Ship Weapons vs. Ground Combat... Ground Combat wins?

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Ship Combat happens in 6 minute turns; Ground Combat happens in 6 second turns. In order to translate Ship Weapons to Ground Combat effectiveness, you should have to multiply the damage by at least 60, in order to account for the rate of damage. Right now, the damage rate is just too low! It's like standing in a painful flashlight; if it hurts, just move out of the way. Further, the opposite is also relevant; right now, laser pistols aught to put nice beam-caliber holes through a ship's hull! After a few of those, it should start damaging equipment on the other side...

Now, granted, this assumes constant fire from the ship at a given target that isn't moving. If the current rules weren't meant to account for that, then the rules should be able to tell us what the correct value is.

 

[Nerhesi]

You'd have to change hull values on both space and vehicle significantly. Also, I think this is what 6 second dog fighting is trying to address.

Finally - no ground combat doesn't win - because at close ranges when you're automatically "dog fighting", which is the scale of all/most ground weapons, ships are firing at the same rate as vehicles.

 

[phavoc]

This assumes that ground-based weapons aren't the same analogs as the same ship-based ones. So that fusion gun mounted on the tank may have the same energy as a fusion-based starship weapon, but maybe it's been optimized to fire in an atmosphere while the ship-based one isn't, and therefore the ground-based one should actually be doing MORE damage than a ship-based one.

Or else they are the same, just instead of being mounted in a starship turret it's mounted in a tank turret, or a ground-based turret. The old DGP vehicles book had the heavy weapons with actual ammo, even though they were energy-based ones, because the onboard fusion plant couldn't supply a continuous amount of power. But capacitors allowed for 'ammunition', and with time you could replenish your ammo supply. In cases like that ground based weapons should be considered the same as standard turret-based ones.

Since small-craft weapons don't have any difference to ship-based ones, why should ground based ones?

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Players should be able to use starships for close-air-support and dogfighting their way out of the atmosphere. If ship weapons are inexplicably less effective in atmosphere, that needs to be fixed.

If the most damage turret weapons can do firing at a target under conditions in which it cannot miss is the current listed amount, then that value needs to change to bring it into reasonable comparative effectiveness with ground weapons.

 

[Nerhesi]

If I understand your argument:

In Space combat, damage is only happening every 1-6 minutes.
In Personal/Vehicle combat, damage is happening every 1-6 seconds.
Therefore, it would seem that Ground vehicles weapons are magnitudes more powerful than Space weapons.

This is a possible interpretation but it is countered when you look at dogfighting.

Dogfighting has space vehicles, doing damage to eachother and to vehicles, every 1-6 seconds. Therefore the weapons are not at all less powerful. Therefore if Close-air-support is happening it would still be happening at the scale of 1-6 seconds. The conclusion is that rate of fire is tied to distance.

Don't get me wrong - I'm in favour of bringing space turns down to 10-60 seconds, but I dont think that will happen.

Further, the opposite is also relevant; right now, laser pistols aught to put nice beam-caliber holes through a ship's hull! After a few of those, it should start damaging equipment on the other side...

Not sure I understand you. Traveller armour, has been for the most part, beat thresholds or you dont do anything. No amount of laser pistol is going to get through a hull.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

My argument is that the damage per second of starships does not beat the damage per second of ground combat, making ship weapons useless for close-air-support in ground engagements. In order to make the damage relevant and superior, it needs to exceed a damage multiple of 60, and should probably be more like 100 or more.

I don't see the dogfighting rules as relevant here. If one starship is firing on a non-moving space-hulk, and isn't missing, the damage per second doesn't change.

I am not arguing to bring starship combat down to six second turns. I am arguing that the multiplier between starship damage and ground combat damage has to at least exceed 60 to pack a big enough punch to reflect the power difference; right now, it's just too small.

 

[phavoc]

Players should be able to use starships for close-air-support and dogfighting their way out of the atmosphere. If ship weapons are inexplicably less effective in atmosphere, that needs to be fixed.

