Traveller General: "Railguns can't hit Spaceships" edition

>mechanics

Super crunchy autism time! Do you have lots of free time? Not anymore!

>fluff

Let's take the setting everyone loved, and burn it to ashes, 'cause it's the edgy 90s! Everyone loves flying from one wrecked system full of desperate starving survivors to the next, week after week, right?

>and what about Eastern front wargames?

/hwg/ can point you to some. We were using Traveller for minis combat in '78 or '79. I think we dropped it for Microarmor. Anyway, there have been a shit ton of WW2 mini rules published since.

>Why do people hate TNE?

There were so many reasons. With TNE, GDW somehow chose to destroy both the rules AND the setting.

They threw away over a decade of CT/MT 2D6 development and replaced it with a very different "House Rules" system. All their RPGs were going to use the same system. MT had it's problems, mostly errata, but they'd been mostly fixed. A clean CT/MT 3.0 would have been nice, an entirely new system which made 'porting old materials hard not so much.

As for the setting, GDW just didn't destroy the previous OTU as much as kill, skull fuck, fold, spindle, mutilate, bury, and piss on it's grave. TNE even had a "point of view" character whose only role was to constantly lecture people about had bad the 3I had been.

The replacements setting went right through depressing and on out the other side. It was the epitome of 90s edgy-dark. Trillions dead, entire worlds tombs, a psychotic homicidal computer Virus rampaging through space, illiterate peasants lorded over by "technologically elevated dictators" or thugs in battledress, and the "good guys" in all of this spend their time killing what few survivors are left and steal their technology because they can't using it correctly.

GDW called it a "hopeful" setting full of promise. Many people just called it shit.

GDW released the products in the wrong order too. We didn't get the simple ship combat rules first. Instead we got the most autistic version. It actually came with a cardboard slide rule so you could keep track of all your DMs. The first (and only) of the Classic Aliens presented were the Hivers - the Major Race which is almost impossible to play. GDW eventually came up with a book featuring the Marches or Regency as it was called. It was the book most like the old setting but one of the last books released.

When it came to TNE, if there was a foot, GDW shot it and if there was a dick, GDW stepped on it. Even Mongoose would have thought it was badly handled.

Sorry to drag railguns back up again, but I did the math, and here's why the mongoose ones suck - they fire at 347 meters/second.
Yes, less than 1km/s. Less than half of that.
They completely threw away the entire reason to launch giant masses of iron at ships - Rick's fucking Law.
I'll need to do the math for the navy, but... We, at TL7, do better than A TL9 RAILGUN!
Fuck you mongoose.

Okay, so I've run all the math. (and the previous statement was MgT1e. 2e is coming up)
Our TL7 railguns, in atmo, hit almost 3km/s. It's a 3kg round (and the listed energy release figures are too low - tech issues, or classified information?).
It's clear, that at TL9, hitting 3km/s would be easy. At 3km/s, short range (at the maximum of 1250km) would take almost 7 minutes to cover. Close range is 3 seconds or less.
At 3km/s, and (presuming 20 rounds per dton, made of iron, with no volume wasted) 5312.25kg mass, converting to C4 equivalent to determine damage dice, and dividing by 50 for starship scale (remember, MgT 1e), it will deal 224d6. To a ship.
Okay, at that point, it is worth it - especially at close range.
Remember, projectile weapons are absolutely lethal at proper velocities!
And broken.

I have backed myself into a bit of a corner and am trying to come up with how I am going to do something. So I have a fairly small, but locally significant political power that lacks a centralized currency but instead different clan/corporations/occasionally individuals have their own currency (some of which are pretty much worthless) how do I simulate this?

...

So, in MgT2e, railguns are listed as 3d Auto 4. Auto4 can be discarded right now.
3d in spacecraft scale (in 2e) is 30d in personal. That's 10kg of C4 equivalent per round, for 64MJ.
Okay, Auto-4 is needed - we presume full auto, so 4 attacks per round. That takes up 12 rounds of ammunition. For a small bay (the smallest railgun available), a single attack (12 rounds) is 1 ton, for 1.25m3 per round.
Assuming iron, this means that each round is 8,853.75kg.
Applying my math (Joules=0.5*Mass in Kg*(relative velocity squared in m/s), math rearranged to provide velocity)), this gets us a velocity of...
120m/s
They got worse.
This just in, Mongoose really doesn't know shit about railguns.

