CT+ ship combat

[flykiller]

Not a bad idea. But it doesn't even have to be based on (or wait for) deckplans. Each ship design, included or home built should have it's own damage table included in the writeup.

(here comes the can of worms) 'k, how far you want to go with that? you'll need a way of determining what is on the exterior of a ship so you can determine what is exposed to laser fire. then you have to decide if the exterior components permanently shield the interior components, or can they be ablated off and leave the interior exposed. and how do you line up the interior components with the exterior holes? the best way to do this is deckplans, but then you're at a level of difficulty that may not be acceptable. you then have to consider aspect - what portion of the ship is oriented to the enemy, where are the weapons turrets, what happens if you turn tail and run (and do you have to turn tail?). if you shoot the ship nose-on, can there be any damage to engineering? where is engineering anyway?

it all gets kind of hairy.

 

[Berg]

This level of detail may or may not be needed for a "mayday" system, but for abstract maybe not.
Highguardish Tables perhaps.

Tom

 

[far-trader]

That's why I'm saying, less than clearly, that it doesn't need deckplans for it. Just a simple percentage breakdown of components is all I'd want. And as just a basic d6 mechanic table, probably d6 x d6. Round things up to 3% increments should be close enough, the extra spaces could be for continuing damage (roll again for area) or such. The table could be ordered the same for all designs to make it more intuitive. Dead simple and worlds better than the basic tables of old.

The basic table would break it down by systems and subsystems. Something like this off the top of my head (looks familiar):

Engineering - Maneuver, Jump, Power, Crew
Fuel Spaces
Bridges - Crew, Computer (call it whatever you need to)
Weapons - Turret, Bay, Spinal, Crew
Screens - Meson, Damper, Globe, Crew
Quarters - Life Support, Crew
Cargo Holds
Hangers/Launch Tubes - Craft, Crew

 

[far-trader]

OK, some thought and some time, let's see what's wrong with this for damage tracking:

Scout/Courier (book 2)

Begin with a breakdown of the ship by percentages. Being a 100ton ship that's just the straight tonnages. Divide the percentage by 3 for the number of damage boxes (round down, minimum 1 box). So:

1 Jump Drive 10%/3 = 3 boxes
2 Maneuver Drive 1%/3 = 1 box
3 Power Plant 4%/3 = 1 box
4 Fuel 40%/3 = 13 boxes
5 Bridge 20%/3 = 6 boxes
6 Computer 1%/3 = 1 box
7 Quarters 16%/3 = 5 boxes
8 Turret 1%/3 = 1 box
9 Air/Raft 4%/3 = 1 box
A Cargo Hold 3%/3 = 1 box

That leaves 3 boxes for our Criticals or whatever. There should always be some boxes left for criticals.

B Critical = 3 boxes

Now arrange the numbers/letters in the standard d6 x d6 matrix:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 1 1 1 2 3 4

2 4 4 4 4 4 4

3 4 4 4 4 4 4

4 5 5 5 5 5 5

5 6 7 7 7 7 7

6 8 9 A B B B</pre>[/QUOTE]The arrangement doesn't matter, the odds are the same for any intersection.

Now any time a hit is taken just roll a d6 x d6 and mark off the square. Once all the squares of a single alpha/numeric are marked off that component is out of action. Otherwise it functions normally. Fuel hits only lose fuel if total tankage is lost. Power plants only stop feeding energy if they are taken out. Lifesupport is only lost if all the Quarters are destroyed. And so on.

Criticals could be a number of things. Roll for two damage (but not rolling again if one or both are critical). Mark off all the critical boxes and the ship is destroyed.

Oh, crew hits. Just make a task check to avoid damage if you are in a section hit maybe. Kinda like a saving throw Bonus for personal armor?

Just bouncing an idea here

 

[Berg]

I like it so far. Same chart style for all ships as part of the right-up. 1/1 and 6/6 for crits could make it so they are instantly recognizable (come on baby! snake-eyes or boxcars )

Tom

 

[flykiller]

Now any time a hit is taken just roll a d6 x d6 and mark off the square.

along the lines of what I do. do you intend to use a 6x6 table for 100 dton scouts and 4000 dton whatevers? this would make weapons much more effective against larger targets (or conversely less effective against smaller targets). is that what you intend?

 

[far-trader]

That was what I was hoping to do, same table for all ships, but another quick run up of a slightly larger ship has pointed out some problems.

