Spaceships and spacecombat

[Nerhesi]

The Imperium itself keeps a strict eye out on mass killing type of weaponry (chemical, biological, nuclear), but the rest is allowed. If a player had a letter of marque from a planetary government they could be classified as auxillary naval vessel and thus have particle weaponry. If they had the backing of a mega-corp, or even a contract with a planet, they could be in possession of military-grade gear since they would be classified as mercs.

So accredited Mercs only get Cat 5 (not prohibited level items). Now assuming somehow you do get access to prohibited through a special letter of marque, then all is good! You're no longer the problem we were discussing.. which is random free trader/hobo easily being allowed to legally mount and use this stuff.

I dont think there is any problem with a PC merc company have access to this stuff, or even to run some sort of outlaw campaign. I think it is important that I Joe-Freetrader can't be like... I'm just going to mount a Particle Barbette and 12+ armor.

And yes - I do agree with you that it is a CSC oversight to not grade armor levels. I mean, CSC does it to differentiate from basic armor, Combat Armor, Battle Dress and even different levels of vehicles.

 

[Nerhesi]

The cat 5 weapons are personal only. The later part covers which ship weapons.

Which is STILL nuts as I can have what i needed to lay waste to a town but cannot have combat armor. Probably why this didn't exist before MGT. It is a bit cockeyed.

Its not cockeyed because it is not off. You can't have what you're asking for (ship based plasma/fusion).

Cat 5 is not just personal bud. It is clearly all weapons. When it is personal weapons they stipulate that (They specifically state sometimes rifle vs support vs etc). They even describe differences between vehicle types.

You're spending a lot of effort trying to find a problem with the rules... while logically, it is absolutely clear. How would it make any sense to say: "Sorry, no shoulder or tank mounted fusion/plasma guns... but oh you want the 5 times the size version on your trader? NP!"

I know you dont like 3I but you dont have to reach that much

 

[phavoc]

The cat 5 weapons are personal only. The later part covers which ship weapons.

Which is STILL nuts as I can have what i needed to lay waste to a town but cannot have combat armor. Probably why this didn't exist before MGT. It is a bit cockeyed.

Here is exact quotation for Category 5 weaponry:

Category 5: Restricted Military Equipment
Category 5 items are only available to accredited mercenary units or personnel with a good record of serving in such a unit, while actively seeking a suitable unit or employer. This does not prevent a merchant captain from shipping quantities of such weapons from one place to another, provided they are properly crated and documented but they cannot be sold without proper permits in place. Of course, in zero-law areas there is often no-one to enforce such restrictions so the point may be academic unless an Imperial law enforcement agency takes an interest.

Category 5 Examples:
Plasma and Fusion Weapons.
Gauss Support Weapons.
Tac missiles.
Heavy Military Combat Vehicles (for example: tanks, fighter aircraft).
Battle Dress.
Combat Robots.

So Category 5 weaponry is pure heavy military stuff. It's not IMPOSSIBLE to get as a newly formed merc unit, but a weapons manufacturer may turn you down if you waltz into his business asking for half a dozen sets of battledress with plasma rifles and the ink isn't even dry on your papers. While the more unscrupulous arms dealers might take credits without asking for documentation, there probably would need to be some good profit in there to take the risk. No planet within Imperial space would be beyond the arm of Imperial law. Still, an entrepeneur could find a way to get their hands on such pricey gear legally or semi-legally (forged papers, bribery, or just plain ol mercantilism).

 

[phavoc]

So accredited Mercs only get Cat 5 (not prohibited level items). Now assuming somehow you do get access to prohibited through a special letter of marque, then all is good! You're no longer the problem we were discussing.. which is random free trader/hobo easily being allowed to legally mount and use this stuff.

I dont think there is any problem with a PC merc company have access to this stuff, or even to run some sort of outlaw campaign. I think it is important that I Joe-Freetrader can't be like... I'm just going to mount a Particle Barbette and 12+ armor.

And yes - I do agree with you that it is a CSC oversight to not grade armor levels. I mean, CSC does it to differentiate from basic armor, Combat Armor, Battle Dress and even different levels of vehicles.

The rules aren't terribly clear on paramilitary outfits using prohibited weapons (specifically starship weaponry). It just says "special permits" are required. There also is a potential loophole in the rules. Nothing is said about say meson artillery units, which technically are capable of killing lots of people just like NBC weapons. And since they are vehicles, technically they aren't "starship" grade weapons. Though as a ref I'd wag my finger and tell the PC's no fucking way...

