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

[ottarrus]

This. We don’t fight in the big leagues.

Hence my comment earlier about somebody documenting a multi-squadron engagement to see what needs to be fixed with MgHG2.
By 'document', I mean doing it very much like a scientific experiment or a mathematics problem and the dreaded 'show your work'.
- These are the ships of Intruder, these are the ships of Defender. Show the ship sheets.
- Describe the tactical scenario and victory conditions.
- Fight out the engagement paying particular attention to where you looked up information by page number.
- Cite where the rules are contradictory, confusing, or require a table ruling.
- Explain the tester's rulings.
- Continue the entire engagement, documenting all the above, until the victory conditions are met.
- Summarize the results.

Now I am very much not that guy. I don't have the sense of detail to get all the information necessary for a book of rules mechanics to be corrected. What's more, my writing style is... kind of wordy and unnecessarily complicated. It's something I work on, but have never really been able to correct.
But for all that I am not that guy, I would very much like to read and 'chalk talk' that guy's work.

 

[Vormaerin]

Hmm, lots of great chat and banter, but I think we've departed a long way from the actual MgT HG fleet battle rules, which no-one actually seems to play (?)
All these tweaks and rules exploits seem designed to exploit the basic HG system (which nobody in their right mind would try to fight a fleet battle with).

Yeah, ultimately, I don't find it useful to worry too much about exactly what some Imperial warship can do because I can't foresee a situation where I'd want to resolve a High Guard fleet battle. I am much more concerned about how things work at the small (sub 2000 ton) level in practice.

I don't expect that the rules will survive a close reading any more than High Guard CT did when tournaments were won by a horde of 10k ships or by a swarm of planetoids and fleets built the way the Imperium builds them were hopeless.

 

[J. L. Brown]

The 800 Hornets vs 5 Tigress match-up looks bad for the Tigresses.

Start at 'Distant' range as close to 'Very Long' as fast as possible -- that takes a combined Thrust of 50G. Both forces together generate 15G, so three turns at 'Distant' Range. Only the Tigresses can fire, 430 x 12 x 5 = 25800 Advanced missiles per turn, but those missiles will be in flight for (weirdly, HG p38 -- seven turns). There will be three flights inbound (and 2400 Sensors /EW checks) before the first Hornet fires.

800 x 21 (avg damage) + (avg die roll of 7, +2 for 'High Automation', +5 for Basic Fire Control) = 21600 damage (x100, but we'll get to that later); enough to kill 4 Tigresses outright regardless of their ineffective defenses. In return, the Tigresses kill 5 Hornets outright with their spinal mounts, the 1500 Beam lasers are out of range, the 1000 Fusion guns are out of range, the 500 'Intense Focus' Particle Beams fire for 500 x (10.5 +6 +7avg roll +3 Advanced Fire Control, +2 skill = effect 4 ) = 16500 points of damage in groups of 21 points (AP 2); each hit gets 8 points through. 528 points to kill a Hornet, so 66 hits per kill --- eight more Hornets die.

Total so far -- thirteen Hornets are destroyed, four Tigresses are destroyed, and the last is heavily damaged.

 

[Vormaerin]

Ultimately, I don't think the question of the best way to build a warship in the rules can actually be resolved. Best for what purpose? Fighting even up slugfests that probably never happen in the fictional reality of the Third Imperium, just in the rulesets of Traveller?

Ottarus is correct that warships are not actually designed for maximum combat effectiveness, because that's only a small part of their function. If that extra performance comes at too great a cost to its other functions, the ship won't be built that way. Ships are also designed to fight known opponents. Can the Imperial Fleet beat the Zhodani Fleet? Can it beat the Solomani Fleet? Can it handle the Vargr and Ihatei raiding groups?

And then we get into the procurement politics, treaty agreements, and other intangibles I mentioned before.

Given all that, I personally am fine saying that the published ships are what the Imperium builds. Maybe J3 would be "better", but someone in the Admiralty decided that the extra mobility had value. Given the huge distances the Imperium spans, a 33% increase in speed seems pretty reasonable for "other considerations". And that's without dealing with situations where J3 requires detouring. Just as an example, a J4 fleet can go from Regina to Lanth in 3 jumps. It's 5 jumps at J3. And those J4 stops are all B or better ports with scout or naval bases while the J3 route is both within strike range of the border and requires going through several class C and E ports that don't have gas giants. So in that situation, the J4 is not simply 33% better.

Maybe more cruisers would be "better", but there is diplomatic, political, and logistical advantages to battleships in certain circumstances. And if those three cruisers can't beat the dreadnought, then they aren't enough even if they give you enormous advantages in flexibility.

And so on with every design decision down the line. They give something and take something away. You can decide that the Imperium is building the best ships it can given the innumerable competing demands on the Navy or you can spend a lot of time rebuilding all the published ships to suit what you think they should be. Which is doubtless fun for some people, so more power to them.

 

[Vormaerin]

The 800 Hornets vs 5 Tigress match-up looks bad for the Tigresses.

Start at 'Distant' range as close to 'Very Long' as fast as possible -- that takes a combined Thrust of 50G. Both forces together generate 15G, so three turns at 'Distant' Range. Only the Tigresses can fire, 430 x 12 x 5 = 25800 Advanced missiles per turn, but those missiles will be in flight for (weirdly, HG p38 -- seven turns). There will be three flights inbound (and 2400 Sensors /EW checks) before the first Hornet fires.

800 x 21 (avg damage) + (avg die roll of 7, +2 for 'High Automation', +5 for Basic Fire Control) = 21600 damage (x100, but we'll get to that later); enough to kill 4 Tigresses outright regardless of their ineffective defenses. In return, the Tigresses kill 5 Hornets outright with their spinal mounts, the 1500 Beam lasers are out of range, the 1000 Fusion guns are out of range, the 500 'Intense Focus' Particle Beams fire for 500 x (10.5 +6 +7avg roll +3 Advanced Fire Control, +2 skill = effect 4 ) = 16500 points of damage in groups of 21 points (AP 2); each hit gets 8 points through. 528 points to kill a Hornet, so 66 hits per kill --- eight more Hornets die.

Total so far -- thirteen Hornets are destroyed, four Tigresses are destroyed, and the last is heavily damaged.

I assume the 1500 heavy fighters carried by the Tigresses are factored into all of that?

Also, don't know about your Hornets, but the Tigress has Evasion software that should reduce the to hit value of all incoming attacks by 3, even if the pilot is spending all Thrust and so can't evade.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Battlecruiser

In real life, battlecruisers have always been a controversial and contentious issue, but I thought I'd approach this from a more statistical angle.

While the recognized features of the battlecruiser, firepower and speed at the expense of armour, could be universally and timelessly applied, it took Fisher to bring it to the fore.

The sweet spot appears to be twenty sevenish thousand tonnes, speed depending on (sub)tech level, and armament nine twelve inchers, eight to ten twelve inchers, eight thirteen to fourteen inchers, or six fifteen inchers. No larger "pure" battlecruiser was completed, some were converted to aircraft carriers

This translates in Traveller terms to hundred thousand tonnes, if you assume that at tech level twelve weight was at parity with battleships, but that most naval staffs started preferring to invest in more survivability, rather than speed and range, at tech level thirteen. The Solomani constructed the Zeuses at one fifty kay, while the Imperium designed the tech level fourteen Diaspora to weigh in the same as a battleship, at two hundred kay. Both were singular classes, though for different reasons. For the Solomani they were an intermediate step, while for the Imperium filled a niche requirement they felt they didn't need or actually want.

While battlecruisers are the perfect peacetime capital ship, providing a fast response to potentially critical situations, and power projection in low risk scenarios, arguably useful for short, sharp conflicts. Their roles would be taken over by higher teched super cruisers, which while they didn't match them in size and firepower, were more efficient in it's application.

Uparmouring and upgrading battlecruisers, especially at the expense of speed, tends to turn them into intermediate fast battleships, or if you try to reconcile Traveller, light high tech battleships. It should be noted, that means I see it viable to increasing the actual tonnage of the hull.

The Dunkerques and the Renowns were likely the only true battlecruisers at the start of the Great Patriotic War, and by the start of the Great War, the Splendid Cats had hit the sweet spot in nineteen ten, with eight thirteen and a half inchers, and weighing in at twenty seven kay tonnes.

While the Imperium might have commissioned battlecruiser classes prior to tech level fourteen, there are no canonical examples, and by the language used in books dealing with the Imperium Navy, they'd be reluctant to do so.

Likely, any remaining battlecruisers, outside of the Diasporas, would tend to be refurbished tech level twelves hundred kay and under, perhaps uparmoured to turn them into light battleships.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I assume the 1500 heavy fighters carried by the Tigresses are factored into all of that?

