Space Dogfights - TROS mechanic (split)

[Jake Norwood]

What appears to be forming up is a TROS variant (more than a supplement...something like a sister game, kind of like all of WoD's stuff). So that means SAs, etc. are here to stay. Setting-wise we've got something based on Arthurian motiffs, which include a lot of knight-errantry and joining in on massive battles in an attempt to "unify" the land/galaxy/whatever. I'm happy with that. Very.

As for "what do you do," that's a good question, but I don't want to limit our options here. What do you do in TROS? Honestly, I couldn't tell you--but I know it's a good game. I think that I like leaving that question up to the play group.

How do I envision a session? I see something like starwars-meets-excalibur. The players wander through the constant unknowns of the universe reacting and making moral decisions as they interact with various phenomena. They also fly around in circles and kill stuff.

Jake

[Harlequin]

Yeah.  (Though see other thread for "unify the land" versus "overthrow the tyrant" themes.)

Which, I think, means that rigid social mechanics and intrigue are less than fully appropriate.  They're not the focus; they can get handled through the Courtier skillset as in TROS, or what have you.  But young Arthurian knight-types are not up for a lot of social banter and courtly leverage, and I don't think forcing the double fit is wise.

On the other hand, a stiff heraldic system with (say) Pilotly Orders and Badges of Merit and honours worth earning would hold up like a charm.

- Eric

[Harlequin]

Oh, and on the mechanical level: We need to look at the effect of "Tail" and "Dog" status (better terms welcome!) on many-on-one combat.  And if we want the many-bit "drone AI monsters" I mention in the other thread, then we'll need to tune up the many-on-many situations as well.  Far from impossible, but needs discussion.

- Eric

[Brian Leybourne]

Sounding nifty, guys. Count me in as much as time allows.

Brian.

[Harlequin]

Mmm.  'Nother thought on mechanics.  I think I'd like to move the Terrain roll, probably including the roll to maneuver with respect to multiple enemies.  To the end of the round.  The idea is that this just ups the tension level, by bringing the decision-point closer to the crunch - it's the difference between (a) "how much do I want to hold back for my actual maneuvers this round?" and (b) "how much do I need to hold back for that Terrain roll?" asked when you're looking at your second maneuver of the round.

It also helps support the "TIE Fighter opts not to pursue your Hotshot trick, rolls to Evade, but ultimately - crunch" image I was discussing earlier.  In many ways the choice to Hotshot is the choice to invoke two (or even three!) Terrain rolls this round, with risk of death on each of them.  I like that.

I'm less sure that the "face only one foe" roll belongs at the end of the round instead of the beginning, presumably defining how many you face next Round... but I'm not against it, either, I just don't have a good enough handle on how that's going to work in space yet to say.

- Eric

[Harlequin]

Bleah.  Never mind.  I can think of one very good reason not to do the above.  Shock.  You're in dangerous terrain (even Risk 1), second exchange someone shoots at you, you hold back three dice to take care of Terrain, take a level two hit including three shock.  There go your Terrain dice.  Here comes the asteroid.

Never mind, indeed.  It was a good idea while it lasted.

[LordSmerf]

A couple of things:

Many-on-X: this is actually pretty simple, if you end up with a lot of "Disengaged" state units.  Some sort of limit (determined somehow) will be placed on the maximum number of "tails" allowed.

Second: damage tables are going to see some changes.  Unlike in TRoS you can't target all areas most of the time.  Head to head you can hit the cockpit but not the engines, tailing you can hit the engines but not the cockpit.  Do we want to reduce the number of tables?  Shouldn't be all that difficult to get things down to just one or two tables per damage type.

Third: an advanced tool use society has less need to model physical stats since the mental stats will be much more prevelant.  I can see a reduction in physical stats to two (Strength, Stamina, Endurance, Health / Agility) or three (Strength / Stamina, Endurance, Health / Agility) since the damage system will be based on equipment instead of physique.

I've started work on a preliminary design doc.  I figured i'd go ahead and start typing things up, that's where most of my suggestions are coming from at the moment.

