[Spaceships] Combat Examples?

[JP42]

Yeah, I would have hoped that there would be others with some experience with the system in play, but after hearing so many perceived problems with the the way it works, I guess few have been willing to build their space combat around those rules as written.

[apoc527]

It's probably a Dell'Ortism problem here...the rules seem like they won't work, so not many people have actually tried them out to see if they work or not in actual play.

I admit that I have no idea if missile PD is gameable or not based on personal experience. I suspect that with reasonable engagements, it IS gameable. And that's fine--for unreasonably sized engagements, it's probably best to just use the Mass Combat rules.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Point defense can't be modeled reasonably as just an effective skill level. Even in theory, probably, because you need more resolution than 3d6 provides to support some levels of defense you'd want! Also, determining the 'effective skill' is decidedly non-trivial, because it depends on the numbers of weapons and missiles involved in addition to the usual factors that modify attack rolls.

Isn't it possible to introduce fractional skill levels? E.g. of skill 10 is .50 hits and skill 11 is 0.625 hits, then you can calculate the hit ratios for skill 10.1, 10.2 and so forth, using some method. Or at least interpolate some values that look reasonable.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by JP42

Yeah, I would have hoped that there would be others with some experience with the system in play, but after hearing so many perceived problems with the the way it works, I guess few have been willing to build their space combat around those rules as written.

The "problem" isn't all that likely to be PD. I suspect it's more about lack of market for a small abstract space combat game.

I use Spaceships when I want to throw together a ship in broad strokes in a few minutes but I haven't had any occasion to use it as a combat game. That's why all my stories were from the playtests.

Even though they were before the Spacships tests the ship-to-ship actions in my last two Space games were too small and much too personal (i.e. PCs against bad guys) for Spaceships.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Isn't it possible to introduce fractional skill levels? E.g. of skill 10 is .50 hits and skill 11 is 0.625 hits, then you can calculate the hit ratios for skill 10.1, 10.2 and so forth, using some method. Or at least interpolate some values that look reasonable.

You could make something up, but what possible benefit could that add? There aren't any fractional skill modifiers, and if you want to represent a 59.3 % chance of killing a missile you can just use that directly.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

You could make something up, but what possible benefit could that add? There aren't any fractional skill modifiers, and if you want to represent a 59.3 % chance of killing a missile you can just use that directly.

In a setting where KK is one-hit, one-kill, then PD either needs to be all or nothing. In other words, if PD isn't 99.99% effective, nobody would bother at all, because if even one KK weapon gets through, you die, right? So, wouldn't the tactics change to more like submarine warfare--it's all about silent running. Of course, you might object and say "stealth is impossible in space." Ok, then, you are going to be looking at finding a way to avoid or outrun the missiles--or outrange them altogether. In space, a UV laser is quite long-ranged and has a much lower "flight time" than any missile.

I guess my point is that if the "problem" is hordes of KK missiles versus PD, that's not really a big problem--PD is either 100% effective, so KK missiles rapidly disappear, or it's simply never effective enough, in which case nobody will bother with PD and something new will show up to counteract the missiles. If that doesn't happen, then you have a "he who shoots first wins setting" and maybe that's the way it should be...

If you go the Honorverse route, then it really DOES just become a matter of percentages and you CAN game that out relatively painlessly.

[JP42]

You almost have to start with a premise - that all available weapon types are out there. Then have your own little simulated arms race, where effective one-hit-kill missiles spurs on advances in ECM and point defense to the point that the missiles aren't cost effective anymore against modern ships, but are still around on some because not every ship in the enemy fleet has been totally modernized either.

Eventually you get to a point where ships have "enough" PD to make missiles pointless, and as a munition expensive to replace, and everyone focuses on beam weapons, which leads to the development of better armor and screens.

Somewhere in all that mess, you pick a point and set your game during that timeframe. And those decisions are the current reality - whether that means that "whoever shoots first wins" or "missiles are losing effeciveness" or "missiles are old technology and too easy to counteract."

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by JP42

You almost have to start with a premise - that all available weapon types are out there. Then have your own little simulated arms race, where effective one-hit-kill missiles spurs on advances in ECM and point defense to the point that the missiles aren't cost effective anymore against modern ships, but are still around on some because not every ship in the enemy fleet has been totally modernized either.

Eventually you get to a point where ships have "enough" PD to make missiles pointless, and as a munition expensive to replace, and everyone focuses on beam weapons, which leads to the development of better armor and screens.

Somewhere in all that mess, you pick a point and set your game during that timeframe. And those decisions are the current reality - whether that means that "whoever shoots first wins" or "missiles are losing effeciveness" or "missiles are old technology and too easy to counteract."

QFT. You basically need to "evolve" your own little setting from a certain premise. There's no other way to do it, IMO. When discussing Spaceships combat rules, abstractions are useless--there are far too many variables to have a useful discussion without constraining things in some fashion. In other words, you must world-build first and use game mechanics second OR use game mechanics to assist your world-building. Just depends on your goal. In any event, JP42 has the right of it.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by JP42

You almost have to start with a premise - that all available weapon types are out there. Then have your own little simulated arms race, where effective one-hit-kill missiles spurs on advances in ECM and point defense to the point that the missiles aren't cost effective anymore against modern ships, but are still around on some because not every ship in the enemy fleet has been totally modernized either.

Eventually you get to a point where ships have "enough" PD to make missiles pointless, and as a munition expensive to replace, and everyone focuses on beam weapons, which leads to the development of better armor and screens.

Somewhere in all that mess, you pick a point and set your game during that timeframe. And those decisions are the current reality - whether that means that "whoever shoots first wins" or "missiles are losing effeciveness" or "missiles are old technology and too easy to counteract."

The problem is that you're going to need to invent a lot of things that aren't in the Spaceships series anywhere to do that. The 'advances to ECM and point defense' simply aren't there.

[JP42]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The problem is that you're going to need to invent a lot of things that aren't in the Spaceships series anywhere to do that. The 'advances to ECM and point defense' simply aren't there.

Very true. RAW doesn't allow for such things. Sounds like it might be a good Pyramid article, to make Defensive ECM and ECCM rules a little more robust and detailed, as well as AI targeting systems and making it official to include wee little 100KJ lasers on enormous ships for dedicated PD.