High Guard could really benefit from a section on this, laying out what is considered civilain, para-military, and pure military gear for starships. Sure, you could be some star mercs bopping around the cosmos in your 800ton Broadsword class merc 'cruiser', but it's only armed with lasers and missiles. How would local naval or even Imperial forces treat a 2,000 ton armor-factor 15 ship flying with particle and meson weapons, torpedoes and flying under the flag of "Bob's Mercs - You buy us, we squash them". A ship like that could run roughshod over a lot of planetary naval forces and even lighter Imperial ships. To me that would exceed what any non-governmental agency should ever need or have (including mega-corps).

 

[Balfuset790]

Going back to something that was mentioned earlier in this topic, I'm curious as to the argument behind people's various stances on missiles. I know this has been discussed elsewhere, but this is the first time I've seen a particular stance come out of the discussion.

'Missiles are outdated, hence the low damage'

I'm very curious as to the reasoning behind the wbove logic. After all, a missile is an explosive warhead strapped to a guidance system. If it hits something that much directed energy is going to punch a hole in a ship's armour, surely? I mean, I doubt that people have simply taken the equivalent of modern cruise missiles and thought not to update them in the wake of modern innovations in armour?

I'm no physicist, but to me - and apaprently a lot of science fiction - missiles are a potent, but limited-use weapon.

Also, can anyone who's used the 1d6 x 1d6 damage house-ruling tell me how they found it affected the balance of combat, especially if compared to HG weapons such as Torps and such.

 

[sideranautae]

If it hits something that much directed energy is going to punch a hole in a ship's armour, surely?

Why would it? Do you know how much directed energy is there? Compared to..?

 

[Balfuset790]

Well, forgive me if my science is a bit off but... an explosion vs. a pinpoint beam of light. It's like... a rocket launcher compared to a sniper rifle

 

[sideranautae]

Well, forgive me if my science is a bit off but... an explosion vs. a pinpoint beam of light. It's like... a rocket launcher compared to a sniper rifle

Not at all. COMPLETELY depends on the amount of energy...

 

[Jeraa]

Going back to something that was mentioned earlier in this topic, I'm curious as to the argument behind people's various stances on missiles. I know this has been discussed elsewhere, but this is the first time I've seen a particular stance come out of the discussion.

'Missiles are outdated, hence the low damage'

I'm very curious as to the reasoning behind the wbove logic. After all, a missile is an explosive warhead strapped to a guidance system. If it hits something that much directed energy is going to punch a hole in a ship's armour, surely? I mean, I doubt that people have simply taken the equivalent of modern cruise missiles and thought not to update them in the wake of modern innovations in armour?

I'm no physicist, but to me - and apaprently a lot of science fiction - missiles are a potent, but limited-use weapon.

Traveller has really, really good point defense. It doesn't matter how powerful your missiles are when they are easy to shoot down. The only way to really overcome a targets point defenses is to five massive waves of missiles, which gets very expensive (like, millions of credits for the larger ships each battle). So Traveller scientists didn't focus on improving missile damage, instead focusing on something that can't be intercepted easily - energy weapons.

Why spend time and money researching something that will most likely get shot down when those same resources could be put into uninterceptable, light-speed energy attacks?

Another reason missiles may be considered bad (not outdated) is because missiles are explosive. That is, they spend their energy in a sphere. Even directed-blast explosives expend some of their energy away from the target. So some, or even most, of the missiles explosive energy is wasted (directed away from the target). Even worse, space has no atmosphere to propagate a pressure wave. Missiles would have to actually impact the target to do any real damage, and at the distances and velocities involved, that is not necessarily easy.

Why spend all that time and money on missiles (which have a limited number of shots) when you get better and cheaper results from an energy weapon (which have an unlimited number of shots as long as you have the power to power them).

Besides that, missiles are generally seen as explosive weapons. At the velocities and distances involved in Traveller combat, the explosive warheads on missiles may be pointless. The missile may have enough kinetic energy to make the explosive warhead redundant. By then, those aren't really missiles any more. They are guided railgun rounds. Even after 1 round (which High Guard says is 6 minutes) of acceleration, your standard missile with 10g acceleration is traveling at 36,000 meters per second (roughly 100 m/s times 360 seconds), or 36 kilometers per second. Assuming my match is correct (and it probably isn't), that gives a 1 kilogram object (something far smaller than a Traveller missile) the impact equivalent of a 16 inch deck gun on an Iowa class battleship. A Traveller "missile" at the same velocity would be much, much scarier. Additional rounds of acceleration would make an even more powerful weapon.

