Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 04-03-2017, 05:58 PM   #1
muduri
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Harlem, New York
Default [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

The equivalent of extra effort for spacecraft?

For Spaceships tactical combat, I'm tempted to set up a cinematic rule where components requiring fuel or power (engines and shields in particular; weapons seem a little more abusable) can yield +50% effect for +100% cost (so double power or fuel consumption) for a turn on a successful Engineering roll.

Presumably still the +100% cost but no effect on a failure; or more dramatically, it works for the turn and then is disabled. And definitely no effect / disabled on a critical failure.

Theory is, if you're really desperate to reach that planetoid this turn, or the shields have to hold out long enough to launch your escape pod, it's worth a shot, but not a sustainable tactic. Is this close to something in RAW or Pyramid I should check out? And if not, how does it sound?
muduri is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-03-2017, 06:07 PM   #2
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

I'm unaware of anything in RAW that's similar, but it doesn't seem like too bad of an option (although in most cases it should certainly be treated as cinematic or superscience). As for weapons, +50% output (3 MJ -> 5 MJ, say) isn't as bad as it sounds - it matches up to roughly +15% damage, or +50% RoF (+1 to hit, at best), depending on if you're making it fire "hotter" or faster.
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-03-2017, 06:12 PM   #3
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

This is extra effort (per B356), using the rules for extra effort by things that lack fatigue points (Powers 160).
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-03-2017, 09:45 PM   #4
weby
 
weby's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

If you want a purely cinematic rule you can of course built it as you want. The basic RAW answer is Machines and Extra Effect in powers 160 as Anthony said.

Tales of the solar patrol has a different methodology where overpowering drives caused stress to the components+radiation and require hard engineering rolls with bad results for failure.

In the end it comes down to what effects the GM wants to achieve in things like risk/reward ratio and effects on failure, but the rules for extra effort for machines are a good place to start.
__________________
--
GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/
weby is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-04-2017, 01:55 PM   #5
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
This is extra effort (per B356), using the rules for extra effort by things that lack fatigue points (Powers 160).
Of course the engineer's big job is trying to repair the damage he's doing before it gets too serious.
David Johnston2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-05-2017, 03:10 AM   #6
RogerBW
 
RogerBW's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

Erm, there's already a rule for this: Increase Power / Emergency Power / Emergency Thrust on Spaceships p. 52.
RogerBW is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-05-2017, 08:27 AM   #7
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

Quote:
Originally Posted by RogerBW View Post
Erm, there's already a rule for this: Increase Power / Emergency Power / Emergency Thrust on Spaceships p. 52.
I remembered Increase Power and Emergency Power (each of which grant increased PP), but not Emergency Thrust. That only covers increasing thrust, of course, but it would probably be OK to expand this to other systems. That gives double output, rather than +50% - double output for beam weapons means around +30% to damage.
Varyon is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-06-2017, 10:55 AM   #8
The Colonel
 
The Colonel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

I suspect the problem is that in real life, unlike in RPGs, very few people habitually run anything at 100% of its design performance. Thus ships go everywhere at maximum trials speed and handling, rather than in the more sedate manner practised by navies with limited budgets and service interval targets (and, more prosaically, we all like to keep the rev counter on our cars out of the red zone). "giving her all she's got" occurs when these precautions are abandoned...
The Colonel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-06-2017, 01:47 PM   #9
InLaNoche
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
I suspect the problem is that in real life, unlike in RPGs, very few people habitually run anything at 100% of its design performance. Thus ships go everywhere at maximum trials speed and handling, rather than in the more sedate manner practised by navies with limited budgets and service interval targets (and, more prosaically, we all like to keep the rev counter on our cars out of the red zone). "giving her all she's got" occurs when these precautions are abandoned...
I would go with this ideology. I would make the assumption that you (as a trained Engineer/mechanic/etc.) would never want to run things at 100% as the wear and tear on the equipment would drastically shorten it's life. But in those situations where it's do or die, pushing the limit is a last resort. I haven't seen the rules in the Space manuals, but I like your initial idea of success works, fail, doesn't help, critical fail you take damage. It should be a big penalty to stop abuse when it's not needed (such as a first attack exchange to try to get the upper hand on the first volley. Risking losing the ability to fire back makes it a bad choice early on).
InLaNoche is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-06-2017, 03:01 PM   #10
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: [spaceships] i'm giving her all she's got, captain!

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
I suspect the problem is that in real life, unlike in RPGs, very few people habitually run anything at 100% of its design performance.
Depends on how you define design performance. Most industrial equipment does get run at pretty close to its designed performance -- its just that it's not designed to perform at 100% of capacity.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
extra effort, spaceships

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:44 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.