I'm starting a fresh thread here because there's some really interesting worldbuilding going on in the original Space Dogfights thread and I'd like to somewhat divorce the mechanical discussion from this.

This is half development and half actual play; James Brown and I got together last night, picked some numbers out of the air for Activation Costs and starfighter stats, and tried to blow each other up in an X-Wing vs. TIE scenario. And the answer was a pretty positive one - it retains a lot of the abstraction/detail/verisimilitude mix I'm used to from TROS, ported over to this new environment. I think there's real promise here.

Our construction went as follows:

Scenario: This is part of a big battle, a couple of wings of X-Wings engaging a bunch of TIE fighters near the TIEs' supporting Star Destroyer. Also present in the environment was a small asteroid field. The fight we ran would be (as TROS suggests) the one-on-one involving the PC and his opponent, in this case X-Wing Pilot (Combat pool 11) vs. TIE Fighter (Combat pool 10). The threat of the nearby Star Destroyer balances things out.

X-Wing stats used: ATN (Attack TN) 7, MTN (Maneuverability TN) 6, STN (Speed TN) 6. Damage +2, Shields +2.

TIE stats: ATN 8, MTN 4, STN 6. Damage +1, Shields 0.

Maneuvers are listed below. Stat block gives Activation Cost, TN used, and short notes.

Maneuvers available:
Disengaged State
Active Maneuvers
Snipe (2/ATN) - Long-range fire. Inflicts damage of MOS plus your damage rating, minus his shields.
Firing Pass (0/MTN) - Begins a firing pass. If you win, next Exchange will consist of a Fire and Evade for both players; MOS on this roll is the Activation Cost of your opponent's shot if he fires during this pass, your Activation Cost will be zero.
(Fire and Evade (0*/ATN and 0/MTN) - Only available after a successful Firing Pass or Roll and Close. Both players declare their Fire pool first and then allocate to the Evade. Total successes from each side's rolls are used to determine next Initiative.)
Tail (1/MTN) - Gets you on his tail; opponent loses the MOS in dice on his next exchange.
Relocate (1/STN) - Moves you into or out of a risk zone. Risk factor (see below) increases or decreases by MOS. Reactive player can only resist with Burn maneuver, but need not resist.
Reactive Maneuvers
Evade (0/MTN) - Basic avoidance of the above actions.
Full Evade (0/TN 4) - Yields initiative to other fighter regardless of successes.
Burn (1/STN) - Uses speed to avoid engagement instead of maneuvering. Also moves you into/out of a dangerous area, by one Risk factor per two net successes.
Roll And Close (2*/MTN) - As Firing Pass, if this maneuver wins then next exchange is a mutual Fire and Evade. Your MOS is his Activation Cost to fire. Activation cost of this maneuver is zero in response to a Firing Pass (you agree with his decision to close).

"Tail" State
Active Maneuvers
Lock On (0/ATN) - MOS becomes bonus dice on a Fire or Lock On action, if taken next exchange.
Fire (0/ATN) - Inflicts damage of MOS plus your damage rating, minus his shields.
Relocate (0/STN) - As above, but note that this loses you your Tail state. (On the other hand, the "Dog" has a hard time following you with Burn, as it has a high Act. Cost for him.)
Harry (2/MTN) - Tries to push the dogfight into a dangerous area using volume of fire and maneuvering. Increases/decreases Risk by MOS as for Relocate, but preserves the Tail state. Unlike Relocate (any version), the opponent does not have the choice to just not follow; also unlike Relocate, any reactive maneuver is a valid choice.
Reactive Maneuvers
Evade (0/MTN) - As above. Can also be seen as the "Pursue" maneuver, same stats, for use against Break, Reversal, and Hotshot.
Full Evade (0/ TN 4) - As above. Yields init. and gives up your Tail state.
Follow (0/STN) - Alternate defense against maneuvers by your pursuit target, except Turret Fire.
Chase (O/[MTN+Risk]) - Specific defense against Hotshot, this is the only Tail reaction which does not automatically lose the Tail position against that maneuver. See below.

"Dog" State
Active Maneuvers
Break (0/MTN) - Loses your Tail, returning you both to Disengaged (at least with respect to this opponent).
Reversal (3/MTN) - Loses your Tail, and puts you on his Tail instead. MOS is lost dice from his pool, as with the Tail maneuver. MOS zero means that the tail is broken but you're only disengaged.
Relocate (0/STN) - As above; note that the Tail Reactive maneuver "Follow" is a valid response.
Hotshot (2/[MTN+Risk]) - May only be performed in an area which is risky to yourself (and presumably your opponent or you wouldn't bother), Risk factor +1 or higher. Automatically breaks the Tail unless he responds with Chase, but if he reacts with any other maneuver (and wins), his MOS is bonus dice for a Tail attempt next exchange. Getting zero successes on a Hotshot maneuver is not good for your health, counting as a failed Terrain roll. However, winning a Hotshot roll means that your opponent has "failed a Terrain roll" and has to face the consequences there.
Reactive Maneuvers
Evade (0/MTN) - As above.
Evade and Break (2/MTN) - Loses the Tail if successful.
Evade and Reversal (4/MTN) - As Reversal, if successful.
Full Evade (0/TN 4) - Defends desperately, yielding initiative, and from this position, also allows the tail to increase/decrease Risk by one per two successes on his roll, as though Harrying you.
Burn (3/STN) - Loses the Tail if successful, in addition to its usual effects.

