Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Jump Drives

1. Here's an interesting dilemma: if the Jump Factor capability is based on computer processing power, then the Solomani Navy wouldn't need to develop Jump Six drive prototypes at two hundred percent size increase.

2. All they need to do is install a Jump Drive that occupies seven percent volume in a given hull, and develop a TL15 computer prototype.

3. This is after all, the basis that the Alphabet series of drives is based on.

4. A loophole that you could in theory exploit at TL9.

 

[Nerhesi]

Ever wonder how to bridge the difference a smallcraft 1.5 ton cockpit/fifty ton smallcraft and a 10 ton command module/hundred ton scout?

1. Radar: standard - both

2. Lidar: standard - both

3. Radio (presumably): standard - both

4. Computer: incorporated - both

5. Avionics?

6. Hundred percent greater ship surveillance

7. Jump drive workstation (though not necessary on non-starships)

So that's 8.5 tons for the cockpit or 7 tons if it was a cabin position; makes you wonder what else is fitted in there.

Jump Drive Workstation and so on - true. Looking at the deckplans though,it would seem the vast majority of that space is just to make a bridge, a "bridge". A large open space where a captain can pace from onside to another and scream "Khaaaan!".

In fact, if you consider a holographic bridge - it still takes up the same room as a standard one with workstations.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Bridge Fittings

As I recall from old deckplans, half the tonnage may be avionics and sensors; at this moment, I couldn't tell.


2. Bridge: Command Modules and Computers

If the Command Modules can be/are separated, each would need it's own computer, since I don't think you'd have the central core in an independent location.

Another thought: computers need to have volume, especially once players decide to have dedicated computers and backups.


3. Hulls

The reason to build four hundred tons and below is not only because of the lower hull costs, but because armour costs are based on the basic hull cost.


4. Grappling Arms

Recently realized that the weight it can manipulate is never mentioned. Besides other considerations, it's important in regard to handling satellites, drones, freight and smallcraft.

 

[AndrewW]

4. Grappling Arms

Recently realized that the weight it can manipulate is never mentioned. Besides other considerations, it's important in regard to handling satellites, drones, freight and smallcraft.

Objects of up to 2 tonnes can be manipulated.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Grappling arms - two tons is insufficient; probably needs to scale upwards like docking clamps. If I recall correctly, the Mercenary Carrier had two like the mandibles of an insect, though that shouldn't have been enough to handle ten ton fighters.

2. X-Ray lasers - whatever happened to them? TL13, as I recall, and could ignore sandcasters.

3. Sandcasters - contained within their own magnetized cloud, much like fusion has it's own bottle. Or orbiting the ship like a ring of Saturn, I forget.

 

[Condottiere]

1. CIWS - There was a time you could construct Pulse Lasers with upto sixteen lenses; seems a very efficient system to take out missiles and torpedos, and poorly armoured fighters and drones.


2. And while we're on the subject, how about attaching a VRF Gauss Gun to a turret for the same effect? At least for missiles.

 

[Condottiere]

Bridges

1. Detachable - every time I consider the implications, I come up with free shuttle; also, would seem to break the hundred ton minimum starship rule.

2. Speaking of which, I don't think that the either/or rule for smallcraft/adventure class applies, since the hull costs are more or less the same, and transition is within a bubble, rather than a hull grid. Bridge size is arguable.

3. In a small adventure class ship, the bridge could be common area would need life support allocated, so I suddenly had a vision of capsule rooms along the back wall, next to a fresher, ship's locker and the airlock.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

2. X-Ray lasers - whatever happened to them? TL13, as I recall, and could ignore sandcasters.

There are certainly pumped x-ray lasers in 2300AD.

 

[Condottiere]

1. While we're on the topic of ship weapons, can anyone define what are rapid fire mounts, beyond the fact that smallcraft can't have them, and only the section on spinal mounts mention that feature.

2. Fire control consoles aren't always included in some of the ship entries.

 

[dragoner]

2. X-Ray lasers - whatever happened to them? TL13, as I recall, and could ignore sandcasters.

The project in reality is abandoned in 1992 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Excalibur

But Traveller actually never used them correctly, instead of: When the device detonated, it would fire soft x-ray laser beams in many directions. It is one single beam.

 

[Nerhesi]

1. While we're on the topic of ship weapons, can anyone define what are rapid fire mounts, beyond the fact that smallcraft can't have them, and only the section on spinal mounts mention that feature.