In order to make TNE work, you had to read Space Viking and get the idea that you're Prince Trask. Since not everyone has read Space Viking, you're stuck with a bunch of people trying to play a regular Traveller game in a world too fucked up to support a regular Traveller game.

For the record, the listed damage for 2e, at a 3km/s minimum velocity, requires a 14kg round.
As an Iron round, that allows. with no wasted space, over 7500 rounds per dton.
In 1e, it's a 71kg round (remember, 1e has spaceship weapons being way more destructive), for 1496 rounds per dton.
Ladies and gentlemen (yes, I know, an INSULT!), we got gypped by people who don't know physics.

I've got a section in my setting notes that handles something like this. Maybe it'll help you:

Basically, are three types of worlds: Imperial Worlds, Border Worlds, and Frontier Worlds.

On an Imperial World, a credit is a credit is a credit. The banks are all tied together, so we're all in agreement on what cash is.

Border Worlds are ones where the money changers and factors get the most work. Here there's a value to having a fixed currency exchange rate, since they have their own local economy independant from Imperial banks. Fix it to Tech Level and just work it from there. If you have cash from a TL 10 world and are selling to a TL 6 world, your goods are worth (10/6 = 1.67) times as much on their world. If that world is selling TL6 stuff on TL10 worlds, it's worth (6/10 = 0.6) times as much there. Add special adjustments for handcrafting or rare quality and stuff. (Amish Blankets are still valuable in a world of machine quilting.)

Finally there are Frontier worlds. Your foreign money is no good there. Money, after all, is an illusion. It's representative of the time someone spent to do something, and it's only worth trading if I can theoretically meet that person and trade directly. If they're on another planet, it's not gonna happen. You gotta bring _stuff_, buddy, to get local money. Leaving with local money is a bad idea too, since their money is similarly not worth anything to anyone else on another planet.

>short range
>almost 7 minutes to cover

That's kinda bad. Close range is good though.

Let us presume that the TL7 railgun is 25% as capable as the common production TL9 railgun.
This makes the TL9 railgun have a velocity of 12km/s. (this makes maximum short range a 1m, 45sec walk - much more usable in combat). From here on, it's 1e, because 2e is even more stupid about railguns.
Let's assume a 1kg round. It might deal 4 points of damage, at max.
Let's say 2kg. 1d+2.
3kg? 2d
4kg - 2d+4
5kg - 3d+2, pretty close to the original value (Over 21 THOUSAND iron rounds a dton! An actual fucking deal! And since we know that a railgun barbette holds 1dton of ammo... Oh, and it costs cr1000. Cheap and effective!)
6kg - 4d
10kg - 6d+4
15kg - 10d (over 7,000 rounds/dton. Geez....)
20kg - 13d+3
Okay, it's getting ridiculous. But all of these are possible in Traveller.
I would say 5kg rounds, launched at 12km/s. Call it 20,000 rounds per dton. Add Auto-4 (for rapid fire. Means you basically get to make 2 attacks, uses 12 rounds). Lemme figure out a good progression for bays.

My objection to that is that you could be Trask in previous editions, too, by picking the right time and place. But you could also be all kinds of other things, which doesn't work with TNE's new all-grimdark setting.

Well, HG has a weird progression for railgun bays
50dton has the math for 10 railgun barbettes, but is Autofire 8. 100 dton bay is 20 barbettes, but Autofire 12.
Well, the answer is simple - part of the attack is sprinkling their most likely path of evasion with bits of high-velocity metal. Railgun combat consists of forcing your enemy into a vector that requires them to take damage. The remaining autofire is the parts that can hit.
So we have auto-4 for a single railgun.
So we could make a railgun bay... auto-40.
I may be getting too broken here.
You know what, I'm going to look at upping the damage for railgun bays in exchange for lowering the rate of fire (and keeping it at auto-4). This means upping the round weight, or increasing the round velocity.

I am creating a hard sci-fi setting for Traveller based in the near future wherein Mars mysteriously disappears and then reappears 400 days later as a suddenly barely habitable planet (by human standards) with evident forms of pre-cambrian-esque life and a proper magnetosphere. A lot of the planet is still 'old mars' in terms of dangerous dust and so on, but is obviously an opportunity to colonize. The setting start would be based 5 years after the first 'colonists' arrived. The primary gimmicks of the setting is the idea of near future tech, discovering new lifeforms, adapting to a harsh world and dealing with a neo-manifest destiny from all of the countries of Earth.

