What is broken with the Aerospace Rules?

[Giovanni Blasini]

NuBSG and the Expanse are probably the closest to describing Battletech aerospace combat.

[idea weenie]

Then wouldn't be a good thing if capital scale is set at 100x?
With ASFs having to form squadrons to take out capital units though critical damage.

ASF can still use a collection of Medium Lasers to do a lot of damage, vs a single AC/20.  My goal is ASF needing heavy weapons to punch through capital ship armor, rather than just turning into a laser disco ball with lots of small weapons.

Change the size of hexes and have warships, jumpships, and space stations be more like wet navy ship or mobile structures. The bigger the ship/station the more hexes it takes.It'd make them a bit studier while still being vulnerable to ASF. I'd also help with a sense of scale since there's really differentiating ships in terms of size. Not that I remember anyway. A Bugeye takes up the same space as a Potemkin.

The only reason a 4/6 Warship would be less maneuverable than an ASF capable of 4/6 is because it takes time to alert the crew of a sudden change (rotation or acceleration).

Warships should also be brought down in size, so they are roughly 25% the density of water.  Assuming 2.5 MTons, 25% density of water, L:W of 10:1, and roughly cylindrical, that would be a ship ~1100 meters long and 110 meters wide.  Also, on average a 2500 ton 'Warship' is only 1/10 the length of a 2.5 MTon Warship.

If you change the hex size, then you have to either change the acceleration numbers, turn length, the firing rate, or the cooling rate.

If you make the hex sizes small enough that warships take up multiple hexes, how does that make the warships any sturdier.  Warships are still limited to armor as a proportion of SI, which is linked to engine thrust.

I kind of think of aerospace like Star Wars and Babylon 5. They cover all of those things.

Star Wars:

• Phantom Menace - ASF vs ASF, and only got lucky to have an ASF get inside the enemy Warship
• Attack of the Clones - ASF vs Small Craft, and Mobile Structure vs Warship
• Revenge of the Sith - Warship vs Warship, and ASF were only to get inside for a rescue mission
• A New Hope - ASF needed to hit a critical location in order to do damage
• Empire strikes Back - ground-based heavy weapon vs Warship
• Return of the Jedi - ASF were able to attack the Warship only after capital ships had battered down its defenses

Babylon 5:

• Series - capital ships vs capital ships, Star Furies would engage White Stars rather than capital ships
• Films - none I can recall off-hand with semi-equal tech between the combatants
• B5Wars - has resistive armor vs every shot fired.  So you can have a squadron of Star Furies that each do d6+4 dmg for an average of 2.5 pts each, while a capital ship can have multiple Medium Lasers that each do 3d10+12 pts damage, an average 23.5 pts of damage (i.e. the Nova Dreadnought)

I think that could be interesting to have them set up in a "X-Wing" scale.  It would require larger models, though, and those can get expensive rather quickly.

If the bombs are strong enough, for sure.  It was pretty much that way for the Arizona where one hit a magazine.  Do ASFs have access to hard enough bombs to cause such a crit that isn't nuclear?

How much damage does the standard ASF 1-ton bomb do on a Battlemech tabletop, compared to the 200 kg Long Tom shot?

[Charistoph]

How much damage does the standard ASF 1-ton bomb do on a Battlemech tabletop, compared to the 200 kg Long Tom shot?

How much do those bombs weigh?

It looks like from Campaign Operations that one converts 1 ton of Cargo in to 1 Bomb slot for Internal Bomb Bays. 

From there, it depends on the type of bomb being used.  The standard HEs do damage like a full LRM-10 hit, while Clusters do damage like a Medium Laser, just across a much wider area for normal Ground Attacks.

According to Strat Ops:
"Only HE, cluster and laser-guided bombs or non-homing Arrow IV may be used. However, the three bomb types all function as HE bombs, inflicting 10 points of standard scale (1 point of capital-scale) damage, applied in 50-point (5-point capital-scale) groups. Arrow IV infl icts 20 standardscale points (2 capital-scale points) of damage but also has a chance of an automatic critical hit like capital missiles" -pg 116.

There's also AAA Missiles which take up 5 Bomb slots that can hit pretty hard at 2 Capital-Scale Damage.  And the Anti-Ship Missiles which take up 6 Bomb slots hit with 3 Capital-scale Damage and crits like a Barracuda.  Also the Light Air-to-Air Missile which takes up 1 Bomb Slot and can do 6 basic damage.  However, these aren't used in Bombing attacks.

[Ruger]

Actually, in Babylon 5, they did have Star Furies and other fighters attacking Earth Destroyers (their Capital ships), as well as Minbari War Cruisers. Not to mention Centauri and Narn heavy cruisers (their capital ships).

These attacks would often remove weapons or disable engines. It took longer than other warships doing the same thing, but it still happened.

Ruger

[RifleMech]

But it takes a Jump Ship (or Warship) to move between "archipeligos" (i.e. star systems) in anything resembling a timely manner.  We had cargo planes, and even some fighters, moving between islands quite easily.  Nobody has demonstrated a lifespan sufficient enough to survive an interstellar trip that didn't include a Jump Core.

Planets are islands in a sea of space in an age or sails and oars. Only the ships can jump from one planet to another. 

Odds are the defender already knows you're coming unless you're coming in under a false id.  And again, it depends on if you plan on shooting before getting there or not which determines how much more difficult a mission will get once shooting is engaged.

How would they know you're coming if they didn't have a patrol to spot you or the instrumentation to detect your arrival?

