Space combat dm bonuses vs penalties

[Nerhesi]

Is it me or there a lot more positive modifiers then negatively? I'm concerned that the to-hit roll becomes trivial considering the medium and under engagement.

-2 successful dodge
-1 evade software

Meanwhile the positives:

+1 to +5 fire control
+1 to +3 Characteristic dm
+1 to +4 Skill
+1 Lock-on
+1 Line up the shot

At most, no matter how good you are, defensively you're getting at most -3 vs something much larger trying to roll an 8...

So I'm curious, has this always been the case or have non mongoose traveller editions allowed for more "misses" through more skill based dodging or other modifiers such as small craft and so on

 

[F33D]

You forgot weapon range mods... I think pg. 146 MRB

 

[Nerhesi]

Didn't actually as I specifically left them out. Considering the preponderance of medium or long ranged weapons, you can reliably wreck targets with plasma barrettes and meson weapons and their bays at long ranges with no penalties

 

[CosmicGamer]

+1 to +3 Characteristic dm
+1 to +4 Skill

Characteristic -2 to +3
Skill -3 to ...

 

[Nerhesi]

Okay let's keep this bound to realistic values... I'm not dealing with out lying values like ppl who shouldn't be manning guns or piloting doing so... Same reason I'm not including psionically integrated ships with even more to hit bonuses

 

[F33D]

Didn't actually as I specifically left them out. Considering the preponderance of medium or long ranged weapons,

That entirely depends on ship type. Military yes, civilian types, not really.

 

[locarno24]

For warship on warship, I agree, the roll to hit is fairly trivial. But then it should be!

The point that all these modifiers become a big deal is 'proper' naval engagements where the barrage rules come into play, and you're trying to overcome a -10 or more DM for the target's armour value in order to hurt the bloody thing.

F33D is right that you can get serious penalties to hit (say a DM-1 on DEX and a further DM-3 on unskilled) but equally Nerhesi is also right that only in exceptional circumstances will those people be manning turrets; every traveller group I've GMed where ships were in play had at least one player with the skills to operate the ship's weapons (to be fair, it's in the default skill package).

My one personal pet hate (again compared to the barrage rules) is that you can only expend a single point of thrust dodging a given attack - meaning a fat trader is supposedly just as capable of evasive action as a Jester-class superiority fighter. Which is, quite clearly, drivel.

The barrage rules apply a default DM-4 to attacking small craft, and the special actions include some additional ways to make your ship a harder target (Defensive Posture, which is a DM-2, and Fast Strafing Run for fighters, which is a DM+2 to hit and DM-2 to be hit if you can get to close range)

 

[CosmicGamer]

Okay let's keep this bound to realistic values... I'm not dealing with out lying values like ppl who shouldn't be manning guns or piloting doing so... Same reason I'm not including psionically integrated ships with even more to hit bonuses

ok,lets do so.

In a current pbp game I have a character with gunner 2 and a dex mod of 0. Is that unrealistic? It's outside your range of +1 or better for characteristics. The problem is she is also the best pilot with a skill of 4. So we end up with the captain and an engineer manning the guns. One with Gunner 0 dex +1, the other with JoaT 1 and no dex mod. Both are below your skill range of +1 or better.

Based on random standard chargen a 15 characteristic for +3 DM would be pretty rare compared to the possibility of a -1 DM. Even that -2 DM might be just as likely. If someone with brains and not dex tries to be a Navy Engineer and ends up with gunner skill... Is it not possible for no player character to have gunner skill? Perhaps it's left to the person with high dex and no skill. Maybe the character with JoaT has a low dex... Lots of real possibilities where people who "shouldn't" be manning guns are doing so. Unless you are talking about military ships (in which case you should probably get high guard) instead of players on small merchant ships who don't have the space or money to hire the perfect NPCs and considered other things a priority when selecting connection skills and a skill package.

