Screens - February Update

[phavoc]

Should we be allowing someone to "angle the deflector screens" on capital ships? OR should we treat screens more like shields, i.e. they are always on so long as they are powered and radiate in a sphere around the ship? You can still have operators, but I'm not sure I like the idea of somehow having a person making a screen MORE efficient.

After all we are talking about light-speed weaponry, and the only indication that an attack is incoming is when the attack is incoming. So it's impossible for a human to do anything about "angling" a screen to ward off an attack. There's simply no warning.

Since we aren't using pure shields to absorb damage, but rather degrade it, it seems that you should be able to mount concentric rings of protection around your ship, each one would degrade say 10% of an attack. But by degrading an attack it also loses it's charge until the beginning of the next turn. This gives you more of the idea that you are peeling away the layers of an onion and by only using overwhelming firepower can you start doing damage to a ship.

Spinals, I think, are special types of damage. And they should be degraded SOME, but essentially they just punch a hole through any defenses. Which makes it reasonable to keep them around - armor and screens help keep you alive, but all spinals will at least do SOME damage if they hit.

And maybe these emitters need to be of a certain size, thus ensuring they are only in play on larger warships. I don't think adventure-class ships should have these types of defenses.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I was thinking about this. I think we'll keep the operator in the mix at this level, but the High Technology chapter will have 'proper' shields - refs can swap screens out for shields if they prefer. Best of both worlds.

 

[Nerhesi]

Are we staying with 10+ difficulty, and Effect X 2D per screen?
OR
8+ difficulty and Effect X 1D per screen?

I prefer the latter - smoother curve.

 

[Chas]

I was thinking about this. I think we'll keep the operator in the mix at this level, but the High Technology chapter will have 'proper' shields - refs can swap screens out for shields if they prefer. Best of both worlds.

If you're going to do this Matt could I suggest that you move Meson Screens into the High Technology chapter also. To the uninitiated Traveller player as written their use is obtuse - are you feasibly going to use these against a Meson Spinal?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The screens as they are now are utterly pointless, just remove them.

If they should be a choice in the game they should be useful. They are useful if they can stop a much heavier weapon, forcing the attacker to double up his attacks to overload the screens.

 

[phavoc]

I can see keeping an operator in the mix for adventure class ships where PC's will be around, but for fleet combat, things like screens (heck, maybe even PD and other things) simply need to be factors. So if you have a Offensive Factor 100 Meson attack coming in, your Defense against Mesons is X, which reduces the attack by that much. And leave it at that. It will make fleet vs. fleet combat much cleaner.

In my SFB days, we thought it would be fun to do squadron/small fleet combats, cause yanno, we would have battleships and cruisers and escorts and.... oy! After the 2nd round it became less about gaming and more about trying to keep your books straight.

I do like to be able to build capital ships - that's half the fun. But at some point the builds you create generic rating numbers and you use those to fight your fleet battles. Individual systems are far better left to the small-ship scale where you, as a player, can actually make a personal difference in turning the course of the battle.

 

[Nerhesi]

The screens as they are now are utterly pointless, just remove them.

If they should be a choice in the game they should be useful. They are useful if they can stop a much heavier weapon, forcing the attacker to double up his attacks to overload the screens.

That is exactly what they do. Are you sure you're calculating correctly?

Lets take the middle-power PC:
Using a screen is Dex+Gunner(Screen). Lets say you have +2 dex (implant boosting an "ok" dex stat), +2 screens skill, +1 skill-wire.
Assuming an 8 rolled on 2D, That is 13. You have now stopped 6D of fusion damage per 20-ton screen. You're now easily stopping more than your weight in fusion bays - easily.

For your run-of-the-mill guys, you need to use the Screen Optimizer software which will just give a 2D reduction per 20 tons. This doesn't obviously match the weapons but these weapons also have to subtract armour for each hit. But I agree it is still horribly inefficient.

I have a PC in my previous game with +2 dex, 4 screen skill, +1 from skill wire. Technically that PC can stop the largest Meson Spinal (28,000 TONS) with JUST 1400 TONS of Screens (100 TL15 screens). Thats a little ludicrous. With an average roll.


This is why I proposed the 1D x Effect and LOWERING the difficulty on the angle screens roll to an 8+. It makes less skilled screen users more useful, and super skilled screen users less ridiculously good

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Then I must misunderstand the rules.

The roll is 8+? The Angle screen action does not contain a difficulty so I assume default 8+.

Given that the screen damage reduction roll is now multiplied by effect I can only assume that is a separate roll.