Considering it doesn't take much to set up as it would be part of a standard weather monitoring and/or communication satellite chain, it would be more rare for them NOT to have something which can identify a basic Jump Emergance from somewhere not covered by a major body than to have such.

Basically, you're talking about a world that hardly ever leaves their atmosphere and even pirates don't visit them on anything like a regular basis.

I suppose but it only takes one attack to destroy the receivers on the planet. And there are planets that don't see dropship traffic that often. Otherwise Pirate raids couldn't work because the planet would knw they're coming and evacuate before they arrive.

I think that could be interesting to have them set up in a "X-Wing" scale.  It would require larger models, though, and those can get expensive rather quickly.

I imagine so. Maybe if they were cardboard boxes? Like the spaceship box set from Renegade Legion?

If the bombs are strong enough, for sure.  It was pretty much that way for the Arizona where one hit a magazine.  Do ASFs have access to hard enough bombs to cause such a crit that isn't nuclear?

I think it's closer to Babylon 5 and new Battlestar Galactica than Star Wars or old BSG.

I think there are under Aerotech 1. I believe they had up to 100 point bombs. That should do some damage.

Babylon 5 for sure. Star Wars/BSG because the fighters are ASF instead of just space fighters but the ships fight like surface ships. The fight in Return of the Jedi is how I picture fleet engagements in Battletech.

[RifleMech]

The only reason a 4/6 Warship would be less maneuverable than an ASF capable of 4/6 is because it takes time to alert the crew of a sudden change (rotation or acceleration).

Ships also have more mass than ASF. It takes more energy to move and stop all that mass. You also can't turn the crew into jelly. The crew in the middle of the ship wouldn't be under the same gee load as those on either end. So the fighter would be able to turn and speed up faster. The ship though has more fuel so could out run the fighter. It's like the Millennium Falcon vs a Star Destroyer. The Falcon can't outrace the Destroyer but it can out maneuver it.

Warships should also be brought down in size, so they are roughly 25% the density of water.  Assuming 2.5 MTons, 25% density of water, L:W of 10:1, and roughly cylindrical, that would be a ship ~1100 meters long and 110 meters wide.  Also, on average a 2500 ton 'Warship' is only 1/10 the length of a 2.5 MTon Warship.

If you change the hex size, then you have to either change the acceleration numbers, turn length, the firing rate, or the cooling rate.

If you make the hex sizes small enough that warships take up multiple hexes, how does that make the warships any sturdier.  Warships are still limited to armor as a proportion of SI, which is linked to engine thrust.

Maybe that should happen or at least have that option?

If they take multiple hexes it's possible to destroy a section or two without destroying the entire thing.

Star Wars:

• Phantom Menace - ASF vs ASF, and only got lucky to have an ASF get inside the enemy Warship
• Attack of the Clones - ASF vs Small Craft, and Mobile Structure vs Warship
• Revenge of the Sith - Warship vs Warship, and ASF were only to get inside for a rescue mission
• A New Hope - ASF needed to hit a critical location in order to do damage
• Empire strikes Back - ground-based heavy weapon vs Warship
• Return of the Jedi - ASF were able to attack the Warship only after capital ships had battered down its defenses

 :thumbsup:

Babylon 5:

• Series - capital ships vs capital ships, Star Furies would engage White Stars rather than capital ships
• Films - none I can recall off-hand with semi-equal tech between the combatants
• B5Wars - has resistive armor vs every shot fired.  So you can have a squadron of Star Furies that each do d6+4 dmg for an average of 2.5 pts each, while a capital ship can have multiple Medium Lasers that each do 3d10+12 pts damage, an average 23.5 pts of damage (i.e. the Nova Dreadnought)

Like Ruger said, Star Furies did attack capital ships and Babylon. They also had shuttles conduction landing operations and breaching pods to break into Babylon 5.
I don't know about the game but the advanced races did have better armor than the younger ones.

[tassa_kay]

Babylon 5, nuBSG and The Expanse are probably what I'd point someone to if I were trying to explain or sell someone new on BattleTech's aerospace component, because I think they capture the feel better than any other visual sci-fi medium.

[glitterboy2098]

the expanse has the best depiction of how Btech drives move ships around a system, BSG has the best example of how Btech naval battles tend to work in terms of weaponry and tactical maneuvering, babylon 5 has the best example of how btech fighters would maneuver in battle and contribute to the larger naval exchanges.

[Charistoph]

Planets are islands in a sea of space in an age or sails and oars. Only the ships can jump from one planet to another. 

And there are no fighters in the age of sails and oars.

How would they know you're coming if they didn't have a patrol to spot you or the instrumentation to detect your arrival?

Already addressed.  It is more unlikely that a planet will not have something to detect them than a planet will, even in the Periphery.

I suppose but it only takes one attack to destroy the receivers on the planet. And there are planets that don't see dropship traffic that often. Otherwise Pirate raids couldn't work because the planet would knw they're coming and evacuate before they arrive.

The only way to destroy the receivers would be to already be attacking.  If my receivers get blown up, I'm going to be anticipating an attack.

Pirate raids work because there isn't enough lift to get everyone out before they arrive, and also because this is their home.

Good pirate Jump Ships also jump in as close as possible to reduce reaction time for those Dropships that are close to ready to take off.  But we're still talking hours to reach the location.

[marcussmythe]

Whats Broken?

1.)  Rules very badly scattered.  If you want people to play it, put the rules all together in one place, clean and accessible.

2.)  Space Bricks Ahead:  ASFs can be very silly tough, and for some people this is offputting.  I rode the LCF-R20 to great success many years ago on a Mechwars campaign server - while it worked a charm, Im not sure it ‘felt right’.