If the most damage turret weapons can do firing at a target under conditions in which it cannot miss is the current listed amount, then that value needs to change to bring it into reasonable comparative effectiveness with ground weapons.

Agreed. But you have to have the starship then firing on the ground vehicle scale, or vice-versa. The issue of combat rounds is not a technological issue, but one of game play. Actually, firing every 6 seconds is a bit daft on the ground as well, unless you have a gatling/automatic weapon. You aren't going to be blazing away with your primary weapon as if you were a street thug showing how stupid you are holding a gun sideways and continuously pulling the trigger to empty the magazine. Professionals are going to wait for a chance at a hit and conserve their ammo. Assuming you have some professionals that is.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

GURPS uses one-second rounds, and tries very hard to achieve the utmost in realism. Firing on separate targets can be done every round... but you'll be much more likely to hit if you take a full round to aim. In theory, that would translate to 3 separate fully aimed shots in Traveller during a single Traveller round. I see no reason to worry about the realism of aiming difficulties, whether ground combatant or close-air-support gunner. Now, you could be trying to say that the Rate of Fire of a ship's turret guns may matter a great deal at ground-combat pacing... And you may well have a point there. But that's just another chart, if they don't fire at cinematic style "gattling" rates. With regards to ammo, you've lost me again; whether pulse lasers or beam lasers, they should fire just fine. I would guess the beam laser fires once a round, or once every other round, and the pulse lasers fire effectively at "gattling" rates.

 

[Nerhesi]

My argument is that the damage per second of starships does not beat the damage per second of ground combat, making ship weapons useless for close-air-support in ground engagements. In order to make the damage relevant and superior, it needs to exceed a damage multiple of 60, and should probably be more like 100 or more.

The damage per second of starships is in fact the same as ground combat. Or else how do they magically fire every 1 to 6 seconds when a dogfight occurs? It is the same weapon.

I don't see the dogfighting rules as relevant here. If one starship is firing on a non-moving space-hulk, and isn't missing, the damage per second doesn't change.

The dog fight *rules* aren't relevant. What is relevant is that starship weapons do fire per second. They would do so in ground engagements as well, just as like they do so for dog-fight engagements. The only exception seems to be at "long-distance-space-battles".

I am not arguing to bring starship combat down to six second turns. I am arguing that the multiplier between starship damage and ground combat damage has to at least exceed 60 to pack a big enough punch to reflect the power difference; right now, it's just too small.

By doing that, you will magically make starship weapons ridiculously powerful at dog-fight range, where they will be firing 60 times faster and doing 60 times more damage. I am saying dogfight, as described, completely disproves your point that starship weapons are weaker. That is simply not correct logically, because the math doesn't hold up. If it was true, then they would be doing less damage in a dog-fight, which they are not!

It is an issue with an ad-hoc, legacy traveller decision, to make space-combat turns 1-6 minutes. It has nothing to do with weapon power, nor does it logically make anything weaker. It makes a logically weak argument of "plotting, planning, and firing in space takes longer". That is it.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I am not arguing to bring starship combat down to six second turns. I am arguing that the multiplier between starship damage and ground combat damage has to at least exceed 60 to pack a big enough punch to reflect the power difference; right now, it's just too small.

By doing that, you will magically make starship weapons ridiculously powerful at dog-fight range, where they will be firing 60 times faster and doing 60 times more damage. I am saying dogfight, as described, completely disproves your point that starship weapons are weaker. That is simply not correct logically, because the math doesn't hold up. If it was true, then they would be doing less damage in a dog-fight, which they are not!

It is an issue with an ad-hoc, legacy traveller decision, to make space-combat turns 1-6 minutes. It has nothing to do with weapon power, nor does it logically make anything weaker. It makes a logically weak argument of "plotting, planning, and firing in space takes longer". That is it.

I do not see a turret-mounted laser as anything remotely equivalent to a laser rifle. It is, at the very least, equivalent to a man-portable support-weapon that would require at least two people to deploy and field as a tripod pintle mount, if not bigger. They would not be firing "60 times faster and doing 60 times more damage"; they would do one, the other, or a mix of two that, when multiplied together, totals at least 60.

