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What ship rules to use. What is Mayday good for?

Cymew

SOC-12
Hi!

I'm starting to plan for my new campaign and I'm about to decide what rules to use for naval actions. Is Mayday any good, and for what? I've seen it mentioned together with B2 once or twice.

/andreas
 
Cymew wrote:

"I'm starting to plan for my new campaign and I'm about to decide what rules to use for naval actions. Is Mayday any good, and for what? I've seen it mentioned together with B2 once or twice."


Cymew,

Mayday is a hex-based, vector movement game that may not be suitable for any large scale naval combat. This is not to say that Mayday isn't an excellent game. I used it extensively during my days as a GM, but primarily for PC actions and not fleet actions. One reason for that is that Mayday treats missiles as little ships. Now, that is more realistic, but it does tend to clutter the map a bit! (Three counters are used on the map to show the past, present, and future positions of each ship and missile.)

In HG2, missiles 'magically' travel from launcher to target in one turn. In Mayday, missiles must be flown there and they don't perform any better than the ships they've targeted. Missiles in Mayday can pull 6 gees, no better than some of the ships they've targeted. Missiles in HG2 must pull something like 50 gees to do what they do. Missile strikes in Mayday must first worry about the interplay between launching and target vectors. Missile strikes in HG2 need only worry about die rolls.

Mayday also doesn't allow area defense or ship formations as modelled by HG2's line and reserve boxes. You won't be able to 'shield', 'defend', or 'escort' any ships with other ships. In Mayday, if a ship is in range you can shoot at it no matter how many other ships are 'between' you and your target.

Mayday does contain rules allowing you to use HG2 combat tables with the Mayday movement mechanism. The TNE game "Battle Rider" also provides quick play with Mayday-style movement.

Mayday is an excellent game. However, large ships and large numbers of ships would quick reduce a Mayday map to cluttered incomprehensibility.


Sincerely,
Larsen
 
Thanks Larsen!

That was a very good summary of the strength and weakness of Mayday. I think I see why some referees use it for ship-to-ship combat. I think it is to detailed for me. I think I'll stick to the "magic missiles". ;)

Thanks again!
 
Cymew wrote:

"Thanks Larsen! That was a very good summary of the strength and weakness of Mayday. I think I see why some referees use it for ship-to-ship combat. I think it is to detailed for me. I think I'll stick to the "magic missiles". ;) "


Cymew,

You're welcome. I was a wargamer well before I played my first RPG and, currently, wargame much more than roleplay.

Mayday is superb for PC encounters; I used it all the time, but HG2 is probably the best for fleet encounters. It trades 'reality' for ease of play, a balancing act found in all games.

Don't forget to use various RPG-PC skills during your HG2 battles, it will help make the battle more interesting for the players. Fleet and Ship Ops are a given, but Pilot, Gunnery, and Engineering; even Screen Ops if you're using MT, can be applied to various HG2 rolls.

Have fun.


Sincerely,
Larsen
 
All right, all right! Geez, I'm working as fast as I can! yeah, I know I've been working on it for the last 10 years or so, but I've had some recent breakthroughs, and might get my space-tactical combat system done some day soon, like maybe by the end of the year.

Of course, the main drawback is it's not actually Traveller, but uses a lot of the same ideas and has a similar "feel".

Hey, I never had HG or HG2, what's it like in comparison to say BL or BR? Do ships have movement points, or is it vectorized? How well do ships convert between say HG2 and CT? (I ask that because BR and BL convert reasonably well, while BL and TNE convert almost perfectly, and for a good reason.) Thanks.
 
TheDS wrote:

"Hey, I never had HG or HG2, what's it like in comparison to say BL or BR? Do ships have movement points, or is it vectorized? How well do ships convert between say HG2 and CT? (I ask that because BR and BL convert reasonably well, while BL and TNE convert almost perfectly, and for a good reason.) Thanks."


DS,

I'll limit my comments to HG2. HG1 was sufficiently weird enough and is sufficiently rare enough to be ignored.

In HG2, movement doesn't occur at all! Combat occurs in either one of 2 range bands; short or long. The range band is chosen at the beginning of each round by the player who wins the initiative roll. Gees and agility come into play during a stylized 'break off attempt' step at the end of each round. Agility acts as a defensive DM against enemy 'to hit' rolls, but can never be higher than a vessel's current gee rating.

Ship conversions between CT and HG2 are not as seamless as between BL and TNE. Unlike CT, HG2 has components listed at various TLs. HG2 requires powerplants in all designs, CT did not. Manning requirements are different too. You can get very close to some LBB:2 designs with HG2 but, generally speaking, HG2 produces better designs than LBB:2. 'Better' as in more room, more oomph in weapons, bigger computers, etc. ForEx: You can build a jump4, 1 gee X-boat with HG2 very easily.


Sincerely,
Larsen
 
SS Combat Rules Systems Precis:

CT Bk2: Miniatures ruleset for ship combat. Newtonian. Sinple, ast, but at listed scale, takes considerable set-up space.

CT Bk5: High Guard: table based combat ruleset which abstracts combat extensively.essentially 3 ranges: Close, Long, and disengaged.

Mayday: a streamlined boardgame version of Bk 2 combat, using past/present/future markers. Later printings included advice on using Bk 5 combat tables.

MT: a High-Guard variant, using non-vector, non-newtonian movement, but using movement (squares per turn = Agility).

TNE: Used a simplified version of Brilliant Lances, and narrative style of play.

Brillian Lances: Full set of tactical starship rules, showing combined materials from T2K and Mayday.

Battle Rider: Streamlined, large scale tactical fleet combat wargame. Derived from (but not integratable with) BL.

T4: Not certain. I have it, I've read it, and never made much sense to me. Derived from hybrid of HG and BL, from what I understand.

GT: GURPS Space 3 based rules. Don't play GURPS anymore, so no comment.

T20: HG and D20 hybrid. Works as well as the rest of T20. (So, based upon your opinion of T20....) Actually not directly mechanically related to HG for comabt mechanics, but has very similar results in many cases.

T5: FNORD!
 
I do like using Mayday with the HG2 resolution rules. The big problem is with larger fleet actions. Combat tends to devolve into multiple fights and get scattered as ships get left behind due to damage. Relative speed of missiles should make flight time less than 20 minutes anyway. If missiles sit in flight to long, or are limited to a small number of 6g burns they will never hit a target. At range they are too easy to avoid. In T20 they are exceptionally easy to shoot down or avoid. Messing with them has gotten to the point where player designed ships don't even carry missile armament. They are a pain in the butt to hit with, if you let loose with them too far away they simply run out of gas and they don't hit very hard unless they are very expensive. You even have to stop to reload. And any idiot with a triple beam laser in a turret and a few skill levels can shoot down your factor 9 salvo. They have gone from very nasty at long range to virtually ineffective unless you are very close and you have lots of batteries. I did notice that T20 appears to be based on Mayday.
 
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