Warship Specific:

1.)  10:1 scale creates some really ludicrous results - a NL/55 does 55 damage, and weighs 1100 tons.  A heavy ASF can absorb multiple hits from a gun that weighs more than 10 times as much as the aircraft.  This strains my credulity beyond the breaking point into laughter.  Id rescale to 100:1

2.)  Caveat to above - Nukes.  Given the amount of energy generation available, the masses and speeds involved, and the way nuclear weapons just casually flip the table and invalidate the whole concept, I feel it plays better if we assume that Capital weapons are already ‘nuclear’ in their scale, and get rid of the magical-game-over button.

[tassa_kay]

the expanse has the best depiction of how Btech drives move ships around a system, BSG has the best example of how Btech naval battles tend to work in terms of weaponry and tactical maneuvering, babylon 5 has the best example of how btech fighters would maneuver in battle and contribute to the larger naval exchanges.

Literally my exact thought process on this, too.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Switching scales to make hexes smaller already exists in Battletech.  We call it the aerospace map, where hexes are 500 meters and turns are the same 10 seconds as a standard Battletech turn.  That number is not arbitrary, any more than the 1-minute turn and resulting 18-km hex are.

A ship moving at 1 G acceleration for 60 seconds will change its position by 17640 meters, or close enough to 18 km for our purposes.  A ship moving at 1 G acceleration for 10 seconds will change its position by 490 meters, or close enough to 500 meters for our purposes.

Physics dictates that a heat sink cannot radiate to a vacuum as efficiently as it dissipates its excess heat in a medium like an atmosphere, which was one of the reasons that ships only fire once per turn at the 18 km/1 minute scale.  That's something that needs to be taken into account if you're changing the scale in space.

Weapons range becomes another issue to consider.  Either range drops ludicrously short, where heavy naval gauss rifles can't match a real life 16"/50 cannon on an Iowa class battleship, or you fire effectively 1800 hexes away for extreme range, at which point you're basically abstracting things down to something like the High Speed Engagement rules, where the maps don't really matter anyway.

[RifleMech]

Switching scales to make hexes smaller already exists in Battletech.  We call it the aerospace map, where hexes are 500 meters and turns are the same 10 seconds as a standard Battletech turn.  That number is not arbitrary, any more than the 1-minute turn and resulting 18-km hex are.

A ship moving at 1 G acceleration for 60 seconds will change its position by 17640 meters, or close enough to 18 km for our purposes.  A ship moving at 1 G acceleration for 10 seconds will change its position by 490 meters, or close enough to 500 meters for our purposes.

And then we could have ships take multiple hexes.

Physics dictates that a heat sink cannot radiate to a vacuum as efficiently as it dissipates its excess heat in a medium like an atmosphere, which was one of the reasons that ships only fire once per turn at the 18 km/1 minute scale.  That's something that needs to be taken into account if you're changing the scale in space.

I'd be okay with capital scale weapons having a slower rate of fire than standard scale weapons.

Weapons range becomes another issue to consider.  Either range drops ludicrously short, where heavy naval gauss rifles can't match a real life 16"/50 cannon on an Iowa class battleship, or you fire effectively 1800 hexes away for extreme range, at which point you're basically abstracting things down to something like the High Speed Engagement rules, where the maps don't really matter anyway.

Since ground units already have a ludicrously short range, on the ground and in space, why shouldn't aerospace units, using the same weapons, have the same ranges?

Whats Broken?

1.)  Rules very badly scattered.  If you want people to play it, put the rules all together in one place, clean and accessible.

2.)  Space Bricks Ahead:  ASFs can be very silly tough, and for some people this is offputting.  I rode the LCF-R20 to great success many years ago on a Mechwars campaign server - while it worked a charm, Im not sure it ‘felt right’.

1) :thumbsup:  That goes for all the core rule books.

Warship Specific:

1.)  10:1 scale creates some really ludicrous results - a NL/55 does 55 damage, and weighs 1100 tons.  A heavy ASF can absorb multiple hits from a gun that weighs more than 10 times as much as the aircraft.  This strains my credulity beyond the breaking point into laughter.  Id rescale to 100:1

2.)  Caveat to above - Nukes.  Given the amount of energy generation available, the masses and speeds involved, and the way nuclear weapons just casually flip the table and invalidate the whole concept, I feel it plays better if we assume that Capital weapons are already ‘nuclear’ in their scale, and get rid of the magical-game-over button.

1) I thought Capital scale weapons did 10x standard scale damage. It's been a while since though so maybe I'm not remembering right.

2) Interesting thought.

[marcussmythe]

You are correct.  Capital Weapons do 10x normal scale damage.  The NL/55 actually does 5.5 capital damage, IIRC.  Sorry about the confusion - Id have used a NAC or HNPPC, which would have been less ambiguous, but those will still kill the fighter even at 10:1  :)

[RifleMech]

You are correct.  Capital Weapons do 10x normal scale damage.  The NL/55 actually does 5.5 capital damage, IIRC.  Sorry about the confusion - Id have used a NAC or HNPPC, which would have been less ambiguous, but those will still kill the fighter even at 10:1  :)

Cool! Thanks. :) I thought that was the case but wasn't sure since I don't use Aerospace much. Maybe I would with better rules.

It is kind of odd that Naval Lasers do so little damage. It makes sense compared to other Naval Weaponry but not so much compared to standard weapons. Maybe they traded damage for range?