2. Fire control consoles aren't always included in some of the ship entries.

Hey - so this was something you'd have to dig deep in other threads to find; but when you do find is quite simple and clear.

1. Rapid fire mounts have an autofire value. Autofire is defined in regular combat. Autofire X, where X is 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 etc.. is the number of dice you roll, then you arrange in 2-dice groups to determine how many hits you have. Example: Autofire 4 = roll 4d6, arrange into 2d6 pairs as you like, then determine if you hit or not (Adding or subtracting modifiers for each). Basically, you can score multiple hits, or guarantee a hit on a difficult shot, etc

2. a) Fire control is THE turret volume. For example, each turret has 1 ton of fire control. Pop-up turrets take an extra "ton" (I guess this is the pop-up area they hide in).

2-b) Barbette's have fire control included. So they are 5 tons total per weapon system.

2-c) Bay weapons, by RAW, do require fire-control, so Bays are either 51 or 101 tons (regular and large bays).

 

[Condottiere]

Barbettes

1. Sounds logical, though still doesn't quite gel with turrets, since they exist, take up a ton of space, and coincidentally, so does fire control. I'm willing to go the route that without fire control, gunners can climb into the turret and control them directly, or that a battery can be controlled from a single console.

2. So a railgun would take up 2.5 tons, has fire control included, one ton of ammo and half a ton for the operator; this would make it four tons, assuming the fire control is placed somewhere more convenient. Yet, going by the turret drone, ammunition is stored separately.

3. Presumably, a PAW would be around 3.5 tons.

4. Regardless how you try and squeeze them in, a torpedo barbette with one in the can and one standing by, plus one ton of fire control, gets you to six tons; and that's without trying to figure out how to get the spare into the can for the next shot.

5. Fixed mounts would weigh 2.5 tons for the railgun, and 3.5 for the PAW, and yet, can't find the correct references in High Guard.

6. As for my interest in defining autofire, I was interested in a fifty ton railgun bay for a smallcraft, though I guess I'll have to settle for the Mass Driver variant which has no rapid fire.

 

[Nerhesi]

Heya! OK Answers below:

1:

First, I want to make sure we're clear on turrets. They dont take a ton and then fire-control takes a ton. They take ONE ton, which IS the fire control. Period.

2:

You're confusing one aspect that I used to do. This is not weight, but dTons; or Volume. So even without fire-control, that turret is "outside" of the ship and does not have space for anyone to sit in there. The fire-control allocated "inside" the ship - which is why we subtract it from dTons available.

That is why, 3 beam lasers take up the same "1 ton" as 1 beam laser, or 3 missile launchers, or even 2 plasma cannons and the heatsink! (All of these are 1 dton) Weapon Volume outside of the ship, does not constitute extra "tonnage". So a barbette takes 5 dtons INSIDE the ship's volume, with whatever else you want assume as outside of it. This is why it is accurate for everything from a railgun barbette to a torpedo barbette.

3:
What is a PAW?

4:
A torpedo barbette includes zero ammunition. It is simply the launching mechanism. You dont add 1 ton of fire-control for barbettes as previously stated. So a Torpedo barbette is a 5 dTon mechanism that can fit a 2.5dton torpedo (as it's being launched). This includes firecontrol.

5:
Rail Gun barbettes are 5 tons. Even fixed mount Rail Gun barbettes (if such a thing was to exist - because fixed mounts only apply to turrets), would still be 5 tons. Fixed mounts dont reduce dTon requirement by RAW. I know Dmccoy did that as an optional rule for small craft in one of his products. But by RAW, fixed mounts only reduce price/cost - not weight. So your Rail gun is a perfectly logical 4 tons, with 1 being ammo. Or if you want to be precise, assume the 1 ton fire-control is in there, and its 3 tons, 1 ammo, 1 fire control.

6:
Nothing is stopping you from putting a 50-ton rapid fire railgun bay on a 100 ton fighter for example. Only Fusion/Meson/Particle bays are disallowed. I'm sure you can make a monster 80+ ton fighter/assault craft with a railgun bay. OR even a 60 ton one if you use TL+3 just to reduce weight

 

[Condottiere]

Cheers

1. I still see this as an unclarified issue; hopefully a year of reflection till the second edition will allow the writers to untangle it.

2. I use weight and volume interchangeably for starship design.

3. Particle Accelerator Weapon (System); PAW specifically, PAWS in general.

4. Each torpedo takes up two and half tons of space. They are normally purchased in two–shot loads of five tons each. A barbette holds two torpedoes.