Also, don't know about your Hornets, but the Tigress has Evasion software that should reduce the to hit value of all incoming attacks by 3, even if the pilot is spending all Thrust and so can't evade.

No, I neglected the fighters.I do not believe they will be relevant, but I add them in.

They have Evade/2 and Man-9G -- so they close faster than the Tigresses, and get to 'Very Long' range in turn four instead of turn five. They each have more missiles, and a single (un-upgraded) Beam laser turret; their lasers cannot get through the armor of the Hornets at all. They can put anther 1500 missiles into flight; those will arrive on turn turn six. Tho hornets fire the 800x Large Meson Bays; avg roll of 7 +5 for fire control +2 for High Automation +1 for crew skill -4 for small target -4 for 'Very Distant' range (I forgot that one earlier, oops.) and -2 for Evade/2; this is not a hit on average so let's break it down:
22 results of '12' (effect +2), 44 results of '11' (effect +1), 66 rolls of '10' (effect +0) -- the rest miss.
132 fighters destroyed in round four; round five they get a reprieve as the Hornets shoot at the Tigresses.
Round six, and the remaining Tigresses are destroyed, the Hornets have Evade/3, and the Fighters can close at 1G -- but now they are at 'Long' range, and will be for ~2 turns, losing ~100 fighters per turn.

Turn nine, the Hornets are in 'Medium' range of the fighters, and Fusion Barbettes are doing ( avg of 7 +2.5 Fire Control +1 Skill +2 High Automation +1 'Accurate' -2 Evasion/2 -0 Medium range = effect 6.5 ), easily hitting for (17.5+6.5) = 24 -15 = 9x3 = 27 damage. Each Hornet has 2x fusion barbettes

The Hornet has Evade/3 and 9G of Man, so it has an edge against the Evade/2 and 6G Tigress. If the Tigresses and Hornets only closed at 10G, using the rest for Evasion, then the Tigresses have five turns to launch missiles before the first shots are fired -- but the missiles are still at least two turns out when things get hairy.

Turn 1 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900, impact on turn eight
Turn 2 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900 impact on turn nine
Turn 3 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900 impact on turn ten
Turn 4 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900 impact on turn eleven, plus 1500 impact on turn six
Turn 5 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 25800 impact on turn seven, plus 1400 impact on turn seven
Turn 6 missiles = 430 x 1 x 12 = 5160 impact on turn eight, plus 1300 impact on turn eight

Depending on how the missiles are adjudicated, this might be up to 3650 'salvos' per round. I am going to figure the fighters are in 'squadrons' of 12, so all together they launch the equivalent of 25 more 'Small Missile Bays'. Assuming no EW against the missiles, each 24 'Small Missile Bay' worth destroys one Hornet.

Turn six, 50 Hornets are destroyed by missiles; turn seven, 95; turn eight, 68; turn nine, 45 Hornets & 1174 fighters are destroyed; turn ten, 49 more Hornets and the remaining fighters.

Hornets will take fewer casualties than this with EW, but I didn't want to bother with it.

 

[Vormaerin]

I would think that the fighters would time their launch to arrive with the first waves of the Tigresses'. Also, if the Tigresses are going to be swarmed by the very long range shots of the Hornets, they aren't going to go pellmell into range, so stay at Distant and dropping missiles as long as they can.

But it looks to me like you are trying to resolve the combat using the single ship combat rules? I don't see any of the Fleet Combat values in use?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Agreed.


I suspect spinals are obsolete in HG22. The same tonnage of bays can potentially more damage, with more to hit rolls, hence less chance of dodging.

A 7500 Dton meson does 6D×1000, average 21000 damage.
15 large meson bays does 15×6D×100, average 31500 damage and is more difficult to dodge, and can fire at several (and smaller) enemies.

That is a major shift. The same thing happened in T20, meson bays were a better investment than meson spinals.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The 800 Hornets vs 5 Tigress match-up looks bad for the Tigresses.

Start at 'Distant' range as close to 'Very Long' as fast as possible -- that takes a combined Thrust of 50G. Both forces together generate 15G, so three turns at 'Distant' Range. Only the Tigresses can fire, 430 x 12 x 5 = 25800 Advanced missiles per turn, but those missiles will be in flight for (weirdly, HG p38 -- seven turns). There will be three flights inbound (and 2400 Sensors /EW checks) before the first Hornet fires.

