Travellers Needed! High Guard Updates

[DigrizJB]

I created a document that lists every component for ships and it spans 37 books.

I really appreciate the ship designer spreadsheet from @Arkathan and I always wondered what the source was for many of the components. Thanks for indexing the sources!

 

[Hardwire]

Reposting in this thread.....

A little more cohesion in the rules. Example, there are 4 different rules/systems for a Ramscoop. It is different in every source that it appears in. That makes it very difficult to determine which system/source is the correct one.

The High Guard Update 2022 (Page 49), and The Third Imperium (page 177)
Ramscoops require 1% of a ship’s available tonnage plus five tons, with a minimum overall size of 10 tons and can collect five tons of hydrogen per week for every ton attributed to the ramscoops. Additional tonnage may be added as desired. Ramscoops cost MCr0.25 per ton.

The Great Rift Book 2 (Page 27)
A ramscoop must be tailored to the tonnage of the parent vessel to be effective, consuming one ton of equipment per 200 tons of the vessel, plus an additional 40 tons for the central capture and field generation unit. It requires 1 Power to operate per ton, costing Cr50000 per ton.

-

On the subject of Ramscoops, I would love to see an advanced version that doesn't remove the streamline from a ship. It is simple enough to have it as a pop-up, or doors open to gather then close to restore streamline.

Raise teh TL, space requirements, cost whatever works.

 

[Sigtrygg]

To which I will repeat my reply

how about use the adjustable hull option, if it allows pop up weapon bays it should manage pop up ram scoops...

which leads to the next bit...

once this revision is produced no author is allowed to make up stuff that already exists because they either don't know High Guard, CSC, Robots, Vehicles, World Builders well enough or can't be bothered to ask someone. No matter who the author is the editorial team should say, take this back and use the rules as written.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Expand the retrotech rules to all ship components if a GM wants. A TL15 yard should be able to make a TL12 equivalent ship cheaper with parts and systems made less expensively at higher tech levels. Probably not the hull, but the components and systems.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Remove the rule that ship’s computers can’t be networked. Let them have multiple computers of the same type to spread the load because sometime you more bandwidth.

Or do like the Robot Handbook and let people buy bandwidth upgrades to add more capability. Unlike a robot, let them buy increments of bandwidth to allow for as much software as they need to run.

Allow computers to be used for limited purposes. Need a gunnery computer in each turret? Let them stick a computer in each one. Other books have fire control computers to do exactly that, so this isn’t unprecedented.

Need a dedicated lab computer that is separate from the main computer? Let them buy one. Need a backup computer of the same size as the main computer? Let them buy it. Mandating it be smaller than the main makes no sense.

The “one computer to rule them all” mindset isn’t even applicable today, much less the far future.

 

[Condottiere]

Specialized computers.

Would need to be balanced with expensive specialized programmes.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Specialized computers.

Would need to be balanced with expensive specialized programmes.

Agreed.

Software costs. Perhaps the standard software should come down in cost. It’s ridiculously expensive. As widely used as the programs are, and as long as they’ve likely been around, the extreme cost makes little sense.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

Go forth, @Technetium 98, and shine thine Cherenkov light!
If anyone has feedback to offer, it's most likely Tech lol

Of my part, I think most has been covered already in this thread, but there are a few points which I specifically would love:

• Improved sensor rules (again); the additions in the 2022 edition of High Guard were very welcome, but I really do feel it still doesn't quite live up to its potential. The Aerospace Engineer's Handbook introduced a lot of very interesting concepts that I feel could be borrowed into Traveller at large rather than just 2300AD. Might be outside of this update's scope, though...
• The ship construction time rules are pretty good when considering small, Adventure-class hulls, but I feel they completely break down at larger scales... a Tigress, even at TL16 and using the 'modular construction' 90% discount would take a whopping 54.31 years to be built! To some degree, I feel construction times should be modified roughly in proportion to the square root of tonnage (which, incidentally, is what the construction time tables in Classic Traveller seem to assume). I tinkered with this in the past, and I'd love to swap notes, @paltrysum!
• Now that Mongoose owns all of Traveller (sans DGP*), I'd love to see some more of T5's ship rules incorporated into Mongoose 2nd – chiefly Lifters. Assuming the default cost for hulls already includes them and that non-gravity ones lack them makes it backwards-compatible; a gravity hull without lifters could cost something in-between (75% of normal cost rather than 50%). Part of me would also like to see landing gear being featured, but that's probably more trouble than it's worth, alas.
  * Yet.
• Expanding a bit on the above, perhaps expand and/or add more info on atmospheric operations for ships? Solomani Front has a whole table and ruleset on landing and taking off from high-gravity planets (pages 184 through 186) that always felt like it should be in High Guard instead. It ends up adding a lot of value to otherwise somewhat 'meh' components, like deployable wings.
• If possible, cross-reference with Geir and the new Vehicle Handbook as to how to ensure that spaceships can engage vehicles and vice-versa more clearly – this section of the rules always felt very, very muddled and ambiguous to me. Thinking of what you putting your heads together on this matter can produce makes me eager, nothing quite like a Christopher-Geir colab!