Thomas

[contracycle]

Harlequin wrote:

The issue of what happens when you fail a Terrain roll, or suffer the equivalent result, isn't clear to me. It suspect it shouldn't mean you hit the boulder or got hit by the Star Destroyer for sure - that makes Hotshot too powerful and Risk in general perhaps too nasty. But maybe it means a roll (Risk factor vs. some TN - perhaps opponent's Speed TN or something) which indicates whether this was a glancing impact (just some "shock") or a solid one (heavy, serious damage). To be decided.

This seems to me an excellent opportunity to introduce random colour with a table roll.  Each cap ship can have Flak table that contains entries for the kind of barrage or fire you come under, and fire pool for rolling.  This table can still be very dangerous, but allows the failure to be survivable and to make the backdrop more variable.  This way the experience of being around a frigate can be safer than of being around a battleship, and the ships can be more colourful by having varied weaponry to fear, or not so much (they could be variously affected by a type of shield or something).  Equally, asteroid and mine fields can be represented as having different densities or sizes of objects with which to collide by varying the lethal effects of a table, allowing space to be more regional and exploitable.

<sotte voce> and any time you do a table lookup you can draw a card</sotte voce>

Done that way I'm quite satisfied. The only loose end it leaves dangling, IMO, is that a few maneuvers - Hotshot among them - lack a benefit for their margin of success; they either go or don't go. For passive manoeuvers like Evade, this doesn't bother me. For active ones, it does, and I'd like every active trick to be better with a higher margin of success.

Actually, I like the idea that you can pull off a Finger of Death manoeuvre, at great difficulty, it allows for something to be hungry for, to aspire to.  And seeing as the usual pattern is high skilled PC's up against moderately skilled opposition, the balance of "gibs" will go the players.  It allows low skilled opposition to be despatched pretty much like mooks. (From the Half-life FAQ: "Gibs - What you get when you blow someone to bits.")


LordSmerf wrote

Third: an advanced tool use society has less need to model physical stats since the mental stats will be much more prevelant. I can see a reduction in physical stats to two (Strength, Stamina, Endurance, Health / Agility) or three (Strength / Stamina, Endurance, Health / Agility) since the damage system will be based on equipment instead of physique.

Yes this is an interesting point.  More than just the stats, this has implications for the period of the game that is not spent in the cockpit and takes place face to place, presumably on one of the big floating citadels.  One thing to mention is that I think having personal powered armour and weapons and so forth would distract play from combat in space, undermining all of the above.  This is more properly a setting question but I mention it here because the action of characters in their non combat roles could exploit the radical setting change to use some sort of scene based structure.  Characters in not in war-harness should be plotting and poisoning rather than fighting bodily, and there may be no need for the life of physical stats as we know them.  This, I think, is how you can do the dual focus on court and intrigue as well as the battlefield.

[Harlequin]

More in a sec - but I wanted to address that last.  I agree with the stats thing; it hadn't occurred to me since I just use "Quickstart TROS" for everything but combat (four stats, vocations but not skills), as I prefer the simplicity.  I'd forgotten how many physical stats there were.

Moreover, in terms of the out-of-starship combat, I totally agree.  What I would like to see is for mano-a-mano combat to get very downplayed both mechanically (perhaps it's even just a skill - Murder? - instead of using the combat system) and socially.  Think of the difference in Pendragon between knights engaging in honorable combat on the field, and a knife-fight to the death in the dining hall.  Regardless of who wins, the situation was shocking and dishonorable, and could be considered murder most foul no matter who you were.  Especially if we're using a hardcoded heraldry/chivalry/honours system of some kind, this is easily dissuaded (mostly) in PCs, and where it's not, FaTB rolls of "Murder" versus either "Murder" or "Spot Threat" with narration to follow would be better, IMO, than letting TROS-style combat creep into things if this happens.  Skews the emphasis too much, too quickly.

- Eric

[Harlequin]

Some thoughts on many-on-one (which I don't think is nearly as simple as Thomas suggests) and first round of the fight:

An alternative to Red/White
Start each battle (or follow each true full pause, such as one party having decided not to follow you into the asteroid field), with opposed Relocate rolls, using CP dice taken from first round.  Winner gets the usual benefit, and takes initiative in the first Exchange as well.  Groups wishing to remain in contact with one another (so as to gang up on anyone) use the lowest total in the group.

