Just some random Traveller Hero thoughts

[Chris Goodwin]

From a Traveller standpoint, TL5 computers were vacuum tubes.  We're at approximately TL8 now.  I'll admit to not knowing what computers modern US Navy vessels have on board, but... does it help if I point out that the actual computers used in the Apollo space program did not in fact use vacuum tubes?  Granted, their interface was switches and lights, but still.  And the Boeing 787 is entirely fly-by-wire, with modern electronic linkages between the cockpit and all of the flight systems.  (The  internal saying among Boeing engineers is "If it's Boeing, I'm not going," but I digress.)  

[Spence]

48 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

From a Traveller standpoint, TL5 computers were vacuum tubes.  We're at approximately TL8 now.  I'll admit to not knowing what computers modern US Navy vessels have on board, but... does it help if I point out that the actual computers used in the Apollo space program did not in fact use vacuum tubes?  Granted, their interface was switches and lights, but still.  And the Boeing 787 is entirely fly-by-wire, with modern electronic linkages between the cockpit and all of the flight systems.  (The  internal saying among Boeing engineers is "If it's Boeing, I'm not going," but I digress.)  

 

You are correct, but they were not microchips either.  They were IC (integrated circuits) which is a fancy way to say they replaced all the "tubes" with "flat transistors" and other equivalent components.  The computers and supporting logic units I spent most of my career working on were the same.  Because we were working on aircraft we didn't need the level of weight and size reduction that the Apollo required, but we used the same tech.  The TCG on my first patrol aircraft was the same as the one used on the Apollo with the sole exception being the display which was vacuum tubes with each number as a shaped filament, each tube has 1-9+0.  The ones they got had LEDs which were expensive.  We also did still use tubes in a lot of applications due to better power handling and signal clarity compared to semiconductor devices like those of the time. 

 

But you could actually repair an IC by replacing components. You could even recover (rob) components from one circuit card and use it on another.  I've personally made such repairs with a solder iron and a magnifying glass on a wooden workbench in a shed.  Modern devices are much much tinier. 

 

One device we had that was 12" by 12" by 24" held around 180 miniature IC cards and weighed in at over 40 pounds.  The same device now is 2" by 5" by 8" and is virtually an empty case with one tiny card.  And everyone considered it old fashioned and larger than it needs to be.

 

The big difference is reliability.  The old machines could suddenly lose power or get hit with a power surge and they would simply stop.  Close the circuit breaker and flick the power switch to ON and then hit the Start/Stop switch and it would literally pick up exactly where it left off and lose nothing.  Except for a need to update system time you would not be able to tell anything had happened.  Do that with modern computers and everything restarts and you have to go in and bring everything back and reload system data. 

 

Right now everyone is happy because they can simply "get a new one" and they have easy back up of data.  But when you are isolated and do not have ready access to parts and there is no "cloud" and if your computer loses power your only recourse is to reboot and reload from the last back up, things change.

 

Components used in IC's were still large enough that a human could see them and replace the transistor, diode, capacitor or what have you.  An actual microchip still uses the same concepts, but instead of the PN junctions that make up the functional part of the component being singular and in individual "cases", the "chip" has hundreds of thousands to millions of them etched into the chip at an microscopic level.    Which is why proper handling and precautions for ESD are so important.  Just touching a unprotected chip can allow the difference in electrical potential to generate current that can blow holes in the chip at the microscopic level.  Not all of a chip is used in every device, so you you can be lucky and the damage will not affect you, but at other times it will effectively destroy it. 

 

All microchips did was make everything smaller and shifted logic circuit from volts (our old systems ran on +5v/-5v/0v) to micro-voltages, it didn't actually change the how of logic processing.  Yes, my smart phone has ridiculously greater amount of processing power than the Apollo and more than likely more than 60's era mission control.  But if I drop my smart phone and it breaks I cannot fix it.  Modern military technology is an interesting compromise between ruggedness and field repairability against processing power. 

[Scott Ruggels]

On 6/10/2022 at 4:32 PM, Spence said:

 

Explanation of DoD controls. 

