The Pressure to Build Small

[Chas]

Right now the balance of builds is all tilted towards making many small craft except for the critical hit table which I do not believe does enough to address the issue. If we take:

1 x 300,000 ton dreadnought vs. 15 x 20 ton cruisers

The small cruisers will always win. No matter how you try to optimize the dreadnought, the cruisers will have an equivalent option. The dreadnought looses fire power efficiency with a big spinal vs. multiple small and the overkill issue. The big cruiser has to start using bays once the spinal taps off, while the cruisers are still mounting spinals immediate difference in firepower efficiency again. Hard point to hardpoint there's no difference.

The only way the dreadnought wins is if it is all bays and plays the sniping game - which is not really an argument here. That's a game design issue which we are trying to address. If we allow spinals to hit at very long range the dreadnought immediately loses.

If the game was just bays vs. bays, then the critical hit rules would be enough in themselves to force the builds sizes up. However spinals, which we want to keep and need to make relevant, remove that pressure, and in fact drive the build size down such that your best build is the smallest ship you can efficiently fit your linear scaling spinal into, the 2DD version.

Then there are the issues with the spinal miss table. This is fine in itself, it is something we want, but when we have small capital ships and riders for spinals, we then have a swarm of small designs driving different builds below the 10K, 5K and then bay, torp and spinal 2K. So there will be a mass of ships in a fleet up to around say 20 or 30K, and nothing there after.

 

[Nerhesi]

Is the cost of many small ships detrimental?

Basically Chas, Does a 300kton dreadnought cost more or less than SIX (6) 50kton cruisers? If it is significant then that is reasoning enough - lets make sure though.

 

[Chas]

There's only a couple of bigger budget items that are not scaling between the ships:
Command Bridge
Computer
Software
Sensors

And these are dwarfed by the rest of it: drives, power plant, weapons, hull, armor. The extra purchases are not even of the same order of magnitude as any one of those individual items.

In this case we're safe to consider just the tonnage vs. tonnage.

Which comes out most definitely many small beats 1 big.

 

[Nerhesi]

Ok possible answers to this is change the scaling of cost and perhaps crew requirements?

So those big ticket items, like Jump/M-Drive/Armour and Hull Cost.. maybe a way to make the curve gentler. I know we're trying to solve something here that is systemic in every game that lets you build stuff...

Even if it's just Cost that is addressed, that will go a huge way in the logical reasoning as to why one builds a bigger ship. Other than the usual pride or symbolic reasons.
The other option is simply scale up hull values for ships over X:
Up to 10kton, 1 hull per 2.5 tons
Up to 100kton, 1 hull per 2.0 tons
Over 100kton, 1 hull per 1.5 (or 1.0) tons

That alone will pay off in massive ridiculous dividends... as the cost wouldn't increase, but the hull values would significantly.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Example build (J4,9G,Prot15):
BB 300 kt 10 * Particle spinal, PD turrets. GCr 197.
CL 31 kt 1 * Particle spinal, PD turrets. GCr 20.5

I have to make the small ships slightly larger, to maintain payload.
10 smaller ships cost GCr 205, 1 large ship costs 197, so around 4% cost penalty for the smaller ships.
Smaller ships win...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So those big ticket items, like Jump/M-Drive/Armour and Hull Cost.. maybe a way to make the curve gentler. I know we're trying to solve something here that is systemic in every game that lets you build stuff...

Even if it's just Cost that is addressed, that will go a huge way in the logical reasoning as to why one builds a bigger ship. Other than the usual pride or symbolic reasons.

I don't really like this. Complicated and non-intuitive, but that is just my prejudice...

The other option is simply scale up hull values for ships over X:
Up to 10kton, 1 hull per 2.5 tons
Up to 100kton, 1 hull per 2.0 tons
Over 100kton, 1 hull per 1.5 (or 1.0) tons

That alone will pay off in massive ridiculous dividends... as the cost wouldn't increase, but the hull values would significantly.

Now this I like! Simple and effective. This even explains why armour costs the same tonnage %, larger ships needs more internal bracing giving more Hull points.

 

[Nerhesi]

Lol - yeah, that why I hate deviating from non-linear methods too. It is not intuitive.

I think we may be onto something with the increased hull values though.

 

[PsiTraveller]

You can give the larger ships more hull points, but if you can build 10 smaller ships for the price of 1 larger ship, then the 10 smaller ships can gang up on the larger ship and even if one is destroyed by the larger ship the other 9 can return fire and probably drop the larger ship.

