Questions: Refiting ships with weapons

[DivineWrath]

I have a few problems with weapons, namely fitting ships with weapons when they had none before.

Turrets take up tonnage, but where does that tonnage come from? Do you have to sacrifice a stateroom or some cargo space to add a new turret?

Some weapons use ammo. Do you need to have a storage room near the turret itself to reduce reload times? If you don't, does a crew man have to run down the hall to the cargo hold and carry some back?

Likewise, if I was designing a ship, should I set aside some space for possible weapon upgrades later? Room for the turret and maybe some ammo storage?

Anything I should know but didn't know to ask?

 

[wbnc]

Usually yes you would have to give up some room fro cargo, or some of the section..say the common areas f the ship for example. Basically, what was usable space now has the bucket of a turret mounting utting out into it and a lot of cables and power converters snaking down up into the new skull cracker in the ceiling. Ya might want to put a bit of warning tape and some foam padding around that ...

If you want to set aside tonnage for possible upgrades, ammo storage etc...which I whole heartedly support. yu simply leave that tonnage unassigned and make a note of it in the ships description. If yo set side cargo space for ammo, you can always allow the crew to use it for storage, or loose pack cargo when it's not full of missiles, sand barrels or torpedoes.

I would also suggest adding those areas to the deck plans. put you ammo storage bins near the weapons that will need them, or near areas where the new turret might be added.


I would like to point out under the new rules you can add tonnage to a design and adjust thrust,jump power requirements, and total tonnage. In a lot of cases adding a single turret won't really change the power requirements or performance of the ship by any appreciable amount. The weapons in the turret might tax the power supply and require additional reactor tonnage...

 

[Condottiere]

If your vessel is a bunch of statistics, shuffling around the numbers isn't a problem.

If you like accurate deckplans, you probably will have issues, unless you rub out and redesign the areas in question.

The vessel's original architect could have made provisions for fitting in weapon systems after commissioning, in which case the turret socket could be capped with a sunroof, where you have, if temporarily, your vegetable garden, or acts as a ship's locker. The power mains should run conveniently nearby.

Adding on volume is not an issue for a spaceship, since it would only fractionally slow it down; it could be an issue for the jump drive, though we could make fractional jumps, but then the dungeon master has to really figure out the exact distance between entering and exiting the rabbit hole.

 

[DivineWrath]

I forgot an important question. Where do the gunners shoot from? Do they control things from the bridge? Is there a weapon console next to the turret?

 

[Condottiere]

It's ambiguous, probably at this point in time, deliberately.

Pop culture certainly ensures it remains optional.

 

[DivineWrath]

I have considered Star Wars Millennium Falcon style turrets. However I'm more interested in having the controls for the turrets inside the bridge. Central control and all. Also, so the passengers can't wander into them.

Do the turrets themselves take up the space, or do the controls? If it is the controls, I would rather have them in the bridge. At least for this ship.

I think its probably safe to assume that the tonnage is stored inside the ship. Otherwise any refit might increase the tonnage and require that the drives and P-Plant to be recalculated.

 

[Condottiere]

My house rule is that you can have a one percent variance in tonnage when actually going down the rabbit hole, without it creating any additional chance for a misjump.

 

[steve98052]

Most editions of Traveller have required that hardpoints be designated at time of original construction, with no opportunity for retrofit if they're left out. I think it's also the case that space for turrets be allocated at time of construction, but actually installing a turret is optional. If no turret is installed, the space is just a patch of cargo space that's probably separate from the rest of the cargo space, or even if it's adjacent it will be a turret shaped alcove rather than just a part of the contiguous cargo hold.

If a ship were designed without the necessary hardpoint, I would rule that it would require a completely new hull, with salvage credit for the old hull, plus the labor to pull out all the ship's components from the old hull and install them into the new one. It's a major rebuild, and probably makes the ship legally a new vehicle, but built from salvaged components. It's probably better to sell the old ship to someone who will be staying away from shipping lanes where weapons are needed.

If the ship included hardpoints, but didn't have space allocated to turrets (and magazine space for missile launchers), I'd expect to work through the question by looking at the deck plan, and redrawing it to make room for turrets. That might mean that the ship ends up losing a stateroom and gaining a turret with three dtons of magazine space. (Player: "But I'm mounting lasers there. I don't need the magazine space!" Game master: "Well, you get the magazine space anyway, or maybe you just have a 42 cubic meter walk-in closet.") What if the removed component is something the owner doesn't want to do without? Or something the ship can't do without? It goes into a cargo space, or into a fuel space with the fuel space rebuilt into the cargo hold. Cost? Probably 25% to 50% of the coat of a moved component, with cargo and fuel counted at the proportional coat of that many dtons of hull.

If there's a hardpoint and empty turret space, it's easy. Full price for the turret, with installation included as long as the ship is in for annual maintenance, or make up a figure if it's between the annual maintenance.

Lesson: if there's any chance a ship will ever be expected to mount weapons, include at least the hardpoints and empty turret space.

 

[phavoc]

You shouldn't have to dispose of a ship if you want to refit it with a hardpoint that was not originally there at the time of construction. The idea (at least this is how I see it) is that if you build in the potential at the time of construction it's not a big deal. The necessary power couplings, wiring, sensor tie in, etc, etc, is already there. Plus you put in the necessary superstructure to support a weapon hardpoint.

If you want to retrofit it's just more expensive. Installing power couplings, adding in the necessary sensor and bridge connection wiring trunks, setting up a sealed compartment, etc. It's a job for a shipyard, and that means it's not going to be cheap.

