The Very Long Range Battle

[Chas]

So we're trying to work out how and/or when to force closure of battles, or if we should try to.

We could simply increase the range of spinals to Very Long and say the majority of battles are played out at this distance - plenty of precedents in history for it.

There are circumstances when a fleet cannot back off - if one side has brought maneuverless, defenceless tenders, they can't keep retreating till these come in range of the enemy, so anyone who has gone down that route is building a stand and fight fleet - but then what happens when the enemy doesn't want to close?

We can make life more difficult to shoot at Very Long Range upping the negatives to hit, but that just means sniping takes longer. Still one rule I thought might be reasonable is making evading twice as effective at that range band (which does give another advantage to fighters closing, though that may not be a bad thing).

It's a conundrum because you kind of want the option to be there.

Still, let's look at this way:

If we make PD able to deal with missiles in a significant manner on a hard point to hard point and then bay to bay as current the long range sniper has to include energy bays. Energy bays can't shoot fighters. The long range sniper has a difficult choice - go with riders with low hardpoints to mount missiles or other weapons to combat fighters or PD to combat missiles themselves, or go with capital ships that have missiles for defence against fighters and PD.

Then there is another point - torpedoes. If the long range sniper is missiles and bays, they are very vulnerable to torps, a single salvo will blow them out of space. If the long range sniper is PD and energy bays, they'll be vulnerable to fighters.

The bottom line there, don't forget your high thrust fighters, and a balanced offence, which is we want.

Except what happens when one side builds their entire fleet around fighting at long range while the other is building spinals. Will the balanced spinal fleet have the ability to make a match on the checks and balances? Perhaps not... and still looking at this.

 

[Nerhesi]

Increasing Spinal distance to very long is an option of course - and while originally against it - I am more in favour of it to make sure Spinals are key now.

However - I think the Very Long Range battle is a big issue that needs to be addressed. I think we have a couple of items to look at:

a) Primitive/Advanced Spacecraft - I think Range Increase should be a two-advantage increase
b) A maximum distance for the Distant Band (50km to infinity isn't very accurate)
c) And this key - we need to have some scenarios perhaps defined to really curtail what I call "kiting battles" - that is the freedom to have forces just use all 9Gs to maintain very long or distant range and not fight at closer brackets. this is a key issue with all wargames/competitive fighting systems. It doesn't matter how well you balance the game, if most encounters are long range battles with no need to close, all other weapons are useless

 

[GhengisRexx]

This seems to hold true even for smaller ships. I recreated the Harrier raider from the pirates of Drinax campaign, and after making it true to form, played around with different versions, and settled on one with 9g maneuver drive. With a particle accelerator, it can stay out of range and snipe and snipe. Missiles may be able to catch it eventually, but I expect my pcs to skirmish with it mostly, and take little damage in return. Most of the published ship designs seem to lack the combination of range and thrust to threaten it. (Of course, I hope there will be many, many designs created and shared that will be built to counter this kind of threat.)

 

[Condottiere]

Outside of whatever advantage might be optional, you could supercharge a spinal mount to get that extra range, at the expense of requiring two rounds, or increased chance of a malfunction.

 

[Nerhesi]

I want to make sure everyone is aware this problem hasn't changed in X versions of traveller, or in any other game that hasn't specifically created strategic objectives. This is why even wargames like warhammer (40k and fantasy) created victory conditions that were not simply "destroy the other".

MGT1 - exact same problems - 6G and Very Long Range weaponry (or even Distant since you could make Distant Particle Beams I think) and you just laugh and win.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Damage should increase as you get closer for lasers, plasma and fusion guns should only have short range
Long range - particle spinals, missiles - spinals should have a hard time hitting small agile targets, meson spinals are at a significant disadvantage to hit at long range
Bay weapons should be medium and short range, effective against all ship types if you pick the right bays
Turret weapons should be short range and very effective against small agile targets, like fighters and missiles.

 

[Nerhesi]

Damage should increase as you get closer for lasers, plasma and fusion guns should only have short range
Long range - particle spinals, missiles - spinals should have a hard time hitting small agile targets, meson spinals are at a significant disadvantage to hit at long range
Bay weapons should be medium and short range, effective against all ship types if you pick the right bays
Turret weapons should be short range and very effective against small agile targets, like fighters and missiles.

We have most of these things in place and making the other changes will actually exacerbate the problem Sig.

Anything long range is harder to hit with. Spinals have a hard time hitting small targets etc...

The solution to this problem won't be fixed by mechanical alterations. There will always be a better a weapon in "X" scenario. The Solution is to create scenarios X, Y, Z, A,B, C so that the best weapon isn't the best all the time.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I do not think we should change weapon ranges, it removes tactical choice. If you have short ranged weapons that should be a problem. I see it as a legitimate tactical problem, not just a exploit.

Making the Long Range tech advantage two advantages is a good start, otherwise every weapon will be upteched to VL range (DM permitting).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It depends very much on your campaign.

If the campaign is an Imperial war, occupying/destroying terrain means little. The Emperor/Imperial Fleet Admiral will not care if a small colonial planet loses a little infrastructure, the overriding concern is destroying the enemy fleet.

If you are playing the Island Cluster campaign your home-world means everything, if you lose your main starport, you have lost the campaign, period.


Is killing civilians by the million politically possible? As far as I have understood canon, the Interstellar Wars have not done this. This makes it much easier to retreat from a planet and keep your distance.

