Why are warships built without armored bulkheads, EM hardening, and backup power?

[AnotherDilbert]

A Tech Level 15 Meson Spinal mount is only 6000 dTons, 1000 Power, 60 gunners, and 2400 MCr -- for low/avg/high damage of 6000/21000/36000.

A Tech Level 15 (2x 'Smaller') loadout of 15x Large Meson Bays is 6000 dTons, 1500 Power, 60 Gunners, and 3750 MCr -- for a low/avg/high damage of 9000/31500/54000.

Agreed, but 10 large bays are smaller, same power, almost same cost, but still does more damage since less dodging.

Change the Reduced Size to Long Range the bays even has a range advantage. The bays are still smaller than the spinal...

 

[MasterGwydion]

Agreed, but 10 large bays are smaller, same power, almost same cost, but still does more damage since less dodging.

Change the Reduced Size to Long Range the bays even has a range advantage. The bays are still smaller than the spinal...

Seems like the spinals need beefed up some to compete with the new bay rules. Make the x1,000 thing x100, but before you add the multiplier you add the old DD x10 for non-starship weapons, then subtract the screens. This will apply only to spinals, making them more effective and making screens useful again.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If that's how the rules lean, they should use those. And we'd need a Warmonger to drop a bazillion of them on the system.

Ten smaller carriers would be roughly the same cost, but could potentially be in then different locations. Dispersed AND concentrated power.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Seems like the spinals need beefed up some to compete with the new bay rules.

Or -- nerf the new Bays a little.

Whoops -- I think I made an error above. 15x (2x 'Smaller') Large Meson bays take 1800 power; 90 extra dTons of powerplant.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Or -- nerf the new Bays a little.

Better to buff the spinals. If players are taking fire from spinals, they are done. End of game, but Bay Weapons can be on ACS.

Edit: My reason for this is that I think it would be better in keeping with the "feel" of Traveller.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Or -- nerf the new Bays a little.

If we nerf the bays we have to adjust ALL weapon damage to balance.

Easier to boost spinals...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Particle spinals are even worse. As written armour reduces particle spinals both as a percentage and deducted from the damage roll, as far as I can see.
A 10D PA spinal is reduced by 30 Armour to next to nothing, and then by 90% again.
An average roll of '35' would become 5, reduced to 0.5, multiplied by 1000 to do 500 damage.

A large PA bay (with the tasty range of Distant) would do 10D, average 35, reduced to 5, multiplied by 100 = 500 damage.

That must be errata?

 

[J. L. Brown]

Particle spinals are even worse. As written armour reduces particle spinals both as a percentage and deducted from the damage roll, as far as I can see.
A 10D PA spinal is reduced by 30 Armour to next to nothing, and then by 90% again.
An average roll of '35' would become 5, reduced to 0.5, multiplied by 1000 to do 500 damage.

A large PA bay (with the tasty range of Distant) would do 10D, average 35, reduced to 5, multiplied by 100 = 500 damage.

That must be errata?

I'm not sure where you are sourcing your rules from; that does not seem quite right to my eye.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I was able to build a battle rider with a single large meson bay at 1,200 tons. I maybe could have shrunk it a little, but this one is nicely rounded. I changed the Crossbow Battle Rider I designed (16,000 tons) to swap out the meson spinal weapon for 14 large bays. Looking at the two, the larger is 10 times the cost (BCr14.605 vs BCr1.4365), but you get 13.3 smaller hulls (BCr18.6745) for the same tonnage.

A Warmonger will carry 666 of the little beasts. Sounds appropriate for the hell they'd be bringing. ;0

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm not sure where you are sourcing your rules from; that does not seem quite right to my eye.

I may be wrong, but:

Core, p168:
Once the total amount of damage a weapon is causing has been calculated, applying the Effect of the attack roll to the damage rolled as normal, the Armour of the spacecraft is deducted.

HG, p29, sidebar:
Barbettes, bay weapons and spinal mount weapons have damage multiples. After a hit is scored, roll damage, subtracting armour and other countermeasures from the total. Be sure to subtract AP from the armour before reducing damage. Multiply the remaining damage by the Damage Multiple for the final damage.

HG, p36:
The damage dealt by a particle spinal mount is reduced by 3% per point of armour possessed by the target before applying the Damage Multiple.

It's probably intended to be percentage only, but that is not explicitly stated.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I was able to build a battle rider with a single large meson bay at 1,200 tons. I maybe could have shrunk it a little, but this one is nicely rounded. I changed the Crossbow Battle Rider I designed (16,000 tons) to swap out the meson spinal weapon for 14 large bays. Looking at the two, the larger is 10 times the cost, but you get 13.3 smaller hulls for the same tonnage.

But the smaller riders get to hit +5 from Fire Control software, the bigger gets to hit +3 from Adv Fire Control.

The resulting higher Effect is added to the damage roll before multiplier, so you both hit more often and do more damage.

 

[Terry Mixon]

But the smaller riders get to hit +5 from Fire Control software, the bigger gets to hit +3 from Adv Fire Control.

The resulting higher Effect is added to the damage roll before multiplier, so you both hit more often and do more damage.

I'm not arguing against the idea. I like it. I'll write them up and post them in the other thread.

