Idea came up. With apologies, I'm putting it here in IMTU because not everyone may agree with the underlying assumptions and I'd rather not get into too much of a debate about underlying assumptions when I'm formulating a different combat scenario. I'd love to debate the underlying assumptions over in Fleet or some other forum if someone wants to do that, but I'd like to focus on debating the scenario here and how best to flesh it out, if that's ok.
As I said in another post, one of the issues with HG2 is the basic assumption of the line. It looks rather like two fleets opposing each other just outside the 100-diameter limit of some target world, doing very little movement other than what it takes to try and come to a preferred range, apparently because most of their maneuver energy is taken up in evasive maneuvers to reduce the chance of being hit. Starting from that model, if we start from the assumption that agility is the application of spare power to the maneuver drive in order to evade enemy weapon attacks, then the application of that energy to accelerate away from an opponent means that energy is not available for evading attacks. In other words, we can make a homebrew rule modification that says you need to spend part or all of your agility to break away by acceleration, and the other guy needs to spend the same amount of agility to pursue.
Breaking away by acceleration, for that round at least, creates a stern chase. In the subsequent combat rounds, you can decide to continue spending your agility (or spend more if you weren't spending all of it) in the hope the enemy will either disengage or will be more vulnerable and therefore easier to hit, or you can stop spending agility and turn to face the enemy, thereby ending the stern chase and having all of your agility for evasive maneuvering.
In a stern chase, both parties are more vulnerable, but one is firing "uphill" while the other is firing "downhill". For most weapons this is irrelevant. For missiles, this could be very relevant. I'm looking at how best to model that.
I'll start with a slight modification to the missile damage rules. I like the Book 2 rule about the missile doing 1d6 hits; it makes the nonnuclear missile more significant in combat when facing heavy armor, since it gives the missile an opportunity to overcome that bit about rolling off the end of the table into "no effect" land. (Although I've also entertained the notion of getting rid of that line and having the table stop at 21+ instead of 22+; that might make the missile too deadly, but it's pretty wickedly deadly in Book 2 if it hits, so ...). I've also considered emulating the effect of a kinetic impact by having each hit roll 1d6 (or maybe 1d6-1, or maybe 1d6-3, still thinking about it) to subtract from penetration, reflecting both that it's moving wickedly fast at impact and that its effect is going to depend a lot on whether it can impact squarely or manages only a glancing blow.
Now we look at a stern chase, and one option is to give a -1 DM bonus to the damage roll for each G of acceleration when the downhill craft is being hit and a +1 DM penalty when the uphill craft is being hit. This can make a stern chase a bit of a dangerous affair, less so for heavily armored craft but still.
There are other issues: at some point, the uphill craft is essentially firing at short range even when at long range, since the missile is closing the distance that much faster. Similarly, the downhill craft is essentially firing at long range even when at short range. Also, if you're both accelerating at the same rate, it might make the initiative roll moot: how do you close range with someone who is doing their best to accelerate away from you if you're just matching their acceleration. Could end up in a bidding war: one guy applies 1g to break away (reducing agility by that amount but hoping he won't be pursued), the other announces he's applying 1g to pursue, the first guy says he's upping it to 2G (again reducing agility), the second says he's matching, and so forth until they either reach a point where the second guy decides it's too risky for his blood and ends pursuit or they're settled on a number and start rolling for hits. In the latter case, the second guy might announce another 1G boost to close to short range, if he has it - and the first guy might add another G or surrender initiative.
As I said in another post, one of the issues with HG2 is the basic assumption of the line. It looks rather like two fleets opposing each other just outside the 100-diameter limit of some target world, doing very little movement other than what it takes to try and come to a preferred range, apparently because most of their maneuver energy is taken up in evasive maneuvers to reduce the chance of being hit. Starting from that model, if we start from the assumption that agility is the application of spare power to the maneuver drive in order to evade enemy weapon attacks, then the application of that energy to accelerate away from an opponent means that energy is not available for evading attacks. In other words, we can make a homebrew rule modification that says you need to spend part or all of your agility to break away by acceleration, and the other guy needs to spend the same amount of agility to pursue.
Breaking away by acceleration, for that round at least, creates a stern chase. In the subsequent combat rounds, you can decide to continue spending your agility (or spend more if you weren't spending all of it) in the hope the enemy will either disengage or will be more vulnerable and therefore easier to hit, or you can stop spending agility and turn to face the enemy, thereby ending the stern chase and having all of your agility for evasive maneuvering.
In a stern chase, both parties are more vulnerable, but one is firing "uphill" while the other is firing "downhill". For most weapons this is irrelevant. For missiles, this could be very relevant. I'm looking at how best to model that.
I'll start with a slight modification to the missile damage rules. I like the Book 2 rule about the missile doing 1d6 hits; it makes the nonnuclear missile more significant in combat when facing heavy armor, since it gives the missile an opportunity to overcome that bit about rolling off the end of the table into "no effect" land. (Although I've also entertained the notion of getting rid of that line and having the table stop at 21+ instead of 22+; that might make the missile too deadly, but it's pretty wickedly deadly in Book 2 if it hits, so ...). I've also considered emulating the effect of a kinetic impact by having each hit roll 1d6 (or maybe 1d6-1, or maybe 1d6-3, still thinking about it) to subtract from penetration, reflecting both that it's moving wickedly fast at impact and that its effect is going to depend a lot on whether it can impact squarely or manages only a glancing blow.
Now we look at a stern chase, and one option is to give a -1 DM bonus to the damage roll for each G of acceleration when the downhill craft is being hit and a +1 DM penalty when the uphill craft is being hit. This can make a stern chase a bit of a dangerous affair, less so for heavily armored craft but still.
There are other issues: at some point, the uphill craft is essentially firing at short range even when at long range, since the missile is closing the distance that much faster. Similarly, the downhill craft is essentially firing at long range even when at short range. Also, if you're both accelerating at the same rate, it might make the initiative roll moot: how do you close range with someone who is doing their best to accelerate away from you if you're just matching their acceleration. Could end up in a bidding war: one guy applies 1g to break away (reducing agility by that amount but hoping he won't be pursued), the other announces he's applying 1g to pursue, the first guy says he's upping it to 2G (again reducing agility), the second says he's matching, and so forth until they either reach a point where the second guy decides it's too risky for his blood and ends pursuit or they're settled on a number and start rolling for hits. In the latter case, the second guy might announce another 1G boost to close to short range, if he has it - and the first guy might add another G or surrender initiative.
