Subj:	TRAVELLER digest 321
Date:	95-06-18 21:51:51 EDT
From:	traveller@mpgn.com
To:	traveller@mpgn.com

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			    TRAVELLER Digest 321

Topics covered in this issue include:

  1) Re: The Death of the Battle Rider
	by George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
  2) Re: Br's
	by Bri <bri@teleport.com>
  3) Re: TNE version of Leviathan
	by Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 18:57:48 -0700
From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: The Death of the Battle Rider
Message-ID: <199506180157.AA25140@mail.crl.com>


On the contrary, I think that the light to midsize rider is going
to enjoy a resurgence in popularity rather than a drop in effectiveness.

Combat effectiveness is a complex interplay between offensive firepower,
range, and ability to absorb or deflect incoming hits, with quite a bit
of maneuver and tactics for good measure.  Ignoring maneuver and tactics
for now, let us look at firepower and defenses.

Under TNE/FF&S and in particular the Battle Rider expansion game for
fleet combat, firepower can now be made in all sorts of nifty shapes
and sizes, some of which are totally unlike firepower in previous
versions of the game.  Also, unlike before, armor mass now hurts
your maneuverability... you can get armor-2000 if you want, but it's
gonna only make 0.1 G and have a G-turn or two of endurance...

Look for example at lasers.  Previously, lasers were a joe shmoe
baseline weapon which didn't do anything spectacular.  Now, due to
the rules changes, lasers punch holes in just about any armor in
existence... missile based lasers can kill a battle ship with enough
hits, through ANY armor (excepting million ton juggernauts with armor
1000 or so...), and large bay and spinal grade lasers can punch holes
in _anything_ out to 80 hexes if designed right.  If anything, ships are
much more vulnerable than they used to be, because very very long range
lasers can kill in ways that used to be impossible even with Meson
spinal mounts.  You can put enough firepower on a TL-10 10,000 ton
monitor to take out anything in the world.  Big ships are just big
targets in that sort of environment.

The Battle Rider rules more or less indicate that ship survivability
has taken a nosedive with the rules rewrite.  Combats will degenerate
into fast bloody mid to long range firefights, where things are detected
well within max weapons range and the side with a firepower advantage
very quickly wins out.  Scouting with smaller ships becomes more
important, if you can engage at 8 light seconds (80 hexes) when the
enemy doesn't have a lock on you yet, you win, even if your scout
ships get nuked.

So go ahead, design big juggernauts, by all means.  I love fighting
opponents who are designed in inferior manners, it keeps most of the
hard parts out of the game ;-)

-george william herbert

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 17 Jun 1995 19:34:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bri <bri@teleport.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: Br's
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950617192957.5540B-100000@kelly.teleport.com>

 This is only partialey true, you forget the fact that big battle ships 
require a porprtanatley big docking area and a large repair budget per unit.
 So once a battleship gets damaged, it takes a long time to repair.
 But a BR tender can be 'repaired(by replaicing the fighters)' in a 
instant. And those reserves can also be used to finght assuming you have 
a robotic brain/ai or you have pilots for it. Hence a storage depot is 
_very_ well protected.
 And a little fighter _can_ take out a big ship very easily. Am I the 
only one who has thought of 12g HEPLaR powerd missiles carrying nuclear 
warheads?
 The destruction radius on one would all but gut the largest of avaible 
ships in TNE and even those that arn't gutted would have to be run-over 
witha nuclear damper to remove radiation.
 Also, you could have 'small ships' that would be suicide drones carrying 
a nuclear(contact nuke mind you) warhead if your worried about high ROF 
point defenses.
 just a thought.

bri


------------------------------

Date: Sun, 18 Jun 95 00:55:31 -0400
From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
To: traveller@MPGN.COM
Subject: Re: TNE version of Leviathan
Message-ID: <9506180455.AA20933@qrc.com>


merrick@Rt66.com (Merrick Burkhardt) writes:
> >Rob Prior asks, 
> > Has anyone out there designed a TNE version of Leviathan
>  
> FFS designs lack the fuel to really explore anyplace without a logistical
> train. [...]  Getting the design to have enough gturns to explore a
starsytem
> alone won't happen (~220 is max assuming the ship is 100% fuel), especially
> when you have to carry stores for the crew, as well as cargo.

This is perhaps _THE_ major difference between CT/MT and TNE.  The answer
isn't to try to design a TNE ship that performs like a CT ship (although if
that's what you want, then you simply allow thruster plates into your
campaign).  The standard TNE is a _different game_ than CT/MT - what worked
in those systems and with those background assumptions probably doesn't work
in TNE.

In TNE, exploratory starships aren't going to move from world to world
within a system to perform a survey - they can't: most worlds are "farther"
away, in terms of travel time or fuel expenditure, than jumping outsystem
would be.

A TNE Leviathan would have fuel reserves for two, or preferably three jumps,
and as much maneuver fuel as could reasonably be added without compromising
the rest of the design.  This way, the ship operates from a known fuel
source - jumping into a new system at a likley place for refuelling
operations.

If there _is_ fuel at that location, it becomes the "base" for further
exploation - perhaps using microjumps in-system, or perhaps jumping to
other systems.  In either case, maximum use should be made of sensor drones
and other remote sensing tools.

wildstar@quark.qrc.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   "A shining New Era is tiptoeing nearer
..."
                                                "... and where do we
feature?"


------------------------------

End of TRAVELLER Digest 321
***************************


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