The Risk factor in all of the above deserves mention; I'm using this as an expansion of the Terrain rules in TROS. Risk factor is just a number, zero in deep space, higher in more dangerous environments. At the start of each round, Terrain rolls are made against a TN of (four plus Risk factor); Risk also factors into the Hotshot and Chase maneuvers, making them more dangerous. The terminology change is partly so that maneuverability still matters in the above maneuvers (they had been "TN = Terrain difficulty" before, but we realized that this obviated the ships' maneuverability entirely, which was definitely counterintuitive), and partly because we realized that this would do a marvelous job of handling not only asteroids, buildings, cliffs, tunnels, what have you, but also one-sided risks like the turbolasers on a Star Destroyer. It's an area risk, with one difference - it doesn't shoot at its friends!

I like this paradigm, as it means that we don't have to worry about the skill of the turbolaser gunners or anything like that, merely the presence of the big ship as a feature of the combat. (Interestingly, one could consider "Close to the hull" to be a risk area dangerous to both sides - and since in general I assume they don't overlap, this gets you out of "Turbolaser land" and into a more equal situation.) Getting hit by a turbolaser blast should be like hitting an asteroid - it's an all-or-nothing kind of risk, not one that goes in small increments. I think Risk factors need maximums - no matter how close you get to a lightly armed big ship, it can't justify Risk 5, and ditto for a sparse asteroid field or wide tunnel system.

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.

The Maneuvers list plus those starships and the Risk rule pretty much covers what we started with, although a couple of TROS staples do need fiddling under this paradigm:
- Red and White die just doesn't cut it at the start. Unlike "Attack/Defense," there's no real downside to always being Active instead of Reactive when things start off. We gave starting initiative to the Light Side, for the time being.
- Pauses in combat don't really make sense, much of the time - especially in a dogtail situation - and, per the above, there's little logic to "Throw down!" anyway, so a full pause lacks its normal impact.
- Given this, I've ruled instead that Full Evade (a) always loses the initiative, regardless of its successes and of any other effects (dice into Jinking, etc); (b) gives up the Tail position if you've got it; (c) lets the attacker move the combat somewhat, if he's on the Tail, as if he had Harried you. This seemed to work. We did note that, interestingly, this meant (as they were statted) there was never a good reason for TIE fighers to full evade - which felt very in-theme, really, you never saw them get panicky, you just saw them die, or not.

After a little playtesting, we found that (a) the damage was too low compared to the shield values, so we reduced both shields values by one point (giving the TIE a value of minus one, which I kind of like), and (b) the ATN values were too high compared to the MTN values - combat was dragging a little. Finally, the match was too even; I wanted it set so that one X-Wing could chew up one TIE fighter for sure (especially with a slight CP edge), and we were planning to test 2-on-1 afterward. The reason was the TIE's MTN of four, which I knew was low and which gave it too large an edge there. We figured that five would still be really nice but less over the edge. So final ship stats should, according to one test, be:

X-Wing: ATN 6, MTN 6, STN 6, Dmg +2, Shields +1
TIE Fighter: ATN 7, MTN 5, STN 6, DMG +1, Shields -1

...which makes sense given the X-Wing's "solid in everything, best in none" general feel. (We also liked the fact that the least the X-Wing could do was a level three wound on any hit on a TIE.)

As playtest observation goes, it looks like things are pretty balanced; just about every maneuver was at least tried, except for the stuff which requires Risk - we both actively resisted attempts to get the fight into "favored" areas, so the entire dogfight stayed in clear space. One memorable exchange: Start of round, TIE has the initiative and is Tailing the X-Wing. Nobody's damaged yet (with the final stats the X-Wing would have take a lvl1 wound by now, but that's it). "Um... okay. Harry, eight dice, let's go play in the turbolasers." "Meaning you have nothing left for next exchange." "Yup." "Hmp. Okay - Evade and Break, nine dice - let's make this the round." IIRC, the result was victory to the TIE, but for zero net successes, so nothing done... but it had the same "put it on the line" feel that TROS combat sometimes has, very nice indeed.

So. Discussion of this ruleset and tweaks to it can go here - but Jake, although of course there's no chance of getting the SW license away from Wizards, I'd say that letting a setting bake itself here and working this into solid form would give you a very nice addition to Driftwood's line.

- Eric

(Edited 4PM same day, to fix a naming overlap in the maneuvers list.)

Personally, I've been juggling the validity of a Mecha combat using TROS. The only part that had me stumped was the ranged weapons. TROS works well for medieval weaponry, like bows and what not, but the same rules didn't lend themselves to chainguns and pulse rifles. I hadn't thought, until looking at this, about adjusting the melee ranges to include quick ranged weaponry.

Driftwood may not be able to get the StarWars license, but I see that as a blessing, not a curse. TROS has already proven that they are capable of a highly detailed, and well constructed setting. I would much rather see a new, full blown Sci-Fi world, covering everything from personal arms combat, to giant robots and tanks trashing a city, to fighter and capital space ship lighting up space, to interplanetary diplomacy. Then, leave it to the community (the ones that won't get sued) to release StarWars material.

