At Close Quarters

[richardtalbotuk]

A long time ago, BITS produced a supplement called At Close Quarters, an extension of the Traveller combat system and in the flavour of Mayday.

This system was really for indoor skirmishes and combats involving character level figures or small squads.

Has anyone used this supplement much and if so what were your thoughts on it?

 

[mike wightman]

Hi Richard, and welcome aboard.

AQC is my skirmish system of choice for a couple of reasons.

First, it uses a similar action points system to Snapshot and Azhanti High Lightning.

Second, it uses the T4 weapons/armour/damage resolution system, which is one of my favourites.

 

[daltoncalford]

Our group uses it extensively.
It is the basis for most non-abstract combat for about 6 Traveller groups I know of.
The referee's initially played Traveller only using ACQ as I was the one who taught them how to play.
This all started a few months ago and the details of how it all came about is detailed in the T5 section of this forum.

We loved it since we could use whatever task mechanic we wanted (and we ended up using our own).

It is fast to learn and can be easily used with miniatures (or pennies with pictures of guys taped to them...)

best regards

Dalton

 

[robject]

Hmm, I suppose I'm going to have to go and fetch meself a copy of it now.

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by robject:
Hmm, I suppose I'm going to have to go and fetch meself a copy of it now.

I would recommend all of their products except the starship combat.

The starship combat system is based upon full thrust and it does not play well in a role-playing game, although for standalone miniature combat, it is good.

best regards

Dalton

 

[mike wightman]

Dalton, the Power Projection rules can be adapted to PC scale combat easy enough, and they seem to work well.

It's just a matter of re-scaling things.

 

[daltoncalford]

Hi Sigg,

What I meant is that they are a good combat system when one player is controlling one or more ships to a side, and I guess for a single player, roll-playing a squadron leader position, they are good.

When you may have a single ship, with multiple players, they have a tendency to make one player who is actually playing and a group of players who are on the sidelines and watch.

That is why I said that they were not the best for role-playing.

Our playgroup has both PP:Fleet and PP:Escort and we have played a few games with them. They feel like the old agents of gaming B5 (same rules, different future) which we used to play alot of. Now, all of our full thrust rules have joined the star fleet battles and classic mechwarrior in gathering dust in the basement.

We tried battlefleet gothic, but the game became predictable, so we started playing "A CALL TO ARMS" from mongoose (allows us to use our old mini's)

When our group started roleplaying traveller, none of the systems truely appealed, so we created our own that is now our new in-house standard for both role-playing and gaming.

best regards

Dalton

 

[mike wightman]

Ahh, I understand now, and agree.

For a role playing game the ship combat has to give everyone something to do or players will be left bored.

T20 has some good rules for involving most of the crew, these could be adapted across.

Here are some quotes from the discussion about ship combat for CT+:

How about we come at this from the rpg direction.

What do we want each character on board the ship to do during ship combat?
What tasks will they have, how difficult will they be etc.?

- Sigg Oddra

pilot: task system checks for maneuver (in range bands). transit to jump point, evade, withdraw, close distance (in range bands), successful use of agility. modified by skill, available ship agility.

navigator: task system checks for detection, evasion of detection. modified by skill, sensor sizes, enemy ship sizes, own ship size, distances (in range bands).

gunner: task system checks for target lock and weapon strikes. modified by skill, weapons factors, distance (in range bands), enemy ship sizes.

engineer: ? task system checks for maneuver overloading, switchover times from maneuver to jump, extra energy available for laser shots, engineering space damage control and restoration. modified by skill, tech level of plant.

you know, keeping this at a player character's point of view would enable a mostly verbal system. the problem might be if someone wants to know how wide a range-band is.

- flykiller

 

[daltoncalford]

Hi Sig,

We use alot of the same tasks you do, but, we (as referee's) insist that the players write down their task for this turn and that all players reveal at the same time.

This puts another level of tension in the game. Each player is only allowed one task roll per turn. This is further limited by the rating of the ships computer.

The captain gets to decide whose task gets to be used when there is a limit, but, he does not know which task the player has chosen.

To make it more clear. There are about 7 different maneuver tasks, all requiring different preparation and having slightly different results.

The captain says "Close with target vessel, full evasive"
The player decides, which maneuver task to use, and the captain, after seeing the vargr coursair close from his port side, decides to not even use the task the helmsman had chosen, instead deciding to give the task to the gunnery officer. The gunnery officer, thinking that he would not be needing to fire this turn (due to the captains last statement) started a pulse laser recharge cycle so that in the next turn or so, he would be ready....

This means that before a battle commences, the players have to have an agreed upon behaivour or they are going to make alot of mistakes.

This leads to alot of role-playing. The movement system being all relative to one another (range bands on steroids) makes it very fast and edge of your seat.

best regards

Dalton

 

[mike wightman]

Sounds like a pretty good way to do things.

How long are your ship combat rounds Dalton?

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Sounds like a pretty good way to do things.

How long are your ship combat rounds Dalton?

Depends upon the scale.

In dogfight scale, every round is 5 seconds.
In close engagement scale, every round is 5 minutes
In far engagement scale every round is 10 Minutes
In contact scale, every round is one hour.

Different tasks are available depending upon the scale. Each scale is a different feel for the game although the mechanics are all the same.

John says he is working on 'task cards' so that the players just select the card from their box of options, but, it has been a few weeks so I don't expect anything.

best regards

Dalton

 

[mike wightman]

Changing the timescale depending on the phase of the engagement has been something I've been advocating for a while now.

I'm glad to see someone else does it.

Could you let us know how the task cards work out please.

Do you mind if I quote some of this on the CT+ ship combat thread?

Or better yet, post something about this yourself over there

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Changing the timescale depending on the phase of the engagement has been something I've been advocating for a while now.

I'm glad to see someone else does it.

Could you let us know how the task cards work out please.

Do you mind if I quote some of this on the CT+ ship combat thread?

Or better yet, post something about this yourself over there

If you like the ideas, go ahead and quote me. I am on these forums to share and promote the game.

Most of my stuff is very custom and I am starting to have difficulty to keep calling it Traveller.

best regards

Dalton

 

[daltoncalford]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:

Do you mind if I quote some of this on the CT+ ship combat thread?

Or better yet, post something about this yourself over there

Do you have a link to the thread?

best regards

Dalton

 

[robject]

Thank you for sharing your stuff, Dalton. As usual, your solutions are reasonable and efficient. I really like the idea of writing their one task down, and executing them all simultaneously.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Dalton:
Do you have a link to the thread?

Here it is.

 

[Berg]

Task Cards for combat...
Could be really interesting.
I think this should be ellaborated further on a new thread.

Tom