[Spaceships/Space Opera] I need an editor and/or playtesters...

[ericthered]

Okay, a little bit of feedback.

The letters and numbers in front of each model don't tell me what the class of The Craft is. This means that I have to either brute force memorize it or look at a table. Modern military's use alphabet codes to classify their aircraft. For example, the F-12 is an F-12 because it's a fighter. On the other hand, and a 10 warthog is an A10 because it's an attack Craft. I know you're familiar with this terms because you use them in your document as roles, but you aren't using letters to indicate them. Just a quality of life suggestion

A lot of the vehicles have .1 for their load. I assume that's just the implied weight of the pilot?

I haven't done any fights yet. I've looked over all the fighters though, and gotten stats for different levels of pilots. Starship templates and space have pretty darn similar numbers. The starship templates helmsman is about plus one on everything versus the space fighter Jock. For a real Ace I'm also including the wheel man from action, with piloting skill 18.I'm a little worried that the missile damage numbers are going to mean the winning tactic is just to swarm with gnats, but we'll see. I'm considering attaching costs to pilots just to make the money comparison work better against the mass gnat tactic

I'm also unsure exactly how the shields are going to interact with the dog fighting rules, since those are based on chases, and chases have fewer attacks for a given time period. But we'll see, I haven't run any fights yet. But I will soon.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Okay, a little bit of feedback.

The letters and numbers in front of each model don't tell me what the class of The Craft is. This means that I have to either brute force memorize it or look at a table. Modern military's use alphabet codes to classify their aircraft. For example, the F-12 is an F-12 because it's a fighter. On the other hand, and a 10 warthog is an A10 because it's an attack Craft. I know you're familiar with this terms because you use them in your document as roles, but you aren't using letters to indicate them. Just a quality of life suggestion

I'll keep it in mind. I'm not entirely following the USAF/USN/USMC setup for fightercraft and other small spacecraft (think about if I had decided to use MiG-, Su-, Tu-, Yak-, etc. like Russian aircraft, using the manufacturer followed by a number...); as the initial fighter designs (the Slipjack, Starduster, and Hrrok'tar) were hacked out ages ago for another system entirely....

A lot of the vehicles have .1 for their load. I assume that's just the implied weight of the pilot?

Yes, the "0.1" or "0.2" in the Load is, as per Spaceships, the maximum allowed weight of the human crew (200 lbs, or 0.1 ton) per human or similar-sized alien, or 0.2 per K'Hissh.

I haven't done any fights yet. I've looked over all the fighters though, and gotten stats for different levels of pilots. Starship templates and space have pretty darn similar numbers. The starship templates helmsman is about plus one on everything versus the space fighter Jock. For a real Ace I'm also including the wheel man from action, with piloting skill 18.I'm a little worried that the missile damage numbers are going to mean the winning tactic is just to swarm with gnats, but we'll see. I'm considering attaching costs to pilots just to make the money comparison work better against the mass gnat tactic.

One thing to remember: With pseudo-velocity, which is the default for the setting when it comes to reactionless drives, the forward momentum of the craft is not taken into account for missiles. I think I read somewhere that pseudo-velocity missiles are treated as being 10 mps for the velocity aspect of the fight, regardless of how fast the ship is actually going when it launches, but I'll need to dig to be entirely sure. (Spaceships seems to be somewhat lacking for the explanations of pseudo-velocity and how it interacts with stuff.)

I'm also unsure exactly how the shields are going to interact with the dog fighting rules, since those are based on chases, and chases have fewer attacks for a given time period. But we'll see, I haven't run any fights yet. But I will soon.

I'm not either, to be honest. One of many reasons I'm asking for assistance.

[ericthered]

Ok, I ran my first fight, between a gnat and a skydragon. I gave both pilots 14 in all relevant skills: piloting, gunner, artillery. No templates gave aerobatics as a relevant skill, though I suspect all dogfighting templates should have it for stunts, or at least the aces.

I wasn't sure at what distance to start the combat. I decided to have an atmospheric fight, and start at "Distant", which is one below "out of visible range". I gave both fighters the benefit of the doubt on seeing each other. Alternatively, I could have had some sort of quick contest of Per or Electronics operation (sensors) to see who spotted each other first.

