Tenacious-Techhunter
Mongoose
Ah; well, I was confused because you put that after the fighter craft and the torpedo bombers. Nothing for me here then. Good luck. ^_^;
What do people want from High Guard Traveller craft balance?
- Thread starter Chas
- Start date
PsiTraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
The issue (for me at least) is that using Jump as the focus for effectiveness of a TL fighting ability puts the higher Jump capable ship at a severe disadvantage. There is a straight computation of 10 percent of mass times the distance travelled for fuel. So a 10 000 ton ship that is Jump 2 has 2000 tons of space reserved for jump fuel. A J4 ship has 4000 tons of space reserved for jump fuel. Unless the tech advances can make 2000 tons of fuel not be needed a J4 ship will be at a disadvantage when fighting the J2 ship. The J2 ship has 2000 tons of space to add weapons and armour that the J4 ship does not.
Jump is a strategic capability, not a tactical one. In combat the Jump numbers mean nothing. They matter in getting to a system to defend it, the J4 ships will get there twice as fast, and allow more ships to be moved within the same time frame as a J2 fleet. This is the logistical and strategic side.
When it gets time to start shooting the Jump drives and fuel tanks are just taking up space.
Put a 10 000 ton Jump 4 ship up against the same tonnage of SDB monitor. All the extra space is put to armour, defense, weapons, ammo etc.
Taking things down to a small ship scale:
I am playing around with trying to remake the Drinaxian Harrier from the Pirates of Drinax. I am looking at a triple turret and Particle beams and pulse lasers advanced tech upgraded to Longer range. To me the higher tech advantage will end up in a higher TL fleet able to shoot and hit from a range band the enemy cannot shoot back from.
If you can have your computers run advanced software with enough spare bandwidth and extra sensor lock boons or banes against the enemy. Assuming the Gunner stats and skill levels are all the same it is the + DM's from the higher tech systems that will overcome the negative DMs from the range. If the enemy only has medium or long range weapons, and cannot match your counter thrusting to maintain distance they will not be able to shoot back since weapons do not reach past their band. Missiles may be able to cross the distance, but the point defense of a triple turret, and the thrust of higher tech ships may allow missiles to be outrun long enough to be picked off by the laser defense of the higher tech ship.
Meanwhile the radiation attack of the particle beam are killing crew. My redesign has very high damage output, all 1's an 2's are counted as 3's, so the minimum damage per hit is 15 points. This is enough to cause a critical from damage loss against a thousand ton ship, and multiple criticals against a ship of equal size.
The higher tech base has my J2 Harrier stealthed and attacking from hiding for the first attack, so a double hit from very long range may be possible in the first round. I am not finished with the design, but even idly rolling a few rounds of combat against the various ships in the common spacecraft section is making me thing that it is the range capability, and the bandwidth of the computers that offer the best Tech advantage. Even in a straight head on fight my tactics are to stay at very long range and chew the enemy to pieces. Nothing better than to take on an 800 ton mercenary cruiser and roll 7 three times in a row on the Critical Check to chew through the Hull.
Your conclusions may be different, but the linear use of fuel (minus the small percentage allowed for in tech reduction advantage will not allow the J4 ship to pack as much punch as a J2 ship since it gives up 2000 tons of space in the same size hull for fuel.
Now change that to Collectors at Tech 14, and get rid of fuel altogether, or go Psionic and things change even more, but we get further away from that Old school Traveller feeling.
(not that I would mind delving into the areas of Psionics and Collectors, I have already posted on here about both topics)
Jump is a strategic capability, not a tactical one. In combat the Jump numbers mean nothing. They matter in getting to a system to defend it, the J4 ships will get there twice as fast, and allow more ships to be moved within the same time frame as a J2 fleet. This is the logistical and strategic side.
When it gets time to start shooting the Jump drives and fuel tanks are just taking up space.
Put a 10 000 ton Jump 4 ship up against the same tonnage of SDB monitor. All the extra space is put to armour, defense, weapons, ammo etc.
Taking things down to a small ship scale:
I am playing around with trying to remake the Drinaxian Harrier from the Pirates of Drinax. I am looking at a triple turret and Particle beams and pulse lasers advanced tech upgraded to Longer range. To me the higher tech advantage will end up in a higher TL fleet able to shoot and hit from a range band the enemy cannot shoot back from.
If you can have your computers run advanced software with enough spare bandwidth and extra sensor lock boons or banes against the enemy. Assuming the Gunner stats and skill levels are all the same it is the + DM's from the higher tech systems that will overcome the negative DMs from the range. If the enemy only has medium or long range weapons, and cannot match your counter thrusting to maintain distance they will not be able to shoot back since weapons do not reach past their band. Missiles may be able to cross the distance, but the point defense of a triple turret, and the thrust of higher tech ships may allow missiles to be outrun long enough to be picked off by the laser defense of the higher tech ship.
