Kosmic Chapter 7 Space Combat

[Dragoner]

TTB is LBB2, the rest aren't, it doesn't matter though; I still had to make Kosmic playable, even LBB2 is too much for most people. Making a non-playable game doesn't make sense. You can see in the T5 forum where I ran T5 combat during the playtest, and players had a difficult time understanding it. Granted that was like 13 years ago now.

 

[Dragoner]

All this depends on your weapon systems.

For pretty much everything outside of guided missiles, 1 hex (1250km) is too far. Especially with Traveller power (1G+) drives.

Traveller combat works because it lets lasers and energy weapons work at astonishing distances.

If you're using anything kinetic, 1250 is just simply out of range.

Even missiles generally have a range of only a few hundred km; weapon range and movement have to work together. Otherwise you wind up with a 3g ship being able to move 27 hexes by it's third turn, and ships only being able to fight at close in the same hex. Too easy to just zoom off the edge of the map. Though realistic ships would have only a very limited amount of time of thrust, such as a few hundred seconds. I did make a more realistic setup, then dropped it because it merely front loaded the work on me as ref, only one player would take notes. Nobody was really interested to run or play it, playing the game with them only passively watching, no.

I do give a nod to newtonian movement in the rules though:

Newton’s First Law
Inertia means that a body in motion, remains in
motion, a ship moving in a straight line, carries over
the same g’s of movement to the next turn as long as
it remains moving in a straight line.

 

[whartung]

The LBB2/Mayday system of movement is not particularly hard mechanically, but its difficult cognitively, as most folks (I don't) think in terms of momentum. A key component (so I'm told) in air to air combat is mastering the use of energy, energy from the engines, energy from altitude and gravity, drag maneuvers, etc. All utilized to try and gain an edge over the opponent.

In most Traveller games, maneuver is not particularly important, outside of range. Get close, stuff hits, things die. But that's all that matters. Getting close. Speed, facing, etc., not so much. This is why an abstract range band system works just fine for Traveller combat.

For example, if the game system models closest approach (I don't recall in B2/Mayday does or not, BL does I think) then things like closing speed don't make any difference. Simply fly by, figure out how close each ship got during the fly by, and blast away. That fact that you started the turn 10 hexes away from the target, and ended the turn 10 hexes past it, doesn't make any difference if got within 2 hexes in the first place.

It makes for tedious game play, however.

If you ever played the early video game Space War, that's what it was. Newtonian ships flying around, making passes, and blasting away when they got close. As a player, I just turned and burned. I mashed down the thrust key, turned wildly, and spammed the fire button. In the closeness of the arena of the screen, and speed of the ships, it was kinetic fun based as much on reaction time as anything else.

However, if it takes several minutes for the ships to "turn and burn" and make effective passes, that just crushes the action of the game play.

The game gets vastly more interesting if bearing and facing come into play. Flying up on to somebodies "six" so you can zap them with impunity. It just doesn't really make that much sense in any kind of pseudo-realistic space game, especially not at the ranges that Traveller typically engages at, as well as the time frames of the turns.

BL models this by making facing a factor, and facing is limited if you're accelerating. If you're not accelerating, there's nothing to stop you from turning the ship in any direction you like. So if you're being chased, turn off the motor, spin around, and start blasting away as the pursuer closes. In BL, the more you accelerated during a turn, the less you had leeway in setting the facing for that turn.

So, even with that freedom, its easy to see why in simpler systems, facing is disregarded. In the end, how much does it really impact the result of the combat if when ships are "close" they're likely facing each other anyway.

 

[mike wightman]

Thrust 1 moves you one hex on the turn you accelerate, 2 hexes thereafter.

Apply another thrust 1 and you move 3 squares this turn, four on subsequent turns. Your thrust total is now 2.

For each face of the hex record the thrust total in that direction, every turn you have to move 2 hexes per total thrust in that direction unless you apply additional thrust, in which case you move an additional hex in that direction this turn.

For additional crunch number the faces and corners of the hex so 12 directions in total.

In each direction you record the total thrust applied in that direction. At the end of each turn subtract opposite total thrust numbers from each other
(1-4, 2-5, 6-3 or if 12 directions are used 1-7, 2-8, 3-9, 4-10, 11-5, 12-6)

The thrust total is actually measuring momentum or velocity or energy in that direction, by moving only 1 square per accelerating thrust you are using true Newtonian movement, well as much as you can in 2d. If you want rules for 3d vector movement we need the faces of a d20

 

[Dragoner]

The LBB2/Mayday system of movement is not particularly hard mechanically, but its difficult cognitively, as most folks (I don't) think in terms of momentum. A key component (so I'm told) in air to air combat is mastering the use of energy, energy from the engines, energy from altitude and gravity, drag maneuvers, etc. All utilized to try and gain an edge over the opponent.

