• Registered: 2008-04-03
  • Posts: 30

Topic: Battle Riders & Tenders

I've been pondering how to do battle riders & tenders, as featured in Traveller.  A battle rider is a full sized fighting ship that lacks a hyperdrive.  Several riders dock to a tender, which has a hyperdrive capable of jumping with the whole ensemble.  The tender may also include some repair and resupply capability.

After some thought, I've come up with the following initial idea.  I'd love to hear any suggestions or criticism.  Also, am I treading ground that somebody else has already done rules for?

== Construction ==

Effective hull size = ((t^1.3) + (n * r^1.3))^.77 (roundup)

t = tender hull size
n = number of riders
r = hull size of rider

(you can also get effective hull size this way: add up the total SUs of your tender plus all its riders, then find the next larger hull size that has at least that many SUs)

Tender must buy engines and hyperdrive using its effective hull size.
Tender must devote 5% of its actual SUs to docking arms, cradles, etc.

The number and hull size of the riders that it is capable of handling should be noted on the tender's data card.

== Docking/Undocking ==

Done during the end phase.

Undock: the rider is placed on the board in the same hex as the tender.  Its initial heading and speed are considered to be the same as that of the tender.

If a rider and a tender capable of handling it are in the same hex, the rider may be moved from the board and marked as docked to the tender.

A docked rider may not perform any game function.  It may not be targeted separately from its tender.  If a tender is destroyed, roll at die for each docked rider.  On a 1, it survives and is placed in the tender's hex as though it had just undocked.  On any other roll, the rider is destroyed.

== Damage ==

If a tender with docked rider(s) takes damage, any damage roll of 3 is not applied to the tender, but is instead rerolled and applied to a random docked rider.  (this seems fiddly, but I like the idea of riders soaking up some damage from the tender)

No idea about adjustments to ORAT or DRAT, if any.

I occurs to me that something like these rules could also be used to do tugs.

  • Registered: 2022-11-15
  • Posts: 1,286

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

Interesting take on it. smile

No...not treading on anyone's ground.  Plenty of room for lots of ideas.

I will say that there has been some hot discussion regarding this amongst the Cold Navy design crew since one of the races to be released uses the battlerider concept.

  • Registered: 2006-03-23
  • Posts: 241

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

Well in traveller the concept was valid due to the fact that jump engines ate up a huge percentage of available cubage, especially with longer ranges drives (jump 4+). In Starmada, the hyperdrive takes up a flat 10%, not a huge impact. So by having battleriders you aren't saving a lot of SU but you are adding a very vulnerable unit (the tender) to your force.

  • Registered: 2005-12-28
  • Posts: 195

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

japridemor wrote:

Well in traveller the concept was valid due to the fact that jump engines ate up a huge percentage of available cubage, especially with longer ranges drives (jump 4+). In Starmada, the hyperdrive takes up a flat 10%, not a huge impact. So by having battleriders you aren't saving a lot of SU but you are adding a very vulnerable unit (the tender) to your force.

My thinking, too, although it was the fuel required that took up the space.  Jump drives were small: volume = (J# + 1)% (max for Traveller was jump 6).  The fuel required was Jump distance x 10%, so a ship making a hyperspace jump of 3 parsecs required 30% of the ship's volume in fuel (which was hydrogen).

Starmada doesn't have any fuel requirements, something you can ignore or add to a campaign (yeah, tell your friends that they have to make room for huge fuel tanks and hear the howls of outrage).  I guess Starmada uses some magical elixir for fuel, say Silisodapizzasolene.   :mrgreen:

  • Registered: 2008-04-03
  • Posts: 30

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

I dunno, 10% is 10%.  You can pack some good firepower (or defense) in that space.  I originally started thinking about this because I've got some small (hull 2) attack craft that I'm very happy with, but they are not HD equipped.  adding one would cut their firepower by %25, so I started thinking about building a tender for them.  Plus there's just a certain element of "well how would I model this?" going on smile

  • Registered: 2005-12-28
  • Posts: 195

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

What I've found is that it's better just to increase the hull size of the ship, add the hyperdrive, and not bother with a tender as the cost of tender+battle riders is more expensive than increased-cost hyperdrive-eqipped warships.

The battle-rider concept worked in Traveller because of the huge fuel requirements beyond Jump 2.

  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 811

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

It's not always about cost vs effectiveness, sometimes the flavor of a fleet is more important. Not EVERYONE builds 3500 pt monstrosities big_smile

In a campaign situation, you can always say that hyperdrives are only available to ships that have size 10 hull or above, or you can't make more than 5 lt yr jumps with ships smaller than 5 hull.

or the cost of a hyperjump could be built into the campaign system.

or any of a hundred different reasons to force the tender/rider conept.

well done rafial

  • Registered: 2005-06-08
  • Posts: 760

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

Talking of Tenders, I had added this to the shipyard for VBAM users. From the VBAM details:
Tender = Included in equipment, 1 level for each choice of Tender. For each level, the ship can can Dock 1 Attack Boat (Hull 1) or 2 Super Heavy fighters.

150SU per level, OCR=25 DCR(+)=25


Paul

  • Registered: 2005-05-15
  • Posts: 84

Re: Battle Riders & Tenders

Yep I am using it for flavour reason, I often like sub-optimal builds for flavour.

For example leaving space on a design, or puposely leaving open arcs on a ship.