Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

VERY interesting stuff, Mark. I am interested in the use of the square root dHP system and I like your suggestion on your blog to allow disabling by lower powered weapons to make small strike craft useful against large ships.

One other solution -- Spaceships assumes that weapons scale with size to no real limit. What if there ARE limits on the size of weapons? I'm pondering how to convert the Star*Drive setting to GURPS and I was a big fan of ship design under that game's Warships supplement. The largest ships are upwards of SM +20, but there were no "spinal mounts" that large in the setting. Indeed, I'm tempted to say that the maximum size of weapons is more in the SM +16 scale.

Finally, the other way to increase survivability of ships is to simply make the design decision to use smaller weapons on your ships (like in Star Wars). But that doesn't work very well when doing conversions...

Anyway, your examples are very helpful and while I was distressed to see you were distressed by the latest round, I'm hopeful that there are some good solutions out there.

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

Some thoughts on this.

The problem that really struck me, looking at this, was handing the escorts the first shot for free. This might not be a huge problem in the drawn-out exchange of blows you may have been hoping for, but in the actual combat it's huge. (And longer turn times aggravate this.) And it doesn't seem appropriate to the scenario described, though perhaps I'm misunderstanding that. However, I don't see a satisfactory fix. One could allow the carrier to take 'aim and wait' actions in the pre-turn, but that hands it two full rounds of fire before the escorts get to take their second. Maybe a little fairer, but not really resolving the issue. Spaceships 3's system gives simultaneous turns...

I'm not sure what the 'all or nothing' complaint about the PD is. Bricru 2 would have been a debris field instead of merely seriously damaged if the PD hadn't thinned the incoming missiles. (The guns are running into trouble, of course, because large-caliber guns are just awful.)

On the other hand, Bricru 2 didn't need to be hit at all, if you weren't aggregating all the PD turrets and then parceling out their shots in a way I don't quite understand. Each gun individually would be rolling against a 22 (with their RoF 600 in 1-minute turns), so two would have stopped the attack, three if you want to be excessively careful.

On a technical note, I think there are several places where RoF is handled wrong in the 1-minute combat. The spinal laser and KKC attacks seem to have been treated with their base RoFs of 1, 3, or 6, but in one-minute turns the spinal gun is RoF 3, the three-gun KKC batteries are RoF 9, and the 6-gun battery is RoF 18. The missile attack looks like it was treated as RoF 20 rather than RoF 6. The three-gun particle beam batteries got no RoF bonus to hit (should have been +2) but were allowed to score four hits in one attack.


If you want slugging matches and find even energy weapons too powerful, ramping up HP, or handing out ITDR, or something of the kind is probably the way to do it. I'd be very hesitant about nerfing particle beams though, they already suffering under major range and accuracy penalties compared to lasers.

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

An abstracted look at your designs I think makes much of this predictable, actually.

The PD batteries you've equipped all your craft with make the very casual ballistic loadouts completely pointless. There's only been one time in all your battles that you got a kinetic shot through a PD screen, right? And that one shouldn't actually have worked. Ballistic weapons that are outnumbered something like 3 to one by VRF lasers are a total waste of space, time, and dice rolls. (Even VRF guns probably aren't doing any good at those numbers.)

So it comes down to the energy batteries. The Bricrus have an overwhelming edge in weight of fire. Each of their medium batteries throws more dice of damage than the Valiant's big gun. They suffer more from armor, but not enough more without you fielding ships with much more serious defense layouts than these. Each escort individually outguns the carrier. Its only saving grace is range...but you're scaling the battle to allow dramatic maneuvering and disallow the carrier casually lighting up the escorts like targets on a range before they can get off the starting blocks.

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

I'm enjoying reading the Spaceships combat examples, and they are very informative. Discussions on the forums had pointed to missiles being unbalanced, but without seeing the actual effect in play I wasn't sure how bad the problem was, so thanks for these.
Having played around with building Spaceships, and converting designs from another system, a lot (see the GURPS thread link in my sig.), it had made me wonder how effective the designs were, in particular, did I have enough Armour on the various sizes and designs of ship, and how did their weaponry balance out. I hadn't gotten around to playing out the numbers yet, so thanks again.

One thing I did make a lot of use of when doing the spaceship conversions was the standard sequences used for spaceships - basically:
{1,3}= 1,3,10,30,..
{1,2,5}=1,2,5,10,20,50,..
{Armour}=1,2,3,5,7,10,15,20,30,50,..
With a few multipliers (which I find easy to work with), I compressed the Spaceship Design down to 6 pages, including all component specs.

