Screens

[Nerhesi]

The simplest solution Matt would be to keep them as is - and they scale if the player wants them to scale... basically, the player adds more.

If a player/faction/empire/etc wants to build a 100kton ship that has 1000 screens (20ktons) - then great! so be it! thats a massive amount of tonnage devoted to a small subset of weaponry...

 

[Chas]

If you want to have screens being one screen for one attack (or one set of screens for 1DD attack) then this is giving up having screens being used on a fleet action scale for missiles and torps and the nuclear missile becomes a standard weapon across all TLs. (though for sure you still get your role playing fun in small craft at one screen / 1 missile level)

Given the current balance it is also pretty redundant attempting to target fusion bays, as mentioned you're better off using the tonnage to put in more fusion bays yourself than try to limit damage.

What I would suggest in this case is that nuclear screen tonnage is greatly reduced - by at least 50% and even 4 or 5 tons each would be workable. That would make for some pros and cons, and give certain ship builds an edge. You can decide to put all your main bay weaponry into fusion guns, but run the risk of actually meeting a screen heavy ship at some point. Which then justifies the current high damage of the 100 ton fusion bay system.

 

[Nerhesi]

I think even with screens as is, automatic use makes it really simple for mass-combat and multiple barrages.

Screens stay as is. Now in mass combat/barrage/whatever:

You subtract X-value from the total damage of the attack (after armour).

Example, you got hit by 200 nuclear torps, you have 12 armour, and through the yet unknown system, after factoring in point defense, you're taking 1000 damage let's say

But you have 30 screens? Great! Than that further reduces damage by 30 * screen value * # of times used. where is X is a value denoting how much the screen reduces through multiple usage. And Y is how many times ur using them because each time costs power.

So you want to use those 30 screens 50 times each for that 50 large fusion bay barrage? Great! Spend the 3000 power or so!

 

[Chas]

Exactly. But right now they are too heavy at 20 tons + power. Ignore power for the moment, that's 100tons of damper to remove 1DD from a 2DD fusion medium bay. That's a losing proposition and a waste of time to do it. You need to be able to at least as a bare minimum eliminate the 2DD damage for the same weight of screens. Ideally you should be able to do more. You run out of weight very very quickly in the jump ship build and this is offensive output you are giving away here on a ton per ton basis. What would your rather do. Shield against 1 fusion gun attack, or have that fusion gun attack to attack all sorts of things with? The gun is the much better proposition, the weight on the fusion screen is of directly limited use.

 

[Nerhesi]

I reserve my opinion to state that we may need to limit the amount of "times" a screen can be used per round to mantain balance objectives.

Example:

2000 nuclear missiles incoming. 6D

3 nuclear screens - 6D reduction

As long as I have the power, should really be able to use them 2000 times in that round?

We'll have to look at that once we see the mass combat/barrage/capital system

 

[Nerhesi]

Exactly. But right now they are too heavy at 20 tons + power. Ignore power for the moment, that's 100tons of damper to remove 1DD from a 2DD fusion medium bay. That's a losing proposition and a waste of time to do it. You need to be able to at least as a bare minimum eliminate the 2DD damage for the same weight of screens. Ideally you should be able to do more. You run out of weight very very quickly in the jump ship build and this is offensive output you are giving away here on a ton per ton basis. What would your rather do. Shield against 1 fusion gun attack, or have that fusion gun attack to attack all sorts of things with? The gun is the much better proposition, the weight on the fusion screen is of directly limited use.

Chas - I think you may be missing that it's in efficient vs 1 weapon, but crazy efficient as you scale up. Example:

Yes I need 100 tons of dampener to remove 1DD from a small fusion bay. So double the tonnage.

But now to stop 2 fusion bays I won't need more dampeners. Just more power.

Same for vs 5 fusion bays.
Same for vs 100 bays.

Bays are scaling up tonnage and power, while dampeners are just scaling up power at that point...

That's why I think we may have the opposite problem

Get 20 nuclear dampers. 400 tons - can stop 4DD nuclear damage. Great.

