Planetary Assault Rules (was: Re: Troop Capacity)

> Did you come up with any rules for planetary defenses yet?

One idea I had last year (I can't remember if I posted it) was to abstract
planets & consider them a Sa'Vasku starship.
If you assign planets a mass rating based on population/resources/raw
defence, & double the cost of Sa'Vasku OFFENSIVE fire & halve the range, this
gives the basics for planetary assault FT scenarios (& takes into account that
no thrust expenditure is used). Ships can target the planet: total the number
of beam dice & divide by 5. This is the amount of fire that can actually reach
the surface (through atmosphere). Ortillery systems roll a flat 3 die per
system if at orbit or less range.
Resolve using normal Sa'Vasku/beamfire rules.

Using population, divide by 100 & use the square root as the mass, gives a
good figure.

For example, a mass 20 colony (say, 40,000 colonists) would have a PF of
2, hits: 10;5/5.  Offensively at 6" range (orbit on most planets used),
it could at maximum do 6 dice of beam fire (with no defences). While a Mass
100 sector capital (1 million) could put out 30 dice of beam fire (with no
defences).

Planetary assaults (using FT:FB crew) can be worked out as a normal boarding
action. Total the number of boarding parties sent to the planet by ships in
orbit (1 per mass of Troop cargo, optionally sending the ship's BF). If any
Power was allocated to PDS, then the PDS can be allocated against the assault,
killing boarding parties as per antifighter rules. Any surviving BF then
resolve a normal assault using the boarding action rules, BUT each boarding
roll uses a full FT turn, due to the time required to lock down a planet
(disable defence systems, draw out troops
etc).
Use the new 1 crew/20 mass for militarised planets & 1 crew/50 mass for
civilian planets. This only represents the ACTIVE component of the defences.
The actual pacification of the planet would take days or weeks depending on
resistance.

This is very abstracted, but should give a quick resolution (and emphasises
the importance of destroying those troop transports before they can reach
orbit).

'Neath Southern Skies