Greetings,
I want to pick some brains (yes, that means you!) regarding a half-baked
idea I might have. I'm starting a MegaTraveller(ish) campaign where the party
of adventurers will eventually procure a small merchant ship. I want to be
able to accomodate some combat in space (light stuff) and I have a number of
options: Basic Traveller Starship Combat, Brilliant Lances, MayDay, High
Gaurd, etc. and I have this other game called Full Thrust that I'd like to
think might be even better than any of the above.
Only, the ships are only 100-5000 tons displacement (mostly in the
100-800 ton range). And of course you want the player's abilities to
have some chance to have an impact on events (this kinda sounds like FMT (Full
Metal Thrust) that Roger Burton West and I have started tossing around). So I
kinda want to toss this out to the brainstorming populace.
So, can full thrust be successfully scaled up (ie small ships made big and
thus making the ship survive more than one hit from a B3)?
In the other games, important aspects are:
-- sensor acquisition of targets
-- electronic warfare
-- manned gunnery
-- evasive manouvers
-- operation of defensive weapons like sandcasters
Weapons tend to include:
- beam lasers
- pulse lasers
- particle accelerators
- fusion guns
- missiles (nuke and non-nuke)
- sandcasters
- black globes (force screens)
- nuclear dampers (only good against nuclear weapons, but boy are they
required for that)
Perhaps FT, using its D6 mechanics and relatively brittle ships just doesn't
have what it takes to be a good engine for a space RPG combat extension.
Now, our conjectural Full Metal Thrust adapts the FMA engine to run on top of
FT feasible designs and systems. This seems like something with the "right
stuff" since it already includes a concept of user skills (quality dice) in
the equation.
Anyone have any insight on any of this? Anyone tried an FMA'd FT or
tried FT combat for an RPG group for ship fighting? Any real-world
results to report?:)
Tomb
One source for how characters can be involved in combat is the Earth Force
sourcebook for the Babylon 5 rpg. The ship to ship combat system is pretty
much the same and the book had rules for how the characters could take actions
to affect the range of weapons, getting extra thrust from the engines, etc.
Randy Wolfmeyer Dept. of Physics Washington University
> On Tue, 21 May 2002, Tomb wrote:
> Greetings,
[quoted original message omitted]
I did something like this a while back using Fudge. I had fudge ratings
for general crew, damage control, sensor/scanner operators, gunners,
etc. The Captain of the ship was a full Fudge character while the remaining
crew were statistics on the ship record form. Unfortunatly my group never
tried it so I can't say how well it would of gone down. Based on the numbers
it
looked very possible for a crack captain/crew to take on and win against
a larger vessel.
On Tue, 21 May 2002 17:40:20 -0400, "Tomb" <tomb@dreammechanics.com>
wrote:
> So, can full thrust be successfully scaled up (ie small ships made big
I don't see why not. While playing around with a naval variant of FT, I found
that it scaled down rather well.
The neat thing about FT is that it doesn't really have a scale, though
obviously the Fleet Book ships don't allow for large fleet actions unless
you've got all day to do it.
Come up with a ton to mass ratio that you like, and give each weapon turret
its own FT weapon system. You can alter the time scale (i.e. how long a turn
represents) by altering the mass of the ship. That is, if it takes three turns
of B3 fire (whatever you want a B3 to represent) to kill an 800 ton ship
--
and you think that's too short -- doubling the mass means that every
turn effectively represents half the time.
You can even do fighters as discrete ships. Give them some mass, give them a
single (or, heck, even more) 1 arc beam weapon, maybe some missiles, one
firecon and a high thrust.
For skills, you'd probably want to define a range of Traveller skill values
that relate to a -1, 0, and +1 die roll modifier (I think... I'm a bit
hazy on Traveller, having sold my huge collection of classic Traveller stuff
last year).
> In the other games, important aspects are:
Sensor rules would have to be cobbled together.
> -- electronic warfare
A tricky point, as FT doesn't really have EW.
> -- manned gunnery
See idea of a skill giving a "to hit" bonus, above.
> -- evasive manouvers
One thing I tried with naval FT was to not use pre-recorded movement.