Now buy a crapton of power and you can stop a massive amount of nuclear torps, large fusion bays, missiles, etc

 

[Chas]

Well that's coming back to my assumption in my earlier post that the screens are only 1 time use/turn (I was doing all my other discussion based on that). In which case you really can't damp missiles and torpedoes.

If you make them multi use/turn then the tonnage issue changes dramatically and the fusion bay is made redundant. Two sets of 5 nuclear dampers and you never have to worry about another hit from a fusion weapon from a medium bay.

Neither way is ideal as is.

Will give it some more thought.

 

[phavoc]

Set an upper limit on the number of screens a ship can have (per Dton probably, since it scales well with everything else). Then you have a table that says with X number of screens you can stop X% of attacks. Beyond that magical X% number the defenses are invalid and all you have is your armor to protect you. So if you can overwhelm the screens of the ship they you will get hits (possibly). This scales up and down the attack charts and mimics reality (as well as many sci-fi genres).

To up the damage potential you might say screens are only effective against attacks that hit. So the rolls would be:

(1) roll for attacks that hit
(2) roll for screen success
(3) reduce the number of hits from the attacker based on screen success
(4) apply damage

I would probably remove the capability of screens to do anything against fusion or plasma weaponry. That's because you are moving into the realm of shields, and Traveller has only had the one 'shield' type - black/white globes - against weaponry. Meson screens target mesons, but mesons skip armor, so it's a fair trade-off and an ok exception. But if you can get a laser through to the hull you should be able to get plasma through as well. And Fusion guns essentially are up-rated plasma guns.

Now, because of their large destructive power, it would probably be better to have passive armor upgrades to help defend against plasma-based weapons (active armor of some sort, that relies on multi-layered plates that run a magnetic field to help ward off plasma. If you want to keep with the science then that would work, as magnetic fields can control and manipulate plasma.

If screens are proving to be overly effective, then you need to increase an attackers capability to inflict hits, such as increasing the ROF for some weapons. The idea being that no matter how hard or well you build your space dreadnought, no defense works against everything, especially when you throw the kitchen sink at it.

 

[Nerhesi]

Yeah my assumption is based on screens being effective multiple times but with increased difficult, exactly like point defense beam rolls.

So that would be easy to simulate, if screen difficulty is 10+, then 11+, then 12+, etc, you can easily construct a table, roll 2D and add skill modifiers, and it will give you a factor that you multiply by the number of screens you have, resulting X damage removed that ENTIRE turn (not per attack).

This simulates all 200 screens connecting for example on the first usage, then 150 after that. Then 75, perhaps then 50 etc... simulating increased difficulty of successive screen usage within the same turn.

But that screen software is a bit off in that it allows perfect usage of the screens - non stop? Within the same turn.

That's what makes it incredibly powerful. If the first usage was automatic, but then the others required 8+, 9+, 10+ etc... that would also be a lot more palpable.

And then of course, easily modelled for capital damage systems

 

[phavoc]

I think it would be much easier to just add up all the incoming attacks, then roll to determine how many were defeated, then determine damage. For adventure class ships you'd want to try and eke out every advantage in defense you could, so individual rolls makes more sense. That's when personal skill levels should come into play. Otherwise you just assume everyone on capital ships is equivalent to everyone else, so most DM's get offset.

 

[AndrewW]

That's because you are moving into the realm of shields, and Traveller has only had the one 'shield' type - black/white globes - against weaponry.

Perhaps for the Third Imperium setting.

 

[phavoc]

Perhaps for the Third Imperium setting.

Yup.

 

[Nerhesi]

I think it would be much easier to just add up all the incoming attacks, then roll to determine how many were defeated, then determine damage.

For adventure class I totally agree.
For capital class, we need a simple way to simulate a hundred or so rolls.

The outstanding issue though phavoc, is how many rolls can I make per screen? Is it like PD and mGT1? -1 per additional roll after? Or is it just one roll per screen? Or is it as many rolls as I have power for and only that?

