I am thinking of running a campaign game at my local club where each player
has only one ship. I don't know if any of you lot can help me but I have a
question. you see, I want to be able to keep track of what is damaged and
where rather than the Full Thrust level of abstraction, conversely something
like Brilliant Lances (GDW) dumps way too much paperwork on the players
(though has wonderfully detailed ships). We do more than enough B5 Wars (AoG)
as it is, this means I am open to suggestions as to detailed systems?
I appologise for the off-topicness but lets face it, none of the lists
on this server have been overly busy lately.
From: "Dave Pullen" <netjerenbau@yahoo.co.uk>
> I am thinking of running a campaign game at my local club where each
One way: Double (or more) the ship mass (and the number of
hull/systems). That gives you a 150-160 mass cruiser to play with. It's
not exactly the same as giving each system 2 damage boxes, but it's pretty
close.
Another way: I have a set of "high resolution full thrust rules" that might be
of use. I haven't looked at them in a while
http://homepage.mac.com/nizenberg/HiResFT.htm
[quoted original message omitted]
Hopefully From: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
On Behalf Of: Dave Pullen
Sent: 09 March 2002 14:39
Subject: Single Ship Campaign.
> I am thinking of running a campaign game at my local club
That could be tricky. As plots go, FT is pretty simple. Ships meet, ships
shoot at each other, one ship goes bang! Or did you have something else in
mind?
Simple suggestions: Make FTL a core system. Allow micro-jumps so
ships can escape into the outer system, and rendezvous with boats that have
survived the battle. Defer ordinary damage control rolls until after the
battle. Allow generous resupply and replacement.
Problems: What will you do with players who are eliminated despite your
efforts to keep them in the campaign? (Perhaps you can
allocate them "non-player cruisers" if it will support the notion.)
If you rig the rules as suggested to increase player survivability, what are
they fighting over? How can a single ship (or a single force) hold multiple
objectives?
> I want to be able to keep track of what is damaged and where,
I'm afraid you want the best of both worlds. Many people play FT2 precisely
because there isn't a lot of paperwork. You can't add lots of extra detail
without raising the clerical workload. I've never played B5wars, but from what
I saw it's SLOW. StarFleet Battles is slow unless you use PF boats. Silent
Death has an inane
initiative / movement system, and for what you get it is slow.
Unless your players are good, Renegade Legions is slow.
Shooting Stars (Yaquinto) has an option for localised damage. Guess what? It
slows the game down (and it's designed for boats rather than ships). The Star
Trek Simulator (FASA) aka ST III does detailed damage, but not to the level
you require.
Stepping outside the SF genre, I've played numerous naval-type
wargames and I don't think any of them went into Lensman-style
"the meltdown in generator room four not only cut our tractor beam, it also
dripped down into torpedo room six and caused the launcher to jam" detail.
Battlewagon could handle counterflooding and variable armour scattered over
the ship, but that was about its limit. For all practical intents and
purposes, if it's possible to generalise a row of cannon or a bank of oars
then any sensible designer will do this for the sake of speed.
Enough negativity: if you have enough time and enthusiasm, try an idea I first
experimented with for Shooting Stars twenty years ago. Reproduce your ship
record sheet on graph paper, redrawing the grid so it is large enough to have
one system per grid box. Some
multiple-mass systems may need to extend over several grid boxes.
If you are using FT2, superimpose the four arcs over the grid. If you are
using FB1, superimpose the six arcs over the grid with a space in the middle
for the core systems. A weapon can only fire out of the arc it is placed in,
unless you permit weapons on the vertex between two arcs (where they will have
twice the chance of being hit). Count up how many grid boxes fall within your
ship outline, and compare them with the total number of damage boxes. Pick a
FLAT dice range for each arc that corresponds to the number of rows or columns
passing through your ship outline. Say for example there are slightly fewer
than three grid boxes per damage box on your test ship. When damage strikes,
adjudicate the arc it arrived through and roll a column or row as appropriate.
For your example, cross off three grid boxes per point of damage from the
row or column. For "area-effect" weapons such as missiles and
plasma bursts, you might ignore the dice and cross out grid boxes parallel to
the surface of the ship. In both cases, successive hits on the same locations
cross out further grid boxes. Ordinary,
or "Penetrating" damage can cross into other arcs; area-effect
damage will just progress quicker as the arc narrows.
I don't know how big an FT2 drive should be, but I would suggest that it take
up most of the rear arc. Divide it into columns with one column per thrust
point it is capable of. Set a general rule
that at least half the grid boxes of a multi-box system must be
crossed out before it fails. In terms of speed, you lose time rolling damage
locations but gain time avoiding threshold checks.
Given that most weapons are surface-mounted, this will give
quick weapons loss but hopefully slow drive damage. The ratio of grid to
damage boxes is pretty important as it determines how "narrow" the weapon
effects are. The "white space" ratio (of empty to occupied grid boxes) also
needs to be fairly consistent,
or bloated designs will be unreasonably damage-resistant.
Fortunately, you have very few ships to draw up, and I assume you will have a
single umpire doing the work.
I haven't tried this myself since I'm content with the two FASA systems above.
If you wanted to try it, the first step would be to draw up a single design
and have two copies fight each other.
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 07:56 10/03/02 +0000, you wrote:
Also exchange the movement system for the one used in Mayday and Battlerider.
Cheers