I ended up using the PsiWars explaination of the dog fighting rules. Its so much clearer than the pyramid article, which makes it unclear if you need to win a reverse to get them off your tail or if any victory will do.

The craft are very similar to each other in performance. The Gnat has a relative +2 in the chase contest for speed (+1) and handling (+1). Both craft see no difference to the chase roll when hitting the afterburner: they each get +1 from speed and -1 from handling.

All the little plus ones the gnat got never mattered: the star dragon got lucky and established advantage in the first round, and fired a spread of missiles in the second. The Gnat dodged two of them, but a single hit is enough to doom it, and there were four potential hits. (Rcl 1 is terrifying). 115 damage leaves 84 damage after FF and DR, and with 15 dHP, that's an auto-destroy.

had the Gnat's pilot bothered to buy aerobatics, it might have had a chance.

For fun, I pretended the two craft had each rolled each other's numbers. The gnat is able to move two range bands closer instead of one. The Skydragon has an additional -5 in hit penalties from ECM and its tactical array, but its bigger for +1 to hit. The Gnat misses.

In an alternate universe where the Gnat hit with the full spread of missiles ... that's just two. The skydragon is less maneuverable and dodges only a single missile... but that leaves only one missile. That does 92 damage. the Screen takes off 40 of that, and then armor takes off another 16, for 36 damage left. This actually does not require a destruction roll... yet. A little more damage will do it in. An EMC system is destroyed.

Some notes about stats:

• Noting chase modifiers next to speed would be awesome: one is derrived from the other.
• The 40/20 stat on force screens is for adjustable, right? you didn't stick it on the gnat, despite that having such a screen.
• If you're going to give the vessel ECM, please note the note its defensive number somewhere. I didn't notice that the Skydragon even had it until I was checking what system the gnat's missile hit and took out.
• I had to sort of wing at what range bands missiles worked. It'd be nice to have some clarification on that... but I suppose not everyone will be using this with the dogfight rules
• The TK beams on the Gnat feel like a waste. If I had a gnat I'd rip them right out and add either ECM or shielding. Or even another missile system. Anything. And fill up that cargo slot. But of course you mention filling the cargo slot.

The shields and the timing ended up working out: the shields regenerate every 10 seconds, so each round of chase you get full shields. It works out great.

I feel like this little test fight turned out a success... other than I just want some key numbers (chase bonuses and ECM penalties) at my fingertips.

One other interesting effect: afterburners often give -1 to hit with a missile and -1 to dodge it.

Missiles feel very powerful: I'm not sure beam weapons are going to do anything at all. I suppose that's something to test.

I maneuvered on the first round, and I suspect that was a mistake: getting off that first shot before advantage/ persuer-defender dynamics kick in is valuable.

The skydragon seems to have proved itself: it avoided being hit where the gnat did get hit, and if it had been hit, would have survived the hit. I'm not sure if it can hold off multiple gnats though. I'm also curious if a SM+4 skydragon would perform just as well.

[ericthered]

I ran fight of 2 Gnats vs a SkyDragon. Each side lost one, but the skydragon rolled HORRIBLY. A roll of 29 on 6d6 (about 50% above expected) dealt a lot of damage and then the HT roll was a 17. It still took a Gnat with it.

I wondered what the actual statistics on this sort of thing were so I wrote a script to calculate the odds of a kills for missiles with various ships and skill levels. There are too many permutations to really test everything, but I got some good numbers out of it.

In the missile only and skills ~14 paradigm I'm working with, ECM is king, which means that Sky Dragons and Huuktra* do really well. Number of missiles also matters, because they're Rcl 1. Speed doesn't seem to matter much. Proximity explosions are the most reliable way to hit ECM equipped fighters, so armor and shields matter somewhat. Speed does almost nothing, and maneuverability is all within one or two of each other, and doesn't really matter in the missile stats I've got. I will say I'd much rather get in a $13M Sky Dragon that a $14M Flash: The flash takes damage from a gnat about twice as often. Though the Flash is much faster, that doesn't translate to battlefield success at all.

I should arrange for some beam weapon dogfights, but I'm skeptical anyone will be able to do any damage at all... but we'll see.

* yes, I dropped the stop, just pretend Jack Oneal from stargate is intentionally mangling an alien word

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Missiles feel very powerful: I'm not sure beam weapons are going to do anything at all. I suppose that's something to test.

