[Spaceships] Rendezvousing with a hulk

[mlangsdorf]

This came up in the example combat I ran yesterday, and I was wondering if I just drastically misread the rules or what.

Imagine a scene with two vessels: a rescue craft with adequate but not excessive acceleration, delta-V, and handling; and a drifting derelict. The rescue craft would like to land on the derelict and recover its crew but needs to do this in a hurry since there are enemy forces around.

Every turn of the combat, the pilot performs a Piloting Task, spends enough delta-V and acceleration to get an acceleration bonus, and attempts a Closing maneuver (which is fortunately uncontested by the drifting derelict). If the pilot succeeds, he is on an attack vector. There is no way to move to a closer approach than attack vector aside from succeeding on the Piloting skill roll by 10+, which would let him become engaged with the derelict.

If the pilot manages to get engaged before running out of delta-V reserve, he can continue to make Piloting Tasks, spending delta-V, and attempting Closing maneuvers. Success will put him on a collision course with the target. He'll never collide with the target, as far as I can tell, but he'll be on a collision course nonetheless. If he wins the Piloting task by 10+, he manages the rendezvous.

Is this how things are supposed to work? Is it basically supposed to be impossible to achieve a rendezvous unless you're operating at a Close-scale encounter using 10 minute turns while using vessels that have 0.1+ G of acceleration?

[DemiBenson]

Don't forget the TDM (perhaps +4 if the hulk is not tumbling or only +2 if it is tumbling nicely along an axis, or maybe up to +10 because it's not resisting in the slightest) and you can get loads of bonuses for simply taking extra time.

[mlangsdorf]

There's no mention of TDM in Spaceships.

And yes, I know I can get a load of extra bonuses for taking time, since I could switch to 10 minute turns and it becomes easy. The problem is that it is inordinately difficult for agile craft to rendezvous with an unresisting object if they need to do it in a hurry. For example (as suggested in the original post), they need to do it combat time because enemy forces are around.

Again, am I misreading the rules? If so, could someone sort it out with references to the rules in Spaceships?

[Ulzgoroth]

It looks like it's nearly impossible to rendezvous with anything under the basic system unless you've got a lot of mobility in the chosen combat scale or a really hot pilot, yeah.

Spaceships 3 combat may make that easier, though it says 'may attempt to rendezvous' without detailing what that involves.

[The Colonel]

Would you not connect with a flexible grapple and then take in tension this forcing your speed, heading and roll to converge as you wind in?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Would you not connect with a flexible grapple and then take in tension this forcing your speed, heading and roll to converge as you wind in?

Not until after you're already at 'rendezvous' status. Shooting a grapple at someone from a hundred miles away while moving at an appreciable fraction of a mile per second relative to them is unlikely to do anything, and on the off chance that it does you probably won't be happy about it.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not until after you're already at 'rendezvous' status. Shooting a grapple at someone from a hundred miles away while moving at an appreciable fraction of a mile per second relative to them is unlikely to do anything, and on the off chance that it does you probably won't be happy about it.

I was envisioning the active ship being within a few hundred meters and and trying to get close enough to and uncontrolled, tumbling mass to lock on and deploy some kind of boarding ramp...

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I was envisioning the active ship being within a few hundred meters and and trying to get close enough to and uncontrolled, tumbling mass to lock on and deploy some kind of boarding ramp...

That is the situation after you rendezvous.