Questions about MegaTraveller Starship Combat

[Ahmad Romanov]

I was running a small solo game between two BL-15 Light Battleships (FSotSI pg 22) and I want to make sure I am doing things correctly:

1) I used batteries to get a sensor lock on the enemy ship… am I right in assuming these must be batteries that have bearing? The BL-15 has 10 of its 30 beam laser batteries that are effectively useless against a single enemy target because of their bearing and I was wondering if I could put them to use for the purpose of sensor tasks, but then I figured that was a little cheesy…

2) The only weapon on the BL-15 that could cause a critical hit was the spinal particle accelerator battery (UCP rating "T" vs a 200,000 dT target meant 1 critical hit if defenses were breached). However, page 93 says "These critical hits are reduced in number by one for every 3 levels of armor the target ship has over 40" (which means the first 23 critical hits are ignored by the BL-15, due to its armor value of 110). As a result, it seems like the spinal weapon cannot actually cause a critical hit against the BL-15 since it is by definition only a single battery. Moreover, since surface damage rolls from its other weapons also suffers a -23 DM (guaranteeing "no effect" results from the other weapons), am I right in understanding that two BL-15 cannot actually harm each other? It seems like spinal weapons should always deal a minimum of one critical hit, but I couldn't find anything to this effect in the rules.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

Second set of questions, I was running a single fighter (IE pg 80, with updates from RS and the errata document) against another fighter.

3) Fighters only have one battery, so I took this to mean that they cannot get an active sensor lock by normal means and must wait till either they are themselves targeted with active sensors (giving them a free detect and then using their free sensor action to get a lock) or until they reach visual range (1 square adjacent). Of course the former condition could not be met since the opponent was another fighter, so nothing happened until the two fighters were adjacent. Is that right?

4) The fighters (unlike the BL-15 Light Battleships above) did indeed have weapon UCP codes that could cause critical damage on each other, but it seemed impossible for the fighters to actually hit each other. Because of the fighter's massive DEF DM of -10 and the base difficulty rating of "Difficult", each fighter needed a roll of 15 on 2D6 (base 11+, DMs: -2 for Computer 2, -4 for Beam Laser UPC 2, +0 for range, +10 for DEF). I suppose you could substitute the pilot's Gunnery skill for the computer modifier, but even then you would need a Gunnery of 5 or better to even have a remote chance of hitting. Is that correct?

 

[whartung]

Regarding #2, this is the key point you're missing at the top of page 94.

In addition to rolled damage, each critical hit reduces a target’s armor factor by one. A ship’s armor factor may not be reduced to less than zero.

So, while they don't necessarily do initial damage, they're knocking on the door and coming in, given time.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

Regarding #2, this is the key point you're missing at the top of page 94.



So, while they don't necessarily do initial damage, they're knocking on the door and coming in, given time.

I considered that, but I figured that since armour reduces the number of critical hits to zero, the spinal PA attacks would never actually count as having caused a critical hit and would thus not reduce the armour. The wording of the section is that armour beyond 40 reduces "the number" of critical hits, not just the roll/damage they cause. Even if you interpreted it the other way (that the critical hit still reduced armour), the BL-15 would need to successfully hit its target 68 times before it could actually cause a critical hit… that is nearly a full 24-hour day of firing its weapon. And long before a critical hit was actually caused, both battleships would probably have stripped each other's hulls of weapon batteries anyway, leaving them basically toothless (this would start to happen after about the 30th shot of the spinal PA, approximately 10 hours into the battle, long after any player would have likely quit the game in frustration!). I mean, is something wrong with my math?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

MT RM, p92:

At any point in its movement, a unit may declare it is performing a sensor task on an enemy unit. Multiple sensor tasks take time; to reflect this, the sensing unit must forego the firing of one weapon battery for every sensor task performed (one sensor task costs nothing). If the craft has no weapon batteries, only two one-sensor tasks may be performed per turn.
Getting a good sensor lock on a target requires two sensor tasks- the target must first be located using a sensor scan task, upon a getting a successful scan, the sensors must be locked onto the target using a sensor pinpoint task.

1) Yes, you must forego firing a battery, so I would assume a bearing battery.

