AeroTech 3: Part 1 - Introduction and General Discussion

[Vition2]

- Ignore overthrust for now. If weapons range from (say) 2 for NAC, and (depending on type) 5-10 for beams, what ends up looking broken? What's the fastest WarShip or DropShip out there? If one can move more than 10MP, is this "broken" - remembering that the ship isn't "outrunning" a laserbeam, as much as leaving the targetting/tracking envelope?

To me "broken" would be units that can manage (without overthrust) to transfer completely from outside of one side of an enemy ship's targeting/tracking envelope to outside the other, using your beam range example, this would be a minimum of 21 MP.

Also looking at your range of 2 for NACs, I'd suggest bumping that up to 4 or 6.  The short range seems to be based on the idea of realism creeping into play, and if we're doing something like that then missiles, being much more massive, would end up with very small movement profiles.

I also think that NACs and NGauss should be lumped into a single weapon type with varying damage codes.  The idea of continuing to use chemically based reactions (even nuclear) to propel a projectile seems to be unnecessary - and as people have pointed out, really stresses the suspension of belief.

- Related question, how fast should missiles go? 6/9/12/+ MP per turn?

I would put their MP at 1 shorter than the max range of kinetic based weaponry.  You just posted again, and I haven't read all the way through it, but to your first point, I like a little bit longer of a life for missiles, but not significantly more, I'd want it at about 3 turns,  and have the capability of out ranging beam weapons by a fairly significant amount.

- Now as above, but add overthrust. So the Mjolnir can move up to 6MP, the Black Lion 10MP. Assume something like a limited number of "overburns" - eg. 6 per scenario. Given the greater movement rates, do we get bigger issues when the MP approach those range limits?

Short form, how balanced does that feel?

This feels mostly balanced to me, I would limit the number of "overburns" to a number equal to the safe thrust of the unit - or if construction rules allow for specifically deeper fuel reserves, add overburns based on the additional amount of fuel.  Exampe: if normal engines remain at 6% ship mass per safe thrust, additional fuel reserves of 1% ship mass increase the number of overburns available by 1.

Totally separate point: I'm choosing to limit NAC ranges severely based on "time of flight". However, it is (I think) allowing for other characteristics for NACs:

1) Use for planetary bombardment. Should NACs be better than beams - possibly allowing for nuc or guided warloads?
2) Use against stationary/non-maneuvering targets - NACs should be able to be used against orbiting stations, or the like, at considerable ranges, under conditions (eg firing ship not maneuvering that turn)

Thoughts?

I answered part of this above, but as for your additional suggestions,
1) Yes, I think kinetic weapons should be better at striking ground targets than beam weapons, part of what makes me think this should be the case is how light traveling through different mediums is deflected, sometimes quite a bit - how things appear through light's deflection in water is a good example. 
2) While realism pushes me to say that that sounds like a good idea, I'm not sure I like the idea of something being able to stand off outside the effective defensive range of a unit and pound it with undefendable munitions as far as the game goes.  Ground-based targets are one thing, but orbital stations are another.  Having something like this would pretty much negate the effectiveness of orbital defenses against large craft.

[Vition2]

Okay, now that I've looked at Worktroll's mock-up a bit more, there are a couple of changes I'd suggest.

First, I'd separate the PD from standard sized weapons.  In the case of the mock-up it wouldn't have much in the way of PD.  Now this is primarily to prevent ships from too quickly becoming immune (or virtually so) from missile weapons.  Separating them also differentiates those weapons which can effectively engage fighter type units and weapons which require contact to cause damage.

Second, the structures could simply be lumped into the middle section, so it doesn't seem like you have to burn through 6 SI in every direction before the ship dies (unless that was your intention, though that makes SI much more resistant to damage than armor).

[worktroll]

Second thing first - it was intentional to have SI in each side. But would SI/20 per side be better - so the Whirlwind's nose would then be 6/3, flanks 7/3, rear 4/3?

