The neccessity of two ship-design systems

[Golan2072]

Cross-posted from here:

A big question IMHO is why have two full-length ship-design systems in the final product set (one in the corebook, one in Mongoose High Guard [MHG]) - which would possibly be less than 100% compatible in terms of results and of combat-system usage. I mean, the CT-HG design system, with all examples, tables and forms is 17 LBB pages long; our current basic design system is 13 pages long including all tables, so a stripped-down and demilitarized version of MHG would fit perfectly into the core book even with the newer rules (such as electronics) added in.

So, basically, I suggest that the core book would include a version of MHG dealing with hull construction, drives/power-plants, computers/sensors, basic fittings (staterooms, low berths) and basic/civilian weapons; the MHG book would include expanded military-oriented rules dealing with screens, spinal weapons, large fighter-deployment systems and so on. This way you'll get:

1) A unified ship design, ship description and ship combat for all Mongoose Traveller products, which means less confusion to both players and designers who'll use the SRD.

2) Scalable, versatile hull and drive/PP design in the corebook rather than the restrictive standard hull/standard drives tables.

3) No redundant basic-hull/drive design rules taking up space in the MGH book, which leaves more space for other things useful for the naval-inclined player such as Trillion Credit Squadron style campaign rules or a mass naval combat system. For Mongoose, this means more selling points for MGH; for the prospective buyers of the whole series of RTT products (such as me), this means better value for money.

 

[hdrider67]

Seconded!

 

[Mongoose Gar]

The counter-argument - the average bunch of player characters will be flying a small ship on their own, and going on wacky adventures. Engagements are going to involve a handful of vessels. At that scale, you want to focus on individual systems and have enough detail in combat to give everyone something to do.

The average bunch of player characters are not going to end up commanding their own capital ship or squadron of capital ships, and such ships don't usually get involved in small engagements. It's such a different game, it calls for its own rules.

 

[EDG]

The average bunch of player characters are not going to end up commanding their own capital ship or squadron of capital ships, and such ships don't usually get involved in small engagements. It's such a different game, it calls for its own rules.

Not necessarily IMO. Surely it's possible to just have a single set of rules that just works at small and large scales?

And what if the players ARE serving on a capital ship? What if you're doing a BSG-like setting where the PCs are all fighter pilots on their battleship/space station? I don't see why you'd need different rules to handle that sort of thing - aside from anything else it seems like very inelegant game design to do that when you can just do it all with one ruleset.

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

The counter-argument - the average bunch of player characters will be flying a small ship on their own, and going on wacky adventures. Engagements are going to involve a handful of vessels. At that scale, you want to focus on individual systems and have enough detail in combat to give everyone something to do.

The average bunch of player characters are not going to end up commanding their own capital ship or squadron of capital ships, and such ships don't usually get involved in small engagements. It's such a different game, it calls for its own rules.

It's perfectly possible to build Adventure class starships using HG; they generally perform better (smaller drive sizes, same performance) than the modular, off the shelf LBB 2 types of ship. I can't really see the need to have two separate ship design systems, especially from a compatability point of view. IMO it's better to start with the big ship design system then scale it back (remove all the fancy weapons, the larger hull sizes, etc); this would guarantee compatability between the two systems.

 

[Valarian]

The average bunch of player characters are not going to end up commanding their own capital ship or squadron of capital ships, and such ships don't usually get involved in small engagements. It's such a different game, it calls for its own rules.

Traveller is very much like the age of sail. During the period, even ships of the line worked on detached duty to "show the flag". Ships would act alone most of the time, coming together in to squadrons when needed for large scale battles. With Traveller, you also have the inclusion of fighters - possibly in the middle of large scale combat. The acts of the fighters could affect the outcome of the main battle (e.g. the Death Star run in the battle at the end of Star Wars - Return of the Jedi).

I would agree with the posters above that a single, scalable, set of rules would be better than two different and incompatible sets of ship combat rules.

 

[Gruffty the Hiver]

Here's an example of "failure to be compatible" from LBB 2 and HG:

100 dTon Hull:

         LBB2        HG
-----------------------------
      dTons MCr  dTons  MCr
 J-2     10  10      3   24
 M-2      1   4      5    3.5
PP-2      4   8      2    8
-----------------------------
         15  22     10   35.5
-----------------------------

Same hull size in each case; same plant performances, but HG gives lower use of hull dTons. The only major difference is in the price of the J-Drive. Thus LBB2 isn't compatible with HG.

