Spinal Weapons - January Update

[Nerhesi]

No I dont see with what you're saying - I still barely understand it. I disagree with you on a few things. Not just opinions either, but facts are 'off', if we take published canon material (Fluff, rules this time)

A) There is no medium cruiser. There is Light Cruiser (10 to 50k) and Heavy (50k-75k..rarely reaching 100k which is battlecruisers)
b) Almost every capital ship mounts a spinal - according to fluff. A spinal is mounted on light cruisers and escort carriers even - again according to fluff and historical traveller.
c) Even the lightest spinals make a small ship (sub 10k) a credible threat to a larger capital ship - again, according to fluff and rules.

All of the above is both rules & fluff - supported by Sector Fleet and Trillion Credit Squadron. Again - fluff.
So.. past historical concepts, have spinals from light combatants (20k and under) easily taking out much larger ships. Again, supported by fluff (from as far back as Classic) and rules.

What keeps striking me as odd - is none of the above matters. Youre saying one thing but your example show something completely different. Lets take your two posted ships (you didn't need to post the ships. The only difference is that youre proposing the spinal in that example go from 4600 tons to 7000 tons (minor - you didn't need to drop the weapons, could have done it other ways) - but anyways, here is the million dollar question:

... so what stops me from taking that 7000 tons spinal you've proposed and putting it on a 15,000 ton battle rider? Are you arbitrarily limiting weapons to be placed only on craft that are 10 times their weight? is that what you are proposing? Otherwise I can put your pr0posed 7000 tons spinal (doing, 14,700 hull damage as you stated) on a much smaller ship right?

 

[Chas]

What I'm trying to do here is make a meaningful balance across the cruiser paradigm. So that we do not have a light cruiser with 2DD damage that 2 shots the 75k heavy cruiser. Where the 100k battle ship with it's upgraded spinal that does the right balance of damage. We're trying to match the effectiveness of the spinal as implemented with the ship weight. (Medium cruiser is original High Guard actually :wink: )

Or let me put it another way. What mechanism are we doing such that the 4 x 25k ship fleet isn't totally dominating the 100k ton battle wagon and able to perform far more many functions besides battle field superiority? I.e. how do we stop the 100k ship from being redundant? (this is rhetorical!)

Let's start from scratch here. What are we, or I in this case, trying to build. I'm using Imperial Navy as a base line. Why, well because, we want a base line somewhere and the Imperial Navy is a good a place as any, most the historical stuff is on that. Now what does Imperial Navy imply. It's Jump 4. Right? So we're building a Jump 4 fleet.

Now in our current ship build it makes sense to
maximize armor
maximize maneuver
And then let the rest set the ship build designs.
- You start dropping armor significantly and you'll get into real trouble. All the spare turrets on a capital ship will take you apart.
- You start dropping maneuver and you don't have a functional fleet. You can't all cruise along at M4 or whatever because you're leaving somebody behind.

Certainly you can build ships differently, but if we set a base line to standardize things, everything else can be worked off that (and does work of it just fine). So I'm building Jump 4, Maneuver 9, Armour 15.

So let's go back to your post:

... so what stops me from taking that 7000 tons spinal you've proposed and putting it on a 15,000 ton battle rider? Are you arbitrarily limiting weapons to be placed only on craft that are 10 times their weight? is that what you are proposing? Otherwise I can put your pr0posed 7000 tons spinal (doing, 14,700 hull damage as you stated) on a much smaller ship right?

Of course you can put the 7000 tons spinal on a battle rider. But how many riders can you put on a carrier that weight for weight (or credit for credit) allows you to keep up with the rest of the fleet at Jump 4? What we're looking at here is a fleet paradigm. You'll find the rider balance also works out with carrier included. It's a good fight. We're trying to build the complete picture here. (Also I'm suggesting 7000tons spinal doing 10,000 hull points not 14,700 is about right)

Now yes, you can build light cruisers that can inflict serious damage on other capital ships, never said you couldn't, but they have to start make sacrifices in the build somewhere - giving up secondary armament, giving up armor, giving up maneuver. That comes down to the choices of the build. If you don't have the light cruisers having to make sacrifices, then they are no longer light cruisers. For example, there will be a cruiser build that would be only point defense and a spinal. It would be the equivalent of only a spinal and point defence rider only with the jump and maneuver drives included. It will be a fleet option. But that ship is only functional as a battle superiority fleet element only, it isn't a cruiser to cruise option.