Oh, agreed absolutely - it's a blessing clear and simple. But it does mean that until we have something resembling a setting, we may as well use TIE fighters as the bad guys in testing.

I can see where you'd be having trouble with mecha, though... I think this model is made feasible because in space (opera) combat, the level of mobility is so high that ranged weapons still primarily end up a lot like melee weapons do - waiting for the good opportunity, and then taking it. The range "scales down" with the greater mobility, leaving about the same range/motion ratio as melee. If your mecha are big and slow, that wouldn't be the case. (Thinking about some of the source material, though, for example the Robotech series, big and slow may not obtain, in which case a version of the above might suit you.)

- Eric

Ideally, I'd like to be able to use the mecha from Metal Warrior for the SNES, by Konami. Not just because I like it, but because the mecha are so varied that if a system could handle it, I think it could handle about any mecha setting.

Metal Warrior included:
The modern, humanoid robot. It could fly, shoot, and had a light saber and a variety of shields.
The classic, humanoid. Could jump, and jet-roll forward. Had a chaingun and a chain-axe.
The Spider. Could climb walls, shoot webbing, and turn invisible.
The Heavy. Slow moving weapons platform.
The Ball. Rolled into a ball for mobility, uncurled into a weapons platform.
The saucer. Typical flying saucer like mobility, with 360 degree firing.

Of all the games I've tried, I thing TROS has the best chance of pulling off that kind of variety. Each could have its own set of special maneuvers, and a lot of what you posted up top would apply. Yet, the pilot's skill still matters a lot.

Si - but can I ask that we move the discussion elsewhere just so that this thread can more easily be kept focused and so that there isn't a barrier to entry for those not interested in that aspect? I'd love to help tinker with that as well, but it's quite a different beast once you talk specifics.

Aha - speaking of on-track. I think I have a fix for Hotshot which would allow all failed Terrain rolls to be immediately nasty (and usually fatal). Remove the clause where the successful Hotshot "attack" inflicts a failed terrain roll on the tailing ship. Instead, put the same clause (zero successes means you hit something as per a failed terrain roll) on Chase as well. This does mean that there isn't a way to handle a TIE which tries to pull out without following you in, and fails, smashing into it anyway... but the simplicity is well worth losing that image.

(We don't completely lose the image, either, it just has to happen over two rolls. TIE uses Evade defensively, doesn't win the roll, end of round; start of round, Terrain rolls please, oops, TIE didn't make it. Retrospectively, he tried to pull out and failed. This would make a good end to an example scenario.)

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 maneuvers 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.

Possibly these two could be combined somehow, with a high-MOS Hotshot versus an Evade giving a chance that the Evading ship hits the obstacle, but I can't think how to construct it, given that by the time the MOS exists, asking the defender for any more dice from his pool (in this exchange) is certainly not fair.

If nothing else we could go with the "default" that Hotshot's MOS either adds dice to its user or subtracts them from its opponent. But it's already potent enough and doesn't need that much edge; moreover, a low-dice Hotshot is a fool's gamble given the risk of death. Perhaps, given that, an MOS-related outcome isn't necessary. I think I buy that, it just diverges from the TROS pattern. Opinions?

- Eric

can I ask that we move the discussion elsewhere just so that this thread can more easily be kept focused

Heh.. Problem with moving it to the TRoS forum is that they took Jake's idea of a loosely TRoS-based dogfighting game, and are running away with it. It's not intended, at least not so far as I've been seeing, to be TRoS, but an entirely separate game which borrows some of the core mechanics, then applies them in totally new ways.

I'm not sure of that; it could be one side of a strong TRoF (or very similar) game. "Entirely separate" is IMO unwarranted. The stuff done on TRoF over in the TROS forum could apply, although just about everything I found there was related to the Force or other person-to-person issues - the few mentions of starfighters I found were remarkably close in concept to what's above in this thread, but lacked any depth. (If I missed a thread, please point me to it; I just searched for "space" and followed interesting-looking threads.)

In terms of locale, I'd say this is a thread which could perfectly well live either here or in the TROS forum, and I for one don't care; it would really depend what it grew into, what it gained for non-spacecraft mechanics, etc etc. How about this - Brian, I'll request that this move to the TROS forum, if in return you'll actively contribute to in-thread (not metathread) content. [Grin][/Grin]

Do we have any comments that actually relate to the top post of this thread? Guys, please. Don't threadjack straight out of infancy. Comment on the content, then threadjack away.

- Eric

Leave the thread here. It's a separate, if related, baby.

I want this to be written, but I can't write it!!!! So who's gonna? If it starts looking good, I'll back it financially.

Jake

I can contribute (more, I mean) but I honestly can't commit to the writing proper... I have a more important (to me) commitment which has to take priority and is, itself, not getting written fast enough as is.

If you don't have a deadline, though, then let's just keep tossing this around, mechanics here, setting there, and see what emerges - or, alternately, Jake, take creative directorship and start steering toward a vision/framework, and we'll run with the ball a lot and stuff will come out. Then in a month, refine the direction based on what came out. There are worse ways to kick off a project.

