[weevis]

I'm trying to understand how the Basic Space Combat system in Spaceships works. I'm hoping someone on this excellent board has given this some thought and can tell me if my interpretations are right. I checked the errata and searched the forum already. I'm not really looking for discussion of good or badness of the rules in question (but knock yourself out). I'm just trying to understand them. These questions may be pretty basic, for all I know. I really appreciate any help. I have five confusions and I will title them with caps:

IS THERE “NON-BONUS” ACCELERATION THAT MATTERS?

(...in a setting where there is no reaction mass.)

p. SS54 says “All maneuvers except Drifts provide the option to accelerate.” This seems to mean that if you can’t get an acceleration bonus then you can’t accelerate at all? There is no “non-bonus” acceleration? I think the meaning would be that you can accelerate but it doesn’t matter, as acceleration is “enough acceleration for a long enough period to achieve a significant position change.” Maybe I should think of the word “acceleration” as “significant acceleration”? But if I do that leads to some other issues.

In my setting you could fire your engines for 40Gs during your 20-second turn but would you then have to describe what your ship is doing as a “controlled drift” because 40G is less than the 50G minimum for an acceleration bonus at that scale (p. SS55)? "Drift" seems like the wrong word for that. Or maybe that's wrong because Drifts don't “provide the option to accelerate,” thus ruling out non-bonus acceleration as well as bonus acceleration?

I see “The GM will need to keep track of the…acceleration a spacecraft used on its last turn.” (p. 55) and I see the brief combat examples are carefully tracking acceleration and speed via mps. But unless you have limited fuel -- in my setting there is not limited fuel -- tracking acceleration only seems to matter if it gets a “acceleration bonus.” Is that right? I think my confusion is with the word “bonus" since I don't understand the "non-bonus."

There do seem to be some minor gameplay implications. In the text for “Retreat” p. SS56 -- in that instance the wording is just “if you accelerated.” If I take that to mean did you accelerate *at* *all* this turn, and therefore I take it to mean both bonus and non-bonus acceleration, I should then always choose not to accelerate if I receive no bonus. The consequence of non-bonus acceleration is bad for me -- I don’t get to control my facing. So I should either go 50G for the bonus, or turn off the engines. Am I understanding the rules correctly?

Sorry that was so long. The other questions are simpler.

FAILED CLOSING MANEUVER?

What is your ship doing if you fail an attempt at closing (bottom of p. 55)? I think this is just a naming issue: at first I thought that the answer was “just flying around without a particular status.” All of the other statuses have names and this one doesn’t so it is puzzling me. I didn’t want to miss a status. But now after re-reading everything I think that for the purposes of the next turn (e.g., the Ambush rule) you would still count as “Closing” even though you failed. I'm guessing I should think about the word "Closing" in that case as “Tried for Closing but Couldn’t Close”? Or more generally think of the status as: “Attempted Closing But May or May Not Have Actually Closed On Anything”? Is that right?

I’M GOING SO FAST I HAVE TO TAKE EVASIVE ACTION

Since your acceleration bonus “may not exceed +3” to take a “Hold Course” maneuver (p. 56), if you really turn on those engines (above +3), it seems like the only maneuver you can choose is either Evasive Action or Closing. Since drifts don’t “provide the option to accelerate” p. SS54 you can’t choose those, and since Retreat requires you to take Evasive Action first you can’t choose that. I guess forcing quickly-accelerating ships to be Evading or Closing is OK but it seems counter-intuitive so I just want to be sure I have it right. If there is nothing I want to close with I guess I must take evasive action? Maybe it is simulating the fact that the acceleration alone gives you the Evasive Action bonuses even if you are trying to fly in a straight line? Again, just making sure I understand how the rules work here.

CLOSING ON NOTHING

Under the Ambush rules on p. 55, it states that you can use an Ambush closing strategy if your target performed “a Closing maneuver on its last turn, but only if your vessel was not yet Detected.” This can’t mean I can perform a closing maneuver on an undetected ship, can it? The rules for “Closing” don’t actually say that the target must be detected, but I still presume this text there means my target was CLOSING WITH SOMEONE ELSE. Right? But... The Maneuver Modifiers list says -6 if “in a quick contest of skill with a target that you have not detected.” I think you can only *be* in a quick contest if you are attempting a closing maneuver, so I guess it is OK to close on nothing? Really not sure about this one.

CRITICAL HITS DON’T AFFECT POINT DEFENSE?

From vanilla GURPS combat I’m used to critical hits doing something on an attack roll: “In all cases, the target gets no active defense against the attack.” says p. B556. But in spaceship combat under “Successful Attacks” in the “Ballistic Attack Roll” section on p. SS60 it says, “Critical success means the target cannot dodge.” I don't see other effects. Earlier in the “Beam” section it said “as usual, critical success means the target cannot dodge.” I’m confused by this, and the *as usual*: wouldn’t the usual behavior be no active defense at all? Why is the effect of a critical hit limited to preventing a dodge? I ask because if I’m attacking a space station with a missile, the rules say the defender has no dodge. The defense to beat is point defense. If I rolled a critical hit with my missile attack and the critical prevents dodge, who cares? Do I have the rules right here? The critical just does nothing?

I really appreciate your thoughts!