Obviously the reason why Mars 'flickered' isn't necessary, but its nice to have some 'in character' ideas and theories to inspire possible plots. Any ideas?

Also what are some lesser known dangers of Mars that would still apply to a 'terraformed' Mars? There is obviously Iron (III) Oxide that would necessitate breathing apparatus. Gravity is lower, so bone atrophy seems like it would be a major medical issue. Temperature is another one, given its distance to the Sun.

a hard sci-fi in which mars suddenly vanished and reappeared?

Okay, you went full pulp there.
Unless humans are stuck at hard-sci and the universe can turn pulp up to LENSMEN.

It does seem like an old 50 sci-fi novel thing. But the idea is that besides Mars vanishing and reappearing, Earth is still at its current technology level with a few additions from possible, but unfeasible technology. My aim is 'what would Humans have in 2030'.

>Let's take the setting everyone loved, and burn it to ashes,
Except that MegaTraveller had already done that. The Imperium was already DONE.

You are assuming that when you go from 1d6 damage to 2d6 damage, the energy is doubled. This is not (or at least should not be) the case. Two 1mm radius holes through a person or spaceship is significantly more dangerous than one hole with equal radius. This (and other factors) is why there is no clear relation between damage (in real life: effectiveness) and simple physical factors like energy or momentum.

Again, the setting has already turbo bullshit weaponry. No reason to just say that the projectile is smaller and up goes the speed.

Okay that's true but even if we assume that 1d6 to 2d6 is for times as much damage, not double, that would leave him with 55+d6 for that cannon.
Less of a knife and more of dual wielding monoblade claymores

A more realistic method for estimating the damage would be to calculate the energy as a high estimate and the momentum as a low estimate. Then apply common sense. Oh, and try to match it with existing examples within the game.

Temperature should be fine if mates has an atmosphere and you stick to the equator.
I also think that bone atrophy shouldn't be an issue BECAUSE of Mars low gravity. Oh the other hand it would be a problem on higher gravity like earth.
I also don't know if there are issues with the development of unborn children in low gravity (there is in zero g)
But I think it could be interesting plot device/point if all women go to a space station with artificial gravity for all steps of pregnancy.

Another thing could be to compare the energy of the lasers to that of an RG.
Problem is that mongoose ducked up railings and already CT went pants on head with its weapons

Comparing it to reality doesn't even work with lasers since the diffusion of the shirt would mean that at its maximum distance a laser would need way WAY more energy that distance than it would need at say... Close, to shove the same effect.

What we are left with is mostly
Does it feel like a railgun ?
Is it mechanical sound ?

That is also quite true. If one were to try and build a "realistic" space combat system it would not strongly resemble the Traveller space combat. Therefore the best way to use real factors is to use them to inform how a system should be represented mechanically, not as a source of precise numbers.

Checked it an it's most likely that child development from womb to the first few years would be affected negatively by mars low gravity, which is almost a third of our gravity.

Therefore, such Kindergarten stations would be a very good thing.
Depending on where you want to start with the story of the colonization of mars ther would be two types of stations.

The first generation would be mostly your standart, easy to build space station with pairs of rings rotating to counter each other and creating artifical gravity. They would do the job but there will be also psychological influences by living your first 2-5 years on a stuffy cold metal space station.

Second generation would probably be a O'neil Cylinder in the orbit of one of mars moons.
A funtional O'Neil Cylinder would be way less dependant on deliverys from the outside and free workforce on mars by doing so. The life would be also more close towards that on mars, possible with weather, plants and actual sunlight.

Both stations would most likely be protected agains any known threat in space because their value to lasting colonization is almost immeasurable.

dubs are always right.

I am going to give my characters a handout with around 4-6 job posts that they can take on in between each session.

I would like to make it a little prettier if possible, does anyone know of a template that I can use to have the look of a sci fi job board or something similar?

I would suggest that you just look at some real life job ads.

So that just makes me depressed about my salary

Use Data70 as the font

Right, you could. But being Trask is the point of TNE. That or being the guys from King David's Spaceship. The real tragedy of it is that it's the edition that hews closest to one of the line's key inspirations and got burned for it.

I mean, I'd be down for playing some TNE, but I don't give a shit about the Third Imperium setting, and at this point Stars Without Number with Skies of Gold and Starvation Cheap would do better at this goal anyway.

Why have them get jobs when they can be their own boss? Pic Related.