Overall, I think that covers most of it, really. Otherwise, just what others have already mentioned, cleaning up inconsistencies, consolidating the High Guard items introduced in other books, merging duplicates and generally just streamlining it (we'll get a free Fuel Scoop out of it ).

[EDIT:] Oh, another thing that came to mind due to a conversation on the Discord – I would love if we could get some rules about cargo handling and ship loading/unloading, a la GURPS: Far Trader! That'd go a long way to giving cargo conveyor belts and cranes an actual use other than mere flavour, as while they state they reduce the time to load up cargo, presently there's no baseline to compare to, which somewhat defeats the point.

 

[Condottiere]

At the Referee’s discretion, very large ships can be built in a modular fashion allowing simultaneous construction. This means the total construction time can be reduced by up to 90%. This is typically done only on ships exceeding 50,000 tons.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

At the Referee’s discretion, very large ships can be built in a modular fashion allowing simultaneous construction. This means the total construction time can be reduced by up to 90%. This is typically done only on ships exceeding 50,000 tons.

The ship construction time rules are pretty good when considering small, Adventure-class hulls, but I feel they completely break down at larger scales... a Tigress, even at TL16 and using the 'modular construction' 90% discount would take a whopping 54.31 years to be built! To some degree, I feel construction times should be modified roughly in proportion to the square root of tonnage (which, incidentally, is what the construction time tables in Classic Traveller seem to assume). I tinkered with this in the past, and I'd love to swap notes, @paltrysum!

 

[Galadrion]

My house rule on ship/starbase construction times has long been (square root of the tonnage, rounded up, in days) times (jump drive capability plus one). I have a few others, such as allowing construction in microgravity to use more than one construction bay (even on separate ships/bases) to gang-construct structures larger than any individual construction bay can contain, and also allowing a larger structure than available construction bay capacity to still be built, by taking more time. (If you only have, for example, 250,000 tons of bay capacity, you can still build a million-ton structure... but it takes four times as long to build.)

 

[Condottiere]

Long construction times might actually be a good thing.

It means the Admiralty really has to have long term starwarship building plans.

There certainly would create a market for preconstructed and off the shelf components, and the attractiveness of maintaining boneyards.

 

[AndrewW]

Long construction times might actually be a good thing.

It means the Admiralty really has to have long term starwarship building plans.

There certainly would create a market for preconstructed and off the shelf components, and the attractiveness of maintaining boneyards.

Can also be a bad thing.

We've got this new weapon fresh out of trial, alas the new dreadnaught class is already under construction and it can' be fitted in, will have to wait till the next round in 100 years.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Go forth, @Technetium 98, and shine thine Cherenkov light!
If anyone has feedback to offer, it's most likely Tech lol

Of my part, I think most has been covered already in this thread, but there are a few points which I specifically would love:

• Improved sensor rules (again); the additions in the 2022 edition of High Guard were very welcome, but I really do feel it still doesn't quite live up to its potential. The Aerospace Engineer's Handbook introduced a lot of very interesting concepts that I feel could be borrowed into Traveller at large rather than just 2300AD. Might be outside of this update's scope, though...
• The ship construction time rules are pretty good when considering small, Adventure-class hulls, but I feel they completely break down at larger scales... a Tigress, even at TL16 and using the 'modular construction' 90% discount would take a whopping 54.31 years to be built! To some degree, I feel construction times should be modified roughly in proportion to the square root of tonnage (which, incidentally, is what the construction time tables in Classic Traveller seem to assume). I tinkered with this in the past, and I'd love to swap notes, @paltrysum!
• Now that Mongoose owns all of Traveller (sans DGP*), I'd love to see some more of T5's ship rules incorporated into Mongoose 2nd – chiefly Lifters. Assuming the default cost for hulls already includes them and that non-gravity ones lack them makes it backwards-compatible; a gravity hull without lifters could cost something in-between (75% of normal cost rather than 50%). Part of me would also like to see landing gear being featured, but that's probably more trouble than it's worth, alas.
  * Yet.
• Expanding a bit on the above, perhaps expand and/or add more info on atmospheric operations for ships? Solomani Front has a whole table and ruleset on landing and taking off from high-gravity planets (pages 184 through 186) that always felt like it should be in High Guard instead. It ends up adding a lot of value to otherwise somewhat 'meh' components, like deployable wings.
• If possible, cross-reference with Geir and the new Vehicle Handbook as to how to ensure that spaceships can engage vehicles and vice-versa more clearly – this section of the rules always felt very, very muddled and ambiguous to me. Thinking of what you putting your heads together on this matter can produce makes me eager, nothing quite like a Christopher-Geir colab!

