Random Fleet Encounters (Tables)

[taalismn]

Random Fleet Encounters (Tables)
(Example Golgan, Central Alliance, and Human Alliance ships courtesy of Aramanthus and Kitsune)

“Guys, we just got painted by several targeting locks from different directions.”

“Ah, we might want to take the long way around this system.....sensors are picking up what looks like one BIG fleet-on-fleet action shaping up ahead...looks like peace talks broke down a lot sooner than we expected. Hell, maybe we better avoid this sector altogether. ”

“You weren’t at the battle of Marghorn! The void was on fire! The only darkness was massive fleets of ships and it was them that was burning! Radiation so hard you could feel it sleeting through the shields! Missiles so thick-”

“So you lost four cruisers to one corvette...and one manned by CADETS. Good thing you didn’t try a full-blown invasion, or you might have lost all your battleships to their garbagemen.”

The following is for generating random generic multi-ship encounters for purpose of wargaming or background setting; no specifc star nations or ship-types have been named deliberately, as to allow for representation of the many smaller (and fan-made) star nations possessing warships.

The following can be adjusted to reflect the composition of specific fleets.


A.Size of Unit:
“We’ve either detected a very large and fast-moving astereoid swarm, or a very large fleet of starships in a hurry. Either way, we’re going to be in their midst in eighteen minutes”

Here be an inkling of what size force is involved.

01-25% Element(Fleet)----Single Spacecraft
26-50% Division(Fleet)----2-3 spacecraft
51-75% Flotilla----A squadron(2-3 divisions) of smaller vessels(up to corvette class)
76-90% Squadron(Fleet)----2-4 divisions of destroyer- or heavier-class vessels of the same class or type(4-12 starships).
91-99% Battle Group/Task Force---Typically a mix of 3-6 squadrons(which can mean 12-72 starships)
-00% Fleet---Arbitrary organizational designation, typically of 3-6(sometimes more) Battle Groups(or upwards of 36-432 starships)

(Optional)Type of Unit:
<<“Remember when ordering the Planetary Annexation and Reduction Force formation that the Na-Admiral likes to use his personal yacht to provide himself with a good view of the proceedings. That means the Old Snake gets formation protection but also a good sensor view of the action. No parking combat transports or carriers in front of the flying box-seats.”>>

What specific mission are the vessels encountered engaged in?

01-20% Defense Fleet---This is a unit operating near a planet or space colony. There is a 30% chance that any capital warship in such a group will be a MONITOR; an equivalent hull lacking FTL drive, but fitted with extra weaponry and shielding.
.
21-45% Convoy Escort--- Escort forces are meant as deterrent forces, either by a show of force to keep pirates away, or to surprise attackers preying on shipping(commercial or military supply/support). Escort forces also may act as guides and rescue ships in areas of heightened danger. The appearance of a Convoy Escort force will suggest the nearby presence of a larger body of transport vessels in the area, as the escorts rarely stray far from their charges.

46-55% Anti-Pirate--- Anti-Piracy forces operate independently of convoys, in hope of intercepting pirates BEFORE they strike, or tracking them to their lairs and neutralizing them at the root. Speed, stealth, and firepower tend to distinguish these formations.
In the alternate, this can be a PIRATE unit(option, use the Space Pirate tables to generate a pirate unit) looking to plunder ships and worlds.

56-65% Fleet Support----This is similar to a Convoy Escort, only the ships are dedicated fleet auxiliaries supporting warship units. At least HALF of a Support force will consist of Support Vessels(see below) such as tankers, cargo transports, and tenders.

66-85% Interdiction --- This is a force dispatched to investigate and intercept suspicious space activity, especially sensor hits traveling towards their territory. They will be FTL-capable, with the intention heading off trouble as far as possible from their worlds.
In the alternate, this is a HUNTER-KILLER group, prowling around looking for enemy ships(including enemy shipping) to destroy.