One suggestion would be to pick two rules foci, like TROS has - melee, and sorcery - one main and one secondary, and then build a world that supports those. Starfighters, and - what? Jedi-like melee/ranged heroics? Intrigue (give us a chance to play out those TROS social mechanics ideas) and courtly life, with most of the combat done in starfighters? Rulership and clash of social mores (with strong heraldic and social status structure, if not mechanics)? I'd say pick two and let the others be covered in simplest form. What's your gut say?

- Eric

Ok. A couple of things.

Hotshot - If you want MoS to do something, you have a couple of options. One: Raise the TN or reduce successes (or dice) for any action to follow. If you evade away MoS is irrelevent, but if you try to follow you better hope you're better than he is. Two: provide a bonus to any successive action. If i have 4 successes on Hotshot and you follow with 2 then i get two extra dice for my next action.

Actual writing. I'll talk to one of the local guys, he's embroiled in a highly detailed "crunchy" social system (which he's calling Leverage) at the moment. If the direction we take this is Space Combat + Intrigues of the Court then we might be able to dovetail the two projects. If this turns out to be the case then i would be willing to do the writing. I would be using a good deal of TRoS combat mechanics, but i think i would do something else with the majority of the remainder.

I don't know, what do you guys think?

Thomas

Yeah.. Lord Smerf brings up a point that is important..

What are the character's supposed to DO in this game?

Jake, as you're the originator of this idea, perhaps you should be the one to answer this question. Someone, whom I hope will forgive me for forgetting who they are, once came up with a brilliant way to decide this:

Write up a session, or a portion of a session, of how you think a session of this game would play out, with some inter-player conversation and some inter-character conversation. Do NOT, absolutely do not include any mechanics. Once you've written it, look it over. Figure out what's most important, what aspects you want to dominate the game, or to stand out most, and then write the game to play to those aspects.

I get the impression that you want dogfights to be a very important part of the game, which the current mechanical discussion is doing a good job of supporting. But is the rest of it going to be as important? Social interaction, etc? Will this game have SAs? Would it benefit from having SAs?

These are the sorts of questions that you'll need to answer once you've written up the session, if you choose to do so.

SAs, definitely. Or something like them.

Is anyone else watching the sci-fi channel Battlestar Galactica? :-)

Mike

I watched it last night... Maybe it comes from not having seen the beginnging, but it seems kind of incoherent.

Anyway, i definately think that this would be a fun game to play with space combat and court intrigue. What about "monsters?" Dragons, Ogres, Giants, all that. Since we're doing combat in space do we want to get rid of them altogether, make "space monsters," use AI spaceships?

Thomas

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

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

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

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

Brian.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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..

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.

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

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

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

Eric,

Ok, i see your point on reactive maneuvers. I like the idea of an increased Activation Cost for multiple enemies. How about +1 for each enemy beyond the first with the option to only evade two of the four or something?

RE: Ramming. How about rolling the idea of STN for damage and the option to take a more glancing blow into one mechanic. A successful Ram allows you to roll up to your margin dice vs. STN to determine damage based on the appropriate chart. It's not completely scientific, you don't have total control over the damage you'll be doing, but you do get to make a sort of estimate...

Thomas

Something like that. I suspect an increased TN for multiple opponents would scale better, but we can test both. The Ram thought is fine - although if you're only getting about half (assuming STN 6) of your margin on the Ram, as a "hurt him more than he hurt me" modifier, then it's maybe a little too close to even-steven. I'd still like to treat rams just like collisions with asteroids or with turbolaser beams... there's a chance of a glancing impact, and a chance of a huge fireball, see table here.

However, I had another pair of fascinating thoughts. The first one, which could even be optional but would really be fun, has to do with using representations (minis or otherwise) on a map; the second one has to do with a reinterpretation of one of the rules aspects I'd like to bring in.

---------------------------------------------------------

Use of Miniatures (Or Little Cardboard Bits)
Expand out the idea of the "Risk zones" a little, first. Decouple them slightly from the margins on Relocate rolls. Instead, draw your battlefield, and chop it up into zones. Each zone should, conceptually, be large enough that the entire dogfight could take place inside it without ever being near enough to an adjacent zone that someone there could interfere without entering this one. Each zone has a Risk factor associated with it. Your margin on Relocate vs. Burn is the number of zones you travel. This would be exactly equivalent to the old way, if the zones always counted off Risk by +1 per zone boundary, up to the max Risk... but now, done this way, it need not be so gradual in all cases, and moreover we can now have zones (such as the region right up against the wall of the Floating Fortress, threading between its guns) which can only be reached from certain other zones (inside the reach of its guns) but which have different types of Risk (+2 general for against the wall, rather than +5 targeted just one region out, where it's point-blank for the base's guns).

When rolling to Relocate, call destination as well as assign dice; the opponent can opt not to follow at this point, but not if he decides to roll against you. Thus, if you roll well enough, you'll pull the fight right to your destination; if not, he'll catch up with you somewhere along that line, forcing engagement of some sort, even if it's just another Relocate on your part - question: should Relocate always surrender the initiative, as part of its effects? Perhaps, only if you don't reach your declared target. I like that a lot; it puts a penalty on trying to accomplish too much at once, which otherwise would not exist, and matches well with the mental image of having your pursuer catch up with you earlier than you had hoped.

