf designs would fair.

Nukes, torpedos, and meson guns would have made quite a difference - however we were also on a budget and completely blind as to the composition and type of foe. Originally, I was designing the Big Shots to be supported by smaller craft, but I ran out of money (a good chunk and 50 tons was also spent on the possibily of a meson wielding opponent)!

 

[The Chef]

Well i spent most of last night redesigning one of the ships i had planned for a new combat orientated game i have planned, adding in armoured bulkheads everywhere and upping the armour. If there is ever a 5bcr match then i'm submitting it!!

tonight, i'm going to try and build the best ships i can for the torney budget and just incase this gets run again i'll submitted it as an entry.

I think personally we should see more of this type of game play as it gives players the opportunity of seeing rules in action that you may not necessarilly run in your home game, but also gives great examples of how gameplay works

i'm up for more if anyone else is?

Chef

 

[Octagon]

All,
I'd be willing to run another tournament later this spring, maybe in March, but right now most of my Traveller attention is focused on a campaign I recently started reffing.

One thing we should consider about Rd 2 is what parameters to change. Higher or lower TL? Minimum jump and thrust numbers? Budget? And so forth.

 

[AndrewW]

One thing we should consider about Rd 2 is what parameters to change. Higher or lower TL? Minimum jump and thrust numbers? Budget? And so forth.

I think TL 15 would be good as it would allow more options. Maybe different categories like a "high tech", "low tech", etc. This would allow one to see how lower tech fleets compare against higher ones.

 

[BP]

One thing we should consider about Rd 2 is what parameters to change. Higher or lower TL? Minimum jump and thrust numbers? Budget? And so forth.

I think TL 15 would be good as it would allow more options. Maybe different categories like a "high tech", "low tech", etc. This would allow one to see how lower tech fleets compare against higher ones.

Yeah - the TL restriction was the worst

Removing the TL restriction allows higher Power Plants so M-Drives can go higher, not to mention more powerfull computer programs and tonnage trade-offs.

Since Jump is not an option, I would remove the jump requirements and make it an in-system defense force - a good test of a defense force against comparable forces maybe dropped in by a jump carrier. This is also the type of squadron one might encounter if engaging a planetary navy.

Low-tech vs. High-tech categories doesn't make much sense though, given the HG rules that would simply allow identical TL with 'free' upgrades or reduced tonnage. So all things being equal, we already know that lower TL would be at a disadvantage.

I would actually lower the budget slightly. I couldn't have armoured up the ship I did and still come up with that level of fire power for 2 ships taking advantage of the 20% discount if the budget had been say 800 or 500 MCr.

 

[AndrewW]

Low-tech vs. High-tech categories doesn't make much sense though, given the HG rules that would simply allow identical TL with 'free' upgrades or reduced tonnage. So all things being equal, we already know that lower TL would be at a disadvantage.

Could show what can be done though, one might have a lower TL force but need to face off against a higher TL enemy.

Could also use handicapping give the lower TL fleet an increased budget.

 

[BP]

Could show what can be done though, one might have a lower TL force but need to face off against a higher TL enemy.

The way the rules are written - given identical ships - excepting one having TL upgrades - statistically the higher TL one will have a greater chance of winning. It's just the way they are written.

Could also use handicapping give the lower TL fleet an increased budget.

The rules still just accommodate the same weapons - just more effective armour and more powerful weapons are available - even if you restrict to TL ranges (thus additionally removing some of the TL upgrades using lower tech weapons). Setting the budget differently would just artificially accommodate the result one was looking to achieve in only one direction.

Perhaps an option to 'buy' higher crew skill level choices at the expense of a lower max TL. Older tech in the right hands can then be just as effective or more effective than higher tech - but niether side has a definitive advantage without a better design and tactics. Skill and Talent overcoming Technology - like a skilled bowman taking out an unskilled Uzi wielding thug, or primitive fuzzy wuzzies taking out heavy weapon high tech armoured mechanized walkers with logs and twine D - BP ducks quickly and runs away...)

