Document: 142.09
Title : Thoughts for starships in future Traveller. V1.00
(+ a few other things thrown in)
Date : 8 February, 1991
Initial Distribution:
Clay Bush
Bryan Borich
Mike Mikesh
Author : Roger Myhre
Ammerudgrenda 168
0960 Oslo 9
Norway
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SUMMARY: This document will discuss how the naval combat rules could be
in the revised Traveller rules. It takes in consideration of what I
feel have to be changed by the rules in general. I have thus included
some of my suggestions that I had for the present Traveller rules. This
document also touches a few other topics as well. I have included
revised excerpts of letters I have sent to Clay Bush.
***********************************************************************
Expressions used in this document.
-----------------------------------
Traveller Current MegaTraveller
Classic Traveller Pre MegaTraveller
Revised Traveller Post MegaTraveller
AAW Anti Air Warfare
INH Imperial Navy Handbook
INTRODUCTION.
One of my most burning interests in Traveller is starships and
starship combats. One of the reasons for this I have the rush of navy
romantics flowing in my bloodstream. Many of my relatives have been
either Navy or merchant captains or crew. I myself have been in the
navy for about 15 months as a sensor operator. Why I'm not in the navy
now is by medical reasons. But now I'm loosing the track.
There is a few things I always wanted to change by the starship
combat in Traveller. Heck... There is a lot of things I wanted to
change. Those who have been informed through Clay Bush or read
documents 142.02 and 142.03 know that I have used heavy ammunition
against the rules as they are.
My main purpose was to simplify much as possible. But also to
make the rules more realistic. Below I have listed those items that I
attacked most energetic.
- Hit procedures
- Penetration procedures
- Damage procedures
- Sensors
- Scales
- Movement
- Firing arcs
RULES IN GENERAL.
One thing I wanted to simplify was the Hit procedure. Calculating
the DM's in the way it was done it was difficult to keep track of more
that a few crafts per side. Not only that but you had to roll once for
each battery which fired. This got soon boring when you played with
cruisers with more than 20 batteries. Or battleships with several
hundred.
***********************************************************************
19 August, 1991
The hit task can be changed like this. If we presume that the max
effective combat range for starships will be somewhat more than 3000Km,
if you use passive sensors, each hex could be 15Km across. Thus there
should be possible to use the Fire controlled hit task on page 72 in
Players manual.
So the task could look like this:
[difficulty], Off=comp mod, Def=Agility, SizeDM, confrontation
Beam lasers should get a +1 on the hit task, due to their greater
precision over pulse lasers.
***********************************************************************
For those of you who reacts on the effective combat range for
starships read the section about sensors.
As you see above the hit task becomes much easier and faster to
use. No need to look up in tables to find DM's Dropping the weapon DM
and defensive computer DM simplifies the calculation greatly and speeds
it up. To this rule I have not worked out any One-Roll-For-Many-Batteries
rule but it was just around the corner when the news about revision came.
Penetration procedures was neither popular with me. As above too
many DM's and other strange factors. And rolling once for each battery.
(sigh) I worked out a few rules for this, but lacked any good ideas
for penetration of screens and configuration.
***********************************************************************
16 September, 1991
But before the hit task is rolled the attacker declares his attacks
against a target. Then the target must find out how much of the defensive
system he or she got to bring to bear against the attack. Most shots which
are directed at a target will be close enough to fool the defender to use
defensive measures against shots that will actually miss.
To defend against an incoming shot.
Difficult, Difference in UCP value of weapons, Comp/3, instant
Referee: this task is only rolled for weapons that are going to penetrate
defenses like beams, sandcasters and repulsors. Computer may be substituted
with gunnery skill. Pulse laser got +2 penetration.
Example: The offender shoots with a pulse laser battery with UCP value 6.
The defender uses a sandcaster with factor 7. His ship computer is a model 6.
This gives a DM of +2 (7+(6/3)-6-2).
When all the defensive batteries have tried to stop the incoming fire the
attacker rolls the hit tasks for the shots that did not get stopped.
