Author Topic: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft  (Read 2680 times)

Black_Knyght

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T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« on: 08 March 2018, 00:53:08 »
3075 era battle armor carrying boarding action small craft for thoughts, opinions, and constructive input.


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T-16 Battle Taxi


Code: [Select]
T-16 Battle Taxi
-------------------
Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)
Level: 2  Era: FedCom Civil War
-------------------
Experimental    - 
Advanced        - 
Standard      3075+
Tech Rating: E/X-X-E-D

Weight: 190 tons
BV: 2,085
Cost: 19,403,165 C-bills
Source: TRO - Black Knights

Movement: 4/6
Heat Sinks: 22 [44]
Fuel Points: 480/520 (6.5 tons)
Tons Per Burn Day: 1.84

Structural Integrity: 8
Armor: 428 (Heavy Ferro-Aluminum)
            Armor 
-------------------
Nose          130 
Left Side     110 
Right Side    110 
Aft            78 

Weapons                  Loc  Heat 
------------------------------------
ER Large Laser           NOS   12   
ER Large Laser           NOS   12   
ER Medium Laser          NOS    5   
Anti-Missile System      NOS    1   
ER Medium Laser           RS    5   
Anti-Missile System       RS    1   
ER Medium Laser (R)       RS    5   
Anti-Missile System (R)   RS    1   
ER Medium Laser           LS    5   
Anti-Missile System       LS    1 
ER Medium Laser (R)       LS    5
Anti-Missile System (R)   LS    1 
ER Medium Laser          AFT    5   
ER Medium Laser          AFT    5 
Anti-Missile System      AFT    1   

Ammo                           Loc  Shots 
-------------------------------------------
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]  NOS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   RS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   RS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   LS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   LS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]  AFT     12 

Equipment             Loc 
---------------------------
ECM Suite (Guardian)  NOS 

Carrying Capacity
-----------------
Battle Armor Bay (2 doors) - 3 Squads
Cargo Space (0 doors) - 5 tons
« Last Edit: 08 March 2018, 01:02:26 by Black_Knyght »

Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #1 on: 08 March 2018, 01:03:31 »
Why a 4/6 move profile? That's not enough to board most anything that isn't already crippled.

Black_Knyght

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #2 on: 08 March 2018, 01:06:03 »
Because I hadn't made one of these before, and didn't know what worked best I guess. ;) 8)

Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #3 on: 08 March 2018, 01:16:35 »
Well to be fair boarding is almost impossible  to accomplish anyway.  Boarding actions are something that works in the fiction but the game rules highly discourage their use...

It doesn't matter what your thrust is in TO as you can only even make the attempt on immobile targets.. and in abstract space combat (Alpha Strike) the high thrust helps you but ultimately it's still impossible to board anything since the target keeps you off if it succeeds on a simple skill check.. you have to hit a MoF of at least 4 AND have the target outright fail a control check...

So I guess after having thought more about it... 4/6 works just as "well" as the 6/9 profile ;)
« Last Edit: 08 March 2018, 01:24:06 by Tai Dai Cultist »

Black_Knyght

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #4 on: 08 March 2018, 01:34:01 »
Ah, I see...

Soooo..., relative velocities and positional vectors in space combined with magnetic clamps/cables or universal docking mounts for proximity operations are concepts that don't exist in the BT universe. They've been abstracted out so no one has to deal with them it seems

I get it now (LOL).  ;)
« Last Edit: 08 March 2018, 01:41:49 by Black_Knyght »

Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #5 on: 08 March 2018, 02:05:08 »
Ah, I see...

Soooo..., relative velocities and positional vectors in space combined with magnetic clamps/cables or universal docking mounts for proximity operations are concepts that don't exist in the BT universe. They've been abstracted out so no one has to deal with them it seems

I get it now (LOL).  ;)

Oh they absolutely exist.  But the game rules make it so hard to accomplish that it only ever works in lore/fiction.

Black_Knyght

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #6 on: 08 March 2018, 03:59:44 »
I hate it when rules become so abstracted that they shunt something fun and interesting into virtual pointlessness. #P

phoenixalpha

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #7 on: 08 March 2018, 04:36:15 »
If it was easy in the rules, every player would be boarding anything sitting around. Why spend huge amounts on a warship/jumpship when a couple of grunts in spacesuits can take it over?

Black_Knyght

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #8 on: 08 March 2018, 04:42:20 »
No one is saying make it easy.

Just don't make it pointlessly impossible either. And, wouldn't it be interesting to see battle armored space marines repel boarders? Personally I think it would add a cool new element to the use of infantry and battle armor, besides free kills on a battlefield.

phoenixalpha

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #9 on: 08 March 2018, 08:03:40 »
It would be very cool to do such, but you know players would be stretching every rule possible if they thought they could be getting "free" dropships/jumpships/warships.....