 

[phavoc]

I'd totally make it a table. Roll 2 dice, you eliminate X percent of the incoming missiles. You'd compare total number of missiles to total defense factor, then if your defense exceeded the incoming fire you'd roll and only of you rolled crap would some hit.

I guess I need to put pen to paper and propose something more concrete.

 

[Nerhesi]

I'd totally make it a table. Roll 2 dice, you eliminate X percent of the incoming missiles. You'd compare total number of missiles to total defense factor, then if your defense exceeded the incoming fire you'd roll and only of you rolled crap would some hit.

I guess I need to put pen to paper and propose something more concrete.

I'd say no need but maybe matt would love to see another one

I did exactly that. Roll 2d. Modifiers for crew skill and so on.

Table gives you a factor that you multiple by the X firing points you have, meaning you've eliminated Y missiles. This table takes into account firing multiple times so the factor ranges from let's say 0.2 to 4.0 (great roll, with great crew).

So basically 20 guns on PD? You may range from 4 missiles down (terrible rolling, terrible crew), to 80 missiles down (great roll elite crew).

This ofcourse - can be trivially "ported" to screens as well. Roll, apply mods, multiply result by number of screens = damage reduced. Super simple.

Of course we'll see what actually makes it to final cut next iteration

 

[Chas]

Okay, so here’s one suggestion on how to use the nuclear damper screens.

Stats as presented, then:
- An attack may only be affected once by a nuclear damper, regardless of the number of dampers available.
- It costs 20 power points to counter 2d6 of missile or torpedo damage, 100 power points for 1DD of fusion bay gun (5 x the 20 points of the grouped dampers). These power points are calculated from the remaining power points available from the previous turn. If the ship does not have enough/any power points left after maneuver, sensors and weapons usage, or runs out of power points resisting attacks, the nuclear damper cannot work.
- A ship must have a minimum of 1 damper / 2000 tons to cover the craft.
- The nuclear damper is controlled by a software program on large ships, though a gunner may directly control the damper with a -1 on successive rolls against different attacks.
- The energy efficient advantage may not be applied to nuclear dampers.
- Any damage inflicted by ion cannons on the same turn of attacks is removed from the power point total before applying screen limitations.

Comments: I like having the interacting mechanism with ion cannons providing interesting tactical choices both in game and with ship build. It’s a game logical and easily applied system. While it requires some book keeping it’s no biggy, you have say 200 power points left after your turn, which can then use 200 power points to reduce nuclear attack damage. I don’t think the damage reduction needs to be any more than stated – bringing the nuclear missile down to standard missile damage and still allowing fusion bays to do balanced damage, they’re not being made redundant. In fact the fusion bay + ion cannon barbette could hopefully end up being a tasty weapon mix. From the trial ship builds I’ve made the weight is about right. So the ship builder puts in 1 or 2 dampers for small craft, when possible 5 sets as soon as weight and power points are available, and then this scales a little in larger ships when they’ll have back up set in case of critical hits. No overly burdensome commitment required (it’ll still hurt, weight is weight), which is fine, applicable issues are happening also with the power plant, where the technology level, and the ship design with extra power points being produced becomes the an important paradigm. Which works. You can choose to have an extra 500 tons of power plant on a ship of the line… or not.

 

[Nerhesi]

Okay, so here’s one suggestion on how to use the nuclear damper screens.

Stats as presented, then:
- An attack may only be affected once by a nuclear damper, regardless of the number of dampers available.
- It costs 20 power points to counter 2d6 of missile or torpedo damage, 100 power points for 1DD of fusion bay gun (5 x the 20 points of the grouped dampers). These power points are calculated from the remaining power points available from the previous turn. If the ship does not have enough/any power points left after maneuver, sensors and weapons usage, or runs out of power points resisting attacks, the nuclear damper cannot work.
- A ship must have a minimum of 1 damper / 2000 tons to cover the craft.
- The nuclear damper is controlled by a software program on large ships, though a gunner may directly control the damper with a -1 on successive rolls against different attacks.
- The energy efficient advantage may not be applied to nuclear dampers.
- Any damage inflicted by ion cannons on the same turn of attacks is removed from the power point total before applying screen limitations.