Instead, one side got the initiative. The players would then move their ships,
with the initiative player having the choice of first or last. The first
player to move
moved the ships 1/2 distance, then the second player moved his ships all
of
their distance, then the first player moved his ships the remaining 1/2
distance. This, of course, could be broken down even further. It worked well.
You could use a similar system, breaking the turn into multiple "segments" and
having the player roll versus his skill. If the skill succeeds, the player has
the initiative that segment (i.e. can move second). If not, the player must
move the ship first. This could result in evasive maneouvres.
> -- operation of defensive weapons like sandcasters
I believe someone suggested that the Phalon vapour shroud is essentially a
sandcaster. Let the player controlling a specific weapon decide what it fires
at and how. You may find that skill rolls aren't all that necessary, as player
decisions will be more important. For instance, a player might have the choice
of firing a sandcaster or a beam, and chooses beam. That might be a good or
bad decision, but it's one that the player chose. For that matter, if you see
something obviously stupid about to happen, let the player roll versus skill
to get a hint.
> Weapons tend to include:
Easy to adapt.
> - pulse lasers
You'd have to see what weapons, if any, in the FT universe fit how these
weapons are resolved.
> - missiles (nuke and non-nuke)
Pulse torps or SMs. Maybe MT missiles.
> - sandcasters
Vapour shroud.
> - black globes (force screens)
I guess FT screens would work, though there would be a setting that allowed
the screens to be used in several configurations, if I remember correctly.
> Perhaps FT, using its D6 mechanics and relatively brittle ships just
It was used for the B5 RPG, but I haven't looked at it in a while to see how
player skills affected outcomes.
> Now, our conjectural Full Metal Thrust adapts the FMA engine to run on
Sure, but it would be a lot of work wouldn't it?
On Wednesday, May 22, 2002 7:40 AM, Tomb [SMTP:tomb@dreammechanics.com] wrote:
> Now, our conjectural Full Metal Thrust adapts the FMA engine to run on
This is from an RPG version of FMA I worked on a few years ago (I haven't
webbed it yet):
FMA & Full Thrust Interaction
Weapons with a strait to-hit number (Pulse-torpedoes / Torpedo fighters)
use a difficulty die based on the FT target number.
2+ = d4; 3+ = d6; 4+ = d8; 5+ = d10; 6+ = d12.
A MINOR hit scores ½ normal damage (d3 damage). A MAJOR hit scores normal
damage for the weapon (d6 damage)
For beam weaponry, similar to-hit numbers are used, but are resolved
differently.
The difficulty die are: Unscreened ship = d8; Level-1 screen = d10;
Level-2
screen = d12. A number of difficulty dice equal to the number of beam die at
that range, are rolled against a single skill roll. Each MINOR HIT scores 1
point of damage.
Each MAJOR HIT scores 2 points of damage and 1 re-roll against a target
of d8 to represent penetrating damage. If a second MAJOR HIT results, then
there are no further re-rolls (to balance against the easier to-hit
numbers). This gives a slightly different damage spread to FT, but the players
are supposed to be heroic, aren't they?
EG: A class-3 battery at point blank range fires at a frigate, the
difficulty rolls (d8) result in 1, 5 & 8. The player rolls 4 & 7 on their
skill. This gives 3 points of damage + 1 re-roll (MAJOR hit + MINOR hit
+ a
clean miss). The re-roll scores 3 vs 3 & 4, giving an additional point
of damage. A respectable result which cripples the frigate.
Missile weaponry uses a similar system to determine lock-on.
Standard MT capship missiles are resolved using Astrogation skill instead of
Ship's Guns. A MINOR success against a difficulty of d8 allows normal
operation (written orders or just move). A MAJOR success gives the missile the
benefit of
Level-1 screens against the target (if also using RPG stats). Failure
results in maximum acceleration directly forward. Salvo Missile Launchers use
Astrogation skill as well. 1 difficulty die of d12 is rolled for every missile
in the salvo. A MINOR success indicates that the missile is on target, while a
MAJOR success allows you to 'reclaim' a missile which has missed the target
(failed roll). This can result in 0 missiles on target or all 6 on target, but
lets the player skill determine results.
'Neath Southern Skies - http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[sstrike] Raider Fleet of War Leader Kel'em'all