Torpedo Boats in Traveller

[Geir]

Though -10% for the sphere hull.

So the most efficient shape of a fighter is actually pretty much a ball turret...
Makes sense... And you could even argue that the Tigress is a really big ball turret... (or a Beholder with boxers?)

 

[Regnarts]

One more thing - PD is TL10/12/14 for Type I/II/III. Anti-torpedo missiles are TL13.
You can get torps at TL7 (grapples at TL9).
In backwater regions torps may be more common... and easier to resupply

 

[tytalan]

That is balanced so roughly the same amount of PD stops a bays worth of missiles or torpedoes. Neither advantage nor disadvantage.

Torpedoes Halves point defense but there are only three in a small bay salvo vs 12 in a missile salvo so how do you consider it takes the same number. and remember the PD has to be split ageist incoming missiles/torp's.

The hidden advantage of torpedos are that they are slightly cheaper and better at Distant range. Choosing torpedo bays you get (slightly) cheaper ships, hence more ships, hence more Hull points for your budget.

how are they better at Distant Range?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Torpedoes Halves point defense but there are only three in a small bay salvo vs 12 in a missile salvo so how do you consider it takes the same number. and remember the PD has to be split ageist incoming missiles/torp's.

1: It's half, rounded down. The first, and then every second, kill doesn't count. Depending on skill and turret that is quite a bit less than half.
2: Torpedoes and bays are cheaper, ceteris paribus you will launch (slightly) more than 1 torp for every 4 missiles.
3: Against medium armour (say 15?) you can get away with launching Multi Warhead Torps (with an additional -DM to PD), but not Multi-Warhead missiles (as MWM will bounce on armour).
3: More torps arrive at longer ranges.

IIRC, it kind of evens out, at least in HG'17.


The big vulnerability for torps is EW.

how are they better at Distant Range?

HG'22, p37, "Missile Flight Times" box:
In addition, when huge salvoes of missiles are in-flight, problems with guidance and motor systems can become more apparent. Halve the number of missiles within a salvo for every full five rounds of travel. Torpedoes have much greater endurance and ignore this rule.

Nuke missiles launched at Distant range takes 10 rounds to arrive, so only a quarter of the missiles will attack. In contrast all torpedoes will be able to attack.

If you bet heavily on missiles you will probably want to fight at Distant, where beams can't return fire.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So the most efficient shape of a fighter is actually pretty much a ball turret...
Makes sense...

At a guess, all warships will want sphere configuration for marginally smaller armour. With heavy armour it will be noticeable.

If it came with a trade-off, such as less range for spinals, it would at least be a choice?

 

[tytalan]

1: It's half, rounded down. The first, and then every second, kill doesn't count. Depending on skill and turret that is quite a bit less than half.
2: Torpedoes and bays are cheaper, ceteris paribus you will launch (slightly) more than 1 torp for every 4 missiles.
3: Against medium armour (say 15?) you can get away with launching Multi Warhead Torps (with an additional -DM to PD), but not Multi-Warhead missiles (as MWM will bounce on armour).
3: More torps arrive at longer ranges.

IIRC, it kind of evens out, at least in HG'17.

Please keep to only the current rules which state half not every other. so please keep to HG22 instead of mixing and matching

 

[AnotherDilbert]

One more thing - PD is TL10/12/14 for Type I/II/III.

Point defence is spelled "laser turret".

I haven't balanced turrets vs PDBs, but I suspect turrets are still better with good gunners. 20 Dt is a lot...

Anti-torpedo missiles are TL13.

Agreed, that is a huge caveat. That alone makes TL-12 a different ballgame. Unless we can get experimental ATMs.

In backwater regions torps may be more common... and easier to resupply

Quite possibly, I haven't tried to balance low-tech torpedoes against beams.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Please keep to only the current rules which state half not every other. so please keep to HG22 instead of mixing and matching

HG'22, p39:
A torpedo salvo halves the Effect of any successful point defence taken against it, rounding down.

At least for laser turrets it's 9+ for the first missile and 10+ for the first torpedo, or 12+ for the first MWTorp.

Roll    Effect    Killed Miss     Killed Torp   Killed MWTorp
7          0           0               0               0
8          0           0               0               0
9          1           1               0               0
10         2           2               1               0
11         3           3               1               0
12         4           4               2               1
13         5           5               2               1
14         6           6               3               2
15         7           7               3               2

High rolls are much less likely, so at least for laser turrets, the average kill rate difference is much larger than half.

 

[Condottiere]

The proper way to use torpedoes is to Pearl Harbour the enemy.

Or Long Lance them.

 

[tytalan]

As has been well point out now Torpedoes which mongoose added to Traveller are completely broken. As AnotherDilbert keeps pointing out they do more damage, are more likely to hit, more resistance to defenses and cost much less than missiles. Their only disadvantage is they are slightly less likely to hit 2000 dt or smaller ships tho the level of damage more than makes up for this. In fact it’s almost to the point that missile make no sense anymore.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on how you utilize them.

