RP-SLS squadron combat model

[robject]

The Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock Ship Combat Model

What it is. It is one or more damage tables, indexed by offense mixes across the horizontal axis, and defense mixes on the vertical. The indexed value is the damage assessed, if any.

How to use it. When one squadron attacks another, the attacking player secretly chooses the attack, and the defender secretly chooses the defense. The two are indexed on the RP-SLS table, and the results are applied to the target.


Questions

How are attack strengths accounted for? By more tables, or by a battery factor, or in some other manner?

 

[dalthor]

Say for example there are 12 columns. The first three are laser, next 3 missile, and so on.

Laser column one is weakest strength, two is median, and 3 is strongest.

Apply the same type of concept to rows (attacks) and you have your basic grid.

Hard part would be determining the "range" each row or column would represent.

 

[robject]

Mayday-like Example

Here's an example table using the kind of weapons mix one might see in Mayday. As you can see, it's far far faaaaaar too abstract for Mayday-style combat: it's more aligned to what you'd need for, say, squadron combat.

Turret Damage (per gun firing) versus Defense Fielded

        Beam Laser   Pulse Laser   Mining Laser    Missile
Sand        -             -             -            1D
Laser       1             2             1            -

So Val secretly chooses to attack with Pulse Lasers, and Fred secretly chooses to defend with a Laser point defense. The defense is useless against laser attacks, so the attack succeeds.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

We need a bigger table.

Man, that will be a sizable table but I am down with combat matrixes.

Oh, and the Intruder should also choose in secret.

 

[robject]

Man, that will be a sizable table but I am down with combat matrixes.

Assume ten "basic" weapon types and ten defenses, then yes, you've potentially got a 10 x 10 matrix. If weapon types can be grouped by type to reduce the table size, so much the better.

At the end of the day, though, you've still got a table.