Ship Combat, Armour, and Damage.

[peelseel2]

This came up in last nights session. This is my understanding. Please correct me if I am wrong or clarify more if needed. Thanks in advance!

Ships armour subtracts from the damage done by a weapon. If the ship has twelve armour and is hit by a Triple turret of 3 beam lasers, then it is 3d6-12 for the damage table. If it was hit by a single hardpoint of beam laser, then it would be 1d6-12. Or three separate missiles, and a separate beam laser, 4d6-12. That seems to me the only way to get 'past' armour.

Turrets. If the same weapons are mounted, the gunner only has to make 1 to hit, or a to hit for each weapon?

How may missiles can be fired at once? Is their rack-mount missiles so a salvo of 6 could be fired, or twelve? Why would you place them in a turrent when they could sit on the hull.

 

[Infojunky]

........Warning.... Warning..... Bag of worms opening........

This came up in last nights session. This is my understanding. Please correct me if I am wrong or clarify more if needed. Thanks in advance!

It's no problem.... Though I am warnig you that you are entering one of the weakest areas of the Mongoose edition of Traveller.

Ships armour subtracts from the damage done by a weapon.

Yes....

If the ship has twelve armour and is hit by a Triple turret of 3 beam lasers, then it is 3d6-12 for the damage table. If it was hit by a single hardpoint of beam laser, then it would be 1d6-12. Or three separate missiles, and a separate beam laser, 4d6-12. That seems to me the only way to get 'past' armour.

The comparison is on the weapon level, not the turret. or at least that is how the core rules are written. Though the section is very unclear.

I prefer your interpretation.

Turrets. If the same weapons are mounted, the gunner only has to make 1 to hit, or a to hit for each weapon?

For each weapon.

How may missiles can be fired at once? Is their rack-mount missiles so a salvo of 6 could be fired, or twelve? Why would you place them in a turret when they could sit on the hull.

One missile per rack. Not sure I like it either. Ok i never have but that has always been the way the game was designed....

 

[apoc527]

Has there ever been official clarification of this? This seems like a pretty big deal. Of course, consider the consequences of going with the interpretation discussed here. Sure, beam lasers only do 1d6, but those aren't really offensive weapons--they are defensive in nature, designed to protect the ship from missiles and boarding tubes and lightly armored pirate corsairs (if piracy exists).

PULSE lasers are combat weapons with appropriate downsides (ie -2 DM to hit). They also do twice the damage of a beam laser. If you triple mount them to get 6d6 damage, suddenly you can punch through battleship armor with a turret weapon. That seems odd.

It gets worse with turret mounted particle accelerators if you add the damage. Now it's 9d6! That's as much as a 100 ton particle accelerator bay.

I think the game is designed to use individual weapon damage against armor, otherwise things fall apart quickly.

I would think, however, that if you have three identical weapons in a turret that firing them would be one action with one to-hit roll...doing it otherwise doesn't make a lot of sense (how do you even fire them separately?).

 

[Infojunky]

Ok, much of this is an artifact of how earlier mechanics were used.

In CT weapons had static damage ratings

Beam lasers =>1 hit
Pulse lasers =>2 hit
Missiles => 1d6 hit

Under MgT once you take into account the damage table it looks like this;

Beam Lasers => 1d6, 66% => 1 hit, 33% => 2 hit
Pulse Lasers => 2d6, 27.8% => 1 hit, 55.6% => 2 hit, 16.7% => 3 hit
Missiles => 1d6, 66% => 1 hit, 33% => 2 hit

So you kinda see where the break down happens.

The use of whole dice magnifies the differences.

Before they errata'ed pulse and beam lasers I was stiplulating that pulse lasers were auto fire with a rating of 4 per tube. And Effect was added to each hit as per personnel combat. Missiles I never quite handled the same way twice, latter thinking was to add in velocity to the damage rolled, +1 per total missile velocity/5.