 

[AndrewW]

The way the rules are written - given identical ships - excepting one having TL upgrades - statistically the higher TL one will have a greater chance of winning. It's just the way they are written.

The point isn't to have identical ships but see what one might develop using lower tech versus a higher tech.

 

[BP]

The point isn't to have identical ships but see what one might develop using lower tech versus a higher tech.

A valid suggestion - my example was just the simplest form of demonstrating that the rules already answer that question as they give the advantage to the higher tech - hence your suggestion to handicap the higher tech budget wise. This would address TL and more money vs TL and less money - however, there probably wouldn't be much value in answering that question.

For non-capital ships, given enough money the lower tech can always win unless TL is restricted to TL-6 only (so 2d6 is highest base damage). Even then, torps could be used as prototypes and even particle beams (if one allows 2 TL prototypes). One could play with that budget amount to look for a sweet spot - but the answer is so variable it wouldn't really have much validity - i.e. there wouldn't be much point in this.

Capital ships have higher TL requirements - one could set the TL below and use prototypes for everything - but, higher TL means crew hits with radiation damage that low tech has little defense against. Again, finding a sweet point were budget is of overriding importance in general situations would probably be a waste.

As the tourney demonstrated, given armour, DMs can make or break wether any damage can be done by the very lowest TL weapons. Trading off skill points (for crew and computers) against other aspects - such as TL and budget - would provide a lot of variability in the outcome.

 

[The Chef]

i'm more inclined to stick to a mid TL level... or have different categories..

so TL12 league and a TL15 league, but this is my own personal view.

Chef

 

[BP]

Likewise. Since I've generally designed for the highest TL- designing for TL 12 was a challenge - and I found out how balancing Octagon's choices were after I began designing with TL in mind!

Also, while armour is great - Octagon's M-Drive and J-Drive requirements (in addition to TL and budget) negated putting enough armour to be impervious to nuclear torps and particle beam turrets

As a tournament - such things should be equal on both sides - or at least have equal options to make trade-offs - and Octagon's tourney limits definitely made one make hard choices.

Given equal options - the MGT design rules are well enough designed that I think no one design will be categorically better than any other. Make the options unequal, and it will be pretty easy to break that balance.

 

[smiths121]

Couple of things,

Taking the core rule, weapons that do crew radation hits subtract the armour from the roll, so armour 8 negates radiation hits (as 4 or below is no effect). The exception is the Meson Gun (TL11), which ignores armour on the roll. Page 149 Core Rules. So under Core Rules, I do not see how a radiation hit will do anything against armour 8.

Damage Control seems powerful in the core rules, repairs those hull hits, what y? going to do - don the Vacc Suit and start welding outside? I reckon damage control should be internal only.

 

[BP]

Couple of things,

Taking the core rule, weapons that do crew radation hits subtract the armour from the roll, so armour 8 negates radiation hits (as 4 or below is no effect). The exception is the Meson Gun (TL11), which ignores armour on the roll. Page 149 Core Rules. So under Core Rules, I do not see how a radiation hit will do anything against armour 8.

It can - but only if the DM's overcome the armour (effect applies as DM) - skill DMs can be very important in overcoming superior forces (rationalizing that skill (character/computer) would imply better targeting of vulnerable systems).

Since Mesons decay inside and bypass armour completely, I felt compelled to add an expensive and space consuming Meson Screen to the Big Shots. Without this I would have loaded up with Particle Beam Barbettes (which probably would have made the tourney a bit shorter ) - but if my opponent had gone the Meson gun route the Big Shots would have been very vulnerable to crew losses.

(One thought that came up during my design - does crew damage apply to frozen crew? - but I didn't really pursue the answer - capital combat rules may address this...)

Damage Control seems powerful in the core rules, ...

Well, there are limits - and, in this tourney, I'm not sure the crew position limitations were accounted for (see Core pg 150 and 146). Damage control requires dedicated crew during a turn and/or repair drones. So it is not unlimited per turn. (My design traded off repair drones and CPU costs for this reason).