Many On One
The above initiative roll is sort of a case of something I've been thinking hard on, with regards to the many-on-one situation.  My problem is that I just can't see a single roll stopping a bunch of baddies from choosing to (for example) all Snipe at you at once.  If we resolve that, I'm good.

I guess there are several situations I envision:

- You can have as many tails as decide to stack up behind you, but only one (the leader) is allowed to use Active Tail maneuvers.  They all have to React when you (for example) Break, but the ones behind the leader probably have dice to spare since they just pass when he's shooting at you.  This could be automatic, or it could be the result of a successful many-on-one roll on your part (as the Dog); else two or (on a fumble) even three can fire.  So far, so good.

- Several ships could want to come after you from Disengaged, to fire and/or tail you.  I can't see using a many-on-one roll from stopping them in this endeavour, I just can't; perhaps making it harder, but that's it.  However, if we're using Relocate for initiative, and they want to remain close enough together to gang up on you, then they should be limited to their lowest roll (slowest ship again - unless, I suppose, they opt to let one drop behind), so frequently you'll be Disengaged/Active.  Also, all of your possible Disengaged/Reactive maneuvers would be perfectly appropriate to defend against all incoming fire or actions, not just one - which is very nice.  (Those which beat your roll, hit, or get a tail; those which don't, don't.  We should change Tail to giving the user dice and not losing the opponent dice, for this specific event.)

- You could be trying to take on one ship out of a group, let's say from Disengaged range.  This is where the real problem comes in; if you're picking one out with Snipe, then (unlike in melee) at least two of his three friends have shots at you; hard to make more than that get in one anothers' way, in space, unless they're blatantly stupid.  "Cutting one out of the pack" is going to be tricky.  However, you'll be unlikely to face (much) worse odds than 2:1 effective, again because your (say) Tail of one and Evade of the others covers all of the latter neatly in one roll.  As thoroughly as you can reasonably expect to, anyway.  That's not bad.  Once you manage this, you're Tail/Dog with him, and Disengaged with the others, splitting your pool between Tail maneuvers and Disengaged/Reactive ones.  

Makes sense; how do we manage that with the rules?  I guess, "Most active maneuvers may only be used against one target.  If you happen to have the initiative against more than one target (having won your last roll against each of them), then using one of these maneuvers means that you surrender the initiative in all other matchups, taking the reactive role instead.  Exceptions include Relocate, Break, and Hotshot, which target all current opponents equally, and Reversal, which disengages from all opponents but can only tail one.  Defensive maneuvers, however, always apply equally to all incoming effects against which they are valid."  Not smooth, but it does cover things.  So far.

- You could be tailing someone, and have other Disengaged opponents decide they want in.  If you have the initiative, you're probably splitting your CP between Tail/Active maneuvers (like firing) and Disengaged/Reactive ones (like evading the rest of their attempts).  So far, so good; this is hard to do, but not a problem.  If you don't, then you're using Reactive maneuvers against both your pursuit target, and the other opponents.  Reactive maneuvers from two different lists.  I'm inclined to say that an Evade is an Evade; since Evade is on both the Tail/Reactive and Disengaged/Reactive lists, you can roll it just once to deal with both the efforts of your target, and your would-be pursuers (or snipers).  It's a little overheroic, perhaps, but you're still screwed as soon as you actually try to get a shot in.

- You could be tailing someone, being tailed by one or more someones, and have someone wanting to come play from outside.  Ouch!  I suspect the same principle as above applies; pick at most one (if you have the initiative, that is) to target with an Active maneuver, and React to the rest - probably with just one Evade roll or the like if you can at all manage it.  Interesting to note, though, that your Tails get no choice in the matter, if you successfully Harry your pursuit target, in such a setup... but where you're gonna get the dice to pull that off is beyond me.

Hmm. This all seems to hold together - it's the "one defensive roll applies to everybody" trick that makes it work.  And all of this with no "many-on-one" rolls at all... because in most cases (all but the first one!) it wouldn't make much sense.  So at most, perhaps, there's a "many-on-one" roll you can make which costs all but one enemy some CP dice (probably your successes on the roll, TNs as for TROS many-on-one rolls), as you put him between you and them, but that's all I think we need.  If that, even - I'd call such a roll a mug's game, since you're basically guaranteed to lose more dice rolling than they are from your successes.