Give everybody a miniature or some equivalent. Since it won't be displaying exact position, facing, or anything else, nor moving all that often, just marking a zone, cardboard chits, standees or little paper airplanes would be just fine. Just has to be recognizable.

If you're disengaged, we put you on the map, in the appropriate zone. No problem. Here's the neat trick: if you successfully become the Tail, you take your mini off the map, and set it in front of your target. He's still on the map, and you're necessarily sharing a region with him, so we know where you are. You can only tail one guy at once, so you still only need one mini. And it's immediately obvious which set of maneuvers you should be using: Tail ones if your mini isn't on the map, Dog ones if there's a mini in front of you, both if both apply, and Disengaged if neither. I can also see a little line of minis in front of the guy who has four Mercs on his tail, showing which one is in front.

I think this fixes my problem with Relocate, even though we weaken it slightly with the initiative thing (arguable, since we also have zones which jump more than +/-1 Risk)... because just adding the map makes Relocate, and thereby the STN, more substantial as a tactic, evening up the split between low-MTN and low-STN ships.

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Focus
I'm still very strongly inclined to keep the ability to spend dice on the initiative instead of on your maneuver. My own playtest says that it's a neat option, it has good side effects, and it doesn't add noticeable rules overhead. However, the one thing that isn't really apt is my original conception of this act as "Jinking," given the move to a more explicit set of Evade maneuvers and the like. We've migrated away from the Jinking name, essentially. But this may be an opportunity, instead of a loss...

I was thinking that this act might get renamed Focus. "Evade for two dice, Focus for three" means roll two dice (presumably you don't much care if he succeeds, like a Lock On you plan to avoid by Breaking away), and get initiative based on [three plus your successes on the Evade]. The image being of a kind of Zen state, being "at one with your ship" or any number of other mystical statements, perhaps directly died in with your Honour or something. Trying to steer away from "Use the Force, Luke" a bit, but nonetheless there's a certain mystique to being a Pilot, comparable to that of seeking the Riddle, which empowers the design.

So Focus is the act of centering yourself, ignoring distractions, spending your energies remaining on top of the situation and remaining in control.

-----------------------------------------------------

Comments, on either of the above?

- Eric

I like the zones a lot, I was in fact going to suggest something along those lines; I developed a wargmae for herowars which used abstracted zones to organise large groups and ranged weapons. Anyway, the above sounds fine to me and raises a couple of interesting possibilities due, as you mentioned, to the intorduction of the map as a real feature of play.

Firstly, the senario with the ragned weapons and the zone close to hull sounds a loke like the canyon run in star wars, which may have inspired it. This is cool, and suggests a possible way to use the risk table without capships. If fighter combat occurs mostly around big stations that can be represented as like a whole map side or something - sort of death star sized as per the canyon run - then the hazard region tables can be used there instead.

That said, it also occurred to me that it would be easy enough to use capships in the above structure in quite an interesting way. The presence of a capship on the 'field' will project one or more hazard zones, and these could conceivably move. Also, a squadron of capships might have interlocking or overlapping zones for mutual protection. SO you could print a 'battle diagram' with the flight paths of the capships as the 'geography' of the battle field changes.

Further, a good abstracted zone system allows a much more radical opportunity tied to drawing presentations of formations inspired by interacting zones. We could draw the zones and the map in three dimensions bag the first 3D space game ever, becuase movement between zones on the 3D map doesn't need to be directly measured.


On ramming: the reason I mentioned it is that it is a property that emerges from many of the conventions of fantastic space games. The combination of one permanent and one temporary store of hit points in much the same ranges is what produces the effect. I agree the effect is aesthetically rather unpleasant, and did not mean it as a reccomendation. But if it is something we want to prevent, the system is going to have to be built so as to prevent it.

I have a concern about removing the minis from the map - firstly, if there is a complete circle chase, it seems to me everyone might be removed? And second, the GM will likely have more than one character, so it won't be quite as clear cut as the description given above, which appears to be cast on the assumption that each player only has one ship, ala a wargame.

I'm still uncertain about the use of mobile capital ships. I don't think that an evolving zone diagram necessarily adds anything except complexity; perhaps as a one-off scenario, yes, but not as a standard. Moreover the parallel, as I see it, is better supported by having even the lord just a knight in his own right, surrounded by his household. (Shelter comes into play again, here - perhaps we should turn it into something the shielding ship does, though, for reasons of the honour of the Lord's player if nothing else. Mmm - better - it's an action to hide behind, or an action to stand before someone, but they're additive... that way if the shielding ship wants to reduce your Shelter total, it's not free as presently writ, it's an action for him to do so.) And certainly, as you said in the other thread, there's just no glory in being a gunnery tech.

A complete circle chase is a very difficult object to generate. It requires someone who is already splitting his dice due to a tail (the lead ship) to be willing and able to then acquire a Tail on someone who needn't split his dice particularly (the last ship in the line), quite apart from the fact that it requires a chain at least four long (assuming only two sides to the conflict) to be formed and sustained long enough to set all of that up. And if it happens, they'll remember where they are, or mark it. Doesn't bother me a'tall. The need for, f'rex, differently coloured or distinguished TIE-equivalents, is more relevant, but I think that it does add to the feel of the game, anyway... alpha, beta, gamma, anyone? Alternately, I can see an interesting situation where, until you've damaged one, you can't tell TIEs apart - they truly are indistinguishable. Anyone with a different skill than the rest will use heralic marks to set him apart - think Richtoffen.