Additionally, pg 143 only refers to damaged systems when jury rigging. Looking at Space Combat Damage - based on hits (after armoured bulkheads are gone) systems are damaged, disabled or destroyed. Interpretting this to mean that only damaged systems can be jury-rigged, others would require repair or replacement.

During combat, faster repairs (negative DMs - double speedup required to do in 1 space combat turn) could repair a disabled system - but at the cost of spare parts. Destroyed systems would require replacement parts and a shipyard.

...repairs those hull hits, what y? going to do - don the Vacc Suit and start welding outside? I reckon damage control should be internal only.

During combat, things aren't generally repaired...

Hull damage repairs take 1-6 hours (and requires spare parts) - one presumes it also often requires Vacc Suit or the like (which mean another skill than just Mechanic)

Systems repairs is also a 1-6 hour task. Only jury-rigging is generally done during combat (system failing again in 1-6 hours).

I state generally as one could use the Timing rules to make the task go faster - though spare parts would then be consumed during combat.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Regarding Low Tech vs High Tech...

How about setting it up so that the LT fleet doesn't have to have Jump (defenders) but the HT fleet has to have J2-J3 capability (invaders)?

That might balance things out a bit.

But generally, each tournament should have identical design requirements for each participant. The idea is to see how your design compares so someone elses under the same budgetary and TL restrictions. This isn't a campaign, it's a tournament.

 

[alex_greene]

Conversation I just imagined myself saying:

"That's one crap fleet you've got."

"I know. The Naval Architect absconded with most of the money. There's a sector-wide warrant out for him."

 

[BP]

From a spaceship combat rules perspective - it would be interesting to see captial ship combat or capital ship vs. standard ship combats...

I'd prefer encouraging the later - as it seems more practical for many adventure settings.

I originally wanted to field a Capital sized ship with the hope that opponents would have numerous standard sized and small craft, but the budget was too restrictive for me. A GCr 2-5 budgeted tourney, however, with the same rules, might attract this without giving way to ships with just way too much firepower to handle with standard spaceship combat rules.

I know Octagon will be too busy for a while D), so if nobody else takes up the challenge in the next two weeks, I might give it a go.

 

[smiths121]

Hello BP,

Thank you very much for taking the time out from your victory celebrations to answer my enquiries.

It can - but only if the DM's overcome the armour (effect applies as DM) - skill DMs can be very important in overcoming superior forces (rationalizing that skill (character/computer) would imply better targeting of vulnerable systems).

Given your design, I think we are in agreement that armour is good, and armour 8 always negates radiation hit except for meson guns, more on that later.

I do not think that skill is required to get the radiation as my reading of "Special Attacks" section on page 149 of Core Rulebook is "in addition to any other damage" implying 0 or more hits from the weapon. I do not see how skill effects the amount of damage done, other than in more weapons hit or miss, and I do not see how skill or computer effects the Radiation Damage Column of Crew hits on page 151. I could though be missing something, as I find something new in this section every time I read it.

Since Mesons decay inside and bypass armour completely, I felt compelled to add an expensive and space consuming Meson Screen to the Big Shots. Without this I would have loaded up with Particle Beam Barbettes (which probably would have made the tourney a bit shorter ) - but if my opponent had gone the Meson gun route the Big Shots would have been very vulnerable to crew losses.

I agree Meson Guns are scary at Tech Level 11 or above (High Yield at TL 12), not sure 800ton ships have enough room form meson screens in BCD, and a decent punch IMO. 60 MCR/50 ton for the screen or 50 MCr/51 tons for a meson gun bay of my own - "do unto others ... etc". Certainly not going to take away from your victory (technically I think this makes you the MGT BCS champion 2010 at the moment), but I think you would have got more particle barbettes in on a 1600 ton hull (purely because you paid 120MCr, and 100 tons by having 2 ships). This is what I was working on and trying to work out how to counter Meson Guns. Failed to get my squadron of 1 ship in, like to think it was just the Meson Guns, but I expect real life - as it often does - got in the way. My bad.

I agree on 800 ton frames Meson Screens seem very expensive and heavy, I understand your need to put them on. I also wonder if they are worth the money/weight?. Unlike Nuclear Dampers, or Armour 8 they do not remove the automatic critical hit from a Meson Gun, which does not subtract armour, almost certainly a -1DM for the character or characters effected. Worst still, a 50ton Meson Gun bay is 5d6 damage, the screen only reduces it by 2d6. 5d6 average is 17, 2d6 average is 7. Thats 10 damage so average a double hit. How do you defend against that? My conclusion was Reinforced Hull and Structure, and having a Meson Gun bay myself - hence bigger ship.

Damage Control seems powerful in the core rules, ...

Well, there are limits - and, in this tourney, I'm not sure the crew position limitations were accounted for (see Core pg 150 and 146). Damage control requires dedicated crew during a turn and/or repair drones. So it is not unlimited per turn. (My design traded off repair drones and CPU costs for this reason).

OK, not sure I see the limits. The only compulsory position is Pilot, and there is no limit to numbers on damage control. If you use the Full column on Crew Requirements page 113, you have 2 pilots spare to start with. There is one spare gunner per turret as well. That is a lot of spare people to run around patching up holes and kicking systems till they work.

...repairs those hull hits, what y? going to do - don the Vacc Suit and start welding outside? I reckon damage control should be internal only.

During combat, things aren't generally repaired...

Re-read totally agree, Hull and Structure not repaired or jury-rigged in combat they are your clock from alive to dead in combat. Thank you for trying to back up my comment about getting in the vacc suit to go and repair the hull during combat, you found the rules to allow it. I think on most ships we would not find the volunteers. (but sir, they are shooting at us).

Additionally, pg 143 only refers to damaged systems when jury rigging. Looking at Space Combat Damage - based on hits (after armoured bulkheads are gone) systems are damaged, disabled or destroyed. Interpretting this to mean that only damaged systems can be jury-rigged, others would require repair or replacement.

I have to disagree with you here. I think the word "damaged" is used in different context in damage control and damage to systems. The M-Drive hit does not have a disabled state, 2nd hit is -50% thrust rather than disabled, can it be repaired after 2 hits Mechanic checks are per system, and the effects table allows up to 3 hits (the max a system can take in combat before structure or hull hits are hit instead) to be jury rigged (Repair Damaged System page 150 Core rulebook).

I see jury-rig as getting the last remains out of a dead system during combat. After the combat, strategic rules determine if it needs replacing, whether it can be jury rigged long enough to jump and get the ship home.

Looking at your design, your interpretation of the repair rules made you take back up systems which effected the number of decent guns you could mount.

I think we agree on a lot, and have different interpretation on other area. I think the section in the core rulebook is quite vague allowing different interpretations, a poor thing for tournament squadron play, but an excellent thing for a GM, suicidal players and the re-occurring pirate enemy or some such, always good to be able to "interpret" on the fly.

 

[smiths121]

Hello BP,

Thank you very much for taking the time out from your victory celebrations to answer my enquiries.

It can - but only if the DM's overcome the armour (effect applies as DM) - skill DMs can be very important in overcoming superior forces (rationalizing that skill (character/computer) would imply better targeting of vulnerable systems).

Given your design, I think we are in agreement that armour is good, and armour 8 always negates radiation hit except for meson guns, more on that later.

I do not think that skill is required to get the radiation as my reading of "Special Attacks" section on page 149 of Core Rulebook is "in addition to any other damage" implying 0 or more hits from the weapon. I do not see how skill effects the amount of damage done, other than in more weapons hit or miss, and I do not see how skill or computer effects the Radiation Damage Column of Crew hits on page 151. I could though be missing something, as I find something new in this section every time I read it.

