Space combat

[Larry L.]

Or My Transhuman Space to HeroQuest conversion, Part 1

Background: So my Transhuman Space game has come crashing to a halt, and I'm blaming GURPS. (I'll address why at some other point. Suffice it to say, System Does Matter.) I've decided to change over to HeroQuest (technically Hero Wars at the moment, HeroQuest is on its way from Amazon as I write), as long as I don't have to invalidate the existing characters and story thus far.

I am happy to see that I'm not the first to attempt this. However, my stumbling block is not with the handling of firearms, but with spacecraft combat. The Mecha thread (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11889) seems relevant but I think my concerns are tangental to that.

The main thing I'm hitting my head on is that vehicle-to-vehicle combat essentially renders groups of individuals incorporate. That is, there are specialist types who share control of the same machine. Further complicating things are that there can also be little ships in which a single individual must simulateously do all the stuff that the specialists in a larger ship are doing.

In this case, the specialist roles are Guy Who Manuevers Ship, Guy Who Shoots Gun At Other Ship, and... um, Wake Me Up If A Need For My Talents Arises. (These are the roles that emerged in Simulationist play. Essentially, only the Guy Who Manuevers ship had any decisions to make. It was not cool.)

Getting to HQ mechanics--

What should I create as abilities? Something broad like "Space Combat" would sap the impact of personalities doing their thing on the bridge, which to my mind is an essential genre element. "Pilot spacecraft" and "Gunnery" make more sense to me, but it seems in this case the Gunner would have all the control with the other players relegated to giving AP support to him.

I'm toying with handing the ship itself as a Follower, but I see the game mechanics of that being "everyone give AP support to the ship."

Who deals "damage" to whom? Each player deals out AP loss by sharp gunning, outmanuevering, whatever -- fine. What I can't wrap my mind around is how individual characters could be "attacked" by the enemy. So toss everyone's AP in a collective pool or what?

What -- and whose -- ability opposes weapon attacks?


I fear I keep drifting back to Simulation here. Any thoughts?

[soru]

Find a scene in a film or book that captures what you want to do, the kind of interactions and decisions you want to have. Maybe something from Star Trek?

Then work out what abilities the people involved in the scene are using.

soru

[droog]

I think that the gunner OR pilot (depending on seniority ie ability level) should be the group leader in this case, with all others lending AP or augmenting. It's no different from any group contest in which the group picks a leader, except in this case it's mandatory (which reflects the fact that the characters are stuck in a tin can).

Crew members should narrate any special actions they perform ('I'll increase power to the main engines by stepping up the coil's coefficient!' 'I'll boost the shields on the side he's coming from!'). The GM may hand out situational bonuses for the results of simple contests nested inside the extended contest.

The ship itself could be treated as a follower, or might give specific bonuses to abilities. Or it could be 'special equipment' (Corellian Trader 12W). I'd say it should be something purchased with HP.

The results of the contest may be applied in different ways. The GM may decide to apply the worst result to the ship rather than any PC (with all  crew members suffering the next worst result as usual). Or she may apply the result to the leader. 'Damage' may not be physical; as usual it may represent loss of confidence, shellshock etc.

[grbosch]

I'm doing a similar conversion for a hard-tech SF universe of my own devising.

My suggestion for handling space combat is to go in a direction very different from standard HQ.  HQ is a rule-set for playing epic fantasy.  Hard-tech SF is a very different genre.  For that matter, my version of hard-tech SF is very different from Star Trek, Star Wars, B5, etc...

I think that in a hard setting like Transhuman Space (from which I am borrowing quite heavily, btw) the technology of the ship is a much more significant factor in the resolution of space combat than the character abilities.  What I am toying with is determining ability ratings and AP for space combat based on the SHIP, then using character abilities as a type of augment.  Helping this is my conception of space combat in the game (which I think is similar to that in TS).

In this approach, I see rapid manuevering as insignificant.  The ship's ability to aquire a target and the weapon's ability to damage it are more significant than Han Solo-esque flying in an environment of smart missiles and lasers that actually fire at light-speed.  I'm basing a lot of my ideas on modern naval combat- whoever sees and fires first will usually kill the enemy.  Much of the combat is more of a contest of computers at these distances and speeds.  Again, this is part of the genre for me.  It is the difference between a space fantasy (like the shows and movies I mentioned earlier) and a more hard-science approach like TS.

I'm also thinking that in much the same way that one could argue that magic is the most "simulationist" element in the HQ rules, space combat is going to have to be the most simulationist part of my space game.

My basic idea is this:

The ship will have a combat ability based on its computers, weapons, and to a lesser extent, manueverability.  This will also determine its starting AP (of course).

For each exchange in combat, characters with appropriate abilities will use the AP lending rules to "loan" AP to the ship.  They will not "run out" of AP.  Each exchange they can attempt to loan the maximum allowed by the ability involved.  This is a departure from HQ, but I think it allows for possibilities like damage control, "by-passing the what-sis assembly to boost the who-sis output", etc...  I think it is justifiable because the contest is essentially ship-vs-ship.

Bids and exchange take place as usual.  The players will have to designate who they want to do the actual bidding and rolls (i.e., the "Captain")

All os this is still in the theoretical stage.  We're still busy in Dragon Pass for the moment.  In any case, this is what I've been working on and I'd be happy to hear everyone's comments.

