Starship Power System Defective?

[tbeard1999]

The energy rules for weapons and drives make no sense (or I'm missing something).

For instance, a B class power plant produces 2 energy points per round and can hold a maximum of 18 power points "in reserve". Each pulse laser uses 3 points and each beam laser uses 5 points. The B maneuver drive uses 3 points per turn.

So my 400 ton starship is in trouble in combat. It will burn 3 energy points every turn it uses its 1G drives. And its 4 triple beam laser turrets will require 60 energy points per turn if fired. This means on the first turn of combat, it will have an energy deficit of 46 points (assuming maximum reserve power). Does this sound reasonable?

Indeed, the largest power plant, size Z, will produce only 12 points per turn (reserve power of 144 or 150 depending on which text you believe). So after reserve power is used up (2-3 turns), my ship can only fire 2 lasers per turn with the largest power plant available. Does this sound reasonable?

Nor does the hamfisted attempt to implement a Star Fleet Battles energy allocation system bode well.

Surely Mongoose won't release a game with this flawed system?

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Yup, the numbers are off. There's a funny coincidence that (apart from type A) M-Drives require pp equal to their displacement. Could potentially just be a mistake...?

But yeah, PPlant energy production should rise exponentially; otherwise you're better off having 2 type Gs over a single type Q.

Powerplants should be able to produce enough pp to power an equal M-drive up to it's rated thrust value at a minimum.

I'd also like to see pp production divorced from storage. So the powerplant is separate from the batteries/capacitors. That way you can have underpowered vessels that are able to join a few rounds of combat because of battery storage. It is also an easy way for players with the money to improve their ships performance. Military vessels have over-rated powerplants to cope with all the lasers, and maybe or maybe not just enough capacitor capacity for jumping.

Quick fix direction. M-drives need less pp, powerplants give out more per turn.

 

[tneva82]

So after reserve power is used up (2-3 turns), my ship can only fire 2 lasers per turn with the largest power plant available. Does this sound reasonable?

Out of curiosity how many of the lasers you would wish to be able to fire every turn? All of them? Might just as well forget whole power thing then...

Yeah generators could do with some update but not big enough that you can fire up everything without power issues ;-)

 

[Mongoose Pete]

Yeah generators could do with some update but not big enough that you can fire up everything without power issues ;-)

I don't think its unreasonable that military spec vessels should be able to fire their entire weapons compliment every turn. That's what they are designed to do.

Of course to be capable of it, I'd expect the majority of the ship to be just engines and power plants, just as they are in modern naval ships. If you want a 400t ship with a PP which adequately supplies all four triple lasers, then forget having a cargo hold, state rooms or privacy. The entire crew should be hot-bunking on a three shift rotation, in the 10% of the hull left for 'biological components'... :wink:

 

[tbeard1999]

So after reserve power is used up (2-3 turns), my ship can only fire 2 lasers per turn with the largest power plant available. Does this sound reasonable?

Out of curiosity how many of the lasers you would wish to be able to fire every turn? All of them? Might just as well forget whole power thing then...

Good idea, especially if it means we can ditch that amateurish Star Fleet Battles-like energy system.

And since this new game is purportedly going to be called "Traveller", why don't we make so that you can do the things that can be done in the other games called "Traveller". Like...I dunno...being able to use all the ship's weaponry in combat?

Yeah generators could do with some update but not big enough that you can fire up everything without power issues ;-)

This game is gonna be called "Traveller" isn't it? I mean, it's gonna at least vaguely resemble those other RPGs called "Traveller", right?

"Could do with some update?" You gotta be kidding me. The system makes no sense whatsoever. Didn't someone give it a try before dumping it into the playtest document? I mean, the problems are pretty glaring and fundamental...

 

[Zowy]

The way armor, weapons and energy interact is hopelessly broken. Hull and structure is bad allso :?

Tradeships are like tissue paper, they will want to fire missiles at long range and hope to get a few lucky hits. Before the heavy armored Corsair can close to energy weapon range and rip them to shreads. A Far Trader only has 4 Hull and 4 structure points. It will not last long before it is destroyed. If fact a Corsairs main problem will be incapacitating a small ship without destroying it :!:

Even your 400-600 dTon subsidized merchants are not much better. They will be next to useless as auxiliaries for their subsidezeing government, other than as a back line resuppy ship or a decoy, that will die to the first real warship that sees it.

 

[Daddy Dragon]

My basic question is, does this change to starship operation improve Traveller? And does it make it more fun?

So far, based on my reading of the test rules and following the discussions here and elsewhere, the answer to both thus far is no.

Reinventing the wheel by substituting squares or triangles doesn't improve the starship design sequence or make the ship combat system more fun. Honestly, if I want to budget every last erg of energy in starship combat, I'll play Star Fleet Battles.