Overall, I think that covers most of it, really. Otherwise, just what others have already mentioned, cleaning up inconsistencies, consolidating the High Guard items introduced in other books, merging duplicates and generally just streamlining it (we'll get a free Fuel Scoop out of it ).

[EDIT:] Oh, another thing that came to mind due to a conversation on the Discord – I would love if we could get some rules about cargo handling and ship loading/unloading, a la GURPS: Far Trader! That'd go a long way to giving cargo conveyor belts and cranes an actual use other than mere flavour, as while they state they reduce the time to load up cargo, presently there's no baseline to compare to, which somewhat defeats the point.

Lifters are mentioned in the Starship Operator’s Manual. Now they just need rules.

 

[collins355]

• If possible, cross-reference with Geir and the new Vehicle Handbook as to how to ensure that spaceships can engage vehicles and vice-versa more clearly – this section of the rules always felt very, very muddled and ambiguous to me. Thinking of what you putting your heads together on this matter can produce makes me eager, nothing quite like a Christopher-Geir colab!

This, so much this!

I'm not sure if I have as much confidence that enlisting Geir is the right answer to this problem, but I completely agree that the current state of starship versus planetary craft/weapon interaction is borked.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I reiterate my footnote sig., J.L. Brown put it very well and I have been calling for this for a long time now.

Mongoose now owns both versions of FF&S, use them.

But first decide, are you going to offer comprehensive sci fi ship building, operation, and combat rules, or is it all going to be Third Imperium. At the moment the vast majority of HG2.2e is Third Imperium with generic rules that get in the way.

 

[Condottiere]

Energy storage.

Harvested from inertial compensation.

 

[wintertraveller]

What else have you got for us?

Christopher, are you getting what you need from this thread so far? Thank you

 

[Technetium 98]

I'm trying to strike a balance between things I'd like tweaked, and things that're definitely out-of-scope for a minor update, so I'm leaning conservative for once in my life, if only for individual tweaks because good lord did this thing grow.

Ship Design

• Already mentioned, but some integration of the Starship Operator's Manual, especially with gravitics, would be appreciated.
• A line break between the Manoeuvre Drive Rating and the Reaction Drive Rating would be appreciated, it's a bit hard to parse right now.
• Nix the section under Jump Drive on page 17: 'Only fusion and antimatter power plants can generate the intense burst of energy necessary to operate a jump drive.', since the express boat can rely on batteries just fine.
• Mention that bridges are just the interface for the crew to interact with the ship, and that drone or robot ships can operate without them.
• Some mention of an ejector seat under Cockpit would be appreciated, though far from critical.
• A computer can be hardened against Ion systems, but what does that actually do? They don't consume power, and it can't be 'the computer turns off if you halve Basic Ship Systems', since that'd prevent jump dimming. Can I suggest adding a section under the Ion trait that a ship effected by Ion weaponry has its available Bandwidth halved, or something similar?

Weapons

• Change the firmpoint text on page 26; 'a firmpoint is typically a forward-facing fixed mount', just to avoid confusion with the turret rules.
• The missile flight times table is inconsistent with the range bands in the CRB.
• Minor typo, under Bays on page 31: '... and are rarely, if ever, found on civilian spacecraft.'
• Could I convince you to cut down the Large Particle Bay's range to Very Long? With the lower time-to-kill in 2022 not giving you much of a chance to close in with an opponent, that sort of range advantage is way too dominant.
• Up the Large Repulsor Bay's capacity to 1,000 tons, the drop is a bit weird.
• The mention of the summary in the Spinal Mount section is odd: 'Spinal - meson (TL15) - 5x' isn't how any of the ships are shown, and it's inconsistent with how most other weapons are recorded. Can I suggest that be changed 'Meson Spinal Mount (TL15) x5', with the multiple included in the summaries?
• The Smaller Weapons rules are a bit hard to parse - can I suggest simplifying them a touch by saying they're 0.25t per 250kg or part of, a fixed mount costs Cr5,000, and a turreted mount costs Cr50,000? If not, some clarification on if the >250kg weapons are mounted in spacecraft turrets/fixed mounts or just normal turrets/fixed mounts would be appreciated.

