Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity

[Curmudgeon]

The first issue I have with Velocity is that the game slows down to a glacial pace if the velocities are too disparate. If you were to insist on resolving each of Flash's 500,000,000 actions first, the Batman's player is going to be waiting 13 years to declare his action (assuming you can resolve 1 action every second and don't do anything else for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). If you're not going to resolve things action by action, then Velocity isn't needed and whatever you're using for a more rapid solution is the solution you're looking for.

For Velocities where the differential is 2:1 or less, a difference of exactly 2:1 is easily resolved as 1 level of Altered Time Rate. For a ratio less than that, it seems that Initiative by Speed should be an adequate solution. Granted nobody gets an extra action in, eventually, but at GURPS resolution, it seems like much work for little gain. Taking longer with a swing action than a thrust action is perhaps more easily dealt with as a house rule that penalizes speed when swinging as opposed to thrusting, say something like "declare your attack as a swing at your usual place in Initiative, but roll for success at Speed-0.5 in the Initiative list (roll a die to resolve order if you're tied with anyone at that Speed)."

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

The problem of Altered Time Rate is that The Flash doesnt do 50 billions of actions, then the Batman throws a single Batrangue, and the Flash does another 50 billions actions in 1 second.

With Altered Time Rate, the Flash does a single action, then Batman throws a single Batrang, and the Flash does 99.999.999.999 actions afterwards.

r)

I don't think so. To my understandind all Maneuvers enabled by ATR come in a single block. This is how even one level of ATR lets you do first an All Out Attack followed by an All Out Defense and nobody gets to attack you on their Turn while your AOA is in effect. They get your AOD instead.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The issue with rapid fire weapons in a system like this is that, by its nature, you're breaking things up into fractions of a second, meaning each bullet fired should be its own action... but realistically, rapid firing a weapon and firing a weapon a single shot at a time are two very different actions. But it's not right to have someone fire a full second's worth of bullets in a single instant (if you have a foe who gets to act 40 times in a second, and you're shooting at him with a weapon that has RoF 10, he should get four actions per bullet that is fired, rather than getting 10 actions, then having a barrage of bullets come at him, and then taking his remaining 30 actions). So how do you handle it? That's the sticking point I couldn't really get past. Having the character roll once for all the bullets that second when he starts firing (like with the GURPS default) either means other characters' actions during the turn have no influence (making it function as though all the shots were fired in an instant) or they have too much influence (as the firer can't adapt to what their doing, like a real shooter - particularly one with good reflexes - could). Assessing each shot as it happens either gives the shooter too much control (they're basically shooting as though they hadn't just let loose a bullet a fraction of a second ago) or too little (you'd need to use mounting penalties based on Rcl to avoid the shooter having too much control, but those rapidly get to the point where the shooter might as well be shooting at the moon). If you've got a good solution to that, I'd love to hear it.

Someone that acts 40 times in a second (that would be... let me see... Velocity 400) would dodge the first bullet (with easy), catch up to the guy before the second bullet is fired and knock him up. As he flies away, probably the second bullet would fire too, but now with the weapon flying away from his hand.

The shooter rolls a single time, unless he's also a Superspeedster, in which case he could actually adapt to each single shot; the bullets however will be shot individually. The weapon itself would have it's own "Velocity", based on the RoF: for example, a gun with RoF 10 on full automatic, would be counted as "Velocity 100", meaning that each fire will be shoot in 0.1 seconds. If a char has V200, he can (easily) dodge the first bullet and cover the distance to the shooter in order to catch him just in time for the second bullet to get out.

Also, someone with V200 and a mere HT10 would be moving at 20×5 = 100 yards/s (roughly 100m/s), which means roughly 205miles/hour or roughly 360km/h. That's just 7.5 times slower than averages bullets themselves, and faster than Formula1 cars at top speed. If the shooter aint a Speedster himself, he simply cannot adapt - and if he is, he would be better served throwing knives.

(Now that I think about it, I probably should add Striking ST and remove Enhanced Move, since Altered Time Rate will already cover that).

Now, for normal humans (up to Velocity 15 at most), this doesnt mean much, except a Dodge penalty/bonus to hit the target; since ALL bullets will land before any single other action, the Dodge difference will be all that matters. For Speedsters, this might mean get 1, 2 or maybe 1/2 actions between bullets or some combination of that (1/2 action would mean 1 action for every 2 bullets for instance).

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I don't think so. To my understandind all Maneuvers enabled by ATR come in a single block. This is how even one level of ATR lets you do first an All Out Attack followed by an All Out Defense and nobody gets to attack you on their Turn while your AOA is in effect. They get your AOD instead.

This ^

ATR is very powerful, more so when turned into a Wildcard power. Supers 4e page 41. That is what I always use for my speedsters.

