Suggested Change to Breakaway Hulls

[AnotherDilbert]

Suggested Change to Breakaway Hulls:

Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can
operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking
or splitting away from one another. Each section must
have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it.

changed to:

"Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can
operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking
or splitting away from one another. Each section must
be a separate hull that is a complete ship. Each section
gets hull points, hardpoints, and so on separately. Once
the sections are joined only one computer can function
at a time, the others are backups."


As it is we have too many questions and possible abuses:

Bigger ships get more hull points. A 25 kT section of a 101 kT ship gets more hull points than an identical craft built as a single 25 kT hull.
We can build a 101 kT carrier with fighters as breakaway sections, giving the fighters one hull point for each 1.5 dT like the carrier.

We can manufacture sections of bigger ships, gaining advantages, without ever manufacturing the other sections.

A ship can have max 2 computers, if we have more than 2 sections some sections cannot have a computer and are unable to function.

HG, p25 "A ship has one Hardpoint for every full 100 tons...". We can make a 100 dT ship splitting into a a 80 dT carrier section and 20 dT fighter section with a full hardpoint, and hence a triple turret or a barbette.

We can build a ship with a 15 dT jump drive, splitting the jump drive into two 7.5 dT drives in two different sections. The sections need not see each other after manufacture.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I don't see any abuse. What kind of players do you have exactly? The original text is fine. Your text adds boredom. RPG books shouldn't be boring to read. Traveller is not a wargame simulator. You should know this by now.

 

[phavoc]

Obviously Shawn has been oblivious to the conversations going on here.

I don't seen any issue with your clarification. A breakaway hull would, to me at least, imply that you are shedding part of your ship, not just dumping a cargo module. If you look at other sci-fi examples of ships that had breakaway portions, they were usually from a survival mode (leaving the assploding part behind you), or they were making two ship targets instead of one.

Just how many people are going to invest in this sort of thing is debatable, but not that many missions would require the complexity or expense of doing so. And very few adventure-class ships would fit into this format. Or at least should.. never underestimate a player...

 

[Nerhesi]

Dilbert, here is what I see in this section:

Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking or splitting away from one another. Each section must have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it. Manoeuvre drive, jump drive, sensors, weapons, screens and so forth are all options that can (and, under normal circumstances, should) be included in each section. While the sections are together, drives, power plants and weapons can all be combined when calculating performance. This whole process consumes 2% of the combined hull tonnage for the extra bulkheads and connections needed, and costs an additional MCr2 per ton consumed.

So your concerns:

Bigger ships get more hull points. A 25 kT section of a 101 kT ship gets more hull points than an identical craft built as a single 25 kT hull. We can build a 101 kT carrier with fighters as breakaway sections, giving the fighters one hull point for each 1.5 dT like the carrier.

Thats not actually RAW. Absent any direction - hull points are based on ship size. While a rules lawyer can try to argue that the fighters have higher hull because they were part of a 101 kT carrier, unfortunately they can just as easily be rules-lawyered in the other direction. Sorry - your fighter is now a 40-ton ship - it is has X hull - I dont care what it was 2 seconds ago - that was 2 seconds ago. By RAW - nothing says you dont recalculate hull if the ship size changes. Clarification would of course remove the need for this argument.

We can manufacture sections of bigger ships, gaining advantages, without ever manufacturing the other sections.

What advantage do we gain other than the perceived hull points one above? It is clear the "ship" is built as the large ship from the above description.

A ship can have max 2 computers, if we have more than 2 sections some sections cannot have a computer and are unable to function.

Sorry where is that inference? A ship can have max 2 computers. You build each section separately - feel free to give each a computer, bridge etc.
When they get together, you may have 15 computers! Pick a primary and a secondary, as you would for a normal ship. You don't have assume a rules exception here - I have no issue putting 15 non-functional computers on the ship as long as 2 are functional. It is almost no different than packing 13 computers in my cargo bay.

HG, p25 "A ship has one Hardpoint for every full 100 tons...". We can make a 100 dT ship splitting into a a 80 dT carrier section and 20 dT fighter section with a full hardpoint, and hence a triple turret or a barbette.

Technically no - again, you dont have the full 100 tons - so just as a 180 ton ship only has 1 hardpoint. An 80 dT ship has ZERO hard points. One can argue, by RAW that it would even have 0 firmpoints if it wasn't built as a small craft.

We can build a ship with a 15 dT jump drive, splitting the jump drive into two 7.5 dT drives in two different sections. The sections need not see each other after manufacture.