But go back to the first example of the 50K ton of current Type E. That is not a light cruiser, right? It's got the most powerful particle that is possible to put on in current rules dealing enormous damage. It's got a useful suite of secondary weapons. I could fit in bells and whistles like marines and a boarding craft. There are no sacrifices in the build, it's a front line fighting ship. What I'm saying here is that this is not what we want. I'm saying that build is a good example of something that has deviated from what it's historical tonnage is supposed to imply by fluff. You are not supposed to have a 50k ship that is effectively a heavy ship of the line battleship. Because that's what it is.

There's supposed to be a bit of sliding scale here that pinches the ship weight, or puts a bottom end of the cruiser spinals. What I'm discussing here effectively is this balance of this sliding scale. Where the bottom end is, and at what point the complete matrix of:
armor
spinal
maneuver
jump
secondary bays
As the standard build of a ship of the line, starts getting limited by ship size.

Now the suggested (first pass I will admit) 7000 tons spinal = 10000 hull points is a starting point only. I'm not sure you want a purely linear up and down gradation from that, precisely because of the rhetorical question.

 

[Chas]

Actually I've an idea. Let me put up a matrix of available space for weapons as a % of selected ship weight. Then we can see how the spinals fit into that and how the balance is actually working.

 

[Nerhesi]

Sorry Chas. Your math doesn't match your goal at all. Your last 3 posts have done the same thing. It is very weird:

You start off saying that we don't want a light cruiser 2-shotting a heavy cruiser.

But yet - you say it's fine having a 7000-ton spinal that does 3DD. Therefore, anything carrying that can 2-shot a heavy cruiser.

Can you confirm that you don't have any different weapon-to-ship size restrictions?

 

[Nerhesi]

Also, by fluff and rules:

We don't sacrifice to put a spinal. On larger ships, a spinal is a requirement, not a choice - it's about as standard as an M-drive
A 50-75k heavy cruiser IS the front-line ship of the line.
Yes that 75k ship can be 2-3 shot by a spinal from a 25k ship.

Changing from beyond that I feel is beyond the scope of this exercise, and not part of canon traveller - from both a fluff and rules perspective.

However, let me see your proposed matrix - i'll bite.

 

[Chas]

Sorry Chas. Your math doesn't match your goal at all. Your last 3 posts have done the same thing. It is very weird:

You start off saying that we don't want a light cruiser 2-shotting a heavy cruiser.

But yet - you say it's fine having a 7000-ton spinal that does 3DD. Therefore, anything carrying that can 2-shot a heavy cruiser.

Can you confirm that you don't have any different weapon-to-ship size restrictions?

I said 7000 ton = 10,000 hull points as a 3DD equation.

That's not 2 shotting a heavy cruiser, that's 3 shotting a heavy cruiser 30,000 hull points. There is a difference, and a very big difference from the Type E. Those extra spinal weapon tons make a limiting factor at the light cruiser level as I hope to show. And that makes a difference when you're scaling up and down the spinal from that point.

A 50-75k heavy cruiser IS the front-line ship of the line.
Yes that 75k ship can be 2-3 shot by a spinal from a 25k ship.

By original High Guard the first statement is not correct, but that book had so many holes I'm not holding it up as a golden example but it is a good direction. Still I see my 'old school' subjective impressions are merely clouding the issue. I'll look for Matt's intentions here.
Let's revisit what wants to happen at the bottom end.

 

[Chas]

So using the Jump 4, Armor 15, Maneuver 9 build TL15 all advantages applied etc etc we get the general build of the ships without: cargo, reinforcement, crew, weapons or screens as below. The table shows what percentage of the ship is available to be used once the drives, fuel, sensors, bridge, power plant are included.

Ship Tons                   25Kt        50Kt    75kt
% of ship weigh remaining     25%    25%    25%

Cargo and crew can be considered flat % add on for this discussion, you could just chop off another 1.5% for cargo if you wanted a linear usage, and you could use staterooms based on hardpoints - though crew aren't in fact linear once we start putting in software for the large gunner crew requirements of the new rules and I didn't want to try and include this here.

Anyway, conclusion = so we have a nice neat linear scale without considering weapons even down to the 25Kt and below. The fixed weight add-ons like sensors and bridges are not having much of an impact in this edition.