(Chrome point - have "damage transfer" be internal. Say the Whirlwind takes 5 points from the front-left - nose armour reduced to 1. Another 5? nose armour gone, nose SI gone, and the last point transfers to the left SI. Or say another Whirlwind t-bones it from the flank with its nose NAC bank - that'd potentially go all the way in one side & out the other. )

PD - at this point, PD's more about fighters than missiles. AMS would potentially be a separate value, with (IIRC) MGs and small lasers counting (I am not an AT2 expert).

Last thought experiments for today:





How "right" do these feel?

[Lord Cameron]

What about a simple "altitude" measurement, as is used by VTOLs in the ground game?  With the obvious exception that the levels could be negative.  It would not affect range (or affect range insignificantly to avoid extra math), but would allow for some more freedom in maneuverability.

What it would do is add a ventral and dorsal location, though.  At least, that's what I'd do.  This would make combat inherently more tactical by adding more arcs for a ship to roll through to present fresh armor, and it would invite different angles of approach to get shots on/from a different location than merely front/broadside for most engagements.

Something simple, though.  Like... if (altitude/range) is 1 or greater, shots may hit the dorsal location and vice versa.  If (altitude/range) is -1 or less, shots may hit the ventral location and vice versa.

Good post Scotty, exactly what I was thinking

I'll throw my vote in for a 2D system, but perhaps with optional rules that increase the complexity to 3D.  If it hasn't been obvious in this and other posts, I strongly support the base system being pretty basic, but have a multitude of optional rules which increase realism and complexity.

That would be ideal, have 3D as an optional add on, if you don't want to do it the default is 2D 

[Lord Cameron]

As I think I said upstream, I like the idea of missiles having a two-turn life - maybe 12MP, and having some negatives to hit on the second turn (diminished fuel load?)

Missiles could have a hit probability adjusted by the target, say similar to Levs.
So the missile hit probability would be lower against a ship with advanced ECM, and better against a weak ECM.
Perhaps each ship could have an integral ship ECM rating, which would affect tracking missiles.
(But better ECM would cost more in tonnage etc)

[Daryk]

Doing some basic math, it looks like lasers (assuming a divergence of 1 microradian, and that damage is linearly proportional to beam cross section) fall off to 90% after ~4 hexes, 75% damage at ~8 hexes, 50% damage at ~23 hexes, and 25% damage at ~56 hexes.  That would seem to suggest a natural baseline for short/medium/long/extreme ranges.

[vidar]

Good post Scotty, exactly what I was thinking


That would be ideal, have 3D as an optional add on, if you don't want to do it the default is 2D

May I suggest going and getting a copy of Attack vector or SITS?  Before you further down this line of thought.  These are probably the the best simulation of 3D vector movement on the table top.  I love the system, but there is nothing simple about them, and they are time consuming to understand.  Any basic 3D is this complex or it completely miss the point.  And if you set off down the path it's either carp or this complex in my opinion.

[ColBosch]

*chuckles* Well, hell. I should've just asked, "hey, Worktroll, want to design a new game?" Good stuff, I can only scan it for now, but I will return later.

[Daryk]

Expanding on my initial though on ranges above:
Lasers: 4/8/23/56
PPCs: 2/4/11/28
NACs: 1/2/5/14
Naval Gauss: 2/3/6/15

This would reduce some of the insane velocities required for shells to arrive in a single turn.

Missiles, since they accelerate the whole way, aren't limited by any of the above math.

Battlefield/fighter scale and sub-capital lasers and PPCs could use similar ranges, but their vastly reduced damage would make them useless quickly.  I just can't see small ACs or missile systems reaching beyond the hex of a firing unit, though sub-capital cannons might have a profile like 0/1/2/6.

[Maingunnery]

PD - at this point, PD's more about fighters than missiles. AMS would potentially be a separate value, with (IIRC) MGs and small lasers counting (I am not an AT2 expert).

Anti-fighter damage should be called AA. Please leave PD for AMS and such.

However I am warming up for using 4 armor facings, will they also be used for stations? And do you have a location hit table for it?