Just some food for thought.

 

[apoc527]

How did armor work in CT then? Because the issue we're having is really more about harming ships with moderate amounts of armor.

I think one simple fix is to allow for armor to be ablated away. Maybe on Effect 6+ hits or something, maybe for each 6 rolled...I don't know.

 

[peelseel2]

If damage comparison is on the individual weapon level versus armor, that is a formula for invulnerable spacecraft and LONG drawn-out battles. Also, why have fighters then? Spend LOTS of credits for little effect.

The Gazelle Close escort (8 armour, Beam Laser 2d6) escorting some fat traders (0 armour) gets jumped by pirates using Automated Attack Craft (Armor 12, Beam Laser 2d6). The Close Escort cannot touch them on damage, and dies eventually. The Fat Traders have no prayer. Many other examples. Very weak sauce. Many other HORRIBLE examples of worthless space combat.

 

[Infojunky]

How did armor work in CT then?

Pretty much the same, Except it was a mod on the damage effects table.

Because the issue we're having is really more about harming ships with moderate amounts of armor.

I think one simple fix is to allow for armor to be ablated away. Maybe on Effect 6+ hits or something, maybe for each 6 rolled...I don't know.

My general fix would be to go back to CT's armor hull percentages, an armor level of one was 4% of hull.

Some of the issues you are having are due to editions changes, armored ships are primary weapons are bays instead of turrets.

 

[Rex]

Yeah beware the Bay. Bay weapons and open up a serious Can on lightly armored ships. I also tend to lean towards the CT armor percentage rule.

~Rex

 

[ChipHaus]

Fights that one side cannot win happen (M1 Abrams vs. Iraqi tanks in Gulf War comes to mind).

In a game the ref can make unwinnable fights happen or not as desired for the plot.

Also, the CT Gazelle had particle beam barbettes mounted. 4d6 - that would penetrate the Automated Attack Craft in your example. I also wouldn't consider an AAC an "average" pirate ship.

YMMV,
Chip

 

[apoc527]

So perhaps it's too easy to get large armor values...that's the CT fix? How did CT differentiate between the types of armor?

 

[apoc527]

I'm going to playtest a mock fight using an armor bypass rule of Effect 6+ = 1/2 armor and 1 point of armor degradation.

 

[peelseel2]

I'm going to playtest a mock fight using an armor bypass rule of Effect 6+ = 1/2 armor and 1 point of armor degradation.

Cool. That might work well.

 

[apoc527]

Well, it didn't. After 8 rounds of a Type A (2 double turrets w/pulse laser and sandcaster) vs the Pirate Interceptor from Scoundrel, there was very little excitement.

The Pirate's beam lasers bounce off the Type A's standard 4 points of armor most of the time (though the Pirate could consistently hit at Medium range with a sensor lock-on), and while the Type A's two pulse lasers could do more damage, it was harder for him to hit with a -3 DM from range and weapon.

There were no hits even close to Effect 6+, so the special armor degradation rule never came into play. I found it a bit frustrating and can't imagine how boring it would have been for players. The main action was opposed sensor operator checks to lock-on and break the lock-on respectively. The Type A did take 2 hits on its M-drive, but easily repaired them both in the Ship Action Phase.

The Pirate took 3 Hull hits, bringing him down to 1 Hull. The Type A also took a single Hull hit, 2 M-drive hits, and a Fuel hit.

My next playtest will be a repeat of this battle (obviously maneuvering isn't the main idea--the pirate interceptor simply keeps himself at Medium range until he disables the Type A, then moves in and uses his Grapple Gun) but I'm going to use some modified armor degradation rules.

I'm thinking that I will go with ablative armor, but of course, there's no way to balance that across ship types. In other words, if I say that it takes 10 points of damage to ablate 1 point of armor, that might be fine for two Type S's sniping each other with one or two weapons, but it completely breaks down when using larger ships with many weapons (i.e. the armor will boil off in the first exchange of fire--that's not good either).

