Wha follows are Just Some Thoughts, entirely off the top of my head. They
have not been play-tested, and I wanted to get some input before I
subject my gaming group to them.
*****
A ship that is Evading is attempting to use its maneuverability to reduce the
accuracy of incoming fire. An evading ship is assumed to be jinking, dodging
and zigzagging back and forth along its flight path, making it as difficult as
possible for an enemy to get a clear shot at him. This is not, of course,
without consequences to the evading ship's own weapon fire;
high-speed maneuvering tends to confuse one's own targeting computers,
as well as the enemy's. This is not, of course, a particularly realistic form
of movement, but there is a great deal of fictional precedent--the
Millennium Falcon and the White Stars are two obvious examples. Even so,
evasion seems appropriate only to ships that make use of the Cinematic
movement rules.
Any ship that is going to be evading must indicate this, by marking an "E" in
its order box for the turn.
For every three full points of thrust that it spends, a ship may reduce all
beam and torpedo fire directed at it by one point per die. This is cumulative
with the effect of the ship's existing shields, if any. This
has no effect on SLMs, MT missiles, or Submunitions Packs--a near miss
from a missile can be nearly as deadly as a direct hit.
All beam and torpedo fire from an evading ship suffers the same
penalty--Minus one for each three full points of thrust that are spent
on
evasion--that the attackers do.
If it has sufficient thrust points, a ship may combine evasion with regular
movement.
A ship that carries fighters may not launch them on any turn that it is
evading.
*****
Any thoughts? Workable, unworkable? Should I make it four thrust points,
or even five, rather than three thrust points per -1? Should a ship
have to be moving at a minimum speed in order to evade? What do you guys
think?
This is like SFB Erratic Maneuvering.
Three thrust seems OK as a number and makes it impossible for lumbering hulks
to EM. An E in the movement orders, simple good.
Exceptions for area effect weapons OK.
I'm not so comfortable with the +one -one bit on ioming and outgoing
fire. Is the reduction on the to hit number or the damage? Give an example. It
will lead to too much exception accounting, even if it is simple maths.
I would say a ship doing EM gets an additional level of shields up to
a max of 3 but that it CANT fire/launch the turn it engages EM.
This is more in the spirit of FT simplicity IMO.
> At 09:39 AM 11/18/98 -0000, you wrote:
It
> will lead to too much exception accounting, even if it is simple maths.
I think that the mechanism is pretty simple, but my descriptive skills leave
much to be desired. What I meant works is this: The attacker fires a class
three beam battery at an evading ship. The die rolls are 4, 6, and 3.
Because the target is evading, each die is reduced by one--making
the rolls effectively 3, 5, and 2. And the target suffers one point of damage.
That's it. Trust me, I don't want to add paperwork to this process either.
I agree with Tim's idea for the shields. It strikes me that if you don't
limit the rules as originally stated, that you'd be designing thrust - 6
ships with level-2 shields, and with a full 6 pts of thrust in EM you'd
be impossible to hit, while you could ping most ships with level-1
shields or less?! Although, I think that you should modify pulse
torps/rail guns/scatter packs to be effected by the EM.
chuck
My thoughts on Evasion and Evasive Maneuvers are thus:
I take it as a given (read: without need for rules representation) that all
ships are doing their utmost to evade as soon as they have an enemy on
sensors. For one ship's evasion routine, the other ship has a prediction
routine... ad nauseum
My next point varies slightly depending on what you think the FT scale is,
but given that beam weapons travel at - or near - the speed of light,
the odds of moving a large vessel enough to make a difference are not good.
Even "small" FT ships mass many tonnes, and even given the larger
accellerations and compensators, they don't really jink well. Current day
destroyers "evade" in a sense, but a turn left or right doesn't even phase a
cruise missile. Too much bulk and inertia.
A smaller ship's greatest strength is its ability to change velocity and
direction to keep it out of the arcs of the big guns. Once those behemoths
get the bearing - lights out. Because they have a greater capacity for
delta-v, they can also go faster without worrying about overflying an
engagement - which limits their exposure to the pounding of the big boys
until they get within a range where they can return the favor.
Likewise, no small ship operates alone. Others who are more able to take
damage can distract fires while the small ships get in close. Is the enemy
going to be looking for this? You bet. The key is to make a bigger current
threat out of something else until your "little threat" grows into its boots.
Sean spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> My thoughts on Evasion and Evasive Maneuvers are thus:
that all
> ships are doing their utmost to evade as soon as they have an enemy on
1. that presumes that evasion does not come with a penalty to fire that makes
it undesireable in some circumstances. Then you would have two modes. Dodge
and Shoot.
> My next point varies slightly depending on what you think the FT scale
Not necessarily so.
