Updated High Guard Ships
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AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Baldo said:
Serpent:
Total Cost: MCr 41.62
Maintenance Cost, Annual: MCr 41.62 × 0.1% = MCr 0.04162
Maintenance Cost, Monthly: MCr 0.04162 / 12 = MCr 0.00346833 = Cr 3468.33
Seems correct to me?
Old School said:
Indeed. Even leaving aside some mistakes, there are some really weird decisions in some of the designs. It might be interesting to see what they - or an 'improved' equivalent - would look like if modified to fit the current rules better.
The Gazelle is a good case in point, and an obvious one since it's an iconic Traveller ship that's small enough not to be out of place showing up occasionally in non-military campaigns, and for that matter is even the cover star of High Guard.
The weird semi-permanent-fixed-drop-tanks design is....okay, I guess. Drop tanks have always been an element of the design and there's nothing really 'wrong' with them. But there is a slight issue with its performance. Jump 3 with internal tanks, Jump 4 with tanks retained and Jump 5 blowing them off is all well and good - because sustainable jump-4 is 'navy standard' and anything else just represents options.
Its sublight performance is a bit more of an issue because 'navy standard' is thrust 6, which it can do....but only if it jettisons the tanks first. It also has the unpleasant penalty (which is historically correct) of a compact bridge, giving it DM-1 on operations carried out there (one assumes piloting and sensors operations). It also has a few low-tech design choices - Crystaliron armour and a TL12 fusion plant and sensor suite, despite being a nominally TL15 design.
I get that - probably for simplicity - few 'book' designs use stuff like the Primitive and Advanced Spacecraft section, but it feels like you could make the Gazelle a lot more capable for not a huge increase in cost or changing the feel of the ship, and it might be interesting to see an 'improved' version.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
locarno24 said:
The Gazelle isn't a fleet escort, hence fleet performance isn't very important.
The LBB5'81 version, that it appears to be based on, notes:
CT Fighting Ships said:
The Gazelle is a slightly better Patrol Corvette/Cruiser that patrols civilians and hunts small civilian-grade pirates, like the "Corsair" types.
Indeed. Though it's not a direct model even then - the original Gazelle wasn't capable of 6g thrust, even 'clean'.
And - as noted, taking off the drop tanks means it only has jump-3 (more than enough to keep up with a merchant formation) and thrust-6 (which matches pretty much any pirate vessel, like - for a completely random example - a Drinaxian-built Harrier-class commerce raider....). But on the odd occasion it is to operate with other navy warships (which it does, for example, in the 198th alongside the Eurisko) it seems like an odd choice not to give it comparable performance; such that it can manage jump-4 and thrust-6 when carrying tanks, and can be shorter-ranged but faster if it drops them.
Plus, it's more the other choices which feel a bit strange. I get the limitations of the Type T. That's very much a 'Sector Fleet' design, built at TL12 so there's no problem building, maintaining and modifying them. But designing a ship whose engineering deck needs to be built at TL15 and then not taking advantage of TL15 power generation, for example, seems a wierd decision. The quantity of power produced seems odd, too; not enough to run everything simultaneously (note the High Guard entry doesn't mention the 56 odd power needed for the guns) , so it can't jump out whilst shooting, but if you're not running everything simultaneously the amount of power generated feels like massive overkill.
If you did nothing else, fitting a TL15 reactor alongside the TL15 jump engine would allow you to produce the power you needed in 29 dTons, letting you accelerate and shoot whilst charging your jump drive and still saving 7 dTons - going a decent way towards allowing a 'proper' sized bridge and eliminating your sensor and handling penalties, and MCr7.5 is a pretty minimal cost increase on a 400 dTon warship.
Equally, given that it "as designed at a time when mutinies were a major threat to security", having the processing power to run at least a minimal Anti-Hijack software makes sense - it's small enough to be at realistic risk of being boarded by pirates, after all.
And - as noted, taking off the drop tanks means it only has jump-3 (more than enough to keep up with a merchant formation) and thrust-6 (which matches pretty much any pirate vessel, like - for a completely random example - a Drinaxian-built Harrier-class commerce raider....). But on the odd occasion it is to operate with other navy warships (which it does, for example, in the 198th alongside the Eurisko) it seems like an odd choice not to give it comparable performance; such that it can manage jump-4 and thrust-6 when carrying tanks, and can be shorter-ranged but faster if it drops them.
Plus, it's more the other choices which feel a bit strange. I get the limitations of the Type T. That's very much a 'Sector Fleet' design, built at TL12 so there's no problem building, maintaining and modifying them. But designing a ship whose engineering deck needs to be built at TL15 and then not taking advantage of TL15 power generation, for example, seems a wierd decision. The quantity of power produced seems odd, too; not enough to run everything simultaneously (note the High Guard entry doesn't mention the 56 odd power needed for the guns) , so it can't jump out whilst shooting, but if you're not running everything simultaneously the amount of power generated feels like massive overkill.
If you did nothing else, fitting a TL15 reactor alongside the TL15 jump engine would allow you to produce the power you needed in 29 dTons, letting you accelerate and shoot whilst charging your jump drive and still saving 7 dTons - going a decent way towards allowing a 'proper' sized bridge and eliminating your sensor and handling penalties, and MCr7.5 is a pretty minimal cost increase on a 400 dTon warship.