---

Suggestions concerning weapon ranges:
Std weapons short&medium = 1 hex
Std weapons long&extreme = 2 hex
Naval Short/Medium/Long/Extreme = 4/8/12/16 hex

And for balancing weapons:
Naval Energy: as normal
Naval Ballistic: Double or triple target TTM. This means you can still bombard planets and SDS stations/JS, while allowing others to survive longer.
Naval Missile: travel at 1 map/turn, extra sensitive to ECM rating and PD. Tele-operated ones may make second pass.

[Vition2]

How "right" do these feel?

There are two issues that I have with these, and it's more to do with the conversion process than much else. 

1) The sides seem to have way too much armor when compared to the fore and aft sections.  This I suspect is entirely due to them being the combined armor from two arcs, I might suggest the conversion put a quarter of the armor of the fore sides to the fore and aft sides to the aft.  This would make the change the armor to 39/52/39 (instead of 23/68/23).  This really only effects conversions from the older systems to the newer one and the issue could be easily negated by the new system's construction rules.

2) Crew, for simplicity's sake there should probably be a set number of crits with a variation of only +/- 1 (for those with overstrength crew and those with barely enough to operate).  My suggestion would be a base of 3 with overstrength crew being 4 and barely adequate being 2.  From the baseline of 3, the first crit wouldn't have an effect, second would have a penalty to attack and defensive TNs, third would mean that the crew has been rendered combat ineffective.  Those with overstrength crew sizes would get an extra no effect crit, while barely adequate crews will go straight to TN penalties.

Re: Daryk
The biggest problem with those ranges is that it can lead to big ships just needing to sit in the middle of the map and being able to hit everything, realize that the laser weapon range you propose (on most ships) would result in a coverage area of more than 100 hexes across or if not using hexes 100 inches - this would require maps with more than 8 feet to a side to provide adequate maneuvering area.  This is the primary reason a lot of people have been looking at ranges of less than 20 hexes - this allows for smallish maps to still be usable.  Also, something to note, hex sizes are intentionally being left ambiguous at the moment.

[Maingunnery]

Concerning Crews, wouldn't be simplest if crew hits degrade the crew skills? 

[Daryk]

I don't think 50+ hexes is a problem for extreme range.  To hit numbers out there are high enough most people aren't going to even try.

[vidar]

About missile  weapons, or anything self guided in space.  How about having a distance  that place a counter, anything moving with in a set range gets attacked.  This allows you to shape the battle field and give guided weapons a unique form and function.  Think of then as field layable mine fields for space.

[worktroll]

Vidar, that's easily handled within the "chrome" level. Something like:

Passive seekers
Special load. Deploy missile within 1-6 hexes of launching ship. The first ship without a friendly IFF to move within 3 hexes of the passive seeker counter is attacked as if by a normal missile attack

(IFF - basically a critical hit outcome. Losing IFF can be ... embarrassing.)

Direct fire/hot load
Standard missiles (no special types) may be fired "hot" - burning out their motors for greater acceleration. This makes them much harder to intercept, but also less accurate. Add +2 to To Hit modifier, but add +3 to all Point Defence resolution rolls.

Penetration Aids
Special load. Each Penetration Aids counter stacked with attacking standard missiles adds +1 to Point Defence resolution rolls.

Screen launchers (aka 'sandcasters' for the oldies ;) )
Do these need to be a separate weapons system, or should they be special munitions?

***

Daryk, looks like we're just moving in different vectors at the moment. Those ranges render maneuver more or less irrelevant, barring online megamaps.  Maybe I'm being too much of a flat-thinker, weighed down by wet-navy metaphors, but I'm looking at playability, not realism.

W.

[Daryk]

Worktroll, I'm not so sure... lasers would be the only things with the longest ranges, and would be doing much reduced damage at them (i.e., full damage (rounding 90% up to 100%) only out to 4 hexes, 75% out to 8, 50% out to 23, and only 25% up to 56).  I think maneuver to get in close to actually start hurting the target would still be relevant.  And the effect would be worse for the other weapons, thus incentivizing knife fighting range, especially if screen launchers could be used to take, say, 25% off of laser damage.

[worktroll]

56 range. That's like 4 mapboards ...

