THE COST OF WARSHIPS
]I think it will be a good idea to ask Guy Garnett (Wildstar) how someone
]is able to pay the bill for his ships. He has designed two ships:
]
]> CraftID: PA-Gun Frigate, Type=FFP, TL=15, MCr=117,667.621.
]> CraftID: MesonGun Frigate, Type=FF, TL=15, MCr=100,222.252
]
]Both ships have a really impressing, but I think that's too much money for
]a simple frigate. What the hell a Battleship shall cost ? I must admit,
]I had designed my first ships in a similar manner, but I have decided to
]stop the use of this designes, because of the reasons mentioned below.
Well, I designed those ships, so I'll respond to this one, too. First
things first, I don't know what a battleship *SHOULD* cost, I haven't
dedesigned one yet. For what Marc Miller thinks they should cost, I will
give a rundown from FSSI.
BI-15 (Dreadnought) 3,306,716 MCr
BL-15 Battleship, Light 1,246,820 MCr
BM-15 Battleship, Missile 9,335,821 MCr
BH-15 Battleship, Heavy 17,083,836 MCr
BS-15 Battleship, Strike 1,234,337 MCr
CA-15 Cruiser, Armored 124,009 MCr
CM-15 Cruiser, Missile 134,895 MCr
CS-15 Cruiser, Strike 122,203 MCr
CH-15 Cruiser, Heavy 397,217 MCr
CJ-15 Cruiser, Imperial (Rift) 119,900 MCr
ED-15 Escort, Destroyer 7,757 MCr
EM-15 Escort, Missile 2,207 MCr
EF-15 Escort, Fleet 9,215 MCr
So there you have it. A battleship costs over a trillion credits. My
frigate designs cost less than the cruisers. Significantly less, if the
volume discounts are applied (the price I quoted was for the prototype,
and included architect's fees). In a fight against a cruiser (just about
any of those cruisers) the frigate would probably win. The frigate has
an advantage in DefDM (-14 vs -8 or -7 for the FSSI designs). None of the
FSSI designs include a meson screen (looks like the meson frigate would
wipe up here), and the frigate has a 2G to 5G accelleration advantage,
which would allow the frigate to dictate the range of the combat, or break
off if necessisary. Against a battleship, the frigates very weak secondary
armament might put it at a disadvantage (although its superior speed and
agility *MAY* offset that - which is exactly what the Domain is trying to
find out by building these things). I'd guess that the frigate has a
slim or better chance of besting any one of the battleships. Two frigates
could probably take out a battleship with no trouble.
]Can someone tell me, what's the gross national product of a system like
]Glisten is ? I have estimated an average of 10,000,000 MCr. Do you
]really think, a system is able to use 1% of its income for one ship, and
]those ship will even be a frigate, not a Battleship...
Now, about the GPP (gross planetary product) of Glisten. The only rules I
know of are in Striker, so I'll haul that out now. For a TL-15 world,
the base per-capita GNP is Cr 22,000. In the Imperial Encyclopedia,
Glisten (Marches/2036) is an Industrial world (x1.4) with a population
of about 8 billion (Population code of 9, multiplier of 8), for a
GPP of about MCr 246,400,000. (or in round terms, a little under 250
trillion credits). Striker further mentions that the average system
spends 3% of its GPP on defense (but this may vary at GM's option from
a low of 1% to a max of 15%), for a Glisten defense budget of MCr 7,392,000.
The frigates look pretty affordable to me (only about 2% budget).
If the old (pre-MegaTraveller) Spinward Marches data are used from
Suppliment 3, Glisten (without the population multiplier, and before
it was coded Industrial) has a GPP of MCr 22,000,000 (still about twice your
estimate), giving a defense budget of MCr 660,000. Still affordable, but
now probably the largest ships in the Glisten fleet.
High Guard, Adventure 5, has rules for determining the Navy budget for
a world, based on its population and government type. The computation is
Cr 500 times a government modifier (for Glisten, government type 8, it is
x1.10 in peace, or x1.20 in wartime), times the population. This gives
a Navy budget of MCr 4,400,000 (using the Imperial Encyclopedia) or
MCr 550,000 with Suppliment 3.
]I personally (as GM !) have decided not to use any armour in ships
]greater than 2000 tons displacement. Armour is simply to expensive.
]As a navy admiral I would decide to build two ships instead of one
]with an armour. The price would be the same. Armour is only efficient if
]you have a small ship, because it decreases the number of additional
]critical hits.
]
]Any comments ?
]
]Juergen
I armored the frigates because they are small enough to suffer critical
hits from the largest spinal weapons; the armor is there to help mitigate
the damage (for whatever shots get through the DefDM and screens). The
armor also helps to protect against nuclear missiles; it is still possible
to scrape weapons off of the hull, but it should protect the crew and
vital components long enough for the frigate to finish off its adversary.
Without the armor, the ships would have been much cheaper, and have a
large amount of power available for secondary weaponry. It is a trade-off.
I would be interested in testing your armor theory in combat.
OTHER SUBJECTS
One use I can see for M-T Variant is to publish "fixed-up" Traveller rules.
Personally, I like many of the basic tenents of Traveller, but think that
the current batch of rules is a mess, and the previous batch was too
disorganized into zillions of tiny booklets (lesee now, the basic set,
Mercenary, High Guard, Merchant Prince, Scouts, and Striker ...).
It's late, I had better go to bed ... up again too soon tomorrow.
What about submissions for M-T Variant? I finished reading a bunch of
bundles yesterday, and saw some other good things, including the bit on
alternate anchients, and an article on fusion reactors.
G'night
Wildstar
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