[Giovanni Blasini]

And then we could have ships take multiple hexes.


I'd be okay with capital scale weapons having a slower rate of fire than standard scale weapons.

So you have some weapons that can fire every turn but other weapons that can only fire every 6 turns, with the justification being that it's due to heat dissipation, but you can fire 10 of the every-turn weapons and generate more heat than one of the once-every-6-turns weapons?

Since ground units already have a ludicrously short range, on the ground and in space, why shouldn't aerospace units, using the same weapons, have the same ranges?

Aerospace craft already have ludicrously short ranges.  But, we'll go with this for sake of argument.

Keep in mind this switch to 500-meter hexes, would also makes the high-altitude map...interesting.  Since those hexes are now only 500-meters too, the space/atmosphere interface is now, instead six 18-km hexes up (ie. around the 100 km of the Kármán line), that's now a good 200 hexes up.

Now, as it stands, when using individual ranges for capital weaponry, you max out aroung 56 hexes, or 23 kilometers.  If we keep the range the same in hexes, then, a heavy naval PPC, at 3000 tons, or the even more massive heavy naval gauss rifle, has barely twice the range of a 30-ton Long Tom.  SLBM-sized capital missiles have shorter ranges than similarly-sized cruise missiles.

The number of hexes to the space/atmosphere interface creates another problem: orbital bombardment.

Orbital bombardment is described at multiple points in the fiction and is, in fact, a major plot point in the Return of Kerensky novels, the First and Second Succession Wars, etc.  Switching to smaller hexes to make WarShips multi-hex craft, then, results in either a situation where you have this thing that's happened multiple times in the canon, but is impossible under actual game rules, or a situation where you've got one class of weapon that can fire at least 200 hexes, making gameplay on a table-top with a hex map essentially impossible.

Either of those are valid choices, but they create their own cans of worms, and help to illustrate why, once Battlespace got rid of the insanity of 1-minute turns and 6500 km space hexes, settling for the 18-km space hex and 1G = 2 MP acceleration on a one-minute turn, that it has not since been changed in the last 30 years since Battlespace was published.

[RifleMech]

And there are no fighters in the age of sails and oars.

Ships didn't jump from island to island either and we did have airships.

Already addressed.  It is more unlikely that a planet will not have something to detect them than a planet will, even in the Periphery.


The only way to destroy the receivers would be to already be attacking.  If my receivers get blown up, I'm going to be anticipating an attack.

Pirate raids work because there isn't enough lift to get everyone out before they arrive, and also because this is their home.

Good pirate Jump Ships also jump in as close as possible to reduce reaction time for those Dropships that are close to ready to take off.  But we're still talking hours to reach the location.

If that were so, pirate raids wouldn't be successful. Those systems also cost money. If planets are so poor that they can be conquered by a lance of mechs, they can't afford new systems. That means they won't know pirates are coming.

You can't maintain constant readiness without loosing your edge.

The population doesn't need to leave the planet, just get to a hidden shelter. Something that's hard to do with Pirates dropping out of the sky on top of you.

Hours give lots of time for a population to run and hide. Minuets, not so much.

So you have some weapons that can fire every turn but other weapons that can only fire every 6 turns, with the justification being that it's due to heat dissipation, but you can fire 10 of the every-turn weapons and generate more heat than one of the once-every-6-turns weapons?

I didn't say they'd fire every turn but even if they did, advanced space craft only need enough heat sinks to cover the most heat inducing weapons from each bay. So if if my bay has 2 Large and 2 Medium Lasers I need enough heat sinks to deal with the heat from the 2 Large Lasers. That's only 16 SHS or 8 DHS instead of the 22/11 heat sinks a ground vehicle would need. Maybe they're dedicated heat sinks or something? Whatever the case, I think that would allow standard scale weapons to fire more often than capital scale weapons.

Aerospace craft already have ludicrously short ranges.  But, we'll go with this for sake of argument.

Keep in mind this switch to 500-meter hexes, would also makes the high-altitude map...interesting.  Since those hexes are now only 500-meters too, the space/atmosphere interface is now, instead six 18-km hexes up (ie. around the 100 km of the Kármán line), that's now a good 200 hexes up.

Now, as it stands, when using individual ranges for capital weaponry, you max out aroung 56 hexes, or 23 kilometers.  If we keep the range the same in hexes, then, a heavy naval PPC, at 3000 tons, or the even more massive heavy naval gauss rifle, has barely twice the range of a 30-ton Long Tom.  SLBM-sized capital missiles have shorter ranges than similarly-sized cruise missiles.

Ranges for weapons on Aerospace units are still greater than the very same weapons when used by a ground unit, even in space. A Small Laser on a Mech still has a range of 90 meters while the same machine gun on a flying aerospace unit will have a range of 3000 meters. It gets more absurd with 18km sized hexes.

Capital scale weapons should continue to have a greater range than standard weapons. However instead of 2x that of standard scale, maybe they should have 4x the range or more?

The number of hexes to the space/atmosphere interface creates another problem: orbital bombardment.

Orbital bombardment is described at multiple points in the fiction and is, in fact, a major plot point in the Return of Kerensky novels, the First and Second Succession Wars, etc.  Switching to smaller hexes to make WarShips multi-hex craft, then, results in either a situation where you have this thing that's happened multiple times in the canon, but is impossible under actual game rules, or a situation where you've got one class of weapon that can fire at least 200 hexes, making gameplay on a table-top with a hex map essentially impossible.