[Daryk]

Right, which is what we have now (with the specific weapon ranges from SO), and screen launchers at that range could drop the damage to zero.  Even without screen launchers reducing laser damage, parking a ship to take advantage of that range would be equivalent to parking a Pike, or other AC/2 carrier on a ground map board.  Not game dominating by any stretch.

[Vition2]

One of the biggest problems I see for very large ranges is the problem that range increasingly minimizes the effect that smaller units can have on the field of play.  Bring a laser boat with ranges like that and anything that doesn't have capital weapons is at such a massive disadvantage it might as well not be there - even with the reduced damage. I, for one, would like to see smaller ships have a chance against warships (not 1v1 of course, but also not to the point where a capital ship could effectively kite an opposing force made of smaller ships).

[Daryk]

I'm just not seeing the "massive" disadvantage... Between extreme range modifiers to hit and the proposed damage reduction, closing to knife range should be easily survivable, even for small units (especially for small units if they get a modifier for being small, like they do now).

[worktroll]

Okay, more Waerotech 3 stuff ... fighter squadrons. For simplicity, I used squadrons of 10 fighters, and rolled them up into a single unit.

Thrust as per WS/DS; armour is (front+back) multiplied by 10, then (to move from TW to WAT3 scale) divided by 100. Weapons likewise x10, then /100. SI/10.

So:

Seydlitz. Move 11/17, SI 1, Armour 2, Weapons 2/2 (eg. 2 points at 0, 2 points at 1)
Stingray. Move 6/9, SI 1, Armour 10, Weapons 2/1
Slayer. Move 6/9, SI 1, Armour 13, Weapons 3/1
Reiver. Move 5/8, SI 1, Armour 13, weapons 7/1

Thoughts: 1) Does SI provide a useful function here? Should we just ignore it?
2) Armour values seem a little high, but weapon values seem OK. A squadron of Reivers are not to be ignored.

Would it be better to just use frontal armour as the base for calculation? Would it be a chrome-ish hack to make ASF squadrons take double damage from the rear arc?

[worktroll]

Okay, would appreciate a little help from our aero-savvy members.

I'd like to do a playtest of Waerotech 3 on the weekend, if I can rope in a son or two. Could I get what one might consider roughly equivalent taskforces? Three vessels, IS 3060s+ tech, on each side? Balanced based on your personal experience, BV2, or augury (BYO geese). I'll do the WAT3 conversion on them & attached fighters, see what it plays like.

Ta muchly!

[Vition2]

1) SI, it's pretty much useless at this level, so doing away with it is probably just find.

2) I know this is getting a little complicated, but I'm okay with conversions being more complicated than actual play.  I'd suggest making individual fighter stats that can be added together to form whatever size formation is needed for the scenario (very large ones could have entire aero regiments being used as singular entities).  Have their armor and damage be written out to two decimal places and round the final formations armor and damage to the nearest whole number.  As for how much armor should be counted, I'd forego the aft armor and just give an armor rating based on the nose and wings, divide it by 100 as you said.  Weapons would only count those in the nose and forward facing wings, but otherwise uses your formula.  I'd also suggest, at least for the larger scaled combats, the range be limited to the same as standard scale (or PD) weapons on warships, I'd peg this at 1.  In addition some would be able to carry anti-ship missiles which would be able to travel for 2 turns but have a thrust profile of 2 (so they could be fired at a range of 4 and might still hit). 

Each would look like this:
SYD-21 Seydlitz
- Move: 11/17
- Armor: 0.22
- Weapon: 0.08
SYD-21 Squadron (6 fighters): 11/17 move, 1 armor, 1 damage

F-90 Stingray
- Move: 6/9
- Armor: 1.5
- Damage: 0.36
F-90 Squadron (6 fighters): 6/9 move, 9 armor, 2 damage

SL-15 Slayer
- Move: 6/9
- Armor: 1.84
- Damage: 0.4
SL-15 Squadron (6 fighters): 6/9 move, 11 armor, 2 damage

F-100 Riever
- Move: 5/8
- Armor: 2.08
- Damage: 0.42
F-100 Squadron (6 fighters): 5/8 move, 12 armor, 3 damage

Visigoth PRIME
- Move: 7/11
- Armor: 1.59
- Damage: 0.49
Visigoth PRIME Star (10 fighters): 7/11 move, 16 armor, 5 damage

I'd also suggest damage degradation based on how much armor has been lost, it could be as complex as recalculating damage for each fighter equivalent lost, or just cut down into 3 or 4 categories - eg. undamaged, damaged, crippled, dead.  With reductions in damage for each of them.