Ablative vs. regenerating shields is, IMO, an issue we just duck, addressing it (at most) in the setting material. Every starship has a Shields rating, and for some that could be armour, for others it could be energy screens, doesn't much matter to us mechanically at all - ram or no ram.

And lastly, nope, the first 3D space game ever is going to be Attack Vector: Tactics, unless you think we can push this all the way through publication before he gets his preorder queue filled - Ken's ready to publish already. (And getting 3D in a fully-realistic space game was a heck of a lot bigger coup than this would be, anyway. Moreover I think there are some on the market already that do 3D, they just generally do so fairly badly.) As to 3D here, I'm not picky; I don't think I'd bother when I was GMing, the space-opera convention doesn't call for it particularly IMO, but yes, it comes for free if you draw your zones appropriately.

- Eric

I like the idea of a set of zones for Risk. I have a suggestion in that direction that increases print costs. The question is: Is the value added suffecient to justify that?

Cards. Print up a set of cards with some nice art (the same Hubble/CG Ships art we were discussing earlier) that has Risk numbers printed clearly on them somewhere. Then you may set the cards up however you wish with the restriction that every card must be edge on to another card. If you make the cards at a 2:1 ratio you can even stipulate that as long as one pair of corners are in contact and the edges are also in contact then they are adjacent. This would allow for "L" shaped constructions. Anyway, i estimate the need for somewhere around 60-80 cards (due to the need for multiples of astroids and clear space and such,) and i have no idea as to the cost (which is probably determined by card size.)

A question on Tail representation: If each marker is pretty much distinct then why put your marker in front of the Player you are tailing instead of behind his token. This would require only a simple facing indicator (the use of an odd-sided shape like a triangle, or an arrow,) and would present a little more graphic representation of the situation (though it does seem to increase the difficulty of visualizing multiple tails on a single target.)

I like the idea of representing Risk Zones in this way because it does allow you to place non-consecutive Risk values adjacent to each other.

As to Focus, can you give me a quick recap of the way it works? Is it like stealing initiative in vanilla TRoS? I do like the idea of being able to invest CP dice in gaining the initiative though...

Thomas

As a countersuggestion to the cards, I would suggest that we get a halfway decent job of some "stock maps" done up - a lone asteroid field, a floating fortress and environs, etc etc - and made available in PDF. I'd prefer to see zones irregular in size and with "natural" outlines, just to emphasize their nature. I'm thinking of the "Regio" map in the GM's section of my Ars Magica book (3rd edition IIRC) as an example here. The cards are neat but IMO we don't actually want that many regions in a typical fight - about five is plenty for your average PCs-versus-mercs or PCs-versus-Monster battle, and that few cards would IMO look kind of odd.

And the counter-in-front-of-player was mostly to (a) help you remember which set of maneuvers you're using, and (b) conserve space on the map where possible, so that an 8.5"x11" map would suffice for a gaming group and its foes. I'm not tied to it, though I'd like to keep attitude markers off the map where possible, just to leave things nonrepresentational wherever possible. (Let's not make D&D3E's "mistake" of putting the wargame-on-map above the RPG aspect.)

Focus recap: Active ship announces maneuver and dice; reactive ship announces maneuver and dice. Now, in the same time slot where feints would go, either player may announce some additional number of dice in Focus. His opponent may respond with his own Focus declaration if he likes.

Focus dice are spent, but not rolled, and do not help with the maneuver in any way. However, when we go to work out who gets the initiative, it goes to the player with the highest total of (dice spent on Focus) plus (successes on the maneuver roll), tie means it does not change hands. So Focus dice are autosuccesses for this one purpose - keeping/gaining initiative - but are lost for anything else.

I find, in swordfighting TROS with a one-die activation cost on any such allocation, that it gets used a little bit, about once or twice a duel. Roughly as often as Feint, say. We might choose to put that one-die activation cost back on this trick, if we want to keep it infrequent like that; I think it would depend on how things shaped up in playtest.

- Eric

Ok, i can see your point on maps vs. cards. The only problem i see is that you end up with less flexibility. If there are 10 maps and you want an environment not represented by one you may choose to draw your own, but cards do present an enhanced flexibility. Whether that flexibility out weighs irregular shaps and simplicity is a different matter.

Thomas

Si. It may be telling that I can only come up with about a half-dozen stock situations off the top of my head, though... if the actual Risk values are input by the GM (more/less deadly asteroids, etc), then the flexibility may be pointless.

I wanted to revisit the Shelter thing for a sec, though, because having it appear only as an aside is possibly trouble. If we're going to use it for the Lord and his bodyguard, then I definitely think we'll need to have it be possible as an action on the part of the shielding ship, and not always done as an action on the part of the hiding one. Both, really, seems optimal; specify which when using it (are you hiding behind someone, or hiding someone behind you?). I think the only question is under what circumstances an unwilling participant (on either side, I suppose) can take away from the effort.