Therefore, the best fix might be to simply make armoring a ship more difficult. I will point out that maybe one of the problems is that the incorrect ships are armored--just comparing things with GURPS Traveller (which is all I have), the Type A has DR100--that's the minimum for all spacecraft to survive reentry and it is reduced to 50 vs turret lasers that are already doing 5d6x100 damage...so armor is obviously not the big deal, and the two systems are so different anyway, it's not a valuable comparison.

If TMB ship construction were modified such that armor was significantly more expensive in tonnage, that might be the best fix.

Thoughts?

 

[Mongoose Gar]

Firstly, the rules question - armour applies against each hit. So, if you've gout Armour 4, and you're hit by two missiles and a beam laser, then the armour 4 applies against each of these attacks. Damage is 1d6+Effect-4, 1d6+Effect-4 and 1d6+Effect-4.

That said, I agree with the critics - both ship armour and personal armour are weak points of the current MGT system, and I've started using the rule that a roll of a six on a damage dice also degrades armour by one in my home games. (That's not official errata, just my house rule.)

Ship armour is somewhat balanced by cost and mass - it's possible to design a ship that's nigh-invulnerable to most turret weapons, but such a vessel would be expensive and devote a lot of its tonnage to armour. A hypothetical Armour-12 pirate would either have to devote 30% of its tonnage to armour (if using cheap Titanium Steel) or spend the cost of the hull again on TL14 Bonded Superdense). Either way, it's a tough cookie, but it's the equivalent of bringing battle dress to a knife fight - you're invulnernable to most attacks, but you are going to draw the attention of people with much bigger guns.

 

[apoc527]

Wait wait wait a second here!

If you add Effect to ship combat damage, then suddenly the situation becomes MUCH less grim. (And, in fact, I have no issues with armor in personal combat, especially with CSC's armor piercing rules.)

If it's official errata that Effect gets added to damage in Starship combat, I think that fixes a lot of issues. I'm going to try a new sample combat with Effect adding to damage and see what happens. I'll keep note of the natural 6 armor degradation rule too, just to see what happens.

Most interesting...

One other possible fix is to create some armor piercing missiles. I might be inclined to say that a standard anti-ship missile is Semi-Armor Piercing (1 point), and a more expensive HEAT missile would be 2 AP...

 

[apoc527]

Ok, sample combat 2 conducted with both Effect 6+ = half armor and 1 Armor hit AND with Effect Adds to Damage.

The combat was between a Type A with 2 double turrets (beam/sandcaster) and relevant skill levels of 2 and a Corsair with 3 triple turrets (3xbeam, 3xmissile, 3xpulse).

I actually did have 2 Effect 6+ hits, which were nasty, but the truly brutal (and, in my view, totally system-fixing) change was that Effect Adds to Damage. This made 4 Armor very good, but the corsair was able to prevail despite the lack of armor (the Type A surrendered after the third Combat Phase when its Structure was reduced to 1).

Observations: Armor 4 against even beam lasers when Effect Adds to Damage is a very, very different beast than when Effect does not add to damage. Against poorly aimed (Effect 0) hits, the armor protects against 2/3 of Beam laser hits entirely. However, if you add even 2 points of Effect, then suddenly the armor stops only 1/3 of beam laser hits entirely. With Effect 4+, every hit translates into at least 1 Single Hit, sometimes 2!

Pulse lasers with Effect are very nasty and the only way to avoid consistent Double Hits is to use sandcasters against them.

In my rather limited view, using this rule (perhaps official, but unclear) COMPLETELY FIXES any issues with armor in combat against Beam and Pulse lasers (Missiles are still kind of wussy...I might house rule them).

One question about Repairs though--does that COMPLETELY repair the system for the duration of the combat, or just negate the penalty? I was playing that it negated the penalty but not the actual hit, so upon the 3rd M-Drive hit, it was disabled and there wasn't much the engineer could do, even though he staved off the negative effects of both the first and second hits. I think if the repairs are so limited, then there's no reason they shouldn't be erased by every subsequent hit.

