Full Metal Atkinson (long--are you surprised?)

The followinig is forwarded from John Atkinson johnmatkinson@yahoo.com, in
response to the original version Jon/GZG posted:

OK, I just got the rules and read through them. Will run some solitaire games
and make comments based on that (NRE scout teams going at
it--without
sustained fire rules the bristling excess of SAWs my infantry TOs have is a
little pointless). My overall impression is of an excellent
skeleton--Jon
is going in the right direction with this. Having said that, a bit of
constructive criticism on the details:

WTF is a BeeCee? Batallion Commander and Battlecruiser are the only things I
can think of and neither one fits.

Drop the "optional" critical failures rule. Your dice aren’t big enough.
Average Joe Engineer rolls d8 for most things (d4 on "refrain from sexually
harassing females in visual range", d12 on "consume heroic quantaties of
alcoholic beverages", d6 "refrain from picking a fight in a Turk bar after
same" d12 on "Be an arrogant sonofabitch"). So one out of every 8 times he
tries to clear a jam, arm a mine, use the radio, blow demo, cut wire, etc, he
shoots himself in the nads (or equivalant)?? Leave this stuff to the
roleplayers. We’re not trying to model every freak circumstance
possible--do we check to see if the bullet that kills Joe Skutatoi
detonated
any of his hand grenades?--so it doesn’t serve a purpose, it’s wide
open for abuse, and the system doesn’t have the granularity to keep them to a
reasonable frequency. Shall I even mention the rate at which Joe NAC SASman
with cybernetic implants out the yin-yang and d12 for most things blows
himself up? 8% is just too damn high a failure rate for the
uber-troopers.
Also note that it doesn’t matter what the difficulty of the task
is--you’re
just as likely to shoot yourself in the nads applying SPORTS (Slap, Pull,
Observe, Release, Tap, Squeeze, immediate action on an M-16 misfire and
second nature to any basic trainee) as Joe Cyberninja is while he downloads
the triple encrypted classified files from the main computor secure database
while a firefight rages in the same room, something with 11 too many legs
chews on his shin, in the dark, and with random fluctuations in the power
grid.

Area Targets: Note that most squad level automatic weapons target groups, not
just individuals. Perhaps a mechanism for allowing automatic weapons to affect
"all figures within X inches of the target"? I mean, suppose Joe
Grenadier takes his MG-34 and starts shooting at a squad of American
Rangers, they ALL hit the dirt (are supressed). Also I would prefer to have
the option to put on multiple surpressions (2-3) with the caveat that
they must come from different firers. Suggested value for X = 5"?? Note: After
finishing the rules, I see that you have a points cost listed for sustained
fire. No rules for it, though.:( The sustained fire probably covers this
objection, no?

Quality dice to defend vs. fire. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.
In my mind, the diffference between elite troops and green troops as far as
difficulty shooting at them come under two main headings. Elites will get
closer to the enemy before they are noticed. This should be a factor of
spotting, not shooting. Elites will take cover faster and under better cover.
This should be a bonus to going In Position in Stargrunt terms, not sure what
it translates to here. But They aren’t harder to hit once you catch them.
Note that this is not based on actual combat
experience--I’ll
yield this point faster than I’ll yield the others that I’ve listed.

Nice differencing between between the opportunity and reaction fire. Good
call.

Isolation. This, to me, has something to do with planning. If a
four-man
SAS team has to split up, and they can discuss it beforehand then it would
affect them less. Also take into consideration "modern" (2184) communications
and other technology. Joe Trapezitoi Dismount may be 100
meters from his team in pitch-black darkness, thick foliage, and with a
small rise between them, but his helmet visor is displaying their positions
down to the decimeter, and he’s in constant radio commo with his team leader.
Kinda cuts down on the problem. I also think your distance may be a little
short.

Preparing weapons: When you refer to a requirement to prepare grenade
launchers, I presume you mean big single-shot ones like M203, not
small-caliber magazine-fed ones like the NAC and NRE use.

Crew-served Weapons: DAMMIT!  I want these minis!!

Grenades:  Again, how to treat 25mm airburst-fuzed ones fired in short
(2-3
round) bursts?

Bouncing rules: Heh! I suggest that the official method for resolving debates
about bouncing grenades be to bounce the disputing parties off the nearest
wall at the closest approximation of the correct angle. Average the angles at
which they bounce, and that’s official.

Special Abilities: Neither Sniper, Medic, Assistant Leader are defined.
Support specialist is I presume any member of the crew of a weapon which gets
the activation bonus for having a loader?

Request: Stats for all weapons mentioned in the Stargrunt II rulebook.

Close Combat: Obviously unfinished. Points cost breaks down the cost for
various HtH weapons, but the rules don’t differentiate. Right now, Joe
Egyptian in a linen kilt with a bronze axe rolls the same as Joe Tagmata with
powered armor and no HtH weapons. Quality only, with two doubling factors, PA
and HtH weapon. If that’s the way it’s supposed to be, fine. But then why
have different points costs for different HtH weapons?

Points Cost: That’s the spirit. If the bastards have to have points costs,
snow ‘em with a half-dozen versions.

NB To the comedians out there, thanks for the idea about FMArmenian.

And remember Clibanophoroi have right of way.

Most of John's comments are pretty valid and I think have been covered already
to some degree. I like his comment about the support weapons effecting any
target within X" of point of aim. After all Light Support Weapons amd MGs
actually are designed with FIRST priority to suppress rather than kill an
individual soldier. Rifles do that.

I would like to comment on his observation about the quality die opposed roll
for Ranged Fire. One reason I can see for using the quality die in a
Skirmish level game is that the more experienced/talented the soldier
the better use he makes of cover at ANY time.

Example, a 'Newbie' fresh from Basic has less of an appreciation of use of
cover; he tends to stand in sunlight rather than shade, he is more likely to
remain standing when halted rather than automatically 'propping', when he does
prop he will not look for the best cover but likely the most comfortable etc
etc etc.

So I'd say at the Skirmish level the target should roll a quality die as his
defence and THEN this is added to by the cover die.

Good to see John is as subtle as ever ;-)

Cheers,

Owen G

> -----Original Message-----

SNIP
> Quality dice to defend vs. fire. I'm not sure what you're