Sane Starship combat rules for T20.

[aramis]

Rain: It's not official we're talking here. It's how I would change it.

The multiplier comes from an assumption that a factor 9 battery has 30 factor 2 guns (Beam laser table), and that no more than one hits per 2 points by which the to hit roll was made. A way I'd move towards making T20 combat sane.

(Realistically, at even the ranges for T20 combat, you'd be firing patterns into a cross sectional area.)

Veltyn: Counting the TL increases is the sanest thing about that... A TL15 gun is a better converter of energy into damage than the vanilla TL8 gun.... It also makes it possible to penetrate armor ratings greater than 7...

 

[veltyen]

Counting the TL increases is the sanest thing about that... A TL15 gun is a better converter of energy into damage than the vanilla TL8 gun....

But isn't that already counted by the USP increase? Currently there is a small incremental bump at TL13 for lasers, this turns it into an enormous gain.

It also makes it possible to penetrate armor ratings greater than 7...

??? The attack doesn't add for the purposes of piercing armor?

 

[aramis]

To be honest, the other thing I'd have to add is any roll of max damage is 1 point through.

Veltyn: the one thing that has always annoyed me the MOST about HG was the combining of Pen and Damage....

So, no combining multiple weapons to penetrate armor... but yes, higher tech get bigger die codes (which will put a few weapons up to 4 dice...

I'd also say a "Triple Laser Turret" could be a single beam with Factor 2, 3 at TL13+... Likewise, a triple missile turret could be a single "Large Missile Launcher", with triple mass and cost missiles, doing 2 dice, etc. But once configured as such, the roleplaying issues become relevant controls. Makes perfect sense to me.

But there is really no reason why 3 separate 1d8 laser hits against AV2 should do 3d8-6, when three simultaneous hits do 3d8 Keep 1; they are not, in fact, likely to hit the same spot. That is simply bogus to me.

Of course, combining 3 lasers into a single larger laser in the turret DOES make sense to me.

So that Factor 9 battery could be 10 Factor 3 turrets, or 10 Triple turrets mounting 3 Factor 2 Lasers each, or 15 Double Turrets mounting 2 factor 2 lasers each, or 30 single turrets mounting 1 factor 2 laser each. Or, it could be one really big weapon, a bay mount...

 

[GypsyComet]

The other thing I'm thinking is that the combat system should actually be calibrated around the expected crew skill levels. HG (again, yes) assumed normal skill levels (ie. Gunnery-1) as the default. In T20, we need to look at the "average" Gunner as being a late 1st or early 2nd term Navy enlisted with the appropriate skill at max ranks, and the PMOS feat. If we *assume* that fleet actions hinge on the no-risk PMOS'd result of 20 (total) vs the edgier types who're actually rolling that die (for a total between 11 and 30), then the to-hit roll DCs can be recalibrated to make combat balance correctly.

 

[mike wightman]

High Guard combat didn't use the gunnery skill as a modifyer to hit, and the default is skill level 2. It's on page 44
In the High Guard skill description of gunnery there is no mention of gunnery providing any to hit bonuses either.

This is, IMHO, the big mistake made by T20 ship combat. By putting the skill use back into the to hit roll while keeping all of the other to hit modifiers for computer model, computer programs, etc. it becomes too easy to hit.

 

[GypsyComet]

CT Skill level 1 or 2 both work the same in HG: no modifier to the appropriate roll/factor/etc. Skills DO play a part in HG, but are largely glossed by the scale of the game.

My *point* is that HG was calibrated to that standard, and exceptional individuals were just that: exceptions. Even then, an exceptional individual was not going to affect a roll/factor/etc by more than a point or two, with the occasional legendary specialist (Pilot-7?!?) hitting a +3. On a 2d6 roll.

By comparison, that zero point (ie. what the average crewbeing has for skill) in T20 is roughly a +8 to +10 on a d20 roll. Normal and expected combat loss (ie. fun to play) should be calibrated around that point, NOT around +0.

AS such, ship ACs need to be adjusted. Size-based ACs as currently figured should be relegated to visual range, while ACs beyond viz should be the result of a comparison of sensor power, range, and target brightness (which has little to do with size). Weapons would add to the equation through their range increments.

 

[aramis]

As a quick fudge, a Size USP + PP USP should give a roughly Log based scale of signature...

Signature less Log2(range in hexes) should be a positive DM to hit on some ridiculously high number...say 25+Agl?

 

[MrMorden]

I don't like the sensor rules any more than some of you. I think I'm going to do the following:

For each range "band" after the first, incur a +5 DC to sensor rolls, including lock-on, etc.

Therefore, instead of a Type S being blind beyond 15,000 Kilometers, on a standard DC15 sensoe check the sensor operator can see to 30,000Km at DC20, 45,000Km at DC25, 60,000Km at DC30, etc.

It doesn't make the lesser ships so lame, and incidentally it is more in line with how sensors such as radar work in reality.