Some time ago - before Beth went off-line - there was a discussion
about boarding combat, and some people - Firefall and Beth, IIRC -
suggested that I look at costs for various boarding aids. I had already
started looking at boarding battles in more detail, but the debate added a lot
of input.
This isn't nearly as thoroughly done as I would have liked, due among
other things to the big artillery/ GEV/AC/etc debate I got involved in,
but here goes:
First, my thanks to Schoon for his boarding article at the Ship Registry.
While I don't agree completely with it, it was a very useful
starting point :-)
So far I've encountered four different boarding mechanisms in the SF
literature and various other SF games (other than FT, that is):
1) "Individual" boarding, eg as described in the Fading Suns games. This is
the basic More Thrust way of boarding, and doesn't cost anything at all. The
only addition I'd make to the MT way of moving BFs is that the target's point
defence can fire at the boarders, killing 1 BF per hit.
2) Single-shot Boarding Torpedoes, eg the "sleds" used by the Thebans
in Weber's "Crusade" novel (too bad they don't work in Starfire due to
horrendous game balance problems). Each boarding torpedo salvo is handled just
like an SM salvo, but instead of inflicting 1D6 damage per missile which
actually makes it to the target it delivers 1 BF per such missile. Cost and
size is the same as SMs of the same range. Note that the BFs carried by the
missiles
must be bought separately (either as marines or as crew factors - see
below); they don't automatically come with the missiles!
3) Re-usable Boarding Shuttles, eg like the pod used to attack B5,
Silent Death wormpods or the longboats described in several of the stories in
the "Fleet" antologies. Cost and size as a normal fighters; fight other
fighters as
torpedo/attack fighters, and each boarding shuttle which makes it
through to the target delivers 1 BF (after which it is empty - the
squadron may return to a friendly carrier to pick up more BFs.). As with the
boarding torps, the BFs must be bought separately from the shuttles.
4) Teleporters, featured prominently in a background with a prominent and
highly insubordinate bald captain or old Scottish engineers (I watched ST:
Insurrection this Tuesday. Cute story, but...), and also in backgrounds where
human hyperspace navigation is made possible by
sacrificing hundreds of low-powered psykers each day to a millennia-old
semi-corpse held in stasis.
Each teleporter is a Mass 1, cost 12 (or more - I haven't tested
it anywhere close to enough yet) system able to transport 1 beam dice
(incl. re-rolls) of *friendly* BFs between the ship mounting the
teleporters and any one friendly ship within 12mu or any one shieldless enemy
ship within 12mu. (Yes, I know that ST transporters can move enemy crews as
well, but I'm *NOT* going to introduce the "beam the enemy fighter pilots out
of their craft" tactic into FT!). PDS are not able to stop teleporters. Note
that the BFs can travel in either direction, but each teleporter system can
only "link" to one other ship per turn and the number rolled on the die is the
total number of BFs it can transport (ie, count both directions).
Note that it is quite legal to send boarding parties to your own ships using
any of these mechanisms, though I'm not entirely sure if boarding torps should
be allowed to do this unless it is explicitly declared when the torps are
fired. PDS don't have to fire on friendly boarders, but of course you *can* do
it if you really want to... However, no BF can move to more than one new ship
in a single turn. It is NOT possible to board enemy fighters, missiles or
other small craft.
Individual, torpedo and shuttle boarding all take place in the Fighter Combat
phase. Teleport movement take place when the ship carrying the teleporters
fire its weapons. All boarding combat is handled after all
ships have fired - ie, in the "Turn End" phase in the FB turn sequence.
So far the transport of boarders. Now for the boarding combat itself:
Boarding parties are made up of two components: crew and marines.
The crew are the same people as form the DCPs - effectively everyone
not manning a vital combat station (eg, making sure the fusion reactors don't
blow, aiming a weapon or something like that), so a single crew factor can
either fight in a boarding battle or repair damage, but not both. They come
"for free" when you buy the ship, and are lost when the corresponding crew
marker on the damage track is crossed out (or when they are killed by enemy
boarders, of course). No ship may send more
than half its original crew factors to board enemy ships - if it has
lost half or more of its original crew factors, it must use Marines to board.
