Point Defense Error

N

Nerhesi

Cosmic Mongoose
Quote

"To be effective, a ship requires a single point defence battery for every 1,000 tons of its hull. For every point defence battery less than this, DM-1 is imposed to its intercept rolls. "

Ok - cool. I can get behind this! :) But then, the table show 20 Hardpoints per point defence battery.

Uhm... hhehehe, scooozi senor, you get 10 hardpoints per 1000 tons, but you're saying the system takes 20 per 1000 tons to be effective :P

Recommendation:
Have the system take 5 hardpoints - not 20, per 1000 tons. Thats fully half of your hardpoints dedicated to PD.
 
Here is a thought.

Suppose we said no hardpoints are used by dedicated point defence? How would that be?#
 
If you don't have to allocate hardpoints to point defense, you'll still need to have some sort of limitation on who many you can pack onto a ship. If you consider things like sensors, airlocks, etc, you can make the argument that installing, for example, 1 dedicated point defense system per 500 tons is allowed.

If you want to further explore having dedicated escorts that sacrifice offensive for defensive armament (similar to say the old Atlanta class CL's of the US Navy) then that would be reasonable. Then on your proverbial 500 ton ship you could have one point defense system for 'free', and install three more at the expense of three hardpoints.

That's one way to do it, there are others of course.
 
If we consider that it's one point defense roll for one missile or one torpedo then -1 after that the 20 hardpoints is out of whack.

At 20 tons + a variable amount of power plant in terms of weight the 100 ton bay is shifting 24 missiles a time. If you've got around 3 point defense systems for the same weight, you are still playing catch up and is a worthwhile limiter in itself. The weight of the point defense systems will count up quickly.

But how effective is the point defense system vs. the individual turret firing at a missile? This is a question that needs careful consideration on the relative weight basis. Capital ships have laser turrets to burn, and if the weight of point defense is too high relatively (and the hard points at 20 not workable at all) ships will simply put in laser turrets to do the same job at much less weight. 100 tons of laser turrets is, well, 100 turrets. I'm not sure the balance is correct here at all.
 
Sometimes the forum just eats up my reply...

Hey Matt - you definitely want to stick to a hardpoint restriction.

Otherwise it would be silly if every ship didn't pack it! 2% of hull for 6+ defense vs all incoming missiles and torps? Even If it's 20000 missiles? Not degrading any offensive ability? Sign me up!!

You want these dedicated picket ships to trade some offence for fleet defense... I would honestly pin it at 5 hardpoints so you're trading 50% offense for that amazing defense.

Without this, there will be little reason to pack beam turrets and the such because every ship will run with PD
 
&^%$#@! no wonder I've been spinning my wheels. Had the old version of the Weapons and Screens open accidentally. Right that won't happen again! :twisted:

What Nerhesi said.
 
Chas: I believe the restriction about per missile is removed. It is now versus every missile/torp attack.

After this settled, a simple statement like "a ship can provide point defense to a nearby allied ship up to double it's size (see point defense software page XX). Multiple ships can contribute point defense to protect a much larger ship"

This would then simulate the 5 smaller vessels providing PD for the dreadnought for example

EDIT: Hah - we're posting at the same time again ;)
 
Nerhesi said:
After this settled, a simple statement like "a ship can provide point defense to a nearby allied ship up to double it's size (see point defense software page XX). Multiple ships can contribute point defense to protect a much larger ship"

This would then simulate the 5 smaller vessels providing PD for the dreadnought for example
Click to expand...

There's no reason to put in a tonnage restriction. Would be easier to have a player assign escorts to a ship every turn, then simply add in the defensive firepower to the ship that is being escorted, so that 100,000 Dton BC (with 10 PD rolls) is being escorted by 4 5,000 Dton DD's (ea with 2 PD rolls). The BC gets to roll against missile attacks like it has (10+2+2+2+2 = 18 PD rolls) all the defenses of the combined escort group.

Depending on how complicated you wanted to make it, the ships themselves would act as a single ship, engaging targets as a single entity. This could also mean that incoming fire directed at one of the escorts only would have a higher chance of hitting since the escort is dedicating its firepower to the defense of another.

Conversely, with the equivalent of Aegis capabilities for the 5-ship squadron, you could also say that while you can target a single ship within it, all defensive fire and rolls are combined as they are operating as a single entity. That's how fleet defense works today in naval engagements - though the CIWS systems typically are last-ditch intercepts against the vessel they are hosted on. Missiles, however, from the entire group are controlled by Aegis. One could argue this would be how ship squadrons would fight in the future (assuming widespread installation of equipment to tie all the weapon and sensor systems into one).
 
The size limit is an extension of the logic of PD. Where you need x tons of PD to protect a ship of size Y.

Otherwise you could easily abuse the system and have a 2000-ton ship defend a flotilla of 3 million tons that are all within range.

You need to say this much PD can defend that much fleet :)
 
That really shouldn't matter. It's simply a matter of having X guns being able to shoot down Y missiles. Whoever has the larger number wins.

You should always make it though that there is a chance for leaked to get through. No defense should be 100% effective all the time.
 
phavoc said:
That really shouldn't matter. It's simply a matter of having X guns being able to shoot down Y missiles. Whoever has the larger number wins.

You should always make it though that there is a chance for leaked to get through. No defense should be 100% effective all the time.
Click to expand...

I detect a disconnect...

The PD system right now, will protect you against any amount of missiles, via a 6+ at best (technically, 6+ per missile). This absolutely is in line with some will get through, some will not.