Equally, given that it "as designed at a time when mutinies were a major threat to security", having the processing power to run at least a minimal Anti-Hijack software makes sense - it's small enough to be at realistic risk of being boarded by pirates, after all.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
locarno24 said:
How about something like this:
MCr 355, 400 Dt with a 100 Dt drop tank. J-4 & 7 G with tank, J-2 & 9 G without tank, J-5 dropping tank.
Modular armament can mount up to four of any barbette or turret, here with two Accurate Particle barbettes and two Long Range Pulse Laser turrets (and some storage space).
Small Bridge with separate sensor operator cubby (to cheat the DM-1 for the sensor operators).
10 Dt module for e.g. a Sub-Command Centre, Sensor Array, or screen.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
locarno24 said:
A TL12 Size Reduced power plant is smaller and cheaper than a TL15 plant. The TL15 plant comes into play at TL16+.
If you want power enough to manoeuvre, shoot, and jump at the same time it is more efficient to power the jump drive from a High Capacity Battery that you charge before combat, instead of an oversized power plant.
Old School
Mongoose
locarno24 said:
The Gazelle has always been a bit of an oddball with its drop tanks, but it’s a cool concept. But some of the primitive and advanced stuff is game changing, if not game breaking, when you apply it. Take pulse lasers, for example. Increasing one range band from long to very long for a 10% cost increase greatly enhances this weapon, to the point that no one with a choice would use the standard version. I had to remove these from my campaign, because player ships with them could manhandle military standard designs without them. Just didn’t make sense.
Anything that reduces its tonnage requirement is also a big deal, especially the systems that do so relatively cheaply, such as bay weapons. A jump 4 ship struggles to use all its hardpoints (unless sticking to turrets only), and also struggles with armor. Freeing up tonnage for bays and armor massively enhances the combat capability, especially for “medium” ships in the 1,000 to 10,000 ton range. Once you get to spinal mounts, other weapons take a backseat, but are still relevant. Any TL15 J-4 warship should have reduced fuel x 2. Its expensive, but the ship is so much more capable with it, your effectiveness / Credit is enhanced even if you’re building less ships.
And if you actually take bigger ships into combat, the design oddities really come into play. These big ships don’t use all their hardpoints, so missile bays, and any large or medium bay, which should be the domain of capital ships, really don’t make any sense. For Firepower / tonnage requirements, no one would use medium or large bays, or missile bays at all. Their only advantage over smaller weapons systems are their firepower / hardpoint ratio, which is irrelevant on J-4 ships, as over 60% of your tonnage is drives, power, and fuel.
And then of course, there is MJD (who’s work I love, don’t get me wrong), adding highguard options in every supplement. Many are very cool. The “chart room” introduced in the Great Rift set should be standard on every capital ship. +2 astrogation check for only 16 tons is a no brainer on BCr50 warship.
Its hard to keep up. In reality the capital ships are mostly background fodder in campaigns, although Mongoose is trying to change that, but if you’re going to use those ships, you’d probably redesign all of them.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
AnotherDilbert said:
Note that even without high tech options, a lower tech power plant can be better since it is cheaper.
Take this very basic warship for example:
Switch to a cheaper TL12 power plant, and make the ship slightly bigger, but the same cost:
We get the same cost, about the same free space, and more Hull points. Better?
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Old School said:
More or less anything you build yourself will crush the horribly non-optimised standard designs, whether you use high tech or not; just as it was in CT where the designs come from.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Old School said:
To be fair, it takes two advantages, so it costs 20% more, but I get your point.
What gets me is that spinal weapons, even the particle accelerator, which is very long range in all smaller versions, are only long range and it's a little fuzzy whether you can add "normal" advantages to them.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
AnotherDilbert said:
I think that's a game design flaw someone didn't do the math on (Actually it is a bit subtle; other than cost, I couldn't see your point for some time, since I was increasing power and not decreasing size... but, math). maybe next version they'll make it 25 power points at TL 15 and the anomaly will go away.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
Geir said:
It costs 25% of the weapon, but that is completely insignificant compared to the cost of the ship, for a significant combat advantage.
Old School is completely correct, it is basically mandatory (if you use tech advantages)...
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Component tweaks should reflect the priorities of the current design philosophy in fad.
AnotherDilbert
Emperor Mongoose
AnotherDilbert said:
I finally realised why I added cost of armour to the modular cost. Modular increases the cost of the hull, armour cost is based on hull cost, so armour cost increases proportionally.
So, the Kokirrak hull should cost:
200000 × MCr 0.05 × 150%[reinforced] × 205800/200000[modular] = MCr 15 435
Armour cost:
MCr 15 435 × 12 × 8% = MCr 14 817.6
Total cost:
MCr 15 435 + MCr 14 817.6 = MCr 30 252.6
Or as my spreadsheet presents it:
Hull Cost: 200000 × MCr 0.05 × 150%[reinforced] = MCr 15 000
Armour cost: MCr 15 000 × 12 × 8% = MCr 14 400
Modular Cost: ( MCr 15000 + MCr 18000 ) × 5800/200000 = MCr 852.6
Total Cost: MCr 15 000 + MCr 14 400 + MCr 852.6 = MCr 30 252.6
Mathematically it is the same. I just wanted to present the full extra cost of the module separately.
So, the armour cost of the Kokirrak is wrong, should be MCr 14 817.6, based on the total hull cost of MCr 15 435.
