Variant High Guard Combat

[robject]

I'm always trying to understand concepts and misapply them. I might as well try to do this to High Guard.

So I played around with using High Guard's battery factors as both a pen and a damage value, with a klunky combat mechanic. Here it is:

Armor = different. Based on a ship's armor value, but scaled depending on its size. For instance, a fighter's armor stays the same, a small starship's armor may be 2x or 5x armor or something, and a Tigress' may be 10x armor.

Pen = battery factor.

Dmg = battery factor.

To pen: 10 x [ Pen + 2D - Active_Defenses ] - Passive_Defenses > 0.

Damage: 30 - Pen - 2D, or something.

 

[boomslang]

So I played around with using High Guard's battery factors as both a pen and a damage value, with a klunky combat mechanic.

Have you looked at HG1?

If you import HG2's batteries into the HG1 combat system, you get something very elegant -- there are no "To Hit" rolls at all, only penetration contests (cf. D&D and its "THAC0")...

Added plus from HG1: no Agility bonus... and, combined with computers topping out at Model/7 and powerplants at factor-6... big, slow, heavily-armored ships emerge as the "Queens of Battle"...

If only they'd playtested it a little better; TCS would look entirely different, and the Lightning class would be one of the most feared ships in known space.... ah, well...

 

[robject]

Have you looked at HG1?

If you import HG2's batteries into the HG1 combat system, you get something very elegant -- there are no "To Hit" rolls at all, only penetration contests (cf. D&D and its "THAC0")...

That's kind of what's going on here; the rolls really are "to pen" rather than "to hit". Anyhow, I've not seen HG1. I should find me a copy.