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Old 03-20-2019, 08:01 PM   #1
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Deck plan drafting and other surprises...

Hello Folks,
For the first time since GURPS TRAVELLER came out, I'm in the mind set to craft a set of deck plans for a ship that I called the Hargoth Heavy Freighter. It is a 1500 dTon hull built in the year 98 just in time for its owner to take possession in the year 99 (99 years after the birth of the Third Imperium).

So, I dutifully started grabbing the information at hand, to determine how much space needed to be allocated to the Staterooms, the bridge, infirmary, etc.

Sidebar 153 of the GURPS TRAVELLER 2nd edition book says this:

"Hexgrid Deck Plans: GURPS uses a 1-yard hexagonal grid for maps. Assuming headroom of about 8-9 feet and some room under the decks, a “space” in a module can be represented by six squares or four hexes (GM’s option)."

That's when I decided to double check the volume of a hex that measures 3 feet from side to side, and is 9.8 feet tall. This height measurement matches that from the original deck design rules from Classic Traveller where they have each square equal 1.5 x 1.5 x 3 meters to give them a total of 6.75 cubic meters per square, or 13.5 cubic meters per dTon of volume.

Volume of a hex works out to roughly 76.7147 cubic feet. Dividing 500 cubic feet by 76.7147 = 6.52 hexes per dTon of volume.

Ok, no biggie right? I can work with that. But then I came across the formula for determining how big one's fusion power plant is based upon all of those power slices used within each "module". I was to say the least, SHOCKED at what it has taken me over 16 years to realize...

My Jump-2, Maneuver 1.10 G starship, with 10 turrets armed with double lasers - uses a whopping 1,238.792 Mw of power.

Of that total, the Jump Drive utilizes some 450 Mw by it self.

This means then, that our 20 lasers using 222 Mw at TL 10, could use the power from the unused Jump Drives to increase their rate of fire to a factor of x3. In other words, if they fire a given number of shots using X energy, they can fire 3x as many shots if they are fed an addition 2x the energy required.

But, it gets more interesting when you put it in terms of Maneuver drives vs Jump Drives. When you use the one, you don't need the other. When you use the Other, you don't need the one.

Jump Drive power is 450 Mw. My ship's Manuever Drives provide 548.8 Mw.

In theory? I don't need to have any extra energy slices added to the Jump Drives with the sole exception of...

If the ship is fleeing at full speed AND needs to enter into Jump space.

Just an eye opener for me is all.
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Old 03-21-2019, 10:40 AM   #2
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Deck plan drafting and other surprises...

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
H When you use the one, you don't need the other. When you use the Other, you don't need the one.

Jump Drive power is 450 Mw. My ship's Manuever Drives provide 548.8 Mw.

In theory? I don't need to have any extra energy slices added to the Jump Drives with the sole exception of...

If the ship is fleeing at full speed AND needs to enter into Jump space.

Just an eye opener for me is all.
Yes, oversized Fusion plants are but one reason Traveller ships are more expensive than they need to be.

It's not entirely clear when and how the "energy" required by the Jump Drive is used and what for. Technobabble related to Black Globes implies that there are "Jump capacitors" and if you've stashed enough energy provided by the BG in those you can make a Jump on those full capacitors if you have enough fuel. Required energy for the length of the Jump is unclear.

This is but one exam,mple of why adapting _game mechanics_ from one game to another is usually a bad idea. OT didn't work at he same level of detail that Gurps Vehicles does. So when you fiddle the Gurps mechnics so they never contradict the OT mechanics the result look like confusion to me.

A ship designed in Ve2 from the beginning to meet an equivalent level of performance would probably look much different from the OT conversions we've gotten. Reactor size would be part of it.
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Old 03-21-2019, 09:56 PM   #3
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Deck plan drafting and other surprises...

There is that.

At one point in time, I wanted to try for the feel of High Guard where it came to Spinal Mounts. I had a workable way to handle it as well - in that the spinal mounts did LESS damage per shot, but had multiple shots (like Lasers did). The idea was to increase the RoF accuracy value for Spinal Mounts - then toss in the idea that Meson Screens could handle roughly X percent of the incoming energy, but that sometimes some energy got through. All spinal mounts were built so that the matched the volume required in High Guard (ie 2000 dTons, 5,000 dTons etc).

Then, someone pointed out that it violated the arbitrary "limit" that it has to be a given Mw value or higher. I wish I'd paid more attention to that at that time, because Had I done so, I'd have pointed out that High Guard had Meson Bays whose threshold for energy was lower than the arbitrary value given.

In any event, It would be interesting to see if despite all these years afterwards, if perhaps we could bring GURPS TRAVELLER closer to the Original Traveller rules.

For instance? All of the Grav drive technology peaked by Traveller Tech level 9, which means that to better match the CT rules, GURPS should have permitted Manuever-6 drive capability by GURPS TRAVELLER TL 9.