You've got 30+ years of examples of operational capabilities of Traveller starships to shoehorn into your design system. And this system is the best you've got?

I don't know if its because I've been out of work for more than 4 months and my life is just miserable, if its because I've become one of those stoic Traveller curmudgeons or if I'm I'm just jaded by the psuedo-TML atmosphere undercurrent running in parts of this forum, but I've about given up hope on MongTrav (or whatever the hell we're calling it this week) or any Traveller at all.

Maybe Traveller should stay dead.

Or maybe I just needed to vent.

 

[tneva82]

I don't think its unreasonable that military spec vessels should be able to fire their entire weapons compliment every turn. That's what they are designed to do.

So power plant thingie would be just cash/tonnage removing piece of background with no in-game effect...

I don't see where the problem is with having...horror of horror...reload things time to time. In our world we have to reload stuff and can't keep firing every second ;-)

 

[tneva82]

Even your 400-600 dTon subsidized merchants are not much better. They will be next to useless as auxiliaries for their subsidezeing government, other than as a back line resuppy ship or a decoy, that will die to the first real warship that sees it.

Gee what a suprise. Merchant ship dying quickly when proper warship decides to fire at it? What a suprise! Or maybe not...Merchants aren't supposed to be war vessels. Warships(funnily enough) are...

 

[Zowy]

Even your 400-600 dTon subsidized merchants are not much better. They will be next to useless as auxiliaries for their subsidezeing government, other than as a back line resuppy ship or a decoy, that will die to the first real warship that sees it.

Gee what a suprise. Merchant ship dying quickly when proper warship decides to fire at it? What a suprise! Or maybe not...Merchants aren't supposed to be war vessels. Warships(funnily enough) are...

In CT at least a small merchant ship could fight back some and did not fall apart when someone looked the wrong way at it. With these new power and armor rules. They will be lucky to scrach the armor on even a small 300-400 ton escort or Corsair, before they go b00m........

 

[Mongoose Pete]

I don't see where the problem is with having...horror of horror...reload things time to time. In our world we have to reload stuff and can't keep firing every second ;-)

Since combat turns in ship combat are actually six minutes, I had kind of taken that into account. Each turret gets one shot every 360 seconds, which does indicate having to recharge between shots!

Now I'm not against the idea of Traders or upgraded Corsairs having to rely on power storage to put up a fight for a few turns, but I think military ships shouldn't have to. Their only purpose is to blow things up... not ship cargo or passengers. :wink:

 

[AKAramis]

I like the concept of having power... but the only reasonable rate is 1 point per drive letter per turn, and reduce laser costs by 1 each for beam and pulse, and reduce maneuver to same.

Yes, it does make it "Move or Shoot", however, since a/each skilled engineer can generate an extra point or two of thrust per turn, and/or power per turn, it can be move and shoot a little.

In play, it feels much like Gorilla Games Battlestations, which I enjoy immensely.

 

[tneva82]

In CT at least a small merchant ship could fight back some and did not fall apart when someone looked the wrong way at it. With these new power and armor rules. They will be lucky to scrach the armor on even a small 300-400 ton escort or Corsair, before they go b00m........

Ah sorry, I thought traveller atleast tried to have SOME sense of realism instead of star wars fantasy. MERCHANT's should have about as good chance against proper warship as snowball has in hell.

But hey feel free to ignore power plants and power. That's easy enough. Of course then there's no point to choose any weapons than biggest, meanest you can(and only tripple turret makes sense. Why choose single turret with weak gun when for same tonnage you can get tripple turret with 3 best guns out there?) and space battles will be "he who shoots first wins" without anything else to do but determine who shoots first.

 

[tneva82]

Now I'm not against the idea of Traders or upgraded Corsairs having to rely on power storage to put up a fight for a few turns, but I think military ships shouldn't have to. Their only purpose is to blow things up... not ship cargo or passengers. :wink:

So ignore the power system. Of course then only weapons worth taking are tripple turrets with TL15 particle beams or from bay weapons fusion guns. None other matters. And space battles will be determined by who shoots first. Fun fun fun. Not!

 

[Sturn]

It seems like there is a difference in opinion regarding power usage between old Traveller players, and new players wishing to play a new Traveller game.

On a system with no energy units becoming "who shoots first wins" or, "there is no limiting factor on numbers of weapons": First off, the ships weren't so weak in earlier versions of Traveller, they could take a few blows. Second, I never once saw a player start out with a ship with all turrets filled up with triple-lasers. We/they had to slowly make some credits before upgrading to double turret, then a triple turret farther down the road. Third, you didn't want all of your turrets filled with lasers: missiles and defensive sand casters come to mind. From what I recall, a Free Trader with two triple-laser turrets would not be smart in a tactical sense.

