Quote:
Originally Posted by merry442
I like it. The only thing I would add would be a scan stage. It's a little more rulesy/fiddly, but I think it is fun to not know who you are facing. Perhaps your system assumes that the two opponents have already made contact and are starting with full knowledge of each other and full knowledge of missile trajectories/types.
I like your hit location mechanic. I (personally) also kinda like the random hit location in TNE and Traveller 5. In large-scale combat like this, it makes sense to assign nuclear weapons to crew hits, laser batteries to hull hits and etc. Would you use sand casters or other ECM in this system or are they already included in your "shields" stage?
Would you include ship agility (T20), g-turns or Space acceleration as possible elements of your ship-to-ship combat? Otherwise, this system is great and needs to be play-tested and given an After Action Review/game summary somewhere in these forums. I think a playtest would really launch this thing into popularity.
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"Would you include ship agility?"
Maneuver may be used to increase the defense. For each 2 Thrust movement dedicated to maneuvering, decrease the CRT result against your ship by that number. The maneuvering ship loses that much Thrust next turn recovering from the evasive maneuvers (everything has a cost ... in space).
g-turns or Space acceleration as possible elements of your ship-to-ship combat?
I think that 2,000km / 6 minutes is well enough and that acceleration would have to be starship sports car type performance to expect any more than that in an hour time frame for an engagement.
I think a playtest would really launch this thing into popularity.
Thank you for your attentions to this system. When I was younger and discovered Travellers for the first time in the 1980s, I found that there were precious few Avalon Hill CRT based wargame simulations for star battles. The star battle gaming systems I have found were so complicated and focused too much on the micro of each ship rather than viewing them as combat elements in a larger theater. So, I assigned simple attack/defense/movement/range to all the combat elements.
The only thing I would add would be a scan stage.
That's not a bad idea! I think there should be a separate value than attack. The problem that I have is how do you fit scan into the battle other than it just being 'flavor text'? I would assume that this is included in the roll to hit and
looking at the CRT you would assume that it's actually a challenge to get a good solid hit on another starship!
Would you use sand casters or other ECM in this system or are they already included in your "shields" stage? Yes.
In Travellers, the shields represent Meson screens, sand casters, black globes, nuclear dampeners or repulsors to effect missiles.
My aim was to have battles over in a less period of time without taking out some of the strategy and fun of a large scale starship battle. A starship war simulation should never be all about record keeping - it should be about mentally calculating odds ... or just about letting the dice ride and hope for the best ...
One thing I would include additionally would be range and size modifiers to the CRT.
The ship firing on a ship smaller than it would have a slight penalty. Also, a smaller ship firing on a larger ship would have a slight positive modifier somehow. This makes Scouts and Fighters not completely useless. I would think the more numerous and small the ships are the more dynamic the firepower as it can be split. If the enemy takes out a few ships of your force with it's overwhelming firepower you are out maybe 3%-7% of your attack strength.