Mythical Beasts In Space
Interestingly, the one thing in this many-on-one model which is fiddly, is the desire to have the "Shield Drone" if we do run with the (increasingly feasible) multi-drone AI "monster" enemies, and have it be capable of interposing itself between you and (say) the Command Drone.  Right now the rules don't allow this possibility.  One interesting option would be to have it "Tail" the command drone as soon as you start heading in to try, and detail the process of establishing "who's in front" in a Tail situation such that they need not be on the same side.  (What do you roll, since none of the Tail/Active maneuvers apply?).  But that wouldn't help against Snipe or Firing Pass attempts on the command drone, regardless.

Hmm.

Okay, I have a thought.

Reactive Maneuver (any state of engagement): Shelter (*/STN) - Hides you behind another combatant present (they must be at the exact same locale as determined by uses of Relocate).  You cannot be Tailing that combatant, though they may be Tailing you.  Your prospective shield may respond to this maneuver by putting any number of CP dice (vs. their MTN) into reducing your successes; they may also add to your successes instead, if desired.  If you're avoiding an attack of any kind, then the ship you're hiding behind is struck as though by a successful attack with the same margin as you achieved on Shelter, to a maximum of the attacker's net successes on his roll.  The Activation Cost of this maneuver is equal to twice the number of attackers against whom you are using it.

Then we give the Command Drone a typical CP of decently high (10 or so), and the Shield Drones CPs of 4 or so but huge Shield ratings, and let the former hide behind the latter whenever needed.  If we didn't want to do "swarmy" opponents then I'd drop this maneuver as unneeded, but it makes them feel so much more swarmy that I love it.

(The choice of STN for Shelter, but MTN for the shield's assist/interfere roll, is based on envisioning the Sheltering ship "zooming" around to the right place in an arc, and the shielding ship having less distance to move, but less warning of what's going on as well.)

Mmm... also a good thought, and also designed more for Drone badguys than for PC use:

Disengaged/Active: Ram (3/MTN) - What it sounds like.  If successful, you roll on the Failed Terrain Roll table; your target rolls as well, with a [negative] modifier equal to your margin on this roll.

Use that as the Claw drones, in your Dragon cluster.  Or even just one Claw and one Lieutenant (lightly armed Command) Drone, for a nasty fight versus one PC... a "Wolf," if you will.  Yum.

- Eric

[Overdrive]

This definitely sounds cool. I used to play those X-wing and Tie fighter computer games and I think this could recreate that kind of feel. But what if the enemy fighter pilots are not "mooks"? I also played that first starwars multiplayer game, X-wing vs. Tie Fighter, against a lot of other people.

Organized games (clan matches) tend to be a lot different from the fun and simple blasting what we see in the single-player mode. When two parties are closing in, the fight does not really break into 1-on-1 combats. This just does not work, and leads to pointless circling where nobody gets to shoot unless the other makes a mistake. Instead, the Red Leader is tailed by Alpha Two, who is tailed by Red Two, who again is tailed by Alpha Leader, whose butt Red Leader is trying to fry in the first place. IIRC, an advantage of one ship meant quite an edge, since at some point in the tailing circle you had a free fighter, who really could fire at about who he wanted.

Also, I'd like to point out that in XvT, it was really easy to pick off someone who was concentrating on e.g. firing at an enemy. Since in starwars you can only shoot forward and must steer the craft to match the enemy movements -> evading is most a matter of luck. OTOH, if you were shot at, especially when driving an unshielded craft, disengaging and evading was the _only_ thing to do.

Now, I just don't buy that even in a starwars universe, the enemy starfigter pilots would be brainless drones. They still have years of training, so they know the basics. The system should reflect that somehow. But perhaps the PCs have such superior skills that they can shake off the seasoned enemy veterans, and their excellent tactical sense allows them to pull tricks that the enemy pilots can only dream of. This is already built in the TROS rules somewhat; the GM can hold back the most impressive maneuvers.

Well, my insight on the matter..

[contracycle]

OK, initiative.

In my experience with PC games, almost all fights begin with a closing head to head and it's always a tricky situation, always a game of Chicken.  This is something of a necessity as there is little in the way of terrain to take advantage of or opportunity to stage a short-range ambush.