86-00% Assault Force--- These are ground forces being transported to a combat zone, especially a planet, either as an invasion force or as reinforcements for the defenders. Such a force will be heavy on transports and ground attack equipment, such as fighter carriers, with at least half the force consisting of Carriers, Assault Transports, and cargo transports of various sizes.


Ships:
“That’s not a Bison-class transport! That’s the bloody damned Talon-Supercarrier!”

What specific types of ships compromise the encounter forces?

01-10% Fast Patrol/System Defense Ship-----The ‘gnat force’ is rarely found away from a supporting mothership, flotilla, or base. Individually they aren’t very impressive, but in large formations they can be a threat to even capital ships. And for those attackers counting on the element of surprise, all it takes is one of these ships to sound the alarm and ruin an attack plan.

11-20% Corvette----Corvettes constitute the ‘mosquito fleets’ used by many polities for scouting, light strike, and escort work. They may be light, but they tend to work hard, and desperate(or skilled) crews have been known to punch above their weight-class.

21-40% Destroyer---Ships of the destroyer class are the watchdogs and go-tos of many space forces, involved in patrol, recon, and strike missions. They rarely operate alone and are usually part of a patrol or attack group.

41-60% Frigate/Light Cruiser---This category is arguably the workhorse class of many space navies; frigates and light cruisers conduct the majority of long range patrol, escort, and interdiction missions.

61-80% Cruiser---Medium- and Heavy-cruisers are the heavy guns most likely to be encountered in most space navies. Their main duty is to destroy other spacecraft.

81-85% Assault Transport----Not all USA members can afford to support or contribute warships, but they usually can contribute ground forces. The USAJC has the means to transport them where they’re needed, and support them in combat.

86-92% Carrier---Those star nations that have adopted fighter-heavy fleet doctrine need carrier platforms to most effectively deploy them. These ships tend to stay back in combat and let their fighter complements and parasite craft fight and screen them.

93-97% Heavy Cruiser/Battlecruiser---These high-end warships are, of economic necessity, rare in the ranks of any space navy,. though they are desired by many. These ships are typically reserved for strike missions or vital system defense.


98-00% Battleship/Dreadnoughts---These constitute the heaviest units currently available to the any space navy and are typically reserved for strike missions or vital system defense.


(Optional) Support Vessels
There is a 30% chance of any given formation also including support vessels, such as fleet tenders, supply transports, hospital ships, and tankers. Roll again for numbers, then on the following:
01-15% Light Transport(100-900 ton capacity)
16-30% Medium Transport(1,000-20,000 ton capacity)
31-50% Heavy Transport(30,000-500,000 ton capacity)
51-65% Superheavy Transport( 600,000+ton capacity)
71-73% Communications Ship---Some star nations have not developed compact FTL communications, so dedicated mobile platforms carrying the large and powerful sets they have developed accompany fleet units to act as relays and communications hubs. These vessels might also act as jamming platforms or mobile long range sensor arrays.
74-77% Fleet Tug---Small crews, large engines and MASSIVE towing capabilities.
78- 85% Tanker--Fuel carriers. Sometimes include fuel harvesters and mobile refineries. 01-20% Small(equivalent to a Light Transport), 21-45% Medium(equivalent to a Medium Transport), 46-85% Heavy (equivalent to a Heavy Transport), 86-00% Superheavy(equivalent to a Superheavy Transport).
86-90% Fleet Tender----A flying supply/repair depot
91-92% Mobile Dry-dock-----When a tender isn’t enough, mobile dry-docks may become necessary. These large and generally slow vessels have to be large enough to accommodate most of a force’s warship designs. They also tend t be expensive and rare.
93-94% Hospital/Medical Ship---Some star nations/species devote resources to ships dedicated as medical treatment vessels and search and rescue motherships. In most cultures medical ships are considered sacrosanct and not to be targeted, especially if they are operated by third parties. while some species regard them as legitimate targets.
95-98% Munitions Carrier---Some polities arm their forces with specialized munitions that require special handling. These ships sometimes act as planetary bombardment vessels.
99-00% Liberty Craft---It’s rare, but some star nations/species/cultures provide mobile recreational facilities for their warship crews, especially when opportunity for station or planet-side shore-leave is unavailable. These ships are generaly converted civilian craft(especially starliners) rather than custom-built, that carry facilities and dedicated personnel for giving duty-weary crews of other vessels opportunity to relax and recuperate outside a martial environment.