***********************************************************************
As you see the simple task above reduces the labor for checking tables
and calculating DM's with factors that have nothing in the task to do. Then I
think of the Computer model in the offenders parts of the task listed in
Refs manual. The computer have no influence of how the defence administer
the defensive measures. Thus that part is removed. To equalize the factors a
bit I decided to divide the defenders model number on 3. This reflects the
difficulty to stop incoming fire. At least when the incoming is moving at
the speed of light.
Damage procedures are maybe the subject I have attacked most fiercly
(with exception of sensors.) I felt it was tedious to roll 20 times for a
spinal mount. Say if you hit with a meson gun you had to roll on 2 tables.
Internal and radiation damage. 20 times on each is too much labor. And then
there is critical hits. Maybe 30 to 50 rolls just to find out that your ship
is blown into stardust. That's several minutes wasted just there.
Then there is UCP-1 laser that can give Man-1 in damage on any ship size
if it does not have any armor above 40. This is just too much. One other
thing is that fighters can't hurt battleships. I don't want 1 fighter able to
kill one BB neither 10 or 100, but maybe 300 or 400 will do the job. Here I
would like to compare with Leviathan from FASA. An excellent game. Here a
large force of fighters can defeat a BB of largest type. It all depends on
tactics and what kind of fighters you choose.
***********************************************************************
16 September, 1991
I think we should use the damage and penetration factor given Players'
manual on the starship weapons. This makes us able to use the damage numbers
calculated in the design process. To find the damage of an battery of lasers,
use the damage number in players and multiply with the UCP value and divide
on 10.
Example: An UCP 6 battery of beam lasers-8 have 300 damage points.
I thought it was appropriate to divide on 10 when vehicle hitpoints have
to be multiplied with 10 in combat. It is easier to divide the damage points
on the weapons with 10, than remembering that the starship can take 10 times
more damage that listed in the UCP form. Thus the weapons aren't doing too
much damage so the fun goes out of the game after a few rounds. Higher armor
points should also give more protection against damage than lower armor
points.
By using the damage points listed in the players' manual we will se more
lowtech fighters being designed. At TL's below 13 fighters have no real punch
due to the limit on the powerplant. They must choose between punch or agility.
Now they can get something in between. The fighters at TL 12 and less can use
other types of energy weapons in space rather than the standard weapons. For
instance the vehicle weapons listed on page 78 in Referee's manual can be
used. (Except for the MD that is.)
Penetration of screens and configuration should be done with percentile
dice. Active blackglobes will absorb a 10 percent of the damage points per
flicker rate. Sinks can store 210 hitpoints per Kl. The jumpdrive can store
((ship volume*jump*.005)/11) hitpoints.
***********************************************************************
As you see above the amount of damage can be determined more easily.
However the backdrop is that you have to calculate the damage number for the
batteries before the games begins. This can be solved by entering them on the
UCP form at when it is set up.
For mesonguns I want to include a instant kill or cripple table. This
table gives the effect of the weapon on the target depending on its size.
Internal hits would be viewed as criticals when the integrity of the
hull is broken nasty things tend to happen. Just ask any astronaut in NASA.
As an ex-sensor operator I always felt that the sensor rules in
Traveller was wrong. One thing I reacted on was that there is more difficult
to detect an object with an active sensor tuned to Very Distant range than
one with Far Orbit range. Why should it be more difficult to find an object
within the range of the lesser sensor than the greater one. If the object
was outside of the range it would not have shown up at all!
From my experiences objects with small radar cross sections tended to
disappear when I increased the range settings on the radars I have used.
Now to the reason why I mentioned that the effective combat range with
starships would be about 3000Km maybe a bit longer.
In the era of starship combat where all the objects move with speeds up
to several 1000km/s you will need good updating. Now we will have to move
into radar and general sensor theory. First of all a radar or Ladar beam
moves with the speed of light. The radars and ladars operates with something
called Pulse Repetition Frequency or PRF for short. This is how many pulses
per second. The higher the PRF the closer the effective range of the sensor,
but also better is the fire solution. The PRF of a radar that are going to
conduct a 360 degree search cannot have PRF less than 200. At this rate the
radar beam will just cover the full 360 degrees if it is at max tightness.