2) Quite, even spinal PAs can't inflict size crits on battleships. Crits can still be inflicted by the damage tables.
Note that the BL-15 is not a legal ship, as only TL×5 = 75 armour (DM -11) is allowed (MT RM, 58).
PAs are not very effective against large ships, mesons are generally preferable.

3) Fighters can have mixed turrets, and hence several batteries (Consolidated MT Errata, p30).
Note that the first sensor task is free, only the second task costs forgoing firing a battery.
A craft without any batteries can still perform two sensor tasks.
Note that any friendly craft can use a sensor lock, so a fighter squadron can still lock on to and fire on a foe.

4) Quite, fighters with small batteries and small computers can't hit (almost) anything in CT HG and MT.


Note that size crits are prevented by armour, so does not happen and does not reduce armour. Crits rolled on damage tables can still occur.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

Note that the BL-15 is not a legal ship, as only TL×5 = 75 armour (DM -11) is allowed (MT RM, 58).

Ah thanks, I didn't think to double check the starship construction rules.

Crits can still be inflicted by the damage tables.

...

Note that size crits are prevented by armour, so does not happen and does not reduce armour. Crits rolled on damage tables can still occur.

Just to be clear though, the damage tables also suffer the penalty for target's armour, so the rolls for external and radiation damage would be 2d6+6-11 for a possible range of -3 to 7 (well short of the 18+ requried for a critical hit). Since these attacks would not reduce the BL-15's armour value, the best it could do would be stripping weapon batteries and piercing fuel cells (plus the occasional sensor or computer or hit). I almost feel as if the weapon's attack factor should be added to the damage rolls, which would at least make a critical possible (albeit only on a roll of boxcars). As is, the BL-15 still cannot really defeat itself in combat, correct?

4) Quite, fighters with small batteries and small computers can't hit (almost) anything in CT HG and MT.

Interesting. Is this by design? Were fighters meant to target small vessels (like 100 dT ships) and not other fighters? I mean, they aren't even that good at that... a fighter would have a heck of a time hitting a Slow Pinnace! In contrast, it seems like capital ships would have a very easy time swatting away fighters, since they would add not only their large computer bonuses but their very high weapon attack factors. Is that all by design, "working as intended" for the internal logic of the Traveller Universe?

If this is not working "as intended", would it be better to replace the static difficulty of attack tasks ("Difficult") and the fixed range modifier with something like the difficulty profiles of personal combat (perhaps attack tasks with non-missile weapons would be "Simple" at visual range, "Routine" at near range and "Difficult" at far and extreme range)? This would at least allow a fighter a chance to hit another fighter at visual range (on a 9+).

 

[whartung]

I considered that, but I figured that since armour reduces the number of critical hits to zero, the spinal PA attacks would never actually count as having caused a critical hit and would thus not reduce the armour.

The key point here is the phrase "In addition to rolled damage". So the armor degradation is in addition to any other damage (or not) the hit may cause.

And long before a critical hit was actually caused, both battleships would probably have stripped each other's hulls of weapon batteries anyway, leaving them basically toothless (this would start to happen after about the 30th shot of the spinal PA, approximately 10 hours into the battle, long after any player would have likely quit the game in frustration!).

Well this is a common affect in Traveller combat. A fighting vessel with the exterior cooked off, but the rich, creamy center untouched. In the end the goal is to reduced the number of active combatants, not necessarily to outright kill ships (killing ships is faster, when possible, naturally).

Crits kill ships outright, but frying off all of the external mounts removes them from the equation just as well.

And it's not like the sailors are paid by the hour here, but it's certainly frustrating to play.

I mean, the VRF Gauss gun fires 100 rounds burst with 10D damage each. When we turned one on a cowboy in a saloon door, we wrote a small BASIC program to tally up the damage. It was...a lot. We liked to muse that it turned the square saloon doorway in to a round one, with a hint of a pink mist in the middle.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Just to be clear though, the damage tables also suffer the penalty for target's armour, so the rolls for external and radiation damage would be 2d6+6-11 for a possible range of -3 to 7 (well short of the 18+ requried for a critical hit). Since these attacks would not reduce the BL-15's armour value, the best it could do would be stripping weapon batteries and piercing fuel cells (plus the occasional sensor or computer or hit). I almost feel as if the weapon's attack factor should be added to the damage rolls, which would at least make a critical possible (albeit only on a roll of boxcars).