Example Fleet Formations/Encounters:

*Encounter at Zadrif-321
Three Zyganian Pulsis Multipurpose Corvettes made a sweeping attack of opportunity against an elderly Golgan Republik Levandoskee-class Heavy Cruiser patrolling the Zadrif Asteroid Field. Despite numbers, mobility and the element of surprise, the Zyganians only manage to inflict light damage on the Argosy ship, and take heavy damage in return before retreating. The incident is reported as ‘a great victory’ by the Golgan government-controlied media.

*Battle of Erom Drift
Central Alliance ---Three warships of the Cyberhawks, the Lutkus-class Heavy Cruiser Hierolan, Nebukan-class Fleet Carrier Nest of Pain and an assault transport(converted Aneeus Carrier) investing the Erom Drift spacestation, are ambushed by the Menster Allegiance, a coalition of mercenaries representing an anti-Noldek and anti-unification faction. Their fleet consisting of 3 squadrons(a total of 26 ships; 5 cruisers, 3 carriers, 2 assault transports, 3 frigates, 3 destroyers, 2 corvettes and 8 fast patrol craft).
Though possessing vastly superior numbers, the Menster force consisted of a mishmash of older designs of varying quality, and lacked coordination. The force unwisely split up between ships engaging the CA warships, a group attacking the space station, and a third, reserve unit, that went after the Central Alliance force’s support craft that arrived on the scene late. When the Heirolan singled out the Menster flagship, a cruiser, and destroyed it, force coordination further went out the door, while the Cyberhawks remained smoothly integrated in their fire control and maneuvering .
Though the Central Allance ships took heavy damage(the Heirolan and the Nest of Pain would require dry-docking for several months of extensive repairs, and the assault transport was eventually scrapped), superior technology and training won in the end. The Mensters lost eighty-percent of their force outright, and the anti-Noldekists they represented lost heavily in invested material and their cause broken. The loss of so much mercenary heavy aerospace made Noldek’s annexation of the remaining worlds in the Trayded Cluster that much easier.

* Tandan Vale
A United Systems Alliance Frontier Defense Force unit consisting of four Cosgrove-conversion past patrol craft, two Tsiolkovsky frigate conversions, and a Godendag Rapid Deployment Space Destroyer escorting a damaged WZ-SB-003 Demas Space Battleship(USAJC-BB Ermosa) and WZ-MC-021 Kardara Missile Cruiser (USAJC-MC Kaboran) to colonial dry-docks for repairs run across an Ivoian raid force consisting of two battlecruisers and an assault transport making a run on a USA colony, acting on rumors that the colony is undefended(owing to its squadrons being pulled out).
The early return of the USAJC warships catches the Iovians off-guard, but the Ivoian force commander sees an opportunity to further cripple and possibly destroy the two capital units, bulling through the lighter escorts. Despite having to protect the battleship and cruiser, the lighter USAJC warships manage to do enough damage to the Ivoian ships to distract them from the Ermosa and Kaboran until the two battlecruisers have closed within range of the two heavy warships still very functional main armaments. One Ivoian battlecruiser is destroyed outright in the exchange, the other suffers moderate damage but is forced to withdraw, retreating with the assault transport under harassing fire by the escorts. The USAJC force takes some damage in return; light damage for the most part but one of the frigates is heavily damaged and joins the heavier units in dry-dock for repairs.