Looking at using the square root of weight scaling for HP doesn't exactly give a nice progression, but with a little fiddling I think I've found a couple of possible progressions which may be useful.

Using square root of mass (tons * 2000 for lbs) *0.85, double for Unliving, divide by 10 for decade scale gives:
(from SM+5): 41.6, 76.0, 131.7, 240.4, 416.4, 760.3, ..
'Rounding', this could conveniently be:
(Spaceship dHP from SM+5): 50,75,150,250, 500,750,1500,2500, ..
Not as nice a progression as the others, but fairly memorable.

Dropping the 0.85 (I missed that at first when just using square root of mass), with rounding gives:
(Spaceship dHP from SM+5): 50,100,150,300, 500,1000,1500,3000, ..
Which I prefer because it's closer to the {1,3}, and its actually the same as the (0.85) calculations for Odd SM's !

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

This thread made me realise I'd never run even a experiment combat in Spaceships, so I thought I'd try the same scenario as mlangsdorf, using his ships and with no house rules.
I quickly got the same result in an ambush, the Vigilant instantly destroyed, so I ran it again giving the Vigilant enough advanced warning for a full pre battle turn. It turned out quite differently.
For this combat I'm going to ignore all crew casualties and damage control.
3 minute turns, standard range.

The Vigilant saw the Briciu's at sufficient range that she got a full Pre Game turn before they engage.
The Valiant is up against 3 ships each one of whom would almost be a fair fight, so is fairly desperate.
All skills are 14, the Pilot of the Vigilant has Combat Reflexes; I miscalculated the first few Dodges for the Vigilant by adding +1 from being motivated by command, so to avoid having to go back and redo things I retconned in CR. Which explains why in this alternate universe the Vigilant saw the enemy coming in time to react :)

Vigilant(pre game turn)
Command Task : Motivate Pilot against a target of 14,rolled 12 Pilot has +1 to all tasks
Engineering: Allocate all power to weapons.
Navigation: Tactical Navigation, rolled a 6 +1 to Pilot skill (so it will be 15 for the rest of the turn), for the rest of the combat I'll use a format something like BaseSkill+x(reason)=target_number rolled (margin of success, of margin of failure if negative). e.g. Fast Talk 14+1(I like this guy)=15 13(2) is a roll of 13 against a target number of 15.
Pilot: Really doesn't want the enemy to be able to close, so uses feeds some water through the fusion torch to get the maximum bonus for Hold Course 1.5g 1.5 mps (+3), can put either the front or the centre towards the enemy, the front has arguably fewer important systems so front towards enemy. 3.5mps of water remaining
Gunners: All weapons Wait(Point Defence), could have used Wait(Aim and Attack) on some weapons but this gives the most defensive fire. This was a mistake, putting the main weapons on Wait(Aim & Attack) (Wait(Aim) throughout the example) would have allowed the Vigilant to do damage to the enemy as they closed (or attempted to), now that I've run the combat I suspect the Pre Battle turn is important to why ordering the turns isn't a big deal - the side that moves second isn't a sitting duck and can't often be hit big without responding.

B1
Command: Defensive Tactics vs Vigilant 14+2(3 min turns)=16 16(0) so +1 Dodge vs Vigilant
Engineering: Increase Power Task=14 15 failed, 4 points available. Allocate power to Point Defence Lasers, 1 Kinetic Kill Cannon battery and both Particle Cannon batteries. The book states that if the number of Power Points changes then the allocation counts as task for multitasking but that can't really include the PP shift from Increase Power or Emergency Power - since you don't know if the number is going to be different in this turn until after the roll to determine the number you have. So no multitasking penalty from the Allocate to the Increase Power.
Navigation: Tactical Navigation rolled an 11 +1 Pilot skill
Pilot: Closing 0.5G 0.5mps +1 14+1(Tac Nav)+1 (accel)=16 vs 14+1(tac nav) +1(motivation)+3(accel) = 19. 8(MoS8) vs 9(MoS10). Loss, range remains Long, front to Vigilant.
Doesn't have range.
Gunnery: PDL Wait(PD), others Wait(Aim) - fire if Valiant closes to Short. This is the critical mistake the B1's captain made, he should have used at least the KKC perform a Wait(PD) instead. And where the Vigilant could have fired it's Spinal Laser if it had performed a Wait(Aim)