Yes, armour is very effective against anything but meson guns.
Without meson guns combat is a slow attritional grind, dominated by nuke missiles.
Spinal PAs are great at killing small nimble ships that mesons can barely hit and penetrate.

As is, the BL-15 still cannot really defeat itself in combat, correct?

A ship without fuel is ineffective. A ship without operative weapons is a mission-kill, headed straight for months in a shipyard.

The BL-15s main armament are the missile bays. It's a silly design and not very combat effective.

Change the spinal to a meson to see some fireworks...

Interesting. Is this by design? Were fighters meant to target small vessels (like 100 dT ships) and not other fighters? I mean, they aren't even that good at that... a fighter would have a heck of a time hitting a Slow Pinnace! In contrast, it seems like capital ships would have a very easy time swatting away fighters, since they would add not only their large computer bonuses but their very high weapon attack factors. Is that all by design, "working as intended" for the internal logic of the Traveller Universe?

I suspect fighters kind of fell off the map. CT High Guard was designed around large ships and fleets.

Fighters have a role as skirmishers and nuisances. With proper (large) computers they are the most difficult to hit units, and quite cheap compared with ships. They can still kill civilians, spread out to find the enemy, or watch the flanks.

If this is not working "as intended", would it be better to replace the static difficulty of attack tasks ("Difficult") and the fixed range modifier with something like the difficulty profiles of personal combat (perhaps attack tasks with non-missile weapons would be "Simple" at visual range, "Routine" at near range and "Difficult" at far and extreme range)? This would at least allow a fighter a chance to hit another fighter at visual range (on a 9+).

CT HG and hence MT is quite fine-tuned as a wargame. I would hesitate to change things, to avoid unintended consequences. The system works over, and even between, several TLs.

Reasonble fighters come in two varieties: Light (~10 Dt) militarily fairly ineffective fighters, and heavy (~50 Dt) with big computers that are somewhat effective at least at low TL. At TL-15 fighters are relegated to supporting roles, as canon has come to describe. Light fighters can still bully the players' Free Trader.


Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium is filled by silly designs that are not even remotely legal in the MT design system. I wouldn't take it very seriously...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Try this random battlerider to see if it can kill the BL-15:



It's just a Meson-N, a few turret batteries, and decent defences (max armour, max agility, max computer, and max screens).

A few of these should kill any ship in the FSotSI without too much trouble.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

Yes, armour is very effective against anything but meson guns.
Without meson guns combat is a slow attritional grind, dominated by nuke missiles.
Spinal PAs are great at killing small nimble ships that mesons can barely hit and penetrate.

A ship without fuel is ineffective. A ship without operative weapons is a mission-kill, headed straight for months in a shipyard.

The BL-15s main armament are the missile bays. It's a silly design and not very combat effective.

Ah I see... so it is supposed to use it's 20-odd missile attacks presumably with nuclear warheads in order to strip fuel and weapons off the target. With a -5 roll on the surface explosion damage table and 20 attacks, that would result in about 6 missile bay salvos being destroyed by point defense lasers, 14 hits, 9 weapon batteries destroyed and 4% (or should that be 40%?) fuel lost every round of firing. I suppose you could add the turret missiles to that as well, although most of those would get intercepted (leaving about 9 hits to destroy 6 more weapon batteries and 2.5% more fuel). So the total damage a round of missile fire could do would be about 20 hits and 15 enemy batteries destroyed. It would still take quite a while to chew through all the ships weaponry (I could 171 batteries all told) but it is a little better I suppose.

Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium is filled by silly designs that are not even remotely legal in the MT design system. I wouldn't take it very seriously...

Incidentally, is there a better source for capital ship stats for MegaTraveller?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A basic fighter might look something like this:



35 Dt, big computer, max agility, a few token weapons, armour enough to survive a missile bay hit.

Difficult to hit, difficult to destroy, cheap on a military scale at about GCr 0.3.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Ah I see... so it is supposed to use it's 20-odd missile attacks presumably with nuclear warheads in order to strip fuel and weapons off the target.