I want to apologize if I came across as snarky or insulting. IT was not My intent.

Honestly, my experience with watercraft, other than my Grandfather's Sailboat (all over the Chesapeake Bay), were all the WW2 Era Museum ships around the SF Bay Area (Liberty Ships, Victory Ships, Balao class Submarines, Battleships, Carriers, and Anti-Aircraft Boats). I have no experience with the modern Navy other than photos, and movies, so I am not aware of the physical requirements of electronic control systems.  Though we are at the upper end of TL-8 in the U.S., I do imagine at some point that something like solid state computers (block of diamond or synthetic crystal  grown for a specific material requirement), and Fiberoptic cable may be the norm at higher TL levels.  Quantum computers, which are just coming on line now in Universities may be the Pro-sumer civilian machine by the end of the decade. 

I would assume that there would be easily removeable covers over the pipe ways and passages, so as to not snag Vacc Suits. Probably labelled and numbered, but otherwise fairly smooth, except for the Dzuss Fasteners on the corners. Exposed pipe and pipe hangars would rip and tear a vacc suit if the gravity plates went out.

 

[Spence]

On 6/11/2022 at 10:36 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I want to apologize if I came across as snarky or insulting. IT was not My intent.

Honestly, my experience with watercraft, other than my Grandfather's Sailboat (all over the Chesapeake Bay), were all the WW2 Era Museum ships around the SF Bay Area (Liberty Ships, Victory Ships, Balao class Submarines, Battleships, Carriers, and Anti-Aircraft Boats). I have no experience with the modern Navy other than photos, and movies, so I am not aware of the physical requirements of electronic control systems.  Though we are at the upper end of TL-8 in the U.S., I do imagine at some point that something like solid state computers (block of diamond or synthetic crystal  grown for a specific material requirement), and Fiberoptic cable may be the norm at higher TL levels.  Quantum computers, which are just coming on line now in Universities may be the Pro-sumer civilian machine by the end of the decade. 

I would assume that there would be easily removeable covers over the pipe ways and passages, so as to not snag Vacc Suits. Probably labelled and numbered, but otherwise fairly smooth, except for the Dzuss Fasteners on the corners. Exposed pipe and pipe hangars would rip and tear a vacc suit if the gravity plates went out.

 

 

On the old age of sail ships, most casualties (dead + wounded) were not from the cannon shot, but rather the splinters caused by the shot passing through the hull and bulkheads.

Modern warships (and many commercial ships) surface mount piping, conduits, ducting, wiring and various boxes for several reasons.  Ease of access, ease of inspection, ease of repair and, in the case of a warship, to reduce the amount of shrapnel from a penetrating round/missile. For damage control teams one of the most dangerous fires is one in a berthing space.  Berthing is one of the areas where you will find wall coverings and cubbyholes.  They will usually be filled with personal possessions, that include thermal, explosive and poison gas bombs.  Also known as personal electronics with batteries.  Plus all those blankets, comforters and sheets cunningly stuffed into tiny spaces are great to add to the fire and gas contents of the usually fully enclosed with limited ventilation compartment. People have died from asphyxiation ten feet from outside air because a hatch is heat-warped and the compartment is filled with toxic fumes from heat and fire.   The Navy learned a long time ago that leaving fittings and exposed and avoiding paneling and covers in the working parts of the ship radically sped up not just repairs, but being able to actually spot repairs.  On a ship every pipe has it's purpose and content painted on it with a direction of flow arrow.  In fact everything is identified by color code and direction if applicable.  

 

As for critical devices such as lighting and communication, they are all designed so that you have with zero electrical power to the ship.  Battle-lanterns are everywhere and the sound powered phones work off the the power of your voice as is implied by the name.  Control panels are designed so a crewman can operate it by feel in the event of no lighting and critical ones can operate without external power.  Because Murphy guarantees you will lose power.  