Marines are bought at a cost of 1 Mass, 3 pts per marine BF. They are marked
as "tech systems" on the ship data panel and are lost in threshold checks or
needle beam hits, and cannot be "repaired" by DCPs. (Any BFs aboard an enemy
ship which takes damage are treated as marines for damage purposes!).
Boarding combat occurs whenever there are beings from more than one side
aboard a single ship. Both sides roll 1d6 for each BF involved in
the fight, and score it just like a beam weapon (including re-rolls).
The result is the number of casualties inflicted on the opposing force. Any
losses suffered by the attacker are taken directly from his BF (losing marines
first, then crew). The defender may replace up to half (round up) of his
losses with threshold damage against tech systems of his
choice. Each non-core system damaged replaces 1 BF lost, while each
Core system damaged replaces 2 BFs; remaining casualties must be taken against
marines first.
Only one round of boarding combat is fought each turn, so it is quite possible
for boarding fights to rage on for several turns.
The main difference between these boarding combat rules and Schoon's is
that I allow non-Core systems to be lost. The main reason for this was
to give small ships - DDs and the like - a chance to survive being
boarded by cruisers :-/
I'm looking at boarding morale rules at the moment, but haven't yet worked out
(or stolen <g>) anything I'm satisfied with.
Later,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> 4) Teleporters, featured prominently in a background with a prominent
I missed this one, what book are you talking about?
> Boarding combat occurs whenever there are beings from more than one
Marines should be better at this then your average squid. I'd say they would
work as heavy fighters, no kills by opponents on a 4. If you send a mixed
force the squids die on 4's and one of the 6's, the jar heads die on 5's and
one of the 6's. You want DC under ship fire navy doods are wonderful things.
You want us to stick our heads out when someone is fireing up close and
personal you crazy, why do you think we joined the navy?
It's a little fiddly, any better suggestions?
> Roger Books wrote:
Hmmm, how about weighting the other end? Marines score kills more often than
normal crew, but die just as easily.
So a normal crew will score one kill on a 5, two on a 6. A marine will kill
one
on a 4-5 and two on a 6. Or some variation on that theme.
Tom
> Roger Books wrote:
> > 4) Teleporters, featured prominently in a background with a
I guess this means your soul must be pure, then <g> It refers to GW¨'s WH40K
universe.
> > Boarding combat occurs whenever there are beings from more than one
If someone starts shooting at you up close and personal, are you going to
shoot back or surrender? <g>
> It's a little fiddly, any better suggestions?
I agree that marines should be better in some way, but your way of doing it is
more than a little fiddly IMO. It also favours the attacker
quite a bit (quite a bit extra, that is - you don't normally attempt to
board unless you already have the odds in your favour!), since defensive
parties will either be mixed or have crew only.
I've toyed with boarding morale rolls - if the losing side (ie, the one
that took the heaviest losses) has no marines left it has to check whether or
not it surrenders; as long as the marines are in the fight it won't. But,
well... as I said, I haven't finished working on it yet
:-/
Later,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> If someone starts shooting at you up close and personal, are you going
I'm going to shoot back, mostly because I grew up with firearms. Most of the
people I knew in the Navy had the Navy bootcamp firearms training, 6 shots
with a 45 with an insert to shoot.22's, and if you looked crosseyed they
kicked you out with no shots. I personally would be almost as afraid of the
Navy people on my side as I would be of my opposition.
> It also favours the attacker
I don't know, wouldn't having as many marines attacking as navy defending
(assuming PA for the marines) put the odds heavily in the attackers favor
anyway? This all assumes that the ship
doesn't self-destruct.
Has anyone done a boarding action with SG?
> Roger Books wrote:
> > It also favours the attacker
That's pretty much what I meant with the "you don't normally attempt to
board..." thing above. The attackers should already have a serious advantage;
do they need being boosted by another ~15%?
Thomas's suggestion (reduce crew firepower rather than increase marine
survivability) is good, particularly from the KISS point of view.
> This all assumes that the ship doesn't self-destruct.
