Small Warships

[Condottiere]

You incorporate Trillion Credit Squadron, at this point.

 

[mancerbear]

I don't have Trillion Credit Squadron unfortunately.

 

[Condottiere]

The short version is, you figure out the GDP you have to work with, the annual governmental budget from that, the amount allocated to space forces.

From that you multiply by ten, and can create an existing fleet at current tech level by pre spending eighty percent, and twenty percent on ships a tech level lower.

The money budgeted in the current year can be allocated to maintenance, building new ships, or updating old ones.

If you want reality, randomize legislative and executive directives on how to spend part of that money.

And after going through that process, and assessing needs and threats, you can design and buy new ships.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I might be late to the party,but before I design a ship I like to assign a budget, then allow a 10% blowout if necessary. This stops me from min-maxing. I've always thought trying to stick to a budget gives me a more realistic feel to ship design.

I agree that everything should be designed to a cost, but for small ships even a respectable planetary navy can build many, so it is more a question of bang-for-the-buck.

If you fix the cost per ship, the size of the ship becomes the major variable. Small ships can become very inefficient if you make them too small.

If you have a small navy that really wants say 10 patrol craft for a very limited budget, you really have to design down to an acceptable unit cost and accept the compromised performance.

 

[-Daniel-]

I might be late to the party,but before I design a ship I like to assign a budget, then allow a 10% blowout if necessary. This stops me from min-maxing. I've always thought trying to stick to a budget gives me a more realistic feel to ship design.

I think even if you do not have a fixed budget, you should design with overall value in mind. I see designs on line that clearly worked out the weapon load and armor then just half handed the rest. You are right, designing just for min-maxing can pump out quite boring designs.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Polity.

2. Technological level.

3. Role(s).

4. Annual budget

5. Industrial base.

6. Trade partner(s).

7. Basing facilities.

8. Personnel.

 

[kevinknight]

Interesting design. Though a small warship like that shouldn't mount that sort of armor or defenses.

As far as I can see warships comes in two varieties: heavily armoured or target-practice. Without decent missile defences even armoured warships are target practice for missile armed ships. So of course all warships should have armour and defences.

I have to agree with AnotherDilbert here. I can't fathom why any navy would build a warship without the maximum armor available. That armor protects the important systems that make the ship work plus the highly trained naval crew that flies it.

 

[-Daniel-]

Interesting design. Though a small warship like that shouldn't mount that sort of armor or defenses.

As far as I can see warships comes in two varieties: heavily armoured or target-practice. Without decent missile defences even armoured warships are target practice for missile armed ships. So of course all warships should have armour and defences.

I have to agree with AnotherDilbert here. I can't fathom why any navy would build a warship without the maximum armor available. That armor protects the important systems that make the ship work plus the highly trained naval crew that flies it.

I can see them doing it with less than the max armor. Trade speed for armor. But to make them with no armor is what I find unbelievable. :|

 

[phavoc]

Interesting design. Though a small warship like that shouldn't mount that sort of armor or defenses.

As far as I can see warships comes in two varieties: heavily armoured or target-practice. Without decent missile defences even armoured warships are target practice for missile armed ships. So of course all warships should have armour and defences.

I have to agree with AnotherDilbert here. I can't fathom why any navy would build a warship without the maximum armor available. That armor protects the important systems that make the ship work plus the highly trained naval crew that flies it.

There are many reasons. Cost, mission, type of navy (Imp, planetsry, corporate, merc). You see coast Guard cutters (the ocean going type) who have a role in war, and in oeace. They don't have armor. You also armor a ship to withstand the type of enemy it's meant to fight. A corvette or destroyer isn't going to survive an encounter with a cruiser, or at least not very long regardless of its armor factor (and I still don't think a lot of a 300 ton gunship having the same armor factor of a 500000 dreadnought)

 

[Condottiere]

Battlecruisers being examples of optimizing speed and firepower over armour, destroyers nicknamed as tincans, and MBTs being exemplars of balancing all three aspects.

