Warships vs. Merchants Designs

[phavoc]

As a corollary to the question of should vehicle weapons be able to damage starships, I have a generic question - who thinks the thought process behind Travellers hull armor is flawed?

Here's my point. All starships should have a strong enough hull to take G-stresses, re-entry and everything else a ship in space needs. But merchants aren't going build an armored ship unless its going in harms way. It's more expensive, costs more to maintain, and its a drain on your credits that would be better spent elsewhere to make more money.

Warships, on the other hand, are going to be armored for their job. Cruisers that are expected to slug it out at close range are going to be armored more heavy than cruisers that are in stand-off mode. A carrier is going to be thin-skinned too because its not designed to slug it out with anyone.

But Traveller ships seem to all start from a baseline of heavily armored (as we see from the debate on whether or not ground weapons can even scratch the hull of a starship). The rules also allow for the addition of more armor, rad shielding and heat shielding. But some of that makes no sense. Virtually all ships have anti-grav, which negates a lot of the heat and other re-entry stress. We have the shuttle today which can re-enter the atmosphere. It's not armored at all, and if you blast nice big holes in it with a 20mm gun.

So in my mind merchies should have hulls that would be easily penetrated with heavy ground weapons. And obviously ground weapons are scaled to do damage to ground targets, so a plasma discharge from a rifle might penetrate the starship hull, but do nowhere near as much damage as say a starship-based laser or plasma weapon.

What say you?

 

[rust]

Well, in my settings the hulls of civilian starships are approximately as
strong as the hulls of real world military combat aircraft are, although
constructed of several layers, including a gel layer to reduce and distri-
bute the impact of small objects and to seal the hull after such an im-
pact - but entirely useless as armour against anything more powerful
than, for example, a heavy machine gun.

The idea behind this is that less strong hulls mean less mass, and less
mass means less material to build the hull, less power to drive the star-
ship and more maneuverability, all welcome for civilian starships. The-
refore the hulls of civilian starships in my setting are only as strong as
they absolutely have to be to withstand the expected stresses, with on-
ly a very narrow safety margin added.

The only exception are ships built to transport hazardous materials or
to operate under extreme conditions (the dense corrosive atmosphere),
they have stronger hulls.

 

[DFW]

IMTU, all ships <1000tons are monocoque construction so it would be problematic at best for us.

Remember, while grav can make it pretty safe, you might need to reenter under emergency conditions requiring very strong hulls. (Banks will require huge amounts of insurance if hulls are weak) plus, inner-system solar rad alone requires a lot of shielding. One bad flair when you jump into system and kiss your crew & passengers good bye.

Just some factors to consider.

 

[rust]

As for emergency landings, this depends on the concepts used in a setting.
In my setting's case, the orbit is considered the safest place for a dama-
ged starship, while any landing under emergency conditions would endan-
ger both crew and passengers of the starship and the inhabitants of the
planet. Therefore a starship in trouble is usually ordered to stay in orbit,
and if necessary a shuttle is sent up to evacuate crew and passengers
or to bring a repair team and spare parts to the ship.

As for the radiation problem, with my setting's hyperdrive it is no problem
to enter a system in the "shadow" of a planet or moon and to contact the
system control for the latest "space weather report" before proceeding
inwards, and future astrophysics should be able to predict dangerous fla-
res quite well.

 

[steelbrok]

As for the radiation problem, with my setting's hyperdrive it is no problem
to enter a system in the "shadow" of a planet or moon and to contact the
system control for the latest "space weather report" before proceeding
inwards, and future astrophysics should be able to predict dangerous fla-
res quite well.

Unless they're Darrians....

 

[DFW]

As for the radiation problem, with my setting's hyperdrive it is no problem
to enter a system in the "shadow" of a planet or moon

I'm only talking about MGT standards as, I'm assuming the OP is using standard MGT J-rives and what not.

 

[rust]

Unless they're Darrians....

I doubt that the Darrians would have considered it difficult to predict a na-
tural stellar flare. Man made flares are of course a different animal.

 

[AndrewW]

The rules also allow for the addition of more armor, rad shielding and heat shielding. But some of that makes no sense. Virtually all ships have anti-grav, which negates a lot of the heat and other re-entry stress.

The rules do give a reason for the heat shielding:

A ship without a functioning gravitic drive attempting re–entry without heat shielding will burn up.

Damage to the ship from proximity to a star in the absence of heat shielding are at the referee’s discretion, but should be harsh!

 

[phavoc]

The rules also allow for the addition of more armor, rad shielding and heat shielding. But some of that makes no sense. Virtually all ships have anti-grav, which negates a lot of the heat and other re-entry stress.

The rules do give a reason for the heat shielding:

A ship without a functioning gravitic drive attempting re–entry without heat shielding will burn up.

Damage to the ship from proximity to a star in the absence of heat shielding are at the referee’s discretion, but should be harsh!

You are correct there, that is in the design rules. And the Spica supplement Katringa also talks about shielding being added to ships working in the system that have to have shielding retrofitted if they intend to stay in the system and work the asteroid belt close to the sun.

I don't think many people are going to add in heat shielding for their ship just in case they are crash-landing on a planet? I think it would be a rarity for most PCs. So if the case were that you needed to design a ship to operate in those types of environments, it is available.

I should have been clearer in my post. I was talking about most mainstream designs of ships that weren't customized to operate in very specific environments.

 

[atpollard]

plus, inner-system solar rad alone requires a lot of shielding. One bad flair when you jump into system and kiss your crew & passengers good bye.

I agree 100% about the need for heavy Rad shielding of the hulls. That and surviving even one missile attack require starship hulls to be non-trivial in strength.

