High Guarding again

[Spinward Flow]

The major difference between LBB2 and LBB5 is vector movement vs. completely abstracted movement.
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It's just my personal preference to not get bogged down in vector movement.

Vector movement is nice to have ... but given the ranges involved is quite often unnecessary to know with sandtable precision and accuracy.

When ranges are measured in fractions of a light-second, the only parameter that matters is the boolean question "Within weapons range? (Y/N)" to enable exchanges of fire.

North / south / east / west / up / down relative positioning ... doesn't really matter all that much in the empty vacuum of (normal) space where there's no "terrain" to get in the way of anything. What matters is "Within weapons range? (Y/N)" followed up by the question of "How many weapons can fire on target(s)?" (which in LBB5 computes to Batteries Bearing).

Any kind of "hiding behind terrain" (usually planets, moons, asteroids, etc.) is a factor often best left to imagination and roleplaying, rather than codified into a vector movement combat system that is difficult to grasp mentally by most Referees and Players (since orbital mechanics are such an "alien" conceptual framework to daily terrestrial lived experience).

 

[whartung]

The major difference between LBB2 and LBB5 is vector movement vs. completely abstracted movement.

Vector movement is nice to have ... but given the ranges involved is quite often unnecessary to know with sandtable precision and accuracy.

The detail, at least with Book 2 is that it's pretty much, in the end, "long" and "short" range like it is in HG. And ship orientation certainly impacts how that range is arrived at (i.e. chasing vs closing), but not much else. All of the rest (heading, facing, etc.) is pretty much washed out in LBB 2.

BL is different, as it doesn't take many hexes to impact range DMs. But in the end, it's still a bit of "fire. fire again. keep firing. always be firing" game as the ships dance around each other. Missiles are limited of course, but most everything else isn't.

Also, BL has weapon arcs which impact play, so facing because relevant, and maneuvering impacts facing.

This is less important on small ships with 360 degree lasers.

 

[jec10]

The major difference between LBB2 and LBB5 is vector movement vs. completely abstracted movement.
In BL vs. BR the difference is the abstraction of the ships, not the movement, IIRC.

Rupert may have views, but the movement in BL is actually a lot more complex than the (to my mind at least) relatively elegant vector movement mechanic implemented in BR.
They are both vector movement systems, but in BL you have a LOT more to keep track of than BR. In other words, the movement system in BR is more abstract, as well as the ships, and the combat (in BR you are only really tracking crits).

 

[Rupert]

Rupert may have views, but the movement in BL is actually a lot more complex than the (to my mind at least) relatively elegant vector movement mechanic implemented in BR.
They are both vector movement systems, but in BL you have a LOT more to keep track of than BR. In other words, the movement system in BR is more abstract, as well as the ships, and the combat (in BR you are only really tracking crits).

I completely agree.

In fact, as the results on the table are the same, I would use the BR movement tracking system (which is the old Mayday one) rather than the BL one that tacked it on the ship's data/damage sheet. I think you'd lose a very small amount of resolution in ship's facing, but I also don't think it'd every actually be important.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Rupert may have views, but the movement in BL is actually a lot more complex than the (to my mind at least) relatively elegant vector movement mechanic implemented in BR.
They are both vector movement systems, but in BL you have a LOT more to keep track of than BR. In other words, the movement system in BR is more abstract, as well as the ships, and the combat (in BR you are only really tracking crits).

OK, I didn't really play BL or BR, I only remembered 2D vectors systems, as opposed to the much more abstracted 1D vector system in the Core book.

 

[whartung]

BL is quite different. It's a completely different mechanic from all of the others. BR is like the rest (move the future postion by Gs to maneuver).

BL requires accumulating directional thrust (and a tracker) before you can turn. So, if you want to turn left, you need to apply thrust leftward until you accumulate enough (based on velocity) to make a turn. If you change your mind and want to go right, you need to accumulate in the other direction and overcome any you've already gathered going the other way.

 

[jec10]

The tweak over Mayday that I particularly liked in Battle Rider was the command decision by each captain whether to use his available thrust for changing his vector, or to use some/all of it for evading. Evasion mods applied against adversary sensors and weapons.
(I know you could use Man/Evade program in Mayday, but it only ever cost 1G)

 

[mike wightman]

One of my earlier houserules - g rating in Mayday could be spent on acceleration or evasion or a mix of the two, limited by evasion program/pilot

I wonder if a house rule for HG would make much difference - if you choose to change range it costs a point of agility.

 

[Ulsyus]

The tweak over Mayday that I particularly liked in Battle Rider was the command decision by each captain whether to use his available thrust for changing his vector, or to use some/all of it for evading. Evasion mods applied against adversary sensors and weapons.
(I know you could use Man/Evade program in Mayday, but it only ever cost 1G)

Not having done the maths nor remembering the scales, it may be that 1g is all that's needed to make a target difficult to hit from the distances involved.

One of my earlier houseruls - g rating in Mayday could be spent on acceleration or evasion or a mix of the two, limited by evasion program/pilot

I wonder if a house rule for HG would make much difference - if you choose to change range it costs a point of agility.

This only ever seemed like common sense to me. I much preferred using this time of mechanic than commonly using EP.

 

[Rupert]

BL is quite different. It's a completely different mechanic from all of the others. BR is like the rest (move the future postion by Gs to maneuver).

BL requires accumulating directional thrust (and a tracker) before you can turn. So, if you want to turn left, you need to apply thrust leftward until you accumulate enough (based on velocity) to make a turn. If you change your mind and want to go right, you need to accumulate in the other direction and overcome any you've already gathered going the other way.

The overall effect is that of a Mayday-style vector movement, but with a lot more tracking and frankly a coarser resolution. BR puts the acceleration, the direction of thrust (and thus the ship's facing unless it used little of its available thrust on vector change), and vector on the table and has no need to track any of that off the table. It's also easier for people new to the idea to see where a ship is going and how thrust will change that, so there's a lower learning curve. I can see why they might've gone with what they did for BL's movement, but I do think it was inferior to BR.

So, as I said, I'd use the BR movement system with BL, keeping things like tracking propellant, the (much) more detailed damage rules and so on.

 

[jec10]

So, as I said, I'd use the BR movement system with BL, keeping things like tracking propellant, the (much) more detailed damage rules and so on.

Fair enough. I'm the opposite - I find that Merrick Burkhardt's fixes satisfactorily deal with the Meson screen problem (essentially by porting in the Meson screen task from BL), the missile damage problem and a few other irritations in Battle Rider to make it my preferred Traveller ship combat rules system.

I would steal the hexmats from BL to add to those in the BR box so as to make a battlefield big enough that the sensor rules have real effect though! There is no better experience in gaming than having to make that crucial decision between staying passive and trying to sneak up on the enemy, or going active and potentially giving your position away prematurely.