I'm thinking of doing a kind of armor-heavy scenario of SG2, but not
really use SG2. So, you are thinking, what the heck is he talking about?
Well...
I've been working on scratch building several hover tanks and such, that
plus the toy conversions I've done and the 1/48 models I plan on doing
will give me a whole bunch of vehicles (three ADS trucks, an MRLS truck, two
cargo trucks, a command truck, four IFV, an APC, two hover tanks, four hover
sturmgeshutz, a helicopter, and about 6 jeeps of various types). Too many to
really do a Stargrunt game that one can play in a
single day. But what if I kind of do a cross-fertilization between
Dirtside 2 and Stargrunt 2? Ahhh, I think that will do it!
I will work on something of the sort, then post the idea here, but before I
start, has anyone done something similar? If so, let me know so that I can
steal...urr, I mean borrow, your ideas!
Rob
> "Robert W. Hofrichter" wrote:
I've been thinking about this (= the idea occurred to me but I haven't done
anything about it yet). I'd like to use plenty of vehicles in an SG2 game, but
at the moment IMHO the SG2 vehicle rules aren't up to it. We've found that SG2
can run quite quickly if you stick to the basic
rules - an engagement involving infantry only is easy to play - but
slows down when you introduce additional game elements. I'd thought of
integrating the DS2 vehicle rules and leaving the SG2 infantry rules as is,
since we're now quite comfortable with those.
One task for integrating DS2 vehicle rules to SG2 would be sorting out the
ranges for vehicle fire. Are vehicle weapon ranges affected by troop quality
as much as infantry? What would be a sensible scaling factor to apply (I don't
have my copies of either rule set to hand and can't remember what the
respective ground scales are)?
The second task would be converting the vehicle firing rules to 'proper' FMA
standard, probably doing away with the chit system in favour of
dice-based resolution. I guess a starting point would be the
experimental DS2 dice-based firing table that JonT posted to the list a
long time ago - I've lost my copy thanks to a change of e-mail system,
so I'll have to dig through the archives unless someone has a copy they can
send me.
How do you organise vehicles? In DS2 they activate by platoon, but in SG2 they
activate individually. The latter is better for smaller games since allowing a
whole platoon of vehicles to activate without the opposition being able to
retaliate might make them too powerful. On the other hand, I'd ideally like to
apply morale by vehicle platoon, and unit integrity also becomes an issue.
I guess I'll have to go away and think this one through a bit more -
it's more involved than it first appears...
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> One task for integrating DS2 vehicle rules to SG2 would be sorting out
[Bri] DS2 is roughly 10x SG ground scale. DS2 ground scale is 1":100m
(DS p. 4). SG ground scale is 1":10m (SG p.4).
> The second task would be converting the vehicle firing rules to
[Bri] Feel free to use my FMA Enhancement for DS2. It is at
http://www.ftsr.org/ds2/techlib/ds2fma.html
[snip]
> -----------------------------
My comments above marked by [Bri]
---
> "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" wrote:
I looked this one up last night, having finally found my copies of the rules
(packed away and buried during some building work at home).
Applying this 10:1 scaling across all weapons systems would result in just
about all weapons firing at close range. In fact the longest ranged weapons
would reach 600" on an SG2 board! Although realistic, it a) makes the
battlefield a lethal place for vehicles, and b) negates some of the advantages
of larger weapon systems.
I've come across this situation before when writing WW2 rules, and the
solution we used there was to use different scalings for infantry and heavier
weapons (cue sharp intakes of breath from purists).
A quick perusal of the ranges has led me to go for a scaling up of DS2 ranges
by around 4:1 when applying them to a SG2 table. This means that
an RFAC/1 (a common weapon on APCs) would have a maximum range of 64",
slightly more than the maximum range of elite infantry small-arms fire -
this seems about right.
> [Bri] Feel free to use my FMA Enhancement for DS2. It is at
Well, you seem to have done most of the hard work for me!
This being aimed at SG2, I want to build crew quality into vehicle fire, so
the idea I've had is to make the basic To Hit die that of the firing crew's
quality. This is shifted up one type for superior firecon and down one for
basic, and then modified again for range by similarly shifting up one die for
short range and down one for long range (this means that an untrained crew
with basic firecon could only hit targets at short range, and that on a d4
only!). The works insofar that for an average crew the die type would be the
same as your current system.
> -----Original Message-----
[Bri] Yes, vehicle vs. vehicle combat is best done on the DS2 scale. If
you look at firing against infantry, most heavy weapons in DS2 have shorter
ranges, about 36" or Medium range (see p. 36), but may still be too long for a
SG2 table (360" etc.).
> A quick perusal of the ranges has led me to go for a scaling up of DS2
[Bri] Glad to be of service. An easy way to handle this would be to use
the gunner quality and then shift by fire control system quality: Basic: No
Shift Enhanced: Shift Up 1 Superior: Shift Up 2
> Tony
More of my ramblings marked by [Bri]
---
This is a real and very old problem in WW2 and beyond with skirmish scale
or near-skirmish scale games. McEwan's old (1970's? or early 1980's?)
"Warbots and Death Machines" at the top end had these 10 FOOT range heavy
weapons, IIRC....
Reality, it's a bad day when the AFV spots you and you aren't "too close"
- actually on the vehicle isn't too safe even, according to Zumbro's
book about Armor (usually without escorts) operating in Vietnam (and doing
more then okay) - they called using the turret and 'other' MG's
'scratching your neighbor's back' essentially. Bad on external stores, bad on
VC but merely irritating to the crew being 'scratched' by friendly fire.
Mixed armor/infantry battles outside of extremely closed terrain should
be extremely dangerous for the grunts. Now, an IAVR from behind when
undetected is another matter. "Balance" requires the dumbing down of the
AFV Anti-Personnel weapons to make the game playable with more then a
few
true AFV's on the board (even M-113 ACAV type vehicles.)
Gracias, Glenn/Triphibious (American Mongrel)
You don't have to be French to be a 'frog', or even human!
Nektons - Real Marines! (Die, Ralnai, Die!)
Starguard, Dirtside 2, Ratner's Space Marines, Stellar Conflicts
and Uprisings, and Full Thrust/2nd. Resistance is everything!
On Wed, 07 Mar 2001 15:14:39 +0000 Tony Francis <tony.francis@kuju.com>
writes:
> "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" wrote: