My first ship, whadda' ya' think?
- Thread starter Infojunky
- Start date
Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I agree, a A PP produces enough power to accelerate 100 tons at 2gs. That a lot of MWs!
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Rikki Tikki Traveller said:
which is why a simple power level limit is problematic - plus, as I pointed out earlier, a bay can easily contain its own powerplant -A or bigger, actually....which moots the whole thing. Add too much detail t the power rules, and all sorts of problems start appearing -and eventually one gets back to an arbitrary limit.
Still, the simple 1/1000 tons bay limit does seem a little too broad a limit if one wants to limit bay use to larger ships(not a forgone conclusion I hasten to add).
Can we come up with a more functional idea for limiting bays other than just a basic limit, or a detailed power point system ? Perhaps that's the goal worth shooting for......?
hdrider67 said:
While I dislike the Captain's approach to solving the issue (I'm a power points fan myself), a power system is requisite for sanity.
And while I disagreed with the values on the tables in the playtest, I lived the idea.
Dropping the system entirely was slipshod design work.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
simonh said:
To play annoying devils advocate, I have to say that your argument is pretty good. I'm not completely convinced that a particle bay is all that more of a power drain than 4 turrets, and honestly, looking at it from a realife perspective, trading off cargo for weaponry and increasing initial construction costs really ought to be good enough reasons for limiting bays . Historicaly, age of sail ships only carried big guns if they were military; armed merchantmen, even the east indiamen, were never armed up to comprable military levels either by tonnage, or effectiveness (often, the guns were rendered unusable by cargo being stored all over and around them...). And, I'm on the side that feels that not allowing military ships to trade tonnage for weaponry is an oversight.
Plus, even in periods when armed merchantmen were comparable to military ships (by virtue of military ships simply being rented and uparmed merchantmen with navy crews of officers), they were never as effective as the military crewed ships, even considering equal weight of shot.
My main idea behind a power allocation system is not that it should somehow balance the design proccess (that's the GM's job with the campaign)* but rather to involve more of the players in ship operations and cause more choice modeling.
* in other words, if the players can build a tiny ship with big guns, so can the government -and megacorps, and pirates and other adventurers; so things mostly even out. Plus, the stingships are not necc a killer strategy - a weapon system on a small ship is much more vulnerable to never firing twice than one on a bigger heavily armored ship. (The fuzzy-wuzzy formula: combat effectiveness increases roughly as the square root of the increase/decrease in firepower over the increase/decrease in survivability)
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Jame Rowe said:
Actually, I'd probably be unhelpfully pointing out that all the power point systems in he world wouldn't make a difference for that...and that, IIRC, a particle bay does less damage, if not more penetration......
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Infojunky said:
well, 13 points of armor will do that, right ?
The system is a bit fragile when applied to military issues, it seems....but no real problem given the level of the rules.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
Actually, some thinking about the Small ship/big bay issue, and looking at the numbers, too, leads me to think that much of the concern is simply due to the name. A PA bay is a pretty big deal for a small ship (at high tech), to mount in HG*, and so seems quite scary on first discussion in MGT;However, it really looks like the MGT 50t PABay is much less dangerous than its HG counterpart Looking at both MGT damage values (the equiv of a triple beam w/. higher penetration), it really does appear much more on the lines of the old Barbette.
A high guard PA bay is a factor 5 weapon (at the introduction tech for particle beam barbettes or turrets) , the equiv of 10 beam lasers; the triple beam turret is a 3; an MGT bay is at most a 4: damage equiv to a triple beam turret & a generous +1 for extra penetration. **
The UWP is a semi-log function, so a HG 50t bay is a minimum of twice as powerful as an MGT 50dt bay, but a pretty good match for a barbette.
So, it seems even less of an issue that smaller craft can install bays.....if anything, one can argue that the MGT bay is a closer match to one of the HG1 10 ton bays...but they no longer exist.....
*if it was allowed......
**I'm leaving out the +1 mod for the HG beam factor as the MGT laser would also need more damage if tech was to be included as per HG-so, i'm factoring that out, and using the PB values for tech at introduction of the PA turrets and barbettes. Yes, its a bit fluffy, but heck. Apples and oranges, anyway comparisons between HG & MGT anyhow
A high guard PA bay is a factor 5 weapon (at the introduction tech for particle beam barbettes or turrets) , the equiv of 10 beam lasers; the triple beam turret is a 3; an MGT bay is at most a 4: damage equiv to a triple beam turret & a generous +1 for extra penetration. **
The UWP is a semi-log function, so a HG 50t bay is a minimum of twice as powerful as an MGT 50dt bay, but a pretty good match for a barbette.
So, it seems even less of an issue that smaller craft can install bays.....if anything, one can argue that the MGT bay is a closer match to one of the HG1 10 ton bays...but they no longer exist.....
*if it was allowed......
**I'm leaving out the +1 mod for the HG beam factor as the MGT laser would also need more damage if tech was to be included as per HG-so, i'm factoring that out, and using the PB values for tech at introduction of the PA turrets and barbettes. Yes, its a bit fluffy, but heck. Apples and oranges, anyway comparisons between HG & MGT anyhow
Here is my corrollary to the 100 ton PP-Bay SDB:
300 ton Crow-Class SDB
Producer: Selena Shipyards LIC
300 ton streamlined reflec selfsealing hull (MCr 390)
Manuever-Drive G: 13 tons, 28 MCr, 6G accel (correct me if wrong!)
Power Plant G: 22 tons, 56 MCr
Fuel: 40 tons, 4 weeks ops (12 more tons can be taken out of cargo for greater endurance)
Bridge: 20 tons, 1.5 MCr
Computer model/4 Fib: 7.5 MCr
Advanced Electronics: 3 tons, 2 MCr
12 points Crystaliron armor: 45 tons, 9 MCr
12 Staterooms: 48 tons, 6 MCr
12 Escape Pods: 6 tons, 1.2 MCr
Missile Bay: 51 tons, 12 MCr (Or Particle Beam Bay, 51 tons, 20 MCr, 100.5 tons cargo total)
2 Triple Turrets: 2 tons, 2 MCr
4 pulse lasers: 2 MCr
2 sandcasters: .5 tons
Fuel Processor: 1 ton, 0.05 MCr
Cargo: 66.5 tons general, 40 tons Missile/Sand Stores
Software: Manuever/0, Library/0
Evade/2: 2 MCr
Intellect: 1 MCr
Fire Control 2: 4 MCr
8 Crew, 10 marines (if used as police cutter)
10 months to build, 172.55 MCr total cost (reduced to 170 MCr as a standard design; particle beam variant costs 180.55 MCr or 180 as standard design). Architect's Fees paid off.
300 ton Crow-Class SDB
Producer: Selena Shipyards LIC
300 ton streamlined reflec selfsealing hull (MCr 390)
Manuever-Drive G: 13 tons, 28 MCr, 6G accel (correct me if wrong!)
Power Plant G: 22 tons, 56 MCr
Fuel: 40 tons, 4 weeks ops (12 more tons can be taken out of cargo for greater endurance)
Bridge: 20 tons, 1.5 MCr
Computer model/4 Fib: 7.5 MCr
Advanced Electronics: 3 tons, 2 MCr
12 points Crystaliron armor: 45 tons, 9 MCr
12 Staterooms: 48 tons, 6 MCr
12 Escape Pods: 6 tons, 1.2 MCr
Missile Bay: 51 tons, 12 MCr (Or Particle Beam Bay, 51 tons, 20 MCr, 100.5 tons cargo total)
2 Triple Turrets: 2 tons, 2 MCr
4 pulse lasers: 2 MCr
2 sandcasters: .5 tons
Fuel Processor: 1 ton, 0.05 MCr
Cargo: 66.5 tons general, 40 tons Missile/Sand Stores
Software: Manuever/0, Library/0
Evade/2: 2 MCr
Intellect: 1 MCr
Fire Control 2: 4 MCr
8 Crew, 10 marines (if used as police cutter)
10 months to build, 172.55 MCr total cost (reduced to 170 MCr as a standard design; particle beam variant costs 180.55 MCr or 180 as standard design). Architect's Fees paid off.
captainjack23
Cosmic Mongoose
pasuuli said:
Exactly. See my comments about how much room is likely available for a dedicated power source in a bay.
I'm just not seeing the damage increment one would expect if the Bay was packed full of individual Pbeams - or had one honking 15x normal weapon in it.
I think the simplest and least intrusive change, if one feels that a change is needed, is to simply require it to allocate 5 hardpoints per 50 ton bay.