*Dravold Encounter
This was a deep space encounter complicated by the fact that THREE different forces were involved.
It began with an action between a seven-ship United Systems Alliance Joint Command interdiction force encountering and engaging a Golgan Republik raider group of eight ships near the Dravold Nebula.
The USAJC force consisted of two Blade-class destroyers, a Sagadag Space Light Aerospace Carrier, two Harpe-class carriers , a Mazule Light Missile Cruiser, and a Shiva Heavy Missile Cruiser
They faced a Golgan Republik force made up of Two older Weisbrodskee-class light cruisers, four of the Argosy’s new Chalness-class destroyers(an attempt to copy the USA’s Aurora-class), and two Bindas-class heavy cruisers on a deep raid.
The fight rapidly developed into a duel of fighters and missiles launched by the USAJC against the upgraded point defense and maneuverability of the Golgan force. Despite the slightly higher number of Golgan ships, the Argosy force was at a disadvantage against the fighter complement of the USAJC squadron, especially as one of the Harpes carried a contingent of heavy ‘ship-killer’ Derecho fighters. The Golgans quickly lost one of their light cruisers in the firefight.
However, the fight was crashed by the unexpected emergence from the nebula of an Infernal force of eleven ships. most captured and corrupted examples of other nations’ ships crewed by cultists, minor demons, and overseen by senior demons; four destroyers(equiv. to CCW Hunter-class), three frigates(Demon Fury-class), two cruisers(ex-HA Everest class), a heavy cruiser(equiv. to Wolfen Lictor-class) and a carrier( ex-UWW Arkenfire-class, normally carrying 148 fighters of various weights), seeking to overwhelm both forces while they were engaged in fighting each other.
Instead, the USAJC and Argosy forces ceased fighting each other to turn their attention to a common enemy.
The early phases of the battle were marked by the USAJC fighter wings, their stores depleted fighting the Golgans, scrambling to return to their carriers and rearm, while the warships engaged the Infernals with missiles and beam weapons.
The exchange saw the second Golgan light cruiser and a destroyer wiped out. The USAJC moved to cover the embattled Argosy force, but found themselves hampered by dealing with the Infernals’ swarming group of mixed Bone Scouts, Bone Fighters, and Star Slayer Demons. The returning USAJC fighters had to fight to open paths for their fighter-bombers to target the enemy warships.
The Golgans took the opportunity to retreat while the USAJC force took the brunt of the fighting, but in turning away, the two Argosy Bindas cruisers managed to do great damage with their mega-disruptors to the Demons’ cruisers, destroying one and severely damaging the other. The damaged Infernal cruiser was subsequently finished off by USAJC fighter-bombers. However, this led to the Infernals detaching their frigates to pursue and ultimately destroy both Bindas.
The rest of the battle saw the USAJC force desperately trying to do as much damage before their heavy missile stocks ran out, and provide cover for their carriers as the fighters constantly re-armed and sortied while under fire. The lighter fghters would work to cover the heavy attack wings from the demonic fighters.
In the end, the USAJC would lose the Mazule light cruiser, lost in a thunder-run in the teeth of the Infernal force. All remaining vessels in the taskforce would suffer moderate to heavy damage, nearly half the fighter contingent was destroyed and of the 36 Derechos, only 7 would survive the battle.
The Golgan Argosy force was left with 3 of their destroyers, and was effectively mission-killed for further raiding attempts. The USAJC would actually communicate, through neutral third parties, commendations of the Golgan crews of the lost ships for their bravery.
The Infernals would lose three destroyers, both cruisers, and the carrier. The three Demon Fury frigates and one destroyer would escape, albeit with damage. The heavy cruiser would also escape, but heavy damage prevented it from going very fast or far, and several days later it would be tracked down by another USAJC force(responding to the reports of previously unsuspected Infernals in the Dravold Nebula) and destroyed.

[Warshield73]

“So you lost four cruisers to one corvette...and one manned by CADETS. Good thing you didn’t try a full-blown invasion, or you might have lost all your battleships to their garbagemen.”