Since Mesons decay inside and bypass armour completely, I felt compelled to add an expensive and space consuming Meson Screen to the Big Shots. Without this I would have loaded up with Particle Beam Barbettes (which probably would have made the tourney a bit shorter ) - but if my opponent had gone the Meson gun route the Big Shots would have been very vulnerable to crew losses.

I agree Meson Guns are scary at Tech Level 11 or above (High Yield at TL 12), not sure 800ton ships have enough room form meson screens in BCD, and a decent punch IMO. 60 MCR/50 ton for the screen or 50 MCr/51 tons for a meson gun bay of my own - "do unto others ... etc". Certainly not going to take away from your victory (technically I think this makes you the MGT BCS champion 2010 at the moment), but I think you would have got more particle barbettes in on a 1600 ton hull (purely because you paid 120MCr, and 100 tons by having 2 ships). This is what I was working on and trying to work out how to counter Meson Guns. Failed to get my squadron of 1 ship in, like to think it was just the Meson Guns, but I expect real life - as it often does - got in the way. My bad.

I agree on 800 ton frames Meson Screens seem very expensive and heavy, I understand your need to put them on. I also wonder if they are worth the money/weight?. Unlike Nuclear Dampers, or Armour 8 they do not remove the automatic critical hit from a Meson Gun, which does not subtract armour, almost certainly a -1DM for the character or characters effected. Worst still, a 50ton Meson Gun bay is 5d6 damage, the screen only reduces it by 2d6. 5d6 average is 17, 2d6 average is 7. Thats 10 damage so average a double hit. How do you defend against that? My conclusion was Reinforced Hull and Structure, and having a Meson Gun bay myself - hence bigger ship.

Damage Control seems powerful in the core rules, ...

Well, there are limits - and, in this tourney, I'm not sure the crew position limitations were accounted for (see Core pg 150 and 146). Damage control requires dedicated crew during a turn and/or repair drones. So it is not unlimited per turn. (My design traded off repair drones and CPU costs for this reason).

OK, not sure I see the limits. The only compulsory position is Pilot, and there is no limit to numbers on damage control. If you use the Full column on Crew Requirements page 113, you have 2 pilots spare to start with. There is one spare gunner per turret as well. That is a lot of spare people to run around patching up holes and kicking systems till they work.

...repairs those hull hits, what y? going to do - don the Vacc Suit and start welding outside? I reckon damage control should be internal only.

During combat, things aren't generally repaired...

Re-read totally agree, Hull and Structure not repaired or jury-rigged in combat they are your clock from alive to dead in combat. Thank you for trying to back up my comment about getting in the vacc suit to go and repair the hull during combat, you found the rules to allow it. I think on most ships we would not find the volunteers. (but sir, they are shooting at us).

Additionally, pg 143 only refers to damaged systems when jury rigging. Looking at Space Combat Damage - based on hits (after armoured bulkheads are gone) systems are damaged, disabled or destroyed. Interpretting this to mean that only damaged systems can be jury-rigged, others would require repair or replacement.

I have to disagree with you here. I think the word "damaged" is used in different context in damage control and damage to systems. The M-Drive hit does not have a disabled state, 2nd hit is -50% thrust rather than disabled, can it be repaired after 2 hits Mechanic checks are per system, and the effects table allows up to 3 hits (the max a system can take in combat before structure or hull hits are hit instead) to be jury rigged (Repair Damaged System page 150 Core rulebook).

I see jury-rig as getting the last remains out of a dead system during combat. After the combat, strategic rules determine if it needs replacing, whether it can be jury rigged long enough to jump and get the ship home.

Looking at your design, your interpretation of the repair rules made you take back up systems which effected the number of decent guns you could mount.

I think we agree on a lot, and have different interpretation on other area. I think the section in the core rulebook is quite vague allowing different interpretations, a poor thing for tournament squadron play, but an excellent thing for a GM, suicidal players and the re-occurring pirate enemy or some such, always good to be able to "interpret" on the fly.