High Guarding again
- Thread starter Ulsyus
- Start date
Yes, but none of these reasons are story reasons. These are simulation reasons, or wargame reasons. To phrase that question differently, how does it shape the narrative to tell more entertaining stories for the crew? Maybe the MDrive "field" obviates the need for any defense of micrometeorites because they just disintegrate -- so the players can get to the story. Maybe simulating everything that could be slows the story to the point that it isn't entertaining for the players.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
My crew are experienced SFB guys so actual movement, allocation, and inertia vector fights that say we’re not in Kansas anymore have value.
YUMV, and more to the point the entertainment interests of the table.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The hulls of Traveller starships have the equivalent armour protection of a modern tank, armoured warships even greater.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
For me anything that can create hard choices and player agency helps, but not to the point of say rolling for every routine action.
So deflectors eliminate the worry of micrometeorites most of the time, so no rolls no worries and you have a ready explanation for players that ask. But if the plot requires some drama or slowdown there can be excessive rocks beyond safety parameters and you got the option.
The topic came up for me when figuring out detection of cold small rocks at x range and how much lead time ships had to evade said rocks and thus an upper safe speed limit for delta vee.
Better sensors or more G rating means less time and higher safe delta veer. Higher densities like an uncharted meteor shower, ice ring or deliberately placed rocks around a pirate base means go slow or run risks.
For people running narrative movements it probably wouldn’t be conceived of, but in both move styles rocks shouldn’t be an issue until they need to be.
Side note, Auto Evade to handle rock avoidance is a key program to be running if one is inclined to tracking computer programs. I’d even put it in the Mongoose system.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Yes and according to the boom table hits by our missiles get into battleship shell joules. Smaller objects will hit as hard at higher speeds.
Vast majority of time space is empty until we get into C fraction speeds so that alone makes it moot most of the time. But, not all the time.
It’s an entertainment choice, I like space is hard stuff.
Half of my brain feels like it's read of this somewhere in Traveller materiel while the other half hasn't read about this anywhere in Traveller, and both halves are somewhat worried about this.
I decided that a ships hull is robust enough to shrug off some/most of this. An incident of this nature could be rolled as a possible event, the GM might be thinking the Players are bored and need a little excitement, or the ship goes to/ends up somewhere where the possibility for an incident is a lot higher, like a designated Red Zone in an old Battle location or an area of space where something collided with something else and created a 'thick' cloud of debris.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 5K
Yes, you get to use your full skill in LBB2, if you have a big computer and a lot of software. Your standard Scout or Free Trader, not so much...
In LBB5 you always get your skill/2 (with 1 already baked into the tables), regardless of computer or software.
Advantage LBB5.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 5K
In MT the hulls need a minimum armor 40 just because of this. You can make less armored ships (IIRC armor 8) on modules not thought to land (moslty, on non-rehusable boosters, and so on)
Even so, you have better control on what players do, and it's more cinematic, and so, more rewarding as RPG experience.
Only for Ship's Tactics and Pilot, other skills being irrelevant, while in LBB2, computer allowing, Gunnery may also affect, and Engineering (or Mechanical, or Electronics) may affect regardless your computer, just to give you some examples.
What uses more the pilot skill? beign able to use it (at full or recuded rate, depending on your software) to avoid damge, or by giving you the +(skill-1)/2 to your agility?
Even the 1bis computer of your scout (capacity 4 allows youe for Maneyver/evasion 5 (2 slots), Target and gunner interact (1 slot each), allowing you full use of your pilot and gunnery skill
I guess we don't play in the same style (and both are equally respectable). I prefer, in RPG, to calculate the vectors, decide wich software to use to be more aggfresive (gunner interact, predict, etc) or defensive (maneuver/evasion, ECM, etc), knowing wich character uses each weapon, or makes damage control, etc... In general, giving the characters, not the ship, the protagonism.
IMHO (and yours is as bit as repectable as mine if you disagree), using HG for RPG is like using the streamed LBB4 table for ground combat, using your team as a fire team or squad, depending on numbers. Would anyone do it?
And that does not mean they are useless, just they are for other kind of game, not for RPG (as said, IMHO)
That's what I was after! It doesn't fix everything, but some sort of canonical reference is better than none.
Yes but... There'd still be the issue of having to regularly patch up or repair damage to armour from strikes occurring at rather high velocities. This might be an option before screens of some sort were available, though after the availability of gravitic manipulation there'd surely be some clear alternatives using this?
I suppose this might have to stay an IMTU issue. But what you found AnotherDilbert is great nonetheless.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 5K
You do exactly the same thing, minus the vector movement. Pilots evade, gunners shoot...
OK, it's a house rule, but you can extend the same system to gunners and engineers. Then you have the same to hit rolls, by the same characters, with the same skills, as LBB2.