I remember this movie, think it's called Star Command or something.

Interesting list and I like the breakdown of squadrons and flotillas and such.

Not sure we have enough ships in Phase world to fill a fleet but that's another problem entirely.

[taalismn]

[quote=Warshield73 post_id=3152597 time=1728617545 user_id=42221
Not sure we have enough ships in Phase world to fill a fleet but that's another problem entirely.
[/quote]

I have a more populated Three Galaxies, plus extradimensional invaders/visitors.

But the big star nations do have enough for fleets, and the Ancients might be hiding big(and likely automated) fleets.

And with technological disparities, a smaller star nation might field a fleet that to them screams 'COSMIC BATTLEFORCE!!!" but to the TGE and CAF, and even the Golden Argosy, looks to be made up of paper-mache light units, with battleships that barely rank as missile-armed destroyers.

Ah, you caught my Star Command reference. Dumb movie/pilot, but it served its purpose.

[Warshield73]

Not sure we have enough ships in Phase world to fill a fleet but that's another problem entirely.

I have a more populated Three Galaxies, plus extradimensional invaders/visitors.

But the big star nations do have enough for fleets, and the Ancients might be hiding big(and likely automated) fleets.

And with technological disparities, a smaller star nation might field a fleet that to them screams 'COSMIC BATTLEFORCE!!!" but to the TGE and CAF, and even the Golden Argosy, looks to be made up of paper-mache light units, with battleships that barely rank as missile-armed destroyers.

I should have been more specific that we don't have enough ships classes to build fleets like that for any faction but like most PW GMs I have filled it out considerably but I think the way I did it was different than most as I treated the ships in the books as the best or near best with most of the classes I created being older and in some way less powerful for the powers of the 3G.

The numbers of ships/order of battle we, what little we do, have is also ridiculously low. The Hunter and Scimitar have numbers in the thousands while the Packmaster says there is only 90 of them. Fleets of the 3G says that the entire CAF fleet is about 19,000 capital and 193,000 sub-capital with the discovery corps having another 200,000 exclusively sub-capital. This is just unbelievably small for a power that controls something like a third of the 3 galaxies. The OoB I created for the CAF was millions of hulls with the TGE being even more so.

Ah, you caught my Star Command reference. Dumb movie/pilot, but it served its purpose.

What I remember most was how bad the dialogue was. It was cringe before cringe was a thing.

Still interesting chart with some fun ideas.

[taalismn]

I had fun with the random rolls for example formations....then I just arbitrarily rolled some dice to see how much damage was done to each unit involved and came up with some factors for why, for example, a numerically (or even technologically) superior* force might technically lose to a smaller force, given all the random factors that can crop up in actual combat.

*However, that's typically the way to bet, unless you've read Arthur C. Clarke's ''Superiority"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)

[Warshield73]

I had fun with the random rolls for example formations....then I just arbitrarily rolled some dice to see how much damage was done to each unit involved and came up with some factors for why, for example, a numerically (or even technologically) superior* force might technically lose to a smaller force, given all the random factors that can crop up in actual combat.

*However, that's typically the way to bet, unless you've read Arthur C. Clarke's ''Superiority"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)

My friends and I talked about this story a lot in the early days of Phase World as a line in the first book talks about how the powers of the 3G didn't bother to upgrade their equipment with what they considered minor improvements comparing them to the Coalition States and saying they the 3G wasn't locked in a constant life or death struggle.

In my setting every starship smaller than a Dreadnought, especially military vessels, are produced in mass in giant factory yards making them more identical than any modern naval vessel. They don't bother to upgrade a design until they have several upgrades to make creating a new block but even then the basic structure is largely the same. This process is not instant though so it is possible to have certain yards introduce the Block 4 Hunter for instance to allow for testing and refinement of the upgrades while all the other yards are still pumping out Block 3's.