 

[AKAramis]

The average bunch of player characters are not going to end up commanding their own capital ship or squadron of capital ships, and such ships don't usually get involved in small engagements. It's such a different game, it calls for its own rules.

Traveller is very much like the age of sail. During the period, even ships of the line worked on detached duty to "show the flag". Ships would act alone most of the time, coming together in to squadrons when needed for large scale battles. With Traveller, you also have the inclusion of fighters - possibly in the middle of large scale combat. The acts of the fighters could affect the outcome of the main battle (e.g. the Death Star run in the battle at the end of Star Wars - Return of the Jedi).

I would agree with the posters above that a single, scalable, set of rules would be better than two different and incompatible sets of ship combat rules.

Note that T5 uses two design systems... Adventure Class and Battle Class.

 

[captainjack23]

Actually in "age of sail" early or late, the ship buiding traditions for small and large ships (adventure and battle) were quite different, and really didn't scale to each other. Remember, volume & surface area mattered back then, too. Bigger ships were faster and more efficient than smaller ones...but way more expensive proportionally. Sound familiar ?

Hull designs were much more consistent in big ships than small and the type of design differed, often radically; clinker building was (and is still) used in coasters and boats, and would utterly fail in a line ship. Sail plans that work on larger ships would destroy a smaller ship (the Vasa being an extreme example; it would seem to have been rigged for a modern supertanker, or something).

Tactics differed markedly, too. Small and large ships lived in their own universes. Galleys were still viable as coastal patrol boats where only dealt with coasters and packets and such. Sailing ships still wandered around the Atlantic largely unaffected and ignored by the naval war in WW1- certainly by subs. And when they weren't ignored - suffice it to dsay that a wooden sail ship is about the only surface ship a sub is willing to ram, just to save shells in the deck gun. (Torpedoes ? Can you say magnetic trigger and a wooden hull ?)

Sometimes this was due to age & stubborness. Warships generally evolve faster than commercial ships, and large ships faster than small. Pre-Tudor ship designs are still being built, and were used frequently throughout the nineteenth century - simply because the traditions existed, were reliable and change took more effort than was returned. Yo ho ho and the first empire of Vland !

'twas steam that really killed things, the dread paradigm shift, belike.

....Which I agree says nothing about whether or not the rules should be unified compatable or elegant from a play or design theory perspective- I quite like high guard, myself - but it isn't at all unrealistic, models a particular technology and a period of society very similar to the OTU. And, it does have a certain elegant charm to it.....character, in an age of sail kind of way.


Oh yes, almost forgot,
avast and arrrr !
Cap

 

[hdrider67]

Actually in "age of sail" early or late, the ship buiding traditions for small and large ships (adventure and battle) were quite different, and really didn't scale to each other. Remember, volume & surface area mattered back then, too. Bigger ships were faster and more efficient than smaller ones...but way more expensive proportionally. Sound familiar ?

...

Oh yes, almost forgot,
avast and arrrr !
Cap

Nicely said. Before ya make a speech to the crew, this old Bosun's Mate would like a second to pipe Passing the Word.

 

[captainjack23]

Nicely said. Before ya make a speech to the crew, this old Bosun's Mate would like a second to pipe Passing the Word.

Surely done. And thank ye fer not callin it a whistle......

 

[hdrider67]

Nicely said. Before ya make a speech to the crew, this old Bosun's Mate would like a second to pipe Passing the Word.

Surely done. And thank ye fer not callin it a whistle......

Trust me, Calling it a whistle would bug me most of all. I spent many hours learning to pipe so I could qualify BMOW.

Of course these days I'd probably need some beeswax and lots of practice.

 

[EDG]

Actually in "age of sail" early or late, the ship buiding traditions for small and large ships (adventure and battle) were quite different, and really didn't scale to each other. Remember, volume & surface area mattered back then, too. Bigger ships were faster and more efficient than smaller ones...but way more expensive proportionally. Sound familiar ?

That's all very well, but while the OTU obviously has elements in it based on the Age of Sail (e.g. the long travel times between systems), I'm not sure that the intent was to be quite THAT faithful to it. I suspect that the distinction between High Guard and Book 2 (or Adventure and Battle class, or whatever) came about because the designers came up with an expanded system after they'd designed Book 2 that could build larger ships, not because they specifically wanted to emulate Age of Sail shipbuilding.