The weapon vs size thing was one thing (that I have long disliked) that I had forgotten about until doing up the 6 x6 for a Mercenary Cruiser. So yes, I am less liking the idea already

The other thing that came up was not enough boxes if one were to split the weapons into seperate areas. That could be modelled as all eight turrets relying on the same central targetting computer/fire director I suppose. But it would be a different system in that regard.

The rest of it doesn't seem too bad but how to fix the issue of a single turret doing the same kind of damage to a 100ton ship as a 4000ton ship is a major hanging point.

Perhaps to black out a box could be made to require 3 strikes (one each diagonal and then black out). Turret weapons are good for a single strike, bay weapons are good for two strikes and spinal weapons are good for three strikes. Or something along those lines. I kind of like that. Nuclear missiles could be good for an extra strike. Hmmm...

 

[far-trader]

OK, some thought and some time, let's see what's wrong with this for damage tracking:

Mercenary Cruiser (book 2) (corrected)

Begin with a breakdown of the ship by percentages. Being a 100ton ship that's just the straight tonnages. Divide the percentage by 3 for the number of damage boxes (round down, minimum 1 box). So:

1 Jump Drive 8.125%/3 = 2 boxes
2 Maneuver Drive 2.875%/3 = 1 box
3 Power Plant 4.625%/3 = 1 box
4 Fuel 37.25%/3 = 12 boxes
5 Bridge 2.5%/3 = 1 box
6 Computer 0.625%/3 = 1 box
7 Quarters 12.5%/3 = 4 boxes
8 Turrets x8 1%/3 = 1 box
9 Air/Raft 0.5%/3 = 1 box
A Cargo Hold 10%/3 = 3 boxes
B Modular Cutters x2 12.5%/3 = 4 boxes (2 boxes each)
C Modules x2 7.5%/3 = 2 boxes (1 box each)


That again leaves 3 boxes for our Criticals or whatever.

D Critical = 3 boxes

Now arrange the numbers/letters in the standard d6 x d6 matrix:

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 1 1 2 3 4 4

2 4 4 4 4 4 4

3 4 4 4 4 5 6

4 7 7 7 7 8 9

5 A A A B B B

6 B C C D D D</pre>[/QUOTE]The arrangement doesn't matter, the odds are the same for any intersection.

Comparing this to the Scout/Courier a couple things stand out. First was the weapons issue mentioned in my post above this one. The second is the ability of the Scout to take a lot more Bridge abuse than the Cruiser. Seems counter-intuitive.

Thoughts?

Is it worth looking at making this work or is it too problematic and should just be put down to a learning exercise?

 

[flykiller]

The rest of it doesn't seem too bad but how to fix the issue of a single turret doing the same kind of damage to a 100ton ship as a 4000ton ship is a major hanging point.

if you find it acceptable you can simply add more d6d6 matrix tables.

if a d6d6 matrix is used to describe the damage done by a factor 1 weapon against a scout ship, that means that about 2.7 dtons of damage is done for each hit. if this absolute damage is retained as a base then two such tables will handle a 200 dton ship. here the matrix is [2,6,6] - roll d6 for odd or even, then d6, then d6. three such tables will handle a 400 dton ship (at 3.7 dtons per hit, close enough). here the matrix is [3,6,6] - roll d6 for 1-2 or 3-4 or 5-6, then d6, then d6. and so on. a 1000 dton ship can be handled with a [2,6,6,6] matrix - a bit extensive, but hey, a 1000 dton ship is worth it.

using an absolute damage system allows you to scale weapons and ship sizes and relative damages very accurately. it also allows you to say that factor 2 damages two squares, etc. a scout ship may fold up on receiving a factor 1 hit, whereas a 2000 dton ship may shrug off a factor 4 hit. and that's the way it should be.

ships with pregenerated damage charts can be supplied to casual gamers. gearheads can chart their own to their heart's content.

 

[flykiller]

using the above also allows a dirt-simple implementation of armor. each square must be hit by a certain number of weapons factors per armor unit before the armor is eventually penetrated and damage accrues. thus, a factor 1 weapon can ping all day long on a large armored ship and might not get anywhere until it hits the same areas twice. meanwhile a factor 9 weapon might hit an armored scout and take off half the bow. which also is the way it should be.

 

[far-trader]

That sounds very good to me. One thing I've been meaning to hunt up in all this is the scale of the ships. Is the general consensus for a small ship universe (max 5Kton hulls), small ship plus universe (max 25Kton hulls iirc, from the expanded book 2 hull rules), or a large ship universe (1Mton hulls and more)?