Gerald

[Larry L.]

The ship in this case, by the way, is jointly owned by the characters. Its history prior to the characters' ownership is also a wonderful source of hooks.  This does, however, limit my option a bit.

I had been put off by the idea of doling out "damage" directly to the players as entirely non-physical effects. But dealing the top damage to the ship, and the rest cascading to the players as psychology sounds pretty good.

I'm pretty sure I'll decide that any loss of 15AP or more results in some critical effect to the ship which has an impact that has to dealt with.

With regards to hard SF genre elements... I have realized that fidelity to genre exists to be broken with regards to eliminating player ability to impact events.  The criticism I got after the other set of space combat rules was, "Why don't they just put that on a disc?" While it might be more realistic to have the ships' computers duke it out, this is completely uninvolving to the players. Which is why HQ is so appealing to me. The players resolve conflicts in terms of story impact, and it doesn't necessarily have to simulate what really ends up happening. The hope here is to have space combat flow like space opera, but be ultimately described as hard SF.

The sub-sapient ship computer is however a minor NPC, so I may go with players supporting it.

My thought on why this is a bit tricky to handle in HQ is that technology lumping individuals into one body is pretty antithetical to Greg Stafford's vision, whereas in SF it's a great opportunity for teamwork.

[Mac Logo]

My thought on why this is a bit tricky to handle in HQ is that technology lumping individuals into one body is pretty antithetical to Greg Stafford's vision, whereas in SF it's a great opportunity for teamwork.

If you're treating the ship as an "intelligent-ish magic item" with a bunch of abilities and a personality, then having the PCs buff it up with their augments is very much in the HeroQuest vision. The first example of play in the book (pp12-13) has one character being augmented by the rest of the party, in order to achieve a goal.
Teamwork is integral to HeroQuest, it's why there are Hero Bands.

So before the gunnery guy presses the button, the comms officer has refined the targeting solution by triangulating signals or decoding tactical transmissions. The science and engineering officers have boosted critical power systems and pinpointed potential weaknesses of the foe. The pilot has used that tricky little manouver that she learned going round Hyde Park Corner on a moped (!). Finally the Commanding Officer has managed to coordinate and motivate the team to do all that in less time than it took to say it.

What abilities did they bring to the table, and how involved could it get?

Now as a throwaway idea, how about using the ship as a Hero Band Guardian. It would only work if the team was going to stay loyal to their ship, but that sounds like what they want. Oh you'd have to write it up in Technobabble terms, but it would work without too much hassle.

Cheers

Graeme

[Larry L.]

Beautiful, Graeme. I think you're very much on the same page here.

I had completely neglected adapting Hero Band and magic/spiritism mechanics, since I've been trying to avoid handling technology as magic with the serial numbers filed off.  But the Hero Band Guardian ain't a bad idea. I'll see what I get out of another reading of the rules.

[Blake Hutchins]

I suggest you look at the various possible functions and start with those as sources of AP lending, with characters providing the specific flavor.  Broadly speaking, I see:

- Piloting
- Gunnery
- Countermeasures/ECM
- Damage control
- Repair
- Medical
- Power shunting/overload
- Sensors (in some settings, this is tantamount to a sonarman or hydrophone operator on a naval vessel)
- Tactics/strategy
- Communications
- Operating remote devices

Good sources for varied shipboard combat roles can be found in the Honor Harrington series, the Star Wolf books, and in portions of Peter F. Hamilton's work - in particular the last parts of his novel Fallen Dragon.

Best,

Blake

[soru]

- Operating remote devices

That one is key to good 'realistic' space combat - have some drones or fighters or decoys or sensor platforms out there, have them get blown up.

Give some to each player, then they get to be making the choices as to whether to stay stealthed, try to drift in to close range, do an active sensor scan, fire weapons, whatever, instead of just rolling the dice for their 'stations' when its their turn. Maybe put the characters in spacesuits or 'pods' out where they are close enough to the weapons not to be affected by lightspeed lag. Perhaps put animal-level AIs (human-level ones would be obviously cruel and highly illegal) into the drones, so their handlers have to treat them like hunting dogs or falcons.

It's a good way to make space combat less lethal too, if you assume there's a convention that crewed ships don't carry weapons, then once your drones are all down you lose and are expected to surrender.

Remember, one pronciple of a narrative game is that failure is supposed to be interesting. And being blown into a plasma provides somewhat limited roleplaying opportunities.

soru

[Mike Holmes]

Wow, great comments, all.

Remember to consider the overall goal. Are the rebels fleeing from the Imperial fleet? Then it's probably the pilot featured, with all else helping out. Is it a dogfight where the Century Hawk is surrounded by fighters? Then it's a gunnery test to destroy them first. Think in terms of who hasn't been the focus of a contest for a while, and make him the focus. If it's a chase, sure you could go with the pilot, but go with the engineer instead this time. Everyone else tries to hold the baddies off until he can get the engines into overdrive and put some distance between the ship and the pursuers. Is the battle in the Mephisto Asteroid belt? Then it's the navigator's task to get them out of this maze, while the others hold the bad buys off.

Is there a guild navigator on board? Then he's had a bout of Corellian Flu, and it's up to the medic to get him online before the ship is blasted to smithereens. The conflict is whatever you want to focus on.

Mike