[SG] APCs and whatnot

The case Adrian was referring to was what SG2
calls a non-penetrating hit. A hit was scored on
the vehicle, but it did not disable nor destroy
the vehicle. As a non-penetrating hit, you check
for other effects - a systems down hit (need to
get backups online) or an immobilizing hit to
the suspension. In the case in point, an M-kill
was scored by a GMS punching through the skirting and ruining the lift chamber
(maybe broke some fan blades). No crew injuries occured and the vehicle could
still shoot.

The crew, however, bailed out. It seemed to us
the infantry should either auto-bail or at least
have increased odds given the bail-out of the
crew (and one presumes they know the APC fans went offline and the vehicle is
immobile). As a former grunt, I myself NEVER liked the idea of
riding around in a tin-can with "shoot me"
written all over it - the sooner one could get on
the ground, the happier I was. But that might just be me....

As for "APC as part of the squad", keep in mind how you divide up "squads" in
SG2 bears (of necessity) no particular enforced ties to nominal unit
organization. For example, with well trained forces like the NSL Pzgd, I often
run a squad as two four man fireteams. They are still "a squad" but they run
as two fireteams that can operate fairly independently (though I encourage
people to keep squad components together for mutual support). So an APC which
is organizationally part of the squad may still operate as a separate vehicle
(rather than as a detached element or something wierder).

As to why I embark/debark as I do: Yes, Adrian
is somewhat correct. It does break the activation rules. I view it as somewhat
of a "joint activation". The total number of actions executed is 4, but two
are consumed by "embark" or "debark" and that really only leaves one action
for the squad and one for the APC. In practice, this isn't all that potent.

As to the problem of having an unactivated squad beside an activated tank and
not being able to get on.... I sort of view the turn as a continous thing with
some simultaneous aspects. It occurs to me the APC may actually still be
driving over. We can't activate all the units at once (physically) which is
why we have an alternating turn sequence. But the fact the infantry can't
board the APC doesn't distrub me a whit as the APC spent its actions driving
over to the infantry. What I would allow is this: APC activates and says he's
going to pickup infantry, spends one move action, then spends an "embark"
action. The infantry then spends a move and embark (or just an embark if they
are close enough). Now, for bookkeeping simplicity, I activate both units at
once. If, OTOH, I wanted to be different, I could just note the APC had spent
and embark action, allow the other side to activate a unit, then spend the
embark action on behalf of the troopies in their activation. Yes, this would
mean tracking who had activated, but considering I track ammo for all GMS or
IAVR on the board, decoy counts, original squad sizes, etc., tracking this
small bit of (usually obvious) data doesn't really add much complexity (at
least by our standards). Of course, YMMV.

Tomb.