Spacecraft Options

• Consistent rules on when and when not to round up with a given component (e.g Fuel/Cargo).
• Some clarification on Modular Hulls - can they not include any power plants at all, or are they restricted to just powering what's onboard the module?
• Remove the High Burn Thruster section, add mention under Reaction Drives that they can be operated cumulatively with the Manoeuvre Drive, but without compensation. Move g-LOC rules alongside.
• There is a lot of detail under Concealed Manoeuvre Drive that doesn't need to be there; I think it'd best be moved under the Manoeuvre Drive section.
• Make explicit mention under Fuel/Cargo that they can feed directly into the jump drive, and give an example of why that might be useful (reducing a trader's jump range to carry more cargo, for example). A lot of the description is no less applicable to the collapsible fuel tanks.
• When discussing cargo options (or the Grappling Arm) make it clear whether 'tons' refers to metric or displacement.
• Might be excessive - can the Cargo Net be cut in favour of adding its capability onto the Jump Net, with the latter being renamed Cargo Net? Cleans the section up a bit, and prevents confusion when discussing an 'interplanetary jump net'.
• Remove mention of the Neural Activity Sensor under Deep Penetration Scanners; it's too high TL and unnecessary for what it does.
• Might be worth requiring Aerofins to be installed on streamlined spacecraft - otherwise aerofin-equipped partially streamlined ships can significantly outperform streamlined ones, which seems odd.
• A worked example for the recalculation of the Docking Clamp, e.g 'If a 200 ton ship with Thrust 3 docks with a 100 ton ship, the combined ships would be reduced to Thrust 2' (and if there's room, a full discussion on thrust-tons or jump-tons as a means to recalculate?).
• It's a bit munchkin, but the Construction Deck is identical to the Shipyard except it doesn't require crew: a restriction something like 'only spacecraft or vehicles below 100 tons' in exchange for being a bit cheaper might be worth considering?
• The text of the launch tube implies that it can launch 10 small craft at a time, but after those're expended it can only release 1 per round. Can I suggest keeping it at a flat 10? Canon carriers don't have many launch tubes to begin with; the Skimkish would take eight hours to fully deploy its retinue with 1 per round.
• Larger change, but considering almost every ship has the same number of launch tubes and recovery decks, could that same '10 per round' rule be applied to recovery decks? Retreat would be virtually impossible, otherwise.

Space Stations

• Replace steps 2 through 4 with text pointing to the relevant section from the ship design sequence: they're redundant. And wrong, in the case of the Manoeuvre Drive's cost and power requirement.
• Make explicit mention of the Mail Distribution Array in the description of the Deep-Space Communications Relay - they should be two parts of one system.

Customising Ships

• To memorialise the argument I had with one gentlemen who never quite understood what I was on about: could the costs for Early Prototype and Prototype be adjusted to +900% and +400% respectively? A 10x and 5x increase is a touch more intuitive.
• Why restrict major refits to decreasing capability? Upgrading a given airframe is well doable IRL, it feels like restricting player choice for no real gain.

Sensors

• Can the formatting on the Sensor Hand-Offs page please be adjusted? I know it's tricky, but it's virtually unreadable at the moment!
• The diagram for the same could use some adjustment. Suggestion: the central ship has a green pulse towards the target ship, indicating a successful sensors check, with the three friendly ships located behind it - one further back than the others. This ship, and one other, have a red dotted line indicated a failed hand-off: the first from being out-of-range, the second from not having bandwidth available. The third ship has a green dotted line, indicating a successful hand-off.

Crew Roles

• Discuss crew watches - I've seen a few questions on why military ships need more crew.

Also, sorry if this is egotistical - can I have another bash at tweaking the ship summaries? Only I caught a few errors I made last time and I'd like a chance to fix them. In my defense, it was 3am when I finished. that's really sad when i think about it

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

I'm trying to strike a balance between things I'd like tweaked, and things that're definitely out-of-scope for a minor update, so I'm leaning conservative for once in my life, if only for individual tweaks because good lord did this thing grow.