One thing that must be understood that PRF is equal wavelength or frequency.
Normal radar cannot have beams narrower than 2 degrees. Microwave radars can
have beams that are less than one degree, but their range are very limited.
Point defense and close AAW warfare are their field.
Of the sensor mentioned above with a PRF of 200 it takes one full minute
to rotate the antenna 360 degrees. For search radar this is great, but for
weapon control it is too slow, far too slow. Not only that but because of
the relatively wide beam the target will be quite large at this PRF. Thus
lasers and other direct firing weapons will have a hard time to hit the
target because it appears larger than what it actually is. High PRF radar
such as those found in weapon guidance systems are better due to their rapid
pulse rate they can get better solution. Maximum effective range of Radars
on current PRF setting.
Range in KM=(300,000/PRF)/2
As you see the PRF is divided on the speed of light. It is further
divided on 2 when the beam are going back and forth.
***********************************************************************
Here is an exerpt from a letter to Clay 27 September, 1991.
Weapon fire at 500,000Km I have done some calculations regarding laser
fire at target at 500,000Km. If we assume the target to move 6 hex a round,
he actually moves 125Km/s. When a pulse bounces back from the target, we know
where it was 1.66 seconds ago (the time light uses on 500,000Km.) When we
fires at this contact we must know where it is going to be 3.32 seconds in
advance. And on this time it has moved 415Km. Here we must pin down a ship
that is only a fraction large as the distance moved, and which maybe have
changed course too. If the gunner and/or computer is not psionic this is
impossible, unless the the target is not moving at all.
With radar I would not fire at a target at longer range than 750Km.
With Ladar I could stretch out to 3000Km maybe longer. This is due to that
the laser gives better fire resolution on the target, but it is dependent on
a radar to find the target. This is due to the narrow beam of the laser. The
ladar must also have a fairly high PRF. No less than 30 or 40. There could
be used continuous wave ladar, but I don't think that will help. If the ladar
first miss the target it may need to use many shots/pulses to regain the
track. As a backup for this occurrence I would use a Radar, which can steer
the ladar back on target in the case of a miss.
***********************************************************************
For more information about sensors I would recommend the book Electronic
Warfare by Doug Richardson.
US Distributor is Arco ISBN 0-668-06497-8
UK Distributor is Salamander ISBN 0-86101-265-8
Scales in Traveller have been too large. They work against the realism
in more than one way. Firstly 20 minutes a combat turn. Not much time
actually, until you go through a 20 turn combat. That's almost 7 hours
constant fighting. I wonder how the concentration level of those guys are
after just two hours. My experiences is that after 30 minutes you are
exhausted. The reason to this is that you work at high pressure from the
fighting starts to it ends. The phase is fast. A few seconds doubt and you
are dead. There is no time to ponder over information. You must either use
it when you get or disregard it. 7 hours at this reckless phase I wouldn't
give much for the crews concentration.
An ideal turn length is about 1 to 3 minutes. This will also reduce
the distance moved which is ideal for the sensor arguments I have above.
The large scale also prevented any good tactics. The combats is only
large slugfests. What I like about tactical games is the possibility of
outmaneuvering the opponent. In Traveller this is not possible when the
maneuver drive only tells who can run away from whom. The agility only makes
you harder to hit.
This merges with the firing arcs. The arcs that exists are too limited.
Or rather too extensive. Read the excerpt below then I will continue this
line of thought.
***********************************************************************
Movement could be plotted on graph paper. 1cm equals 15Km or something
like that. Thus there is possible to control where the spinal mount aims.
This will have some significance when there is differences between grav
drives and thruster drives.
Thruster drives cannot aim at a target which deviates more than 5
degrees from the course, else the maneuver capability will be impaired.
Different ships will then also move differently on the board, which
makes it more realistic. Here is my suggestions:
Base rate of turning equals (agility*10) + 300
Large ships are modified with -200
Medium ships are modified with 00
Small ships are modified with +200
Thus dreadnoughts with low agility will find it difficult to escape the
meson spinal mount of a high agility ship if first caught.