 

In space this becomes even more critical. If a micro-meteor puts a tiny hole in an outer bulkhead, I don't want to have to remove square yards of paneling to find the leak.  I also don't want to have half the personnel assign to the compartment shredded by fragments of of the covers that only served the purpose of "looking nice".  And when the lights and power goes out, I really hope I am not stuck with a touch screen as my only control panel.  And unless I can carry 5 or 10 spares of everything, I really hope that my critical systems have backups that are either electric components or integrated circuits build from electronic components such as transistors and for applications that require clean signals or power handling those much maligned tubes.  Give me a micro/min tool set and a micro-repair bench and I can repair them.  If necessary we can "rob" what we need from other gear.    And components are actually pretty small and you can store thousands of them in one cubic yard of space.  In real life high altitude flight is one of the reasons that reloading firmware and software packages is pretty routine.  You don't hear as much about commercial airlines because they don't really have anything and the majority of critical systems have been hardened.  The loss is because of the reduced protection from particles at altitude.  Microchips a especially vulnerable to particles and other EMI.  An actual spacecraft is exposed to far more.  And I am pretty sure anything that actually goes into interplanetary or interstellar will really see damage.    You cannot fix a chip.  Spare chips have to be carefully packaged and most of the particles that do the damage are not stopped by the ships structure or your body.  A chips is just a device that has millions or PN junctions (transistor, diode, etc)  and connecting runs at the microscopic level.  I have seen microscopic pictures of a failing chip from equipment that was in orbit.  The surface of the chip was covered in craters that looked like WW1 nomansland.  A full-sized or miniature semiconductor (transistor, diode, etc), component (resistor, capacitor, etc) or tube is so massive in comparison to the same purposed portion of a chip it wouldn't even notice the damage.  You will be losing a steady percentage of micro-components each and everyday you are outside the protective field of a planet.  This will happen invisibly and undetected until the new chip is installed and does not work.  A storage of components that are miniature or full-sized will survived for years unless they are mishandled.  

 

I have the good fortune to be able to work on not just a new platform with new birds that are less than a year old, but also the old legacy aircraft that have been flying for 40+ years.  If we get a blade or other circuit card and it has been over 5 years form manufacture it usually means problems of one kind or another, bios or firmware updates and sometime outright failure.  It just doesn't work for some reason.  But they recently released old war-stores for one the aircraft being sun-downed.  We cot old style circuit cards and IC that are literally 50 years old and still in the manufacturers original packaging, and they all work like the day they were manufactured.

 

Modern tech is fantastic and I don't know what I would do without my laptop.  

But to depend on microcomputers to be my only option if I were to go on a multiyear voyage with no way to abort? 

Nope.  They would need to ensure the existence of manual auxiliary methods of performing all the critical tasks. 

Otherwise the crew might as well just suicide before they go so the families can at least have something to bury.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Comparison of Tien Gong station on top, and the I.S.S. at the bottom.  The Tien Gong resembles a lot of those 80's Traveller illustrations. The ISS is letting it all hang out.

 

 Even so, it took them a while to find the leak on the ISS, and the Tien Gogn hasn't yet lost it's New car smell, or the peelies off the screens.

 

Scott

[Spence]

7 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Comparison of Tien Gong station on top, and the I.S.S. at the bottom.  The Tien Gong resembles a lot of those 80's Traveller illustrations. The ISS is letting it all hang out.

 

 Even so, it took them a while to find the leak on the ISS, and the Tien Gogn hasn't yet lost it's New car smell, or the peelies off the screens.

 

Scott

Well neither are what I am thinking of. 

 

The ISS looks like a nightmare to me and the DCPOs and DCC would have lost their minds if they entered a compartment in that state of....of.. .I have no words. 

 

Not being covered does not mean rats nest.  Neatly secured cable runs and conduits. 

 

Wow.  I just have no words.

 

As for TG.  I suspect that the pic may not be representative of the entire station if they are simply cosmetic.  But it could be they also serve another purpose with benefits that outweigh the drawbacks.  I can think of a couple advantages. If that is the passageway from the primary airlock/dock for resupply, it could make moving stores easier.  They could be additional shielding in the passageway to provide a safe location against radiation hazards. 

