Space Dogfights - TROS mechanic (split)

[LordSmerf]

Ok.  I'm going to post two posts in a row.  Mainly for clarity as one was  put together this afternoon on my laptop and the other consists of my thoughts as of now.  Sorry if this first one is a little long, i had plenty of time to work on it.

This post deals with: Shelter, Damage, and Changes from TRoS.

I like the idea of Shelter being an all or nothing thing.  I like STN for seeking shelter and MTN for providing it.  Here's what I've got.

Seek Shelter: Active from anywhere (Activation Cost 3 or 4 / STN) – Declare a target to get Shelter from.  Success is determined by opposing your successes on the Get Shelter roll against (the number of successes of the action you are trying to avoid) plus (the number of successes on any evasive/reactive maneuver made by the target of your Get Shelter maneuver with the exception of a Provide Shelter targeting you, in which case you add their successes to your own..)  If you have at least as many successes as the opposed total then you are successful.  The target of your Get Shelter maneuver then takes damage appropriate to the weapon targeting you based on the Attacker's successes + your MoS (or possibly -MoS, your choice, assuming we want your allies to be able to survive a successful Shelter.)

Provide Shelter: Reactive maneuver from anywhere (Activation Cost 2 or 3 / MTN) – Declare a target to Shelter.  Success is determined by opposing your successes on the Provide Shelter roll against (the number of successes of the action you are trying to block) plus (the number of successes of on any evasive/reactive maneuver made by the target of your Provide Shelter)  If you have at least as many successes as the opposed total then you are successful.  You will take damage equal to the number of successes the attacker rolled.

I made Seek Active and Provide Reactive at the last minute (I had the reverse.)  I think it's better that to get sheltered you must actively go for it, whereas you can jump in front of a missile at the last second to save your liege.  Making Seek Shelter an Active maneuver eliminates the problem that might arise if you are attacked with only 3 or so dice and decide to Seek Shelter against an enemy who is attacking someone else.  This would give you an excellent chance of success (low attack successes with no added difficulty for an evade) which would inflict damage on your enemies without signifigant risk (assuming you could afford the A.Cost.)  Also, reactively sheltering is never safe, you will take damage if the attacker rolls successes because you are worrying about blocking the shot.  The exception as the rules currently stand is if the one you are Sheltering is working with you to not only stay covered, but to also partially evade the attack.  This means that desperate acts of heroism will often be fatal while coordinated defense will be effective.  (This setup also keeps the nice "something good for the MoS on active maneuvers" thing.)

Activation Costs are completely untested, so I don't have any idea whether Providing Shelter should really have an A.Cost or whether 3 or 4 is what we want for Seeking Shelter.  I also still maintain that Seeking Shelter from anyone (even an ally) who is evading is hard.  The way things are currently written also allows you to Shelter from some attacks but not others.  If Alfred rolls 2 successes to attack me and Brad rolls 7 successes to attack me and I have a 5 on my Shelter total then the one I'm sheltering behind can take 0 to 7 DR (assuming that we don't cap at 5) from Alfred, but I take the full 7 from Brad.

I really, really, really like the called shot rules you have.  Very nice.  I'm thinking that we can easily use a 10 location damage table by simply repeating certain hit locations.  We could for example have "cockpit" once and "engines" twice "and "power plant" twice.  This would make it twice as likely for a hit (or called shot) on the engines or power plant than on the cockpit.  Also, since damage is to the weapon itself, damage can also cause TN changes.  Hit the engines and STN goes up, hit the control systems and MTN may go up, hit the targeting systems and ATN may go up.  I think that that's pretty cool.

A question: can we (and do we want to) safely eliminate Shock?  I'm not entirely sure that it is appropriate (again, due to the fact that the target is non-living,) but I'm not sure.  It does some cool stuff in terms of tactics; it also is an important balancing tool.  Just wondering.

A couple of final notes.  I'd like to see a different way of doing Character Generation assuming that we can retain some form of Insight and the SA system.  For some reason the priority thing just doesn't make me all that excited about Chargen, I'd like something that does.  I'm not sure whether we want to change the way skills work or anything, but I'm thinking about some alternatives...

Thomas

[LordSmerf]

Ok, this post deals with some thoughts that have arisen after spending so much time thinking about Shelter.

Essentially, i'm not sure that the standard TRoS action declaration system will work here since it appears to me that what we are building here is not a one-on-one system.  The added variables of having so many ships involved (especially with the possibility of 3 on 8 or so) makes things more complicated.  I don't see this as a bad tihng, just something diffrerent that we'll have to adjust for.

My suggestion, for now anyway, is that we steal a page from Luke Crane's Burning Wheel: Scripting in combat.  Scripting, in my experience, works incredibly well when coupled with a maneuver list (which we have.)  What i propose is something a little more limited than the system that BW uses.  Essentially you script your active actions (i'm not sure whether we want a required specification of dice use and target or not) which are read (so no one get's to react with an active action.)  Then everyone scripts their reactive actions (if they want to take them) which are then read (again, we don't want people having the advantage of knowing what their opponent will do and being able to use that.)

I know that this sort of thing will require some playtesting, but i'm looking for some initial impressions.

Thomas