More hull points may mean you need to revisit spinal damage to keep the kill rate the same. (2-3 hits to destroy a larger ship if I recall from another thread)

 

[Chas]

The key issue as noted is that we have too many linear progressions, with nothing actually driving the ship builds that we want to keep as Traveller ideal. Two idea's I had suggested were:

- Increase hull points with size (by either base hull point change or ease of hull reinforcement) which is logical, you have more options to buttress and shape and the shear bulk starts protecting against even spinals.
- Increase firepower effectiveness of the meson spinals with size and TL significantly

That way we get some meaningful options with the spinals which dove-tails with the stronger hulls, to attack the dreadnoughts you need more effective weaponry, you can gang up on them but it's at increased relative cost.

Right now it's just take the particles until they're no longer useful then build mesons, which are actually less effective than a smaller vessel with more particles. We want a cross over there so there becomes interesting choices which the screens will help with. Go with a better meson and risk how good the oppositions screens are or stay safe with less effective particles, till TL15 big smashers are the best mesons. Which you need to break down the big hulls.

Having something moving in the size of the Jump component would work game-wise also.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Example build (J4,9G,Prot15):
300 kt, 10 * PA spinal, 200 000 Hull
10 * 31 kt, 1 * Pa spinal, 15 500 Hull

The larger ship will do average 10*3500*55% ≈ 19250 damage and kill a smaller ship on hit.
The smaller ships will do average 1*3500*55% = 1925 damage requiring 105 hits to kill the larger ship.

Hit chance at long range: 2D + 5(gunner) + 5(FireContr) - 2(range) - 3(Evade) - 5(Dodge) = 2D + 0 = 42%
The first few rounds the larger ship cannot Dodge all attacks, giving the last attack 100% to hit chance.
The smaller ships have thrust to burn and can use the Aid Gunner action for an average +1 to hit giving them 58%
After a few rounds the larger ship have killed 2 smaller ship it can also Aid Gunner.

Result: After 19 rounds the larger ship have killed all the smaller ships, with 37% of it's Hull remaining.

With the current Hull rules the smaller ships would win on round 16 with one or two ships remaining.

Conclusion the increased Hull for large ships is effective,

 

[Nerhesi]

I definitely think the increased hull on larger ships we are aligned on.

Matt would be on the same page - just because his recent post said "big ships are funner" or something close to that (agreed they should at least be "as fun))

 

[Chas]

And we definitely want to work on the spinal damage I think Nehersi. That was very much a first draft that got syphoned into the rules and it's in the position of being, only one choice is no choice category. I'll put up a different scaling system for consideration shortly that will assume some hull point sliding scale as well.

Looks like the initial one you put up there might be a bit much though in terms of big ship to small ship balance.

 

[Nerhesi]

Let's hope has noticed this.

Matt - the improved hull points by hull size is something that a lot of us see as critical to the feasibility of larger ships.

10k-100k = 1 hull per 2 tons
100k+ = 1 hull per 1.5 tons
250k+ (or so) = 1 hull per 1 ton (this makes sense for super dreadnought and stations!)

 

[Condottiere]

In real life, steel is cheap and air is free.

The actual costs come from sensor suites and weapon systems.

And manning.

 

[Chas]

Let's hope has noticed this.

Matt - the improved hull points by hull size is something that a lot of us see as critical to the feasibility of larger ships.

10k-100k = 1 hull per 2 tons
100k+ = 1 hull per 1.5 tons
250k+ (or so) = 1 hull per 1 ton (this makes sense for super dreadnought and stations!)

Nehersi, do you want to have another look at that in light of AnotherDilbert's playout above? I'd suggest having 37% of the big ship still remaining is too high. This should come down to something under 1/4 i.e. 25% minimum. Not need to push this out too far. Big ships still need to be able to be ganged up on.

 

[Nerhesi]

AnotherDilbert's example is valid - but only takes into account the spinals. Remember we discussed that smaller ships doing more than just being "bare-minimum-spinal-tenders" will do better as well - whether riders or otherwise.

This doesn't even take into account missile space, or possible strategic of fighters and so on. Even with double hull values for >500kton ships, I dont think we're over adjusting based on the math we've seen thus far.