 

Or, they have seen the pics of the ISS and are playing the one up manship propaganda game 😉

 

 

On 6/11/2022 at 10:36 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I want to apologize if I came across as snarky or insulting. IT was not My intent.

Forgot to reply. 

 

No worries, I  didn't take it as such.  Hopefully I am not coming across as an a$$ either.  I tend to be a little blunt in real life and can seem worse in posts, mostly because my ability to type out my thoughts doesn't necessarily keep up with what I actually meant to say.

[Chris Goodwin]

As far as computer parts, higher tech doesn't have to be more fragile.  Most if not all of what I've worked with are either prototype server grade or production consumer grade equipment, so I would agree they're not meant for being exposed to micrometeroids or unfiltered solar radiation.  I know that there are "ruggedized" versions, but I don't know what makes them ruggedized. 

 

In the Traveller universe, I would imagine that warships do go on six to twelve month deployments, during which they're parsecs away from replenishment.  Most trading ships of the sort the PCs would likely have are usually not more than a couple of weeks away from a starport or parts depot, and are probably seldom to never involved in extended combat operations.  And TL 9-12 ships probably have TL 9-12 computer equipment that is probably as rugged as needed for its intended duty.  (Misjumping, running out of fuel, and "Oh look, the passengers are attempting to take over the ship, again," are the more likely hazards.) 

[Steve]

37 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

As far as computer parts, higher tech doesn't have to be more fragile.  Most if not all of what I've worked with are either prototype server grade or production consumer grade equipment, so I would agree they're not meant for being exposed to micrometeroids or unfiltered solar radiation.  I know that there are "ruggedized" versions, but I don't know what makes them ruggedized. 

 

In the Traveller universe, I would imagine that warships do go on six to twelve month deployments, during which they're parsecs away from replenishment.  Most trading ships of the sort the PCs would likely have are usually not more than a couple of weeks away from a starport or parts depot, and are probably seldom to never involved in extended combat operations.  And TL 9-12 ships probably have TL 9-12 computer equipment that is probably as rugged as needed for its intended duty.  (Misjumping, running out of fuel, and "Oh look, the passengers are attempting to take over the ship, again," are the more likely hazards.) 

Well, one can simply have parts fail too, and space can throw a lot of nastiness at a ship other than battle damage. Random debris, solar flares, explosive decompression, etc.

 

Being a week away from a starport by jump drive when a sprocket in that jump drive breaks or a vital component in the air processor unexpectedly fails means bad things are about to happen unless the engineer can pull a miracle out of his back pocket. In the Age of Sail that Traveller replicates in space, self-sufficiency is key. A crew should always have a talented engineer and spare parts on hand.

 

 

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Steve said:

Well, one can simply have parts fail too, and space can throw a lot of nastiness at a ship other than battle damage. Random debris, solar flares, explosive decompression, etc.

 

Being a week away from a starport by jump drive when a sprocket in that jump drive breaks or a vital component in the air processor unexpectedly fails means bad things are about to happen unless the engineer can pull a miracle out of his back pocket. In the Age of Sail that Traveller replicates in space, self-sufficiency is key. A crew should always have a talented engineer and spare parts on hand.

 

For computers specifically, cosmic rays are a problem and become more of a problem as circuits get smaller and lower-voltaged.  Back in the day when I was analyzing astronomical data, it was hard to miss a cosmic ray strike on the detector since it would leave a maxed-out white streak where it hit.  Spacecraft do not have atmospheres or planetary-scale magnetic fields to deflect cosmic rays.  So there is a plausible reason for a minimum size for spacecraft computers.

 

Not that modern computers are necessarily small.  CPU die sizes are getting smaller, yet data centers still exist, and they pull eye-watering amounts of electricity to run.  Like climate-change-significant amounts.

 

Furthermore, having worked on some projects for the Navy, I can say that naval computers are just NEBS3 compliant servers, the Network Equipment Building Standard being a measure of environmental (temperature, humidity, voltage, shock range mainly) resistance.  NEBS3 is not so awesome that you couldn't disrupt such a server with a sufficient power surge or physical shock.  (I should add that modern navel vessels are generally unarmored and intended to avoid battle damage rather than withstand it.)  I could very easily picture a shipboard engineer scrambling to diagnose and change out a fried PCIe card in time to reboot the main radar before the next salvo of missiles arrives.