Now if we take the existing Particle E that's doing 14,700 hull points for 4200 tons that's: 16.8% of the ship at 25 K, 8.4% of the ship at 50 K, 5.6% at 75K. You can almost squeeze that onto the 25K ton ship... you can a 30k ton ship... erk! I'm going to suggest that is overkill, you guys will have your own opinion. But a 30k jump ship taking out a 75,000 ton battle ship in 2 shots I do not think is a good game mechanic for Traveller.

If we look at your weapon paradigm Nehersi we have 9000 tons for 10,500 points 3DD (that's correct right?) that's 36% of the ship for 25 K, 18% at 50K, 12% at 75Kt. 3,500 tons left to use on the 50 K; 9,750 on the 75K. Your paradigm is close, you're getting the 3 shot for the 75K, but it is not going to fit on the 50K without major sacrifices - which is not saying it is bad but it is really really tough to fit 9000 tons onto a 50K.
But what happens when we scale that down to 6000 tons to 2DD at 7,000 hull points damage so the next lower spinal can fit the 50k? (That's 24% 12% 8% of relative ship used)
7000 hull points to destroy the 30,000 75K hull is >x4 shots. The shift there I would suggest is a little off. You've basically made the 50K unfightable against the 75k for nothing much in return. The 75K is going to 2 shot kill the 50Kt ship. While two 50k ton ships at this spinal structure will struggle to bring down one 75K ship.

So I'm suggesting we find a damage equation that sits in between these two examples so when we scale up and down we get a different balance between ships.

That's what I'm suggesting with say 6000 tons = 3DD effective = 10,500 hull points. 6000 tons you can still fit on the 50K, but in return the 75K is getting 4% more of its ship for the same spinal weight, 3,000 tons. that's 30 medium bays, that's enough to take out a rider with torps; significant in itself without considering the spinal battle. The 50k ship is doing 10, 500 points, it needs to 3 hits to kill the 75k, the 75 K needs 2 hits to kill the 50k. Fair enough, there is no miss match. Two 50K ton ships will beat the 75K.
Scale down and we have 2DD = 4000tons = 7000 hull points damage. 4000 tons will fit the 30k ship as we've seen. So this is about right for the bottom end. 30k sits as your bottom end light cruiser. I'd suggest like current we don't make any 1DD spinals available.

Okay, a lot of verbage to simply say I think your original paradigm is a little high on tonnage Nerhesi :lol:

 

[Nerhesi]

Finaaallly - Jesus Chas, I was going to say lets get on Teamspeak/skype/vent and figure it out!

Your point: You're stating the 3,000 at TL15 per 1DD is a little high. Perhaps we should be looking at 2,500 or 2,000.
What I find Ironic in this whole back and forth conversation Chas, is you're constantly worrying about letting smaller ships, 3 shot bigger ships, but then ultimately you state the above - thereby allowing them to fit on even smaller ships. You want ships to sacrifice for spinals - but you're making it easier that they dont have to...

Meanwhile, if you agree with me, you'd easily find that the answer to your dilemma is simply: "Take the next smaller spinal" - so you can't fit the 3DD? Thats fine take the 2DD.

So that is point #1. Point #2 is that you're making your point based on craft that you can build, which actually isn't indicative of the canon stuff. I've just reviewed a dozen canon Imperium ships - I can't find one that packs the "best" spinal AND has jump 4 AND has M-drive 6. Actually - I have when I expand my search to pretty much every published craft - they're 100k tons or higher.

You've also made some design choices that would specifically make it hard for you to fit the spinal. Emissions absorption grid, Fusion bays (power hungry as they are) and barbettes; weapon systems aren't taking advantage of the reduced tonnage either for TL15 - I assume you've put it into better improvements? Jump 4, M-Drive 9. Also - why in the world do you need 2000 staterooms for? You realise all military designs use double-occupancy staterooms right? Thats 1000 tons you just got back...

Basically, you're examples are stacked-to-fail when it comes to trying to fit in the "best spinal". You can fit a 9,000 ton 3DD spinal just as easily - those extra 2,000 tons are very very easily obtained - you're just trying to shoe-horn it into one hell of an specific/optimized design. This is something we should be actively trying to avoid - not supporting Chas

So the fact that you can't make a Fusion Bays and Particle Barbette (without reduced tonnage), single occupancy stateroom (?? those crews will love you - The navy wont), Jump 4, M-drive 9, Emissions Grid, 50k Cruiser, and put on it a 3DD Spinal - is a good thing (tm). More reason I think we should both be supporting 3,000 tons per DD - and not trying to reduce it further.