Quite. The PA can kill small stuff, perhaps like my battle-rider above.

Incidentally, is there a better source for capital ship stats for MegaTraveller?

Nothing published that I know of. I make my own ships...

 

[whartung]

Incidentally, is there a better source for capital ship stats for MegaTraveller?

Many would argue that Fighting Ships isn't a good source either.

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

Yeah, huh... I just realized that not only does the BL-15 have too much armour, but is also about 1,070 hard points in excess of it's 2,000 hard point limit. The funny thing is that Marc could have designed the BL-15 correctly. Judging by the number of turrets, he has to be using lower-tech weapons (Missile Turret-7, BLaster Turret-7, Sand Turret-7). If he just uses TL-10 and TL-13 weaponry, it fits the output of the powerplant as well as hardpoint limits. And best of all, you can upgrade the Spinal PA to a Spinal Meson Gun of the same rating (T):

CRAFT ID: Battleship Light Mk2 TL: 15
MCr172,900.995 (Battleship)
HULL: 180000/450000, Displacement=200000, Config=4S,
Armour=73G (B), Loaded=3,166,640.3, Unloaded=2,907,775.4
POWER: 10666/21332, Fusion-F=2,880,000.Mw Duration=552hrs/23 days
Extended Endurance=1628hrs/67 days
Scoops
Purifiers; whole tank in 12 hours
EM Mask
ExtEnd excludes: Maneuver (2g) Sensors Commo
EMMask Weapons & Screens Backup Computer
DRIVES: Jump=4 9000/18000, No avionics
Maneuver=3G 14400/28800 Agility=0
Speeds:
ATMOSPHERE MAX CRUISE
Vacc: 2,850kph/1,781mph 2,138kph/1,336mph
Standard: 1,000kph/625mph 750kph/469mph
Thin: 1,500kph/938mph 1,125kph/703mph
Dense: 750kph/469mph 563kph/352mph
Very dense 250kph/156mph 188kph/117mph
COMMUNICATIONS: Radio-Plnt x 1
Radio-FarO x 1
Radio-Syst x 1
Laser-Plnt x 1
Laser-FarO x 1
Laser-Syst x 1
Maser-Plnt x 1
Maser-FarO x 1
Maser-Syst x 1
SENSORS: A-EMS (FrOb) x 2
A-EMS (Plnt) x 2
P-EMS (IntPlnt) x 2
P-EMS (SubStlr) x 2
P-EMS (IntStlr) x 2
Radar Jammer (FrOb) x 2
Radar Jammer (Plnt) x 2
Neutrino-D (100 Kw) x 2
Hi-Dnst-F (1km) x 1
Sensor scans: AOS=R AOP=R POS=R POP=R PES=S PEP=D
WEAPONS: 2000 hardpoints; 1630 occupied; batteries bearing 65 %
Turrets:
Triple Missile-13 x 300 in 50 batteries
Triple Sand-10 x 120 in 36 batteries
Triple Laser-13 x 300 in 30 batteries
Bays:
50-ton Missile x 30 at Factor-9
100-ton Particle x 30 at Factor-9
50-ton Fusion Gun x 30 at Factor-A
Meson Spinal-T
Missile magazine: HE=930 b/r
Total=2232000 missiles. 1 b/r=2400 missiles
Combat Statistics:
T B S
Laser 9 - -
30 (19)
Missile 6 9 -
50 (32) 30 (19)
Sand 7 - -
36 (23)
Fusion - A -
30 (19)
Particle - 9 -
30 (19)
Meson - - T
1
SCREENS: DefDM= 7
Meson Screen F-1 x 1
Nuclear Damper F-9 x 1
CONTROL: Computer=Model 9 x 3, Panels=Holographic Linked x 104686
Backup computer=Model 9 x 3
HUD x 7756
Basic Env(heat/light
Basic LS (air/water)
Ext LS (food/recyc)
Airlock x 2000
Grav plates
Inertial Comp
CREW: Crew=416
Bridge=23 Engineering=170 Gunners=69 Screen Ops=16
Maintainence=64 Command=57 Medical=3 Steward=14
ACCOMMODATION: Stateroom x 100
OTHER: Cargo=44373Kl/3286 tons, EMLevel=Moderate
Fuel=1469880 Kl/108880 tons, ObjSize=Large
One jump requires 168750KL/12500 tons of fuel
Anti-hijack:

 

[aramis]

Many would argue that Fighting Ships isn't a good source either.