Alsadius

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #10 on: 08 March 2018, 10:26:28 »
Canonical designs don't include marines, so anyone using canonical designs is stupid vulnerable to boarding if boarding is at all practical. Players also don't tend to use morale rules, so getting a bunch of grunts in shuttles and sending them off to near-certain doom for a small chance at a WarShip is the sort of thing they'll do without thinking twice. Thus they need to make it impossible, to make up for the fact that there are no marines to make it difficult.

As a first stab at a rules change, give all canon ships one marine for every 2,000 tons of DropShip or 10,000 tons of WarShip(in BA if it's available in the era, otherwise with heavy short-range kit). Boarding requires a small craft with appropriate kit(say 10 tons and a few million C-bills?) closing to zero range and zero net speed and taking the "Immobile" penalty to anyone shooting at it that round. If it succeeds on a PSR at +3, it's docked, and then usual boarding combat begins. I don't have the standard boarding rules available to me right now, but I suspect from the above conversation that once a ship has been boarded, they'll work well enough.

Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #11 on: 08 March 2018, 11:12:42 »
It would be very cool to do such, but you know players would be stretching every rule possible if they thought they could be getting "free" dropships/jumpships/warships.....

Imagine using boarding teams to deliver nukes inside the enemy WarShip.  AMS that, suckas!  Creative players will always find ways to do something even worse than just trying to wrest control of a WarShip.

Boarding, if successful, has a way of rendering BV balancing even more useless than it already is for space combat.  I think that reason alone is why the rules won't let boarding work. 

Black_Knyght

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #12 on: 08 March 2018, 15:27:44 »
Canonical designs don't include marines, so anyone using canonical designs is stupid vulnerable to boarding if boarding is at all practical. Players also don't tend to use morale rules, so getting a bunch of grunts in shuttles and sending them off to near-certain doom for a small chance at a WarShip is the sort of thing they'll do without thinking twice. Thus they need to make it impossible, to make up for the fact that there are no marines to make it difficult.

Another point for how common sense gets tossed out in favor of abstract styled rules.

Even a pinch of sense would say that ships have at least a minimal marine or crew self-defense force. Hell, even modern day freighters train crews to repel/discourage boarders or have a small defense force in areas like the Somalian coast. But several hundred years from now in an era of space combat and space pirate bands no one can comprehend the idea and so the rules must be skewed to protect stupid vulnerable ships from a modicum of cleverness.

And I'm not even going to go into players exploiting poorly written and conceived rules (as is soooooo commonplace now in Battletech)....

Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #13 on: 08 March 2018, 15:57:11 »
Well when it comes to marines.. even if a ship has none it doesn't mean it's helpless vs a boarding party.  All dedicated marines do is give a bonus to the defenders' roll.  When a warship still has thousands of crew and passengers on board, that's still a LOT of dudes with laspistols or such for the marines to overcome.

Natasha Kerensky

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #14 on: 08 March 2018, 22:39:16 »
Ah, I see...

Soooo..., relative velocities and positional vectors in space combined with magnetic clamps/cables or universal docking mounts for proximity operations are concepts that don't exist in the BT universe.

I work in the space sector.  In fairness to whoever developed the boarding rules, in the real world, rendezvous and docking even with friendly, cooperative spacecraft is an agonizingly slow, delicate, dangerous procedure that sometimes results in collisions and near-misses even under the best of conditions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_M-34
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DART_(satellite)#Mishap_investigation_board

We're conditioned to think about boarding in bluewater terms (Greek triremes, Viking longships, Age of Sail and modern pirates).  But that takes place between ships moving in two dimensions at low tens of miles per hour at most, in a medium (water) that constantly ****** their movement, in a forgiving environment where no one dies quickly if hulls are punctured or someone falls overboard. 

In theoretical blackwater boarding, spacecraft are moving in three dimensions at tens of thousands of miles per hour at least (with complex gravitational effects thrown in for fun), with nothing in the vacuum to slow them down, which also happens to be an environment that kills in seconds from depressurization.

Of course, maybe game fun should take precedence over realism in game mechanics.  But rendezvous and docking with an uncooperative spacecraft should be an exceedingly difficult task. 

It doesn't matter what your thrust is in TO as you can only even make the attempt on immobile targets..

This makes sense to me.  In the real world, a puff or two from a couple hydrazine thrusters and the target spacecraft will push or spin rapidly away from the boarding spacecraft.  The target spacecraft's ability to thrust and orient should have to be disabled (which could be through engines, controls, power, or cabin) before boarding can be attempted.  Otherwise the target spacecraft will always be able to juke or spin away from the boarding spacecraft.  Even grappling equipment would become useless or even dangerous to the boarding spacecraft if the target spacecraft decided to spin at a few g's.