 

Lastly, I can't think of a worse ship-to-ship combat system for Traveller than SFB, but I used to wipe the floor with Klingons (and everyone else) using web caster-equipped ships.  Especially the DPW, although that has more to do with the literally overpowered ship rather than my skill.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

It is not that SFB is great, game-system wise; it is that you can teach it in five minutes, and it goes remarkably quickly even if you have forty ships in a free-for-all.  The original Traveller system (pre range bands and simplified movement) is really sweet for "the way it would acrually work, kind of,"  but it can get a bit boggy in any situation with more than three ships.

 

 

[Old Man]

24 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

It is not that SFB is great, game-system wise; it is that you can teach it in five minutes, and it goes remarkably quickly even if you have forty ships in a free-for-all.

 

We cannot possibly be thinking of the same SFB.

[Duke Bushido]

I sont suppose there is any chance you were just really,bad at learning SFB?

 

 

Seriously,though- were you playing the original "little baggies" or the over-stuffed and under-explained books that came afterwards?

 

 

[Spence]

 

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

We cannot possibly be thinking of the same SFB.

 

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I sont suppose there is any chance you were just really,bad at learning SFB?

 

 

Seriously,though- were you playing the original "little baggies" or the over-stuffed and under-explained books that came afterwards?

 

 

 

SFB is actually a really easy game even up to the later versions. 

The problem is that people didn't seem to comprehend that the options were just that and you were not supposed to use them all.  Especially at the same time.

 

It would be like trying to use every single option possible in every single supplement compatible with D&D 5th at the same time in the same campaign.   Why you'd find yourself playing Pathfinder....

[Lawnmower Boy]

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

It is not that SFB is great, game-system wise; it is that you can teach it in five minutes, and it goes remarkably quickly even if you have forty ships in a free-for-all.  The original Traveller system (pre range bands and simplified movement) is really sweet for "the way it would acrually work, kind of,"  but it can get a bit boggy in any situation with more than three ships.

 

 

This sounds like a description of Starfire, the other old Task Force Games tactical space combat game. (Because why not have two?)

[Duke Bushido]

I enjoyed Starfire, too.

 

To the point that I still own a copy of it- not the original, but a xerox I did when the original began to seriously suffer from bottom-of-the-saddlebags syndrome. 

 

They were pretty similar at first, with a few differences, but SFB caught on and just kept growing.  I haven't played it years now.  Lars' and Jim's groups were the last groups that played.  I havent played it since Jim moved out west thirty or so years ago, bit even then, they were very diffetent games at that point.

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Okay, assume Hero for skill rolls and map combat. I am comfortable with that, though Mongoose 2e wasn’t bad.   But for Starship combat, even going back to the beginning, it seemed that every group homebrewed their space combat rules, or adapted them from another source. 
 

Paul Gazis 8 Worlds campaign had a very involved system as Paul was a NASA engineer, but it was very lethal, as most ships had no defenses, and aerospace construction tended to be very light.  So crew members were easily aerosolized by hyper velocity particles. We had to make new characters a lot.  Years later, watching The Expanse, there was a bit of nostalgia seeing the projectiles perforate the Command space of the various ships. Paul was right. I cannot provide and details, as I was brought in as Infantry, but his website may have it as he still runs it occasionally.  

Doug Sharp and I experimented with the rules from Harpoon 2e, or 3e, but could not get the scale right to keep it all on the dining room table. There was something useful there, but we weren’t quite there to figure it out. ( and I was and am mathtarded). 
 

I had some thought of using Albedo 1e for space combat. I will have to check the rules again. It was supposedly realistic though the ships were a bit more durable, but if it was anything like the comics the game was based on, the crew would check their radar plot to get the speed and course of the opposing ship, make their ship tactics rolls (and hand them to the GM), launch a bunch of missiles, then sit back for the hours or days until the enemy missiles arrived, then your ship’s CWS, would roll to see how many incoming missiles were destroyed. Any missiles that got through, hit locations and damage was resolved, and players were informed if they needed to roll up a character or not. Again, fairly Expanse like. 