Major understatement of the century.
Nothing in it matches the MT rules not the CT HG rules....
THe setting information is even contradictory to other sources pre- and post-...

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to go through and correct all the profiles in Fighting Ships. Has anyone given this a try? It took me maybe 10 minutes to correct BL-15, even though it's not a complete conversion (I just went with minimal crew and ignored the subordinate vessels, mostly because I couldn't quite tell what they were supposed to be). I guess it's kind of pointless though since not many people would actually be interested in playing a game of MegaTraveller fleet battles... the rules seem to veer more towards "simulation" than "game" (it would be incredibly tedious to sit there and do the hundreds of rolls a turn for dozens of turns before somebody actually took noticeable damage). I could imagine these ships laying into each other all day long with little effect as something relevant to the universe of MegaTraveller, but that doesn't mean I could convince players to actually do all that at the game table. Maybe it is something that is best left up to background description and handwaving than actual dice rolling (although this reminds me of the adventure in Hard Times that actually ends with a pretty decent-sized fleet battle... did anyone actually ever do that?).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to go through and correct all the profiles in Fighting Ships. Has anyone given this a try?

You would have to redesign the ships from scratch, especially taking the errata into consideration.

Crew, Power, Controls are all completely off. For the BL-15 you end up with 15-25 kDt unallocated that could have been used for something useful.

You still end up with a pretty sad excuse for a warship.

I would rather remake the more iconic ships from CT Fighting Ships. They are not good, but they have character.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I could imagine these ships laying into each other all day long with little effect as something relevant to the universe of MegaTraveller, but that doesn't mean I could convince players to actually do all that at the game table. Maybe it is something that is best left up to background description and handwaving than actual dice rolling (although this reminds me of the adventure in Hard Times that actually ends with a pretty decent-sized fleet battle... did anyone actually ever do that?).

Use statistical combat resolution from CT TCS. Don't roll all the dice, use the statistical average instead.

 

[McPerth]

Note that the BL-15 is not a legal ship, as only TL×5 = 75 armour (DM -11) is allowed (MT RM, 58)

This was discussed long ago, and, while I agree with you, most people seem to think it was meant TLx5 limit to be over 40 (so, the first 40 armor points not counting). That gives truly invulterable ships (except to MG), as it does not use tonnage....

See it in the thread "Errata - that difficult subject" fro mthe post quoted on (merged among other discussions, I'm afraid)

The added value of armor for a ship may not exceed the ship’s technological level times five. In the case of planetoid hulls, an automatic hull armor factor is already present-the Tech Level armor restriction only applies to armor added to the hull of a planetoid."

A ship must have a starting armor value of 40. However, this is technically "added value"; you can construct something with 0 armor - it just shouldn't go into space. Ergo, the maximum armor value for a TL 15 ship is 75 - just 35 levels above the base 40 and therefore worth only a -11 to the damage table. Means no warship is invulnerable. Big departure from High Guard II.

Except planetoids. Planetoids start with an innate armor value: 50 for planetoids, 56 for buffered planetoids. Translates to a -3 and a -6 on the damage table, so just like the High Guard II examples they're drawn from. And you can add more on - up to 75 factors. (...)

 

[Ahmad Romanov]

This was discussed long ago, and, while I agree with you, most people seem to think it was meant TLx5 limit to be over 40 (so, the first 40 armor points not counting). That gives truly invulterable ships (except to MG), as it does not use tonnage....

Not to derail the thread, but I agree with both of you. The idea that the "minimum armor" of 40 is not part of the TL armour limit really is not substantiated by the text of the RM. Only the planetoid design is specifically called out as changing this limit… there is really no reason to believe from a linguistical interpretation of the text that all ships get 40 points of armour beyond the TL limit. It's odd to hear that the majority of the community thinks otherwise…