B2
Command: Keep formation (actually he's hoping for a better result on the Closing, but if doesn't get it will remain in formation with B1). Motivate Pilot=14 14(0) +1 to rolls
Eng:Increase Power Task=14 9(5), success so 5 Power Points. Allocate power to all weapons, the B2 wouldn't have been using Increase Power before this turn, so this roll shows where a retroactive -2 should be applied if this counted as changing the number of Power Points for allocation.
Navigation: Tactical Navigation=14 9(5) so +1 Pilot skill
Pilot: Closing 0.5G 0.5mps +1 14+1(Tac Nav) +1 (accel)+1(motivation)=17 vs 14+1(tac nav)+1(motivation)+3(accel) = 19. 13(4) vs 11 (8). Loss, range Long, front to Vigilant. In formation with B1
Doesn't have range
Gunnery: PDL Wait(PD), others Wait(Aim) - fire if Valiant closes to Short. B2 makes the same mistake as the B1.

B3
Command: Keep formation (hoping for a better result on the Closing, but if doesn't get it will remain in formation with B1). Motivate Pilot=14 14(0) +1 to tasks
Engineer: Increase Power Task=14 9(5) Allocate Power 2 to Particle Beams, 2 to Kinetic Kill Cannons, 1 to Point Defence Lasers.
Nav: Tactical=14 14(0) +1 Pilot skill
Pilot: Closing 0.5G 0.5mps +1 14+1(Tac Nav) +1 (accel)+1(motivation)=17 vs 14+1(tac nav)+1(motivation)+3(accel) = 19. 12(5) vs 16(3). And the Valiant was doing so well. Attack Run (range Short) front vs Vigilant, out of formation.
Gunnery. All attack (KKC aren't likely to score, but if they do it's going to gut the Vigilant)
PC1 14+10(SM)-3(sAcc)-8(range)-2(ECM)+2(RoF)=13 12(1) 1 hit. Dodge, the +1 skill from Tactical Navigation raises the Pilot's skill from 14 to 15, and Dodge starts with Skill/2, round UP so (15/2=8)+1(CR)-2(handling)+2(turn length)+1(ECM)=10 14 no dodge. Hit1 4x5=20-(50/3=16)=4. Doesn't disable anything, surge HT=13 14 fail disable 3 Hangar bay. HP=146.
PC2=13 11(2) 2 hits, recoil is increased by 1 due to the turn length. Dodge=10 7 Dodge 3.
PC3=13 11(2) 2 hits. Dodge=10 11 no. Hit1 16x5=80-16=64 at least 15, less than 75. Disable 6 cargo hold, surge 9 no. Hit2 5x5=25-16 = 9 no damage surge 9 no. HP=73
PC4=13 10(3) 2 hits. Dodge=10 11 no. Hit1 9x5=45-16= 29 Disable 2 Water tank surge 11 no. Hit2 13x5=65-16=49 disable Cargo hold, destroyed surge 13 no. HP=-5. Array-1, Hnd becomes -4, beam attack -2. The cargo could be treated as Volatile and so need to roll to see if the Vigilant explodes, but I decided against it (wearing the GM hat - probably a Fez)
PC5=13 8(5) 3 hits. Dodge (15/2)=8+1(CR)-4(handling)+2(turn length)+1(ECM)=8 7(1) dodge 2. Hit1 9x4=45-16=29 disable 2 Water Tank, destroyed surge 9 no.
PC6=13 12(1) 1 hit. Dodge=8 9. Hit1 5x5=25-16=9 surge 8. HP=-33
KKC1 14+10(SM)-6(sAcc)-2(ECM)+0(relative velocity)+2(RoF)=18 11(7) 2 hits. PDL1(800) 14-4(SM)+0(Range)+0(sAcc)-2(damage)+10(RoF)=18 10(8) 5 intercepts. I didn't notice that the PDL were improved, but using 800 RoF on the initial interception was more than enough, reserving the remaining 200 in case one of the other intercepts rolled poorly.
KKC2=18 8(10) 3 hits. PDL2(800)=18 11(7) 4 intercepts.
KKC3=18 11(7) 2 hits. PDL3(800)=18 12(6) 4 intercepts
KKC4=18 14(4) 1 hit. PDL4(800)=18 15(3) 2 intercepts
KKC5=18 8(10) 3 hits. PDL5(800)=18 14(4) 3 intercepts
KKC6=18 11(7) 2 hits. PDL6(800)=18 11(7) 4 intercepts

(continued in next post)

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

(continued from above)


