From: GBailey@a...
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 09:55:41 EDT
Subject: re: ground combat and bombardment
I like it, except for a couple of things. 1) 1 mass = 1 CF doesn't distinguish having armor units. 2) Rolling beam dice per CF means lots and lots and lots of dice. Did I say enough 'lots'? Maybe having 5 mass = 1 CF = 1 die would be better. Now rolling beam dice and having some defensive units being "screened" is a neat concept. It uses the FT rules which we're all familiar with. I've thought about ignoring unit types, since it might be likely that everything will be combined arms. Grav tanks probably will replace supporting air units. Also, I'd rather have the units defending the planet having a 'screen level-1' affect. I like the idea of PDS on the planet shooting at landings. Fire at regular landers like firing at a missile, drop troops and hardened landers as if a class-1 beam. Now what would be a "hardened" lander? One drawback would be having streamlined transports just land on the planet. Treat each 'PDS' on the planet as a class-1 beam when firing at landing ships? Heck, not PDS, but speciallized class-1 beams that cannot fire out of the atmosphere. Against regular landers needs a 5-6, drop troops/hardened landers needs a 6, roll normally against landing ships. Let's call them, um, Planetary Defense Batteries (PDB). To avoid extra die rolling, have a ship with class-2 beams or better suppress 1 PDB and each Ortillery system suppress 1 PDB. Suppressed PDBs cannot fire at landing units. Or is this too easy for an attacking player to plan for? Alternatively, roll each 'bombardment attack' as a PDS firing on a missile? 4-5 suppresses 1, 6 destroys one and suppresses one with a reroll. just ramblings off the top of my head.. Glen (my friend who would like to use Squad Leader to do combats in a strategic WW2 game would be appalled at this.. yes, the same guy that hates seeing modified WW2 naval ships as space ships) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------ ----------------------------- If you're only wanting abstract out ground combat, how about a variation of the boarding rules? If you use 1 mass = 1 combat factor then you don't need to worry about individual points/modifiers etc. Charge a fixed amount (say 5 FT points) per factor to take into account economics. This still gives the opportunity to choose forces for either DS or SG from just the mass available if you want extra detail or just allocate a fixed rating to the planet (say about 30 for a colony planet, 100 for an industrial centre). Simply add up the combat factors, roll that many die & read as for beam die (including re-rolls). If you want to differentiate, then give armoured units screen-1 & aerospace screen-2 to represent the increased survivability. With regard to opposed landings, give the planet an orbital defence rating. Each point gives 1 die of unopposed PDS fire against the landing troops. Each kill removes 1 combat factor before the troops even hit the surface. This would give a good reason to apply orbital bombardment before sending in the troops. With regard to orbital bombardment, you should only allow beams & ortillery, as everything is inaccurate or has nasty side effects (radiation for starters). Ships with any amount beams add one combat factor, while each separate ortillery system adds 1 combat factor. This should really be limited to taking out the orbital defences to allow surface landings, as once ground forces engage, this sort of fire support would be rarely used.