Setting Advice Needing (Navy specific + any other comments)

[dayriff]

I am laying out the setting for a campaign I plan to start running in a few weeks, and one of the things I would like to do is have an accurate idea of Naval activity in the campaign area. By this, I mean I want to know approximately how many capital ships & support fleets are floating around and identify the big ships by name to give the players a sense that they are a part of the setting rather than a narrative convenience. The problem is that I don't have a good feel for how the big naval ships interact.

The setting is as follows:

Campos's Run is a subsector-sized area that consists of a thick cluster of stars out on the far-frontier of the Imperium. Within the Run there are slightly under 60 systems, and nearly everywhere is reachable with Jump-1. Beyond the cluster stars thin out immensely, and there is a Jump-2 path of 3 or 4 worlds you have to take to get back to the Imperium proper.

The Imperium started moving into the Run about a hundred years ago, but there weren't a lot of resources devoted to the task. It was mostly one wealthy high-Soc would-be subsector duke and whatever resources he could scrape together, with bare minimal support from the Imperium proper. Progress was also slow because of a 16-world pocket empire called the Triune Pax that was a major power in the region. The Imperium avoided butting heads directly with the Triune Pax (a multi-racial empire with humans as one of the three top dog races) and started slowly absorbing worlds around it.

Around 25 years ago a major resource was discovered in Pax-controlled space. For purposes of this discussion, think of it as a wormhole similiar to that of DS9. All of the sudden the higher-ups back in the 3I got interested enough to send some serious Naval back-up for the local Duke. Maybe one or two of their mostly highly advanced battlecruisers or carriers (not sure which is appropriate). The Duke took the back-up, along with his subsector Navy, and attacked the Triune Pax.

For various reasons the war dragged on about 24 years as worlds were taken and gradually subdued. The Pax had a couple of surprises and a reasonably powerful Navy of their own and some very reliable means of defending their capital system. However they were slowly ground down from 16 worlds to about 8, with the wormhole system being one of the 8 lost. (I know a world every 3 years doesn't sound like a lot, but the Pax were a much more traditional empire in terms of imposing authority on the governemnts of their worlds, meaning that the Imperium had to go in with the Army, occupy the place, and engage in the interstellar equivalent of nation-building.)

Around a year ago a cease-fire was signed. The far-off 3I central government is like, "Yup, we got the wormhole and now we're not all that interested in investing more resources into taking out the rest of the pocket empire." So the Imperium Navy in the sector has been reduced to one ultra-advanced Battleship group (or carrier group, whichever makes sense) that mostly patrols the critical trade-line to the one system the 3I actually cares about.

There is a subsector navy that is less advanced and less powerful and much busier trying to keep the subsector Duke's borders secure. The advanced worlds have various system defense navies. And of course, the remaining 8 worlds of the Pax are mostly their 'core' worlds and maintain a Navy of their own.

Right now the world break-down is that the Imperium has 30-something worlds in the area, the Triune Pax has 8, and there are maybe (don't have my hex map in front of me) 15+ 'independent' systems on one side of the map that the Imperium hasn't bothered to absorb as of yet, either because of troublesome natives or because they aren't valuable enough for the Duke to commit Navy vessels to patrolling them.

(deep breath)

So given all that, about how many capital ship groups might there be around, what would they be like (in terms of numbers of vessels), and what would planetary defense forces be like? I actually own High Guard, so feel free to reference, but it's surprisingly unhelpful in figuring this out.

The Triune Pax and Imperium's Duke can probably manage TL 12 for their navies. The Imperium group is super-advanced, but its admiral doesn't like to risk the group as they are far from TL-15 repairs and only 'cooperates' with the subsector Duke rather than taking orders from him.

 

[rust]

Hmmm ... how would I approach this problem ... :?

If you have the UWPs of the planets able to produce starships, you can
use the campaign rules from Trillion Credit Squadron (to be had as a ra-
ther cheap PDF from Drive Thru RPG) to determine how big the local na-
val forces are likely to be, based upon the various planets' economic and
industrial capacity and government types.

