SDB's vs. Warships
- Thread starter phavoc
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The equivalent to fisheries protection would be patrolling the asteroid belts, comets and uninhabited planets to see if any unlicensed mining was going on. This would be a more general purpose class than the vessels designated as frontline defense.
AHL acceleration was a compromise, since it's obvious that it's purpose was as a commerce raider. Whether you got your money's worth is another matter.
The Deutschlands were really aimed at disconcerting the French, since the RN would have been able to intercept them with their fast battleships and battlecruisers.
AHL acceleration was a compromise, since it's obvious that it's purpose was as a commerce raider. Whether you got your money's worth is another matter.
The Deutschlands were really aimed at disconcerting the French, since the RN would have been able to intercept them with their fast battleships and battlecruisers.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
I'd say SDBs also patrol their gas giants from poachers. Why let moochers just help themselves to free hydrogen? I'd be very skeptical any system with enough population, port facilities and the commerce to afford those cutters would allow ships free fuel. The system should be crawling with dozens or hundreds of interplanetary constables.
Reynard said:
That's an interesting point. In Traveller planets typically only control their own specific real estate, plus their orbiting bodies. You can have multiple planetary governments within the system however.
And.... there's the little problem of the Imperium, which already claims space between worlds. I'm not sure if anyone can own a gas giant, since you can't colonize the surface. If you can't plant a flag, you can't claim it for yourself or your polity.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
A company could be granted a concession on harvesting hydrogen from a gas giant. In any case, it's a means of surveillance and control on system traffic.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
While replying on other forum, I made a realization; regardless of what you might term a class or type, warships expect to be fighting other warships, and try to equip themselves appropriately, or make arrangements that such capabilities can be added later.
If the organization operating such boats is a policing force, their armament would be more proportionate to the capabilities demonstrated by the local criminal elements. Of course, some police forces tend to take a more paramilitary tack and an aggressive stance when they believe they face a non-compliant and/or uncooperative person of interest.
If the organization operating such boats is a policing force, their armament would be more proportionate to the capabilities demonstrated by the local criminal elements. Of course, some police forces tend to take a more paramilitary tack and an aggressive stance when they believe they face a non-compliant and/or uncooperative person of interest.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Somebody said:
I don't really follow this, there will be no need for defending ships to chase around after the AHL, because it is impossible to chase and engage a ship in jump in the traveller rules. What the Solomani need is just strong system defences on important worlds, the SBDs I was talking about earlier are TL12 designs, and relatively inexpensive, so can be built in great numbers. Throw in some large system monitors, planetoid or otherwise, and the AHL has got real problems, if it has kept enough fuel in reserve, it can jump out, but probably hasn't achieved much. Otherwise it becomes a thinly armoured target for the system defences, most of which, even at TL12, should be of M5 or M6, tactically much quicker than the ridiculous M2 of the AHL in "Fighting Ships". I don't know how different the AHL design was in earlier versions of Trav, but the MgT version is an expensive death trap.
Egil
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Reynard said:
Somewhat surprisingly, the economics of refuelling like this don't really add up, for a merchant ship at least. GGs are usually some distance from the main world, which is where you want to go, and what you save in fuel costs are lost in the transit time to the destination where you intend to off-load.
Of course, if you are not trading, and have plenty of time to wander around the out-system, then fine, I doubt if the Imperial authorities will be bothered if you scoop a little hydrogen.
Egil
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
I have Traders and Gunboats which has the classic SDB. I need to pick up Fighting Ships soon which contains the Mongoose version of the Lightning Class so I can test how many SDBs it takes to screw up a cruiser.
My original 1981 copy of Fighting Ships has both the SDB (TL 15) and the Frontier Cruiser (TL14). We can get a sense of comparison.
FC SDB
60Kt 200t
34,227MCr(In quantity) 255MCr(In quantity)
Crew 395 Crew 5
Agility 0 Agility 6
Jump 5 Jump 0
2 G 6 G
80 Light fighters 1 Triple beam laser turret
Spinal Particle Accelerator 1 Triple missile turret
24 - 50 ton missile bays
190 - Triple laser turrets
40 - Dual fusion turrets
130 - Triple sandcasters
Nuclear damper
Meson screen
Armor factor 5 Armor 13
Construction (quantity) 34 months Construction(quantity) 9 months
Note: Reliant on fuel shuttles. Note: No fuel purification
My original 1981 copy of Fighting Ships has both the SDB (TL 15) and the Frontier Cruiser (TL14). We can get a sense of comparison.
FC SDB
60Kt 200t
34,227MCr(In quantity) 255MCr(In quantity)
Crew 395 Crew 5
Agility 0 Agility 6
Jump 5 Jump 0
2 G 6 G
80 Light fighters 1 Triple beam laser turret
Spinal Particle Accelerator 1 Triple missile turret
24 - 50 ton missile bays
190 - Triple laser turrets
40 - Dual fusion turrets
130 - Triple sandcasters
Nuclear damper
Meson screen
Armor factor 5 Armor 13
Construction (quantity) 34 months Construction(quantity) 9 months
Note: Reliant on fuel shuttles. Note: No fuel purification
Condottiere said:
You bring up some very valid points here.
Also, as players, we tend to min/max our designs. They are bristling with firepower, but we never think about what the added costs/tech mean when it comes to servicing the debt for decades, providing spares, etc, etc. A TL6 planet is going to have to import it's SDB's (and pretty much it's entire military tech) from somewhere else, at a higher expense. It's nothing that hasn't been done before and makes perfect sense. The UK used to build battleships and cruisers for other navies in the day, and today you still see some countries building warships and major weapons systems for others. These countries have to take into account their budget and potential enemies. None of them are equipped or try to fight major powers. Usually it's just their jacked-up local neighbors, insurgents or being able to rattle their sabre and chase down evil fishermen in their waters.
Egil Skallagrimsson said:
Yeah, the days you would need to transit to the GG, refuel, then maneuver away from it usually makes no economic sense. The cost in lost potential revenue would generally outweigh the savings.
Reynard said:
A few things that should also be present in the Traveller universe as ours is... large freighters to move cargo between mainworlds, smaller ones to deliver it to secondary places, and everything possible is put in a container for shipment.
I did some research on that when I was doing my containerization for Traveller. The efficiency of containers over break-bulk cargo's is phenomenal. Containers and increased automation killed most of the longshoreman jobs everywhere.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
While even the tramps should be capable of carrying containers, if anyone is carrying break-bulk, it will be the tramps.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
As I understand it, the higher the TL, the longer it takes to write off depreciation on starships, and I vaguely recall from a century with TL12 to a millenia with TL15.
Also, maintenance cost at 0.1% per annum is paradisical, considering that normal usage means we can start writing off our warships and fighters anywhere between ten and twenty years due to structural stress.
Also, maintenance cost at 0.1% per annum is paradisical, considering that normal usage means we can start writing off our warships and fighters anywhere between ten and twenty years due to structural stress.