>Why have them get jobs when they can be their own boss? Pic Related.
Stop trying to sucker greenhorns into your two-bit franchise, Trader Jim
Your steak makes Vegan pie look appetizing

Try checking out Corp Ads from EVE Online.

>standart

As soon as I see that, I know I can safely ignore the post as nothing of value.

>medical issue
It's much, much worse than that just "child development... would be affected negatively". It is, at least from what we know now, probably impossible.

Let's just take a look at how neurons develop. So, when an animal fetus is still literally just a two-hole tube, what will eventually become the central nervous system starts forming. The thing is, life (as we know it) has an odd rule: the germ layer where the future CNS neuron is produced is (simplifying a bit) almost always next to the ectodermal canal. This is why the rods and cones in our eyes are NOT at the top of the layers of the retina, closest to the light, but rather below the processing ganglion layers.

For the rest of the body, gravity is an important trophic factor in guiding the neuron from its 'birthplace' to the location where it will settle down and differentiate. If gravity is anything other than ~9.8m/s^2, the signal is incorrect and the neurons often fail to implant at all, or rarely in the wrong place.

In essence, babies in microgravity, or even low-gravity, is not feasible by TL7 tech. You need a constant 1g in order to properly develop a baby, (and it's necessary for neural repair after some form of neural damage, such as ischemia or whatnot). So no Mars babies without artificial gravity.

Okay so what would you suggest could be the damage and specifications for Turret, Barbett, Bay mounted Railgun systems ?

Auto value is basically a given because you want to guide the enemy into your shots whit your other shots.

So we shoot all the young couples into orbit so they can shag in their special baby station and raise the kid in the first years there ?

Family planning on mars would be much more organized, compared to earth.
"In 2011, nearly half (45% or 2.8 million) of the 6.1 million pregnancies in the United States each year were unintended."
guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states

you can't really afford that shit on mars, or would it be just auto-abortion ?

>So we shoot all the young couples into orbit so they can shag in their special baby station and raise the kid in the first years there ?

It won't be that complicated. We're already using "exo-wombs" in the lab for sheep and other small mammals. Humans won't be that far behind.

Once an individual, couple, or some other grouping meet whatever financial and other requirements the colony has, the "maternity ward" in orbit will contacted and the baby ordered. Everyone will have their gametes "on file" and it will just be matter of injecting this into that and monitoring the fetus' development until it's time to be "born".

With sperm and eggs "on file", everyone will be on some sort of long term birth control like Norplant. Sex will be recreational and not procreational.

There's no need to lose half your work force for 9-10 months as occasional brood mares when technology offers a better way.

Lol

Because neural growth stops when that litle parasite leaves the body.

Because emotional stability is totally guranteed when you let your little mail baby supervised by some factory workers, only to be later send back to mars.

Whats Basic trust towards the parent ? tho i do think that most poeple around here don have/know it, me neither. and why is that important ?

Not using healthy young men as super motivated workforce on your orbit station.
Not using social pressure to keep the motivation high, after all it's parents supervising parents.

>There's no need to lose half your work force for 9-10 months as occasional brood mares when technology offers a better way.
Thinking you'd use loose half the workforce in a service based society.

Your transhumanism is shit tier.

Damage was figured by creating the round and launch momentum, then figuring for joules of energy.
We know that C4, the generic plastic explosive listed in the core book, has a damage potential of 3d, and carries 6.4megajoules.
Thus a, we divide the joules from the round by 6,400,000 to get kg equivalent of C4, multiply by 3 to get damage dice, then divide by 50 for starship scale.
I can modify the math though, based on the maximum damage potential of C4. If 6.4MJ is worth 18damage, then multiply the kg equivalent by 18, divide by 50 for starship scale, and then divide by 6 for dice.

Go ahead and ignore the technology which already exists because it will produce children or families in ways that don't meet your "Leave it to Beaver" and "Brady Bunch" fantasies.

I remember morons like you both gnashing their teeth over IVF and Louise Brown back in 1978. The heavens didn't fall and nearly 40 years on it's a mundane medical procedure.

>Because emotional stability is totally guranteed when you let your little mail baby supervised by some factory workers, only to be later send back to mars.

The baby would be conceived, gestated, and born in the orbital maternity ward. It will be reared with it's family so the emotional development you're whining about will still take place. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it deliciously ironic that a Millennial or Gen X is concerned about "proper" child rearing.

>>Thinking you'd use loose half the workforce in a service based society.

