Hey, all!
I'm looking for something that will help me simulate multiple attacks (in a single round and/or over time), and it should ideally work for melee
and ranged attacks. Which is most realistic? Which is better? Which makes the most... sense?
*I just came across this one as I am in the middle of writing up this post, and it seems to be the most similar to my own attempt.
I've also taken a crack at my own system, but my math skills are (as I've said before) very lacking. I'll leave it here, and I'm hoping that someone will say "Wow, you did a great job!", "Just use [one of the rules above]—it's the best option because [reasons]!", and/or "There's a better/easier way to do this, and it's [explanation]!".
Anyway, thanks for reading this far! I'd love to hear your thoughts.
My Attempt at a Solution
Please go easy on me.
Code:
Steps Number Half#-0.5 Recoil Bonus
1 2 0.5 4 +2
2 4 1.5 2 +3
3 8 3.5 1 +3.5
4 16 7.5 0.5 +3.75
5 32 15.5 0.25 +3.875
As the Number (of enemies*) doubles, the Recoil is halved. The Bonus is equal to Recoil multiplied by Half#-0.5. You might be asking me why, but I really couldn't tell you much about why at this point. These numbers seem to generate fair** results for skill 8–12, and it drops off slowly on either side.
*This might work for seconds in long combat, but I'm not sure.
**I could be wrong about that too—I don't know what I'm doing.
Oh gosh. Where did it all start? Consider a group of 2 people with skill 10. They will get at least one success 75% of the time and at least two successes 25% of the time. It's just like flipping coins. Well, 10 + 2 ≈ 75% and 10 - 2 ≈ 25%. So, it's a +2 bonus with Rcl 4. Right? So, I extrapolated from there, fussing with math for quite a while to find a pattern that seemed to fit at least somewhat well.
You should see my notepad—I've used up over a dozen pages on numbers that don't make sense to me. I got 5 hours of sleep last night because my head was reeling from all of this math. I forgot to make dinner yesterday. Even today, I've spent too many hours on this, but I've learned that it's best to throw these things to the forums because someone with the right skills will have a much better answer than what I can come up with.
Background
I've spent too much time trying to figure out something that's
almost Mass Combat but
not quite Mass Combat. Do I use one of the above systems? Do I run it semi-narratively or like a D&D skill challenge? Do I use "Tactical Mass Combat" in
Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II? I've tried all things
Mass Combat, but it always felt like I had to
tweak too many things and fudge too much in terms of who deserves what TS ("Heroes on the Mass Scale" from
Pyramid #3/84: Perspectives almost fixes that problem), and I really like the idea of using something like RoF and Rcl so actual attacks can be resolved (because I think it better accounts for armor, vulnerabilities, injury tolerances, etc.).
I was also inspired by a few shots (
here,
here, and
here) at adjusting RoF and Rapid Fire. In particular, Douglas Cole mentioning a doubling table for RoF really got me thinking.