Once you have this, you can safely assume that the Imperium will deploy
a naval force that is as strong as the two strongest local powers together
would be. This force would probably be a mixed Task Force designed with
the military capabilities of the potential enemies in mind, and in my view
it would be quite difficult to discuss its composition without knowing what
the local powers can field.

 

[kristof65]

Can't give you specific advice, but what I would recommend is to model things on real world navy fleet organization, and how they're run IRL.

The US Navy has several books that are handy for getting a feel about how things work in a navy. As government documents, they should be available from the GPO to any US citizen/resident, some libraries and possibly even online. Two that I can specifically recommend that cover single ship and navy life are the Blue Jacket's Manual and Surface Ship Operations. There may be others that cover fleet operations/organization.

A thorough web search should dredge up some interesting stuff on fleet organization as well.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Howdee.

It depends on two things, one being how much force you as ref want in the area. Its your game

Anyhow in terms of fleet strength it depends on the level of threat and the value of assets in the area. Since the mid frontier wars the 3I has used a policy of tripwire forces on the border (crurons and down) and heavy forces back from the borders but ready to be formed into heavy fleets and moved foward to meet a threat quickly. Well quickly in traveller terms anyway.

If the wormhole and its research station/control base are the high priority system then thats where there will be a navy and scout base, probably a cruron or part. Destroyers to patrol the area and keep an eye on the upity locals. Small SDBs but no monitors as its too far from the main Imperium.

The local navy commander may have a larger flagship, perhaps an older battleship or battlecruiser to fly the flag. Heavy or light cruisers to maintain security of the area is considered important to the 3I, otherwise security patrols and support/help to get the locals to protect themselves.

You mention the time taken to take control the captured worlds, that level of nationalism doesn't go away so you are looking at a multi generation resistance from the locals. Strong marine response forces, inderdiction and drop groups probably with some fast transports and planetary assualt ships. Strong planetary security forces and a lot of counter terror assets, spys, agents and so on by the hundred. 24 Years is a very long time to fight the Imperium, the sword worlds get beaten a lot quicker than that. Sounds more like several smaller wars whith your pocket empire losing a few worlds in each war then rebuilding for a few years before trying again. Sounds like they don't know when to stop and it may be they try again though sooner or later they will get stomped flat. Or perhaps there is a reason the 3I didn't wipe them out before, spending the time and effort to take planets with hostile populations is only done where the 3I has something to gain. A 16 world pocket empire is no real threat, is there something else they are looking for that leads them to take each planet one by one.

Depending on how long ago the fighting stopped there may still be remnants of the fighting forces there, a repair tender with that last hard to repair battleship or Dn/carrier. A ship that will be returning to the 3I at some point in the near future when they finaly get that missing part to repair the jump drive to a rating above 1.

If the area is less important, even important research stations don't normaly justify a fleet guard then the subsector duke to be could be using behind the scenes favours to get more fleet strength in the area than is needed. Or perhaps there is something more than just a backwards subsector to justify a strong fleet base, rumours and spacer tales that could not possibly be true apart from that 100,000 ton Imperial warship sitting here in the back of beyond.

Beyond the borders of the 3I you tend to find patrols and fly the flag visits rather than fixed bases, it depends on how important the Imperium thinks the area is which is up to your game. If you want a senior admiral with his flagship an old battleship in the subsector commanding a subsector force of 2 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, 8-12 destroyers, 20 odd escorts, half a dozen tenders and whatever the locals have to hand then make it so.

Anyway this is a WAG as to force levels, they could be much higher or lower. Realy depends on what you want in terms of force levels but if you want any really powerfull forces in the area Batrons and up then put them there with large support convoys coming in from the main 3I to supply them. A handfull of far border worlds are going to be hard pressed to have fleets of battleships unless that really need to bankrupt themselves to face a threat.