Thinking that the majority of the work in a colony engaged in developing and/or terraforming Mars would amount to sitting in an office cubicle tapping on a keyboard is beyond naive.

The use of "exo-wombs" isn't transhumanism anymore than IVF is because the fetus isn't geneered. "Exo-wombs" are just another piece of technology you'll see used in your lifetime.

Get used to the idea, you neo-luddite douche nozzles.

The flaw in that logic is that it assumes energy is directly proportionate to damage. If that was the case terminal ballistics would not be the complicated field it is.

Even though arguing over specific game mechanics is pointless with a game as varied in its editions as Traveller, if you are referring to the Mongoose 2ed rulebook, C4 doesn't work quite that way. The damage of the C4 is 3d6 for the first unit. Each time you double the amount of explosive you add +1d6. In order to get to 50 dice you need 47 extra dice. This means you need to double your charge 47 times, which means you need 140737488355328 units of explosive.

So what's the big difference between mongoose 1e and 2e?

Just because you mom didn't love you doen't mean that that's the ideal way user.

>Thinking that the majority of the work in a colony engaged in developing and/or terraforming Mars would amount to sitting in an office cubicle tapping on a keyboard is beyond naive.

Thinking that you should use an expensive machine that requires constant supervision and resources is cheaper than let a mother take a five month break and do it for almost free.
Because parents won't feel emotionally detached from "pop here's the baby, you read the books, you know the drill"

stroeckenverdult.be/site/upload/docs/Isppm tijdschrift CAESAREAN BIRTH babies.pdf

huffingtonpost.com/mirah-riben/adoption-related-trauma-a_b_10492058.html

babycentre.co.uk/a1049781/will-my-baby-learn-anything-in-the-womb

Sure a machine that perfectly replicates the womb experience will be cheap user.
Sure user, that won't cause problems with genetic coding inherited from million of years of evolution.

Get your shitty baby-boomer sci-fi out of here.

A kind user many threads ago put together a nice little pdf listing the major changes. Hold on...

... and it's uploaded.

In short: no

Slightly longer: Mongoose 2e has streamlined the whole traveller approach even more than it did in 1e, which leaves a bad taste in some peoples mouth.
Also 2e had the shitty buissnes practice where they took out neccesary ship rules only to sell them as a second book.

The recommended approach to traveller around here is downloading Cepheus engine (it's free and a fusion of Classic traveller and mongoose 1e)
From there you already have the traveller experience, but if you still have the feeling that something is lacking you can easily switch to mongoose 1e OR Classic traveller.

ALSO: 1e and CE have a matric ton of supplements which you can use and the 3rd party stuff has a decent quality (be carefull with the mongoose stuff)

>Sure user, that won't cause problems with genetic coding inherited from million of years of evolution.

I heard and read the same complaints about IVF all those years ago. None of your fears came to pass.

The technology is already here and it's going to be used whether you like it or not.

>Also 2e had the shitty buissnes practice where they took out neccesary ship rules only to sell them as a second book.

Thanks to the Archive, Mongoose's deliberately shitty and wholly cynical business decisions don't matter.

That being said, your advice about starting with CE first and then either switching to other versions or borrowing parts of other versions is spot on.

Cool, thanks!

Thank the user who wrote, user, and not me. All I did was save it.

I also just remembered that the user who maintains the Archive uploaded a copy there too!

Good that you listen at least a part of my argument, but what about the emotional state ?
Don't just cherry pick your arguments user.

>The technology is already here and it's going to be used whether you like it or not.

And that's a good thing, if gives parents with chronical diseases, uknown child death and a colony a emergency solution to solve their population problem after a catastrophe, not a quick one tho.

But here is the thin, neuronal development does't stop after birth, the station will be far more than just a maternety ward. It will be a living space for the child for it's first five years, but maybe even till after puberty, only time and more research will tell.

Those are an awfull lot of variables for healthy childbirth, and with a colony, where healthy people are the most valuable asset, you WANT healthy kids, mentally as physically.

so it makes more sense to use what is already there and optimize it instead of taking risks, some which may even show decades later and put the colony in danger.

I was referring to 1e, but yes, I might have messed up on my math.
I'll take a look at GURPS for my math soon.

Actually, I might try basing it on the joules transferred via a gunshot.
Because the damage from C4 in the book might be from the shockwave...

Not to bring up railguns again, but does Orbital have them?