Using your skill as a negative DM to hit or using your skill as a negative DM to hit? Isn't that the same?
Sure, if you find MCr 7 between the couch cushions... The standard package for a m/1 includes none of them.
You can write it yourself, only needing Computer-3 and Pilot-6...
You still do not have the capability of say Launch, Return Fire, ECM, Anti-Missile, or Multi-target. Better not be any missiles in that fight...
Sure, but that is just a preference for detailed over fast. In both systems you have the same characters doing the exact same thing with the same hardware.
That is not a fair comparison. In both LBB2 and LBB5 you have the same characters doing the same rolls, at least for small ships. For large ships LBB2 degenerates into an unplayable mess, unlike LBB5.
A more resonable comparison is LBB1 combat vs. Striker combat. Striker is more streamlined, but basically the same characters rolling the same to hit rolls, but without all the pages and pages of tables.
And yes, I prefer faster Striker rules over the silly LBB1 rules.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Let's pull a concrete (touchstone) example of space combat portrayal that we can ALL agree on and admit to a passing familiarity with.
NCC-1701 U.S.S. Enterprise
I'm referring to original series (Kirk, Spock, McCoy era).
Think back ... or better yet, rewatch ... any of the episodes where the Enterprise "fights" with other ships in space.
- The Corbomite Maneuver
- Balance of Terror
- The Doomsday Machine
- The Changeling
- Journey to Babel
- The Ultimate Computer
- Elaan of Troyius
- The Enterprise Incident
- The Tholian Web
How many of those episodes showed you a "view of the battle space" in a fashion comparable to a tactical wargaming hex map while the battle was underway?
Spoiler:
Think about how ship-to-ship combat was portrayed in original series Star Trek.
The "drama" was bridge oriented, looking at the main viewing screen ... rather than done using a giant sandtable (let alone 3D hologram) moving the respective participants around on showing their relative positions in space.
Here's a Tactical Analysis video on youtube breaking down the sequence of events in Balance of Terror.
Notably, the only maps shown during this episode of Star Trek (Balance of Terror) are basically strategic (what we Traveller types would call a subsector map), rather than tactical.
However, in the Tactical Analysis video on youtube, the animations done ARE of the "local tactical space" variety, giving you that wargaming tabletop feel in the analysis.
Now, compare and contrast the "dramatic effect" of watching the actual Star Trek episode, where the relative positions of both ships are substantially abstracted and irrelevant to the unfolding plot (let alone the drama!), compared to the "feeling" of seeing the animations of the two ships maneuvering around in 3D space in the tactical analysis video on youtube.
My point being that the "theater of the mind" abstraction factor of the LBB5.80 combat system allows for dramatically superior gameplay than the "sandtable wargaming" vector combat factor of the LBB2.77/81 combat system. The LBB5.80 structure is more interested in getting at RESULTS (quickly!) rather than in any kind of (endless) SETUP for engagement (or breakaway).
When combat ranges are measured in fractions of a light-second, relative positions between craft become "less important" factors ... because what you're doing is more of a sniper battle than a knife fight. All that matters is the "reach out and touch you" aspect, rather than the "me HERE, you THERE" determination(s) ... especially when there's limited/no "terrain" of consequence to worry about.
Just gonna disagree here.
Mind, I did not watch the YouTube videos, and it's been awhile since I've see the BoT episode.
Nonetheless, the drama from the BoT episode came from several points.
First, not necessarily in chronological order, the cloak, but, more so, the attack from cloak. Ship fades in, spits out a plasma torpedo, ship fades out and the Enterprise is running for its life.
Next, we have the Enterprise firing blindly trying to hit the target. "Fire a wide pattern", hoping to hit something, anything.
Then, we have the Romulan mine. SURPRISE! HOLY [CLANG/HORN/BEEP/WHiSTLE]! FIRE POINT BLANK RAN...aaiiee! /cue searing light effect.
Then, they finally do connect with the Romulan ship, and the Romulan commander tosses out debris and his dead, dear friend out the hatch. Hoping to distract the Enterprise.
And lets not forget the Run Silent phase when Spock (that traitorous, evil Spock) reveals their location by misclicking the mouse because of bad Federation UX.
Finally, Kirk managed to outsmart the Romulan, drops i-beams on the bridge crew, and Sarek scuttles the ship.
Now, not quite sure how B5 captures, well, any of that. No sensors, no stealth, no maneuver, no uncertainty. B5 is, mostly, predetermined before the fight starts. It's all probability after that. The red coats and blue coats line up, put muzzles to each other's faces at 50 meters, and pull the trigger.