If you can give an idea of the pop and how many ind/hi ind/rich worlds are there then we can run some more numbers for you.

When your players ask IC why there is such a strong naval force in the area just say "just in case", just in case of what, "just in case". Mwahahahaha.

 

[dayriff]

I should mention that the narrative purpose of all this is to give an Old West post-war vibe to the region. Lots of bitter (and not so bitter) veterans floating around, a 'gold rush' into the region to exploit the wormhole, and an upset defeated power on the border. Actually, a good comparison would be the annexation of Texas in the US-Mexican war of 1846.

And when players roll up battles and spy missions and such in character creation, I can say, "this is the conflict that was making you do all that". I think that's cool. That's the reason for extending the conflcit out so far, so it more or less covers their adult lives.

Anyhow in terms of fleet strength it depends on the level of threat and the value of assets in the area. Since the mid frontier wars the 3I has used a policy of tripwire forces on the border (crurons and down) and heavy forces back from the borders but ready to be formed into heavy fleets and moved foward to meet a threat quickly. Well quickly in traveller terms anyway.

If the wormhole and its research station/control base are the high priority system then thats where there will be a navy and scout base, probably a cruron or part. Destroyers to patrol the area and keep an eye on the upity locals. Small SDBs but no monitors as its too far from the main Imperium.

What's a cruron again?

There doesn't actually need to be a permanent Imperium Navy force in the area, I guess. Though it's only been a year since the ceasefire was signed, so maybe it's more like they're packing up to depart and leave defense in the hands of the subsector navy again.

You mention the time taken to take control the captured worlds, that level of nationalism doesn't go away so you are looking at a multi generation resistance from the locals. Strong marine response forces, inderdiction and drop groups probably with some fast transports and planetary assualt ships. Strong planetary security forces and a lot of counter terror assets, spys, agents and so on by the hundred.

Oh sure, though levels of loyalty/nationalism naturally vary a lot. The Triune Pax was an empire itself, after all, and the captured worlds were once conquered themsevles (for the most part0.

24 Years is a very long time to fight the Imperium, the sword worlds get beaten a lot quicker than that. Sounds more like several smaller wars whith your pocket empire losing a few worlds in each war then rebuilding for a few years before trying again. Sounds like they don't know when to stop and it may be they try again though sooner or later they will get stomped flat.

Well it's really more a matter of the Imperium (or rather, the local Duke) being the aggressor. The Pax would love it if that ambitious old woman would know "when to stop".

Or perhaps there is a reason the 3I didn't wipe them out before, spending the time and effort to take planets with hostile populations is only done where the 3I has something to gain. A 16 world pocket empire is no real threat, is there something else they are looking for that leads them to take each planet one by one.

Eh, I'm not hot on that idea. I was sort of taking it from the perspective of if you want to control a world (even for the 3I's loose value of control), its current rulers are loyal to another space empire, and you're not willing to just kill everyone on the planet, then you've got to do something to change their government.

I don't know, I figure there must be a fair amount of trying to take worlds and such. Otherwise what are all those Army and Marine careers doing all the time?

Depending on how long ago the fighting stopped there may still be remnants of the fighting forces there, a repair tender with that last hard to repair battleship or Dn/carrier. A ship that will be returning to the 3I at some point in the near future when they finaly get that missing part to repair the jump drive to a rating above 1.

What's a Dn/carrier? And yes, that sounds like a good idea.

If the area is less important, even important research stations don't normaly justify a fleet guard then the subsector duke to be could be using behind the scenes favours to get more fleet strength in the area than is needed. Or perhaps there is something more than just a backwards subsector to justify a strong fleet base, rumours and spacer tales that could not possibly be true apart from that 100,000 ton Imperial warship sitting here in the back of beyond.