IIRC, this is also how the Spaceships combat system tends to work out, with missiles dominating and beam weapons generally only working for point defense against missiles and for taking out significantly smaller ships. Depending on how the Dogfight rules resolve things, one possible use for beam weapons is to soften up the shields for a missile hit (every 10 damage reduces DR by 1, so while a burst typically won't stand much chance of punching through the shields and armor, it can potentially reduce the DR enough for the missile to score a one-hit kill; Spaceships resolves all the hits in a round as occurring on the same second, preventing shields from regenerating between hits; it would be more realistic to spread them out, but with the rapid rate of regeneration for GURPS force screens, that would probably negate their use). That is, unless you have the option of dedicating them to point-defense, in which case you'll probably want to do that instead against foes using missiles or guns.

[Phantasm]

The Gnats as written, without the armor and shield upgrades mentioned in the fluff text, are kinda meant to be mook level enemies anyway. They're the ones flown by pirates and other "launch a swarm of fighters" enemies, not by aces.

So far, by the sound of it they're performing as expected. That is, they perform terribly when facing anything that's prepared to fight back.

The primary fighters - the Slipjack, Starduster, Frostfire, Overdrive, Huuk'tra, and Hrrok'tar (that is, the superiority and multi-role fighters) - are meant to fly in pairs or triads. So I guess a few two-on-two or three-on-three fights are needed.

Still, seems the missiles need a change, possibly in the mechanics (the Dragonfly firing 9 at once is going to be either fun or not-fun in dice rolls!). Thoughts?

[Phantasm]

Ran a fight myself. I decided to attempt to simplify things in the Chase rules, since the sAcc from Spaceships does not equal Acc the way it does for other weapons (it's actually Acc + 18 from targeting systems and other things).

Pilot stats I'll use:

Fighter Pilot - Rookie
Artillery (Guided Missile) - 12
Gunner (Beams) - 12
Piloting (Starfighter) - 12
- Dodge: 6+Hnd

Fighter Pilot - Veteran
Enhanced Dodge (Vehicular) +1
Artillery (Guided Missile) - 14
Gunner (Beams) - 14
Piloting (Starfighter) - 14
- Dodge: 8+Hnd (includes Enhanced Dodge)

Fighter Pilot - Ace
Enhanced Dodge (Vehicular) +2
Luck
Artillery (Guided Missile) - 16
Gunner (Beams) - 16
Piloting (Starfighter) - 16
- Dodge: 10+Hnd (includes Enhanced Dodge)

Fighter Pilot - Top Ace
Enhanced Dodge (Vehicular) +3
Luck
Artillery (Guided Missile) - 18
Gunner (Beams) - 18
Piloting (Starfighter) - 18
- Dodge: 12+Hnd (includes Enhanced Dodge)

Modifications to Chase Rules:
1. Treat SM +5 as SM 0 for targeting (f'rex, Gnats are -1, Hrrok'tars are +1)
2. Treat "Medium" Range Band as "Close", "Long" Range Band as "Short", "Extreme" as "Medium", "Distant" as "Long", and "Beyond Visual" as "Extreme".
3. Treat "mps" as "mph" for the Chase roll using Piloting.

Modifications to Combat Rules:
1. Missiles, being pseudovelocity, only do Base Damage; do not multiply for mps.
2. A single hit is enough to destroy an incoming missile.

[Phantasm]

FIGHT ONE

Three Pirates flying SF-2 Gnats vs a single Bounty Hunter flying an SF-5 Oni. The Gnats are two Rookies led by a Veteran; the Oni, being a bounty hunter, is a Veteran. Lead Pirate's Gnat has been modified with Nanocomposite Armor, giving dDR 3 instead of dDR 1. Gnats are flying 100 mps; Oni is flying 60 mps.

The Pirates are flying in an inverted V formation; Veteran Pirate is leading, the two Rookies are hanging back and to the sides. Hunter is at Medium Range from the pirates, -7 range penalty.

