The Mayday project question 2, Rating HG weapons

[Infojunky]

The story thus far, I have this grand plan in my head, and well now kinda on paper, of converting/updating Book 2 starship combat into something like Mayday. Directly this isn't that big a deal, but I amy also coupling it with bits and pieces of other editions of Traveller, most notably MGT.

The base scale is 1000 second terns with a 10,000 km hex, i.e. 30 hexes equals 1 light-second. The game board is a 24 by 36 inch sheet of 6 mm hexes and play will be plotted.

Those are givens.

Now, the question is what are the relative turret weapon damages?

Book 2 has:
Beam Laser = 1 hit
Pulse Laser = 2 hits
Missiles = 1d6 hits (Note there is a similar system in Special Supplement 3 Missiles, and I am going to include, but it really only adds options for missiles. and is ratable in the same scale as book 2)

These are all a given, so how do the ones added in High Guard rate on this scale, in gross damage?

Plasma Guns
Fusion Guns
PAs
PA Barbettes

And as a added bit, there is reference to Heavy Lasers in early Journals, I believe these were in 1st edition/printings of book 2, which I do not have a copy of any more. So any body wish to enlighten me?

 

[Sevya]

There is an excellent work that someone did bridging the Book 2/Book 5 gap. It takes the turn structure and distance system from HG, but gives individual weapon firing like in Book 2. It also includes most of the HG weapons. Here's the link:

http://www.travellercentral.com/rules/ship_combat.html

I think this will help with your project.

Sevya

 

[Infojunky]

There is an excellent work that someone did bridging the Book 2/Book 5 gap. It takes the turn structure and distance system from HG, but gives individual weapon firing like in Book 2. It also includes most of the HG weapons. Here's the link:

http://www.travellercentral.com/rules/ship_combat.html

I think this will help with your project.

It does.....

Now I am gonna smack someone..... :twisted:

 

[Jame Rowe]

I would be interested in making a version of Bk2/Mayday that allows ships up to 100,000 tons, where some of the 100,000 ton ships are civilian.

 

[Infojunky]

I would be interested in making a version of Bk2/Mayday that allows ships up to 100,000 tons, where some of the 100,000 ton ships are civilian.

Jame you have got it.... Or in this project it is about Pc class ships and their direct relatives. Filling in the gap that has existed since HG was published.

TNE kinda was aimed in this range, but it inherent complexity stifled it's acceptance by the larger Traveller Community.

 

[SSWarlock]

There is an excellent work that someone did bridging the Book 2/Book 5 gap. It takes the turn structure and distance system from HG, but gives individual weapon firing like in Book 2. It also includes most of the HG weapons. Here's the link:

http://www.travellercentral.com/rules/ship_combat.html

I think this will help with your project.

Sevya

Nuclear torpedoes?!? Now that brings fighters (and thoughts of the WWII battle of Midway) back into the game!

 

[pasuuli]

Nuclear torpedoes?!? Now that brings fighters (and thoughts of the WWII battle of Midway) back into the game!

Naturally... why not? There's no structural reason why a fighter can't carry a couple of Big Capital-Crunching Missiles, is there?

 

[SSWarlock]

Naturally... why not? There's no structural reason why a fighter can't carry a couple of Big Capital-Crunching Missiles, is there?

Nope, none at all. In fact, I'm very happy to have another reason to justify having both big ships and tiny yet effective fighters.

 

[Infojunky]

Naturally... why not? There's no structural reason why a fighter can't carry a couple of Big Capital-Crunching Missiles, is there?

Nope, none at all. In fact, I'm very happy to have another reason to justify having both big ships and tiny yet effective fighters.

Under book 2 and mayday a flight of fighters is a scary proposition.

 

[SSWarlock]

Under book 2 and mayday a flight of fighters is a scary proposition.

As they should be since they're essentially a "virtual" large ship when coordinating their efforts.

 

[pasuuli]

Under book 2 and mayday a flight of fighters is a scary proposition.

As they should be since they're essentially a "virtual" large ship when coordinating their efforts.

All depends on the balance of power...

 

[Infojunky]

Under book 2 and mayday a flight of fighters is a scary proposition.

As they should be since they're essentially a "virtual" large ship when coordinating their efforts.

Well yes, but it is also standard operating procedure for real world fighters/dive bombers also.

Imagine this a flight of just 4 fighters releases their missiles and follows them in using their lasers. At maximum that is 12 targets. 4 of them shooting their way past.

 

[klingsor]

I must admit I dislike the idea of space fighters. Of course my image of (SF) space warfare is more akin to pre-dreadnoughts without the annoyance of fighters or perhaps more accurately WW II without the carriers (there are a number of examples, perhaps most famously the Battle of the River Plate or just look on the Victory at Sea section of this forum for more). If you need justification they are too small to carry a useful electronic warfare suite – careful brushing the real world example of the EA-6 under the carpet.

I know Traveller always had fighters but they never seemed to be terribly important, spinal mounts were the ship killers. I sometimes wonder if fighters were just for being nasty to planets – once you had reached orbit and hammered down the planetary defences or maybe the fighters were used to do this, attacking the sensors and surface installations that defended the planet. You might have a deep seated meson gun but if it is blinded it is useless. Fighters would be quite good for this being less vulnerable to some weapons and more expendable than ships.

 

[klingsor]

I am of course completely overlooking the fact that against non-warships fighters would be like foxes in a hen house. Well, certainly with smaller ships but against the really big merchantmen they might be less effective, anything less than a nuke would need careful placement to hurt one badly. A real world example being the Persian Gulf where tankers were placed ahead of the escorts that were supposedly protecting them as they were far less vulnerable to mines and anti-ship missiles.

 

[Infojunky]

Well, the entire fighter question is really one of scale. Well and your focus, if you are fixated on the big battlewagons (which most are oversized by at least an order of magnitude) then really fighters don't mean too much unless they are armed with nuclear missiles.

On the other hand if your focus is on merchant men and smaller scale vessels fighters become a real threat. Even a 10,000 dton freighter is going to fear fighters. A single fighter can quickly damage almost any larger Merchantman, while a flight of fighters are a credible threat to most non-ship of the line combatants.

Or at least that is my two credits.

 

[klingsor]

I quite agree with you about the small, Black Book or PC scale, ships being terribly vulnerable to fighters. A small, PC scale 'jeep' carrier would be an interesting design exercise and a great corsair or mercenary ship. In fact somewhere I think I have a late GDW Virus era book that is set around a subsidised liner converted to carrier some fighters.

I wonder if you could gut the tween decks and cutter hangers of a Broadsword to make a little carrier? Perhaps a mercenary band had a Broadsword badly damaged or came into possession of one and converted her. A custom built ship would have been better but they had a ship that needed a lot of work anyway.

The problem of course becomes one of maintaining, fuelling and arming the fighters though fortunately you do not need heavy, bulky and dangerous launch mechanisms (unless you have really bought the Battlestar Galactica paradigm) but I do think you do need to be able to pressurise and air up the hanger. External clamps are fine and dandy until it is spanner time.

 

[klingsor]

This reminds me of something that might be relevant. For years now I have been toying with the idea of a small, elderly warship class now relegated to patrol, commerce protection and anti-piracy roles. A boxy, unstreamlined and slow but durable class. One ship, one set of deckplans but with multiple stat sheets to allow it to be used with a variety of different games including Star Wars and Traveller. Obviously built using the best/most stringent rule set and just converted across. One notion was for Star Wars where a scabbed on hanger allowed it to carry a few TIE fighters.

Now I finally have the new edition of Traveller (loyalty to relatively (80 mile round trip) local shop now stretched beyond breaking point) I can try to design this sucker and put Campaign Cartographer through it's paces as well.

 

[PFVA63]

I know Traveller always had fighters ...

Hi,

I believe that actually the 1st versions of Traveller actually didn't have fighters, but that they were added in MayDay and a later printing of the main rules.

Imagine this a flight of just 4 fighters releases their missiles and follows them in using their lasers. At maximum that is 12 targets. 4 of them shooting their way past.

Hi,

Looking at page 136 of the new Mongoose rulebook, the fighter shown there mounts only a laser or missiles, but not both. I believe that this was similar to other early Traveller rulesets as well, but I don't know about later rulesets.

Regards

PF

 

[Sevya]

OK, now you've made me go and get my old books out!

First printing (1977) did not have fighters listed, but the Pinnace or Ship's Boat could be armed, making a very effective fighter. In the second printing of CT (1981), there is a fighter listed that is identical to the one in MGT. Mayday was printed before this, so probably had some influence. Star Wars probably did, too. In High Guard, you could design your own fighters, and in a supplement they introduced the "Standard Imperial Fughter" as a 50 ton design.

Sevya

 

[Infojunky]

OK, now you've made me go and get my old books out!

Well that's not a bad thing.

First printing (1977) did not have fighters listed, but the Pinnace or Ship's Boat could be armed, making a very effective fighter. In the second printing of CT (1981), there is a fighter listed that is identical to the one in MGT. Mayday was printed before this, so probably had some influence. Star Wars probably did, too. In High Guard, you could design your own fighters, and in a supplement they introduced the "Standard Imperial Fughter" as a 50 ton design.

Well yes, but the idea is the same, and I am the 1st one to admit that there was definite rules changes between printings. So even some of my suppositions can be wrong, but I am willing to admit it when it happens.

In that do you have a listing in your earliest editions of a Heavy laser?