 

[Nerhesi]

Actually, in most of the Imperial Campaigns Anotherdilbert, the fleet is secondary target.

Your fleet will disintegrate without supporting planets/bases. Supports costs and maintenance time.

This is evident by the battles articulated over the last few thousand years. All those battles were fought over planets/depots and so on.

If you're fleet loses its ports, it's going to effectively implode. I think we need to stress this/keep it into account.

 

[Chas]

Yes, starports and boots on the ground are key. Without supplies and bases fleets quickly wither, the vast majority of combat ships try to skimp cargo. They can never maintain themselves. They'll hurt the enemy sniping, but eventually they will be defeated.

But I'd suggest moving spinals up to very long range anyway, but with say an additional negative say -2 to hit. (??) The sniper has the advantage... but eventually their luck will run out :twisted:

 

[Nerhesi]

But I'd suggest moving spinals up to very long range anyway, but with say an additional negative say -2 to hit. (??) The sniper has the advantage... but eventually their luck will run out :twisted:

All we have to say is they're now Very Long Range the normal distance mods still apply to spinals.

 

[Chas]

But I'd suggest moving spinals up to very long range anyway, but with say an additional negative say -2 to hit. (??) The sniper has the advantage... but eventually their luck will run out :twisted:

All we have to say is they're now Very Long Range the normal distance mods still apply to spinals.

Yes, but I like the idea of spinals just not being that good at very long range - it's a lot harder to point a ship than finely balanced bay weapon.

Also it then is a reasonable compromise, the spinal ships will be looking to close, the sniper still has a place: but isn't invulnerable.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Actually, in most of the Imperial Campaigns Anotherdilbert, the fleet is secondary target.

Your fleet will disintegrate without supporting planets/bases. Supports costs and maintenance time.

Yes, starports and boots on the ground are key. Without supplies and bases fleets quickly wither, the vast majority of combat ships try to skimp cargo. They can never maintain themselves. They'll hurt the enemy sniping, but eventually they will be defeated.

Well, massive TL15 starports/depots are important, the other 95% of systems are not very important. If necessary you can always destroy starports behind you as you retreat, letting the enemy wither on a few subsectors/months worth of supply line.

The current combat system will mostly destroy ships completely (Hull points), rather than crippling them to be repaired.

 

[Nerhesi]

But I'd suggest moving spinals up to very long range anyway, but with say an additional negative say -2 to hit. (??) The sniper has the advantage... but eventually their luck will run out :twisted:

All we have to say is they're now Very Long Range the normal distance mods still apply to spinals.

Yes, but I like the idea of spinals just not being that good at very long range - it's a lot harder to point a ship than finely balanced bay weapon.

Also it then is a reasonable compromise, the spinal ships will be looking to close, the sniper still has a place: but isn't invulnerable.

Honestly, I think the -2 for long, -4 for very long is good enough. We dont need to punish spinals more..

(Did we just flip positions from our last spinal topic? Are you trying to make them weaker and I'm making them stronger? lol )

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Either way maintain choice. Make spinals and bays different.

Spinals can be the most efficient way of doing damage, but have a little shorter range.

OR spinals can have superior range, but make a little less damage / ton than bays.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If we allow all energy weapons to have Very Long range we really do not need more than three range bands: Adjacent (fighters, boarding), Medium (energy weapons), and Long (missiles only).

Keep the different ranges to make manoeuvreing have meaning.

 

[Nerhesi]

If we allow all energy weapons to have Very Long range we really do not need more than three range bands: Adjacent (fighters, boarding), Medium (energy weapons), and Long (missiles only).

Keep the different ranges to make manoeuvreing have meaning.

And that is a good counterpoint.

I can't help but feel (or actually, know), that creating the understanding that "maintain max range and fire" is not a valid scenario will fix most of these problems that we're trying to address (except perhaps the missile vs PD one which we are looking at)

If you have fleets doing meaningful maneouvering and HAVING to close then this reliance on Very Long Range disappears. I feel this is what we have to address before trying to make tactical adjustments to specific items actually.

Example - Fleet Battle Scenarios:

Scenario 1: Destroy or Capture Military Depot/Shipyard/blah
Scenario 2: Bombard Planet/infrastructure/military base
Scenario 3: Destroy Space Station
Scenario 4: Destroy <fleet/convoy/blah>

We make it so 1-3 make it detrimental to sit back and attack - and then we have more meaningful maneuvering.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

We still have tactical reasons to manoeuvre.

Missiles should hit badly at Distant range making it difficult to overwhelm competent PD. (For large salvoes all missiles always hit, but it shouldn't be that way...)

Keeping your distance isn't foolproof as the enemy can have reaction drives.

Fighters.

 

[Chas]

All we have to say is they're now Very Long Range the normal distance mods still apply to spinals.

Yes, but I like the idea of spinals just not being that good at very long range - it's a lot harder to point a ship than finely balanced bay weapon.

Also it then is a reasonable compromise, the spinal ships will be looking to close, the sniper still has a place: but isn't invulnerable.

Honestly, I think the -2 for long, -4 for very long is good enough. We dont need to punish spinals more..

(Did we just flip positions from our last spinal topic? Are you trying to make them weaker and I'm making them stronger? lol )

I'm just trying to keep sniping valid as a tactic, while not making the sniper immune. If we put all the energy weapons on a level playing field it's only down to the effectiveness of missiles and torps for sniping, which could be very marginal depending on how PD plays out.