Spinal mounts vs. superheavy bays?

[apoc527]

Here is a question: why is the spinal mount the main weapon of all cap ships? If it gets damaged in combat, and there'd be plenty of opportunity for it to get hurt, the cap ship becomes significantly less powerful. Now, for some reason or another, Traveller ship design has used spinal mounts forever.

What do you think of the concept and following game stats for "superbays?" I'm thinking of bays 10x larger than a Large Bay--1,000 tons, in other words. I'd give them damage ratings as per a spinal mount--think of them as miniature ships with spinal mounts fitted as turrets on really big ships.

They'd take up 1000 tons plus 10 tons for fire control, use 10 hardpoints and be available as fusion, particle beam, and meson weapons. They'd use the same Tech Level increases as spinal mounts.

As an example, the particle beam superbay would be available at TL9, costs 500 MCr, deals 60 damage and have Long range.

Thoughts?

 

[alex_greene]

Redundancy would work in its favour. A really big ship could eschew having a single spinal mount for having a whole barrage of ultraheavy bays. Knock out one, and the other sections' bays could take over.

The personnel requirement is an issue. Perhaps the minimum crew complement required to man such a bay would be around 4 - twice the normal bay requirement. Ten crew is pushing it - a spinal mount needs one crewman per 100 tons, for instance.

Work on that, but you're onto something here.

 

[atpollard]

If I were to scale up a turret to the size of a bay weapon, then it would BE a bay weapon. If you scale up a Bay Weapon to the power of a Spinal Mount, then it IS a Spinal Mount.

So you are simply proposing allowing multiple Spinal Mount weapons (shaped like turrets).

If your Super Bays are far better than a spinal mount, then you are invalidating any game balance inherent in the rules. (Which is perfectly acceptable for Your Traveller game, but should be used with caution by those who intend to use other Traveller products.)

Would a ship with super weapons be fun? Sure, for the people who own it. It would be much less fun for everyone else who encounters it.

 

[phavoc]

The concept of spinal mounts has been seen in a number of sci-fi gaming systems, as well as in cartoons and whatnot. The idea of a single weapon as the basis of the ship (aka built along the spine, ergo its a singular weapon) is not really a new one. And technically there isn't any reason why you should not be able to build multiple spinal weapons in a ship as long as you have power and crew for them. If any of you grognards recall the old Star Blazers cartoon, the Wave Motion gun was a spinal mount for the Yamato, but in the next season the newer battleships mounted dual spinal mounts (but they all died and Yamato saved the day again!).

One thing Traveller has been sorely lacking in is an update to the base technological background. Traveller (and MGT) have a very 70's flavor of technology to them. Why aren't their larger lasers, particle accelerators and even missiles to mount on larger ships? Bay weapons are essentially just multitudes of standard missiile launchers instead of truly larger weapons.

And the same goes for spinal mounts. But... canon rules seem to be against any sort of thing like that. So we are left with lots of "house rules". Though in defense of the naval rules, Traveller was and still is about people, not really large-scale naval combat. Characters would not really be bopping about the Spinward Marches in their personal battlecruiser engaging who knows what. So I can see why they have never really gotten beyond designing anything beyond the level of what players might actually use on their own.

Still, it would be nice to see some updates to the design rules that discuss true warships and their associated systems and weaponry.

 

[BP]

Here is a question: why is the spinal mount the main weapon of all cap ships? If it gets damaged in combat, and there'd be plenty of opportunity for it to get hurt, the cap ship becomes significantly less powerful. Now, for some reason or another, Traveller ship design has used spinal mounts forever.

I'd say it's simply the setting - and the cool sounding name - spinal mount - implies generally only one. The flaw just provides a certain balance, making them powerful but not invulnerable.

What do you think of the concept and following game stats for "superbays?" I'm thinking of bays 10x larger than a Large Bay--1,000 tons, in other words. I'd give them damage ratings as per a spinal mount--think of them as miniature ships with spinal mounts fitted as turrets on really big ships. ...

Why not - any weapon with super in its name gets my ok

If I were keeping the basic setting/MGT feel there would need to be some reason to still use spinal mounts. Make them less powerfull in some way - not just power, but maybe range, rep rate, damage likelihood (they aren't in the bulk of the ship afterall) - and/or very expensive and higher TL.

I love MGT High Guard, but it is not exactly generic. A more generic and flexible system would have involved equations and a lot more complexity in general. As it is, it has quite a bit of CT-ish era setting limitations - with a few alternatives thrown in. This has a certain advantage in that it leaves the exotic stuff (that presents game balance issues) to be handled seperately - given the SRD this is a good thing. For alternate settings, leaving the game mechanics to you, free from any restrictions that HG would have inadvertantly imposed - but does mean the efforts all on you as well...

 

[Treebore]

The biggest reason for spinal mounts is the power requirement, requiring the spinal mount design because it is tied directly into the ships power plant.

So going to super bay configurations is fine once you have a power plant that can deal with supplying the power needed by the weapon system.

Having multiple super bays would mean having a power plant magnitudes more powerful than what has come before.

So your weapons array is directly proportional to what your power plant can handle, unless they are rockets, or similar. Which is why rockets/torpedoes stay popular on top of their destructive power.

However I wonder what effect a TL 15 Phalanx type of system would have on the use of missiles/rockets/torpedoes.

 

[Bygoneyrs]

Look in my game I use the following:

- Mega Beam Plasma Cannons
- Beam Plasma Cannons
- Burst Plasma Cannons
- Pulse Plasma Cannons

Now for Warships of the Line, I might also have Huge Spinal Mounts, inwhich I call them "Planet Killers"

I also use different types of Missiles, Armor, and Shields too.

It is all how you the "GM" define it for your own game.

Penn