> Even "small" FT ships mass many tonnes, and even given the larger
Okay, that assumes your firing solution, measured in ten-thousands of
a minute of angle or degree such that it is tenous to begin with, is not badly
disrupted by even a minimal manoevre. It may be.
> A smaller ship's greatest strength is its ability to change velocity
Good point.
Something to think of - lasers are lightspeed. Presumably so are
sensors. Ergo any signal you get will be fractions to full seconds out of
date. And then you beam has the same travel. So how far do you travel in
seconds? Some distance. Therefore the manoevres may also have those seconds to
take effect. Which may be enough to move your ship that km that makes the shot
miss. I think there is a point.
YMMV:)
/************************************************
Schoon said:
> My thoughts on Evasion and Evasive Maneuvers are thus:
> I take it as a given (read: without need for rules representation) that
True enough.
> My next point varies slightly depending on what you think the FT scale
In one sense though, this ignores the granularity (may favorite voabulary word
I've gotten from FT)
of the FT combat. The FT turn simplifies in 15-20 minute blocks a combat
that is happening continuously, over hundreds to thousands of km. Sensors and
beam weapons may travel at lightspeed,
but turrets/emmitters can't track instantaneously, depending on your
PSB. This leaves room, IMHO, for heroic efforts (with accompanying cost and
risk) to be appied to avoid weapon fire. Given the game scale, if you can move
your ship a tenth of an arcsecond away from where the weapon is currently
pointed, it misses. That makes hitting the automated dodge and track routines
you talk about in the first paragraph a hard enough thing to begin with. Add
to that the additional kick given by redlining your engines to pull a surprize
move, and you have evasive maneuvers on a game scale.
> Even "small" FT ships mass many tonnes, and even given the larger
Again, I think it's a granularity issue. Volley for volley, you are right, so
SFB style erratic maneuvers don't jive with me. But over the 20 minute game
turn, my definition of evasion is for escaping a single killing blow (ST:TWoK
Kirk: "Evasive Starboard!" For all the good it did them).
> A smaller ship's greatest strength is its ability to change velocity
That's why I see evasive maneuvers as a single shot attempt against a single
ship's attack, which runs the evading ship a real chance of damaging itself in
the process.
> At 09:34 AM 11/20/98 -0800, you wrote:
Basically, my ideas upon evasion came about after purchasing a handful of
White Stars in FT scale. Standard FT movement, be it cinematic or vector, is
not an accurate representation of the way these ships perform on B5. Or, as
another example, look at the Millennium Falcon in the Star Wars movies; it is
only their high manueverablity that allows such ships to survive. That, and a
writer who has a vested interest in their survival....
Evasion is not realistic by any means, but it does reflect the performance of
small, fast ships in certain movies and TV shows, and that was all I was going
for. The physics of it hold no interest for me, and the realism is, frankly,
irrelevant. All I was looking for was a simple mechanism that would allow me
to use the ships, as they appear in B5, in some scenarios that I am working
on.
Whether it will work the way that I want it to remains to be seen.
> Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
> 1. that presumes that evasion does not come with a penalty to fire
My thought is simply "keep it simple." If you don't mind the extra rules, then
by all means.
> My next point varies slightly depending on what you think the FT
It depends on the scale you think one MU is. At larger scales, you are
correct. At smaller scales, the matter is open to debate.
> Okay, that assumes your firing solution, measured in ten-thousands of
I always pictured beams sweeping across a volume of space (ala Wrath of
Khan) as opposed to a single - or multiple - stabs. I can see it both
ways.
> Something to think of - lasers are lightspeed. Presumably so are
I agree, but I would prefer to find a simple solution - not saying that
you don't.
Perhaps if each ship calculated an evasion cost as part of the construction
process which was based on total mass and total thrust. This relation might
keep abuse to a minimum, giving high thrust/low mass ships the ability
to do something.
I would tend to lean towards a position where evading ships could not fire,
but I'm sure that many would disagree on that point.
> John Crimmins wrote:
[snip "why evasive maneuvers"]
> Any ship that is going to be evading must indicate this, by
OK.
> For every three full points of thrust that it spends, a ship may
Unclear. Is the *damage* reduced by 1 pt/3 thrust (which is equal to
level-3 screens in the beam case), or is the *die roll* reduced by 1
(which is equal to level-2 screens for the beams) and if so, which die
in
the torpedo case, hit or damage? (Should be hit die - if you're hit
anyway, you get just as badly hurt as normal...)
Regardless of whether you reduce the damage or the die roll, you basically
take beam batteries out of the picture <shrug>
> All beam and torpedo fire from an evading ship suffers the same
Why? Current naval gun stabilisation can compensate for both intentional
erratic maneuvering and disturbances caused by waves etc, keeping the gun
steady on the target. Why can't future energy weapons compensate in the
same way? Except for the game balance reason - but the Millenium Falcon
seems quite able to take out TIE fighters even when it's evading IIRC
<g>
Regards,