And from a game design perspective, I really see no point in having two separate systems. For starters, MGT isn't supposed to be emulating the Age of Sail - it's supposed to be a SF ruleset to apply to a variety of settings that may have no axiomatic connection to the Age of Sail at all. Secondly, it's just horribly inelegant to have two incompatible systems that basically do the same job.

Frankly, the only reason I can see for doing a separate "High Guard"-like system is to get people to spend money on a second book. That might make some degree of business sense, but personally I think it's entirely unnecessary. But if they are going to do that, then at least make it an extension of the system in the corebook, and not something separate.

 

[captainjack23]

perhaps you missed this bit....

....Which I agree says nothing about whether or not the rules should be unified compatable or elegant from a play or design theory perspective- I quite like high guard, myself - but it isn't at all unrealistic, models a particular technology and a period of society very similar to the OTU. And, it does have a certain elegant charm to it.....character, in an age of sail kind of way.

As I said, it's a comment about realism, and an interesting observation more than about elegance. In this case, elegance can be presumed to produce an unhistoric result - but only with regard to nautical design. I should add, that modern nautical design also breaks into adventure/battle schools of design. You cant scale a bassboat into an aircraft carrier, or build a cabin cruiser from milspec design sequences.

Given that we have no idea of actual spaceship building, it seems at least worth a look at similar systems of design. Although, one could argue that subs are a better model - and I'm not familiar enough with their design to know if they scale. Any deep sea squids out there ?

However, I do think that a unified ship design system would be cool, and more elegant and playable. The issues with CT/HG compatibility bugged me - only once I started using high guard, granted, but still.

I think what we'll see is an extension of the core book non-scaling style of ship design - I'm pretty sure it can be made workable up t any size if you are willing to have the charts - an example (or three) exists online, IIRC.

Perhaps HG would need to reproduce the sub 2000 dton design sequence to allow an extention up to a vast displacement ? Yeah ,it would be a redundant, but would at least keep designers from having to thumb thru two books. And it would allow ships of vast displacement.

As to it being an elegant or widely approved design style - I have no idea. It's what I think we'll get. I DO think it'll be preferable to having a "low guard"/ "high guard" set of design profiles based on differing design schools (non-scaling modules vs scaled formulae).


Cap

 

[Golan2072]

The counter-argument - the average bunch of player characters will be flying a small ship on their own, and going on wacky adventures. Engagements are going to involve a handful of vessels. At that scale, you want to focus on individual systems and have enough detail in combat to give everyone something to do.

The average bunch of player characters are not going to end up commanding their own capital ship or squadron of capital ships, and such ships don't usually get involved in small engagements. It's such a different game, it calls for its own rules.

I heartily agree with you that naval gaming would require a whole set of additional rules - large-scale combat, spinal weapons, screens, strategic planning (ala CT's Trillion Credits Squadron), expanded sensor/stealth rules, abstract boarding action resolution, expanded naval careers, expanded event tables and so on. However, it still doesn't invalidate my point that the bare-minimum baseline of the ship design system should IMHO be the same in all RTT products. I'm not asking for you to put all military-grade goodies and rules in the core book, but rather to use the same hull construction, drive construction, basic sensors, basic weapons systems (turrets and small bay rules) and basic fittings (stateroom and low berth rules) in all RTT products. I also recommend that the basic overall design sequence would be used in all RTT products.

This will help us in three main ways:

1) Save space in both in the core book and in the naval sourcebook; not only would the percentage-based HG-style hull and drive tables take less core-book space than the current standard hull/drive tables, but you'll also avoid repeating an entire design system in the naval sourcebook. This means more room for more goodies in both books - especially for more specific naval-level rules in the naval sourcebook.

2) Compatibility between all ship designs rather than having two possibly conflicting design systems in the same product line (e.g. LBB2 vs. HG having different tonnages and J-Drive TLs). This will also make the universe implied by these rules more consistent.

3) An easier learning curve for those interested in naval design; once you'll master the core-book design system, the rest of naval ship design would be addons to this system rather than learning a completely new one.

 

[Takei]

I would also prefer to see a single design system based around HG percentages. The core book is already using percentages for armour so why not apply that to drives as well?

I agree that the core book should only cover adventure class ships; no bay or spinal weapons, and limit turrets to sand, missiles and lasers. Enough for self defence only.

 

[hdrider67]

I'd like to see high guard scale up the weapons. It makes little sense that the missiles available to a scout would match a dreadnought in size, range, and damage. A really big ship should be able to accommodate 10 ton missiles. Obviously these are expensive weapons so they wouldn't be wasted on smaller targets (in fact, they should have difficulty hitting small targets) but against other dreadnoughts, they'd be the weapon of choice.