In most Traveller games, maneuver is not particularly important, outside of range. Get close, stuff hits, things die. But that's all that matters. Getting close. Speed, facing, etc., not so much. This is why an abstract range band system works just fine for Traveller combat.

For example, if the game system models closest approach (I don't recall in B2/Mayday does or not, BL does I think) then things like closing speed don't make any difference. Simply fly by, figure out how close each ship got during the fly by, and blast away. That fact that you started the turn 10 hexes away from the target, and ended the turn 10 hexes past it, doesn't make any difference if got within 2 hexes in the first place.

It makes for tedious game play, however.

If you ever played the early video game Space War, that's what it was. Newtonian ships flying around, making passes, and blasting away when they got close. As a player, I just turned and burned. I mashed down the thrust key, turned wildly, and spammed the fire button. In the closeness of the arena of the screen, and speed of the ships, it was kinetic fun based as much on reaction time as anything else.

However, if it takes several minutes for the ships to "turn and burn" and make effective passes, that just crushes the action of the game play.

The game gets vastly more interesting if bearing and facing come into play. Flying up on to somebodies "six" so you can zap them with impunity. It just doesn't really make that much sense in any kind of pseudo-realistic space game, especially not at the ranges that Traveller typically engages at, as well as the time frames of the turns.

BL models this by making facing a factor, and facing is limited if you're accelerating. If you're not accelerating, there's nothing to stop you from turning the ship in any direction you like. So if you're being chased, turn off the motor, spin around, and start blasting away as the pursuer closes. In BL, the more you accelerated during a turn, the less you had leeway in setting the facing for that turn.

So, even with that freedom, its easy to see why in simpler systems, facing is disregarded. In the end, how much does it really impact the result of the combat if when ships are "close" they're likely facing each other anyway.

I remember Space War, it was fun, a lot of computer games have similar motion, screen wrap was always funny to take advantage of. I might have played Brilliant Lances a long time ago, or one similar.

Facing in Kosmic is about turning, and calcs for GLOC, so use over three and get a -1 DM per number, basically the ship gets stunned after a failed End check. Though if the computer has the software, I'd let it still move and fire. Otherwise the thrust M number is used for pilot reactions, so an M6 one can use 3g's for movement, and then get a reaction out of the other three, dodge an attack. Most of the rules are for player actions.

 

[Dragoner]

Thrust 1 moves you one hex on the turn you accelerate, 2 hexes thereafter.

Apply another thrust 1 and you move 3 squares this turn, four on subsequent turns. Your thrust total is now 2.

For each face of the hex record the thrust total in that direction, every turn you have to move 2 hexes per total thrust in that direction unless you apply additional thrust, in which case you move an additional hex in that direction this turn.

For additional crunch number the faces and corners of the hex so 12 directions in total.

In each direction you record the total thrust applied in that direction. At the end of each turn subtract opposite total thrust numbers from each other
(1-4, 2-5, 6-3 or if 12 directions are used 1-7, 2-8, 3-9, 4-10, 11-5, 12-6)

The thrust total is actually measuring momentum or velocity or energy in that direction, by moving only 1 square per accelerating thrust you are using true Newtonian movement, well as much as you can in 2d. If you want rules for 3d vector movement we need the faces of a d20

Table: Turn, initial speed in m/s, and distance in km. Linear acceleration at 1g, it would be 1, 3, 5, 7 hexes respectively.

1	0	4903
2	9806.65	14710
3	19613.3	24517
4	29419.95	34323

The caveat to this, it's simpler in the book, which is written and published; a process of fifteen years of playing, writing, and then publishing. Rather onerous, would not recommend, and if I did it again I'd be 72, so I am at the end of my road really.

 

[kilemall]

In my LBB2/5 hybrid, facing doesn’t matter except for fixed/spinal weapons and that only for maximum burn/no agility.

But kinetics do, for missiles.

I have armor mean a lot more, so it’s possible one needs a ‘running start’ and acceleration turns for missiles to have enough vee to penetrate heavier ships.

So between that and suicide range below 100000 km maneuver matters a lot.

 

[Dragoner]

No spinals, 100 ton bays though, armor is 10% hull volume max: 4 Whipple shield, 8 Advanced Composite, and 12 Neutronium. So not that important, most vessels are less than TL 14, the TL for neutronium. The MLT 33 in Andromeda Dragons is TL 9 for example, with AV 2 Whipple. Dogfighting gets 2x damage, so that is its advantage, you can get attacked by point defense however.

Whipple shield - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Dragoner]

Interesting warheads for missiles, the continuous rod, turns into a flying buzzsaw:

Continuous-rod warhead - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org