Fire Control lock-on.

> The idea of a lock-on roll for a ship's fire control system(s) to

I've only recently started to play FT, but I've played many games of WRG's
naval wargame Seastrike which uses a fire-control/serviceability test
for every shot, helicopter launch, airstrike etc. Seastrike uses a pack of
special cards rather than dice to handle random factors, but essentially one
has a 50% chance per shot (a shot being one attempt to fire one ship's weapon
at one target) that the weapon malfunctions or the fire control fails to lock
on. If the target is acquired, one then tests for effect.

At times one definitely seemed to spend a LOT of time flipping cards for not
much effect. Seastrike requires an FC test per weapon/target pair, and
testing only per shooter/target pair would cut down on the number of
tests required. I definitely got the feeling that my ships' weapons weren't
all that reliable (which might be realistic of course), and it was prudent to
plan for redundant attacks, but it's certainly frustrating to pull off some
nifty manoeuvre, only to be left holding an empty bag on the attack. Flailing
away making futile attack attempts certainly makes the game SEEM slower, even
with a fairly streamlined mechanism.

I'd rather assumed that fire control was factored into FT's existing "chance
to hit" rolls. If one added a FC check without adjusting fire effect
resolution, wouldn't one simply make it harder to score hits, which would slow
down the game? Do we feel that ships die too quickly in FT at the moment?

> The main argument FOR such a system is that a lock-on roll allows
to include in the game under the basic FT mechanisms as they stand; such
things as ECM/jamming, stealth, target agility, enhanced sensors, etc
etc.... <<<<

I can see that. How much of a demand for this is there? Is everyone out there
using the bogey markers and other "fog of war" options already offered by FT?

> 1) Adding in an extra die-roll step to the combat sequence, with

I did rather like the idea someone suggested of adding different coloured dice
(one die per firecon allocated to the target?) to handle the
lock-on
test. But then some sort of record keeping would presumably then be required
to ensure that no firecon is used for more than one target per turn. I'd be
less worried about an extra die-roll, than about all the modifiers (+1
for
enhanced sensors, -2 for target stealth etc.). It could end up like the
old WRG ancients rules with all sorts of tables to look up.

> 2) Larger numbers of firecons become much more attractive that under

Is that a problem? Designers would have to trade off mass, points etc. as
normal.

> 3) If you blow the lock-on roll(s) then you just don't get to fire

My experience with Seastrike leads me to think that an FC test would make
attacks feel "chancier" and encourage redundant attacks. Fleet Book smaller
ships would be at a disadvantage with only one firecon (Do we need a way to
make light units less effective?). It MIGHT discourage fast slashing attacks
(FSE?) since coordinating movement and fireing would be more difficult, and
encourage a slow "phalanx"-like approach (NSL?) to give the less
reliable weapon systems more chances at the target. Playtesting required
obviously.

> And as far as complexity is concerned... Jon's the first one to

Hmmm... Resolving firing is such a fundamental part of a rule set. I'm not
sure how easy it would be to add a fire control check as an optional rule
that's independent of the rules for determining the result of a shot, unless
one feels a need to reduce the overall effectiveness of direct-fire
weapons
in the game when the fire-control rule is in effect.

For example, imagine that a coin-toss is used for the fire control test;
Heads is a lock, tails is a failure. I think (probability was never my strong
suit at school) that would simply halve the chance of scoring any damage,
unless the chance of a hit was increased to compensate.

Of course it would be possible to have two alternative FC/shooting
systems, one with a separate FC roll and one without, with different systems
for
rolling the effect of fire... The vector/cinematic movement systems are
an obvious example of that sort of approach...

Why does it have to be an extra roll?

When I was playing around with sensors rules, I had it as a modifier to range
instead. If you wanted to use extra fire controls, it reduced the effective
range to the target. If the target was stealthed (or dodging) it increased the
range.

I had a limit of a maximum of halving/doubling the range, so a target
at 30" couldn't have it's effective range reduced to below 15" regardless of
the number of fire controls used (each doubling of the number of FCs reduced
range by X").

It has the advantage that range is a lot finer grained than a d6 roll.