***********************************************************************
As you see now it becomes more vital where you aim your ship. No one
wants to be caught in the arc of a meson spinalmount. Lighters ship will
find it easier to outmaneuver the largest ones, but they will have the
largest weapons. It equals out somehow.
DESIGN AND OTHER RELATED TOPICS.
Now that Traveller are going to be revised, there have been some (or a
lot of) thinking about what the new starships will be. Are we going to see
the old familiar format or is the rules for designing starships going to be
changed completely.
There is some concepts in the current design rules that may need
changing, but those are minor in my opinion. Some have been attacking the
powerplant output figures. I don't know if those figures are right, but then
I have no physics training either. Over the last two years we have seen that
booster plants have been increasingly popular. Thus battleships have been
able to muster high agility.
Other items have been armor facings and firing arcs. Both these two
items can be included in the current design process without much trouble.
Scott Olson mailed me a document on how to calculate the armor factors on
the different sides. For those who want this document can either contact me
or him. The advantage with armor facings will be of tactical matter. If your
Left side armor is badly beaten it would be wise to expose the Right side. I
feel that this will enhance the game.
Firing arcs can be handled the same way. Different configurations will
have different amounts of weapons on each side. A sphere will have almost
equal number of each battery on each its four sides. (Front, Aft, Left and
Right.) A needle or wedge configuration will have maybe 80% of the batteries
divided evenly on Left and Right. The remainder 20% is Front and Aft. This
can be included in the UCP form. However this will make the listing longer.
One thing that a lot of people will change is the maneuver drive. This
drive is rated in maneuver gee related to size not weight. Some feel this is
wrong. Basically it is, but if you look at Leviathan from FASA all the
different ship classes is stuck with a fixed maneuver gee. no matter how
much they weigh. You may double the maneuver gee by not firing any weapons.
The maneuver gee may be increased by one point in the design process, but at
the cost of available power to the weapons. So the way used in Traveller just
simplifies the matter.
The biggest sentiment against the design rules is that you have to use
a spreadsheet the get the designs right. I have tried using a calculator with
very little success, even with small design of just a few hundred tons. But I
don't think this argument is good enough to eleminate the design rules. If
you ask me you won't find any better rules for designing starships anywhere.
FASA's Leviathan starships are too generic. The Traveller rules gives better
variation both due to its TL system and larger variation of weapons and
sensors. A few other things could have been included such as magnets used by
space tugs and ramscopes used by those who have not managed to invent the
jumpdrive, even if they are at higher TL's.
I think it would be a loss to see the current design rules disappear.
When I think of the Wet Navy rules and COACC I also think of all those hours
wasted. It's just too bad that so good rules are going to disappear.
FUTURE OF THE NAVIES.
Now that the Imperium is really shattered the Imperial Navy as we know
it is dead. For those few areas that have been able hold on to some
technology large fleets have proven to bee too expensive. (Read Hard Times.)
Those few capital ships that survived the battles have either been scrapped
or put into mothball for future use when the times are better.
General starship travel is also decreasing. And if this virus idea
becomes real starships won't be popular guests at systems that cannot
protect themselves from this thing. From what I have heard this virus is more
bacteriologic than logical. It eats the wafers. There is possible to protect
computers from this thing, but if it does not find the type of food it needs,
it may decide that some other material is equally edible. So it may come back
when believed extinct one place, just like the flue or common cold.
If this virus get the chance of running rampant known space of the
Traveller universe won't be safe. Imperial or other places. Starships will
be the most likely infector of other worlds. The wafers are in most computer
controlled gadgets. Thus not only will the PC conk out, but the car, stove,
washer, stereo, TV and so on will conk out too. If someone on an infected
takes with him a pocket computer, he may also take with him the virus or
bacteria. However the loss of data may be limited. Storage medias like tapes,
disks crystals and other types would likely be safe, so the data stored here
can be accessed by alternate systems.