Y'know, the homebrewed 'realistic' hardish sf setting, a bit like ChoaDE

that could work too.

I'll try to look into some of the more clearly defined weapons in CSC and the CRB from 1e

>Not to bring up railguns again, but does Orbital have them?

Yes it does as a bay weapon and as a barbette.

Compared to "standard" Traveller, Orbital's spacecraft are incredibly slow. They nuclear thermal rockets (NTR) with very low delta-V ratings. LHyd propellent for the NTR drive is carried in amounts equal to "standard" Traveller's jump drive requirements. Even the best of the optional fusion drives only provides thrust of 1.2 gee for a limited time. Ships in Orbital follow an accel-coast-decel trip profile with coasting taking up most of the time. Trips to Mars or the Belt are measure in months while a trip between Earth orbit an Lunar orbit takes 1-2 days.

Not only are ships slow with limited maneuvering capabilities, ship combat in Orbital takes place at very close ranges compared to "standard" Traveller. Forex, the "Distant" cobat range (and the longest one available), is only 5000km.

So, all the issues raised in the last thread regarding viable railguns are "solved" in Orbital because the ships are very slow and the weapon ranges very short. Railguns work in Orbital because of that.

Well, yes, I knew it was shorter range, because it's going for 'early future' and not traveller's year...5,000 and something? but I like the concept

Still not done but it looks like Travellers damage values for artillery are pulled out of the ass.

>Well, yes, I knew it was shorter range

Far shorter ranges AND far slower ships.

>>because it's going for 'early future' and not traveller's year...5,000 and something?

Good estimate. It's supposed to be 5700 or something.

>>but I like the concept

So do I, but a "standard" Traveller ship would go through an entire Orbital fleet like green corn through a goose. Railguns work in Orbital because the rest of the technologies in Orbital allow them to do so. Railguns do not work in "standard" Traveller because all the rest of the technologies in "standard" Traveller do not allow them to do so.

For whatever reason, the railgun enthusiasts in the previous thread either couldn't or wouldn't understand that.

For whatever reason, the railgun enthusiasts in the previous thread either couldn't or wouldn't understand that.

We understand that, but what you don't seem to understand is, that you compare real railguns to fictionall, and clearly bullshit, tech.
So what we do is raising the Railguns to the same bullshit tech and that triggers your autism.

I hope i can just paste this hsit, but here goes my small list.

Name: Dice: Joule:
Source:

120mm Cannon 10d6, SAP >13 MJ
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinmetall_120_mm_gun

60mm Antitank gun 7d6 SAP >1,2 MJ
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_57_mm_gun

Machine gun,Heavy 5d6 SAP ~0,03
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_×_92_mm_HR
germanluftwaffe.com/archiv/Dokumente/ABC/m/Maschinen Gewehre/MG 131/mg 131 maschinen gewehr.html

10lb Rifled Cannon 10d6 >0,3 MJ
civilwarwiki.net/wiki/10_pdr._Ordnance_Rifle

Railguns, as written, do not work. This is because they are shit, as written.
A proper railgun, in the right circumstances, could work in "standard" Traveller. Those circumstances are as ortillery, planet side artillery, or in a close range dogfight.
Railguns are a fighter weapon in standard traveller.

>A proper railgun, in the right circumstances, could work in "standard" Traveller. Those circumstances are as ortillery, planet side artillery, or in a close range dogfight.

Agree with the first two disagree with the second. Close range "dog fights" do not exist in standard Traveller because of the capabilities of other weapons in standard Traveller.

>Railguns are a fighter weapon in standard traveller.

No they're not. Missiles and beams only. Railguns are too slow and their range is too short.

...

>>I have no actual response so I'll post a meme.

If you want to use railguns by all means use railguns. Just don't ask for help in "justifying" their use.

As addition, lasers used today to lightly fry UAV sensors bring 108 MJ to their target.
Lasers aren't very energy efficient.

>I feel addessed by a picture i could have easily ignored on an anonymous forum.

Dunno where I wanted to "justify" them with

I saw the posts about railguns in the last thread and started to think.
In which ways could railguns make sense to use in space, even if it's just niche?
Make them able to get three on a triple turret ?
1d6 damage but add closed distance towards enemy to the damage, 1 effective thrust point=1 damage ?
Just make the ammo cheap as hell ?

Gee, user want's some experienced help by experienced players to keep something viable in a niche, but a certain setting.
Better start my turbo autism.