 

[F33D]

My one personal pet hate (again compared to the barrage rules) is that you can only expend a single point of thrust dodging a given attack - meaning a fat trader is supposedly just as capable of evasive action as a Jester-class superiority fighter. Which is, quite clearly, drivel.

Agreed

 

[locarno24]

It's one of the reasons I do like the barrage rules. Things like that are included - effectively giving small craft a 'free' layer of crystaliron armour to represent the difficulty in hitting the bloody things.

See my previous comments in posts about bay vs barbette vs turret weapons; as far as I'm concerned, the fact that a weapon isn't capable of point defence means it clearly has trouble hitting small, agile targets but this isn't reflected in the rules for more agile ships - a 100 dTon particle bay (the Traveller universe's 16" naval gun) can hit a torpedo bomber as easily as the carrier it launched from.

Is it not possible for no player character to have gunner skill?

Only deliberately. Gunner is one of the skills in two of the default traveller skill packages which the players need to divvy up between themselves (meaning you can give it to a player who's not needed for another task in ship combat)

It depends on the setting and the party. A default merchant ship is not going to spend MCr10 on fire control/5. Especially since the default type S or whatever generally comes with a Model1/Bis computer - i.e. enough to run jump control and bugger all else. That means a maximum of fire control/1

Equally, in a 3-player party you've got gunner, pilot and (probably) engineer. Only in a bigger party (or a group hiring NPC crew) will you have someone on sensors to provide lock-on bonus.

Line up the shot is generally a bad idea. You add the effect as per a normal task chain - which means that whilst you can roll double 6 you can also roll double 1 and 'help screw up the shot' - which happens just as often. Unless you're average roll is at least effect +2 or more, I wouldn't recommend doing this, plus it also draws available thrust away from dodging.

That pushes you back down to just characteristics and skill.

On a 'proper' warship, with military-grade fire control and a sensors deck, you will get these bonuses. But then such ships shouldn't be missing.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Is it not possible for no player character to have gunner skill?

Only deliberately. Gunner is one of the skills in two of the default traveller skill packages which the players need to divvy up between themselves (meaning you can give it to a player who's not needed for another task in ship combat)

Yes, 2 out of, off the top of my head, 8 skill packages have gunner. It's certainly not beyond imagination that one of the other skill packages is better suited.

in a 3-player party you've got gunner, pilot and (probably) engineer.

I think sensors could be more useful in a wide variety of situations than gunner skill. Like knowing about a dangerous ship out there sooner so that you perhaps can avoid trouble? "Why are you on an intercept vector with your weapons powered up?" How about an Astrogator? Broker and Steward and maybe streetwise if your trying to make a living as a merchant ship. All kinds of skills for mercenary types. Persuade, Deception and Investigate if it's the type of group that takes side jobs figuring out solutions to other people problems. Mining, Exploration, Salvage operations, Scientific research... The list is as long as the skills. Sure, the group could be commerce raiders, bounty hunters, pirates or somehow more likely to need a gunner but it's certainly not unlikely that a group of adventurers would find other skills more useful than gunner.

On a 'proper' warship, with military-grade fire control and a sensors deck, you will get these bonuses. But then such ships shouldn't be missing.

Sounds about right.

 

[F33D]

A default merchant ship is not going to spend MCr10 on fire control/5. Especially since the default type S or whatever generally comes with a Model1/Bis computer - i.e. enough to run jump control and bugger all else. That means a maximum of fire control/1

The computer rating number is what can run on the CPU at one time. You only need to run Jump pgm when you are initiating and in jump space. Therefore, a 1 Bis computer can run, at any one time, programs totaling 5 slots. (10 if a jump pgm.)

 

[Mytholder]

My one personal pet hate (again compared to the barrage rules) is that you can only expend a single point of thrust dodging a given attack - meaning a fat trader is supposedly just as capable of evasive action as a Jester-class superiority fighter. Which is, quite clearly, drivel.

Agreed

Thrust was a lot more useful in the older draft of the rules, with Timing/Effect. Back then, you could dodge multiple times if you had the Thrust to spend and the Timing to pull it off.