PS. 3DD is 10,500 damage on average BEFORE armour as well. Using 3% armour, when firing on a TL15 ship, you're going to be reducing that damage by 45%!

 

[AndrewW]

You realise all military designs use double-occupancy staterooms right? Thats 1000 tons you just got back...

Well, not all military designs. Take a fighter for example.

Usually senior officers have their own stateroom.

 

[Nerhesi]

You realise all military designs use double-occupancy staterooms right? Thats 1000 tons you just got back...

Well, not all military designs. Take a fighter for example.

Usually senior officers have their own stateroom.

Yes Senior officers have their own and sometimes even 2-stateroom (aka Luxury stateroom). That is less the 1% or so.. even the fighter pilots (officers) are double occupancy in the fleet and strike carrier ships. Basically, some of the bridge crew, squadron/wing commanders, etc.. have their own.

 

[phavoc]

Let me put up some example builds to show what I'm talking about. Hold that thought for a moment.

Here's the existing rule Spinal Type E that's doing 14700 hull points a shot, rapid fire, in a 50k hull.
A 50K is historically supposed to be a medium cruiser, that does not have a place in the line of battle. This ship below is most definitely NOT a medium cruiser. It is effectively a battleship in everyway. It has full armor, speed, secondary weaponry, bells and whistles with tonnage to spare dealing huge amounts of damage with its spinal such that it will 3 shot a 100k hull. (!!! this is the rules as is now)

A "medium" cruiser would simply be a CA. You should find that Navies as large as the Imperial will build multiple-sized versions of classes of ships, depending upon what their mission is meant to be. Smaller cruisers are cheaper and will still do a handy job of showing the flag or being main fleet elements in areas where they aren't expecting opposition in a heavier class then their own.

From a design point of view, the 3-shot destruction of a ship twice it's size is predicated upon the enemy, with the larger weapons, not 1 or 2 shotting the smaller cruiser with fewer hull points. As it stands a swarm of ships can overwhelm a much larger opponent, but pack tactics have existed for, like, forever! This is why your squadrons have escort vessels. A 50k cruiser going up against a 100k battlecruiser (I would classify battleships higher on the tonnage food chain) is going to die. The question is how much damage will the inflict before they die.

This is also why I've been advocating for a more scalar set of rules to handle spinal mounts and even the distribution of heavy bay weaponry. It fits better with the bigger is better paradigm that Traveller ships have always had when it comes to capital-class ships. The rule changes reducing fuel consumption make Battle Riders less powerful on their own because standard naval ships can devote more tonnage to defense and offense instead of fuel. I still find the rules for armor to be a bit off. Smaller classes of ships shouldn't be able to devote as much tonnage to armor as one much larger. A 5K Armor 15 destroyer is a bit silly when you think of a 250Kt battleship having the same armor level.

As an aside, I do wish that there was more background material on ship classifications and tonnage designations. I know it was touched on in the Fleet Supplement, but a cursory discussion does belong in HG. It is, after all, the construction book for capital units. The existing descriptions are far too brief for my tastes.

 

[Nerhesi]

Both Sector Fleet and Trillion Credit Squadron (which really haven't changed much from the MGT versions to way back in the CT Versions) discuss this stuff at length. Those are the authoritative sources on the 3rd Imperium Navy.

I'll quote some parts:

"Capital vessels are designed for heavy combat in the line-of-battle. They exist to meet heavy enemy units and crush them in squadron or fleet actions. Most capital ships are built around the biggest spinal mount they can carry, backed up by a powerful secondary armament of bay weapons." Capital Vessels do not include "cruisers". They are Battle riders, Battlecruisers, Battleships, Dreadnoughts, SuperDreadnoughts. This class starts from 100k and up (Obviously the exception is the Battlerider).

"Starfarers within the Imperium are far more likely to encounter a cruiser – or a squadron of them – than a capital ship. Cruisers engage in patrol and flag-showing operations, deterring piracy and unrest by their imposing presence. In wartime, cruisers undertake a variety of roles. Some are escorts for heavier units and transports." They are Heavy, Frontier, Strike, Missile, Light (described to be around 30ktons), Rift, Escort, Interdiction Tender.