Either of those are valid choices, but they create their own cans of worms, and help to illustrate why, once Battlespace got rid of the insanity of 1-minute turns and 6500 km space hexes, settling for the 18-km space hex and 1G = 2 MP acceleration on a one-minute turn, that it has not since been changed in the last 30 years since Battlespace was published.

Why couldn't orbital bombardment be handled like line of sight targeting? If you can try to target and hit it. Compared to standard scale weapons, capital scale weapons would still have plenty of power to hit and damage a target on the ground, or in space.


I don't know if engagements between capital scale units should continue to have large hex sizes or not. Map size is an issue. I do think that ranges should be consistent between all unit types. That puts us back to realistic vs cinematic ranges.  Otherwise we get things like now with small lasers having a range of 108 kilometers on some units but 90 meters on others. 

[I am Belch II]

I could see ranges in space being a lot further than in Atmo because of the air particles and stuff getting in the way affecting it. Not a lot of that in space. Space battles are tough in a Hard-Sci-Fi setting because there is 3d vs 2d and the ranges. Most people are going to see space battles like WW2 battles where its visual couple of hundreds of yards and flying like atmosphere like Star Wars. It would be more like the New BSG and it would be watching a bunch of dots on a sensor display. The space battle wouldn't be interesting if it was that only. Hell even at a 20-mile range would be a scale miniature fighter of 3 inches across a football field, and a golf course for 100 mile range.
 

[Charistoph]

Ships didn't jump from island to island either and we did have airships.

Airships that were slower than sailing ships more often than not as they couldn't ride the current.

However it is the means for transport between these "islands" that are at issue.

If that were so, pirate raids wouldn't be successful. Those systems also cost money. If planets are so poor that they can be conquered by a lance of mechs, they can't afford new systems. That means they won't know pirates are coming.

Then they are a world without any technology at all as they wouldn't have satellite communications or weather observers.  The odds of finding a planet that wouldn't know a Jumpship arrived in system likely doesn't have world-wide communications or know when a hurricane is coming in.

You can't maintain constant readiness without loosing your edge.

You're trying to counter a point not addressed.

Again, if you have basic air and space traffic control and weather monitering, then odds are you have someone doing some sky observation.

It is more about knowing WHO than IF, more often than not.  It is easier to make an approach as a random merchant dropship than coming in completely unobserved, particularly in places where you know Space Control will be lazy and/or bored.

The population doesn't need to leave the planet, just get to a hidden shelter. Something that's hard to do with Pirates dropping out of the sky on top of you.

Hours give lots of time for a population to run and hide. Minuets, not so much.

And if you're in a shelter, you're easy to find, and easier to round up than in your homes.

And if the merchant dropship starts dropping/deploying 'Mechs, you're not going to have a lot of time to respond.

[klarg1]

One thing I appreciated about Babylon 5 Wars is that it very carefully avoided giving an exact time or distance scale for the game. Avoided a lot of physics and fluff debates.

[RifleMech]

Airships that were slower than sailing ships more often than not as they couldn't ride the current.

However it is the means for transport between these "islands" that are at issue.

Air currents.

People more between islands by means of ship.

Then they are a world without any technology at all as they wouldn't have satellite communications or weather observers.  The odds of finding a planet that wouldn't know a Jumpship arrived in system likely doesn't have world-wide communications or know when a hurricane is coming in.

And I'm sure there's planets like that. Not every planet has the infrastructure for spaceflight. If they did, the supply of aerospace units wouldn't be an issue.  Even if planets weren't that bad off it doesn't mean they have the means or technology to replace such systems. Not even if they had spaceflight. It's not like you can go to Radio Shack and pick one up.

You're trying to counter a point not addressed.

You said

Quote from: Charistoph on 30 May 2023, 21:42:03
The only way to destroy the receivers would be to already be attacking.  If my receivers get blown up, I'm going to be anticipating an attack.

That means you're going to be constantly on guard which will actually degrade your defenders as they get worn out from the constant pressure of always being on alert.

Again, if you have basic air and space traffic control and weather monitering, then odds are you have someone doing some sky observation.

Moving the goal posts. Sky observations isn't the same as having instrumentation to detect a jumpships emergence.

It is more about knowing WHO than IF, more often than not.  It is easier to make an approach as a random merchant dropship than coming in completely unobserved, particularly in places where you know Space Control will be lazy and/or bored.

Not every planet has a Space Control. Although I'm sure posing as a merchant happens frequently.

And if you're in a shelter, you're easy to find, and easier to round up than in your homes.

And if the merchant dropship starts dropping/deploying 'Mechs, you're not going to have a lot of time to respond.

Sure, if you know where the shelter is. Otherwise you have to hunt for it and time is money. You also don't know if or when help might arrive so you're not going to spent too long looking.

That's true but if people knew every time jumpship came in and deployed dropships they'd have days to weeks to hide. Even if they dropped Mech's everyone would be gone by the time they arrived. I'm sure there's some who are ready to evacuate or even start evacuating as soon as dropships start to enter the atmosphere and remain in hiding until they're sure it's safe to come out. Those captured or killed are the ones who couldn't or wouldn't flee.

[Charistoph]

Air currents.

People more between islands by means of ship.

Sail ships use air currents, too.  That's the point of the sail.  However, they move faster when moving with the ocean current, too.  There is a reason why things moved by sail ship and not air ship for a long time, not the least of which was simply cargo capacity.

And I'm sure there's planets like that. Not every planet has the infrastructure for spaceflight. If they did, the supply of aerospace units wouldn't be an issue.  Even if planets weren't that bad off it doesn't mean they have the means or technology to replace such systems. Not even if they had spaceflight. It's not like you can go to Radio Shack and pick one up.