At low levels you got streel level speedsters. At high levels you get The Flash, higher still is Sonic The Hedgehog.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

The first issue I have with Velocity is that the game slows down to a glacial pace if the velocities are too disparate. If you were to insist on resolving each of Flash's 500,000,000 actions first, the Batman's player is going to be waiting 13 years to declare his action (assuming you can resolve 1 action every second and don't do anything else for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). If you're not going to resolve things action by action, then Velocity isn't needed and whatever you're using for a more rapid solution is the solution you're looking for.

For Velocities where the differential is 2:1 or less, a difference of exactly 2:1 is easily resolved as 1 level of Altered Time Rate. For a ratio less than that, it seems that Initiative by Speed should be an adequate solution. Granted nobody gets an extra action in, eventually, but at GURPS resolution, it seems like much work for little gain. Taking longer with a swing action than a thrust action is perhaps more easily dealt with as a house rule that penalizes speed when swinging as opposed to thrusting, say something like "declare your attack as a swing at your usual place in Initiative, but roll for success at Speed-0.5 in the Initiative list (roll a die to resolve order if you're tied with anyone at that Speed)."

If you have someone with Altered Time Rate 5000 the player with none will still have to wait all the 5001 actions of the speedster to play out.

The thing about that extra level of detail is that it also encompass how it becomes easier for a faster mover to hit a slower target - like for example anybody can always hit a turtle - and how it's harder for a slower mover to hit a faster target.

This new trait plays good both for insane differences as for small ones; for example, a V14 vs V12, both within human scope, would nevertheless present a significant difference when they fight, with the V12 guy suffering both -2 to his own dodge and facing a +2 higher dodge from his adversary.

I'll add Striking ST, since someone with V14 obviously punches harder than a V12 due to the speed of the impact alone.

Also, Velocites bellow 2:1 - in the human case, between 10 and 20 - means that a person CAN act faster than once a second - just not every second. At V15 for example (the normal human max), you act at 2/3 of a second - this means that every 2 second, you have 3 "turns". This cant be represented by by Altered Time Rate - and yet a skilled martial artist would be poorly served by being denied that advantage.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I don't think so. To my understandind all Maneuvers enabled by ATR come in a single block. This is how even one level of ATR lets you do first an All Out Attack followed by an All Out Defense and nobody gets to attack you on their Turn while your AOA is in effect. They get your AOD instead.

What if the first guy has ATR 5, the second 3, the third 1 and the last none?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

The problem of Altered Time Rate is that The Flash doesnt do 50 billions of actions, then the Batman throws a single Batrangue, and the Flash does another 50 billions actions in 1 second.

With Altered Time Rate, the Flash does a single action, then Batman throws a single Batrang, and the Flash does 99.999.999.999 actions afterwards.

Is that a problem? Seems kind of like how comic book super-speed actually works. It's actually how the Flash can go up against a skilled guy with gimmicked boomerang or an ice gun and they at least get to get one lick in.

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

What if the first guy has ATR 5, the second 3, the third 1 and the last none?

A = 5
B = 3
C = 1
D = 0

Assuming that is also the initiative order.

then the order is:

A,B,C,A,B,A,B,A,A,A,B,C,D

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Someone that acts 40 times in a second (that would be... let me see... Velocity 400) would dodge the first bullet (with easy), catch up to the guy before the second bullet is fired and knock him up. As he flies away, probably the second bullet would fire too, but now with the weapon flying away from his hand.

If he starts 20 yards away, sure. But guns can be used from much further away than 20 yards. Someone who is 40x faster than a normal human would move at a rate of 200 yards per second, which is impressive... but there's only 0.1 seconds between bullets.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

The shooter rolls a single time, unless he's also a Superspeedster, in which case he could actually adapt to each single shot; the bullets however will be shot individually.

Due to the way things are constructed here, a normal V10 character who happens to be next in the initiative order can easily get an action before more than one or two bullets have been fired. How do you handle that? It's not realistic that such a normal character would be able to cover a full 5 yards (his Move) and dive behind cover after only a single bullet has been fired. Also, if a target does move, does the shooter have the option of tracking them, or are they stuck shooting where the target used to be? In the latter case, a normal human can get out of the way of the bulk of a burst of fire simply by taking a Step, if he or she is lucky enough to be right behind the shooter in the initiative order.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

If a char has V200, he can (easily) dodge the first bullet and cover the distance to the shooter in order to catch him just in time for the second bullet to get out.

If the shooter's only 10 yards away, sure.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

What if the first guy has ATR 5, the second 3, the third 1 and the last none?

They all take their complete number of Maneuvers in inititiative order.

You start choosing Maneuvers when your turn begins. Then you play out the effects of those Maneuvers in one block and you remain in the status (AoA, AoD, etc) of your last maneuver until your next Turn begins with another round of Maneuver choices.

After you've played out the effects of your last Maneuver the Turn of the next player in the initiative order begins and so on.

If you want to break up the effects of ATR to deny the possessor one of its' most important benefits......well, it's _your_ game but you're way out in House Rules land.