The size of the system is scaled based on your ship size. This how you ensure "nominal" coverage.

If we don't place any further rules, a 5kton ship, can protect any millions of tons at a 6+ point defense roll.

So you're X guns, is based on the "surface area" of your ship - which in turns says you can cover Y size ship.

I totally understand what you're saying - and maybe thats the approach we should be taking, in that the PD system should protect vs X missiles, rather than protect a ship of X size.. just a different paradigm than the rules so far. So not sure what the appetite is here
 
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying - a single PD should be able to engage X number of missiles. If you add in multiple ones, you get the multiplier, 2X, 3X, etc for each PD installation.

So you could make a ship that devotes 50% of it's weapons mix to PD and it could withstand immense missile salvo's. And it would be quite weak on offense and a beam-armed enemy would eat it's lunch. It's always a choice about what the mission of the ship is going to be. In this example the anti-missile escort would be invaluable in a task force, and pretty much useless being out on it's own. So you might see a few of them, but they would be built (logically speaking) in limited numbers because of their specialization. And that's realism.
 
phavoc said:
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying - a single PD should be able to engage X number of missiles. If you add in multiple ones, you get the multiplier, 2X, 3X, etc for each PD installation.

So you could make a ship that devotes 50% of it's weapons mix to PD and it could withstand immense missile salvo's. And it would be quite weak on offense and a beam-armed enemy would eat it's lunch. It's always a choice about what the mission of the ship is going to be. In this example the anti-missile escort would be invaluable in a task force, and pretty much useless being out on it's own. So you might see a few of them, but they would be built (logically speaking) in limited numbers because of their specialization. And that's realism.
Click to expand...

I think this could be a better system. I think the best way to address the challenge of balancing how many missiles it can defend against, is also using hardpoints. So that way we can say.. a system that takes 20 hardpoints, can defend vs 30 hardpoints worth of missiles (this is my behind the scenes thinking).

Example - PD SYSTEM, TLblah: 40 tons, 20 hardpoints, 200 power. Can address the first 40 missiles at 6+, and each 40 thereafter that at a cumulative -1.

You'll note I'm trying to keep it as close as possible to the system of beam PD, for seamless transition when we need to upscale a mix of turrets and PD to the capital system. Obviously we'll need to tinker with values.

Hey Matt - this Phavoc gent is on to something ;) I'll mock it up.
 
I put this in the main Traveller area, but here it is again:

Point defense should really be an automated affair. The bigger question though is how do you implement it without totally breaking the missile/ship combat rules. So here's (another) alternate stab:

Point defense systems may be deployed 1 per 500 tons of hull size. It consists of multiple weapon installations, sensors and targeting units spread over the hull of the ship. Different versions are:

TL-8 Point Defense System: Consumes zero points of power and one hardpoint. It is a non-laser (i.e. auto-cannon) style system, and intercepts 1d6-2 missiles or torpedoes on final approach. It cannot engage stand-off weapons.

TL-10 Point Defense System: Consumes one point of power and two hardpoints. Intercepts 1d6+2 missiles or torpedoes on final approach. For incoming fire that is of the stand-off variety effectiveness is halved.

TL-12 Improved Point Defense System: Consumes three points of power and two hardpoints. Intercepts 1d6+4 missiles or torpedoes on final approach. For incoming fire that is of the stand-off variety effective is halved.

TL-15 Enhanced Point Defense System: Consumes five points of power and three hardpoints. Intercepts 2d6 missiles or torpedoes on final approach. For incoming fire that is of the stand-ff variety effectiveness is halved.

The idea is that if you are willing to give up offensive firepower for dedicated defensive power you should be somewhat rewarded. The TL-15 version gives up guaranteed hits for more potential hits, but also bad rolls mean more missiles can possibly get through.

Traveller could borrow a good concept from other games, such as SFB and especially Shadowrun. Say for example you had 6 PD systems installed on your ship. Instead of rolling individually for each one, you simply roll with 6 dice and get your results from there. Adventure class ships won't usually have that many, but if you play in the sub-2000 Dton range you might. It makes it real easy to figure out what you hit in one roll and can speed up game play.
 
Revised PD batteries. Something as simple as this?

A point defence battery automatically intercepts missile and torpedo salvoes just before they make their own attack rolls. A point defence battery will reduce the number of missiles in a salvo by 3D (torpedoes halve this as described on page XX).

To be effective, a ship requires a single point defence battery for every 1,000 tons of its hull. For every point defence battery less than this, DM-1 is imposed to this intercept roll.
 
Almost Matt - 1 small but significant-effect change.

"A point defence battery automatically intercepts missile and torpedo salvoes just before they make their own attack rolls. A point defence battery will reduce the number of missiles in a salvo by 2D (torpedoes halve this as described on page XX)." (No change here, except downgraded to 2D).

The change:
Do not have it do anything with ship size. Have the ratio of 2D to 1 hardpoint and X tons. The idea is that a designer who allocates hardpoints to point defense gets a hardpoint that is more effective vs missiles but zero offensive power. Example:

A triple pulse laser, 1 hard point, 1 ton, around 2 to 6 missiles intercepted on average (equivalent of 2D3)
A point defense battery, 1 hardpoint, 5, 3 or 1 ton lets say (depends on TL), 2-12 missiles intercepted (2D6). (Same power cost as above)

Done! You now have a meaningful choice in ship design to select between "Do I want a triple pulse turret, or point defense?" - and it seamlessly integrates with protecting other ships.
 
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