The one reason this bugs me is because ship to ship combat with Sword World Ships are really one sided due to the slow G drives that are the result of the GURPS thruster rules.

Ah well, GURPS TRAVELLER is likely not high on anyone's list these days. I purchased some of the Mongoose Traveller material a few years back and I have to say that I was happy to see the BITS material republished, along with some of the other material. I'm not all too happy with their ship building rules in Mongoose Traveller as bay weapons can be built into smaller ships than the original rules permitted, but they, what they want to do with their system is fine by me. There is no Men in Black waiting to haul anyone off if they play a given version of Traveller other than GURPS *teasing grin*.

I have to admit, this is the first time that, despite all the years I've owned the T4 material - I'm about to run a GURPS TRAVELLER campaign set in that time period. I am so looking forward to it.
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Old 03-21-2019, 10:07 PM   #4
Kax
 
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Location: God's Own Country
Default Re: Deck plan drafting and other surprises...

One thing that I wrote for myself was a backup power bank, for running quiet or powering ship systems when landed.

Just one space, not much at all.

But what it could do to energy weapon fire rates in combat if you allowed use of that power bank was a bit mindbending. Even with fire rate controls based on 'cooling requirements' it was still a bit painful.

I had to change the power bank technology 'for cheapness and reliability' to slow down utilisation rate.

Because it allowed a small ship, just a couple of turrets, to more than quadruple their weapon fire rate for the few rounds most fights will last. Even if you increase weapon Malf value to account for the power load it's worth putting a single space in almost any ship.

And what a few spaces could do on a military ship is a bit scary.
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Old 03-22-2019, 12:36 AM   #5
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Deck plan drafting and other surprises...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kax View Post
One thing that I wrote for myself was a backup power bank, for running quiet or powering ship systems when landed.

Just one space, not much at all.

But what it could do to energy weapon fire rates in combat if you allowed use of that power bank was a bit mindbending. Even with fire rate controls based on 'cooling requirements' it was still a bit painful.

I had to change the power bank technology 'for cheapness and reliability' to slow down utilisation rate.

Because it allowed a small ship, just a couple of turrets, to more than quadruple their weapon fire rate for the few rounds most fights will last. Even if you increase weapon Malf value to account for the power load it's worth putting a single space in almost any ship.

And what a few spaces could do on a military ship is a bit scary.
True enough. It should be noted however, that your use of battery power isn't outside the rules, but is in fact, part and parcel of the rules.

See pages 124 and 125 of GURPS TRAVELLER STARSHIPS.

A single module of power cells at TL 10 will provide 900,000 Mw seconds. If using a standard TL 10 laser (250-MJ, you need to feed it 11.1 Mw for 60 seconds before it has enough energy to fire once. Page 124 has "power slices" - just PURE power plant energy that provides 20 Mw per second of operation at only 1/2 dTon of space. Problem is? If you want to have a laser that can fire 60/60 times per minute instead of 1/60 times per minute - you need to feed the laser 666 Mw per combat turn of 20 minutes. Since you talked about using only a single space, instead of 900,000 Mw seconds, one can only presume there was 180,000 Mw Seconds in the battery. That is enough to power the laser to where it can fire a total of 270 times (at x60 power) before that power cell is depleted.

Due to the rules in GURPS TRAVELLER 2nd edition, the way it works is that for every success by 2, you get one extra hit of damage. If you gain a +6 bonus to hit your target, then on average, you will secure about 3 extra hits that inflict damage. If you gain a +10 bonus (such as results when you have a RoF bonus of +17 instead of +7 per normal RoF), you only secure an extra 5 hits that round (10/2 = 5).

Putting this into perspective?

To be able to fire 60/60 requires 666 Mw for a standard TL 10 laser that requires 11.1 Mw for the normal 1/60 RoF. 60 x 11.1 = 666.

To gain a RoF bonus of +17 overall, you would need an additional x16 of that 666 Mw, or 9,990 Mw. Assuming (based on your statement you only used 1 dTon of space for your battery) that you only get 900,000/5 Mw Seconds in your battery, or 180,000 Mw Seconds (assuming a TL 10 ship by the by), then this is what happens:

Single shot at 9,990 Mw seconds for the +17 bonus to hit, gains you a net +5 extra hits over and above what you would have had - with a normal shot. You have enough energy in your power cell reserve for 18 such shots.

To get a +19 bonus to hit, one presumes you need 60 x 660 Mw Seconds, which will net you only +1 extra hit. You only have enough energy in a fully charged power cell for 4 such shots.

with a +19 bonus to hit vs the original +7 bonus for normal energy use - you will only get (19-7)/2 extra hits. In this case, that works out to an extra 6 hits over and above what a standard laser at standard energy use would gain you.

Of the two methods? Using power cells instead of Power slices will gain you the most advantage during a battle.
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