I'm sure that there are planets whose technology is equivalent to 1940s Earth, but those will be the rare ones, and probably won't have much for a pirate's interest other than a place to hide or some very basic needs like food and/or water.  It's obviously a planet that doesn't even get regular merchant drop ships coming by on anything resembling a schedule.

You said
That means you're going to be constantly on guard which will actually degrade your defenders as they get worn out from the constant pressure of always being on alert.

And if you blow them up too early, you've given them time to repair the systems in question.  Not to mention, whoever did it will be hunted as well.

Moving the goal posts. Sky observations isn't the same as having instrumentation to detect a jumpships emergence.

Not really.  They would be incorporated in to similar packages across the Inner Sphere.  It would be harder to find such a set that wouldn't provide such considerations.

It would be like having a multi-runway airport with no radar or air traffic controller, or even a radio.  Sure, they exist, but they are more the exception than the general rule.

Not every planet has a Space Control. Although I'm sure posing as a merchant happens frequently.

Any planet worth raiding would have Space Control.

Sure, if you know where the shelter is. Otherwise you have to hunt for it and time is money. You also don't know if or when help might arrive so you're not going to spent too long looking.

If you have a shelter for raids, then your populace knows where it is.  That's the point of the shelter, and that means you're getting raided enough to have a shelter.

That's true but if people knew every time jumpship came in and deployed dropships they'd have days to weeks to hide. Even if they dropped Mech's everyone would be gone by the time they arrived. I'm sure there's some who are ready to evacuate or even start evacuating as soon as dropships start to enter the atmosphere and remain in hiding until they're sure it's safe to come out. Those captured or killed are the ones who couldn't or wouldn't flee.

You're assuming that they would run and hide with every Jumpship.  Only those JumpShips proudly announcing themselves as an enemy would need to have a reason to run and hide.

And no Jumpship is going to be arriving in a space to give people minutes to hide from the Dropships which it carries to arrive if the planet has anything worth raiding for.

Any way, these are all campaign rule considerations, and don't really address much in the way of aerospace rules themselves.

[glitterboy2098]

i'd argue the best wet-navy analog would be the late 1800's naval warfare.. fighters and dropships are the various sizes of torpedo boats, which are short ranged mostly coastal craft but pack a punch, jumpships are the merchant ships and tenders which have the fuel bunkerage to allow for cross ocean trips. (the latter of which are the only way to move the torpedo boats around across the oceans.) while warships are the frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, which carry enough fuel bunkerage to cross the oceans and pack the firepower needed to kill both torpedo boats and big ships.

everything operates on the same medium (the ocean), wit hthe same limitations in firing angles, LOS horizon distance, etc. the difference being size, firepower, and endurance.

things like carriers and aircraft derail the comparison, so once they become dominant in naval warfare post ww1, it no longer fits. since aircraft operateo n a different medium (the air) and their main advantage lies in being able to use said medium to bypass the limiting factors of sea combat (firing angles and the LOS limits of the horizon). should BT ever get fighters than can make microjumps around the star system ala BSG's raptor's and raiders, then you'd have a post-ww1 naval warfare analog.

[RifleMech]

Sail ships use air currents, too.  That's the point of the sail.  However, they move faster when moving with the ocean current, too.  There is a reason why things moved by sail ship and not air ship for a long time, not the least of which was simply cargo capacity.

Lack of control would be a big reason.

The point was that planets are in a sense islands in a sea of space. And unless you've got a stasis pod and lots of time to spare, the only way between planets is by KF Drive.

I'm sure that there are planets whose technology is equivalent to 1940s Earth, but those will be the rare ones, and probably won't have much for a pirate's interest other than a place to hide or some very basic needs like food and/or water.  It's obviously a planet that doesn't even get regular merchant drop ships coming by on anything resembling a schedule.

There are planets with all kinds of tech levels. Some have regularly scheduled dropship arrivals and some don't. Besides food and water, there's whatever commodities the planet has collected or built to sell to merchants. There's also commodities that have been delivered by merchants. And there's the people themselves.

And if you blow them up too early, you've given them time to repair the systems in question.  Not to mention, whoever did it will be hunted as well.

You can only repair them if you have the parts and techs to do so. And how would you hunt them? You don't have any jumpships.

Not really.  They would be incorporated in to similar packages across the Inner Sphere.  It would be harder to find such a set that wouldn't provide such considerations.

It would be like having a multi-runway airport with no radar or air traffic controller, or even a radio.  Sure, they exist, but they are more the exception than the general rule.

They may have been rare during the height of the Star League but once the Succession Wars started they become more common. Jumpships didn't stop going to planets because of quarantines and lack of population. They stopped because there was a lack of commerce. That's going to make it difficult if not impossible to replace the systems to detect an emergence pulse.

Any planet worth raiding would have Space Control.

Food, water, people are all worth raiding for.

If you have a shelter for raids, then your populace knows where it is.  That's the point of the shelter, and that means you're getting raided enough to have a shelter.

Lots of people who've never been bombed have bomb shelters. It doesn't hurt to be prepared. It also doesn't hurt to be cautious when an unscheduled dropship comes in.

You're assuming that they would run and hide with every Jumpship.  Only those JumpShips proudly announcing themselves as an enemy would need to have a reason to run and hide.

No you're assuming people would know when a jumpship arrives. I'm says there's people who won't know a jumpship arrived until dropships start landing.