I'm going to ignore the sections on carriers and escorts for now. So Chas, to further reinforce your design - it falls clearly under strike cruiser:

Strike Cruiser Somewhat similar in concept to a Battlecruiser, a strike cruiser a fast, lightly-defended vessel built around a major weapon system (usually a spinal meson or particle accelerator weapon) and intended for one role only – to carry that weapon system into range of a target. Strike cruisers mount little secondary armament, though a reasonable tertiary armament to defend against light craft is common. Defenses are relatively light, meaning that the vessel must get into range, take the shot and withdraw rapidly.

If you're mounting the best Spinal you can, you should have little in the way of anything else. Perhaps some turrets or so for PD. So basically, the Ghenna class can easily fit the strike cruiser roll - if you insist on giving it the 3DD 9000 tonner

 

[phavoc]

Both Sector Fleet and Trillion Credit Squadron (which really haven't changed much from the MGT versions to way back in the CT Versions) discuss this stuff at length. Those are the authoritative sources on the 3rd Imperium Navy.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned it above. But I was advocating for more definition in HG, where you are building the ships to begin with. I don't expect them to go into as much detail as the supplements (hence the entire reason for a supplement). I would, however, like to see a bit more than a few sentences for each one. It would also be nice to see a chart that lists average tonnage for each class.

Traveller has a long and storied past of abusing naval terminology based upon tonnage.

 

[AndrewW]

Yeah, that's why I mentioned it above. But I was advocating for more definition in HG, where you are building the ships to begin with. I don't expect them to go into as much detail as the supplements (hence the entire reason for a supplement). I would, however, like to see a bit more than a few sentences for each one. It would also be nice to see a chart that lists average tonnage for each class.

Something along the lines of this?

http://geeksnewengland.org/2015/05/15/on-the-taxonomy-of-spaceships/

I did post the link on this forum awhile back, so it may have already been seen but is relevant to this thread.

 

[Nerhesi]

Both Sector Fleet and Trillion Credit Squadron (which really haven't changed much from the MGT versions to way back in the CT Versions) discuss this stuff at length. Those are the authoritative sources on the 3rd Imperium Navy.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned it above. But I was advocating for more definition in HG, where you are building the ships to begin with. I don't expect them to go into as much detail as the supplements (hence the entire reason for a supplement). I would, however, like to see a bit more than a few sentences for each one. It would also be nice to see a chart that lists average tonnage for each class.

Traveller has a long and storied past of abusing naval terminology based upon tonnage.

That wouldn't be a bad idea

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, that's why I mentioned it above. But I was advocating for more definition in HG, where you are building the ships to begin with. I don't expect them to go into as much detail as the supplements (hence the entire reason for a supplement). I would, however, like to see a bit more than a few sentences for each one. It would also be nice to see a chart that lists average tonnage for each class.

Something along the lines of this?

http://geeksnewengland.org/2015/05/15/on-the-taxonomy-of-spaceships/

I did post the link on this forum awhile back, so it may have already been seen but is relevant to this thread.

Yup, I had read that when you posted it. I enjoyed the article, and the graphics.

 

[phavoc]

Both Sector Fleet and Trillion Credit Squadron (which really haven't changed much from the MGT versions to way back in the CT Versions) discuss this stuff at length. Those are the authoritative sources on the 3rd Imperium Navy.

I'll quote some parts:

"Capital vessels are designed for heavy combat in the line-of-battle. They exist to meet heavy enemy units and crush them in squadron or fleet actions. Most capital ships are built around the biggest spinal mount they can carry, backed up by a powerful secondary armament of bay weapons." Capital Vessels do not include "cruisers". They are Battle riders, Battlecruisers, Battleships, Dreadnoughts, SuperDreadnoughts. This class starts from 100k and up (Obviously the exception is the Battlerider).

"Starfarers within the Imperium are far more likely to encounter a cruiser – or a squadron of them – than a capital ship. Cruisers engage in patrol and flag-showing operations, deterring piracy and unrest by their imposing presence. In wartime, cruisers undertake a variety of roles. Some are escorts for heavier units and transports." They are Heavy, Frontier, Strike, Missile, Light (described to be around 30ktons), Rift, Escort, Interdiction Tender.

