In High Guard, agility can be a killer, making a ship - especially a very small craft - untouchable by many opponents (most often other small craft). At the same time, very small craft, with their limited computers, often find it impossible to lay a finger on their larger opponents due to high DMs evolving from a combination of agility and superior computer rating. I have two thoughts on this. They're probably not new, but I thought I'd toss them out to get some comment.
The first is, in place of the "faster fleet" DM, to allow opposing fleets to engage in a bidding war to "spend" agility to gain a DM on the initiative roll, whose most significant result is to determine the range between fleets. In this model, the player who lost initiative last round (or a random player on the first round) bids how much of his fleet's agility he will spend to improve his initiative roll. The opposing player then counters with how much he will spend, the first player rebids, the opposing player counters again, until all agility is spent or one of the players yields the bid to the other. Agility bid by either side is spent, whether that player won or lost the bid; it represents the fleet's collective effort to gain the desired range, and all ships must deduct that amount from their agility during the coming combat step. The winning player gets to add the difference between his bid and the losing bid to his die roll.
The second is, during combat, to allow an attacker to spend part of his agility to try to match course with one defender, reducing that defender's agility advantage, but at a cost to his own agility. This would have to be announced during the precombat decision step: the players would announce who is matching course with whom, each player declaring one attacker and target at a time, starting with the player who won initiative and alternating between players thereafter. The amount of agility expended would be the LOWER of the attacker's maximum agility or the target's maximum agility. During the subsequent combat step, that attacker gets to subtract that amount of his agility from the defender's agility, reducing or neutralizing the defender's agility - and reducing or neutralizing his own effective agility with respect to his target by that quantity.
For example, a squadron of agility-6 fighters tries to match course with an opposing agility-5 dreadnought. The dreadnought's net agility with respect to the fighters is now 0, but the fighters' net agility against incoming fire from that dreadnought has been reduced to 1.
Or, a pair of agility-6 fighters are trying to dogfight. Normally, neither can hit the other with a net DM of -8 due to agility and size. However, one declares that he is applying agility to counter his opponent's agility. The two are now dogfighting with a net agility of 0 with respect to each other.
The first is, in place of the "faster fleet" DM, to allow opposing fleets to engage in a bidding war to "spend" agility to gain a DM on the initiative roll, whose most significant result is to determine the range between fleets. In this model, the player who lost initiative last round (or a random player on the first round) bids how much of his fleet's agility he will spend to improve his initiative roll. The opposing player then counters with how much he will spend, the first player rebids, the opposing player counters again, until all agility is spent or one of the players yields the bid to the other. Agility bid by either side is spent, whether that player won or lost the bid; it represents the fleet's collective effort to gain the desired range, and all ships must deduct that amount from their agility during the coming combat step. The winning player gets to add the difference between his bid and the losing bid to his die roll.
The second is, during combat, to allow an attacker to spend part of his agility to try to match course with one defender, reducing that defender's agility advantage, but at a cost to his own agility. This would have to be announced during the precombat decision step: the players would announce who is matching course with whom, each player declaring one attacker and target at a time, starting with the player who won initiative and alternating between players thereafter. The amount of agility expended would be the LOWER of the attacker's maximum agility or the target's maximum agility. During the subsequent combat step, that attacker gets to subtract that amount of his agility from the defender's agility, reducing or neutralizing the defender's agility - and reducing or neutralizing his own effective agility with respect to his target by that quantity.
For example, a squadron of agility-6 fighters tries to match course with an opposing agility-5 dreadnought. The dreadnought's net agility with respect to the fighters is now 0, but the fighters' net agility against incoming fire from that dreadnought has been reduced to 1.
Or, a pair of agility-6 fighters are trying to dogfight. Normally, neither can hit the other with a net DM of -8 due to agility and size. However, one declares that he is applying agility to counter his opponent's agility. The two are now dogfighting with a net agility of 0 with respect to each other.