And no Jumpship is going to be arriving in a space to give people minutes to hide from the Dropships which it carries to arrive if the planet has anything worth raiding for.

Any way, these are all campaign rule considerations, and don't really address much in the way of aerospace rules themselves.

Which should give people plenty of time to evacuate if they knew the ship was there. Instead, they don't know until a dropship shows up.

True.

i'd argue the best wet-navy analog would be the late 1800's naval warfare.. fighters and dropships are the various sizes of torpedo boats, which are short ranged mostly coastal craft but pack a punch, jumpships are the merchant ships and tenders which have the fuel bunkerage to allow for cross ocean trips. (the latter of which are the only way to move the torpedo boats around across the oceans.) while warships are the frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, which carry enough fuel bunkerage to cross the oceans and pack the firepower needed to kill both torpedo boats and big ships.

everything operates on the same medium (the ocean), wit hthe same limitations in firing angles, LOS horizon distance, etc. the difference being size, firepower, and endurance.

things like carriers and aircraft derail the comparison, so once they become dominant in naval warfare post ww1, it no longer fits. since aircraft operateo n a different medium (the air) and their main advantage lies in being able to use said medium to bypass the limiting factors of sea combat (firing angles and the LOS limits of the horizon). should BT ever get fighters than can make microjumps around the star system ala BSG's raptor's and raiders, then you'd have a post-ww1 naval warfare analog.

Nice analog. I don't think carriers and aircraft derail the comparison though. Even if space maps aren't 2D, aircraft are still limited by their range. It's when aircraft gain the range to make trans-Atlantic flights that the comparison derails. So aircraft acting as torpedo boats still work.

[Charistoph]

You can only repair them if you have the parts and techs to do so. And how would you hunt them? You don't have any jumpships.

Why would I be hunting saboteurs with Jumpships?

You talked about receivers being destroyed so that tracking systems could not detect an attacking force coming in.

Simply put, saboteurs won't be leaving the planet without a Dropship at best, or a long-distance shuttle at worst.  As soon as the receivers got hit, they would be hunted.

And you're assuming such a dirge of technology that being able to repair such receivers wouldn't possibly be available.  You're assuming a general lack of capacity that isn't supported.  Sure it exists in more remote and less desireable locations, but those are exceptions, not the rule.

Still, those are campaign considerations, not aerospace rule considerations.

[DevianID]

So a hex with its 6 facings can be used like an x-y-z axis, and it's pretty accurate for a cone or cylinder of space when forced to use a 2d map.  All the planet in orbit, for example, would swing like pendulums of different lengths in this frame of reference.  This is more for zenith to earth like 1 day turns, where the zenith or nadir is at the top left corner and the sun is in the bottom right part of the map.  Battlespace doesnt use 1 day strategic turns, but the cylinder of space hexmap frame of reference can be scaled down to "fix" the xyz plane needed for space combat.

As for thrust and velocity, velocity tracking from a game design perspective is just bad.  Even a 3/5 thrust overlord gets so much velocity that it can cross the weapon range envelope in just a few turns.  Ie, after merely 3 turns you are moving 15 hexes/turn, and have traversed 30 hexes, and on turn 4 you now have crossed 3 battletech maps, making velocity impossible to balance on any reasonable play surface.  I personally like just using movement like battletech, aka 5 thirst is 5 hexes and each turn you just assume the frame of refrence is redefined each turn to remove any need for velocity tracking.  Since the current thrust versus velocity and distance/turning movement and vectors are all very incorrect in the existing game, throwing velocity out as a broken element makes the game both easier to play and more accurate to physics.

Range of hexes is broken, in that capital weapons are only 2x longer and the incorrectly calculated 18km hex size makes things like medium lasers far far far too effective compared to naval lasers.  11 tons for 5 medium lasers versus 1100 tons, same damage, but for a 100x weight multiplier they don't get 100 or even 10x the range like a proper capital weapon would/should.  (Some napkin math upscaling a large laser shows an NL55 would be like 90 tons, but have an extreme range of about 60, and generate 1100 heat.  So if the weight of the NL55 was due to integrated single heatsinks the stats are fine, just the range at 1100 tons is a bit low.  You can also shoot it every 10 seconds if it's like a large laser, if instead you can only shoot 1 time a minute the range compared to a large laser needs to go up even more)

All of these broken things are solvable without changing record sheets or anything, but by changing the scales in which each unit can play.  Capital ships on capital maps for example, where standard weapons have a range of 0, or 1 hex if they reach long range, on the 18km scale 1 minute map.  Then a 10 second aerospace 500m range map with normal aerospace ranges, except capital scale weapons are default short range if you get fighters in that close, and the warship/jumpship takes up 2 or more hexes as appropriate in the 10 second space map.

[idea weenie]

How much do those bombs weigh?

Off-hand, I'd say a one-ton bomb weighs one ton.

It looks like from Campaign Operations that one converts 1 ton of Cargo in to 1 Bomb slot for Internal Bomb Bays. 

From there, it depends on the type of bomb being used.  The standard HEs do damage like a full LRM-10 hit, while Clusters do damage like a Medium Laser, just across a much wider area for normal Ground Attacks.

According to Strat Ops:
"Only HE, cluster and laser-guided bombs or non-homing Arrow IV may be used. However, the three bomb types all function as HE bombs, inflicting 10 points of standard scale (1 point of capital-scale) damage, applied in 50-point (5-point capital-scale) groups. Arrow IV infl icts 20 standardscale points (2 capital-scale points) of damage but also has a chance of an automatic critical hit like capital missiles" -pg 116.