 

[SSWarlock]

<snip>
One question about Repairs though--does that COMPLETELY repair the system for the duration of the combat, or just negate the penalty? I was playing that it negated the penalty but not the actual hit, so upon the 3rd M-Drive hit, it was disabled and there wasn't much the engineer could do, even though he staved off the negative effects of both the first and second hits. I think if the repairs are so limited, then there's no reason they shouldn't be erased by every subsequent hit.

Page 150 of the Core Book states, "These are battlefield repairs only and will break down as soon as the battle is over unless repaired properly using the rules on page 143." Page 143 specifically states the initial repairs are the result of jury-rigging, not permanent repairs, and the system will break down again in 1-6 hours.

So I'd say the engineer's efforts repairs the hit completely but only for the duration of the battle. Assuming the battle lasts less than 1 hour, that is. Battles longer than 1 hour start getting nasty as jury-rigged repairs start failing.

I do have the house rule that each additional hit on a jury-rigged repair adds a cumulative -1 penalty to any further jury-rigged repair efforts on the damaged system. There's only so many spare parts available during a battle.

Really makes those Mechanic 4+ characters worth being very nice to.

 

[Infojunky]

Ok, sample combat 2 conducted with both Effect 6+ = half armor and 1 Armor hit AND with Effect Adds to Damage.

The combat was between a Type A with 2 double turrets (beam/sandcaster) and relevant skill levels of 2 and a Corsair with 3 triple turrets (3xbeam, 3xmissile, 3xpulse).

I actually did have 2 Effect 6+ hits, which were nasty, but the truly brutal (and, in my view, totally system-fixing) change was that Effect Adds to Damage. This made 4 Armor very good, but the corsair was able to prevail despite the lack of armor (the Type A surrendered after the third Combat Phase when its Structure was reduced to 1).

Observations: Armor 4 against even beam lasers when Effect Adds to Damage is a very, very different beast than when Effect does not add to damage. Against poorly aimed (Effect 0) hits, the armor protects against 2/3 of Beam laser hits entirely. However, if you add even 2 points of Effect, then suddenly the armor stops only 1/3 of beam laser hits entirely. With Effect 4+, every hit translates into at least 1 Single Hit, sometimes 2!

Pulse lasers with Effect are very nasty and the only way to avoid consistent Double Hits is to use sandcasters against them.

In my rather limited view, using this rule (perhaps official, but unclear) COMPLETELY FIXES any issues with armor in combat against Beam and Pulse lasers (Missiles are still kind of wussy...I might house rule them).

Ok, I think Effect makes perfect sense for direct fire weapons. As of now it is a "official" house rule. (though I am pondering 1d6 pulse laser with a auto 4, and beam lasers at 2d6 both with effect).

As for missiles use the rules in the TMB as stated with two additions they get effect with their terminal to hit roll and plus one to damage per their impact velocity divided by 5 (this makes head-on impacts truly frightening).

 

[Mawdrigen]

You add effect to the damage of normal weapons. I see no reason why you wouldn't add it to the damage of ship weapons. On bay weapons it would be negligible on small ones it could prove important.

 

[dreamingbadger]

As for missiles use the rules in the TMB as stated with two additions they get effect with their terminal to hit roll and plus one to damage per their impact velocity divided by 5 (this makes head-on impacts truly frightening).

especially as missiles now (with High Gaurd) have a speed of 10...

but it does beg the question... do Missiles in Traveller actually "hit" though? If they are genuine missiles, there would be no energy transfer from the speed of the missile, because, it doesn't hit the hull of the target, the force of the explosion does ala' AIM-9M Sidewinder, on the other hand Starstreak is a "hit-tile" a kinetic weapon... so adding the velocity makes sense in that case