(If we assume the missiles have a mass of 50 kilograms like they did in Class Traveller [I think], after just a single round of acceleration at maximum burn gives their impact the same energy as a small nuclear weapon. Again, if my math is correct. After 10 full rounds of acceleration, it should be traveling about 360 kilometers per second and be equivalent to about 7 kilotons, or half a Hiroshima.)

 

[sideranautae]

Another reason missiles may be considered bad (not outdated) is because missiles are explosive. That is, they spend their energy in a sphere. Even directed-blast explosives expend some of their energy away from the target. So some, or even most, of the missiles explosive energy is wasted (directed away from the target). Even worse, space has no atmosphere to propagate a pressure wave. Missiles would have to actually impact the target to do any real damage, and at the distances and velocities involved, that is not necessarily easy.

This is how I rationalize nuke missiles doing "so little" damage. They don't impact but are detonated at some close stand off distance.

 

[Balfuset790]

Going back to something that was mentioned earlier in this topic, I'm curious as to the argument behind people's various stances on missiles. I know this has been discussed elsewhere, but this is the first time I've seen a particular stance come out of the discussion.

'Missiles are outdated, hence the low damage'

I'm very curious as to the reasoning behind the wbove logic. After all, a missile is an explosive warhead strapped to a guidance system. If it hits something that much directed energy is going to punch a hole in a ship's armour, surely? I mean, I doubt that people have simply taken the equivalent of modern cruise missiles and thought not to update them in the wake of modern innovations in armour?

I'm no physicist, but to me - and apaprently a lot of science fiction - missiles are a potent, but limited-use weapon.

Traveller has really, really good point defense. It doesn't matter how powerful your missiles are when they are easy to shoot down. The only way to really overcome a targets point defenses is to five massive waves of missiles, which gets very expensive (like, millions of credits for the larger ships each battle). So Traveller scientists didn't focus on improving missile damage, instead focusing on something that can't be intercepted easily - energy weapons.

Why spend time and money researching something that will most likely get shot down when those same resources could be put into uninterceptable, light-speed energy attacks?

Another reason missiles may be considered bad (not outdated) is because missiles are explosive. That is, they spend their energy in a sphere. Even directed-blast explosives expend some of their energy away from the target. So some, or even most, of the missiles explosive energy is wasted (directed away from the target). Even worse, space has no atmosphere to propagate a pressure wave. Missiles would have to actually impact the target to do any real damage, and at the distances and velocities involved, that is not necessarily easy.

Why spend all that time and money on missiles (which have a limited number of shots) when you get better and cheaper results from an energy weapon (which have an unlimited number of shots as long as you have the power to power them).

Besides that, missiles are generally seen as explosive weapons. At the velocities and distances involved in Traveller combat, the explosive warheads on missiles may be pointless. The missile may have enough kinetic energy to make the explosive warhead redundant. By then, those aren't really missiles any more. They are guided railgun rounds. Even after 1 round (which High Guard says is 6 minutes) of acceleration, your standard missile with 10g acceleration is traveling at 36,000 meters per second (roughly 100 m/s times 360 seconds), or 36 kilometers per second. Assuming my match is correct (and it probably isn't), that gives a 1 kilogram object (something far smaller than a Traveller missile) the impact equivalent of a 16 inch deck gun on an Iowa class battleship. A Traveller "missile" at the same velocity would be much, much scarier. Additional rounds of acceleration would make an even more powerful weapon.

(If we assume the missiles have a mass of 50 kilograms like they did in Class Traveller [I think], after just a single round of acceleration at maximum burn gives their impact the same energy as a small nuclear weapon. Again, if my math is correct. After 10 full rounds of acceleration, it should be traveling about 360 kilometers per second and be equivalent to about 7 kilotons, or half a Hiroshima.)

Thank you for the very complete answer, also sideranautae for your clarification. I actually don't feel so bad about missiles now when I think about them like this. Also, checking things out, I believe Missiles are TL 7 weapons and Lasers are TL 9? Which kind of immediately shows that missiles are out of date by 3I standards, though TL 7 ship combat could be interesting to visualise now...

 

[Jeraa]

Thank you for the very complete answer, also sideranautae for your clarification. I actually don't feel so bad about missiles now when I think about them like this. Also, checking things out, I believe Missiles are TL 7 weapons and Lasers are TL 9? Which kind of immediately shows that missiles are out of date by 3I standards, though TL 7 ship combat could be interesting to visualise now...