Having played a lot (and I mean A LOT) of SFB back in the day, it was chock full of Theater of the Mind gameplay. Watching the ships swoop in, seeing the attack patterns develop, seeing the drones go out, watching how it limits the maneuver of the target ship, the shout out load glee as the 4 narrow salvoed overload photons strike the enemy ship followed by the utter despair as the opponent mentions "one box left on that shield" "WTH do you mean one box left!? You should be a smoldering wreck!" Well, there went THAT plan...uh...is that a tractor beam!?
There were a lot of "Phasers? You got 'em, I have one bank fully recharged!" "Scotty, you earned your pay for the week." in SFB. Lucky hits that can turn the day.
B5 doesn't, to me, really capture any of that. B5 doesn't even capture that scene in Master and Commander when the ships snuggle up next to each other and tear into each other with cannon, flintlocks, swords and thrown grappling hooks.
Maybe you play B5 different.
Sure, but if the gunner has skill 4 or no skill makes no difference...
Then are we introducing house rules in the equation?
(this aside, it would not be a bad one, as would use the same DM for skill tactics that HG gives to both, defensive and offensive rolls)
Well, if you have pilot skill 2, LBB2 with Maneuver/evade 5 gives you a -2, on HG no DM. If your pilot skill is 5, DMs are respectively 5 and 2. OTOH, this 2 added to agility also helps you to flee (or avoiding your enemy to)..
Still don't see the difference?
Yes, in HG all those programing come for free, and your tiny computer 1 bis may manage all of them at once...
To be just, though, HG it's not thought for that.
But with different effects of skills and characters' actions...
True, LBB2 is not thought for large ships, as HG is not for small ones
I disagree. HG is for squadron/fleet combat, while Striker (for what I know) is for small unit combat (and usable for personal combat, as AHL). I don't believe you can confront a full bataillon (or larger units) with Striker...
The abstract system in LBB4 is for large units, and so it's the equivalent to HG.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
... sounds legit ...
First, you "don't do the reading" for the assignment, and now you're sure there's no suspense obtainable from the results of doing the exercise as assigned (see: no x4 in your assertion).
At the risk of repeating myself (AGAIN!) ... that's NOT what's happening ... and trying to frame it as such is a complete disservice to yourself and anyone else who might be playing the game with you.
Me: "Use your imagination."
Opponent: "NO. And you can't make me!"
I'm reminded of the Fallacies In Thinking™ involved when comparing game systems that are Cause oriented vs Effects oriented.
A classic example would be MEKTON vs Silhouette.
Both game systems were Mecha Builder wargames ... but MEKTON was a "crunchy" system where you had to start with the parts and pieces and work your way up to build completed mecha. It was more like Striker in that regard (for those not familiar with MEKTON). Here are the parts, assemble them into something usable, final stats derive from what you buy and how you build them into each other. It was a "bottom up" type of design system.
Silhouette (Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, etc.) by Dream Pod 9 did the opposite. Silhouette was only worried about the "end performance" of a vehicle package (kind of like a USP code) and didn't "care" about the engineering that made it happen (the "crunchy bits" that produced the stats). The Silhouette system dramatically simplified tabletop wargaming, because the only things you needed to worry about was "performance oriented" stuff ... rather than needing to know the intimate details of how that performance profile was produced.
LBB2 ship combat is more like MEKTON in that regard. You need to KNOW "what is doing what, where, with who and to whom" in order for things to happen or be possible.
LBB5 ship combat is more like Silhouette in that regard. You only need to know "what can be done" and then choose what you're going to attempt.
Comparitively, LBB2 ship combat (especially if using vector maneuvering) just has a lot more "fiddly bits" along with barnacles and kruft to keep track of. It's a finicky system that requires more overhead in order to do it properly. By contrast, LBB5 ship combat is a lot more simplified and streamlined, to the point of not allowing the "good enough" to become the enemy of the "perfect" simulation paradigm.
Again ... when engagement ranges are measured in fractions of a light-second, no one is going to be using iron sights on machine guns within visual range to walk tracer fire onto an easily visible target. Anything within Mk I Eyeball visual range is going to be "too close for comfort" unless it's a planned rendezvous docking. ALL of your gunnery tasks are going to be HEAVILY sensor dependent and going to be much more about computer control than manually slewing around a turret ring pintle mounted gun (or missile).
I would honestly argue that most of what a trained Gunner is doing during ship-to-ship combat is designating targets and authorizing fires controlled by the computers of stabilized weapons (no sophont muscle lifting required). Outside of combat, the "job" of a Gunner is to maintain the weapon systems and oversee repairs/reloads/recharging/maintenance schedules along with a fair amount of practice drills to keep skills from dropping due to atrophy.