 

I have a lot of SF games on my gaming shelves, but not many have a decent, hard science, space combat system. Now, I do want a good, physics respecting, space combat system I can plug into a Traveller Hero game. But haven’t quite found a satisfactory one, yet. Did GDW’s Imperium work?  I do want a map & Token system, but now I need it to work with Roll 20 or Tabletop Simulator, so thing can be played a bit quickly. I do not foresee easily rejoining a physical table any time soon. 

[Old Man]

12 hours ago, Spence said:

 

 

 

SFB is actually a really easy game even up to the later versions. 

The problem is that people didn't seem to comprehend that the options were just that and you were not supposed to use them all.  Especially at the same time.

 

It would be like trying to use every single option possible in every single supplement compatible with D&D 5th at the same time in the same campaign.   Why you'd find yourself playing Pathfinder....

 

Pathfinder is actually the perfect analogy for SFB--a house of cards built out of a mishmash of inconsistent rules.  And since I played it from the baggies up through Captain's Edition I got to watch that house of cards grow and shift. 

 

But my main gripe with SFB isn't the complexity or the rules holes, it's how slow it played.  Especially damage allocation.  Tactically, though, it was wonderful.

 

19 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Okay, assume Hero for skill rolls and map combat. I am comfortable with that, though Mongoose 2e wasn’t bad.   But for Starship combat, even going back to the beginning, it seemed that every group homebrewed their space combat rules, or adapted them from another source. 
 

Paul Gazis 8 Worlds campaign had a very involved system as Paul was a NASA engineer, but it was very lethal, as most ships had no defenses, and aerospace construction tended to be very light.  So crew members were easily aerosolized by hyper velocity particles. We had to make new characters a lot.  Years later, watching The Expanse, there was a bit of nostalgia seeing the projectiles perforate the Command space of the various ships. Paul was right. I cannot provide and details, as I was brought in as Infantry, but his website may have it as he still runs it occasionally.  

Doug Sharp and I experimented with the rules from Harpoon 2e, or 3e, but could not get the scale right to keep it all on the dining room table. There was something useful there, but we weren’t quite there to figure it out. ( and I was and am mathtarded). 
 

I had some thought of using Albedo 1e for space combat. I will have to check the rules again. It was supposedly realistic though the ships were a bit more durable, but if it was anything like the comics the game was based on, the crew would check their radar plot to get the speed and course of the opposing ship, make their ship tactics rolls (and hand them to the GM), launch a bunch of missiles, then sit back for the hours or days until the enemy missiles arrived, then your ship’s CWS, would roll to see how many incoming missiles were destroyed. Any missiles that got through, hit locations and damage was resolved, and players were informed if they needed to roll up a character or not. Again, fairly Expanse like. 

 

I have a lot of SF games on my gaming shelves, but not many have a decent, hard science, space combat system. Now, I do want a good, physics respecting, space combat system I can plug into a Traveller Hero game. But haven’t quite found a satisfactory one, yet. Did GDW’s Imperium work?  I do want a map & Token system, but now I need it to work with Roll 20 or Tabletop Simulator, so thing can be played a bit quickly. I do not foresee easily rejoining a physical table any time soon. 

 

The strength of SFB (for RPG-focused purposes) is decisions.  Players can make decisions about energy allocation, movement, weapons arming and fire, and shield reinforcement that all directly affect the outcome of a given turn (or impulse ).  You could easily assign each function to a different player and it would all work pretty seamlessly, except that there's no mechanism for character skill influencing die rolls. 

 

(I wonder what would happen if players controlling different spacecraft disagreed on what to do on a given turn.  What if the engineer player refused to arm torpedoes instead of full movement?  What if the tactical station reinforced the left shield instead of the right, forcing the helm to turn a certain way?  What if the helmsman just slammed on the brakes?)