What tends to happen is that initiative is determined by two things in a particular order: range, then firepower.  The ship with the longest effective range can and should open fire at the first opportunity precisely because it compels the enemy to dodge.  The enemy is likely to expose a flank in the process, which allows the sniper to close without being fired upon and to try to take up a tail.  The first determinant of initiative is effective range.

However, the counterpoint to longer range is substantially superior firepower.  A range advantage seldom lasts long because both sides tend to close at maximum velocity, and for this reason (and the range), sniping fire is seldom that accurate and threatening.  If you have superior firepower, you can just risk the exposure to sniping in exchange for laying down a wall of death that the longer ranged ship cannot afford to similarly risk.  This effect can be so pronounced (especially if the shorter-ranged ship has good defences) that smart pilots, even with longer ranged fire, simply don't attempt to snipe because they are Full Evading on their closing run instead.

It is this breakdown that defines the distinction between heavy and light fighters.

On the many-on-one topic, I'm inclined to think there should be an accumulation of pools or something.  The hard thing about avoiding two attackers is that turning away from one often exposes you to the other badly, which leads to an effect in which there are actually very few directions you can take that don't get you out of the frying pan but into the fire.  IME, the effect is much like being attacked by one opponent with much superior rate of fire.

Incidentally, we are now at about the point where decisions on this sort of game structure – the what is possible – need to be made for system design to continue.

Lastly, a note on ramming: in certain circumstances, this is a tactic with a lot of merit, so much so that it can actually be a good solution to the head-to-head game of Chicken discussed above.  This only applies if you have a system featuring ablative damage with a distinction between regenerating shields and a non-regenerating hull.  In this case, if you fire on your enemy and bash their shields down, but the enemy has not hit you sufficiently to take your shields down, a collision will inflict permanent damage on them and only temporary damage on you.  This makes it a Good Idea.  A safer variant of this is the seeker-missile-down-the-throat; it's a very narrow angle of intercept and requires much more manual aim than seeking, but it works like, well, a bomb.

Edit: what I ommitted is that is a tactic specific to the head-to-head, because if you simply pick up a tail, then you are unlikely to be able to fire on the front quarter shields again, and have to start knocking the rear shields down from scratch.  This is an attempt to capitalise on the damage inflicted during the close.

2nd edit: the seeker-down-the-throat can also be done with mines, as in Freelancer.

[LordSmerf]

I've been kicking around Many-on-One for a bit and i think i've got some ideas:

1. Shelter is a great idea, i really like it.
2. Evade is a simple reactive maneuver that only works againsta single action.  As noted, evading in one plane against a target may not signigigantly change your profile versus some other target.
3. A modified Full Evade - Unlike a standard Evade this evades against all opponents (it's essentially an incredibly complex set of maneuvers,) but this also surrenders initiative and loses Tail status (if it exists.)
4. Perhaps instead of being able to evade multiple attackers like this we might require some other maneuvers...  I'll see if i can get some playtesting done on this...

A note on Ramming

1. Contracycle's not on shields raises the question: How do we want to do shields (if at all?)  Armor or TO as in TRoS?
2. I think that since Ramming requires both Speed and Maneuverability the activation cost should be one and the TN the other (i.e. Activation equal to STN and TN equal to MTN.)

That's what i've got right now...

Note: No, it turns out that the Many-on-One scenario is not simple at all, but we will need to choose a level of detail/realism to work with.  I like the current proposed model (a couple of maneuvers and one reactive roll for everything) let's just flesh it out.

Thomas

[Harlequin]

A couple of comments on the above:

Overdrive - Thankfully, that's exactly what can happen right now.  Ship B tails A.  C tries to tail B, who can evade but has to split his pool to do so, and thus probably tails B.  D tries to tail C, ditto.  Each of them (except the first guy, and the last) becomes the Tail in one matchup and the Dog in another, and ends up splitting pool.  A can probably drag the chain more-or-less where he wants; D has his full pool to concentrate on his target.  Everybody else is frantic.

Moreover, if we're talking equally skilled enemies, and you're faced with tailing one foe but getting shot at by another, your best move (arguably) is indeed to say this: the heck with my tail status, Full Evade, lots of dice.  The only time you'd be safe to keep tailing your target is if you have about twice the CP of those foes.