High Guard lists a pulse laser at TL 7, beam lasers at TL 9. Personally, I would change it so lasers are TL 9 minimum, and drop the railgun from TL 9 to TL 7. That way at TL 7, when a civilization is just traveling to the stars, they are doing it with ships that fire chunks of metal and missiles at each other, while the more advanced civilizations have graduated to energy weapons.

There is one option. Page 53 of High Guard has rules for more advanced versions of the weapons. Basically, they can get 1 upgrade for every tech level above the base, to a maximum of 3. Since both regular missiles and smart missiles are listed on the tech level chart, and both are fired from the same launcher, you could argue that missiles can receive the upgrades instead of the launchers. If you are limited to only enhancing the launcher, why list 3 different missiles at 2 different tech levels that all use the exact same launcher?

In that case, you could add Resilient, meaning the missiles ignore the first hit on them. That would make them harder to shoot down. Adding High Yield could increase the damage a tiny bit (any damage roll of 1 is treated as a 2). That would make the standard missile TL 9 instead. Still not great, but better.

 

[sideranautae]

In that case, you could add Resilient, meaning the missiles ignore the first hit on them. That would make them harder to shoot down.

For an object the size of a trav missile, making it immune to 1st shot of starship weapon is more in the realm of a Wish Spell from D&D. There would have to be SO much armor that it would no longer be a functional missile.

 

[Jeraa]

In that case, you could add Resilient, meaning the missiles ignore the first hit on them. That would make them harder to shoot down.

For an object the size of a trav missile, making it immune to 1st shot of starship weapon is more in the realm of a Wish Spell from D&D. There would have to be SO much armor that it would no longer be a functional missile.

Well of course its not perfect. But you could always use the general idea (1 upgrade per additional tech level) and just come up with a list of things that work for missiles. Other weapons get upgrades, it only makes sense if it would work for missiles too.

 

[phavoc]

Traveller has really, really good point defense. It doesn't matter how powerful your missiles are when they are easy to shoot down. The only way to really overcome a targets point defenses is to five massive waves of missiles, which gets very expensive (like, millions of credits for the larger ships each battle). So Traveller scientists didn't focus on improving missile damage, instead focusing on something that can't be intercepted easily - energy weapons.

Why spend time and money researching something that will most likely get shot down when those same resources could be put into uninterceptable, light-speed energy attacks?

The problem with Traveller missiles is that the missiles themselves are not very advanced conceptually. Two ways to make it virtually impossible to shoot down one before it reaches close to the target is to have the drive itself stutter, making the acceleration and velocity randomized. All you need is to be a few meters away from where the energy beam would be and it will miss. If I recall correctly the US Army ATACMS round, after it starts it's descent, varies it's thrust to make interception more difficult. When you couple that with distance then missiles and torpedoes become much more dangerous. Another thing you could do is have the missle travel in an erratic corkscrew type course, also making it nearly impossible to hit from a distance.

Hitting a target the size of a sidewinder should be damned hard, and if the target is doing any sort of evasion, damn near impossible. Which would leave point defense to basically only have an opportunity to engage a missile before it hit. Stand-off weapons would be harder to hit too before they detonated. Hitting a ship is much easier than hitting a missile, especially when the ship is far larger and less maneuverable AND the missile knows when it's going to explode.

Another reason missiles may be considered bad (not outdated) is because missiles are explosive. That is, they spend their energy in a sphere. Even directed-blast explosives expend some of their energy away from the target. So some, or even most, of the missiles explosive energy is wasted (directed away from the target). Even worse, space has no atmosphere to propagate a pressure wave. Missiles would have to actually impact the target to do any real damage, and at the distances and velocities involved, that is not necessarily easy.

Why spend all that time and money on missiles (which have a limited number of shots) when you get better and cheaper results from an energy weapon (which have an unlimited number of shots as long as you have the power to power them).

Traveller doesn't model thrust vectors very well, never has, but that's ok because the game isn't supposed to be that detailed. But missiles should be able to travel far faster than 10g's. Hell we can build something like that today. Missiles and torps should travel at a MUCH higher velocity, and if they did, it would make sense to have actual missile turrets or 'bays' because you could then launch them from magnetic accelerators to increase their base speed, making them harder to hit.

In a stern chase missiles might not be all that useful, but in a two-ships head on version you could launch them from a great distance and let physics do the leg work for your thrust.

Point defense should really be specialized against missiles and torps and should not be anti-ship weaponry. It makes more sense to use something like a gatling laser to throw as much light as possible downrange. Think more CIWS and less dual-purpose 5".

 

[sideranautae]

In that case, you could add Resilient, meaning the missiles ignore the first hit on them. That would make them harder to shoot down.