I read the rules as the screens roll a damage multiply by effect and reduce incoming damage by that amount. So, with an average effect of say 5, four screens will reduce incoming damage by 8 * 3,5 * 5 = 140 points. Five screens will reduce 1 * 3,5 * 10 * 5 = 175 points.

If you are saying that five screens are 125 times as effective as four screens, but only against spinals, I think that needs a little bit of clarification...

 

[Nerhesi]

The roll is 10+ unfortunately (core rules skills examples)
Effect x 2D

This means hard to get any effect, then suddenly you've got monumental effect for skilled operators.

If you make it Effect X 1d and reduce difficulty to 8, you end up with a nice slope of effect.

Not sure what you mean by 175 times more effect. 5 screens vs 4 screens. 10D x effect vs 8D x effect.

What I'm saying is that with an effect of 5 (really high considering 10+), you can stop a 20000+ ton Meson Spinal with around 1400 tons of screens.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Hm, let's see if I've understood correctly:
With 70 screens (1400 dt) and an Effect of 5 we can stop 70 * 2D * 5 ≈ 2 450 damage.
More realistically we will reduce 70 * 2D * 2 ≈ 980 damage.

A large spinal will do around 10DD ≈ 35 000 damage.
A minimum spinal (6 000 dt) will do 1DD ≈ 3 500 damage.

On a 30 000 dt Battle Rider (w/ reaction drives) that will mean it will be killed by 4 spinal hits, instead of 4 spinal hits...
On a quick example BR the screens increased the size from 20 kt to 27 kt and the price from 12,7 GCr to 20,5 GCr.

OK, not useless, but absolutely not worth it..

I agree 8+ would be better. The screen operators will be among the most selected elites of the navy...

 

[Nerhesi]

Hm, let's see if I've understood correctly:
With 70 screens (1400 dt) and an Effect of 5 we can stop 70 * 2D * 5 ≈ 2 450 damage.
More realistically we will reduce 70 * 2D * 2 ≈ 980 damage.

A large spinal will do around 10DD ≈ 35 000 damage.
A minimum spinal (6 000 dt) will do 1DD ≈ 3 500 damage.

On a 30 000 dt Battle Rider (w/ reaction drives) that will mean it will be killed by 4 spinal hits, instead of 4 spinal hits...
On a quick example BR the screens increased the size from 20 kt to 27 kt and the price from 12,7 GCr to 20,5 GCr.

OK, not useless, but absolutely not worth it..

I agree 8+ would be better. The screen operators will be among the most selected elites of the navy...

My Mathes ARE THE TERRIBLE! Wow did I ever mess up. Let me find the equivalent from scratch again (and please correct me if I'm still off but I think I have it now):

a) Effect 5 = 10D per screen. (5 x 2D)
b) A 60,000 ton Spinal Meson (TL15) = 10DD (but the x1000 kind) so that means = 10,000D
c) That would mean I need to stop 10,000D worth of damage using screens stopping 10D each. So I need 1000 of those screens.
d) 1,000 of those screens at 14 tons is 14,000 tons.

My bad - how embarassing. The conclusion is that you need 14,000 tons of Meson screens for an elite screen operator to stop a 60,000 ton spinal.
Thats HUGE - and amazing - for defense - not for the guy who put the 60,000 ton spinal there

This is why I'm stating to fix it:
a) Drop it to 8+ difficulty,
b) Effect x 1D (not 2D)

That way screen operators aren't basically useless until they're super-legendary rock-stars in the navy (after which they make meson spinals a waste of space lol)

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A Battle Rider with a 60 kt Meson spinal is about 300 kt and 190 GCr
With 1000 Meson Screens it is 375 kt and 350 GCr.

At twice the cost you might take 5 hits of it's own spinal to kill it instead of 4. Not worth it. Even with a legendary operator.

Screens are nearly useless.

 

[Chas]

This is the kind of thing I don't feel comfortable about the rule set and the way stuff can get presented. Unless you are intimately familiar with the rules you will never understand or arrive at what you just did there Nehersi, nor respond the way you have AnotherDilbert.

For the learning player it's like that meson screen operator, you're basically useless until you get to expert level - what the heck does for the PD rules "firing just before your roll the dice" actually imply and so forth.

There's open questions "what do I need to factor into this result besides the pure dice roll" = oh, I forgot about the power! 1000 screens = 30,000 power, quick go back and check I've got enough this turn, and so forth.

High Guard needs detailed examples accompanied with explanations of these rules of:
1) ship design
2) combat

 

[Chas]

A Battle Rider with a 60 kt Meson spinal is about 300 kt and 190 GCr
With 1000 Meson Screens it is 375 kt and 350 GCr.