To me providing logistics, especially ammo and spare parts, for a military even spanning one galaxy much less three would be so massive that the idea of trying to switch over an entire design to new specs, or worse yet retraining all those crews to a completely new design, would be just too daunting an undertaking to make it worth it.

[taalismn]

Hence why the big star nations pretty much set the trend for the latecomers. When the Big Ones absolutely HAVE to upgrade, it produces a big surplus of older ships(and spare parts) which can either be scrapped, mothballed until they decay to uselessness, or gifted/sold to the smaller star nations.

Natively-developed/produced designs will have a hard time competing with that.

[Warshield73]

Hence why the big star nations pretty much set the trend for the latecomers. When the Big Ones absolutely HAVE to upgrade, it produces a big surplus of older ships(and spare parts) which can either be scrapped, mothballed until they decay to uselessness, or gifted/sold to the smaller star nations.

Natively-developed/produced designs will have a hard time competing with that.

I have always treated this as a bigger problem for parts manufacturers than ship builders themselves. In my setting small shipyards usually build ships from existing parts. Most native parts/components industries therefore are centered around things that these larger powers can't or won't export like heavy weapons, advanced EW, and even highspeed FTL drives. On top of this you would have illegal/pirate yards that make use of stolen materials and even ships to create pirate or smuggling ships. These places would have some small manufacturing but these places would be expensive because they don't produce to scale.

This can lead to lots of interesting designs like the IDF of a frontier CCW world that can't afford larger warships so they take an existing class of destroyer or light-cruiser that they already use and bolt a couple of small docking bays for fighters to simplify logistics, a non-CCW world that has a large number of older Scimitar Frigates with completely different weapons and sensors, a FWC Corvette class built at small yards in the system of Good Hope but using parts (engines, main laser) from a Berserker Destroyer, or a pirate ship that uses captured military engines combined with heavy weapons purchased from the Splugorth.

In short, I think there is always going to be work for small shipyards and manufacturers that make hard to acquire high end components, but the market for easy to get things like basic engines and light or medium weapons is probably very difficult to break into.

[taalismn]

Reminds me of the British aircraft industry in WW2....they could produce aircraft engines and ship them to the fighter wings, but there they had spend a few weeks essentially hammering and shoehorning the engines into working condition. A wing 'fitter' was like a tailor altering a suit to fit a wearer.
When the Brits came over to America to set them up with producing Merlin engines, the Americans saw the sketches the Rolls-Royce people brought, and said 'nice presentation pictures; can we see the tech spec sheets?"
The Brits were puzzled; 'These ARE the spec sheets."
The Americans: "You're kidding. What?"
Rolls Royce: "What, you can't produce to those tolerances?"
Americans: "Dude, we can reliably manufacture to FINER tolerances. Now let's redraw those blueprints RIGHT."

But I'm also seeing a lot of stretched hull light cruisers made from frigates, and other big ship 'uglies' made from older frames.

[Warshield73]

I have always thought that the most common "uglies" or "Franken-ships" would be CVE's. Take a moderate sized freighter, use a couple of frigate or destroyer engine blocks to increase acceleration/speed, slap on a crap ton of aftermarket point-defense weapons. shields, maybe some EW gear and you've got a reasonably functional Escort Carrier.

At the same time you build an armored bus, slap a bunch of fighter engines on it, shields, and a metric crap ton of light weapons mounted in dual or even quad turrets all over that bus and you have a cheap to make gunship that you can hall around in that cheap CVE. You can get away with a lot in terms of armor and engine arrangement if you are just operating in a vacuum.

I did this to some players back in the day. They entered a system protecting a salvage ship and this wreck of cargo ship started moving on them. By the time they realized it was a CVE with full shield it had already launched a bunch of fighters that were nothing more than engines with a pair of laser cannons and pilots seat and few of the improvised gunships. Franken-ships and uglies are great when you want something the characters can't identify and don't know the capabilities of but at the same time it makes no sense for the group to have specially manufactured vehicles.