I said fighters, aka small craft.
Dogfighting takes place at very close ranges - ranges where missiles can't be used. In space, a dogfight consists of getting into a position where you can hit the enemy, but they can't hit you.
Beams are very much an option, but a railgun, firing multiple rounds, can force the enemy into an unfavorable vector and position.
Which you can technically do with beams, but whatever.

What is your favorite version of Traveller?
strawpoll.me/13959718

>Dogfighting takes place at very close ranges
>ranges where missiles can't be used.
>position where you can hit the enemy, but they can't hit you.

I get your point, it's just pic related.

>In space, a dogfight consists of getting into a position where you can hit the enemy, but they can't hit you.

While that idea is profoundly retarded, I'm not even going to attempt to explain why it is profoundly retarded.

>Gee, user want's some experienced help by experienced players to keep something viable in a niche,

And the experienced players said they've never been able to what you want to do.

You're going to need to come up with your own ideas because either none of our ideas worked or they worked in a way you didn't like.

You're own your own. Good luck and have fun.

That's what i mean, just old grumpy assholes beign old and grumpy.

You forgot T20 (not that anyone sane will pick it).

No, missiles cannot be used at close and adjacent ranges. That's why almost every fighter, excepting the bombers, missile boats, and torpedo boats, use beams in vanilla. This exceptions do not attack other fighters, but instead are there to create additional launch platforms to overwhelm point defense.
Gee, why not explain? Its about vectors, and the arc of fire available to a weapon.
Maybe I should put it better (because I did probably mess up on what I was saying): space dogfights consist of getting your enemy into a relative position where they have minimal options to avoid an attack, and you have the most options to avoid theirs.
I was not talking star wars. This is more like jousting with machine guns and the ability to run sideways. On ice.
A crude metaphor, but it might get my point across.

>bombers, missile boats, and torpedo boats,

/thread

>Gee, why not explain?

Because I've only 150 characters per post.

>Its about vectors, and the arc of fire available to a weapon.

Exactly. Vectors and firing arcs. Tackling the latter first, there are very few fixed weapon mounts in Traveller. While the Solomani prefer them for "reasons", their use only adds a negative DM for hitting and never preclude firing attempts. Why? Because the amount of time each turn represents allows ships to pitch, roll, and yaw to bring weapons to bear.

Now for vectors. Have you EVER played any of Traveller's ship combat games which use vectors? Book 2? Mayday? Battle Rider? Brilliant lances? Any of them?

Or is all your experience with the grossly simplified range band movement and other similar play mechanisms?

Yes, those small craft, which require being at short range or further, completely invalidate railguns. Obviously.
Now, get in closer than that. Oops, its useless.
Geez, makes me glad that I'm not planning to play vanilla traveller - or are you going to scream about that too? Trust me, I know that every change made to the rules ripples through the settings you can build with them.

>>Derp derp derp derp derp derp derp
>>Hey, do you know you're derping?
>>YES! QUITE HATING!
>>Ah.. okay
>>Derp derp derp derp derp derp derp

To distract from the ongoing fight about railguns, give me an opion about using the Worlds Apart rules linked last thread to run an OSR styled dugneon crawl. I'm playing with a bunch of newbies and it's a tossup right now between LotFP and Worlds Apart. I figure building your own super ship would be a good way to sink the gold you'd get adventuring. Opinions?

>I figure building your own super ship would be a good way to sink the gold you'd get adventuring. Opinions?

Anything that soaks up the players' ready cash is a Good Thing, boats/ships especially as they're holes in the water into which you pour money.

Yes, of course you are right,

The entire railguns fight could be worse. We could be bitching about how missiles were basically a dead end option in MgT1e.

You are right, i should change my approach to the issue.

>You are right, i should change my approach to the issue.

As long as the ideas you come up with work for you and your group, nothing else matters. Understand? If it works for you, use it. There's nothing else that needs to be said.

Now, if you come here and say "Well, it works because of A, B, and C..." and some user asks "Well what about X, Y, an Z?", all that means is your idea doesn't work for them. Nothing more.

While you don't need to justify what you use and why, you should also expect people to help you in justifying what you use and why.

Your reasons are your reasons and my reasons are my reasons. Neither is right, neither is wrong.

Understand?

I think anons original question in the last thread was still,

"yo how do i do that shit without beign broken/too weak"

Before the whole spergfest started. Just a user asking for something that could be finished in 1-5 posts, not a whole thread.