Why would the Tigresses want to close in? They have the advantage at longer ranges with missiles, try to stay at Distant. The fighters might want to close in.

The Hornets close in at 9 G, Tigresses retreat at 6 G, total range change of 3 G per round, or 17 round till VLong range.

They can launch 27000 missiles per round (with the fighters). The Hornets can kill 16000 800×2×6D ≈ 33600 per round with the PD batteries. This is going to hurt... No effect...

800 x 21 (avg damage) + (avg die roll of 7, +2 for 'High Automation', +5 for Basic Fire Control) = 21600 damage (x100, but we'll get to that later); enough to kill 4 Tigresses outright regardless of their ineffective defenses.

-range, -evade.

In return, the Tigresses kill 5 Hornets outright with their spinal mounts, the 1500 Beam lasers are out of range, the 1000 Fusion guns are out of range, the 500 'Intense Focus' Particle Beams fire for 500 x (10.5 +6 +7avg roll +3 Advanced Fire Control, +2 skill = effect 4 ) = 16500 points of damage in groups of 21 points (AP 2); each hit gets 8 points through. 528 points to kill a Hornet, so 66 hits per kill --- eight more Hornets die.

The spinal only has range Long. Out of range.
Spinals can't target ships under 2000 Dt.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Turn 1 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900, impact on turn eight
Turn 2 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900 impact on turn nine
Turn 3 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900 impact on turn ten
Turn 4 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 12900 impact on turn eleven, plus 1500 impact on turn six
Turn 5 missiles = 430 x 5 x 12 /2 (long flight time) = 25800 impact on turn seven, plus 1400 impact on turn seven
Turn 6 missiles = 430 x 1 x 12 = 5160 impact on turn eight, plus 1300 impact on turn eight

Depending on how the missiles are adjudicated, this might be up to 3650 'salvos' per round. I am going to figure the fighters are in 'squadrons' of 12, so all together they launch the equivalent of 25 more 'Small Missile Bays'. Assuming no EW against the missiles, each 24 'Small Missile Bay' worth destroys one Hornet.

Launch missile swarm in pairs of different speeds, that will impact in the same round to minimise PD.
Missiles halves for every full five rounds, except Long Range missiles.

Launch Nukes round 1, arrives round 11 (quartered)
Launch Nukes round 2, arrives round 12 (quartered)
Launch Nukes round 3, arrives round 13 (quartered)
Launch Advan round 4, arrives round 11 (halved)
Launch Advan round 5, arrives round 12 (halved)
Launch Advan round 6, arrives round 13 (halved)

Round 11-13: 27000/4 = 6750 nukes and 27000/2 = 13500 advanced will arrive. PD swats 800×2×6D ≈ 33600 missiles, i.e. all of them by a wide margin.

Tigresses jumps out or surrenders?

 

[Sigtrygg]

I suppose we'll just have to admit that the Admiralty of the Third Imperium doesn't read the rules and go from there.

Or that the game designers don't use the rules they write to describe their setting...

 

[Condottiere]

Asymmetric warfare.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That is a major shift. The same thing happened in T20, meson bays were a better investment than meson spinals.

HG'17 was specifically tuned to make battleships viable.

HG'22 not so much.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Or that the game designers don't use the rules they write to describe their setting...

Already CT S9 said battle riders were superior (and coined the term), the mainstay of the IN, but used battleships anyway...

They read the rules and ignored them.

 

[Vormaerin]

Also, I think there's a rules violation in the Riders build. They use Fire Control/5. Fire Control is a basic program. It only can be used for Turret weapons per the description. Yes, it says "fire a number of turrets or assist the gunner with an attack", but there's no non turret weapons in that set of rules.

Advanced Fire Control's description reinforces this by saying Basic Fire Control is useful for small ships with a few turrets and you need Advanced Fire Control for more sophisticated weapons.

High Automation isn't mentioned anywhere in the Fleet Combat Rules, but I'd say it counts as +2 to Crew Skill since that's the closest comparable, which means it effectively a +1 to the Offensive & Defensive DRMs for Fleet Combat since Crew Skill is halved in those calculations.


Also, I think it is a flaw in the rules that you can upgrade a bay to be longer range than the same weapon type's spinal mount version, but ymmv.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I would think that the fighters would time their launch to arrive with the first waves of the Tigresses'. Also, if the Tigresses are going to be swarmed by the very long range shots of the Hornets, they aren't going to go pellmell into range, so stay at Distant and dropping missiles as long as they can.

