An unfortunate time for something so near and dear to my FT heart to appear on
the list. I'm out of town and can't engage in the discussion to the level I'd
like. I cooked up rules for stealth hulls a while ago that some people liked
and some people didn't. The newer folkswho might
want a look will find them on the New Israel pages on the gzg-l Xoom
site in the Midbar Skunkworks. They've been playtested some,and are close to
being balanced,in my opinion.
In a nutshell,the stealth hull masses the same as partialor full
streamlining, and costs 3pts/mass. Stealth 1 reduces the effective
range of enemy
weapons by 1/4. Stealth 2 reduces the range by 1/3. There are various
PSB reasons available to this. I prefer that that the combination of hull
materilas and construction make the ship harder to detect via sensors and
arder to lock onto with weapons, somewhat analogous to the stealth planesof
today. Since there has been no consensus sensor rule system yet, the effect of
the stealth hull on detection and such has not been worked up. A natural
extension, though, would be to decrease effective sensor
range on steath ships by 1/4 or 1/3 accordingly.
This version of stealth is very simple to execute and immediately lends itself
to a new tactical style (as Indy well knows). The fact it takes upso much mass
means you have to sacrifice firepower or hull strength (or something else) to
use it.
Once I get around to the PBeM games I washoping to run earlier, I intend to
test the system more.
I think Noam has hit upon a good point here; namely that
stealth/sensors/ECM
lend themselves to PBEM games.
I find PBEM is a very different beast than face to face, but it certainly
excels in the arena of double-blind or limited intelligence. In
practice, face to face (FTF) engagements have either awkward, unwieldy, or
non-functional rules regarding secrecy and limited intelligence.
In PBEM, secrecy is absolute. Indeed, accidental secrecy is one of the most
common errors.
For example, if I shoot at a target in FTF and roll 4 dice, I know each 6 does
at least one point of damage and what the rerolls will do. In PBEM, if the
referee (myself) fails to note the hit or miss in all the right places, one
side may ask whether the shot was even fired.
Similarly, I tend to notice a lot of hand waving indicating where hidden units
might be. In PBEM, secret communications between players are simple,
secure (well, who'd intercept a guy's e-mail just for that ?), and easy.
For those reasons, I certainly like to use hidden information in a PBEM,
whether it be novel rules, cloaking technology, secret objectives, or more.
> In a nutshell,the stealth hull masses the same as partialor full
I'm not happy with this for 2 reasons: a) I don't see stealth as defeating
fire control. just sensors. They aren't the same thing. b) Reducing range by a
proportion actually penalizes the more powerful sensors more.
My suggestion (based on Schoon's rules, which I am hacking) is to have sensor
capability by range, eg the Basic Sensor Package might detect (in passive
mode):
0-24" : read original enemy SSD
24-48" determine enemy size & civilian/military
48"-72": unidentified bogey
72" + : no trace
Stealth-1 might reduce information by one range band; Active mode
sensors
would increase it by one band. Therefore a Stealth-2 ship going up
against a Basic Sensor in Active mode at 25" would be a UFO; under 24" would
mean the Stealth ship's mass could be determined.