Navy ships will neither be safe from this thing. Those few ships that
still exists have to take on pirate control in the surrounding area where it
is based. These pirate ships may be infected. If worst comes to worst we will
have the feeling of the long night revisited in the stone age.
I hope and I don't think the situation will be so grim, much damage
will be done, but how much is in the hands of GDW.
Clay Bush had one interesting project going. And that was Imperial Navy
Handbook (INH). Now that the Imperial navy is just a distant memory this
project may be dead, or is it.... Even when the Imperial navy is gone there
is still many navies around both small and large. The small and relative safe
areas in the former Imperium still have some fragments left. All the capital
ships are probably gone, but smaller squadrons will exist. And then we have
those other navies as Solomani and Aslan and a host of other political
powerblocks that have not gone through destructive wars. The project are
after my view still valid, the emphasis have changed a bit, but that's all.
So if you are interested in this project Clay need your support now!!
FUTURE STARSHIP COMBAT.
What the really new starship combat rules will look like is beyond me,
but I see two main possibilities. One is that new rules are made around the
existing starship design rules. The other will be new rules to the new
starships. What's important is that we don't get a generic way of the combat.
Remember that it is the crew not the equipment that fight the wars. Better
equipment just gives an edge nothing more.
If 2 starships was going to fight each other they would have equal
chance to win if they had the same ship and equally skilled crew. But if one
ship is more advanced than the other the crew with the more advanced will
have better chance. We do also have the case where the better ship got poorer
trained crew than the lesser ship. This will in some cases equal out. Here is
one suggestion I had for Traveller to handle crew quality.
The skill levels for the different crew qualities could be divided like
this:
Quality Navy SDB Paramilitary Civil
------------------------------------------------------------
Recruit - 1 3 3 3 3-5
Regular - 2 4-8 4-9 4-10 6-11
Veteran - 3 9-13 10-14 11-12 12-16
Crack - 4 14-16 15-17 13-17 17+
Elite - 5+ 17+ 18 18 -
Thus this will give the better trained and experienced crew more edge.
There is no use in the computer if the crew is poorly trained. Even if the
computer is more advanced than the opposition computer.
This will change the hit task rule I mentioned above. Divide the
computer model number on 2 and drop fractions. Skills as ship and fleet
tactics are used as before.
If we suppose the current rules for starship design sticks the rules
may look like the suggestions below. For those of you who don't have T:2000
rules should get them. Either buy them or do as me lend them from a friend.
To hit a starship with starship weapons:
Average, (SKill+Computermod/2)-(Agility+sizeDM)
To prevent incoming fire to hit.
Difficult, (Skill+DefUCPfact+computermod/3)-Offensive UCP factor
Note:This cannot be used on screens and configuration
To detect a starship on sensor
Easy, Sensor ops
To pinpoint a starship.
Average, Sensor ops
Increase level if offender uses jamming. This is a crude sensor rule,
but here I assume that Radar or Active EMS is used which isn't hard to use at
all. When I know more about the rules to Revised Traveller I will make some
better sensor rules.
For damage use the calculations I mentioned above. If a weapon has
penetration enough to go through the armor give half the hits to hull. There
is no rolls for radiation, when those are included in the damage points.
However if a ship is hit by nukes, reduce damage to fiber optic computers
with 25%. Whenever a hit penetrates armor apply 10% of the hits to crew when
those do not have a hit location on the table. To find out how much pounding
the crew can take before they are dead take the max hitpoint the crew can
take before they dies and multiply with crew number.
Example: If we assume the average hitpoints on the crew is 30 which is the
chest hit capacity and multiply that with the crew number of 200 we get 600
points. When 2 thirds of the hitpoints are taken the ship is unable to fight.
To resolve meson attacks. Mesongun bays do 1000 hitpoints per UCP factor.
Spinal mounts that with the old rules could roll more than 10 times on the
hit location table automatically cripples the target, which then becomes
unable to fight. If the mesongun could roll more than 15 time the ship is
dead, vaporized, disassembled, fini, gone, you get the picture. If a
mesongun (Spinal or bay) would have rolled more than 3 times on the critical
hit table the ship is crippled. If it could roll more than 6 times it is
destroyed. A ship may endure three cripple hits before it is destroyed.