The dogfighting rules have nothing to do with anything; it's the maximum damage one ship can do to the other when the firing ship can't miss that matters. If the dogfighting rules haven't taken damage per second into account properly either, that's just more bad assumptions as a function of the original bad assumptions.

 

[Nerhesi]

The dogfighting rules have nothing to do with anything; it's the maximum damage one ship can do to the other when the firing ship can't miss that matters.

That is exactly dog fighting damage. If you hit during a dog-fight, you've hit. Thats the maximum damage you're doing without missing. You're firing once in that 6 second period.

It's the same as standing in-front of a turret, and asking someone to pull the trigger once. You're going to take weapon damage. You're going to take the weapon damage once.

Therefore - the correct weapon is already listed, and available at the lowest common denominator. The lowest 'atomic' form of damage is the listed damage, an that is damage per shot.

Example, In ground scale:

Starship Pulse Laser 2DD
Advanced Tank Cannon 2DD
Autocannon 1DD
Laser Rifle 5D
Laser Pistol 4D

Everything is fine.

You're trying to address a space-turns-of-combat problem (that is the real problem - not the damage) by multiplying the singular damage value of weapons, so when combat turns are happening in space, the "damage over 6 minutes" is the same.

By doing that, your pulse laser becomes uhm... 120DD!!!! You go back to the clear disparity that somehow my vehicle made from bonded superdense is magically 100 times actually weaker than my starship made from crystal iron, etc..

The damage is fine. Literally the problem is fixed by stating that when X and Y are interacting, you're using the same turn-based scale (seconds or minutes). Thats the problem - not solved by magically inflating numbers and creating starship weaponry with damage values that flatten continents.

 

[phavoc]

GURPS uses one-second rounds, and tries very hard to achieve the utmost in realism. Firing on separate targets can be done every round... but you'll be much more likely to hit if you take a full round to aim. In theory, that would translate to 3 separate fully aimed shots in Traveller during a single Traveller round. I see no reason to worry about the realism of aiming difficulties, whether ground combatant or close-air-support gunner. Now, you could be trying to say that the Rate of Fire of a ship's turret guns may matter a great deal at ground-combat pacing... And you may well have a point there. But that's just another chart, if they don't fire at cinematic style "gattling" rates. With regards to ammo, you've lost me again; whether pulse lasers or beam lasers, they should fire just fine. I would guess the beam laser fires once a round, or once every other round, and the pulse lasers fire effectively at "gattling" rates.

Yeah, but that's not accurate either. In reality your combat rounds are taken up with hiding, ducking down behind cover, being shot at in return, and then, maybe, getting some fire off of your own.

The problem with gaming systems is that they min/max reality to make it more fun. Nobody likes to play a character that always hides and only pops out for the occasional attack. We all want to be kill-kill-kill-reload-kill-i'm hit!-i'm ok!-kill-kill-kill. The game itself is an escape from some of our reality.

Getting off an aimed shot while people are shooting AT you is pretty rare in reality - unless you have some awesome concealment. That's why cover fire exists - it makes the targets duck to avoid the flying metal (or energy, depending on if you are talking Traveller or reality).

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Yes, but not everyone is being shot at. If someone is completely covered and concealed, and going full-bore at a target, that difference in damage should be fully reflected in the rules, if it's actually different.

If damage from a starship cannon that hasn't missed is different from one that partly has, that difference has to be reflected in the rules. If damage from a dogfighter that hasn't missed is different from one that has, that difference has to be reflected in the rules.

Right now, if what you two say is true, it isn't; full-bore shots on stationary targets aren't getting rewarded. I'm not convinced that this is the case, because there's no rule to justify it. Nor do the dogfight rules necessarily indicate a successful full-bore attack, instead of some additional wasteful target-leading. I can only argue the rules as they are.


Yes, multiplying gunfire out that way produces ridiculous results, unless you multiply the armor too. Which seems perfectly reasonable to me. Starship Armor, Vehicle Armor, and Battle Dress Armor certainly aren't the same.