5. Since presumably you should need two weapon slots for a barbette but the turret drone proves it doesn't, cutting off excess weight makes this an interest weapons system for a light-medium fighter. In fact by forty tons you can install two of them.

6. I'd skip parsing the rules and go for an adventure hull, this really comes down to bays/tonnage which is why understanding restrictions and definitions of rapid fire become important so the smaller the hull that can accommodate a certain tonnage of weapons, the more powerful the warship.

 

[Nerhesi]

I'm looking forward to second edition as well, although mostly to clear up other issues such as movement modifiers in personal combat and so on

1. This isn't an issue at all for me. As the slightly-less-than-clear construction rules, are made super clear by all ship-examples (or 99%), which show that turrets are universally 1 ton (minus pop up turrets).

2. Thats up to you! But I can see how that would cause issues with the current rules as they are intended for volume usage (which is why things out outside of the hull tend to be 0 dtons)

3. Thanks

4. As per RAW, Page 48 HighGuard: torpedo barbette fires one torpedo per round, using the normal rules. A torpedo barbette can fit no other weapon. A torpedo barbette costs MCr 4, taking up five tons of space and does not include any ammunition. I do see the part where it says a Barbette hold two torpedos - so this goes back to point #2 - volume vs space, inside vs outside the ship hull. No problems here.

5. Not sure what this has to do with our original point of barbettes and fixed mounts. But no - as per RAW, barbettes do not take two hard points. The turret drone is correct by Raw - one hardpoint/weapon slot, one barbette. Also - note that the weapon energy allowance for small craft, you will never be able to fit two barbettes.

6. Actually - I was mistaken - Rapid Fire mounts may not be fitted to small craft. Highguard page 61.


I feel compelled to ask Condotierre, are you sticking to RAW or is this a mix of home-brew rules? I only ask because it seems that you are not going by RAW for some of your arguments and I feel like we're discussing something that needs no interpretation. As in, rules as written, with clear examples backing up those rules in 99% of the published material. No offence intended!

 

[tuz_sen]

4. As per RAW, Page 48 HighGuard: torpedo barbette fires one torpedo per round, using the normal rules. A torpedo barbette can fit no other weapon. A torpedo barbette costs MCr 4, taking up five tons of space and does not include any ammunition.

Actually as per RAW page 49 under Torpedo Types:
Each torpedo takes up two and half tons of space. They are
normally purchased in two–shot loads of five tons each. A
barbette holds two torpedoes.

on page 48 it is referencing that ammo must be purchased independently of the weapon.

 

[Nerhesi]

Quoted me before my last edit where I did mention this!

Again though, this is not an inconsistency. A barbette takes X tons inside the ship and X tons outside the ship - the latter of which we don't count or care about. That means the "2" stored torpedos could be on the inside, or outside, or even stored in tandem with 1 on the outside and 1 on the inside; leaving 2.5 tons for fire control and whatever you need. After all, despite the fact it can hold "2", it only fires 1 torpedo a turn.

Regardless of how you envision it (look at Darrian Barbettes), RAW makes perfect sense and is consistent, here are some examples:

Single beam turret - 1 ton
Double beam turret - 1 ton
Triple missile launcher - 1 ton
A missile pack that has 24 missiles and the fire control required - 1 ton
2 plasma guns + heating (triple turret) - 1 ton
Anything in triple turret that isn't a pop-up - 1 ton
Any pop-up turret, whether it holds 1 garbage beam laser or 3, accurate, resilient pulse lasers? - 2 tons!

This means, that by RAW, fire-control takes up 1 ton, and we don't care whether the exterior is a tiny single weapon, or 3 big bulky things - it is not figured into the calculation.

So regardless even if a torpedo barbette could hold 3 torpedoes, it presents no problem as the entire system can be some 10 ton monstrosity, but we only care that 5 tons are within the ship's volume!

 

[Condottiere]

1. Rules as written are meant to be levelling the playing field for everyone, especially in wargames or designing weapon systems since you do not want anyone to have undue advantages and you'd like the design process to have some consistency.

2. Except for Warhammer, where the rules are modified as part of a merchandising campaign to promote the latest range of figurines they want to sell.

3. Rules for RPGs are a framework over which you structure the story and give an ambiance to your setting. It's not meant to be a level playing field (otherwise the protagonists are likely to end up dead), and the DM will (or should) fiddle the dice rolls before, in the midst, and after throwing them during rather existential moments.