V
Systems Disabled: Front 3 Hangar
Systems Destroyed: Front 2 Water Tank, 6 Cargo Hold
Command: Motivate Pilot=14 6 +1 to rolls
Emergency Thrust task=14 11(3), double Accel but -4 to future Emergency Thrust. Allocate power to all weapons - the same allocation as last turn so no multitasking penalty.
Navigation: Tactical Navigation 14 15 fail but by 1, no effect.
Pilot: Closing (B1) 2G 4mps (High thrust for 1 1G but doubles deltaV used, emergency thrust takes that to 2G)=14+1(motivated)+4(accel)=19 vs 14+1(TacNav)+1(accel)=16. 9(10) vs 12(4). Since MoS 10+ will be advantaged (facing the rear of the formation) but while it could also enter an Attack Vector the captain doesn't want to be at Short range, as the rules say "may combine both advantaged and an attack vector" I'm interpreting that as doesn't have to. Range to B3 is now Long as their attack vector is over. Front vs all enemies, range L.
Gunners: PDL Wait(PD)
Missile 1 Attack B1 14+9(SM)+2(sAcc)-1(ECM against Tactical Array)+4(proximity)+0(relative velocity)+7(RoF)=33 6(27,critical) Rcl2 due to turn length 14 hits. No dodge allowed against a critical. PDLs do not bear, so no Point Defence (b2 does not bear either, since it is facing the same way as b1). Hit1 20x4x2=160-40=120 Destroy 6 Engine Room, Disable 1 Armour HP=-20. Hit2 20x8=160-40=120 Destroy 3 Fusion Torch, disable 4 Fuel Tank HP -140, death check=12 7 success. Hit3 18x8=144-40=104 Destroy 6, already destroyed so destroy 1 armour (no core) , disable 5 Fuel Tank HP=-244 death check 11 success. Hit4, location 1 (so reduce armour by 20) 20x8=160-20=140, rollover to 2 armour disable 6 rollover to 4 Fuel Tank, destroyed HP=-380 death check 16 fail. Ship destroyed.
Missile 2: Attack B2=33 16(17) 9 hits. Dodge (15/2=8)-1(Hand)+2(turn length)+1(ECM)=10 7(3) dodge 4. Hit1 19x8=152-40=112 destroy 2 armour disable 2 rollover to 3 fusion torch HP=-12. Hit2 location 3 20x8=160-40=120 destroy 3 fusion torch disable 3 rollover to 4 fuel tank HP=-132 death check=12 6 success. Hit3 location 5 8x8=64-40=24 HP=-156. Hit4 location 1 17x8=136-40=96 destroy 1 armour disable 4 fuel tank, destroyed HP=-252 death check 12 success. Hit5 location 5 32x8=256-40=216 destroy 5 fuel tank disable 5 rollover to 6 engine room HP=468 2 death checks 7 success 9 success. Adrift with all 6 locations out of action (the engine room could be repaired).
Spinal Laser: target b3 14+9(SM)+1(sAcc)-12(range)+2(spinal)-2(damage)-1(ECM against Tactical Array)+2(RoF)=13 6(7) 4 hits. Dodge (15/2=8)+1(ECM)+2(turn length)=11 16 no dodge. Hit1 damage 4dx10 14x10=140-40=100 destroy 5 ECM disable 2 armour HP=0. Hit2 14x10=140-40=100 destroy 6 power plant disable 5 rollover to control room HP=-200 death check=12 12 success. Hit3 location 2 14x10=140-40=100 destroy 2 armour disable 3 tertiary battery HP=-300 death check 11 success. Hit4 location 1 15x10=150-20=130 destroy rollover 3, tertiary battery disable 6 rollover control room destroy HP=-430 death check 5 success.

B1
Send debris in all directions

B2
Uncontrolled drift. Range to V long, rear facing. Won't be involved again unless the Vigilant decides to chase it down, so ignore for the rest of the combat.

B3
Command: Space Tactics (defensive) 14+2(turn length) 14(2) +1 Dodge vs Vigilant
Engineering: Emergency Thrust14-2(multitasking) 11(1) Double thrust by -4 to future Emergency Thrust. 2 points allocated to the Particle Beams, as this is a different number of Power Points from last turn (2 rather than 4 base) allocating counts as a Task but still doesn't require a roll.
Nav: Tactical Navigation 7(7) +1 to Pilot skill
Pilot: Evasive Action 2G 4 mps +4 (+8 to avoid closing). Rear to Vigilant. Range Long
Gunnery: Wait(Aim) on PC, shoot Vigilant if it comes into range. The Vigilant no longer has any ballistic weapons (shot them dry) so don't need any Point Defence.