In my old Traveller experience, a merchant ship, fully armed, could stand a chance against like sized military ships. There wasn't a large difference in strength per ton (the military ship had an advantage in manuveur and powerplant due to less cargo space). Small ships did not have glass jaws, they could last a while in a battle with a highly armed pirate vessel. Realistic? Possibly no, but it was one of the many parts of Traveller that made it what it is. You are hearing some groans from old players due to rule changes possibly affecting what Traveller IS.

An energy-allocation system? No problem, let me give it a try. Just don't make such a glaring change that the style of Traveller changes, or us old players may not recognize it anymore.

Don't get what I mean? Here is an exaggerated example. Everyone who has played Traveller before recognizes the fact that you need some very large weaponry to attempt to take out an Imperial Marine in battle dress. If a damage system included new penetration rules which allowed players with only assault rifles to rip these same Marines apart, you would scream. Why? Because not just the rules would be changing, but the Traveller universe itself.

Want a game where a small merchant ship doesn't have a fighting chance? Want a game where the Imperial forces drop like Stormtroopers? Fine by me, just don't call it Traveller.

Mongoose, some corrections please before release, or my house rule document will be adding a couple more paragraphs. Please keep it Traveller on the inside, not just printed on the cover.

 

[tneva82]

Third, you didn't want all of your turrets filled with lasers: missiles and defensive sand casters come to mind. From what I recall, a Free Trader with two triple-laser turrets would not be smart in a tactical sense.

Sand casters sure but missiles? Inferior damage capability, takes longer to hit...By the time missile hits you have hit the target with several particle gun attacks already...

But hey if you don't like it ignore power plants and power points. Easy enough. Glue empty paper over relevant sections if it helps. That way you don't have to worry about it and can go on without them. No problem then. Everybody will have space battles they want ;-)

Oh and what's the bloody point of building up warships if cheaper merchants can have fair fight? Just build fleet of merchants then! Cheaper and can do cargo runs when not in war ;-) Designed warship short time ago. Almost 850Mcr. You telling me that the poor old cargo vessel I designed for player characters(56Mcr) should actually stand some sort of chance there?-)

Poor designers military has if 15 times as expensive ship that is designed for war and not for cargo transport would have problems with the cargo ship...Maybe I picked up wrong game afterall when I was looking for atleast semi-realistic sci-fi RPG instead of fantasy in space. What's next? Magic swords and grizzled old man throwing up fireballs?

 

[Sturn]

Sand casters sure but missiles? Inferior damage capability, takes longer to hit...By the time missile hits you have hit the target with several particle gun attacks already....

Using what system? I have not looked at missiles in MGT. Also, while playing CT for years, I don't recall any of the 100 to 400 tons ships (typical for players) mounting particle guns, even after months of adventuring.

Oh and what's the bloody point of building up warships if cheaper merchants can have fair fight? Just build fleet of merchants then!

I was comparing like sized ships, and I meant that the merchant version stood a chance, not that they were exactly even. Sorry, but that was the way of the Traveller universe many of us know and love.

Designed warship short time ago. Almost 850Mcr. You telling me that the poor old cargo vessel I designed for player characters(56Mcr) should actually stand some sort of chance there?-)

Were the two vessels of the same tonnage?? A 400 ton merchant vs. a 400 ton military, yes in the Traveller universe we all knew, the merchant would stand a chance, although of course the military vessel would have the advantage. If you are comparing a larger military vessel against a smaller merchant vessel, then of course everyone would agree the merchant would not stand much of a chance.

Maybe I picked up wrong game afterall when I was looking for at least semi-realistic sci-fi RPG instead of fantasy in space.

I think you missed my point completely. I think (hope) that at least the old time Traveller players here might have understood what I was attempting to point out.

 

[tneva82]

Using what system? I have not looked at missiles in MGT. Also, while playing CT for years, I don't recall any of the 100 to 400 tons ships (typical for players) mounting particle guns, even after months of adventuring.

And why not? If there's no restriction on what to shoot why not get the best gun out there? Or were the price differences LOT bigger(in MgT atleast guns form smallest part of the price tag. My 200ton ship could switch it's pulse lasers and missile launcher into tripple particle beam turrets and wouldn't affect ship price by noticable difference).

I think you missed my point completely. I think (hope) that at least the old time Traveller players here might have understood what I was attempting to point out.

If merchant ships can stand a chance against dedicated warships then it IS space fantasy. Not realistic at all. Miles off the realism target and therefore totally off from game I'm looking for. Dedicated warship superior to merchant. If that isn't true then game isn't even trying some semblance of realism but instead is extreme fantasy(heck even STAR WARS didn't go that far and that's pure fantasy in space).

