What do people want from High Guard Traveller craft balance?

[Chas]

Just figured I'd put this out.

For mine:
- Spinal mounts remain top dog. A ship of the line 100k ton battle cruiser cannot be beaten by equal tonnage 5 frigate 20k ton builds because the spinal mount is going to vaporize the frigates one shot at a time. It's inherent in the game and a good rationale for needing ships of the line dreadnoughts.
- Fighters can do damage through equivalent tech heavy armor. Fighters need to be relevant. It could be expanded out so that fighters cannot but torpedo bombers of equivalent weight can, but that's a complication to a fundamental paradigm that might be unnecessary. Torpedo bombers doing more damage is probably the better route.
- Combat is restricted from less than distant range, not to include distant range.
- A tech 15 jump 4 ship can beat a tech 12 jump 2 ship or a tech 13 jump 3 ship (by whatever reasons)

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Did you mean "Jump", or "Thrust"? And do you mean this even if the higher TL ship is smaller? Please better frame your balance point.

 

[Chas]

Did you mean "Jump", or "Thrust"? And do you mean this even if the higher TL ship is smaller? Please better frame your balance point.

I mean Jump as written and assume "of equal tonnage".

The issue being the relative weight advantage of the different jump levels vs. what is a standard ship for the TL. We don't want fleet ships of lower tech levels beating fleet ships of higher tech levels just because at the lower tech, they didn't have higher jump technology available.

 

[Reynard]

Higher tech ships with better jump engines have a strategic advantage and not necessarily a tactical advantage. If a lower tech ship of the same displacement can't carry better jump engines, they shouldn't be penalized for using the spare tonnage for armor and other systems. This is similar to the jump ship vs. spacecraft phenomenon.

 

[Chas]

Higher tech ships with better jump engines have a strategic advantage and not necessarily a tactical advantage. If a lower tech ship of the same displacement can't carry better jump engines, they shouldn't be penalized for using the spare tonnage for armor and other systems. This is similar to the jump ship vs. spacecraft phenomenon.

That strategic argument really only works for same tech level in my opinion. There's some staggering across TL but I believe it is not staggered enough.

Examples of the issues I see are:
A Jump 2 TL 12 ship is just a 'typical' ship of its times
A Jump 4 TL 15 is just a 'typical' ship of its times

The TL15 fleet typical ship should be able to beat the typical TL12 ship hands down. It's like aM1 Abrams taking on a Sherman, the USS Wisconsin taking on a WW1 dreadnought ... and losing. It's totally unrealistic.

Then consider your strategic advantage of a higher jump. What use it is to you when you cannot beat any ship that you will encounter in a battle? A TL15 fleet has to have a battle at some point with a TL13 fleet. Are you ever going to build an entire TL15 Jump 4 fleet, when that fleet will lose a straight battle against a quite standard TL13 Jump 3 fleet? It wouldn't happen. You'd built the fleet that will win a battle i.e. the TL15 with the same jump number as the TL13 fleet and blow the TL13 fleet into cosmic particles. It's contrary to the traveler canon and feel - TL15 Imperial Navy is Jump 4... and this ship should beat the TL13 Jump 3 ship and the TL 12 Jump 2 ship. IMHO

 

[Reynard]

Gamers might rebuild separate fleets for every possible outcome but more realistically navies and armies build to a uniform standard as optimal for any occasion. Not every fleet is a TL 15 fleet either. You might specialize a squadron or two as part of a fleet for known long term circumstances but you can't make fleets that can take down any opposition just because your a higher tech level and that's been part of Traveller design systems forever.

And no, strategy isn't a tech level thing. Strategy (and tactics) is a combination of your assets plus intel plus a plan involving what you have and know. Most Traveller space battles are one shot deals so the player build for the moment often with same parameters. That's not strategy because the circumstances don't test how well those units fare against an overall objective featuring a diversity of systems and their assets. Try the board game Fifth Frontier War or a Trillion Credit Squadron campaign. The new power rules and Thrust rules for maneuvers will make the balance of Maneuver drive and power plant tonnage to tactical use very important.

The difference with your 'typical' ships is Jump range. That's a strategic advantage... in a way. It means you can reach more places in a jump and that is very useful, you may be able to go further but you still need to hit specific targets. Strategy says you have objectives and often the opposition knows it and plans for it as well as planning their offensive objectives. Once you enter a system of a lower tech navy with lower 'typical' jump, ton for ton they have more room for other equipment OR a system defense of non-starships doesn't waste tonnage to jump and jump fuel no matter what the tech level.