I've always thought weapon bays ought to follow this type of scaling, too.

 

[Golan2072]

Two more points in support of a unified HG-like design system:

1) Judging from my experience with the Traveller community*, most players/referees interested in ship design in general would be interested in military ship design and in an expanded system; most players/referees who are interested only in small, "adventure-type" strictly non-military ships would use the pre-generated ships and rarely design ships on their own. So, once MHG would be out, the core-book LBB2-style system will see very little use, and MHG would be the "standard" system for most people. So you'll end up wasting 13 pages which could be put to other uses.

2) An energy-point system seems to fit a percentage system better than a standard-PP one; when designing a ship, you'd want to tailor its drives to produce enough power for all systems, and these vary greatly from ship to ship. Sure, using higher-letter drives could cover this as well, but percentage systems allow for easier tailoring of the PP to your ship's needs.

* Just look on the ship designs posted on CotI and other similar forums. The majority of them are military craft; and the vast majority of the CT ones use HG rather than LBB2.

 

[AKAramis]

Two more points in support of a unified HG-like design system:

1) Judging from my experience with the Traveller community*, most players/referees interested in ship design in general would be interested in military ship design and in an expanded system; most players/referees who are interested only in small, "adventure-type" strictly non-military ships would use the pre-generated ships and rarely design ships on their own. So, once MHG would be out, the core-book LBB2-style system will see very little use, and MHG would be the "standard" system for most people. So you'll end up wasting 13 pages which could be put to other uses.

2) An energy-point system seems to fit a percentage system better than a standard-PP one; when designing a ship, you'd want to tailor its drives to produce enough power for all systems, and these vary greatly from ship to ship. Sure, using higher-letter drives could cover this as well, but percentage systems allow for easier tailoring of the PP to your ship's needs.

* Just look on the ship designs posted on CotI and other similar forums. The majority of them are military craft; and the vast majority of the CT ones use HG rather than LBB2.

The problem with looking at CT Bk2 vs HG is that HG designs are almost universally better than Bk2 designs under CT, plus the only forum of note that supports both also supports T20, which is a HG variant.

The drive letter system's biggest advantage is lost under HG rules for combat: Drive letters as damage steps. MoTravdraft 3.1 uses a severe model.

Bk2: each drive hit damages 5 tons of JD, 2 tons of MD, or 4 tons of PP
HG: Each hit reduces rating by one; a 100 ton J6 M6 P6 can take 6 hits to any drive, but a 1000Td J1 M1 PP1 can only take 1 hit each
T20: As per HG
MT: Each drive has a hits value based upon size; after 2/5ths of the rating (roughly), it is disabled, and after the remaining 3/5ths, it is non-functional.
MoTrav: Each drive, without regard to size, can take one hit and remain repairable, and a second which requires the drive to be replaced.

The most realistic, IMO,is probably the MT approach, followed closely by the Bk2 approach. I find MoTrav the least realistic.

Another argument for 2 design systems is that one will likely be open content, while a second is likely not to be open. A third exists whcih has open results, but is not itself open content: T20. Hunter might release it when his license expires, might not; if he does, it would provide a third design system.

 

[Golan2072]

The problem with looking at CT Bk2 vs HG is that HG designs are almost universally better than Bk2 designs under CT, plus the only forum of note that supports both also supports T20, which is a HG variant.

Even if the drive tonnages were the same, HG would probably see far greater use due to its versatility - you could build a far wider range on ship types (and use a far greater array of weapons and screens) with HG in comparison to LBB2. Sure, you could graft a lot of cool stuff into LBB2 (and its fun to do so), but this is strict house-rule terrain and thus designs aren't very compatible between different referees.

The most realistic, IMO,is probably the MT approach, followed closely by the Bk2 approach. I find MoTrav the least realistic.

This is a feature of the combat system rather than of the design system; you could have a percentage-based design system and still have an MT-style or CT-HG-style damage system.

Another argument for 2 design systems is that one will likely be open content, while a second is likely not to be open. A third exists whcih has open results, but is not itself open content: T20. Hunter might release it when his license expires, might not; if he does, it would provide a third design system.

A question for Mongoose Gar/Chris: which of the design systems would be open content? Would MHG be open content or only the core-book system?

Anyhow, I'd wager that MHG would be used by the majority of referees and players interested in ship design, due to its greater versatility.