 

The only tactical starship combat systems I can think of that expressly have character interaction are the ancient FASA Star Trek (which I never played) or possibly Star Frontiers Knight Hawks (which I never played with characters).  You'd think Brilliant Lances would be perfect for Traveller since it's, like, Traveller, but I've never even seen it on the shelf.  I know it has hooks for characters since later expansions cover cybernetic character-ship links.  Out of other such games I've played:

 

- B5 Wars doesn't have character rules but is pretty SFB-like with a cleaner ruleset.   

- Silent Death is great for fighter swarms, though it might be a little lethal for RPGs.

- Traveller High Guard is a good game but has no character interaction and you'd have to cobble together a movement system for it.

- Full Thrust has good movement and damage but it'd take some work to convert for a Traveller campaign.  (Although FT is popular enough that there might be a conversion online.)

 

 

[Chris Goodwin]

Maybe the captain should be an NPC, and the decisions the helm player, the weapons ops player, the engineering player, and so on, make at the table can be assumed to be based on orders given them by the captain.  

 

Back In The Day there were a couple of SF-nal Danger International games my group did.  One of them was an original (to the GM) hard science campaign called Near Earth Orbit (NEO), and one was based on the Chaosium's Ringworld licensed RPG.  In one of them there was some space combat; vague memory tells me it was NEO, but I'm not a hundred percent certain.  The GM had us calculating orbital plots, in character via skill rolls, and taking time to generate a firing solution and then more time for the ... missile, I'm guessing... to hit.  

 

I'm thinking it might have been based somewhat on the dogfighting rules that are still around in one of the APG's.  

[Old Man]

I got a PDF of Brilliant Lances for $20 and it has most things that one could ask for in a Traveller RPG starship combat system: vector movement, a mechanism to work character skills into the fight, firing arcs, hit locations, damage control, ship design, and a sensor mechanic that greatly lends itself to fog-of-war/double-blind play with a GM.  And it's Traveller so all your lasers, sandcasters, meson guns, fat traders, and nuke dampers are statted out. 

 

The drawbacks are that it's pretty dense and it uses d20s with quite a few modifiers and tables.  Still, it being Traveller, you could run it as written and just convert the Hero skills for any PCs who are involved.

 

The PDF is pretty complete, actually, it includes the reference card, counters, and starmap sheets.  Though I recommend you use someone else's expensive printer toner.

[Spence]

While I like tactical starship games, and have and played many of the ones people have mentioned above.  Starfire (2nd or 3rd editions) is perhaps my favorite.

But for RPG's IMO they just don't work.

 

I have moved to a model where ships are just like a fantasy games castle or tavern.  They are a location for the PC to act in.

Instead of an actual map or grid with the "ships" moving around.  I use a "plot" where the players ship is always the center and everything else are "targets" that move around the "plot".  The plot is laid out in rings for range and marked off in segments for direction. I am in the process of making a new plot for the Star Trek 2d20 I will be running at the local con in August.  Like most paper and pencil games the plot/map is mostly 2d, but I have found the layout spices up the games and the players seem to get into it fairly well. 

[Duke Bushido]

Why dont we start at the bottom.

 

We want fast, simple, and shios that aren't too delicate.

 

So, for my,next space battle, I am going to try 1e Car Wars rules.

 

Will report back!

 

 

[Steve]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Why dont we start at the bottom.

 

We want fast, simple, and shios that aren't too delicate.

 

So, for my,next space battle, I am going to try 1e Car Wars rules.

 

Will report back!

 

 

That’s an intriguing notion. You might also take a look at Ogre for ideas for starfighters versus capital ship battles.

[Chris Goodwin]

Car Wars is fast if you're talking about in-universe time.  

 

Six hours to play out a ten second long duel!  

[Joe Walsh]

The new (current) Car Wars is supposed to be faster and easier to play, FWIW.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, GM Joe said:

The new (current) Car Wars is supposed to be faster and easier to play, FWIW.

 

Honestly, the 1e pocket box went pretty quickly if you didnt stop for fist fight breaks....