Artificial constraints such as treaty limits on displacement, forcing such compromises depending on the preferences by each navy. And it usually turns out almost everyone cheats, to a greater or lesser degree.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

(and I still don't think a lot of a 300 ton gunship having the same armor factor of a 500000 dreadnought)

You are describing a different system than the one we have. In this alternate system it would hardly make sense to limit the amount of armour carried on large ships to a few cm, so a BB could be armoured to more or less immune to anything but spinal mounts and mesons. This would make the combat system break down, so we would need a new space combat system to go with the new design system.

If you want to house rule this a factor 2^(-log₁₀(ship size/1000)) on the armour size works reasonably, if memory serves. Don't be surprised if BBs have Armour 30 or higher...

 

[Condottiere]

Under Striker, you actually did calculate out the thickness of the hull, and gave it a value.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

And from that we can see that the armour table is MT is in cm, from there we can calculate the size and mass of armour for any given craft. If anyone can be bothered...

 

[Condottiere]

There's always going to be an thermal exhaust port somewhere, and ventilation vents, that you can drop a grenade into.

 

[AndrewW]

There's always going to be an thermal exhaust port somewhere, and ventilation vents, that you can drop a grenade into.

You use proton torpedoes for those.

 

[Condottiere]

I bet I could Force a grenade down there.

 

[-Daniel-]

I bet I could Force a grenade down there.

LOL, I see what you did there. :lol:

As for the original topic, I find the whole idea of lowering the expected size of warships can be done, but it has to be across the board. You can't have reduced small ships but still have these moon sized dreads at the same time. Either ships grew or they didn't. Just my opinion of course. :mrgreen:

 

[phavoc]

(and I still don't think a lot of a 300 ton gunship having the same armor factor of a 500000 dreadnought)

You are describing a different system than the one we have. In this alternate system it would hardly make sense to limit the amount of armour carried on large ships to a few cm, so a BB could be armoured to more or less immune to anything but spinal mounts and mesons. This would make the combat system break down, so we would need a new space combat system to go with the new design system.

If you want to house rule this a factor 2^(-log₁₀(ship size/1000)) on the armour size works reasonably, if memory serves. Don't be surprised if BBs have Armour 30 or higher...

Indeed I am. Armor is more than slabs of material on the outside. Heavier armor requires more internal structure to channel the energy and support impacts on the surface. There is an entire science behind making armored structures actually function and work. And I'm not advocating apply it to the game.

I do, however, still hold to the idea that tiny ships should not have the same sort of protections as dreadnoughts. That's just silly. MGT v2 is working to fix some of the issues by actually scaling up turrets size wise instead of just having hundreds of the same weapons a free trader could carry.

And no, I never said anything about changing spinals. Nor did I say a battleship should be immune to anything but spinals. Those are your words and ideas.

Bit there should be a tradeoff for massive armor as well. A massive armored ship should be us that - massive. It means it can be a damage sink, bit it also isn't terribly maneuverable, thus all that armor is required because you almost can't NOT hit it (i.e. No maneuverability, but with enough engines it can still have speed).

I do realize that this is outside the norm, but it's not like there isn't precedence for any of these ideas within Travellers past. I think the long running issue here is that high guard is a ship combat game bolted on to an RPG. The combat systens dont mesh well because of this. Pure naval combat is something that deserves an entirely different set of rules and concepts.

 

[-Daniel-]

I think the long running issue here is that high guard is a ship combat game bolted on to an RPG. The combat systens dont mesh well because of this. Pure naval combat is something that deserves an entirely different set of rules and concepts.

I think this is always been true almost from the LBBs. There has always been a ship to ship game tucked into the RPG just begging to be brought out on it's own.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Nor did I say a battleship should be immune to anything but spinals. Those are your words and ideas.

That is the logical consequence of what you describe. If a grav tank or fighter can have 0,1 m armour, then a medium ship can have 1 m armour, and a megaton DN can have 10 m armour and hence be immune to puny weapons.

TNE (and CT Striker) did this in detail.