 

[phavoc]

Well, you can be covered, and you can be concealed, but you can't be both AND shoot at an opponent. Shooting reveals you to the target,negating concealment. Cover provides protection from return fire, though 100% cover sometimes means you cannot engage your target without first exposing yourself. That is depending upon a number of other issues.

The rules don't go into the detail you are referencing. At least not personal combat. A hit is a hit, a miss is a miss. IF you delve into the indirect fire rules you'll find what you are referencing. If I remember my Squad Leader days I think it had more detail regarding personal combat and damage/injury. I dunno, it's been a very long while since I've played that.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Well, you can be covered, and you can be concealed, but you can't be both AND shoot at an opponent. Shooting reveals you to the target,negating concealment. Cover provides protection from return fire, though 100% cover sometimes means you cannot engage your target without first exposing yourself. That is depending upon a number of other issues.

It depends on what you mean by "the opponent". If you sent someone to sneak around and take out the enemy's Air/Raft on the other side of the building, that damage per round has to be modeled correctly too. It's either the same, or it isn't; and if it isn't, there has to be rules for it; otherwise, people will never know if the Air/Raft was taken out in time before the bad guys made it around to get away.

The rules don't go into the detail you are referencing. At least not personal combat. A hit is a hit, a miss is a miss. IF you delve into the indirect fire rules you'll find what you are referencing. If I remember my Squad Leader days I think it had more detail regarding personal combat and damage/injury. I dunno, it's been a very long while since I've played that.

Until there are rules that say otherwise, and completely address all circumstances, I'm assuming that all hits are complete hits with no missing, 6 second rounds or not. And I see no reason why I shouldn't based on the existing book, either.

So, based on the rules in the existing book, the numbers ain't right. Period.

 

[phavoc]

It depends on what you mean by "the opponent". If you sent someone to sneak around and take out the enemy's Air/Raft on the other side of the building, that damage per round has to be modeled correctly too. It's either the same, or it isn't; and if it isn't, there has to be rules for it; otherwise, people will never know if the Air/Raft was taken out in time before the bad guys made it around to get away.

I dunno how to interpret the sneaking aspect. Care to make that more clear? Are you referring to there NOT being any sneaking-type rules?

Until there are rules that say otherwise, and completely address all circumstances, I'm assuming that all hits are complete hits with no missing, 6 second rounds or not. And I see no reason why I shouldn't based on the existing book, either.

So, based on the rules in the existing book, the numbers ain't right. Period.

Hrm... Well i've yet to encounter a rule set that covers all situations. They usually cover enough, but nobody has gotten the rule right where you sneak up on an opponent wearing a pumpkin for a helmet and disable their grav-tank with a well-placed banana in their engine compartment.

I, too, think it's pretty safe to assume a hit is a complete hit (unless the rules offer you options otherwise).

The conversation started out trying to reconcile starship to ground-based combat. It's not like there aren't real-world equivalents to this same issue. Say you have an Sherman tank on the beach and a Iowa class BB sitting offshore - assuming the tank is able to engage the ship with it's main armaments and the ship the tank. The rate of fire of the Sherman is going to be faster than the rate of fire of the Sherman. To make it fair we only account for a single 16' gun.

So because the ROF of the Sherman is say 10x that of the BB, we should make the 75mm cannon 10x more effective than it really is? I think we are comparing watermelons with potatoes here. The differences in timing are more game mechanics than anything else. MT had vehicle weapons with different rates of fire (had to dig out my 101 Vehicles), but the newer version thus far seems to put all weapons on the same time scale. An auto-cannon should definitely have a higher rate of fire than say a bombard. So that is a problem for sure.

I'm trying to think up a way to merge the two systems in a logical fashion, but I think we are missing too much underlying explanation of the systems to make more than a blind stab in the dark at it.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

It depends on what you mean by "the opponent". If you sent someone to sneak around and take out the enemy's Air/Raft on the other side of the building, that damage per round has to be modeled correctly too. It's either the same, or it isn't; and if it isn't, there has to be rules for it; otherwise, people will never know if the Air/Raft was taken out in time before the bad guys made it around to get away.

