Mixing & Matching ship building rules from 3 & 4e

[hal]

Hi All,
I'm looking at the possibility of revamping some of the GURPS TRAVELLER rule designs and possibly of borrowing the Ship Hull building rules from ISW.

What has my interest here is looking to swap out the hull construction rules from GURPS TRAVELLER or GURPS TRAVELLER: STARSHIPS - with those rules from GURPS INTERSTELLAR WARS.

If I swap that and only that - I'm thinking that it might work as an ad-hoc solution to the various forms of ship hulls from Classic Traveller that GURPS TRAVELLER never had.

Thoughts?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by hal

Hi All,
I'm looking at the possibility of revamping some of the GURPS TRAVELLER rule designs and possibly of borrowing the Ship Hull building rules from ISW.

Thoughts?

I have never been impressed with the output of the ISW rules. Even just looking at the sample ships in ISW the premise of the Terrans going with beam weapons because their missiles were inferior just doesn't work.

If you look at Vilani and Terran designs of comparable mass I find that the Vilani ships are armored to the point of being invulnerable to the Terran's beam weapons. The Terrans should be launching missiles in the face of that (up to the point of developing meson weapons anyway). The Terrans would quite possibly have lost all the wars up til that point too badly.

When I look at the ISW rules they seem to have been designed in a process unknown to me but with the probable goal of "looking" more like the High Guard rules.

Starships had an extensive public playtest. More than 8000 messages long and dyes, I was there. There was great effort put into matching canon but the end goal was probably getting a system that worked.

If you want the ISW rules because they look more like High Guard there's probably no more to be said.

[hal]

Actually, what I'm looking at is marrying the hull rules of ISW with the module rules GURPS TRAVELLER STARSHIPS with a change in reaction less drives such that it mirrors High Guard's intent that the drive evolution is faster/better than how GURPS TRAVELLER has it now.

I'm just wondering if the hull rules from ISW are worth merger ing with the rest of the older material.

[Pomphis]

Wouldn´t the really big effect be that streamlined ships would no longer lose 20% of useable volume?

[hal]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Wouldn´t the really big effect be that streamlined ships would no longer lose 20% of useable volume?

Originally Posted by Pomphis

Wouldn´t the really big effect be that streamlined ships would no longer lose 20% of useable volume?

Pretty much. The issue in my mind is that others have commented that GURPS VEHICLES unfairly penalized volume to account for surface area. I wondered if anyone could confirm that this newer way works reasonably well that I'm not mixing and matching something that really doesn't work all too well.

The one problem with ISW is that the pricing doesn't seem to match that of the Imperial Credit system (understandably so), but there is no real reliable way to convert the currency from the one to the other. Sadly, I trust the numbers behind TRANSHUMAN SPACE more than I do ISW's numbers where it comes to building a hull in general.

Once I feel confident that the hull system creation rules for ISW can be swapped out for the Hull system rules in GURPS TRAVELLER: STARSHIPS - then I will see if I can write an app that does what GMV does - allow the user to create GURPS TRAVELLER starships.

I LOVE GURPS Modular Vehicles - but it is unreliable on Windows 10 - and my windows 7 machine went belly up not too long ago. Ultimately, before I start to write code, I have to start with the basics such as file structure, data input, and last but not least - any "non-standard" aspects I want to include in the app.

[Pomphis]

In CT/HG battleships were often streamlined (configuration 1) as that provided additional protection against meson beams and didn´t affect armor at all, as well as heavily armored.

In ISW streamlining massively impacts armor/DR.

So while the ISW rule may be in some ways more sensible, they create another huge problem for canonical designs.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

In CT/HG battleships were often streamlined (configuration 1) as that provided additional protection against meson beams and didn´t affect armor at all, as well as heavily armored.

In ISW streamlining massively impacts armor/DR.

So while the ISW rule may be in some ways more sensible, they create another huge problem for canonical designs.

Problems (of whatever size they may actually be) for canonical designs can only be avoided by not changing the rules under which they were designed.

Once you decide to change something (like the HG system that had the geometry of the target ship affecting whether a weapon "hit" or not) then other changes are inevitable. I'm comfortable saying that not streamlining capital ships produces no significant changes.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Pomphis

In CT/HG battleships were often streamlined (configuration 1) as that provided additional protection against meson beams and didn´t affect armor at all, as well as heavily armored.

In ISW streamlining massively impacts armor/DR.

So while the ISW rule may be in some ways more sensible, they create another huge problem for canonical designs.

Ok, if you needed to try and build an analog of say, the Type T cruiser from Classic Traveller using GURPS TRAVELLER: STARSHIPS as well as GURPS ISW and last but not least, ISW Hull rules and maneuver drive concept (aka - all maneuver drives are TL 12 drives instead of what was given to us in GURPS TRAVELLER) - which system comes closest to being able to build an accurate analog?

Just curious. :)