Turn 1: Pirates are flying an inverted V; Hunter is closing at an angle. All pilots choose a Move; Lead Pirate locks onto the Hunter with his missiles (Artillery-10, roll of 10), as does Rookie 1 (Artillery-8, roll of 7); the Hunter and Rookie 2 fail to lock onto their chosen targets (Lead and Hunter, respectively; Hunter had Artillery-9, roll of 12, while Rookie 2 had Artillery-8, roll of 10).
Chase rolls:
- Lead Pirate: Piloting 15, roll of 16, failure by 1.
- Hunter: Piloting 15, roll of 11, success by 3.
- Rookie 1: Piloting 13, roll of 16, failure by 3.
- Rookie 2: Piloting 13, roll of 9, success by 4.
All fighters remain at Medium range.

Turn 2: Lead Pirate fires two missiles at Hunter, as does Rookie 1. The Hunter manages to dodge Lead Pirate's volley (Dodge-8, roll of 6), but this puts him right in the path of Rookie 1's missiles (Dodge-8, roll of 12), which hit him dead on. The Oni explodes in a fireball (6d×4 cr ex, doing 76 and 92 damage, which blows past the Oni's combined dDR 28 to drop its dHP from 23 to -89); Rookie 1 quips "A clean kill. Should've been a bounty hunter myself."


Well, that was over quickly. Rookie 1 got lucky, IMO. Hunter should have modified his own fighter with better armor and maybe heavier shields rather than blowing all his money on blackjack, hookers, and blow. ;)

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

The Gnats as written, without the armor and shield upgrades mentioned in the fluff text, are kinda meant to be mook level enemies anyway. They're the ones flown by pirates and other "launch a swarm of fighters" enemies, not by aces.

Totally. I'm just looking at if "launch a swarm" tactics are actually better than paying for everyone to have the nice ships.

So far, by the sound of it they're performing as expected. That is, they perform terribly when facing anything that's prepared to fight back.

Sort of. They perform just fine when they swarm the enemy: loosing one or two for taking out a ship five times the cost is sort of expected, depending on the cost of pilots. And given that your gnat is less that 2M$, training a pilot is relatively cheap.

I've noticed we've had a lot of "the gnats get lucky" in our playtests. This suggests that luck is a fantastic buy for a would-be ace.

Originally Posted by Phantasm

FIGHT ONE

So you stuck the bounty hunter in an Oni: The Oni is barely better than a Gnat, and in many respects is worse. Its slower, less manueverable, still gets one-shotted by most missiles, and only shoots two missiles at a time, even if its slightly more durable. In my simulations* A gnat shooting a gnat hits 30% of the time, forces a death 7% of the time, and auto-destroys 23% of the time. A gnat shooting an Oni hits 38% of the time, but only damages it 9% of the time, and forces a death check 17% of the time, and auto-destroys about 12%. That's not what I expect for three times the cost.

In a beam fight, neither can hurt each other anyways, unless multiple attackers are concentrating their fire.

*which involve my specific interpretation of the rules, and that does effect things. Also, its in the atmosphere, which gives a +3 to dodge for streamlined craft

Ran a fight myself. I decided to attempt to simplify things in the Chase rules, since the sAcc from Spaceships does not equal Acc the way it does for other weapons (it's actually Acc + 18 from targeting systems and other things).

One more reason I'm using Mailanka's rules. And another reason I ran in the atmosphere, because then we have sane (ish) speeds.

Missiles are supposed to use speed as their difficulty to hit, not range. The numbers I used to hit a gnat in atmosphere were as follows:

+4 SM
+3 Missile Acc**
-1 for attacking the front of a streamlined vessel
-8 from chase bonus/half**

**that's from Mailanka's description of dogfighting rules. I'm not using the -3 dodge penalty for missiles because I'm worried they're already too lethal.

I'm not 100% sold on this method but I do think missiles should use speed, not range.

For the chase roll, mps to mph is fine as long as you're not using it for the missile dodging, because the speed bonus is relative: If you're twice as fast you get +2. There is an argument to change the rules to use basic move instead of top speed for top fights, but that only matters in atmosphere.

Your doc 100% needs the dogfight rules written out clearly though***, because we're not getting a clear procedure by mashing two books and a pyramid article together.

***like Mailanka did.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Your doc 100% needs the dogfight rules written out clearly though***, because we're not getting a clear procedure by mashing two books and a pyramid article together.

***like Mailanka did.

Oh, I agree. I'm still hammering out how things work by RAW, though, and how to make things run smoothly.