For an object the size of a trav missile, making it immune to 1st shot of starship weapon is more in the realm of a Wish Spell from D&D. There would have to be SO much armor that it would no longer be a functional missile.

Well of course its not perfect. But you could always use the general idea (1 upgrade per additional tech level) and just come up with a list of things that work for missiles. Other weapons get upgrades, it only makes sense if it would work for missiles too.

Not really. The "other weapons" are 1 Ton installations more or less. A missile is really small and, as written, doesn't even have enough volume for its fuel and motor as it is...

 

[Balfuset790]

Thank you for the very complete answer, also sideranautae for your clarification. I actually don't feel so bad about missiles now when I think about them like this. Also, checking things out, I believe Missiles are TL 7 weapons and Lasers are TL 9? Which kind of immediately shows that missiles are out of date by 3I standards, though TL 7 ship combat could be interesting to visualise now...

High Guard lists a pulse laser at TL 7, beam lasers at TL 9. Personally, I would change it so lasers are TL 9 minimum, and drop the railgun from TL 9 to TL 7. That way at TL 7, when a civilization is just traveling to the stars, they are doing it with ships that fire chunks of metal and missiles at each other, while the more advanced civilizations have graduated to energy weapons.

There is one option. Page 53 of High Guard has rules for more advanced versions of the weapons. Basically, they can get 1 upgrade for every tech level above the base, to a maximum of 3. Since both regular missiles and smart missiles are listed on the tech level chart, and both are fired from the same launcher, you could argue that missiles can receive the upgrades instead of the launchers. If you are limited to only enhancing the launcher, why list 3 different missiles at 2 different tech levels that all use the exact same launcher?

In that case, you could add Resilient, meaning the missiles ignore the first hit on them. That would make them harder to shoot down. Adding High Yield could increase the damage a tiny bit (any damage roll of 1 is treated as a 2). That would make the standard missile TL 9 instead. Still not great, but better.

I like this idea, especially swapping the TLs for Railguns and Pulse alsers. After all, once you have a alser it seems simple enough to modulate whether it fires continuously or in short bursts. Also with the limited range of railguns - which always irked me until I thought about it logically and took into account projectile travel time - it means that a TL 9 ship has a distinct advantage with its lasers bt if the railgun toting ship can get close they can do potentially significant damage with that 3d6 hit per railgun shot.

 

[Jeraa]

Not really. The "other weapons" are 1 Ton installations more or less. A missile is really small and, as written, doesn't even have enough volume for its fuel and motor as it is...

Adding the Reflec option to a ship takes up no space and adds no mass. It provides an armor rating of 3 against lasers, which is enough to ignore half of all beam laser hits (1d6 damage), and halves damage from pulse lasers. Adding a thin layer to a missile should be possible. Since it only applies to one hit, it isn't the same thing but could work.

After all, its a game. Real world physics don't apply. If they did, see my argument above. The missiles kinetic energy alone should be enough to do major damage to a ship.

Its a game with magical ship engines, horribly inefficient fusion plants, people who can teleport just by thinking about it, and TL 3 asteroid habitats with millions or billions of people. Something as simple as a missile being too small for its engine is insignificant. Real world physics (and logic) take a back seat to fun and playability.

 

[sideranautae]

Adding the Reflec option to a ship takes up no space and adds no mass. It provides an armor rating of 3 against lasers, which is enough to ignore half of all beam laser hits (1d6 damage), and halves damage from pulse lasers. Adding a thin layer to a missile should be possible. Since it only applies to one hit, it isn't the same thing but could work.

The equivalent of 1 point of damage to a starship is enough to fry through 10 missiles. They are smaller than vehicle scale. (see rules on starship weapons vs. vehicles)

 

[Jeraa]

The equivalent of 1 point of damage to a starship is enough to fry through 10 missiles. They are smaller than vehicle scale. (see rules on starship weapons vs. vehicles)

Do you have a quote that says that? Starship missiles get the same 50x damage against vehicles as other starship weapons do. Only starship laser turret weapons can be used to shoot down the missile. IT deals starship-grade damage and requires starship-grade weaponry to shoot down. Sounds like a starship-scale thing to me.

And size has nothing to do with scale. After all, there are vehicles much larger than the 10-ton space fighter. The fighter is without a doubt ship scale, but even the 150 ton (2000 cubic meter) battlesub from the vehicle handbook still gets the x50 damage because its a vehicle. The 150 cubic meter strategic bomber is 11 displacement tons, just a bit bigger than the space fighter, but is still considered a vehicle.

Obviously size doesn't play a part in what scale you are considered.