At twice the cost you might take 5 hits of it's own spinal to kill it instead of 4. Not worth it. Even with a legendary operator.

Screens are nearly useless.

Not quite sure what you've gone to there AnotherDilbert. Are you saying there are multiple attackers?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Not quite sure what you've gone to there AnotherDilbert. Are you saying there are multiple attackers?

Yes, I'm assuming we have a few ships on each side so we can concentrate fire.

 

[Chas]

Not quite sure what you've gone to there AnotherDilbert. Are you saying there are multiple attackers?

Yes, I'm assuming we have a few ships on each side so we can concentrate fire.

An intention of the optimize screen software that came out on one thread was that it could use the screens an unlimited number of times. If this is made a firm rule then we'd be down to having a power available vs. number attacks which would be a good battle scenario. For the combatants that are focusing their fire on one target, if they don't have screens themselves they will be shot down.

But this definitely needs work admittedly...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I agree.

Generally spinals are too weak to kill an equal ship in a single hit, so we probable will always want to concentrate fire to actually kill ships immediately.

In attritional combat it is probable better to kill x% of the enemy ships, rather than doing x% damage to all enemy ships. We have fewer ships shooting back at us next round that way.

 

[phavoc]

Screens need to be pretty basic, much like the black globes where. For them you set your flicker rate at a % basis, and that much damage was blocked, with the corresponding negative effect.

It used to be screens just worked, the operator had no battle function, and they reduced up to X amount of damage per turn. From the original HG ruleset:

Meson screens reduce radiation damage from meson guns and meson flicker weapons. Radiation hits from these weapons suffer a –DM equal to twice the active number of screens

Your limitation on screens was based on your powerplant. I'm still not a big fan of these changes. Its more complication for less fun. Used to be minimum tonnage for a screen (a single screen) was 1,000 tons. And that's all you got, unless you were putting in redundant systems.

I agree.

Generally spinals are too weak to kill an equal ship in a single hit, so we probable will always want to concentrate fire to actually kill ships immediately.

In attritional combat it is probable better to kill x% of the enemy ships, rather than doing x% damage to all enemy ships. We have fewer ships shooting back at us next round that way.

Which, I think, is a GOOD thing. I don't want to see battleships getting one-shotted. To me that means there's something wrong with the combat system. A capital ship is designed to fight another capital ship, and should have the offensive and defensive weaponry to slut it out with a equally matched competitor for at least a few rounds.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Which, I think, is a GOOD thing. I don't want to see battleships getting one-shotted. To me that means there's something wrong with the combat system. A capital ship is designed to fight another capital ship, and should have the offensive and defensive weaponry to slut it out with a equally matched competitor for at least a few rounds.

Yes, absolutely.

The problem is if the alternate design pumping out huge amount of missiles does more damage from a range where the spinal cannot shoot back. If so no self-respecting navy will deploy spinals.

I like spinals, so I want them to be superior weapons...

 

[Nerhesi]

A Battle Rider with a 60 kt Meson spinal is about 300 kt and 190 GCr
With 1000 Meson Screens it is 375 kt and 350 GCr.
At twice the cost you might take 5 hits of it's own spinal to kill it instead of 4. Not worth it. Even with a legendary operator.
Screens are nearly useless.

Remember you can mount a 60kt Meson spinal on 120kt Battlerider (actually by the current rules you can put it on a 90kton but we're trying to change that).

But now they're useless because they're too expensive? That is the legacy cost that hasn't changed from MGT1 and absolutely should be looked at

The problem is if the alternate design pumping out huge amount of missiles does more damage from a range where the spinal cannot shoot back. If so no self-respecting navy will deploy spinals.
I like spinals, so I want them to be superior weapons...

Thats a problem that will plague any system of combat. If you can move faster or as fast as the competition and have longer ranged weapons. You win. Whether you're an elven ranger or a missile-boat. This is why things like strategic constraints need to be put in place for games (size of the playing field, strategic objectives such as planets, stations, jump gates, entrances to the underdark etc etc...)

I think in our particular case AnotherDilbert is the pesky 5D advanced missile. Otherwise at TL14/15 the average missile would not even penetrate the armour of the target. Or do 1 point per TL of armour lower than that...

I think we may have over-adjusted too much from MGT1 with missiles. I think we were fine before this advanced missiles... or perhaps we need beef up PD slightly.. like apply fire-control bonuses? How is it looking if every PD turret gets another +3 missiles down?