I'm going to ignore the sections on carriers and escorts for now. So Chas, to further reinforce your design - it falls clearly under strike cruiser:

Strike Cruiser Somewhat similar in concept to a Battlecruiser, a strike cruiser a fast, lightly-defended vessel built around a major weapon system (usually a spinal meson or particle accelerator weapon) and intended for one role only – to carry that weapon system into range of a target. Strike cruisers mount little secondary armament, though a reasonable tertiary armament to defend against light craft is common. Defenses are relatively light, meaning that the vessel must get into range, take the shot and withdraw rapidly.

If you're mounting the best Spinal you can, you should have little in the way of anything else. Perhaps some turrets or so for PD. So basically, the Ghenna class can easily fit the strike cruiser roll - if you insist on giving it the 3DD 9000 tonner

BC's fall in that very grey area between capital and non-capital warships. The English learned very quickly they don't belong being shot at by real capital ships. As an idea they've been neat, but in practicality, not so much. Well, except for the Germans during WW2. They did a pretty good job with theirs. I thought they had some damn fine warship designs too. It's too bad the USN scrapped their BC's so quickly after the war. I would have loved to toured an Alaska class. Like many BC's before them, they were under-armored. They had 12 inch guns and armor that was designed to withstand 10 inch shells. And they were as fast as a CA, so, in theory at least, they should have been able to start hitting the CA harder and earlier, and then be able to take the punishment from a CA while they killed it.

I would expect to find most light cruisers without a spinal mount, and maybe half of the CA's. Cruisers make for excellent heavy torpedo and missile platforms. Although with the rule changes, even the heaviest of combatants is now capable of high speeds. Bigger ships have more mass, and nowhere in the Traveller universe has something been created that does away with mass. Anti-gravity offsets gravitational pull, but not the mass. I do wish that the more massive ships would actually perform like massive ships should. Not to say that you couldn't get the same speed as a smaller ship... but you certainly should never have the same maneuvering or evasive capabilities.

 

[Nerhesi]

So in the interest of time, and to have something we're on-board with for Matt. I'm re-posting the Spinal rules here. Chas - I've adjust weight slightly.

Rules:
1) For all Spinals, 1DD = x 1000. No change.
2) A spinal weapon can only be fitted to a ship that is at least twice the weapon's size. New.
3) Remove the rapid-fire option (serious balance issues). New.
4) Spinal weapons use a number of Hardpoints equal to their tonnage divided by 100, rounding up. No Change.
5) All spinal weapons suffer DM-4 when attacking targets of 10,000 tons or less, and DM-8 when attacking targets of 5,000 tons or less. Spinal weapons cannot attack targets of less than 2,000 tons unless they are stationary or are caught in the blast by accident! No change.

Meson:
Base TL: 12
Range: Long
Size to Damage, Power & Cost: Per 8,000 dtons: 1DD, 1000 power, 2000 MCr. Maximum 10DD.
Traits: Radiation, Ignores Armour

Particle:
Base TL: 11
Range: Long
Size to Damage, Power & Cost: Per 4,000 dtons: 1DD, 1000 power, 1000 MCr, Maximum 8DD.
Traits: Radiation, Armour reduces damage by 3% per point

Rail Gun:
Base TL: 10
Range: Medium
Size to Damage, Power & Cost: Per 4,000 dtons: 1DD, 500 power, 500 MCr. Maximum 6DD.
Traits: Armour reduces damage by 3% per point, Possible Auto Rating (dependent on TL)

High Level Spinal Weapon Modifications:
TL +1: -10% tonnage. +10% MCr.
TL +2: -20% tonnage. +25% MCr. Rail Gun gains Auto 2.
TL +3: -30% tonnage. +50% MCr.
TL +4: -40% tonnage. +100% MCr. Rail Gun gains Auto 3.

I think we're now aligned. The only big change that hasn't seen much discussion is removing rapid fire from the big boys and giving Railguns their own flavour as the Auto-ing Spinals However, I think we should be ok even at the higher end given armour protection and so on.

 

[Chas]

Finaaallly - Jesus Chas, I was going to say lets get on Teamspeak/skype/vent and figure it out!

Your point: You're stating the 3,000 at TL15 per 1DD is a little high. Perhaps we should be looking at 2,500 or 2,000.
What I find Ironic in this whole back and forth conversation Chas, is you're constantly worrying about letting smaller ships, 3 shot bigger ships, but then ultimately you state the above - thereby allowing them to fit on even smaller ships. You want ships to sacrifice for spinals - but you're making it easier that they dont have to...