We could make a pretty good case for that being true with any maneuvering other than the Shelter action, I suppose. Every two successes on any action other than Shelter or Fire (any version), by either party, subtracts from the Shelter roll? That way it's automatic - if they're doing something else, it gets harder, doesn't matter if they're friendly or not. Problem is that it starts getting complex with this addition. Hmm.

The other question is whether we want to do anything formal with commanders. The possible existence of a Command Drone lets us generalize that ruleset to not only the Lord on one side, but the Brain on the other, if you will. It's easy to envision rules for command, in several incarnations (Commander can lend dice freely; commander can roll a Command action, successes lend dice; Command actions are used to break off one sequence of round-round-round with one pair of combatants, so as to go check up on the progress of other fights). The more fundamental question, I think, is whether such rules are wanted at all. This ruleset is sufficiently complex that actual, real tactics (split into a decoy group and a vanguard, lure them away from the base [Relocate], split up into small forces and evade-only if outnumbered to tie up their forces, etc etc) play a noticeable part, and we may not need much other than that. Plus there are setting ramifications... for example, do we undermine the "knights'" autonomy and veer more in the direction of modern-army structure if we do that? Should a commander be limited to directing a smallish list of ships, so that we end up with household Pilots reporting to Pilots Banneret, reporting to Lords, reporting to Dukes, reporting to the King?

Not sure.

- Eric

I agree that Shelter needs to be activatable as the Sheltered or the Shelterer. I think i would want to see it treated as simple a reactive maneuver. Think Evade with an Activation Cost. So if you are trying to get Sheltered with no assistance, it's actually harder than simply evading. The advantage being that if you are successful there's a good chance you can get your enemy hit. I like doing things this way because it doesn't produce another set of numbers to track. You use Shelter once, if you want to stay Sheltered use it again.

I think you are right when you say the system already covers tactics well enough. A command ability would seem to me to take away from the focus which is on a kind of knightly combat system. I guess i feel that a modern command structure does reduce the autonomy of the Pilots.

Thomas

Oh, absolutely - I don't want to see Shelter usable as a persistent thing, it's a maneuver like any other. My question is how we handle this: Albert the Mercenary is Active and trying for a tail (on your pal Zorba, not relevant here). He chooses pool and declares. His comrade, Bruce the Mercenary, declares a Fire action on you; you respond by Sheltering behind Albert for lots of dice. How does Albert, given that he disagrees with getting shot by Bruce, manifest this displeasure?

Option A was that he is permitted to spend dice on (Un)Shelter himself, no activation cost. This is the original version.

Option B is that his successes on his action (Tail in this example) reduce the Shelter without him spending anything, simply because Shelter is fiddly if they're not cooperating. I had put a x1/2 ratio on this but I'm not sure that (with an unfriendly "shield") that shouldn't be 1:1, from any action using his MTN or STN.

We then have the separate issue of how Albert, assuming he was instead your friend and wanted to help you with the Shelter, would do so.

Option One was that he, too, was permitted to spend dice on helping you out, no activation cost as with Option A. This is the original version again.

Option Two was that it would have to be his reactive action for the round to actively Shelter you, using the normal Shelter rules. Your successes, and his, would be additive to one big Shelter total. (This is balanced out by an activation cost of at least 2, paid by each of you separately.)

Option Three is that because he's a friend, his successes on any MTN/STN based maneuver subtract only at 1:2 instead of 1:1, and that what he can do to "help" is to stand still.

We can combine these two sets of choices into just about any mix, per our preference. I think I'm leaning toward A/Two, that is, an enemy shield can always resist but only by using dice to do so, and a friendly shield needs not only dice but a Shelter action (thus failing to protect themselves this exchange). This is the simplest rules-comprehension form, IMO, even if it lacks a touch of the "realism" that options B and/or Three have.

And a last thought on Command: We might be able to handle this one, on the tactical scale, kind of like TROS deals with stuff like Acrobatics and Body Language. Perhaps simply this: A Commander can assess the situation in any given matchup by spending 2CP and rolling Wits/Tactics. In addition to any strategy tips he wishes to give, the Commander is then allowed to decide whether to "switch camera" to another fight at the end of this round, or not. The camera is important because it's considered to control the pacing; if you call "switch camera" then this matchup essentially goes on hold while we deal with some other player's actions for a while, perhaps letting him get free to come help with the "paused" fight. Does that make sense, and (separately) is that just too bizarre? It seems like a neat implementation of the TROS "do a bunch of rounds with one guy then switch" suggestion, but I'm not sure that mechanifying it is necessarily a good thing.

Alternately, a Command roll might let the commanded PC roll some dice (capped at the commander's successes, presumably) over the end of the round and/or borrow against the next, smoothing out the one-two-one-two pacing of standard TROS. This is interesting, particularly with things like the Feint having been eliminated. Hmm again.

- Eric

Shelter: I think the simplest solution is that a Shelter action works. Give it a signifigant Activation cost and have it oppose all of the reactive actions. Essentially if you are lining up to fire and i declare a Shelter using you, then i get it. If you are Evading (even if you are my buddy) your Evade successes directly reduce my Shelter successes. This makes things really simple, and in my mind is balanced by a 3 or 4 Activation Cost for Shelter. The only exception i would allow for would be if both players declared Shelter for each other, one stipulating that he was being Sheltered and the other that he was Sheltering. Any other declaration would bring up the opposed thing again.