If ship design is dedicated to warfare then it should by all logic and realism show over ship designed to carry cargo from point A to point B. That's the frigging point of warships! Otherwise any smart empire would just build merchant ships after merchant ships! Merchants at times of peace! Warships at time of war! 2 to 1! More cost-effective method you can't find!

Why nations design specific warships then? Because they kick crap out of non-warships any day, any time...Send out Arleigh Burke class destroyer against equal tonnage merchant and see which one sinks the other one ;-) Or does the merchant stand a chance...

 

[tbeard1999]

My basic question is, does this change to starship operation improve Traveller? And does it make it more fun?

So far, based on my reading of the test rules and following the discussions here and elsewhere, the answer to both thus far is no.

Reinventing the wheel by substituting squares or triangles doesn't improve the starship design sequence or make the ship combat system more fun. Honestly, if I want to budget every last erg of energy in starship combat, I'll play Star Fleet Battles.

Well said. However, the starship design system is pretty good. See my review at http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=14985 That appears to be mainly due to the fact that Mongoose didn't alter it much from Marc Miller's system for T5 (I didn't know this until after I wrote the review).

And in 28 years of being a Star Fleet Battles player, I have never been siezed by the desire to integrate it with my Traveller campaigns. I also note that the MGT designer failed to steal the other half of SFB that makes it worth playing--the impulse movement system. Instead, he's shoehorning starship combat into that awful initiative system. Ugh.

You've got 30+ years of examples of operational capabilities of Traveller starships to shoehorn into your design system. And this system is the best you've got?

I don't know if its because I've been out of work for more than 4 months and my life is just miserable, if its because I've become one of those stoic Traveller curmudgeons or if I'm I'm just jaded by the psuedo-TML atmosphere undercurrent running in parts of this forum, but I've about given up hope on MongTrav (or whatever the hell we're calling it this week) or any Traveller at all.

Maybe Traveller should stay dead.

Or maybe I just needed to vent.

I think you nailed it on the head. The designer of this kludge appears to have expended most of his effort fixing things that didn't need to be fixed (and declining to fix the the things that needed fixing). Particularly egregious are the needless re-inventions of the wheel that you highlight.

This product is looking more and more like a collection of half-baked, unplaytested house rules put together over a few beers after a game. And I learned long ago that a fundamentally defective mechanic (like the T/E system) cannot be redeemed by playtesting and tweaking. All you wind up with is a highly tweaked crappy mechanic.

And I cannot believe that a starship operations system as flawed and defective as the one in v3.2 of the playtest document could have ever survived even the most cursory review.

For the record, I think that there's plenty of need for an update of Traveller. I'd use the starship design system as an example of how to update and tweak an existing system the right way. MGT's character generation system is another, though less fabulous example. Adequate (though the survival rates are way too low for military careers...more evidence of a lack of analysis) and does a fair job replacing Classic Traveller's systems.

The T/E system is a kludge, but it could have been offered as a truly optional system. Unfortunately, the designer's insistence on shoehorning it into combat and starship combat forces you to use it. And it's crap...even most of the fans of the system have all sorts of elaborate revisions to try to force it to work. And tellingly, the designer has embraced none of them, despite their obvious superiority. He's fallen in love with a crappy mechanic.

For combat systems, Traveller has a plethora of systems that work just fine. If you want a fiddly system that warks far better than the MGT initiative system (and produces better and more reasonable results), try the action point systems of Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning. MegaTraveller and TNE has decent combat sequences. For the combat system itself, Striker, MegaTraveller or T4 had very good damage mechanics. I lean toward Striker and T4 myself. At the very least, the designer should have put a workable, simple combat system in and made the initiative system optional.

Crap, crap, crap...

 

[tbeard1999]

I don't think its unreasonable that military spec vessels should be able to fire their entire weapons compliment every turn. That's what they are designed to do.

So power plant thingie would be just cash/tonnage removing piece of background with no in-game effect...

I don't see where the problem is with having...horror of horror...reload things time to time. In our world we have to reload stuff and can't keep firing every second ;-)

There are two problems, plus the embarassingly incompetent and amateurish execution.

1. It also introduces a lot more complexity and time expenditure in the game. It seems like the designer wants to design a wargame, not an RPG. And as a long-term wargamer and designer, I'm pretty confident that this drivel wouldn't survive the first playtest with real wargamers.

2. It flies in the face of 30+ years of Traveller canon. If the game is gonna be called "Traveller", I think it's reasonable to ask that the designer generally follow canon. If he's not going to do so, then he should be honest and name it something different.

But then it *would* die a horrible death in the marketplace. Because without the "Traveller" name, this system has nothing going for it.

In any case, there's already a fine energy management starship wargame out there -- Star Fleet Battles. If want that, then play SFB. Because it 'aint Traveller.