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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #15 on: 08 March 2018, 22:54:15 »
I've got no issues at all with anything you said Nasty K, but I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with it anyway.  And here's why! :D

I don't like bringing this particular aspect of realism into the space battles rules.  We're already predicated on Delta-V that's beyond realism and firmly into the realm of magic as is.  Rule of Cool is the order of the day on the ground and especially in the sky.  Rule of Cool says you oughta be able to do some space versions of naval boarding actions.  Even the fiction says it works (occasionally).

I don't see why the game rules have to make it so that boarding is an implausible game tactic.

As for bringing the tangent back to critiquing the small craft in the OP:

I absolutely withdraw my earlier dubious expressions about the viability of a 4/6 move profile :)

Natasha Kerensky

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #16 on: 09 March 2018, 10:27:50 »
I've got no issues at all with anything you said Nasty K, but I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with it anyway.  And here's why! :D

I don't like bringing this particular aspect of realism into the space battles rules.  We're already predicated on Delta-V that's beyond realism and firmly into the realm of magic as is.  Rule of Cool is the order of the day on the ground and especially in the sky.  Rule of Cool says you oughta be able to do some space versions of naval boarding actions.  Even the fiction says it works (occasionally).

I don't see why the game rules have to make it so that boarding is an implausible game tactic.

Nothing wrong with any of that.  I was just pointing out that if the developers of the boarding rules were going for realism, they achieved it.  But they obviously did so at the cost of game fun for folks like yourself.

I could go either way, myself.  YMMV...
"Ah, yes.  The belle dame sans merci.  The sweet young thing who will blast your nuts off.  The kitten with a whip.  That mystique?"
"Slavish adherence to formal ritual is a sign that one has nothing better to think about."
"Variety is the spice of battle."
"I've fought in... what... a hundred battles, a thousand battles?  It could be a million as far as I know.  I've fought for anybody who offered a decent contract and a couple who didn't.  And the universe is not much different after all that.  I could go on fighting for another hundred years and it would still look the same."
"I'm in mourning for my life."
"Those who break faith with the Unity shall go down into darkness."

Hellraiser

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Re: T-16 Battle Taxi boarding craft
« Reply #17 on: 03 June 2018, 13:43:30 »
Code: [Select]
[quote author=Black_Knyght link=topic=60640.msg1391228#msg1391228 date=1520488388]
Weight: 190 tons
Movement: 4/6
Heat Sinks: 22 [44]
Fuel Points: 480/520 (6.5 tons)
Structural Integrity: 8
Armor: 428 (Heavy Ferro-Aluminum)
Nose          130 
Left Side     110 
Right Side    110 
Aft            78 

Weapons                  Loc  Heat 
ER Large Laser           NOS   12   
ER Large Laser           NOS   12   
ER Medium Laser          NOS    5   
Anti-Missile System      NOS    1   
ER Medium Laser           RS    5   
Anti-Missile System       RS    1   
ER Medium Laser (R)       RS    5   
Anti-Missile System (R)   RS    1   
ER Medium Laser           LS    5   
Anti-Missile System       LS    1 
ER Medium Laser (R)       LS    5
Anti-Missile System (R)   LS    1 
ER Medium Laser          AFT    5   
ER Medium Laser          AFT    5 
Anti-Missile System      AFT    1   

Ammo                           Loc  Shots 
-------------------------------------------
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]  NOS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   RS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   RS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   LS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]   LS     12 
Anti-Missile System Ammo [IS]  AFT     12 

Equipment             Loc 
---------------------------
ECM Suite (Guardian)  NOS 

Carrying Capacity
-----------------
Battle Armor Bay (2 doors) - 3 Squads
Cargo Space (0 doors) - 5 tons
[/quote]

Just a couple thoughts.

Why 190 tons v/s a normal 200?

While 4/6 might be a bit slow,  you don't need 6/9 either as mentioned,  I think 5/8 would be my preferred Boarding Craft speed, but I can also get behind slower ones.

Fuel seems a bit much for something that will almost always be doing very short distance runs.  3-5 Tons should be plenty.

I'm not really a fan of the all around facings for a ship that will usually be going hard with a Nose or Aft facing .

2 ERLL in the Nose,  3 ERML Rear would be solid weapons coverage.
Give yourself at least 3 AMS in the Nose & Aft by dropping some lasers.

Finally, I see Rear facing weapons.... is that supposed to be Rear Wing weapons?    Is this thing using Aerodyne chassis?   If so I would switch to Spheroid.

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