Re-imagining High Guard's example ships

[MasterGwydion]

As one of the designers on HG2022, and the architect of most of the capital ships, I can tell you that it was a frustrating exercise in some ways. As you become more familiar with the rules, you can see all the improvements you could make, but if you make them, at some point a Tigress is no longer a Tigress, a Plankwell is no longer a Plankwell, etc. You either try to fit the old designs into the new construction rules, or you toss out the old altogether and make new ships.

When trying to redesign these ships faithfully, you have to wonder: Just what the heck is Imperial Naval Doctrine? Most of these ships seem extremely vulnerable and, at the expense of some firepower, they could be made so much more effective. Maybe the Imperium just likes putting big guns into the field and doesn't care if the ships are destroyed. Maybe by inflicting maximum firepower, they believe they will force their opponents to relent before their own vulnerabilities are exposed. You have to sort of shoehorn a rationale behind the designs, because they definitely seem like they can be improved.

We could redesign them again, calling them Tigresses, Plankwells, Elements, Arakoines, Atlantics, etc., this time using what we believe to be the most effective designs, but they would be the originals in name only, and offering a different narrative than the original designers intended.

Given all of the other setting-changing things that have been changed over the editions, it would seem like redesigning ships to use the modern rules would be an extremely minor change when compared to other changes that have occurred, such as the jump bubble or the jump torpedoes.

 

[mavikfelna]

As one of the designers on HG2022, and the architect of most of the capital ships, I can tell you that it was a frustrating exercise in some ways. As you become more familiar with the rules, you can see all the improvements you could make, but if you make them, at some point a Tigress is no longer a Tigress, a Plankwell is no longer a Plankwell, etc. You either try to fit the old designs into the new construction rules, or you toss out the old altogether and make new ships.

When trying to redesign these ships faithfully, you have to wonder: Just what the heck is Imperial Naval Doctrine? Most of these ships seem extremely vulnerable and, at the expense of some firepower, they could be made so much more effective. Maybe the Imperium just likes putting big guns into the field and doesn't care if the ships are destroyed. Maybe by inflicting maximum firepower, they believe they will force their opponents to relent before their own vulnerabilities are exposed. You have to sort of shoehorn a rationale behind the designs, because they definitely seem like they can be improved.

We could redesign them again, calling them Tigresses, Plankwells, Elements, Arakoines, Atlantics, etc., this time using what we believe to be the most effective designs, but they would be the originals in name only, and offering a different narrative than the original designers intended.

It's your game and your system. There comes a time you need to update the old to work correctly in the new. Keep the old names and as much of the flavor as you can but make them make sense in the new system. The Mongoose rules for spinal mounts are drastically different than the HG80 rules so it makes them fundamentally different as it is. Armor and such is different as well.

 

[Vormaerin]

That's true, but they'll piss off part of the player base either way. A Tigress that isn't a Tigress except in name is as much of a problem as a Tigress that is bad at the fleet combat system few people actually use. They are just problems for different sections of the player base. Though there are probably some that are upset about both things

 

[MasterGwydion]

That's true, but they'll piss off part of the player base either way. A Tigress that isn't a Tigress except in name is as much of a problem as a Tigress that is bad at the fleet combat system few people actually use. They are just problems for different sections of the player base. Though there are probably some that are upset about both things

The problem is that a MgT2 Tigress is already not a Tigress when compared to the original Tigress. The same goes with almost every other ship design that originated in previous editions. So, already the ships do not function as they were originally designed. Given how different MgT2 ships function compared to their original counterparts, a Tigress is already a Tigress in name only.

 

[Terry Mixon]

As one of the designers on HG2022, and the architect of most of the capital ships, I can tell you that it was a frustrating exercise in some ways. As you become more familiar with the rules, you can see all the improvements you could make, but if you make them, at some point a Tigress is no longer a Tigress, a Plankwell is no longer a Plankwell, etc. You either try to fit the old designs into the new construction rules, or you toss out the old altogether and make new ships.

When trying to redesign these ships faithfully, you have to wonder: Just what the heck is Imperial Naval Doctrine? Most of these ships seem extremely vulnerable and, at the expense of some firepower, they could be made so much more effective. Maybe the Imperium just likes putting big guns into the field and doesn't care if the ships are destroyed. Maybe by inflicting maximum firepower, they believe they will force their opponents to relent before their own vulnerabilities are exposed. You have to sort of shoehorn a rationale behind the designs, because they definitely seem like they can be improved.

We could redesign them again, calling them Tigresses, Plankwells, Elements, Arakoines, Atlantics, etc., this time using what we believe to be the most effective designs, but they would be the originals in name only, and offering a different narrative than the original designers intended.

I personally think during the next full redo of the High Guard rules, everything should be made legal and designed to the best of their ability. Be like the soap operas when they bring in a new actor. "The role of Tigress will now be played by..." and let the new rules be rules in truth.

 

[Sageryne]

Hi Fluffy Bunny Feet,

Make use of modules to allow re-configuring ships for different roles. Pull the Scout module out and put in a Seeker module or a cargo module or passenger module. You can have a ship that depending on the module has Jump fuel for J-1 or J-2 essentially letting your ship be a Free/Far Trader with a module replacement.

I did post my TL13, 150-dTon Kestrel Class Modular Transport with J-2 & M-2 with 24 different 50-dTon modules that works just like that.

Kestrel Modular Transport.pdf

drive.google.com

 

[rinku]

Looking at the CT era stuff, but also the GDW space combat boardgames like Double Star and Imperium, it's pretty clear that a lot the inspirations are drawn from Doc Smith fleet battles.