V
Command: Space Tactics (offensive) 14+2(turn length)=16 QC vs 14 4(12, crit) vs 6(10, crit). Won with a critical, so -2 to B3 Dodge. By the book this should have not included turn length since this was a Quick Contest, but it makes no difference to the outcome.
Engineering: Allocate power all weapons.
Navigation: Tactical Navigation=14 12(2) +1 Pilot Skill
Piloting: Closing 0.5G 0.5mps 14+1(Tac Nav)+1(accel)=16 vs 14+1(Tac Nav)+8(accel)=23. 11(5) vs 8(15). Fail. Range Long, Front to B3.
Gunnery: Wait(PD) PDL.
Spinal=13 15 (miss)

B3
Command: Space Tactics (defensive) 14 vs 14 15(fail) vs 9(6). No effect
Engineering: 2 points allocated to PC, same as last turn. Emergency Thrust14-4(previous Emergency Thrust)=10 14(-4) Double thrust but then torch fails.
Nav: Tactical Navigation 9(5) +1 to Pilot skill
Pilot: Retreat 2G 4 mps +4. Rear to Vigilant, Long range
Gunnery: Wait(Aim) on PC, shoot Vigilant if it comes into range.

V
Command: Space Tactics (offensive) 14 vs 14. 12(2) vs 9(5). No effect.
Engineering: Allocate power all weapons.
Navigation: Tactical Navigation=14 5(9) +1 Pilot Skill
Piloting: Closing 0.5G 0.5mps 14+1(Tac Nav)+1(accel)=16 vs 14+1(Tac Nav)+4(accel)=19. 6(10, crit) vs 10(9). Won QC so closing. Advantaged Front facing B3 Centre, range Long.
Gunnery: Wait(PD) PDL.
Spinal=13 9(4) 3 hits. Dodge (15/2=8)-3(Handling)+2(turn length)=7 11(-4) no dodge. Hit1 13x10=130-40=90 destroy 6 Particle Beam disable 6, rollover to core Fusion Power Plant HP=-520. Destroyed.

Against the odds the Vigilant wins.

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

Additionally, you might also want to checkout Spaceships 4
It may be under the Cinematic Cliches section, but I think this one falls under the not silly category, and seems perfectly reasonable.

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

I enjoyed the write-ups.

Minor note: A medium battery isn't "one turret with three weapons;" it's a battery of three individual independent mounts, which, as the rules say, can be mixed e.g., "Medium Battery (one fixed mount, two turret mounts"). As the rules for Improved weapons note, something like a WWII turret would be an improved mount (or possibly a rapid fire mount, depending on the number of weapons sticking out of it); I discussed that in the Traveller JTAS Spaceships article. Remember, each turret can have its own crew station, so a SM +6 bomber-sized design with a secondary battery could have 10 individual turrets if desired (or some turrets and a few fixed mounts to represent the bomb/missile bay).

Docking with a friendly doesn't require rendezvous. You just enter formation (choose the same maneuver and accel on your own turn as the formation leader), then (as per p. 65, under Launching Small craft) you can spend a turn to maneuver into the bay on a normal piloting skill roll (modified by extra time)

The cockpit multi-tasking is indeed useful for this sort of thing. It's probably unfortunate that the original planned Book 8 (which was to cover AI ships) did not appear, as that could have presented some simpler rules for using gunnery AI programs as point defense. A quick and dirty option is to a simple CIWS program with Gunner 10 or so and Automaton ("shoot missiles!") is Complexity 3 or so, and thus essentially a default option .

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

If you read the penalties the exo-armor pilots are taking, I'm already using that cinematic cliche. The argument is whether or not the pilot can take two Gunnery tasks with different weapons in the same turn.

Re: [Spaceships] Combat Examples?
 

It's been a couple of years since I last ran a space combat (when testing Spaceships 4), so I'm not sure whether I was being unduly conservative or if there was a play-balance reason for prohibiting it. It's possible the rule was actually supposed to say:

"A single character can never perform more than one gunnery task per turn with the same weapon"

I won't give an official ruling on it - SJ Games generally prefers any such go through errata channels. In this case, it's not really errata so much as "additional playtesting indicates that one man ships aren't very survivable unless they have an extra gunner or computer program to handle point defense, or a rule to cover it" . I think that's valid, but it's more an edition update.