The subsector Duke basically scammed the Imperium. This area isn't strategically useful for them to hold as a whole, and they probably shouldn't be here at all. But the Duke has ambitions to rule it anyway, because... well, because mo' worlds = mo' money = mo' power. She managed to discover this reasonably valuable thing and convinced the Imperium core, "Hey, you got to give me the ships to pry it away from this little border empire. Oh, and do some of the surrounding worlds at the same time. Just to be safe, you know."

Anyway this is a WAG as to force levels, they could be much higher or lower. Realy depends on what you want in terms of force levels but if you want any really powerfull forces in the area Batrons and up then put them there with large support convoys coming in from the main 3I to supply them. A handfull of far border worlds are going to be hard pressed to have fleets of battleships unless that really need to bankrupt themselves to face a threat.

A reasonable point. I'm envisioning it more like, all the really large capital ships in the area could be counted on your fingers. Potentially the fingers of one hand. There's a lot more mid-size patrol style ships and also a lot of tenders for the capital ship groups.

If you can give an idea of the pop and how many ind/hi ind/rich worlds are there then we can run some more numbers for you.

I'll check my notes tonight and get back to you. Thanks!

 

[Captain Jonah]

Oops sorry
Cruron is CRUiser squadRON, same for BATRON being BATtle squadROn.

DN being Dreadnaught, a frontline up to date main fleet warship, older DNs are downgraded to battleships when they are either out of date in terms of tech or design.
The Tigress is a vast and powerfull unit that would technicaly be called a battleship but its a bit too big and powerfull so it retains its DN status, reason being while it is still tech 15 and crushingly powerfull it was built to an older and now out of date style where line of battle warships carried fighters. Later style was to remove fighters and concentrate them in carriers with main line ships having only small craft. But I think the navy was a bit worried about walking up to the beach ball of death and telling it it was old fashioned and being demoted to battleship :shock:

The DN/Carrier was a main fleet unit, 200,000 tons+ Dreadnaught or fleet carrier (100s of fighters). Something too valuable to leave behind which would be impossible to repair out of local resources and which would take a very long time for someone to go back to the nearest depot for a spare jump drive.

A Cruron will have anywhere for 2 to 8 cruisers in it plus escorts, couriers and a support force of tenders/tankers etc. Not all of the Cruron need be in any one place but they tend to be in the same area for admin and logistics. Batrons contain the same number of battleships or DNs plus escorts etc. A battleship or DN operating alone will have a sizeable support and escort group from a cruiser or two down to destroyers and tenders either drawn from the Batrons own units or localy. Battleships and DNs are waaaayyy too expensive to wander off on thier own

 

[Jame Rowe]

I would like to say that your description of the Tigress made me laugh. :lol: "Beach Ball of Death." I like that!

 

[dayriff]

Why not leave the empire out of this? Make it a war between an Imperial Client State and the Pax. That way you have answered the question why the Pax held out that long. The Pax may or may not be a Zhodanie client, making this a place for a proxie war.

Well because that's not what I want to do. Thanks for the ideas, but I don't feel it's a "question" that needs a better answer than I have. The Pax held out a long time because the Imperium effort support was half-hearted and limited, and the subsector "Duke" owns a little less than half a subsector and is trying to implement an aggressive policy with little backing. (Which I guess isn't much different from your 'client state' idea, but this way I don't have to explain a confusing third faction to the players.)

Anyway, there was a question earlier about significant worlds on either side for shipbuilding. I am going to assume that for proper shipbuilding you need an A or B class starport, a reasonably high population, and a tech level A or ghither.

As far as the Pax go, they have three worlds left that "matter" as far as shipbuilding goes:

AAE6948-D (Navy base)
A8A6610-B (Navy base)
B410863-C

They also have a could of worlds that could produce reasonably high-tech weapons and soldiers:
C460A62-9 & C758AAC-A

As far as the subsector goes, the Duke has the following worlds worth anything for shipbuilding:
A6578CB-8 (as a special case, tech level varies a lot and they can manage higher for ships)
A410595-D
A22259D-E (capital)
A556556-A
B7929AB-9 (captured world)
B100557-B (captured world)

The Imperium has some other B class starports, but they aren't important. The Pax actually have a large population advantage on their most important worlds (and maybe overall, I haven't added it up) that makes pumping out ships much easier for them, and they certainly had more troops.