Agreed.

But it looks to me like you are trying to resolve the combat using the single ship combat rules? I don't see any of the Fleet Combat values in use?

That is the baseline. Fleet emulates that, but simplified.

In Fleet battle the Hornets have Armour 15 / 3.5 (round up) = 5 so ignores everything but Nuke missiles.

Salvo Defence of the Hornets is:
PD: 2×12 = 24,
EW: 3/3 × 2 = 2, (sensOps/3 × crew skill)
Tot: 26 × 800 = 20800.

Nuke missiles are still quartered as they arrive after 10 rounds, so no effect.


The Hornets bays will do 6/100 damage. Since armour is ineffective that is 800×6×100 = 480 000 fleet damage.
Tigress Defensive DM is: Crew skill/2 (up) + Evade + 2 for TL = 1 + 3 + 2 = 6
Hornet Offensive DM is: Crew skill/2 (up) + FireContr + 2 for TL = 1 + 5 + 2 = 8
Attack Effectiveness is: OffDM - DefDM - range = 8 - 6 - 4 = -2 for an effectiveness of 0.5.
Hornets do 480 000 × 0.5 = 240 000 fleet damage.
A Tigress has 366666 Hull, or 366666 / 3.5 ≈ 105000 fleet hull.
800 Hornets kills a little over two Tigresses per round at VLong range.

Secondary armaments are ineffective against armour or at range, so no effect for either Tigress or Hornets.

Hornets wins quickly, once in range, with no losses.

Screen defence is ( crew skill + 3.5 ) × 10 = 55 per screen. About 4000 screens (~50000 Dt) would save the Tigress.


The Tigress is, as usual, suboptimal in combat and will be defeated by anything reasonably designed.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Also, I think there's a rules violation in the Riders build. They use Fire Control/5. Fire Control is a basic program. It only can be used for Turret weapons per the description. Yes, it says "fire a number of turrets or assist the gunner with an attack", but there's no non turret weapons in that set of rules.

Core, p161:
Allows the computer to fire a number of turrets per round equal to the listed number. Alternatively, it can give a positive DM to an attack equal to the listed number or any combination of the two.

If can fire turrets or give a DM to any attack.

High Automation isn't mentioned anywhere in the Fleet Combat Rules, but I'd say it counts as +2 to Crew Skill since that's the closest comparable, which means it effectively a +1 to the Offensive & Defensive DRMs for Fleet Combat since Crew Skill is halved in those calculations.

Seems reasonable.

Also, I think it is a flaw in the rules that you can upgrade a bay to be longer range than the same weapon type's spinal mount version, but ymmv.

Optional.

HG,p71:
WEAPON AND SCREEN ADVANTAGES
Referees might want to restrict the use of these rules
with spinal mount weapons, as they already have their
own table for varying Tech Levels.

Unless restricted, spinals can use any tech advantage.

They really need Long Range advantage to be effective...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Launch Nukes round 1, arrives round 11 (quartered)
Launch Nukes round 2, arrives round 12 (quartered)
Launch Nukes round 3, arrives round 13 (quartered)
Launch Advan round 4, arrives round 11 (halved)
Launch Advan round 5, arrives round 12 (halved)
Launch Advan round 6, arrives round 13 (halved)

Round 11-13: 27000/4 = 6750 nukes and 27000/2 = 13500 advanced will arrive. PD swats 800×2×6D ≈ 33600 missiles, i.e. all of them by a wide margin.

This nicely illustrates a point: Go all out for missiles, or don't bother.

The 66000 Dt spinal replaced with 190 large bays would increase the throw weight to ~28000 missiles per round.
Replace the fighters with another 50 large bays for a total of 34000 missiles per round.
Five missile-Tigresses would launch 170000 missiles per round, easily overwhelming the Hornets PD capacity.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, it says or an attack. But Turret weapons are the only attack in that set of rules. It is my opinion that the fact that a rules set that only has turrets does not specify that it does not apply to things that don't exist in the game yet is not evidence that it is supposed to let you have +5 to your spinal mount shot or whatever.

And I feel like this makes it clear:


But, it is true, it does not categorically prohibit using basic fire control on your bays and spinal mounts. With that interpetation, every spinal mount equipped ship (and any with a single dominant bay weapon, as well) should have Basic Fire Control/5 running in parallel to get the extra +2 to hit on the main attack and let the Advanced Fire Control handle the secondary armaments.