 

[tytalan]

Depends on how you utilize them.

In what way are missiles better? The only time Torp’s are at a disadvantage is when firing on ships 2000 tons or smaller and even than those ships are less likely to have PD so it’s a wash

 

[Condottiere]

Fighter swarms - they outrange their energy weapons systems.

Also, they default to their manufactured technological level in lieu of fire control.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

As has been well point out now Torpedoes which mongoose added to Traveller are completely broken. As AnotherDilbert keeps pointing out they do more damage, are more likely to hit, more resistance to defenses and cost much less than missiles.

Calm down, they are just an option among others.

Competent EW will kill the first hundred or so in a salvo, so you need to launch hundreds of torpedoes in each salvo to be effective. That means something like 10 large bays. As a base line... They are effective in large ship vs. large ship combat, they are an alternative to spinals.

Until TL-13 when the Anti-Torpedo Missile turns up and end the show immediately.

In what way are missiles better?

There's more of them.

A smaller percentage of missiles will be misdirected by EW.
You can launch at more discrete targets.
In effect, they are better for smaller ships, or fighting smaller ships

 

[tytalan]

Calm down, they are just an option among others.

Competent EW will kill the first hundred or so in a salvo, so you need to launch hundreds of torpedoes in each salvo to be effective. That means something like 10 large bays. As a base line... They are effective in large ship vs. large ship combat, they are an alternative to spinals.

Until TL-13 when the Anti-Torpedo Missile turns up and end the show immediately.



There's more of them.

A smaller percentage of missiles will be misdirected by EW.
You can launch at more discrete targets.
In effect, they are better for smaller ships, or fighting smaller ships

Seems like you’re changing your tune. You’ve spent the whole of this thread telling us missiles were inferior to Torpedoes now you say Torpedoes are only good for capital ships while your designing an adventure class torpedo ship. Which is it?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Seems like you’re changing your tune. You’ve spent the whole of this thread telling us missiles were inferior to Torpedoes now you say Torpedoes are only good for capital ships while your designing an adventure class torpedo ship. Which is it?

Of course I have not said anything of the sort.

That is balanced so roughly the same amount of PD stops a bays worth of missiles or torpedoes. Neither advantage nor disadvantage.

A Nuke missile does 1DD ≈ 35 damage, a nuke torpedo does 2DD ≈ 70 damage. After armour 30, that is 5 damage vs. 40 damage. Torpedoes have a use, until the anti-torpedo missile destroys them...

Both missiles and torpedoes are viable and have a use-case.

 

[wintertraveller]

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Competent EW will kill the first hundred or so in a salvo, so you need to launch hundreds of torpedoes in each salvo to be effective. That means something like 10 large bays. As a base line... They are effective in large ship vs. large ship combat, they are an alternative to spinals.

</clip>

For ships under 7500 tons with big computers, are there limits to the number of Electronic Warfare actions that a ship can perform with Virtual Crew Sensor Operators other than bandwidth assigned to Virtual Crew or do these virtual sensor operators require dedicated senor stations?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

For ships under 7500 tons with big computers, are there limits to the number of Electronic Warfare actions that a ship can perform with Virtual Crew Sensor Operators other than bandwidth assigned to Virtual Crew or do these virtual sensor operators require dedicated senor stations?

Your guess is as good as mine, I would say no limit. The sensor station is there to allow physical crew someplace to work.

Compare with Virtual Crew that does not even need a bridge to operate a ship.

 

[J. L. Brown]

For ships under 7500 tons with big computers, are there limits to the number of Electronic Warfare actions that a ship can perform with Virtual Crew Sensor Operators other than bandwidth assigned to Virtual Crew or do these virtual sensor operators require dedicated senor stations?

I think there are two limits; 1} the bandwidth available to allocate to Virtual Sensor Operators (VSOs), and 2} the 'Only one EW action per round per salvo' rule. Just because a ship has 30 extra VSOs does not mean they get to use 30 EW actions vs the incoming wave of torpedoes; the ship gets only exactly one EW action against that salvo, and the question becomes 'Do we let the low-skilled VSO do it, or the highly skilled living crewmember?'

I am not a fan of the way in which missiles and torpedoes are grouped into salvos (all from one ship which are fired against a target in a single turn), because it fails to account for time-on-target attacks -- but it functions as a limit on defensive actions.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think there are two limits; 1} the bandwidth available to allocate to Virtual Sensor Operators (VSOs), and 2} the 'Only one EW action per round per salvo' rule.

Yes, of course.

I am not a fan of the way in which missiles and torpedoes are grouped into salvos (all from one ship which are fired against a target in a single turn), because it fails to account for time-on-target attacks -- but it functions as a limit on defensive actions.

It's a simplification. It was originally conceived for smallish ships, launching <50 missiles. One salvo is a lot easier than tracking 50 separate missiles...

You can still do ToT attacks by launching missiles with different acceleration on different rounds, or the tasks in Element Class Cruisers.