Spaceship Armour Vs Personal Weapons ?

[Marachai]

I was wondering if there was a specific rule dealing with how starship armour interacts with the attacks from hand held personal weapons.

The sample scout ship has Armour of 2, and I am pretty sure that doesnt get used like normal armour

So I was curious if starship armour translate to a higher number for dealing with small arms attacks ?

Thanks for any help / advice on this matter

Mara

 

[pasuuli]

I was wondering if there was a specific rule dealing with how starship armour interacts with the attacks from hand held personal weapons.

The sample scout ship has Armour of 2, and I am pretty sure that doesnt get used like normal armour

So I was curious if starship armour translate to a higher number for dealing with small arms attacks ?

Thanks for any help / advice on this matter

Mara

Oooh, good question!

Especially since the Mercenary book is in the pipe. Suppose our squad of Battledressed Marines fire their FGMP-15s at a grounded Scout. What happens?

Not to mention vehicle combat in general... lots of games have this, lots of games made it messy.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

In other variations of Traveller, I have seen scale factors between Personal-Vehicle-Starship with values from 4 to 10.

Using the smallest value for each scale (4) that would make Starship Armor 2 equivalent to Vehicle Armor 8 and Personal Armor 32. Weapons damage scales the same as armor.

Not sure how MGT is going to deal with this, but something needs to be in the rules...

 

[B_Steele]

Request noted...

...Traveller:Mercenary now adjusted with additional Ground Forces vs. Starship-scale targets information.

Good idea!

-Bry

 

[pasuuli]

In other variations of Traveller, I have seen scale factors between Personal-Vehicle-Starship with values from 4 to 10.

Using the smallest value for each scale (4) that would make Starship Armor 2 equivalent to Vehicle Armor 8 and Personal Armor 32. Weapons damage scales the same as armor.

Not sure how MGT is going to deal with this, but something needs to be in the rules...

That seems reasonable.

Alternately, a way of organizing fire into "barrages", like the way High Guard groups weapons into batteries, but temporary. Maybe more like how the old Mercenary book does abstract mass-fire?

Three benefits to that: first, no scaling necessary for armor. Armor is what it is.

Second, you get an idea just how dangerous big weapons are without doing math.

You know, psychological impact.

If your enemies' ship laser does 300 points of damage, you immediately know not to stand in front of it.

Third, for free you get a mechanic which could replace the battery building and combat tables of High Guard, too.

 

[AKAramis]

That seems reasonable.

Alternately, a way of organizing fire into "barrages", like the way High Guard groups weapons into batteries, but temporary. Maybe more like how the old Mercenary book does abstract mass-fire?

Three benefits to that: first, no scaling necessary for armor. Armor is what it is.

Second, you get an idea just how dangerous big weapons are without doing math.

You know, psychological impact.

If your enemies' ship laser does 300 points of damage, you immediately know not to stand in front of it.

Third, for free you get a mechanic which could replace the battery building and combat tables of High Guard, too.

I always found the HG system of CT Bk 5 (and it's brother, MT HG, found in the back of the Ref's Manual) to be the most crappy part of CT & MT. It's neither terribly realistic, nor good for roleplay, nor good for description, nor does it allow for cumulation of damage from many small hits to hurt large or heavily armored ships.

 

[Lane Shutt]

As luck would have it I located my copies of LBB 4 (Merc), 5 (HG) and the combat game Striker.

According to Striker the HG starship armor has the following ratings.
HG 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+
AR 60 64 67 70 72 74 76 77 +1 per # over 7

In comparison
Battle Dress (TL 14) has AR 18
FGMP 14 has a penetration of 34
Shipboard Plasma Gun (TL14) penetration 65 at effective range 1 km in standard atmosphere( 1000 km in space), blast radius of 150 m with penetration of 49

 

[Golan2072]

...Traveller:Mercenary now adjusted with additional Ground Forces vs. Starship-scale targets information.

I'd like to see a simple damage conversion rule (a short paragraph or a small sidebar) in the core book, with the more advanced rules (such as target acquisition when firing at a flying ship, bombing ground targets from orbit, grav-tanks chasing a ship etc) in Mercenary. This way by the core-book you could easily resolve an FGMP-15 against your Type-S, and Mercenary would allow you to use fighters/ship's-boats/small starship in military ground combat.