[Spaceships] Choosing Combat Scale and Turn Length

lvk · 12-15-2010, 02:00 PM

First and foremost, you will need Turn/Scale combination that provides +1 to +10 acceleration bonus to most of your ships and prevents instant fuel depletion. Acceleration Bonus table (SS55) is as important in choice of Turn/Scale combination as are guidlines on SS48.

Second, its better to stick to minimum turn length - that keeps battles from ending on the first turn and makes some munchkiney tricks (like missile barrage) less fun-killing. You may even go with shorter encounter scale than Short to emulate sci-fi movies/fiction/games where space combat ranges are ridiculously short, to give more space-fighter than space-bridge-commander feel and to keep relative velocities less harmful. I have house rule for that, but it's in russian.

Very important is just how do you want your space combat to feel. Beam weapon duels? Cinematic "Dogfights"? Long-range "cruise missile" strikes?
Different Turn/Scale choices favor different space combat styles, or even preventing them from happening outright.

12-15-2010, 02:00 PM	#2
lvk Join Date: Jan 2009	Re: [Spaceships] Choosing Combat Scale and Turn Length First and foremost, you will need Turn/Scale combination that provides +1 to +10 acceleration bonus to most of your ships and prevents instant fuel depletion. Acceleration Bonus table (SS55) is as important in choice of Turn/Scale combination as are guidlines on SS48. Second, its better to stick to minimum turn length - that keeps battles from ending on the first turn and makes some munchkiney tricks (like missile barrage) less fun-killing. You may even go with shorter encounter scale than Short to emulate sci-fi movies/fiction/games where space combat ranges are ridiculously short, to give more space-fighter than space-bridge-commander feel and to keep relative velocities less harmful. I have house rule for that, but it's in russian. Very important is just how do you want your space combat to feel. Beam weapon duels? Cinematic "Dogfights"? Long-range "cruise missile" strikes? Different Turn/Scale choices favor different space combat styles, or even preventing them from happening outright. __________________ GURPS' advocate.