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CT+ Personal Combat

So its 8+ to hit base, +/- DMs? Excellent!

Penetration Values are redundant to having a good Armor Rating and Standardized Structural Rating for materials. I like the 1 AR per TL (with a Maximum of 15). Materials like Superdense and such can be a DM.

Also a division of Hits into Kill/Stun damage would serve well. Stun takes minutes of rest to recover, and if a stat goes to 0 from stun damage, the character is out. I suggest a basic 3:1 damage ratio between Stun and Kill damage for most weapons.

A Hull Surface Location Diagram like in TNE would be nice, but a simpler 2-12 version.
 
No, no, no, Baron, now you're going to push poor robject back over the brink I am trying to pull hiim back from! ;) Don't add new thought to the discussion! Aaaaarrrgggghhhhh!
 
At this point, I think I understand the differences.

MT is scalable. The same combat system was used for personal combat and vehicle combat, and mixed personal-vehicle combat. What's more, the same combat system could be applied to spacecraft combat, without bolting on new rules. Aramis does just that.

It's cool. How much damage does a squadron of FGMP jump troops do to your A2? Now you know. And in no time at all, by just knowing pen, damage, and armor level, you can tell every time. It's brilliant.

ACQ, on the other hand, requires no division, no multiplication, less thought, more instinct, and therefore it's fast. It's crafted for personal combat. It's great for adventurers getting into scraps with others. There's no pen number, either -- just damage and armor. It's simpler, and has a narrower focus. It doesn't scale as well, but I'd say most combat situations don't need it: they just need to be fast.

Most combat will be people vs people, or craft vs craft, with only a small (and probably significant) percentage between people and craft. Therefore, the added complexity in the MT system is sort of needless for most combat, like driving to your neighbor's house instead of just walking twenty feet, or fifty feet.

But it's integral. You only need one, and it's seamless.

So there you go. Well, that's the way I see it, anyhow. If MT were easier and quicker and didn't involve multiplication and division I'd like it better... in fact, it would probably look like ACQ... maybe. Or not.
 
At Close Quarters is a combat system produced by British Isles Traveller Support in the late 90s, to replace T4's personal combat system I believe.
 
You have me down for striker, actually I just liked the way Mr Employee streamlined the Pen and Damage with a
file_28.gif
chart. One chart: simple.

The other charts for weapons are fine, I was talking about the cross reference like in snapshot for each weapon vs. each armor. A different result for each as oppossed to a method (task) to resolve it.

This ACQ always sounded interesting, but never seen it. The description sounds good.

I like streamlined so whichever one you guys figure delivers that is OK by me


Don't worry Robject, with your effort and Ref'ing we've come along way. We should have examples for comparison and maybe a playtest.... :D

Tom
 
Yes robject - do not despair!!

We have different views, but the most encouraging thing is that of all the people who've contributed so far, nobody is being dogmatic or threatening to throw the rattle out of the pram. People seem to genuinely want to find a solution. Look at the tasks thread - we're homing in on a system.

My current combat views are I prefer MT and will try and make a case for it (or a simplified variant) that can appeal to all. However I see merits in Sigg's proposition of T20 damage (as opposed to the T4 style which looks broken) and in Employee's system (with an adjustment that penetration and armour affect damage not the chances of hitting because of high penetration weapons never missing).

I have my views but am prepared to be won over.

What we need are some samples of actual instances. We need a couple of examples that we feel will give a picture of what will happen.

How about two characters Joe Average and Mike the Marksmen (with suitable dex and skills), with two/three weapons Auto Pistol, Gauss Rifle(, Laser Rifle), against no armour, cloth+reflec, battle dress and at short and long range.

That does seem to have grown a bit to 36 instances. Maybe that's too many but it would give a decent picture of what might result.

I will happily vote for any system that provides sensible results across the range of cases. And I'll also volunteer to do the MT sample if this is regarded as a good idea.
 
A slightly different subject so a different post (I'll make 1000 yet!
)

On the tables front, as has been mentioned a couple of times above, tables are fine if they are used whilst writing out the character sheet or by the referee preparing the session. We want to avoid table lookup in combat itself.

There's also been issues about MT's use of division in combat. It's my feeling that this is due to a misjudged attempt to simplify and end up over complicating.

In particular MT simplifies range factors by giving penetration and attenuation. An autopistol has Pen/Atten of 2/2 which means base penetration is 2 and for every 2 ranges beyond short penetration is halved. So we can represent it all in 2 values, how much simpler can you get :D

In reality the simpler approach is to have space on the character sheet for penetration for each range and do the calculation once on purchasing the weapon.

This would result in Close, Short and Medium having penetration of 2, Long and Very Long having penetration of 1, Distant and beyond having 0.

There is another division in calculating damage when considering penetration against armour. If that is a major problem, we can change it - maybe reduce dice of damage in a similar way to T20? But halving and dividing by 10 isn't really so bad to my mind, especially if we're actually rolling the damage dice and applying to characteristics.
 
Zak,

I like MT's multitasker approach, and the mechanic seems viable, though the bar may be high.

I'm setting a CT+ "alpha" phase, with the simpler combat system loaded. That way, if we decide upon the MT system instead, we can have a "beta" release.
 
"multitasker approach"? What do you mean by that, robject?

Zakrol, it makes sense to reduce penetration over distance. I don't think you need to reduce damage, though, if your "penetration v armor" reduces your damage already. Especially as the reason for reduced penetration is the same reason you would obtain less damage: kinetic energy drop-off.
 
ACQ is dead-tree only. I believe that Warehouse 23 stocks BITS books in the States.

If we were to use something like ACQ would we be using both types of penguin?
 
Originally posted by Fritz88:

Zakrol, it makes sense to reduce penetration over distance. I don't think you need to reduce damage, though, if your "penetration v armor" reduces your damage already. Especially as the reason for reduced penetration is the same reason you would obtain less damage: kinetic energy drop-off.
Click to expand...
It's all part of the same process and there is only one damage reduction. The loss of penetration over longer range can reduce it beyond a threshold that will cause the 'penetration v armour' to kick in at a lower damage level.
 
Fritz, I misused 'multitask' to mean it serves several purposes, kills two birds with one stone. It handles personal combat, but also handles every other kind of combat mix as well. And it's all due to separating pen from dmg.
 
Here's a bit more explanation.

First, a selection of the weapons.
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">
body pistol 3d
auto pistol 3d
revolver 3d
snub pistol - HEAP 4d ap
- HE 4d eb
laser pistol 3d

carbine 3d
smg 3d
laser carbine 4d

rifle 3d
shotgun 4d
autorifle 3d
assault rifle 3d
ACR - DS 3d - ap
- HE 4d - eb
Gauss Rifle 4d - ap
Accelerator Rifle 3d
laser rifle 5d
PGMP12 10d

ap = armour piercing (AR is halved round down)
eb = explosive burst</pre>[/QUOTE]And now an armour selection:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">jack (1)
mesh (2)
cloth 5
CEV 6
combat armour 10
ablat 1[6]

() = AR is halved vs modern firearms
[] = AR applies vs lasers only</pre>[/QUOTE]
 
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