Questions about MegaTraveller Starship Combat

[McPerth]

Are the power requirements for the spinal mounts in the Referee's manual in MW? They seem awfully high.

Yes, they are (both in Mw and awfully high)

However, the rules for starships are for starships.

And craft rules are for any craft (there are no specific starship rules in MT)

Tautology is tautological.

Really shouldn't have to be explaining this ...

ditto

 

[Spinward Flow]

there are no specific starship rules in MT

 

[McPerth]

I feel like this is spinning off into a tangent… in order not to derail things further, I will post here again if I have any further questions about starship combat! Thanks all for the advice and input so far.

For good or bad, threads use to derive (and in this case, the derive ha some meaning, as it depends on it that the MG are the only usable wepons or not).

Fact is, as written, MT ship combat rules have many flaws )armor effects aside, as those are more designrules than combat rules issue):

among 2 MG armed battleships, the first to move is probably dead, as it will be interrupted and, should it be detected and locked on, hit with the meson spinal and killed (at least, mission killed with a Fuel Tanks Shattered result).

The use of tactical skill pool, with those large crews (and so, the enormous ship tactics pools, more so if there are marines, as tactics serves as Ship Tactics -1) make the interrupts, detection, lock on, to hit and penetration rolls quite easy (probably failing only on eyes.

The use of Pilot and Gunner skills are unclear.

About Pilot:

Pilot skill is (IMO) not clear how is used. The only clear use it has is to line the spinal gun, where it can be used in place of agility (RM, page 95, but specifies on this task). Also under emergency agility (page 94) says as always, Pilot skill may be substituted for emergency agility if desired. I wander what does this as always means, as nowhere else in the book I’ve found it can be substituted (except to aim spinals, as noted above).

In MT RM (p 95) says: 'Gunnery skill (turret/bay, sinal or screens) may be used in place of computr DM or weapon table DM on the to hit and defensive tasks'.

About gunnery, we discussed in this old thread. Unfortunately, no clear conclusion was reached

And another advice, don't use the ships in FSotSE. I doubt there's one valid design there (to the point that some 30 kdton BR have 300 kdton of fuel tankage to refuel other ships)

 

[aramis]

The armor rules are for ALL craft. Different roles have different minima.
The Minima are for various types.
This means, should it be relevant, you can't build a starship hull at TL 2-7... but you can at TL8. One can meet the OSS¹ minimum for disosable spacecraft at TL 2... as it's 8 minimum. You still have to pay for that minimum. So, the bronze hulled V1 analogue lurching forth from a regressed colony isz a doable thing...

Also, it's worth noting that the 5×TL limit is really rather low, as several TL 8 designs for Striker (which uses the same scaling) are over it.

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1: OSS = One Small Step, the design sequences for pregravitic spacecraft.