[worktroll]

I think we're aligned there, Vition2. I only went with 10-fighter squadrons because that's what the examples I'd used were, so there's no issues there.

I'm still toying with giving ASFs some minimal ranged combat ability - letting "long range" (15 and over) weapons get an attack at 1 hex. But Rievers and Sparrowhawks need to get up close & personal O0

Damage reduction - well, maybe at half damage you "flip the counter", which has reduced stats - take 50% off damage, 25% off thrust. All in the aim of keeping things low-drag ;)

[Daemion]

How "right" do these feel?

Aside from the critical effects, which really need to be looked into, The values you're showing are just about what I was imagining.

However - Question & Idea:

Q) Is this the style of Warship you want? Or would something more akin to Leviathans be more up people's alley?

I) While I like the idea of location damage transfer, the current set-up just doesn't feel right for me for that purpose, so I propose a couple options to consider:

     - Throw back to AT1 and have a 'fuselage' or 'keel' section for your ships to which damage can transfer to. It may or may not be armored of its own accord. I think not since the 'locations' will be armored and acting as armor. Once that's destroyed, the ship falls apart. It'll be the BattleShip's center torso, if you will.

     - Borrow from Leviathans and come up with a ship-stress test that gets checked/rolled against every time a previously destroyed location takes a solid naval class hit. I recommend this option for simplicity. Like the BMR version of clearing woods, it's easier to roll dice and check the yes/no result and move on instead of taking the few minutes to mark pips.

Either version will be okay as far as I'm concerned, or even some sort of combination of both, like maybe, the 500,000 ton warship gets 5 structure points, and each time a 'break the keel' test succeeds, the structure is reduced by one. Have destroyed locations also damage this value. Or go so far as to have 11, 5 + 1 for each undamaged section. Each destroyed section automatically does 1 point of damage, as well as any successful 'break the keel' tests.

[Daemion]

Concerning Crews, wouldn't be simplest if crew hits degrade the crew skills?

Let's just not call it crew. Whenever a ship starts taking damage, you are generally taking crew losses, anyhow, so I don't see how tracking the crew quality is relevant, especially for the game we are trying to design.

And, from ship to ship, how would you define the effects of crew, anyway? A Union Dropship has the crew all located on the bridge with maybe a small handful of technicians and laborers elsewhere in the bowels of the ship. Do you think a hull breach in the engine compartment which takes out the chief engineer and two technicians is going to have an effect on piloting? Or would it be like a bridge hit? And wouldn't a bridge hit most likely take out the dropper?

(As much as I like Leviathans, this is the one thing they didn't handle very well. But, it was okay.)

Versus a battleship with anywhere from 50 to a couple thousand. And, remember, we're looking at treating all large spacecraft - from smallest dropship to largest monitor - as effectively the same.

So, crew tracking is a bad idea.

Instead, we should simply be looking at effects.

So, as an example, let's look at the two things work troll posted for the Texas and Union.

I'll start with the Union. See next post.

[Daemion]

I see he's gone with the ProtoMech analogue.

With that in mind, as much damage as it can sustain (not much) is it worth really tracking critical damage to begin with? Depends on how we handle damage transfer. But, for now, let's make some assumptions and put a few things together.

If you take out any location, the ship isn't destroyed outright, but it loses effects for that loss. So, what does that location represent? A whole portion of a ship? Well, if we go with a separate fuselage section, then no, it's merely the hull for that direction, and its loss will only effect any items along the surface of that spot.

So, what effects to we want to track for each section besides weapons?