In which case the attackers have achieved at least their secondary
objective - ie, to remove the ship from enemy control :-/
Regards,
> On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Roger Books wrote:
> I'm going to shoot back, mostly because I grew up with firearms. Most
If I was on a Boarding action, I'd prefer to have someone like Holdman from
the sandpebbles (pre WWI US Navy crews) on the party than modern navy
personell.
> On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> That's pretty much what I meant with the "you don't normally attempt
There should be a difference between a detachment of Swabbies with guns doing
a boarding action and a bunch of jar heads in Power Armour and infantry combat
as their primary MOS.
In some cases I can see specific craft being better suited to conducting
boarding actions as there are far more mariens on board than a basic line
combat vessel.
An NAC Gator Carrier pulls up next to an FSE Carrier that has no fire cons and
no thrust. What are you going to expect? I'd expect to see jar heads in charge
of an FSE capital ship and wiping the decks with the Frogs.
> On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Thomas Pope wrote:
> Roger Books wrote:
i support this approach, as otherwise, the 'take lossess on marines first,
crew next' thing doesn't work, as roll of a 4 is a kill against crew but not
against marines. you'd get "i'll take that kill on these marines... oh look,
it wasn't a kill after all":).
> So a normal crew will score one kill on a 5, two on a 6. A marine
the thing to do, imho, is to use some mechanism from fighter combat. the most
sensible thing seems to be to say that marines are like normal fighters, and
crew are like attack fighters, in that they are not well trained at boarding.
normal fighters roll a normal beam die, and attack fighters, iirc, roll a beam
die and subtract one from the pip count. i could very well be wrong here.
tom
> Ryan M Gill wrote:
> An NAC Gator Carrier pulls up next to an FSE Carrier that has no fire
> cons and no thrust. What are you going to expect? I'd expect to see
The situation you describe sounds like a vanilla FSE carrier which has
taken enough damage to lose FCs and engines (probably 2-3 threshold
checks, so has lost about 75% of its CF already... and it probably didn't have
enough marines to make up 1 BF even at the start of the
battle) is boarded by a specialized boarding vessel carrying 18+ marine
BFs.
Pretty heavily stacked in favour of the NAC, even without any modified
die rolls for the marines :-/
Regards,
> Thomas Pope wrote:
I know the navy guys are going to hate me for this, but how about a slightly
more realistic version.
Normal crew will score one kill on a 6.
Marines will score one kill on a 3-4, two on a 5, three on a 6.
<the fully realistic version would be more like marines score kills equal to
the roll of one die>
Ships crew versus marines shouldn't stand a chance.
---
> On 10-Dec-99 at 09:33, Steve Gill (Steve@caws.demon.co.uk) wrote:
How about:
crew kills as beam weapons
Marines kill as P-torps.
> Tom Anderson wrote:
> > Hmmm, how about weighting the other end? Marines score kills more
...which gives the strange effect that any defending marines get no benefit at
all vs attacking sailors (since the '4's will hit the defending sailors
instead), but a pure marine attacking party will get the bonus. I knew there
was something that felt wrong with this
approach :-/
> > So a normal crew will score one kill on a 5, two on a 6. A marine
A bit too weak IMO - it makes teleporters in particular god-awfully
effective against undamaged light ships (ie, anything too small to carry a
screen). Treating marines like PDS and crew like C1 batteries
in PDS mode (ie, kill 1 on rolls of 5 and 6, re-rolls on 6s) seems to
balance OK, though.
> in that they are not well
i
> could very well be wrong here.
You are. Attack fighters hit other fighters on rolls of 6 only; they *add* 1
to the dice when attacking ships. However, through that mistake
you arrived at exactly the same odds as I did above - ie, kill 1 on 5
or 6 :-)
Later,
> Steve Gill wrote:
> I know the navy guys are going to hate me for this, but how about a
Both these versions assume that there are no organic marines already included
in the crew BFs. They also have very serious game balance
problems if you start using ST-style teleporters - you basically remove
all ships too small to carry screens from the game, since a single
Marine BF would be sufficient to capture them - and they don't have
enough Mass to carry pure marine BFs of their own.
Regards,