I dunno how to interpret the sneaking aspect. Care to make that more clear? Are you referring to there NOT being any sneaking-type rules?

What I'm referring to is, if someone isn't being shot at (or doesn't care that he is), and can fully unload on a target with impunity and no chance of missing a shot, by the lines of reasoning applied here in defending the combat systems as-is, the damage should be different. And given that this circumstance isn't unusual, if that argument is correct, there should be rules for it; but there aren't! So I'm inclined to dismiss that line of reasoning on those grounds; because even if the argument is correct, the result is that the rules are still broken!

Any set of rules that can't be compared in this way needs to be fixed.

 

[phavoc]

It depends on what you mean by "the opponent". If you sent someone to sneak around and take out the enemy's Air/Raft on the other side of the building, that damage per round has to be modeled correctly too. It's either the same, or it isn't; and if it isn't, there has to be rules for it; otherwise, people will never know if the Air/Raft was taken out in time before the bad guys made it around to get away.

I dunno how to interpret the sneaking aspect. Care to make that more clear? Are you referring to there NOT being any sneaking-type rules?

What I'm referring to is, if someone isn't being shot at (or doesn't care that he is), and can fully unload on a target with impunity and no chance of missing a shot, by the lines of reasoning applied here in defending the combat systems as-is, the damage should be different. And given that this circumstance isn't unusual, if that argument is correct, there should be rules for it; but there aren't! So I'm inclined to dismiss that line of reasoning on those grounds; because even if the argument is correct, the result is that the rules are still broken!

Any set of rules that can't be compared in this way needs to be fixed.

Oh, ok. Well, that does actually make sense. And it's a tried and true model in reality. I had made a reference in another thread about Jutland and that's exactly what allowed the Derflinger to be so successful in it's attacks on British ships - nobody was engaging it so it didn't have to expend any effort dodging incoming shells - which gave it more accurate fire.

I suppose if one were attacking with impunity, as you state above, the only defense available would be passive defense (the strength of the armor, etc). There could be bonuses to hit, but still there's Murphy to deal with so roll the dice.

I don't see this as a rules-are-broken issue, but one more of can you integrate things into the rules without bogging them down to the point where it's not fun anymore? When we did things like this in D&D (unexpected attacks from the rear), you lost any agility bonus, and shield bonus, etc. The only defense you got was your inherent passive defense of your armor).

 

[AndrewW]

I don't see this as a rules-are-broken issue, but one more of can you integrate things into the rules without bogging them down to the point where it's not fun anymore? When we did things like this in D&D (unexpected attacks from the rear), you lost any agility bonus, and shield bonus, etc. The only defense you got was your inherent passive defense of your armor).

Not exactly... There are other defense bonus's such as deflection that still apply, and if it happens to be a touch attack no AC bonus...

 

[allanimal]

It depends on what you mean by "the opponent". If you sent someone to sneak around and take out the enemy's Air/Raft on the other side of the building, that damage per round has to be modeled correctly too. It's either the same, or it isn't; and if it isn't, there has to be rules for it; otherwise, people will never know if the Air/Raft was taken out in time before the bad guys made it around to get away.

I dunno how to interpret the sneaking aspect. Care to make that more clear? Are you referring to there NOT being any sneaking-type rules?

What I'm referring to is, if someone isn't being shot at (or doesn't care that he is), and can fully unload on a target with impunity and no chance of missing a shot, by the lines of reasoning applied here in defending the combat systems as-is, the damage should be different. And given that this circumstance isn't unusual, if that argument is correct, there should be rules for it; but there aren't! So I'm inclined to dismiss that line of reasoning on those grounds; because even if the argument is correct, the result is that the rules are still broken!

Any set of rules that can't be compared in this way needs to be fixed.

If your to hit DMs are so good that there is no chance to miss, it is also likely that your effect will be quite high as well, meaning you will be doing more damage than someone who just barely managed to hit (low or no effect).