[DFW: We completely agree so seldom, that I couldn't resist pointing out a case in which we agree when it presented itself. ]

 

[DFW]

I agree 100% about the need for heavy Rad shielding of the hulls. That and surviving even one missile attack require starship hulls to be non-trivial in strength.

That's true. Since it IS possible for a small star ship to survive a direct hit with a nuke missile, the hulls would have to be unbelievable strong by todays metallurgical standards.

[DFW: We completely agree so seldom, that I couldn't resist pointing out a case in which we agree when it presented itself. ]

Hey, if we were sitting at a table it would be more frequent. Writing is not my forte by a many light years. One on one interviews on national TV newscasts is easy for me, writing, not so much.

 

[rust]

Since it IS possible for a small star ship to survive a direct hit with a nuke missile ...

I very much suspect that this is far more based on the game designer's
intention to guarantee a limited script immunity for player characters than
to simulate the consequences of a nuclear explosion. It is the same with
the personal combat system, where the simulation of the weapon dama-
ge is also significantly "softened" to increase the probability of a survival
of the player characters. This is one of the (quite many) points where the
playability obviously was considered more important than realism.

 

[far-trader]

I agree 100% about the need for heavy Rad shielding of the hulls. That and surviving even one missile attack require starship hulls to be non-trivial in strength.

That's true. Since it IS possible for a small star ship to survive a direct hit with a nuke missile, the hulls would have to be unbelievable strong by todays metallurgical standards.

More like a nuke hand-grenade given how small Traveller missiles are. And I'm not at all sure about the "direct hit" bit either. No convincing argument for any "unbelievable strong" hulls yet imo.

 

[AndrewW]

More like a nuke hand-grenade given how small Traveller missiles are. And I'm not at all sure about the "direct hit" bit either. No convincing argument for any "unbelievable strong" hulls yet imo.

So a thermal detonator?

 

[DFW]

More like a nuke hand-grenade given how small Traveller missiles are. And I'm not at all sure about the "direct hit" bit either. No convincing argument for any "unbelievable strong" hulls yet imo.

Figure the smallest possible critical device possible. It hits next to a material.
There's your evidence. Unavoidable conclusion unless, one wildly handwaves to the point of getting airborne

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence

Probably get it down to ~10 ktons power.

 

[Captain Jonah]

For merchants try building the hull down a few tech levels. At OTU standard tech 12 build the hulls at tech 9 or 10 standards to reflect a lighter and therefore less heavy framework rather than lower tech metals.
That gives you one Hull/Structure per 70 or 80Dtons instead of the one per 50Dtons as normal.

For Example a 400Dton subby gets 15% off the price of its hull and 5 Hull/5 Structure instead of eight of each.

Re weapons verses starships. Old problem, game balance instead of logic to stop players getting thier ship shot down. Starship missiles which do hurt unarmoured starship hulls are 12 per Dton which includes the loader etc. Easily small enough to mount a pair on a small apc sized tank killer and then able to hurt your starship.

Re re nukes. Standoff nuke bursts in space do little damage due to no shockware/therma pulse etc. Contact nuke hits should leave glowing holes in your ship a ship's boat could fly through. As direct hit weapons nukes are massively underpowered, treat them as detonation lasers, it doesn't make sense otherwise.

 

[apoc527]

Nuclear hand grenades. Heh. I always forget how small Traveller missiles are. Perhaps we should create a missile in between current missiles and torpedoes. I believe it's 12 missiles per dton and a torpedo is 2.5 dtons? What about a missile that was 1/4 dton? Or even 1/2 dton?

I know I know, off topic and just complicating things.

 

[rust]

Unavoidable conclusion ...

I would not dare to base any such conclusion on a combat system where
a hand grenade does 5d6 damage and a 28 cm railway gun HE projectile
does 20d6 damage. The only unavoidable conclusion I can see is that the
system was "capped" at the high end of weapon damage to keep player
characters alive, and this is also true for nukes.

 

[apoc527]

For merchants try building the hull down a few tech levels. At OTU standard tech 12 build the hulls at tech 9 or 10 standards to reflect a lighter and therefore less heavy framework rather than lower tech metals.
That gives you one Hull/Structure per 70 or 80Dtons instead of the one per 50Dtons as normal.

For Example a 400Dton subby gets 15% off the price of its hull and 5 Hull/5 Structure instead of eight of each.

Re weapons verses starships. Old problem, game balance instead of logic to stop players getting thier ship shot down. Starship missiles which do hurt unarmoured starship hulls are 12 per Dton which includes the loader etc. Easily small enough to mount a pair on a small apc sized tank killer and then able to hurt your starship.

Re re nukes. Standoff nuke bursts in space do little damage due to no shockware/therma pulse etc. Contact nuke hits should leave glowing holes in your ship a ship's boat could fly through. As direct hit weapons nukes are massively underpowered, treat them as detonation lasers, it doesn't make sense otherwise.

Or make better use of the Effect rules. 2d6 might be right if it explodes a kilometer away. On the other hand, if you rolled Effect 6 and doubled it, that +12 damage starts to hurt. Following the same pattern (as I do in my house rules), a nuclear torpedo does 6d6+6xEffect, so that same Effect 6 is now 36 extra damage, plus up to 36 more. That's more believable.

 

[DFW]

Nuclear hand grenades. Heh. I always forget how small Traveller missiles are.

No smaller that what the US has built in the past.

Yep, no prob to have a Trav nuc missile of the listed size.

The M-388 round used a version of the W54 warhead, a very small sub-kiloton fission device. The Mk-54 weighed about 51 lb (23 kg), with a selectable yield equivalent to 10 or 20 tons of TNT. It was built in the 1950's. TL 5.