Meanwhile the radiation attack of the particle beam are killing crew. My redesign has very high damage output, all 1's an 2's are counted as 3's, so the minimum damage per hit is 15 points. This is enough to cause a critical from damage loss against a thousand ton ship, and multiple criticals against a ship of equal size.
The higher tech base has my J2 Harrier stealthed and attacking from hiding for the first attack, so a double hit from very long range may be possible in the first round. I am not finished with the design, but even idly rolling a few rounds of combat against the various ships in the common spacecraft section is making me thing that it is the range capability, and the bandwidth of the computers that offer the best Tech advantage. Even in a straight head on fight my tactics are to stay at very long range and chew the enemy to pieces. Nothing better than to take on an 800 ton mercenary cruiser and roll 7 three times in a row on the Critical Check to chew through the Hull.
Your conclusions may be different, but the linear use of fuel (minus the small percentage allowed for in tech reduction advantage will not allow the J4 ship to pack as much punch as a J2 ship since it gives up 2000 tons of space in the same size hull for fuel.
Now change that to Collectors at Tech 14, and get rid of fuel altogether, or go Psionic and things change even more, but we get further away from that Old school Traveller feeling.
(not that I would mind delving into the areas of Psionics and Collectors, I have already posted on here about both topics)
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
"What do people want from High Guard Traveller craft balance?"
I want no balance. None. No rock-paper-scissors.
I want no balance. None. No rock-paper-scissors.
Not entirely sure what you mean with that comment Shawn. Are you saying you don't like cookie cutter rules where everything is so streamlined and uniform you just feel like you are playing a set of percentiles? If so I'd agree with that, there should be nooks and crannies, advantages and preferred builds through each tech level and in each scenario.ShawnDriscoll said:
What I'm personally not a fan of though is fluff that contradicts the rule set. If you think of the first edition Traveller High Guard you had all those pretty pictures of ships and stories and supposed fleet make up - but the reality of it was none of the detail presented made any sense at all rules wise. What had been provided as actual ships used in the setting was totally at odds with the rule set that was supposed to govern their construction and combat abilities.
That was a lot of work by the publishers for something that just left a bad taste in the purchasers mouth.
Players pretty much always tend to min/max their characters, their ships, their gear, etc. As a referee you have do design to the 'average', or else everyone would be of the same skill and capability of your characters.... and knowing most adventurers that means a LOT more dying across adventures.
Still, when it comes to ships and things, you should have the average, and then the uprated options that PC's can choose to make their the fastest hunks of junk ever to run away from a fight they shouldn't have started in the first place.
Or blast someone out of the sky. Both options seem to work well. The one thing you probably don't want is a long, drawn out battle that has no clear winner or loser. Those are boring and much like real life. Who wants to game about that?
Still, when it comes to ships and things, you should have the average, and then the uprated options that PC's can choose to make their the fastest hunks of junk ever to run away from a fight they shouldn't have started in the first place.
Or blast someone out of the sky. Both options seem to work well. The one thing you probably don't want is a long, drawn out battle that has no clear winner or loser. Those are boring and much like real life. Who wants to game about that?
Aye. High Guard as a book has the troublesome issue of trying to be aspects of two quite different gaming genres. It needs to cater for role playing in ships for player characters just as you're describing there phavoc, then it is also providing rules for the wargaming equivalent of space fleet combat for the likes of a feasible Trillion Credit Squadron scenario. It would be a lot simpler for the design process if the book had a clear cut goal, either a rpg or a wargame, not mixing apples and oranges.
Then again, I guess for many people, including me, that is one of the key attractions of Traveller. You are getting all the bigger picture stuff not just grubbing for the next level of experience. You can build new worlds and strategic economies, navies and armies, mix careers and creatures, all in a unified universe.
Then again, I guess for many people, including me, that is one of the key attractions of Traveller. You are getting all the bigger picture stuff not just grubbing for the next level of experience. You can build new worlds and strategic economies, navies and armies, mix careers and creatures, all in a unified universe.
Yeah I like getting both too Chas 
I think we can definitely reach a comfortable medium. Detailed enough to allow for immersive RPG, while avoiding technology choices that are either "traps" (bad options) or "must haves" (so good it's not longer an option).
Thats our job - get to the testing!
I think we can definitely reach a comfortable medium. Detailed enough to allow for immersive RPG, while avoiding technology choices that are either "traps" (bad options) or "must haves" (so good it's not longer an option).
Thats our job - get to the testing!