The big advantage and possible equalizer comes with weapons, armor and systems that are adjusted by tech level rules, quality over quantity.

 

[Nerhesi]

Your question Chas can be simply answered by "more viable options".

Balance, by definition is that scales are equal. There is a counter balance for everything. Having a the "best gun/fighter/ship/capitalship/etc.." is the antithesis of that.

Fighters should be viable.
Adventure class ships.
Small capitals.
Large capitals.

There are major races that depend on fighters (Zhodani and Aslan), some that depends on massive fleets of adventure class ships (Vargr), other that do ships of the line (Solomani, Vilani) and others that do long range torpedo/missile barges (Hiver).

Personally... if this just a personal question:

I want fighters to dominate if the other side doesn't have fighters.
If the other side provides a balanced force with fighters, then they should triumph.
If one side is all destroyers and picket ships with massive barrages of fragmentation missiles, then they should destroy the all fighter force.
But then perhaps that crusier heavy force destroys your less balanced force...

Meaningful options - and less adhoc "this doesn't work". Example - Power and MCr cost should be my limiting factor, not some arbitrary "Barbettes dont work on small craft" or "only a max of 5 screens per ship" etc...

However, the reality of the situation is that the "PTB" will drive a lot of things... which is what may unfortunately leave a bad taste in some mouths but it's something we just have to deal with

 

[Chas]

Gamers might rebuild separate fleets for every possible outcome but more realistically navies and armies build to a uniform standard as optimal for any occasion. Not every fleet is a TL 15 fleet either. You might specialize a squadron or two as part of a fleet for known long term circumstances but you can't make fleets that can take down any opposition just because your a higher tech level and that's been part of Traveller design systems forever.

And no, strategy isn't a tech level thing. Strategy (and tactics) is a combination of your assets plus intel plus a plan involving what you have and know. Most Traveller space battles are one shot deals so the player build for the moment often with same parameters. That's not strategy because the circumstances don't test how well those units fare against an overall objective featuring a diversity of systems and their assets. Try the board game Fifth Frontier War or a Trillion Credit Squadron campaign. The new power rules and Thrust rules for maneuvers will make the balance of Maneuver drive and power plant tonnage to tactical use very important.

The difference with your 'typical' ships is Jump range. That's a strategic advantage... in a way. It means you can reach more places in a jump and that is very useful, you may be able to go further but you still need to hit specific targets. Strategy says you have objectives and often the opposition knows it and plans for it as well as planning their offensive objectives. Once you enter a system of a lower tech navy with lower 'typical' jump, ton for ton they have more room for other equipment OR a system defense of non-starships doesn't waste tonnage to jump and jump fuel no matter what the tech level.

The big advantage and possible equalizer comes with weapons, armor and systems that are adjusted by tech level rules, quality over quantity.

Yes, it's a game and there has to be some standardization, but the balance of tonnage vs lower technology weaponry is too great at the moment I believe if you look at how it is working. It's nonsensical that the strategic decisions and paradigms you are making for your builds at tech level 15, are not only applying, are not just drastically limiting your build options from a technology level 3 down, but are actually threatening to overwhelm a majority of your fleet elements.

Also, and I'm not holding this up as a make or break rule but as an example, per current canon Imperial Navy is Jump 4. It's not jump 2 this and jump 5 that and mix in between except for very limited examples. The rationale there is that they want a standardized jump number so the fleets can act as, well, fleets. And a 'typical' fleet of tech level 15 should, as I've stated, be able to beat a 'typical' fleet of tech level 13. If canon is changing fine, but my personal preference is that higher tech weaponry, hulls and advantages to get a tweak towards a better higher technology effectiveness paradigm. Some mechanisms are used such as electronic warfare etc etc so that electing to take a higher jump number at higher tech levels is not so badly penalized.

In truth it's not a major design change I'm talking about here, rather the equivalent of giving a scaling second advantage of reduced fuel, so that 1st advantage is 5% reduction in fuel tonnage, the second would be a 10% reduction, swinging the jump technology tonnage paradigm towards the higher tech navy.

 

[Nerhesi]

I think the jury is not in on your conclusion Chas - TL15 vs lower TL

Look especially at max armour, sensors bonus and software.

At least from a sensor perspective, lockons are a maaaaassive benefit now. It is an opposed roll too.

