Weapon Bay Displacement

[phavoc]

I was going through High Guard and looking at ships and now I'm confused. When I look at the design sheets for ships with 50 ton bays, their listed displacement is 31 tons in the calculations. But when I look at ships with 100 ton bays, they are displacing 100 tons.

So where did the 19tons from 50 ton bays go?

 

[BP]

You are probably looking at a TL+3 upgrade - 60% of 50 is 30, see page 53 under Armaments & Screens in HG.

The extra 1 ton is for fire control (which seems silly for bays, but there it is).

 

[phavoc]

You are probably looking at a TL+3 upgrade - 60% of 50 is 30, see page 53 under Armaments & Screens in HG.

The extra 1 ton is for fire control (which seems silly for bays, but there it is).

That accounted for some of the discrepancies. Since Missiles are TL9, that makes sense. Though I did run into some interesting discrepancies. In HG pg101, the Sylea BB has a TL of 14 (I think). The hull is TL 14, the spinal mount is TL15, the Torpedo Bays are TL 12, and the other weapons systems run from TL10 to TL15. A definite mish-mash of tech.

But, here's where I think there is an error. Since the design states the Torpedo Bays are TL-12, they should not get the 30% tonnage decrease. But their tonnage is stated as 31 (30 for the bay, 1 ton for fire control).

I'm all for using different equipment tech levels, but it used to be most military ships were built at one TL and stayed that way.

I haven't had a chance to go back through some of the other books and see what they have listed.

It almost makes you want to have, I dunno, software to design ships? Oops, sorry for the blashpehmy!

 

[BP]

Different TLs are allowed (see pg 52), as used in the examples.

In the RW, components often come from varing sources - some are old technology, some are new - granted they are all built on the same planet and generally assembled in one location (though, sometimes not) .

As for the Torpedo bays - they are listed as TL 9 on pg 50 (As the second 'Heavy Missile Bay') - so at TL 12 they are TL+3 so they are 60% tonnage and 200% cost.

 

[BP]

I was actually surprised to find that the examples in HG seems to be accurate - though it was a real pain figuring things out. And some things appear to not be listed in the text (prices/tonnages), but have consistently appeared in the examples.

For my own designs, I do use software. In fact, many of my original programs in the early '80's were for Traveller.

Nowadays, its not hard to setup a spreadsheet (like MS Excel) to handle most of the designs with ease. (Though I prefer custom programming).

 

[phavoc]

Different TLs are allowed (see pg 52), as used in the examples.

In the RW, components often come from varing sources - some are old technology, some are new - granted they are all built on the same planet and generally assembled in one location (though, sometimes not) .

As for the Torpedo bays - they are listed as TL 9 on pg 50 (As the second 'Heavy Missile Bay') - so at TL 12 they are TL+3 so they are 60% tonnage and 200% cost.

I guess its the inconsistencies that are tripping me up. I went back re-read things and even 100 ton missile bays are listed at TL6. So as I read this any jump-capable ship would receive a 30% tonnage reduction on any missile bay installed.

 

[AndrewW]

I guess its the inconsistencies that are tripping me up. I went back re-read things and even 100 ton missile bays are listed at TL6. So as I read this any jump-capable ship would receive a 30% tonnage reduction on any missile bay installed.

Only if they opt to use the higher TL for those missile bays. It does come at a cost and some will opt not to use it. Also using a lower TL allows maintenance to be done at a lower TL.

 

[BP]

While there are a number of inconsistencies in HG - mostly there is just a lack of explicit explanations and presentation. Constant page flipping and double checking numbers has proven several times that my own reading was incorrect or simply missed something the first 7 times I read it!

In this thread, were Matt Sprange first mentioned an update to High Guard, I wrote -

There are other errors of omission in explanation and data, but they haven't truely hampered my designs and close examination of the example ships generally has led to some clarity and resolution.

For instance, after a bit of pondering the examples, I found the price of Torpedo Bays is actually in the table on pg 50 under the label of Heavy Missile Bay (well, the larger one should probably have been named Large Heavy Missile Bay ). Unfortunately, the Torpedo Barbette is stated to cost MCr 4 in the text, while only MCr 3 as a Heavy Missile Barbette.

I could find no ships with Torpedo Barbettes in HG, but fortunately, Traders & Gunboats has a Bombardment Ship with a Torpedo Barbette-10 (the ship is a TL 12) listed as 3 tons (TL+3 would give 60% of normal 5 tons) for MCr 6 (same TL adv. is 200% cost so MCr 3) which one could presume as correct.

Of course, HG lists the Torpedo Barbettes/Bays as TL 9, and pg 53 lists Torpedo weapons as TL 9 so this doesn't work unless the torpedo (Basic/Nuclear) TL of 7 is used (or the ships TL 12 instead of the explicitly stated 10). And this example also seems to have another flaw - it has 20 torpedoes taking up 25 tons which normally would be 50 or as low as 30 (if TL applies there as well - which seems ok).

Torpedoes are an addition from old CT and I like the concept - the implementation probably just needs some teething time. The Capital ship combat is even more dramatic a change - and it looks like it covers a lot that the old system didn't and maybe in a better way... but it could do with some clarification (after a few more reads, I might be able to figure what is going on - but I'm not sure I have the motivation).

(It would also be nice if bearing was removed - at least for torps and missiles - this just makes no sense - starships aren't seagoing vessels even though it is a nice analogy.)

There are also a number of issues with the tables on pages 50 and 51 (IIRC I wrote some up on a recent thread...)

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Another reason you might get the mish-mash of TLs is that HG states that weapons only get three TLs of upgrades before they become obsolete.

So a TL 7 Laser become obsolete above TL 10 (except for civilian ships), being replaced by the Particle Beam. Of course the book has no replacement for the Particle Beam (Meson maybe?).

What HG is missing is a clean progression of weapons through the TLs giving the designer the option of older designs at lower cost/size or newer designs. There seem to be a lot of lower TL weapon systems and then some higher TL military designs, but nothing in the middle.

Using upgrades doesn't allow you to lower the tonnages and costs, so you SHOULD be able to use a weapon system for 6 TLs (3 for upgrades and then 3 for size/cost reduction), but I didn't see that done anywhere.

 

[BP]

The 3 TL upgrade limit is reasonable - though I tend to agree and the book doesn't really explicitly rule out the option to go higher with upgrades ('further improvement becomes too difficult to be cost-effective' could be read as only applying to the tonnage decrease). Though the examples I've checked tend to bear this out.

The upgrades are an abstract game mechanic - but it still would make more sense if missiles and torpedo upgrades were treated explicitly - i.e. like ammo being upgraded for yield.

Also, for turrets - accurate maybe should apply to all weapons in the turret...