Hit location tables
Exterior Interior
-------------------------------
1 Maneuver Jump
2 Weapon Computer
3 Sensor Powerplant
4 Sensor Fuel leak
5 Weapon Computer
6 Maneuver Jump
Exterior features are not protected by armor. Sensors, weapons and computer
can take 100 hits before they are reduced with one battery or UCP factor.
For meson bays roll once for each UCP and divide the hitpoints evenly on the
locations. Whenever Jumpdrive is hit give half of the jumpdrive hits to the
hull, due to that the lanthanum grid is situated there. Do give one third of
the rolls to exterior table.
These rules are rather crude, but then I have just thought them up at
the spur of the moment. Some of them I have been pondering on for a while,
but not really tested.
If we are going to see new design rules there is a few points that I
would like to see in both design and combat rules. And those are:
- Easier damage system
- More logical damage system (Crafts with weapons UCP values below A never
score an internal hit, but may score a critical hit.)
- Well defined repair rules (What is the damage status of a ship that have
lost its maneuver drive?)
- Internal hits can be viewed as crits, when internal hits will be nasty no
matter what weapons scored the hit.
- Smaller scale for time and movement. ("Captain, the pilot have collapsed
after 4 hours of constant combat.")
- Faster task resolution for hit and penetration. Having a constant DM of 11
going over dozen different weapon factors sounds bad in my ears.
- Easy to use and generic damage record form that can be used by all types
of craft. If necessary make few different forms as possible, when size and
purpose of a craft can look totally different on the damage record form.
- Simultaneous movement and fire. Something like FASA's Interceptor and
Leviathan would be nice.
- Possibility to integrate the rules with personal and vehicle combat.
- If the rules are to be released in a separate book, I suggest that all the
design rules are put into it. (COACC, Wet Navy, Vehicles and Robots.) This
will reduce the time we have to wait until all the sections are ready and
tested up to each other. The set should also be boxed so that in can
include counters and game boards. Plastic miniatures for COACC, Wet NAvy
and Starships would be fine, but not important.
STARSHIP OPERATOR'S MANUAL.
As the rules are to be revised, this fine book will hopefully not be
outdated. If the technology in Traveller as we know it doesn't change it
would still be valid with the new rules. However the task rules at the end
of the book have to be rewritten. If DGP will do this is unknown when they
are going to spend considerably time to support their product AI.
If DGP won't do it hopefully GDW will. Those rules aren't essential,
but I feel that they should be included when they would be fine to have when
the extra detail are needed.
THE OTHER STUFF THROWN IN.
I do have some worries about the future of Traveller. Some may say it
is too early to worry, but that doesn't help much. I have read the T:2000
and Dark Conspiracy rules and I found that I don't like them. The main
reason to this is that the task system seems weak. Hell... I think it is
weak. The difficulty scaling is just wild. In my view a person who have any
training in a given field should have at least 60% chance to make a routine
task in that fieldon first try. In T:2000 this ain't possible. If you have a
skill level of 1 you have 10% chance to make it. If the task is made easy it
raises to the incredible 20% chance.
Other things it does not cover is automatic failure and success. At
least the rules do not mention it. Unskilled tasks are neither mentioned.
Hopefully these things will be included in the new rules to Traveller.
Hopefully we will se an increased product support for revised Traveller.
And the I hope we won't see too many cross-over adventures. Twilight
Nightmares are released, and more of that type may be in the pipeline.
Cross-overs aren't bad in their selves, that just the games will loose their
novelty when we will see titles as Twilight 5600, Dark Traveller, Gravs'n
dinosaurs and so on.
My final worry is the published alien modules from DGP. Those products
can be wasted money if GDW do not include guidelines on how to generate
characters from these races, and how to use the interaction rules. Or else
they have to be reprinted in the new format.
FAMEOUS LAST WORDS.
If you have anythink to comment on in this document feel free to write
to me. Any input is good input. Note that I have had little time to actually
test the rules suggestions properly.