Command: I'm not really sure that i like getting dice from your commander. It seems to indicate that commander skill is pretty dang important such that even if you are slightly better than Phil, but Phil has a great commander your ability to win is greatly reduced. I'm also not sure about "switching camera" as i've always felt that the GM should be handling the pacing for combat. You could also get into some time-scale problems doing camera swaps since i'm thinking that each exchange will represent closer to 5-10 seconds (maybe more) instead of the 1-2 in TRoS.

Discussing the use of a commander to "assess the situation" brings up the question: Do we want to address Kinesthetics? This is the primary determiner of "situational awareness." Do we want to model the difficulty of keeping track of everyone in a ten or twenty participant dogfight or would we rather just assume that everyone has perfect knowledge in such a situation?

Thomas

I like your above for Shelter, esp. if the shelterer/shelteree may, if he desires, abort to a reactive action (just as if you were targeting him with Shelter). In fact, IMO make Shelter an active action... perhaps even one which, if it doesn't work entirely, doesn't work at all (not reducing attacker's successes).

As for commanders, perhaps simply, this: It's a Tactics roll to find out, either on your part or on that of your commander, what the situation is outside your immediate "bubble." The nice thing about a commander is that he can do this without you having to spend the 2CP or whatever to try and assess the situation. I like that.

It does remove the immediate usefulness of NPC commanders, but then IMO we just ignore this in terms of human foes (the GM allocates them where he will, per his needs), and build the drone-squadrons to be reliant on their commander, either entirely (they shut down etc) or in order to be maximally effective. In that instance, I could see some dice being tied up in the commander... not in him lending them dice action-by-action, but in the sense of "all drones are +1CP while the Lieutenant drone is present" or "drones without some sort of Command drone present are at 1/2 CP." That sort of thing would make sense, if we're talking AI-hivemind, and is quite a separate situation.

So far, so good. What next? :)

- Eric

I'm with you on the Tactics thing now. Questions to be answered.

How many players are we thinking is "standard?" and How often will we want 2 PCs vs. 1 NPC? This will determine (in my mind) whether we will need to create an explicit rule-set for when it's another player's turn. One round, two rounds, rounds equal to the number of enemies, etc.

How do we want to do damage since we are no longer dealing damage to a character directly, but instead to his weapon. Essentially Armor, Weapon, and Target are all combined into a single object. We definately want this customizeable as much as possible, but how do we want to handle damage tables and all that (especially since you can't always target the cockpit, in fact specific area targetting may not even occur at the ranges we're talking about.)

Also, what are your thoughts on Stats? Do you just want to go to quickstart or do we want to try something different?

More as i think of it.

Thomas

If we have the AI Drones as monsters, then (per the Arthurian model) we have almost no situations where the PCs should ever outnumber the NPCs. That's dishonorable, save when fighting dragons - and we've built the dragon like a small army.

A friend was pointing me at a WWI pilots' Code of the Skies, saying that they had something very much resembling a chivalric code. If I find good links, I'll post 'em. Things like if someone ran out of ammo, everybody (save rare blackguards) would just let them leave and go home. Outnumbering the foe is definitely on this kind of list. In Pendragon, I'd expect one PC to sit it out until there was a chance for a fair fight, if they outnumbered the foe (and it wasn't set up, much, given this).

Moreover, as you say, leave pacing to the GM. Let him wing it, per TROS. I suspect it'll vary according to taste.

Damage I'm not all that worried about. I'd be inclined to split damage tables by damage type (laser, ion cannon, explosion, impact?), but then just use, say, a 1d10 random chart within each. TROS' statement that no shot is just "at the other guy" does not in this instance apply. Aiming for a specific location is a trick shot and unreliable - say, put dice into the called shot, don't roll them with the to-hit. Roll them along with the location die, and they count only if they're the right number for what you called, else they're ignored. Perhaps we then have specific ships which, say, modify the damage tables per their special rules (this one stages all hits to Cockpit up one level in severity, another one replaces the Hyperdrive row with the following: ...). I'd have these uncommon, though.

Secondary weapon systems - especially missile-type - is as big a question, by me. Are those just rolled into the ATN & Damage bonus, or do some ships have Lasers ATN 6/Damage +1, Ion Torpedos (two) ATN 9/Damage +5? Esp. if you're to go attacking Floating Fortresses and the like, the latter may be a desirable addition.

- Eric

Ok. I like the idea of just doing a single damage table for each damage type. The only thing is that we'll need broad enough categories to analog into other things (AI ships may or may not have cockpits.) This may even allows us to go to ten regions without too much trouble which will get rid of that incongruous d6 :)

I say do damage with different weapons as if they were different attacks (pretty much what you have, think Slash vs. Thrust in TRoS.) We will probably want to watch ammo on powerful seeking stuff. I'd expect seeking missiles to have fairly low ATNs.

In fact that would add an entirely new element to standard TRoS combat. Namely the ability to use expendable, but powerful resources. It would essentially allow you to spend 5 dice (Assuming a large enough difference in ATN) to accomplish what you would normally need 10 dice for. This makes splitting your pool a little bit more effective. I'm not really sure if we want to deal with this though...

Thomas

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

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