That is a possible alternative approach. So basically, you end up really having "one screen system" but how many "screens" you need to install for that system is dependent on ship size. I see what you're getting at Chas though - rather than mount as many screens as you want, you're saying mount the variable sized system that will only have 2d6 or 1DD effect. Then you pump it with power each time you want it to flare up and stop an incoming attack.

Although it doesn't logically follow as to why I can only remove 2d6 from a missile or a torp and 1DD from a fusion cannon. Why can I remove more from a missile or a fusion cannon? Why can I remove more from a torp? etc etc

Similar to what I've proposed but you've limited the reduction on each attack for balance purposes I guess. By what I've proposed, I meant Phavoc's idea of basically making a roll (modified by skill) on a scaling table such as (VERY abridged version below):

Roll - Screen Effect %
2 - 5%
3 - 15%
4 - 25%
...
16 - 150%

Multiply % by 10 per screen. Total is how much nuclear damage is dampened this turn.

This is of course for capital combat which would simulate tons of screens and tons of incoming attacks.

For adventure class combat it would simply be "make you angle screens roll, at cumulative -1 for each attack after the first. Damage is reduced by 2d6 per screen on a successful roll"

 

[Chas]

Although it doesn't logically follow as to why I can only remove 2d6 from a missile or a torp and 1DD from a fusion cannon. Why can I remove more from a missile or a fusion cannon? Why can I remove more from a torp? etc etc

Well it is supposed to be nuclear damper, not eliminator. :wink:

But actually there were some points that I'd batted about there. You could just as easily calculate the ongoing power burn based on that damage structure to remove all damage dice. But that does have the effect of potentially completely sidelining certain damage types, which makes them risky to use, a majority of builds could shy away from using nukes or fusion which I don't think is the intention here.

 

[Nerhesi]

Although it doesn't logically follow as to why I can only remove 2d6 from a missile or a torp and 1DD from a fusion cannon. Why can I remove more from a missile or a fusion cannon? Why can I remove more from a torp? etc etc

Well it is supposed to be nuclear damper, not eliminator. :wink:

But actually there were some points that I'd batted about there. You could just as easily calculate the ongoing power burn based on that damage structure to remove all damage dice. But that does have the effect of potentially completely sidelining certain damage types, which makes them risky to use, a majority of builds could shy away from using nukes or fusion which I don't think is the intention here.

Which is why I agree with you in that it shouldn't be automatic.

If it's guaranteed spend like 100 power, remove 300 damage - absolutely the game becomes a formula of "how much power do I need to ignore nuclear damage on this ship?". But like all aspects, it needs the random element, so even if you could potentially, for example, stop 3000 nuclear damage with your 5000-ton picket ship; depending on your crew skill and luck it should range between 1000-3000 for example.

And we need to be very careful in that you simply cant say ok.. 100 tons of dampeners will block 200 tons of nuclear weaponry, because then no matter how unlucky you may be, you trivialize nukes/fusion guns. I honestly dont think this will be a problem though with the proposed system.. the launch rate of missiles and torps is so super high that without some MASSIVE fundamental change to screens, there is no way they will simply eliminate all the damage. Even with the system proposed - a screen successful rolling 2D, 3 times, and scoring 12s on each, only stops 36 damage.. that is enough to stop ONE nuclear torpedo.

ONE!

 

[Chas]

Actually in that suggestion I am meaning the damper should be an automatic effect with the 2d/1DD result, it just shouldn't automatically be able to completely reduce the damage or the weapon types are made redundant (not that completely reducing the damage for the missile or torp would ever need happen, armor kicks in pretty quickly).

I prefer the automatic result to be honest, keep it as a pure power point calculation (for interaction with ion cannons), or just have a flat effect (as long as you've got the nuclear dampers, nuclear attacks get crimped). There's getting to be waaaaayy too many rolls in the game round with electronic warfare, point defense and what not.