4. My goal is creating legal designs; which wouldn't discourage me from exploiting loopholes, pointing these out and/or commenting on and suggesting solutions for inconsistencies, illogical concepts or bottlenecks.

5. Bottlenecks occur when I come across some hindrance to my vision, for example a Jump1/Power 1/Man 1 hundred ton starship.

6. Actually, I'd like to construct smaller ones, but the rule is absolute about hundred tons.

7. The rules are less absolute about drive factors, as demonstrated by the existence of smallcraft engines.

8. There is also no logical reason for not taking the engines out of a dual sectioned 2001 capital ton hull and placing them in a 2000 ton single section adventure hull, the controversy in my mind is whether you actually need the second command module either in the 2001 hull or in the 2000 hull.

9. Gravitic drives may be referenced for starships, but no design process exists to construct them. As such, I list both them and the normal reaction drives as options which as such isn't RAW.

10. Torpedo barbettes are a rather egregious example; are we looking at an enlarged missile turret or the more traditional torpedo tube agglomeration you can witness on our destroyers? If so, why can't we clump five tubes together? If not, where's the space for the launching equipment? Regardless, the barbette doesn't have space for one ton of fire control, and not quite sure how the torpedoes are going to be reloaded.

11. If fire control is half a ton for operator space and half a ton for the associated electronics that would be logical. Combined with a single turret, you still have half a ton that can't be accounted for, assuming that the actual space the turret now occupies is half a ton, and there is no space for a gunner.

12. Pop ups provide another problem when calculating volume. For example, a pop up on a hundred ton scout, is the scout 101 tons when it pops, or 99 tons when it depops?

13. Do we allow barbettes to be operated at source? Traveller tropism would indicate so, so that's at least half a ton of operator space that should be allocated. Anything that the weapon system doesn't really need can be eliminated and the remaining tonnage can then be mounted, saving volume at the expense of independent targeting.

14. Bays are easy, because we allocate a lot of space, and the only variable we have to worry about is physical ordnance, if any. No one expects the operator to sit inside one, and even if he did there's more than enough place.

15. Triple turrets only indicate that you could squeeze in three weapon systems, which just helps to approximate their weight, less than 166 kilos each. A single turret could use the empty sections as a spare linen closet.

 

[tuz_sen]

1. Yes
2. It not that bad all the time.
3. That very much depends on the group but I would say yes
4. good goal
5,6,7,8. Rules will be rules and have their limitations
9. If I am not mistaken the rules for gravitic drives on spaceships are just the rules from the core rule book when it comes to price and displacement.
10. I always assumes one torpedo was in the surface mount one ton of fire control a second torpedo (2.5 tons) and the last 1.5 tones were the reloading system
11. Everything in the turret, not the fire control, is outside the hull and does not by RAW effect the dTons of the craft
12. well just slaping it on it would always be 101 tons deployed or not (in reality it would lose one ton of cargo and stay at 100 tons though)
13. That depends on your personal design, I put controls at the weapons but you could have it controlled from the bridge
14. easy for fire control anyways
15. yes turrets are small that's why the fire control is separate (kind of)

 

[phavoc]

The issue I see with calculating Dtons for weapons mounts is that the rules aren't following an established rule.

The example of the torpedo barbette displacing 5 tons, but being able to accommodate 2 torpedoes (at 5dtons), so in effect the mount takes up zero space. But that rule is not carried forward for missile mounts. And it makes no sense when applied to bay weapons either. The scaling up for the bay (50dton bay being able to fire 3 vs 1 for a 5 ton mount) is illogical.



As far as the turret volume vs. fire control volume, I find this to be a problem too. It's ok to have arbitrary rules so long as the same logic follows suit from start to finish. But that's not quite how it works out. Volume calculations determine everything in the system.

And when they don't add up you scratch your head and wonder how in the hell this ship is supposed to exist. Sure, you could do the hand-wavium (it's a game after all). If that is the case though, then why even have a set of design rules if they aren't going to be used? There are other obvious holes in the system that beg to be fixed.

The whole point of paying for a game's rulebooks are to use them as a guide for your gaming sessions. That's a given, and I accept that. But it's damn annoying when the rules put forth by the publisher don't follow their own established guidelines. There is (or should be) a basic expectation of accuracy and logic when paying for something professionally published. At least that's how I see it.