I'm making smaller spinals that do less damage as the bottom end of the paradigm which naturally allows them to go on smaller ships. What part of that is ironic or making it easier that they don't have to? There has to be a bottom end somewhere. Is there something wrong with suggesting about 7000 hull points in a 4000 ton ship should be the bottom line? Do you agree with this?

Meanwhile, if you agree with me, you'd easily find that the answer to your dilemma is simply: "Take the next smaller spinal" - so you can't fit the 3DD? Thats fine take the 2DD.

That has issues as I just demonstrated. You need to balance the damage with the weight in the base line paradigm. How the tonnage vs. damage weight is done then you're affecting how the ships will be built. It's not so simple and the right balance needs to be found.

So that is point #1. Point #2 is that you're making your point based on craft that you can build, which actually isn't indicative of the canon stuff. I've just reviewed a dozen canon Imperium ships - I can't find one that packs the "best" spinal AND has jump 4 AND has M-drive 6. Actually - I have when I expand my search to pretty much every published craft - they're 100k tons or higher.

And your point is in relation to the current existing rule designs? Where we have a 30K ship able to pack the best tonnage particle E spinal? Obviously the ship build paradigm itself has changed. What I've suggested doesn't have the 'best spinal' at 75K. I haven't even gotten round to suggesting what is the best build. What I'm trying to do is find the optimal base line, and then let's decide how we want to tweak it from there.
This comes back to the tonnage pinch of the design features and how the remaining weight after drives etc stacks up vs. weaponry. In the current ship design with its flat linear weight % after drives et al are in, given the only big feature left to tweak in the design is the spinals, I'm actually looking at suggesting a sliding scale for the spinal weights that does force the optimum package upwards.

You've also made some design choices that would specifically make it hard for you to fit the spinal. Emissions absorption grid, Fusion bays (power hungry as they are) and barbettes; weapon systems aren't taking advantage of the reduced tonnage either for TL15 - I assume you've put it into better improvements? Jump 4, M-Drive 9. Also - why in the world do you need 2000 staterooms for? You realise all military designs use double-occupancy staterooms right? Thats 1000 tons you just got back...

Basically, you're examples are stacked-to-fail when it comes to trying to fit in the "best spinal". You can fit a 9,000 ton 3DD spinal just as easily - those extra 2,000 tons are very very easily obtained - you're just trying to shoe-horn it into one hell of an specific/optimized design. This is something we should be actively trying to avoid - not supporting Chas

So the fact that you can't make a Fusion Bays and Particle Barbette (without reduced tonnage), single occupancy stateroom (?? those crews will love you - The navy wont), Jump 4, M-drive 9, Emissions Grid, 50k Cruiser, and put on it a 3DD Spinal - is a good thing (tm). More reason I think we should both be supporting 3,000 tons per DD - and not trying to reduce it further.

Yes well, and so demonstrates the entire reason I went to % weight left in the design to get away from the other considerations and what people might getting the wrong end of the stick on. Of course I'm perfectly aware staterooms are 1/2 occupancy, if you look at my play test builds where I've posted the full crew breakdowns you'll see how I've done this. Emissions grid is optional, but before point defence kicked in it wasn't and I'm still going to be interested to see how this actually plays out (rather than casually dismissing) with the extra -2 on lock for long range shooting of the spinal. I'll guess this is still pretty much up there in essentials. As for the rest of it, please build your 50K ship with the 9000 tons yourself and see how you go and then let's come back to it.

PS. 3DD is 10,500 damage on average BEFORE armour as well. Using 3% armour, when firing on a TL15 ship, you're going to be reducing that damage by 45%!

Okay, in that case all I'm stating is that my suggested base line build is a tweak less than that. I could be wrong. But kindly build an actual ship and show me thank you.

 

[Chas]

If you're mounting the best Spinal you can, you should have little in the way of anything else. Perhaps some turrets or so for PD. So basically, the Ghenna class can easily fit the strike cruiser roll - if you insist on giving it the 3DD 9000 tonner

I said the strike cruiser would be in the mix. But what constitutes an effective strike cruiser is another matter. I see you've dropped the tonnages there so I'll put this on the back burner for the moment.