The page of damage grids could get pretty big if we tried to do a Tigress

Or would it work to just use extra hash marks in place of some of the extra tables? A 2/6/6 ship (200tons) would use a 6 x 6 table but require 2 lines per box to fill it in. A 3/6/6 ship (400tons) would use a 6 x 6 table but require 3 lines per box to fill it in. And so on.

 

[flykiller]

The page of damage grids could get pretty big if we tried to do a Tigress

the best way to handle the larger ships is to notice that virtually all of them use factor 9 exclusively, thus the absolute damage base unit can be scaled up accordingly. once you get to big spinal mounts the factor 9's become sideshows and the absolute damage base unit goes up greatly again.

 

[mike wightman]

I like this matrix idea.

Could you link the extra matrix blocks to the number of compartments the ship is constructed with?

As for ship scale, once you get much above 2kt the big boys are throwing bay weapons at each other, so things can rescale for those, and for the spinal mount monsters things can scale up again.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by flykiller:
using the above also allows a dirt-simple implementation of armor. each square must be hit by a certain number of weapons factors per armor unit before the armor is eventually penetrated and damage accrues. thus, a factor 1 weapon can ping all day long on a large armored ship and might not get anywhere until it hits the same areas twice. meanwhile a factor 9 weapon might hit an armored scout and take off half the bow. which also is the way it should be.

I like this idea too

 

[Piper]

Sorry for intruding, but here's a couple of kibbitzes you might chew on:

Have you considered stacking the matrices deeper than 6 rows? That way, instead of the die roll giving you a row number, it gives you a number of rows to count down, bypassing destroyed systems and allowing a gradual deepening of damage to occur.
The effect would be similar to Starfire (actually, I think their "Primary Beam" works that way).

Similarly, if you end up with a hex-based movement system, you might tie the column indexing roll to the ship facing so that fire coming in over the bow hexside is biased towards certain columns of the damage matrix.

Creating the matrix based on volume is good, but you might consider having different systems handle damage differently. For example, if a laser does 3 "tons" of damage to a structure, it might do 10 "tons" of damage to a fuel tank per hit. This would also allow differences between civilian and military ships where mil-spec ships would be tougher, i.e. having more boxes for an equal fuel tankage or for life support.

Tuppence spent. Carry on with the good works, gentlemen.

 

[flykiller]

instead of the die roll giving you a row number, it gives you a number of rows to count down, bypassing destroyed systems

sorry, don't quite get this. but anyway, since a random weapon hit may strike a previously engaged area then areas already destroyed shouldn't be bypassed. the matrix system isn't a damage counter, it's a hit locator.

might tie the column indexing roll to the ship facing so that fire coming in over the bow hexside is biased towards certain columns of the damage matrix.

(smile) yes, aspects.

one can set up a matrix hit table not only for the ship as a whole, but also one for each of its various aspects. this introduces ship tactics, weapons orientation, and ship layout design, all easily implemented.

Creating the matrix based on volume is good, but you might consider having different systems handle damage differently.

the tweaking is limitless. for example, pulse lasers can do three squares of damage. etc.

 

[flykiller]

Could you link the extra matrix blocks to the number of compartments the ship is constructed with?

sure. you can specify individual staterooms if you want. "hey, remember all that money you had in your stateoom? it's gone."

 

[mike wightman]

I was thinking of something that came up on another thread with regards to modelling the greater damage capacity of navy ships due to their armour and compartmentalisation.

This one in fact

 

[Piper]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />instead of the die roll giving you a row number, it gives you a number of rows to count down, bypassing destroyed systems

sorry, don't quite get this.</font>[/QUOTE]This link describes the kind of thing I was suggesting. Look about 2/3 of the way down the page under "Damage Allocation".
Combining your hit location chart and ship damage sheet might be a useful simplification.

Edit (clarification): You can avoid the hex paper issue by using columns and rows as described here earlier; just make the number of rows greater.

 

[flykiller]

I was thinking of something that came up on another thread with regards to modelling the greater damage capacity of navy ships due to their armour and compartmentalisation.

the system presented here assumes all armor is external. the way I do it is I first determine all the external components. the remainder are internal, not affected by surface fire until the external components above them are destroyed. hadn't thought about internal armor. it can be simulated by assuming a half-value armor factor over internal compoents that must also be penetrated, after the overlaying externals are destroyed, before damage to internals can accrue.

compartmentalization can be simulated by specifying specific areas in any given zone. engineering for example could be divided into (say) jump drive, starboard maneuver drive, port maneuver drive, forward power plant, aft power plant, and fuel purifier. this will have no bearing on external hits but will have an effect on internal explosions and continuing damage such as fire and venting (air or fuel).