10k-100k = 1 hull per 2 tons
100k+ = 1 hull per 1.5 tons
250k+ = 1 hull per 1 ton

This will benefit battle-riders/smaller ships too - consider the 100k battle-riders will benefit just as much as that 300k battle-ship. (ok almost just as much - and if we really think the top end is an issue gents, we can consider moving the 1:1 ratio for 500k+ so only super dreadnoughts and stations will benefit)

 

[Chas]

AnotherDilbert's example is valid - but only takes into account the spinals. Remember we discussed that smaller ships doing more than just being "bare-minimum-spinal-tenders" will do better as well - whether riders or otherwise.

This doesn't even take into account missile space, or possible strategic of fighters and so on. Even with double hull values for >500kton ships, I dont think we're over adjusting based on the math we've seen thus far.

10k-100k = 1 hull per 2 tons
100k+ = 1 hull per 1.5 tons
250k+ = 1 hull per 1 ton

This will benefit battle-riders/smaller ships too - consider the 100k battle-riders will benefit just as much as that 300k battle-ship. (ok almost just as much - and if we really think the top end is an issue gents, we can consider moving the 1:1 ratio for 500k+ so only super dreadnoughts and stations will benefit)

Yes. But what else is there besides the spinals? We've already shown that there is effectively the same % weight free for weapons across any weight above a small cruiser, bar the small % difference that AnotherDilbert had to use. Whatever you do for the dreadnought, you can do for the smaller cruisers - add some fighters, they can do that. Add some riders, the cruisers can still do that. Hardpoints are same etc etc. Missile space is the same. What do we have left to work with that is a genuine differential?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The 300b gorilla here is Dodging. Spinals will always be dodged, and hence have questionable to hit. But if you overwhelm the targets ability to Dodge you hit nearly automatically.

If we instead of 1 large ship vs 10 small at the same cost take 10 large ships vs 100 small at the same cost, the smaller ships will concentrate fire to get mostly auto hits and kill the larger ships quickly.

 

[Chas]

The 300b gorilla here is Dodging. Spinals will always be dodged, and hence have questionable to hit. But if you overwhelm the targets ability to Dodge you hit nearly automatically.

If we instead of 1 large ship vs 10 small at the same cost take 10 large ships vs 100 small at the same cost, the smaller ships will concentrate fire to get mostly auto hits and kill the larger ships quickly.

A suggestion might be to reduce the ability of targets to dodge big spinal spinals as part of the upgrading of spinal process (though I don't claim to understand the full ramifications of this in terms of unintended consequence). The rationale being the blast from a gianormous spinal is so massive it takes in most of smaller craft and will hit some part of it pretty much no matter what. I was already intending to offer a spinal scaling matrix that included more damage for bigger spinals - a dodge reduction would effectively do the same thing while addressing the many small issue. Thoughts anybody?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Speaking from a wargaming perspective...

If all else is equal, a bunch of smaller things will nearly always clock one Big Thing.

What separates Big Things is the ability to carry something the smaller things cannot. In the real world, this was (say) 18" guns vs. 8" guns. That separation does not really appear in Traveller.

However.

In today's world, there is a line of thought (and one worth considering) that a bunch of small things (be they drones or missile boats) beats a Big Thing (say, a carrier) every time in a direct confrontation. (Carrier proponents will argue against this but guys, you are backing a dinosaur ).

But Big Things clearly still exist. The US carries on with its carrier fleets, China is getting in on the game, and Britain and France have taken the (lunatic) decision to build supercarriers too. (pretty sure my tax-paying bias is not showing here ).

Big Things have reason to exist beyond a straight one on one confrontation. It may be that it is from this perspective that we look at this from the point of view of the Third Imperium setting alone. This could be cost, crew levels, the ability to have mega-destructive power concentrated in one specific point rather scattered about (a long tooth military strategy)... it could be something as basic as prestige. During and after WWI there was a rush to build Battleships, not because they were any good (the writing was already on the wall, though few were reading it) but because a Battleship put you on the map, it meant you were an Empire and a force to be reckoned with.

The counter-argument is that all this might work until a Battleship meets a bunch of cruisers, which may be true... but it may also never/rarely happen, for all the reasons that straight up fights in times of war are the exception rather than the rule.

It might be, of course, that military procurement is just as rotten in the Third Imperium as it is in our world (looking at both UK and US (F-35) here, but other countries are little better). Basically, look at all those millions of Credits that we have put into High Guard. Just where does that money go?

Anyway, may be a complete aside, but something to have in the back of your heads A straight combat analysis may not give us the complete picture.