• Registered: 2006-09-06
  • Posts: 99

Topic: special rules for traveller: Interstellar Wars

In the last several days I found some time to create some Starmada ships for Gurps Traveller Interstellar Wars. (maybe some of the readers know this new Gurps Traveller product about the Nth War period)

Traveller has some special requirements for their war ships. Eg.

-there are no shields in the traveller universe but lots of armor
-only 5 basic weapon types (actually there are more, but the rest is not that important for ship battles)
   1. Laser, ineffective in ship-to-ship combat but good for Point defense
   2. Particlebeams, standard
   3. Missiles - good long range damage, but vulnerable against points defense
   4. Spinal mounts - the ship killers, but only medium range
   5. Meson weapons which skips armor and explodes inside the ship!

-I changed the shield rule and called it "armor". Its basically like shield rules for defensive rating and SU and if a shield box is damaged it will be crossed out normally. The change is the following: because "shields" represents in truth "armor" the loss of a shield box leads not to the reduction of "shield" value. Additionally a ship is only destroyed if all hull boxes and shield boxes are crossed out. This rule should also represent the fact that ships in the traveller universum are often very resistant to damage and dont die very easy.

-I introduced a system which I called Improved AFB. It is like the standard AFB, but additionally you could shoot at missiles which flies in the SAME or ADJACENT hex and at 6+ you hit the missile and it is destroyed. The shot is conducted as a reaction and will also be applied if the missile is targeted at a target nearby. This rule should represent that many smaller ships in the setting are mainly for antimissile escort missions for the battleships. The improved AFB has a defensive Value of 1.4 instead of 1.2. (but maybe is 1.5 better)

-spinal mounts are changed from over 20 hexes range to only 12 which is more according to the setting. It seems that the spinal mount rating formula depends on the range. So I changed it to 12 inestead of 20+ or so. Maybe this is too cheap?

-fighters are squadrons of 5 instead of 6. But no other change in Offense Rating or space. This represents the fact that the traveller tech is not extremly optimal for fighters. So they are less efficient that in other universes

-Meson weapons can go directly through armor, but they are just available as meson spinal mounts. So I gave the meson spinal mount the usual multiplier of 2.5 Offense rating for skipping shields/armor. Is this possible?

-Missiles are handled normally like beam weapons except that its not necessary that they travel in a straight line. If the owner wants then he can choose the travel path of the missiles by pointing at the hexes it flies through.

-Lasers are not very efficient but good against fighters. So they have the feature "reroll PEN" which make them really cheap fighter killers. smile

These are the changes. What do you think? Could this work?

  • Registered: 2006-08-07
  • Posts: 161

Re: special rules for traveller: Interstellar Wars

Problem there. By the rules, "Must Re-roll Pen" weapons can't destroy fighters.

  • Registered: 2006-09-06
  • Posts: 99

Re: special rules for traveller: Interstellar Wars

RiflemanIII wrote:

Problem there. By the rules, "Must Re-roll Pen" weapons can't destroy fighters.

Really? Oh. well, then I have to use 1/2 damage or so lasers. thanks for the info.

  • Registered: 2007-01-04
  • Posts: 2

Re: special rules for traveller: Interstellar Wars

Some notes from a longtime traveller player and ship design specialist.

1.Meson Weapons are available in Bays and Barbettes both, not just spinal mounts. Barbettes not until TL-15

2. You dont have fusion or plama weapons listed at all, though they might be best used as PDS or Anti-fighter batteries.

3. what about Nuclear Dampers and Meson Screens? and Black Globes for that matter?

if your going to do a bunch of Traveller to Starmada conversions, I would be happy to help, and can host them on my site if its needed.

Heres my site
http://fafrhd.pocketempires.com/

  • Registered: 2006-09-06
  • Posts: 99

Re: special rules for traveller: Interstellar Wars

shadowcat48li wrote:

Some notes from a longtime traveller player and ship design specialist.

1.Meson Weapons are available in Bays and Barbettes both, not just spinal mounts. Barbettes not until TL-15

2. You dont have fusion or plama weapons listed at all, though they might be best used as PDS or Anti-fighter batteries.

3. what about Nuclear Dampers and Meson Screens? and Black Globes for that matter?

if your going to do a bunch of Traveller to Starmada conversions, I would be happy to help, and can host them on my site if its needed.

Heres my site
http://fafrhd.pocketempires.com/

Many thanks for the input. Regarding your points there are some differences between the "normal" traveller game and the Interstellar Wars era.

1. Meson weapons are just available in the latter period of ISW and only by Terrans. Their introduction have been one of the reasons Terra was able to defeat the Empire.

2. thats correct Fusion and Plasma weapons are not a big help in normal battle, except to defend against missiles/fighters or at very close range. So I left them out and calculated them in as antifighter devices.

3. There are no meson screens and Black Globes in this era yet. I am not sure about nuclear dampers but I think they are not invented either.

At the moment the project is still in progress and I would really appreciate if you could host some ships with starmada values. A big thanks for this. I think starmada is a great game to portray traveller combat between starships in this era, and I play it regularly each month or so to test the ships I have converted.