 

[Chas]

I think the jury is not in on your conclusion Chas - TL15 vs lower TL

Look especially at max armour, sensors bonus and software.

At least from a sensor perspective, lockons are a maaaaassive benefit now. It is an opposed roll too.

Oh I agree, I've noted that those are still floating in my previous thread. It'll be very interesting to see the final balance in the next High Guard. I'm saying what I'd prefer.

Though I'll comment that the armor bonus is fairly marginal vs the weapon power available at bay and spinal level (and marginalized by the current high nuclear missile damage) and the sensors with no tech level on the Military Counter Measure Suite no gimmie. The Enhanced Signal Processing at TL13 is the big paradigm mover and I wish the write ups for these were a little less obtuse. You shouldn't be having to go back to the core rules to find a one liner to say if this applies to electronic warfare rolls or not when the lead sentence is about detection and there is a strong impression that this option only applies to detection, not electronics warfare. You get a +1 at TL 15 for your advanced suite, but you are paying for your Emmissions Absorption Grid which is 2% of your hull which is -2 on rolls. And the low tonnage jump ship can throw the EAG in without a second thought, not so your high jump weight limited vessels. There are no sensor advantages either, something that could be included.

 

[AndrewW]

There are no sensor advantages either, something that could be included.

Doing sensors up as advantages rather then separate options was considered.

 

[Chas]

There are no sensor advantages either, something that could be included.

Doing sensors up as advantages rather then separate options was considered.

There are plenty of viable ones, like dropping the tonnage on the EAG which is a TL11 feature that you still really really want at every tech level etc.

But I hope sensors and stealth technologies do get a scrub up in the next release. Right now it's a fair old exercise flipping about to get to a simple table of effect / tech level with question marks like the Enhanced suite still floating about for what is a fundamental part of every combat round.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I'm not really understanding Chas's arguments, so let me simplify things...

The ship with the better combat effectiveness should win, regardless of TL. Jump Drives contribute nothing to combat effectiveness, and should be considered irrelevant to the discussion; they may provide a strategic advantage, but that does not appear to be what Chas was getting at.

Perhaps what Chas is trying to get at is, "Official Starship specs should not include wildly varying TL". Or, perhaps, "Military-grade components and systems should become standard hardware after a TL or so, such that a higher TL civilian ship is more likely to win against a civilian ship of lower TL". Maybe more like the latter. Honestly, not sure.

Maybe Chas wants "TL" to be something akin to D&D style "Character Level"; IE, a Level 5 fighter should beat a Level 4 fighter, and as such, a TL14 Scout should beat a TL13 Scout. Not sure if this is reasonable.

 

[Nerhesi]

To me, that is not at all what Chas is saying and I think that is very clear.

What is he is saying, is that TL15 may not seem to be worth it, because I can always create the more efficient spacecraft at TL12 (for example..). Now me and him both agree that may not always be the case, but I think it is does happen. The cost effectiveness to TL

However, a 3 TL difference is Age of sail to 1910.. or 1910 to 1990... These are massive differences, however, they dont seem to be so at the upper level TLs. Very simply, one can also compare what weapons are available at TL6 vs TL9 for example, or 7 and 10 .. and so on.

This has nothing to do with levels, D&D or any other weird analogy. It is actually very sound logical reasoning based on other TL progression.

 

[Chas]

Yes, Nerhesi's got it. What I'm attempting to discuss is the TL relative progression.

Let me draw some parallels. And I'll talk about the evolution of technology vs. revolution of technology.

Evolution
A WW1 platoon of soldiers vs. a 2015 platoon of soldiers. One hundred years apart, yet while there's no question the 2015 platoon should win, they could get seriously harmed by the WW1 platoon. There has been an evolution of infantry technology over this period. There was a revolution when the machine gun was introduced and an American Civil war unit would be in serious trouble against a WW1 unit. You could very likely argue that the assault rifle was another revolution and the WW1 soldiers are going to be pounded. But you get the gist. There could be another revolution (as opposed to evolution) over the next decade as personal armor returns, as body armor capable of stopping bullets is so light as to be able to float now exists

Revolution
WW2 aircraft vs. a post 2000 aircraft. A Sherman tank vs. an M1Abrams. There's no give or take here, no trade offs for performance, no strategic consideration, the later technology is so much better in every single performance facet that they'll massacre the older opponent without breaking a sweat.