Kirk - In the same vein as the above, we're pretty strong right now for a many-on-one situation which follows this sort of progression:  Equal pool - Even odds 1:1.  Twice the pool - Even odds against 2:1.  Two-point-two (ish) the pool - Even odds against 3:1.  Two-point-four (ish) the pool - Even odds against 4:1.  Two-point-five (ish) the pool - Even odds against 5:1.  And so on.  I figure this handles the "one opponent with much improved rate of fire" image pretty well, myself.  And if you're only trying to defend, then you need one less increment of pool than the above would imply - that is, the second opponent can also be avoided (but not attacked) reasonably (even odds or so) with about 1.2 or 1.3x the CP of each opponent.  Obviously you'll want more, but that's always true.

Your thought on initiative is one I'd had, problem is that there are several different Disengaged/Active maneuvers the winner of the initiative could choose, some of which (Snipe) depend on range, some of which (Firing Pass) depend on speed/maneuver/armour instead; which should dominate, in deciding who gets to decide which maneuver to lead with?  However, your post does give me an alternate idea, one which is much closer to the TROS standard:

- In the case of two opponents wishing to engage one another at this locale, starting from a full pause, we do a "Red Die Countdown."  This resembles some forms of auction used commercially.  Beginning at some high value (ten is usually more than enough), we count down toward zero, giving enough time at each number that a player may throw down a red die if he so chooses.  First red die to hit the table during this process takes the initiative, but he pays the last number named, for the privilege; he's engaging from long range, which telegraphs his actions, but he is also setting the pace of events.  If two red dice hit the table on the same count, then (as per TROS) they're both committed to attacking (and can't evade), and they roll Reflex vs. ATN, higher total attacks first, and they both pay for the privilege.

- If we want a little bit more verisimilitude:  The choice of maneuver changes this "Initiative price" after the red die goes down.  Snipe reduces it by one.  Firing Pass does not change the price paid.  Tail adds two, and Ram adds three.  The cost for the other player to buy initiative is also reduced by the same number of dice (or increased, still by one die, in the case of Snipe).  Relocate - see below.

- IMO the case of two ships diving toward each other shouldn't be as common as the computer games imply; in our setting perhaps more so because of the "joust" analogy, but in any other situation I would expect to usually have one party desirous of doing something other than directly engaging.  My inclination would be to handle this with the opposed Relocate rolls, or some other speed mechanism, to see if you get to where you'd rather be (be that the asteroid field, near your capship, or in among the hapless convoy) rather than engaging out in deep space.  This would preempt the above process, for obvious reasons, but probably ultimately give the initiative to the aggressor, assuming he catches up with you.

Lastly on ramming, my gut says that very, very few ships should be so well armoured that ramming is a "sensible" strategy.  AI drones are willing to do so because they have no intrinsic survival instinct.  But any ram whatsoever should be a serious risk of death.  The scope difference between "shot by a thin laser beam" and "smack into a many-ton starship" is just too large for me to envision any other result.  At best, perhaps you can apply your margin to improving your own rolls on the table instead of worsening your foe's, creating a more glancing strike.  I'm happy to give that option.

- Eric

[Harlequin]

Crossposted with Thomas.  Tom:

- I think having many of the defenses (not just Full Evade) cover multiple attackers is necessary for the balance of things if we're (essentially) dropping the many-on-one roll.  Perhaps a standard rule that you gain an A.Cost of +1 per additional attacker, for all reactive maneuvers (+2 per for Shelter), instead?  Otherwise I think we're back to a situation where two 6-7CP goons can make meat out of one 10-12CP good guy, which I don't like personally - not for a heroic world.

Another option would be that it takes a success on the many-on-one roll (or equivalent) to use a defense against multiple attackers instead of one... but this is kind of clunky, timing-wise.

- Vis Ramming, what I'd like in the ideal world would be that you use MTN to hit, and STN to inflict damage.  Perhaps, simply, "You may roll up to your margin in dice against your STN; the result is applied as a (more harmful) modifier to both your and your opponent's rolls on the Failed Terrain table."  Something like that.


- Eric