Suggestions on abstract ship combat system for ATU

[Omnivore]

Thanks in no small part to contributions by various members of these forums, my ATU is shaping up and the basic picture of spacecraft and commerce is emerging. Now, as I begin fleshing out the weapon systems, I need to take a look at ship to ship and small fleet combat.

While I'm aiming for a realistic physics ATU, I expect to use the ATU for play over IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and that means abstract combat (for my group anyhow). There are too many differences between the Dark Stars ATU and the OTU to be able to easily adopt any of the various combat systems normally used (at least as far as I'm aware). I'm hoping someone reading this has an idea or two.

A quick overview of the pieces in play:

• Two main ship types - smaller high thrust ships and larger low thrust but hi delta-V ships
• Jumping out of combat rarely an option.
• Ships have varying levels of armor (translatable to HG/Striker levels).
• A simple heat management system is included, even armored radiators may be damaged by surface hits.
• Primary beam weapon is ultraviolet lasers but ranges are short (no grav lense)
• N-PAWS are available but even shorter range than lasers
• Missiles have longer range but limited delta-V and vulnerable to point defense fire
• Mass drivers are used both as ortillery and in short range combat
• With missiles and heavy mass drivers, stand off warheads are the norm, both directed energy types and kinetic types
• Possibility for anti-missile 'kirklin' mines (similar in principle to sandcaster in anti-missile role)
• Larger missiles aka torpedoes aka missile buses are available
• ECM/ECCM should have a role in combat (due largely to nuke explosions and other sensor blinding attacks)
• Computers are not treated separately in Dark Stars, rather than a relative computer level DM, there should be a relative TL DM (9-13).
• Only exceptional levels of radiation have any effect as all ship systems are normally radiation hardened and crew in protected 'storm shelters'.

A major difference between Dark Stars and the OTU is the amount of thrust available, even the smaller 'battle-rider' types are lucky to have more than a single standard G of thrust and then only for a limited time. Because of this, I believe evasion as a defense is only practical at long range in the setting.

The best I can come up with is some sort of merge between Bk 2 combat and High Guard. Perhaps a (greatly!) simplified variant of TNE's abstract rules?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[mike wightman]

At the TL you are setting this x-ray lasers will be a real option offering longer range than UV.

here's how i picture combat in a more realistic setting.

I would imagine a lot of ship to ship combat would actually be decided by autonomous robot kill vehicles (combat drones - call them what you will).

Both sides fire their drones - the drones meet in the middle and battle it out - whoever has the most/better/high TL drones wins and the remaining drones attack the now more vulnerable ships.

Ship weapons being close range will be mainly point defence against missiles/drones.

Actual ship on ship engagement would be a rarity due to the expense involved and the fact that the drones can be built with much higher, but short duration g ratings.

 

[Omnivore]

At the TL you are setting this x-ray lasers will be a real option offering longer range than UV.

I've played a bit fast and loose with tech levels in Dark Stars ATU, the hall mark of TL 13 in the setting is the first generation of fusion torch drives. Also, TL 13 is provided in the setting only as military prototypes and first generation designs. Civilian and para military max tech is 12. So ship based x-ray lasers aren't available in the setting.

They are available in the bomb pumped standoff missile warhead form at TL11 when they start competing with the earlier 'casaba howitzer' nuclear directed energy warhead. The civilian standoff warhead is a self forging projectile using metastable metallic hydrogen augmented chemical explosives.

In any event, I'm assuming the difficulties in targeting the standoff warheads make them a shorter ranged weapon than the standard shipboard laser.

Concerning the drone vs drone battle, I suppose there would be some missile bus vs anti-missile bus battles in a large military engagement. However since there's no human involved, I'd like to abstract that.

In large scale military battles, I have the idea that large expensive interstellar capable fusion drive (either pulse or torch) spacecraft would carry a number of advanced fission powered battle riders (oddly enough they have much higher thrust). A realistic fusion drive vessel is darn near impossible to armor anyhow given its probable length and it has very little capacity for any agility. See this page for some pictures of likely configurations. Especially note the Venture Star pictures from the Avatar movie. There are a lot of reasons why that configuration makes sense for a battle tender. The actual battle riders would probably look more like this picture from the same page.

I think in the Dark Stars ATU, battle riders make even more sense than in the OTU since most of the time there won't be much chance of breaking of by jump anyhow. I expect most adventure class ships to be something of a cross between the tender and rider designs sans much of the armor and weapon systems of course.

I was looking into allowing an in-system form of jump but I finally decided the original, more Niven Alderson point like interstellar only (with modifications) fits the setting much better.

Given the setting, the types of engagements - both military and civilian - would seem to be:

• Near interstellar jump point encounters
• Near deep space facility encounters
• Planetary orbital encounters
• Chase intercepts
• Head on intercepts

I think the head on intercepts in deep space would be fast, quick, and brutal, perhaps even suicidal for both sides. The chase intercepts would be more common in piracy/raids/scouting missions. Most military battles would take place near jump points, deep space facilities, or planetary orbits. In the last, there is a bit of terrain in the picture and the possibility of aerospace intercepts from the planet and/or planetary/orbital defenses.

It is easy to get carried away by the big picture battles, but what is likely to be more important to the players is the smaller chase intercept scenario.

Brian

 

[far-trader]

I might be too tired to have properly comprehended the needs in my quick read, if my question is answered I apologize for missing it

What degree of player character influence/interaction are you looking/aiming for in this?

None? Skills make no difference.

Some? Certain skills (eg. Pilot to fly) are required but do not provide bonuses.

Full? Appropriate skills (eg. Leader for morale) provide bonuses for levels.

 

[Omnivore]

What degree of player character influence/interaction are you looking/aiming for in this?

I'd prefer a full degree of character influence/interaction at the ship vs ship small scale battle level. Applicable players skills should have an effect.

Playing over the internet though, it is too easy to get bogged down in excessively detailed combat systems and it is rather unwieldy to adapt a miniatures or board game movement and positioning display. (It can be done and we've done it in the past but it is more of a distraction that it is usually worth. Of course it helped that a few of us are or have been programmers ).

While ideally I'd like the system to be amenable to scaling up to larger battles, I'll settle for needing two systems since the large scale battle would only be needed after a TCS campaign or pocket empires adaption of the setting. To be honest, I'm not sure I'll ever actually need the large scale battle capability for the setting.

It is the player level small(er) ship, small fleet at most, LBB2 scale of battles that need to be addressed.

Brian

 

[far-trader]

Have a look at the Role-Playing Space Combat System from the T4 era:

www.bitsuk.net/Archive/GameRules/files/rpsc09.pdf

Might be usable, adaptable, or idea thievable

 

[Omnivore]

Thanks far-trader, it has some interesting features. Lessee, I'll take this from RPSCS, that from LBB2, hmm a piece of HG, ah and a slice from TNE,... apply a zap of lightning... muhahahaha "IT LIVES! IT LIVES!".

Ok, maybe a little more work to do, but it is a start.

Brian

 

[Gray Pennell]

Have a look at the Role-Playing Space Combat System from the T4 era:

www.bitsuk.net/Archive/GameRules/files/rpsc09.pdf

Might be usable, adaptable, or idea thievable

My system is based on this too and its fun to play.

 

[77topaz]

Radioactive materials decay... and even gamma rays can be stopped by a few feet of lead or steel.