Not clear on the issue here. If you're building a ship with a 15 ton drive that splits into two, you're building two 7.5 ton drives - one in each section. What am I missing?

Just trying to get a total understanding of exactly how many issues you perceive exist with this topic.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

HG, p8: "Ships over 100,000 tons have 1 Hull point for every 1.5 tons of hull."

HG, p9: "Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking or splitting away from one another."

HG, p15: "Every ship needs a central computer, ... A ship may have a maximum of two computers ... "

HG, p25: "A ship has one Hardpoint for every full 100 tons of its hull."

A Ship is the basic unit of accounting in High Guard, that has certain properties. A ship on p9 is clearly the collection of sections joined together, not each section separately. That is what I want to change.

Nerhesi, I agree that it should work as you say, but unfortunately that is not what the rules say.

Look at Chas' example, especially the hull points:
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=118684&p=899519#p899519

 

[Nerhesi]

I see the reasoning behind your points Anotherdilbert, but by raw, to be more literal, there are no things called "sections" that fight in space. Everything is a ship. You may as well call a section a type such as a carrier or so cruiser.

Therefore, a section follows all rules for ships. That is RAW. To say a section of not a ship is to have no rules governing its interaction once it's built. So you couldn't spend thrust or dodge or fire weapons or do anything really - despite what you've put on it.

Not trying to be argumentative - I'm just pointing out that "section" isn't some brand new descriptor that needs special focus. It is just a ship - by RAW or it is nothing by RAW. I see no abuse potential that can't be completely shut down by the same interpretations of RAW. Although if you interpret things one way you'll run into these issues with pretty much every paragraph (small craft would simply not work)

I don't see the need to clarify, but if 3-4 words added such as "sections are ships" would help some. So be it.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Too easy.

Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking or splitting away from one another. Each section must have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it. Manoeuvre drive, jump drive, sensors, weapons, screens and so forth are all options that can (and, under normal circumstances, should) be included in each section. While the sections are together, drives, power plants and weapons can all be combined when calculating performance.

The breakaway parts of the ship are specifically not ships, but sections. Specific rules for what each section must have are given, not identical to the rules for ships.

 

[Nerhesi]

Too easy.

Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking or splitting away from one another. Each section must have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it. Manoeuvre drive, jump drive, sensors, weapons, screens and so forth are all options that can (and, under normal circumstances, should) be included in each section. While the sections are together, drives, power plants and weapons can all be combined when calculating performance.

The breakaway parts of the ship are specifically not ships, but sections. Specific rules for what each section must have are given, not identical to the rules for ships.

It is unfortunately too easy that you've now argued yourself into the fact that they're not ships at all. You're being selectively literal. You (not RAW) have defined sections as NOT ships. In other words:

Sections != Ships is your interpretation. It is not logically sound, nor is it support by RAW. Nothing states a section is NOT a ship.

If you persist in this manner then you will realise we have no rules on "sections" - which you yourself have stated. At all. If you wish to go by your adhoc interpretation you realise your section cannot do anything once it is build since it is not covered by the Spacecombat rules which deal only with ships.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Breakaway Hulls: A ship can be designed so it can operate as two or more independent vessels, breaking or splitting away from one another. Each section must have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it. Manoeuvre drive, jump drive, sensors, weapons, screens and so forth are all options that can (and, under normal circumstances, should) be included in each section. While the sections are together, drives, power plants and weapons can all be combined when calculating performance.

It is unfortunately too easy that you've now argued yourself into the fact that they're not ships at all. You're being selectively literal. You (not RAW) have defined sections as NOT ships. In other words:

Sections != Ships is your interpretation. It is not logically sound, nor is it support by RAW. Nothing states a section is NOT a ship.

If you persist in this manner then you will realise we have no rules on "sections" - which you yourself have stated. At all. If you wish to go by your adhoc interpretation you realise your section cannot do anything once it is build since it is not covered by the Spacecombat rules which deal only with ships.

Which is why I wanted to change to Section == Ship, and the problems go away.

RAW is not very verbose. Nothing states that a section is a ship, but it is specifically given a different terminology. Note that the sections are specifically given different rules than ships, that implies Sections != Ships to me.

I am not alone in being confused, Chas also made a different interpretation to you. When we have three people with three different interpretations the rules might be a tad unclear. I would suggest a clarification. I can't see that my clarification hurts anything.

 

[Nerhesi]

Clarifications never hurt anything I shall reinforce this.

You know what would be great - a revised lockdown thread as I believe we have spun off into tens of other threads and lost track of priority/criticality.

 

[phavoc]

MANY rules are a tad unclear. That's why we have jobs here!