 

[Vormaerin]

In the Charted Space milieu, battlecruisers are offensive raiders. They go after soft targets [merchant convoys, low defense worlds, etc.] and do very poorly when fighting within their weight class. Imperial doctrine thinks that they can get two or three very capable cruisers for the price of one battlecruiser and that those cruisers will put an Imperial Naval presence in several systems instead of just one over the life of the hulls in question.
Essentially they see battlecruiser warfare as being valid during an active war, but a waste of credits otherwise.

Historically, battlecruisers existed because of the armor-offense-speed pick 2 paradigm. Battleships picked offense and armor. Battlecruisers picked offense and speed. They were roughly similar size ships.

It isn't clear that the High Guard rules really make the armor-offense-speed paradigm have the same impact. Traveller Dreadnaughts are not lacking tactical speed. So the "speed" component is probably Jump rating. And is there really that much value in Jump 5 or Jump 6 cruisers that make giving up the requisite armor or offense worthwhile?

They have a few Rift Cruisers/Frontier Cruisers for patrolling those kinds of spaces, but outside of that I suspect that the Imperium is correct. J4 frontline battleships are all you need. You don't need "fast battleships" for taking down cruisers, because your dreadnaughts are already Thrust 6 and can chase them down just fine.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Historically, battlecruisers existed because of the armor-offense-speed pick 2 paradigm. Battleships picked offense and armor. Battlecruisers picked offense and speed. They were roughly similar size ships.

It isn't clear that the High Guard rules really make the armor-offense-speed paradigm have the same impact. Traveller Dreadnaughts are not lacking tactical speed. So the "speed" component is probably Jump rating. And is there really that much value in Jump 5 or Jump 6 cruisers that make giving up the requisite armor or offense worthwhile?

They have a few Rift Cruisers/Frontier Cruisers for patrolling those kinds of spaces, but outside of that I suspect that the Imperium is correct. J4 frontline battleships are all you need. You don't need "fast battleships" for taking down cruisers, because your dreadnaughts are already Thrust 6 and can chase them down just fine.

This neglects the known strategy for the Imperium to win against the Zhodani -- raid their rear areas. It forces them to draw assets back from their offense, and cuts supplies to their forces in the field. It is possible that these 'Battle Cruiser' designs are specifically for that role when a war comes.

 

[Vormaerin]

Well, the point is that the Imperium doesn't like battlecruisers and think they suck. The question is whether a J5 or J6 raider is better than a better armored, better armed J4 regular raider. It seems unlikely that is reliably the case. It is a LOT of space to get that extra jump range.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I may be wrong, but:

Core, p168:
Once the total amount of damage a weapon is causing has been calculated, applying the Effect of the attack roll to the damage rolled as normal, the Armour of the spacecraft is deducted.

HG, p29, sidebar:
Barbettes, bay weapons and spinal mount weapons have damage multiples. After a hit is scored, roll damage, subtracting armour and other countermeasures from the total. Be sure to subtract AP from the armour before reducing damage. Multiply the remaining damage by the Damage Multiple for the final damage.

HG, p36:
The damage dealt by a particle spinal mount is reduced by 3% per point of armour possessed by the target before applying the Damage Multiple.

It's probably intended to be percentage only, but that is not explicitly stated.

That's pretty funky -- only Particle Spinals have the 3% reduction per Armor rating. Large Particle Bays do not suffer that effect at all.

Perhaps that was just bad editing; it was meant to be a general rule to apply to reducing 'Radiation Damage' through armor, while still allowing the damage points to do whatever. Good catch; I never noticed that before.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It isn't clear that the High Guard rules really make the armor-offense-speed paradigm have the same impact. Traveller Dreadnaughts are not lacking tactical speed. So the "speed" component is probably Jump rating. And is there really that much value in Jump 5 or Jump 6 cruisers that make giving up the requisite armor or offense worthwhile?

They have a few Rift Cruisers/Frontier Cruisers for patrolling those kinds of spaces, but outside of that I suspect that the Imperium is correct. J4 frontline battleships are all you need. You don't need "fast battleships" for taking down cruisers, because your dreadnaughts are already Thrust 6 and can chase them down just fine.

J-4 are fast battleships, much more expensive than J-3 battleships. In CT we couldn't build J-4 battleships without severe compromises, even at TL-15, e.g. the Tigress was J-3.

As the system is built battleships would be J-3, cruisers J-4. J-3 warships would have about twice the space for weapons and defences, or be half the size and cost. J-5+ or higher are not effective warships.

Warships are even more space-starved in HG'22 (than HG'17) because of the doubled armour.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends very much on the roles you envision a type of starwarship fulfilling.

I was ready to discard the battlecruiser, but the narrative said that the Confederation Navy still built them.

 

[Vormaerin]

Okay, but every MGT2e frontline Naval vessel is J4 and the Imperial Navy sourcebook specifies that J4 is the "if you can't do this, you are obsolete" standard.

Here's the Kokirrak:

And a quick glance at the counters in FFW boardgame show most of the battle squadrons are Jump 4.

Obviously, that could be changed, but then we are having a different discussion.

 

[Condottiere]

There's weird stuff going on in the Confederation, which doesn't make military sense.

But, you know ...