 

[rust]

As far as the subsector goes, the Duke has the following worlds worth anything for shipbuilding:
A6578CB-8 (as a special case, tech level varies a lot and they can manage higher for ships)
A410595-D
A22259D-E (capital)
A556556-A
B7929AB-9 (captured world)
B100557-B (captured world)

These UWPs are somewhat unusual, because they include three worlds
with a Type A starport and a population of less than one million. Your
duke obviously has money to burn and can afford to build major star-
ports even where they do not make any economic sense.

 

[dayriff]

As far as the subsector goes, the Duke has the following worlds worth anything for shipbuilding:
A6578CB-8 (as a special case, tech level varies a lot and they can manage higher for ships)
A410595-D
A22259D-E (capital)
A556556-A
B7929AB-9 (captured world)
B100557-B (captured world)

These UWPs are somewhat unusual, because they include three worlds
with a Type A starport and a population of less than one million. Your
duke obviously has money to burn and can afford to build major star-
ports even where they do not make any economic sense.

Well they were randomly generated for inspiration, and you know there's no modifier for that Starport roll. Though the story started to swing together quite nicely of the Imperium worlds having either a relatively low population or being high population but primitive. The Imperium having essentially swing by and said to the low-tech natives, "Hey, you're part of a space empire now," which the Pax had never bothered.

Still, t'would be but the stroke of a pencil to knock some of these populations up a tad if you think they really need it.

 

[rust]

Still, t'would be but the stroke of a pencil to knock some of these populations up a tad if you think they really need it.

I would rather downgrade some of the starports, because with that many
high-level starports your duke has about the same shipbuilding capacity
as the Darrians or the Sword Worlders and should be able to eat Pax for
breakfast.

 

[dayriff]

Still, t'would be but the stroke of a pencil to knock some of these populations up a tad if you think they really need it.

I would rather downgrade some of the starports, because with that many
high-level starports your duke has about the same shipbuilding capacity
as the Darrians or the Sword Worlders and should be able to eat Pax for
breakfast.

Is four a lot? I don't have a good sense of things. What would you recommend as a sensible number of class A and B starports to match the Pax, assuming a population advantage for the Pax on worlds that can reasonably contribute to the war effort.

 

[rust]

Is four a lot?

In peace time the duke's shipyards can produce about twice as many war-
ships as the shipyards of Pax. In a war no side has a significant technolo-
gical edge, so the losses will be about equal. If each side has to dedicate
one Type A starport for repairs, the duke's three remaining Type A ship-
yards produce thrice as many new warships as Pax's one remaining Type
A shipyard, which Pax could hardly survive for long.

If you want an approximate balance of naval power between the duke and
Pax, you should probably downgrade two of the duke's Type A shipyards
and also make sure that the duke has less than twice as many Type B ship-
yards as Pax. In my view, two Type A shipyards for each side, two Type B
shipyards for Pax and three Type B shipyards for the duke would be about
right.

However, this is just my opinion, you should probably wait for some other
opinions to see whether others share this view or have good reasons for
another approach that could better fit your setting.

 

[rinku]

Actually, looking at the population codes for the worlds, the Pax seem to have an edge - their pop-9 world is TL13 while the Duke's one is only TL9. As far as serious shipbuilding, all those worlds with pop-5 are insignificant. You'd get some TL14 weapons and j-drive production from the Duke's capital, ditto for his TL13 world, and some support each from the Pop-8 world, but in terms of local production, the Pax should whip his butt - roughly equal production/tax base with the Pax at TL13 for everything and the Duke relying largely on TL9 ships with some TL14 bolted on.