Well that's a fundamental problem with space combat anyway. It's folks in a bull ring with machine guns pointed at each other while wearing dayglo t-shirts. Range matters, but its the same for everyone. Facing, doesn't matter (outside of BL). Velocity doesn't matter (when it comes to actually shooting things, none of the systems consider the vector differential as a DM). Outside of range, maneuver doesn't matter. AT BEST you can "dodge" or "evasive maneuver". Size matters as a differential. Not so much with equivalent ships (the DMs wash each other out).
This is why B5 works at all. All of that stuff that "doesn't matter", they don't bother with. But just having a bag of numbers and a pair of dice, I mean, yea, with a vivid enough imagination you can visualize the bats swooping and diving around the car, but you can do that with anything. Cards, dice, piece of string, a bottom of the bag broken Doritos chip ("Ok, so this crumb is my fighter, and this salt shaker is the dreadnaught", oh, wait, there's that tactical visualization map again).
There's a reason modern games are all $70 miniatures and not 1/2" cardboard chits anymore. I mean, I used to stare at a black map with a 1/2 dozen squares of cardboard and could SEE the tension that the two players were wracking their heads around, because, I guess like B5, I knew the rules and what not and what was going on.
But it sure hella looks better with a 3" detailed mini.
With the tactical map, it's not just chits on a board. It's chits in motion, you know where things are going, or should go, or might go. Like looking ahead in chess. Placing pieces themselves with your mind on the map. "If I can slip these two tanks down that road and past the house..."
And, yea, I have not played a lot of B5. But there's a reason that it has a probability chart to help resolve combat (I think it's in TCS) to solve endless die rolls. See? Not only do facing, range, or maneuver matter any more, we don't even need dice. Yay! progress!
There's a video of a huge space battle, in a video game. Stellaris I think. Lots of ships, mindlessly blasting away at each other.
No reason to visualize, it's right there in 3D! And...it's not an interesting video. It's a spectacle, but not interesting. Just ships standing there. BANG BANG BANG BANG ... oops, I'm dead. Very B5, but even with the visuals -- not a very interesting battle. It was probably settled in the first few rounds as the dice punished the losers and push the balance to the inevitably winning side. Now, they just need to count the cost.
If anything, the battle reinforced "the pointlessness of war". Certainly took all the fun out of it.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Some thoughts.
1. If only they had built on the personal skills rule in HG79
"Personal Skills: The referee may allow weapons to be fired, and defenses to operate with DMs imposed for the skill levels of the characters operating them. In most cases, this DM is equal to the skill level of the character."
2. LBB:2 has a detection sub game that you can theater of the mind, HG has no sensor rules at all
3. LBB:2 and even the ship's boat skill description give you more to hang theater of the mind abstract movement on than HG (note that HG79 had a bit more detail in its abstract movement, in my opinion it actually has a better description of the turn sequence as well.
HG - both fleets line up, they have effectively matched vectors at a distance apart that allows some uncertainty on target locks and weapon fire - there is no sensor issue, movement is abstracted to the three allowed range bands.
I have tried HG for small ship combat, there was even a turn by turn thread on these very boards where a couple of us played through some combat scenarios - the results were boring in the extreme.
1. If only they had built on the personal skills rule in HG79
"Personal Skills: The referee may allow weapons to be fired, and defenses to operate with DMs imposed for the skill levels of the characters operating them. In most cases, this DM is equal to the skill level of the character."
2. LBB:2 has a detection sub game that you can theater of the mind, HG has no sensor rules at all
3. LBB:2 and even the ship's boat skill description give you more to hang theater of the mind abstract movement on than HG (note that HG79 had a bit more detail in its abstract movement, in my opinion it actually has a better description of the turn sequence as well.
HG - both fleets line up, they have effectively matched vectors at a distance apart that allows some uncertainty on target locks and weapon fire - there is no sensor issue, movement is abstracted to the three allowed range bands.
I have tried HG for small ship combat, there was even a turn by turn thread on these very boards where a couple of us played through some combat scenarios - the results were boring in the extreme.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Perhaps I used the wrong reference video to properly depict the issue(s) that arise when dealing with weapon ranges measured in light-seconds.
Try this on for size, as perhaps the best way of visualizing how space combat ACTUALLY plays out, rather than going all "cinematic universe" with it.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Far as cinematic Traveller is concerned, only MgT has it right-reduce the range and therefore combat time scale down 30x.
HG to me is line em up derby, bleh and no good for kinetic resolution. But all the design toys are behind the abstract wall, easier for me to maneuverize it than tack the heavy weapons onto CT directly and range band it.
But I have specific goals and all players are ex SFB, so definitely not everyone’s situation.
HG to me is line em up derby, bleh and no good for kinetic resolution. But all the design toys are behind the abstract wall, easier for me to maneuverize it than tack the heavy weapons onto CT directly and range band it.
But I have specific goals and all players are ex SFB, so definitely not everyone’s situation.