So where do we want the Traveller tech level progression to sit? I'd suggest something other than pure revolution, where the new technologies simply make everything else below them redundant. But there needs to be a balance, and I'd put forward my preferred build structure on that basis considering equal tonnage of vessels:

A jump 4 TL 15 ship should beat a jump 3 TL 13 ship or a jump 2 TL 12 ship.

It doesn't have to be a one sided massacre, it definitely shouldn't be, but I'd like to see the edge tipped as noted.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I still don't see what the Jump numbers have to do with it...

 

[Reynard]

If two opposing ships of equal tonnage enter a system, one with Jump 2 and the other with Jump 4, the tonnage has no bearing on the coming battle and the extra tonnage in Jump drive 4 becomes a tactical disadvantage because the lower jump ship uses that same space for tactical systems. However, if the higher TL ship can make use of tech level rules, Primitive and Advanced Spacecraft, and have a budget better than their opponent to pay for it all then yes they will have advantage. There's that craft balance issue.

Does the higher TL craft get more money to build the best ship or is the mighty Credit a limiter? The United States still has the best weapon systems money can buy but it strains the country's resources and funding to achieve it and limits how much weaponry and vehicles it can deploy. Look at the example how US soldiers in recent times were not receiving the best armor (if any), guns, equipment or vehicles to do the job. We can't have naval or land forces of the highest quality everywhere in the world for any circumstance, it just costs too much. Then it takes one person with a shoulder mounted AA missile to down a multi-megabuck aircraft or a low tech anti-ship missile to hole a high tech ship or a very low tech improvised explosive to take out an APC and it's passengers. This should be what Traveller considers too, higher tech is costly. If battles aren't balanced in some way then EVERYONE will want TL 15 ships only because they should always win, period. It's always been a real dance Traveller has done to maintain balance in the various combat designs systems but so far, it's been decent.

 

[Chas]

Yeah. The point about the jump value is that it is THE critical factor in determining relative firepower between ships. The tonnage that it takes up puts all other factors in the shade.

Moreover the Traveller jump system mechanics has an anomaly. Usually in tech level progression, either by game mechanics or real examples, things evolve in pretty much the same size. A turret is a turret is a turret, a racing car engine is still an engine that goes into a car much the same size as any other car. Not so Traveller, the jump drive gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and the fuel it uses gets more and more (when in reality you'd probably expect it to evolve at not too different size paradigms). So not only do high tech weapons need to be better than low tech weapons to represent TL change, if you want higher jump to be a representative TL change up, your high tech weapons need to do more in less space. The Advantages provided look to address this, but I'm not sure the balance is quite right yet. Let's see when the new Beta is out shortly :!:

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Chas, your point is only valid at hull sizes at which barbettes and bay weapons become practical solutions. For point-defense coverage reasons, this is, at minimum, above 400 dTons. If you're trying to frame the discussion in terms of ships of this size, you may well have a point, since that's well above my typical design range. Otherwise, I still don't follow you.

With regard to jump distance, jump distances are limited for setting reasons. They chose "size" to be a relevant constraint in addition to TL in order to limit the range of small ships. If you want technology to change in such a way that it buffers against the jump size limits, you're in for a tough sell.

 

[Chas]

Chas, your point is only valid at hull sizes at which barbettes and bay weapons become practical solutions. For point-defense coverage reasons, this is, at minimum, above 400 dTons. If you're trying to frame the discussion in terms of ships of this size, you may well have a point, since that's well above my typical design range. Otherwise, I still don't follow you.

This is intended as a capital ship discussion, ships of the line at fleet action level. You'll note the 20kton frigate example I provided on the other thread that my point devolved off of.
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=117365

With regard to jump distance, jump distances are limited for setting reasons. They chose "size" to be a relevant constraint in addition to TL in order to limit the range of small ships. If you want technology to change in such a way that it buffers against the jump size limits, you're in for a tough sell.

It's a relative firepower discussion regards the tonnage jump drives leave you. I'm not suggesting changing the jump paradigm for small ships. I'm just stating a technology curve that I feel could be a good balance that represents the relative firepower (and combined combat elements such a maneuver, sensors et al) as would be representative of ship build as the TL goes up. Again with a primary concern towards fleet elements. Trying to build navies at different tech levels that make sense and are feasible as presented. Not wanting a situation where you got pretty pictures and fluff, but once you lifted the lid it was a can of worms