Using the old Trillion Credit Squadron fleet production rules a pop-5 world is basically limited to 100 ton hulls. But feel free to ignore THAT. However, under any rules, 1,000,000,000 subjects are going to produce around 10,000 times as much anything as 100,000.

It's like comparing the economy of China with the economy of Tonga. The Pop-8 worlds would come in at the USA/Russian/Japanese level (i.e. if higher tech, maybe able to match a pop-9 world), Pop-7 being a major European nation like the UK or Germany, Pop-6 being a minor nation like Finland or New Zealand.

Note that this is merely a compairson of raw economic potential. Smaller population worlds can be dominant for political or cultural reasons, especially of higher tech. But they won't be able to build or support huge fleets.

It IS possible for the tax base of a high population but low tech world to support the running of a fleet above and beyond the local production capacity, however. Id expect that The Duke does have more TL13 and 14 ships at his disposal than would normally be able to be supported by the worlds they were built on, though both worlds aren't going to be building them big or in great numbers. This is an important factor for the pop-8 worlds, however.

Good thing he has the Imperial Fleet to draw on...

 

[rust]

Using the old Trillion Credit Squadron fleet production rules ...

This was my problem, because in contrast to Classic Traveller's Trillion
Credit Squadron (which I would prefer) Mongoose Traveller has no rules
which would bring the population of the planet or the actual size of the
starport into the picture - a Type A starport is just a Type A starport in
Mongoose Traveller, and if it can be built on a world with less than one
million inhabitants, it can obviously be operated on that world, too.

Therefore I see no good reason to assume that a starport on a planet
with a low population has a lower output than a starport on a planet with
a high population - perhaps on the low population world the majority of
that population works at the starport, while on the high population world
a job at the shipyard is a very rare thing.

 

[locarno24]

If the population is low enough (100,000 or less), you might virtually expect the colony to be built around the shipyard.

In fact, given that this place is essentially a just-post-armistice warzone, it might well have been.

 

[rinku]

Yeah, but even if you treat a starport as a standard thing, it's just the facility where the parts are assembled, not the place of manufacture. That's a function of the planet's population and tech level.

As I pointed out, 1,000,000,000 people are going to produce 10,000 times the raw materials, 10,000 times the processed materials, 10,000 times the labour for assembly and 10,000 times the trained personnel to crew the ships that 100,000 people can (other things being equal). Yes, tech level will improve productivity, though even if you assume an improvement of 100 times productivity (which is probably overstating things and NOT supported by any previous Traveller product), the TL9 Pop-9 world will still outproduce the TL14 Pop-5 world by a factor of 100.

Tonga vs China. Even if Tonga had the tech of 21stC USA and China the tech of 19thC Britain, there's just no contest. You could import all the building materials you like from China, but there's only going to be so much the Tongans can put together in a given period of time.

 

[rust]

If the population is low enough (100,000 or less), you might virtually expect the colony to be built around the shipyard.

Indeed, and without more information about the economies of both sides
this makes it difficult to guess what influence the size of the population has
on the shipbuilding capacity.
To give a real world example, Denmark with about 5 million inhabitants
produces about 6 times the ship tonnage that France does with 60 million
inhabitants.

 

[rinku]

Good example of Denmark vs France. There are, of course, other factors involved here that are up to the Referee. However, that is comparing two populations within one order of magnitude of each other, not 4 orders.

 

[rust]

However, that is comparing two populations within one order of magnitude of each other, not 4 orders.

I am aware of that, and in the end I just do not know how to handle the
relation between population, technology level and starport capacity in
Mongoose Traveller, which does not yet have anything like Trillion Cre-
dit Squadron.

So, while I very much tend towards your point of view (I recommended
using Trillion Credit Squadron myself in my first post here), the Mongoo-
se Traveller rules seem to point in a different direction, if any direction
at all, with all starports of a certain type being equal in shipbuilding ca-
pacity, no matter what the population and economy behind it.

I admit that this is far from being plausible, but on the other hand there
are a lot of implausible bits in the rules ...