The thing to remember is that Traveller handles these sorts of things at a very high level. If, for exampled, they chose to install a new 16" turrets admidships on the the Iowa class battleships, like they had on the original Dreadnought class, it's possible that it could be done. But it would mean a great deal of superstructure would need to be gutted, secondary weapons removed, new magazines build, hull reinforcements completed, etc, etc. It would be massively expensive and probably not a good idea after the fact. But that's reality, not abstractly like Traveller does weapons.

The Japanese BC Kongo underwent multiple renovations and changes. She was rebuilt multiple times, having her entire set of boilers ripped out and replaced, losing a funnel (and having the second one enlarged), more than doubling her armor, adding torpedo bulges and even at one point she had her stern lengthened by 8m. They never tried to add in additional main guns, keeping the A, B, X & Y turrets in place. But the secondary armaments were pretty much gutted and replaced with more modern weapons and better mounts.

So it should be considered quite possible, but it's not cheap. Placing lighter armaments on civilian ships should be much cheaper (but still not cheap). One question to ask yourself, is installing a turret on a 1,000 ton cargo ship the equivalent of mounting a 5" deck gun, or say bolting on a 37mm anti tank gun on the forward deck of a PT boat (or a 75mm gun in the nose of a B-25? All of those things were retrofitted, sometime in the field, sometimes by design. But all were added after the original designs were complete and the craft deployed.

 

[steve98052]

. . . So it should be considered quite possible, but it's not cheap. Placing lighter armaments on civilian ships should be much cheaper (but still not cheap). One question to ask yourself, is installing a turret on a 1,000 ton cargo ship the equivalent of mounting a 5" deck gun, or say bolting on a 37mm anti tank gun on the forward deck of a PT boat (or a 75mm gun in the nose of a B-25? All of those things were retrofitted, sometime in the field, sometimes by design. But all were added after the original designs were complete and the craft deployed.

As I see it, a ship without hardpoints is a non-combatant by design. Fitting a turret on a 1000 dton cargo ship that was built without hardpoints isn't analogous to adding an extra gun turret on a wet navy frigate. It's more like adding a gun turret to a container ship. Sure, there's probably a way to add the necessary bracing to carry the guns, but what you end up with is still a freighter, designed to haul cargo along the most direct path between ports at lowest cost, with maneuverability suitable for harbor navigation but not combat evasive maneuvers.

In a rugged patch of space like the adventure friendly parts of the Traveller universe, it's likely that practically every ship is fitted with quite a few hardpoints; they're cheap at time of construction, and ships are kept in service for so long that they're almost certain to be refitted for different tasks over the years.

 

[phavoc]

As I see it, a ship without hardpoints is a non-combatant by design. Fitting a turret on a 1000 dton cargo ship that was built without hardpoints isn't analogous to adding an extra gun turret on a wet navy frigate. It's more like adding a gun turret to a container ship. Sure, there's probably a way to add the necessary bracing to carry the guns, but what you end up with is still a freighter, designed to haul cargo along the most direct path between ports at lowest cost, with maneuverability suitable for harbor navigation but not combat evasive maneuvers.

In a rugged patch of space like the adventure friendly parts of the Traveller universe, it's likely that practically every ship is fitted with quite a few hardpoints; they're cheap at time of construction, and ships are kept in service for so long that they're almost certain to be refitted for different tasks over the years.

I've always seen Traveller as more analagous to early 20th century, since the technology and function seems to match better with the fast liners, tramp freighters and the big-gun battleship reigned supreme on the seas. Adding a deck gun and some machine guns to a 6,000 ton freighter happened many thousand times as the civilian merchant marine was armed.

And Traveller makes no difference between a merchant ship or a warship. I feel that they should, as armoring a ship is more than just putting thicker plates on the hull. Without the proper infrastructure inside to channel the energy from a outer hull strike the armor would crumple. Making ship armor is mostly a lost art because nobody builds armored warships anymore. When ships ruled the seas the technology to making better armor was a closely held state secret and could sway who won between battlewagons - assuming you didn't try to put battlecrusiers up against battleships.

In Traveller ships do have long lives, and I suspect its possible for more than a few hulls to wander away from the subsector that created them. Most merchants in core probably don't carry any armaments, while those that ply the Spinward main probably are.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

In earlier editions hardpoints were hardcoded, but not in MgT2:

Finally, do firm/hardpoints have to be designated during construction.
Personal opinion: No
RAW: you have to be a stickler to get an answer, and even then the best you can get is "No". Page 24 quote "A ship has 1 hardpoint for every..."

A ship has hardpoints. It does not need any effort to have them.

So with the proper starport facilities, you'd be able to add weapons (and it would be a lot easier if the craft was modular).

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=119745&hilit=firmpoint&start=20#p912139

Even if you have no space over you can always install fixed mounts, they take no space.

CT TCS & MgT TCS have rules for refitting ships.

 

[Condottiere]

The Kongos were practically new ships, but still the most utilized Japanese capital ships because of their speed, apparent age and were considered expendable.

As I recall, you can switch a spinal mount with one of equivalent or smaller volume; you can't build one in because it's supposedly an integral part of the hull, and at least it's mountings and brackets hold vessel together.

New bay installation involves tearing sizable trenches in the hull, which seems a major refurbishment, especially if it's heavily armoured.

Turrets and barbettes, as well as fixed mounts, probably just are punching holes into the hull, and bracing that section.