Realistically, a big cloud of spaceships will be easily detectable well outside of weapon range. They'll see each other, mostly know each other's vectors, probably be unable to force the other fleet to action in most cases. No one's running out of maneuver fuel or ammo any time soon, either. Although fighters and missiles will eventually run out.

Electronic warfare will obscure intel, though. You can't hide that a ship is over there, but you can try to affect active sensors working out the actual range.

Surprise pretty much involves Jump. I could see a type of ship designed to arrive as close to a defense point as possible with as much burst offense as it can cram in. The 100D limit and especially the 10D limit are reliable shields against this ploy (to the extent that maybe it is only practical against deep space targets), which may go a great deal towards explaining a lack of deep space facilities. You WANT some grade of local mass to allow local defenders time to react to raiders.

 

[collins355]

Just posting a list of Traveller fleet (ish) combat rules, and my impressions/experiences with them:

CT/High Guard - LBB5 had a set of fleet combat rules alongside the Naval character generation rules and the ship design sequences. Quite abstract. Turns are twenty minutes each. There is no ground scale - just two abstract ranges called short and long. No role for sensors or detection. Very limited maneuver - essentially you line up your fleets like ancients armies and knock lumps out of each other until one side breaks. Small role for RPG elements - Fleet Tactics skill, for instance. No attempt at defining crew quality impact. However, the combat rules did align very well with the ship design rules - design decisions had a relevance to the combat, and vice versa. The separate Trillion Credit Squadron supplement provided extra rules and the ability to run a campaign of sorts.

Fifth Frontier War and Invasion: Earth boardgames - shared an identical combat system for fleet battles that bears no relationship to the High Guard rules. Very abstract - squadron-level (i.e. battlerons, crurons, etc rather than individual ships) with no sensors or maneuver. Uses a CRT table and a D6 roll to determine combat results after adding up total attack factors on a side. Quick and often decisive. But no real relationship to ship design rules in CT. No system was provided to step from High Guard design ratings to a FFW battleron or cruron rating. Optional rules introduced crew quality effects.

The CT corebook space combat rules, and the boardgame Mayday were not for fleet combat.

MegaTrav - attempted to meld the High Guard system to a hex-based concept that incorporated both sensors/detection and maneuver. Failed, due to a range of factors including outrageously large errata, wacky movement rules, trouble bringing High Guard into MegaTrav's iconic "task system", the notorious "tactics pool"/"roving DM" and odd choices of ground and time scale compared with MT's insistence on rangebands and the stipulation that ships could start off moving at rates up to ten times their Man-G rating. Ground scale was 25,000km per hex.

TNE/Battle Rider - TNE actually had at least 3 space combat systems in quick succession. The intended space combat rules weren't ready for the corebook release, and so they pushed it out with a simple rangeband system that was focused on single-ship combat. Then they issued the intended ship-to-ship combat system (Brilliant Lances) as a separate module with ship design rules - it was extraordinarily complex and could only work with a couple of ships. So, the fleet combat system was released third, called Battle Rider. For me these are the best fleet combat rules released for any Traveller edition so far. They have a ground scale of 30,000km (or one-tenth of a light-second) per hex, and a time scale of 30 minutes per game turn. Took the courageous (and correct for fleet combat) decision to only focus on what HG would call critical hits and I would call ship-killer hits, rather than all the surface damage and non-critical hits. It uses vector movement like Mayday. Included a nice attempt at fog-of-war (you organise your fleet into task forces the ships of which which initially are not detailed for the enemy, who must detect them, and the decision to go active or stay passive is meaningful). Uses no dice whatsoever (a card-based mechanic instead, which some instinctively hate!). Ship design decisions play an important role in combat, with RPG elements also included to a small degree.

T4/Imperial Squadrons - aside from corebook ship-to-ship rules which are rangeband based, and poor, T4 had a supplement called Imperial Squadrons which (especially when combined with the separate supplement Pocket Empires) for the first time provided purchasers with the ability to take the proven CT/FFW fleet combat system and use it outside the confines of that boardgame. Now you could develop a naval campaign across vast expanses of charted space on standard subsector hex grids and relatively easily resolve it. The combat rules were basically the same as FFW, with a few small tweaks and fixes. But crucially the supplements include rules to create fleets for worlds on the basis of their economic potential. Decisions are able to be made to prioritise attack, or defence, factors for battlerons or cruiser rons and rules provide for construction and repair times.

GURPS Trav/Interstellar Wars - GT had a ship-to-ship combat system, but I wouldn't try using it for fleets. The 4th edition GT supplement Interstellar Wars (set in the before-times of Terran expansion in the face of the Vilani 1st Imperium) included its own set of fleet combat rules and associated ship design sequences. The ground scale is one hex = 10,000 miles, with one turn equaling twenty minutes. It uses vector movement like Mayday. Sensor rules include silent-running and a decision whether to go active and light up your sensors.

Power Projection - not associated with a particular edition of Traveller but rather a separate product from BITS (British Isles Traveller group) these rules are a modification of the existing SF starship combat ruleset Full Thrust. Power Projection uses vector movement, but does not require a hex mat. Traveller elements like meson guns, Zhodani psionics and jump drives are all included. But I dislike the damage resolution mechanic - which is heavily attritional and (a bit like original HG) gets overwhelmingly time consuming when a battleship is firing at another battleship.

Maybe there are some others? I'm sure...