There's also AAA Missiles which take up 5 Bomb slots that can hit pretty hard at 2 Capital-Scale Damage.  And the Anti-Ship Missiles which take up 6 Bomb slots hit with 3 Capital-scale Damage and crits like a Barracuda.  Also the Light Air-to-Air Missile which takes up 1 Bomb Slot and can do 6 basic damage.  However, these aren't used in Bombing attacks.

So a 1-ton HE bomb does 10 pts of damage, while a 200kg Long Tom shell does 30 pts of damage (not counting splash damage to adjacent hexes).  This makes a Long Tom Shell that is 1/5 the mass and doing 3* the damage effectively 15* more powerful than an ASF-delivered bomb.

Actually, in Babylon 5, they did have Star Furies and other fighters attacking Earth Destroyers (their Capital ships), as well as Minbari War Cruisers. Not to mention Centauri and Narn heavy cruisers (their capital ships).

These attacks would often remove weapons or disable engines. It took longer than other warships doing the same thing, but it still happened.

So in Babylon 5, you had ASF going for critical hits rather than pounding through the armor?  That would work nicely.  Unfortunately BT's ASF can pound through Warship armor directly.

You might try using a critical table that gets bonuses based on damage, but that still means a brace of Medium Lasers is better than a single AC/20.

The ASF sheet needs a modification to show how many weapons are firing, while would serve as a 'reducing' effect on the critical hit roll or modifying resistive armor.  Basically I would want this:
(weapon/s type) - (# of weapons) - (damage of weapons group)
AC - 1 - 20
to be better than this:
PPC - 3 - 30
or this:
Laser - 10 - 50
when it comes to trying to penetrate Warship armor (and combat Dropships get a slight benefit as well).

Ships also have more mass than ASF. It takes more energy to move and stop all that mass. You also can't turn the crew into jelly. The crew in the middle of the ship wouldn't be under the same gee load as those on either end. So the fighter would be able to turn and speed up faster. The ship though has more fuel so could out run the fighter. It's like the Millennium Falcon vs a Star Destroyer. The Falcon can't outrace the Destroyer but it can out maneuver it.

That is why I was comparing a Warship with 4/6 Thrust/OverThrust vs an ASF with 4/6 Thrust/OverThrust.  If the two platforms have the same acceleration, then even though the Warship takes more energy to accelerate it also has more energy to accelerate.  Fuel Supply was not a factor in this.

Like Ruger said, Star Furies did attack capital ships and Babylon. They also had shuttles conduction landing operations and breaching pods to break into Babylon 5.
I don't know about the game but the advanced races did have better armor than the younger ones.

I'd prefer to compare equal tech to equal tech.  Advanced races had better armor, but also had better weapons.  So advanced races vs advanced races would have their fighters trying for critical hits, rather than punching through the armor directly.  Advanced race vs lower-tech race would just be stomping the lower tech race (unless both are limited by points value to be equal).

[Charistoph]

Off-hand, I'd say a one-ton bomb weighs one ton.

So a 1-ton HE bomb does 10 pts of damage, while a 200kg Long Tom shell does 30 pts of damage (not counting splash damage to adjacent hexes).  This makes a Long Tom Shell that is 1/5 the mass and doing 3* the damage effectively 15* more powerful than an ASF-delivered bomb.

One also has to take in consideration the delivery capacity of such systems.  The delivery of a Bomb just requires an ASF to exist, and doesn't take up any internal mass of the ASF.  Delivering a Long Tom round requires the unit to be on the ground as well as the 30 ton cannon to fire it, and Warships are never a functioning unit on the ground.

[Weirdo]

The ASF sheet needs a modification to show how many weapons are firing, while would serve as a 'reducing' effect on the critical hit roll or modifying resistive armor.  Basically I would want this:
(weapon/s type) - (# of weapons) - (damage of weapons group)
AC - 1 - 20
to be better than this:
PPC - 3 - 30
or this:
Laser - 10 - 50
when it comes to trying to penetrate Warship armor (and combat Dropships get a slight benefit as well).

This is already true. Per the existing squadron rules that came out in the first printing of StratOps (and are still there), when a fighter squadron fires a cluster of weapons, you only look at the damage of a single weapon to check for damage thresholds. A PPC will always threshold more armor than a group of any number of medium lasers, and a single AC/20 will always threshold thicker armor than a group of any number of PPCs.

Big clusters of small guns are good for scrubbing armor, but very bad at penetrating armor that is still present

[DevianID]

The cargo weight of bombs is not the same as the tonnage of a bomb.  A single arrow is 5 bomb slots but 1 arrow shot from a launcher is 200kg and yet still different cargo packing weight. Same with the RL10, 1 bomb slot/ton, but .5 tons on a mech.  So an HE bomb is likely similar, 1 ton/bomb slot for cargo space/storage in a crate, but weighing much less when unpacked and being dropped.

As for artillery damage, I have no idea why the damage was increased in tac ops from the 25 years prior.  I opened a question regarding this--the BV seems to reflect the old, pre tac ops values, as for example a thumper is only 40ish BV, but dors 3x the damage now and has radius damage, yet they didnt increase its BV cost.  If the long tom damage was reduced to the same as an ac20 which also has 5 shots/ton it still makes HE bombs look bad, but not as bad.

Honestly bombs do only 10 damage due to balance concerns not trying to establish consistent physics.  Bombs are already an overwhelming damage source for ground attack, making them more realistic 1 ton iron bombs and dropping 10 of them from a 50 ton average fighter would clear multiple city blocks.