MP reduction?
Being able to turn in a particular direction?
Accuracy of attacks?
Control difficulty?
Something else?

So, here's a list of what I think we should be looking at for a Union by section at the very least:

Fore                                                                         
Weapon -1                                                           
Gunnery +1                                                       
Piloting +1                                                           
                                                                       
Sides                                            
Weapon -1
Gunnery +1
Piloting +1
Turn Cost +1
Door -1

Aft
Weapon -1
Gunnery +1
Piloting +1
MP Cost +1

Fuselage
Safe MP -1
Repair -1 {… However we're going to treat this}
Keel Target value -1 (KTV:7) {… Assuming we have this}
Instakill
Overall Gunnery +1
Overall Piloting +1

Now, there is a way to streamline the placement on the sheet so that we aren't cluttering each location with repetitive information.

Secondly, the stats in question would only apply to the 'location' that is taking the damage, like how vehicle crits work. You destroy a weapon when the crit is through the right side, only the right side weapon is destroyed. If none are left, there's no further effect. Or, maybe it transfers. If a side takes an accuracy hit, it's only to weapons in that location, and doesn't effect the rest of the ship. This is also like BattleMechs with arm damage only effecting the weapons in that arm. If these are to be the 'BattleMechs of space', let's treat them as such.

Now, with the Union, as much damage as it can sustain under Worktroll's listed stats, should there be a chance to threshold crits? I say absolutely, but others might say no, depending on how complicated we want this to go.

Now, onto the Texas. See next post.

[Daemion]

The Texas wouldn't be too much different. It would have higher thresholds and a larger number for its stats.

One Item I forgot which should probably be in the fuselage is Fuel. Same would go for the droppers.

Someone suggested ECM for AMS purposes. That would be another thing to have in the fuselage, or base it on location. If a location is destroyed, its capacity to broadcast ecm from a particular hull point would be gone.

As a dropship transport it would have collars in addition to doors since it looks like it has a fighter capacity according to 'Troll's sheet.

If we have something as complicated as a command vessel which gives Init bonuses, that would be something to track, as well.

Give me some time, and I'll whip up some quick word-file sheets to illustrate my point.

But, the BattleShips are one of the reasons I would rather split armor over critical effects instead of having a static armor value for a direction. This is a bad port from AT2, in my opinion. It's why we have the huge armor bubble thing, and I don't like it. It doesn't visualize well for really large ships taking rather precise damage.

If you armored the effects and weapons, then you could get away with ditching the structure points idea entirely for a location. In order to destroy it, you have to take out every last item. And to start breaking the keel, you have to at least destroy an entire location. And if we do go that route, you could limit what a section has based on the structure points you would normally get for that location in construction.

But, this could prove to be too complex for the high-end fleet game.

[ColBosch]

This is excellent stuff! I am very happy to see you guys questioning everything. I've been a bit amiss with keeping up on this thread, because this weekend was a bit of a boozy whirlwind due to my birthday and the holiday.

[Daemion]

Attached is a sample table for the Union Dropship to show what could probably be done.

The [_] boxes are places to write down the current modifier based on damage. That's what X stands for in the crit descriptions.
The O boxes are simply damage trackers to be marked off like armor.

Now, with the damage scale suggested above, it would be difficult to armor each crit if we were to try to do so. So, I guess either a choice would have to be made during construction, or we turn the armor into a threshold value to see if a crit is scored, and apply the hit points to the location's structure.

If that seems to much, then maybe we may want to look at the Dropship as Heavy Battle Armor approach. Notice the KTV number I gave the union. That is effectively one point per section plus one for a fuselage section. But, if we want to base it off existing internal structure values, we could do proper math and adjust it accordingly.

Then, that is the life bar. We can check for crits over an armor threshold as the ship takes damage. Check to see if it's ripped apart before it's completely demolished. (KTV would be equal to the current undamaged structure points.) Or, if it manages to stay functional in spite of the pounding, it's still destroyed once the last Structure point is gone.

It would look something like this:

Union DropShip
Structure: OOOOO
Threshold:
- Fore (2)
- Side (2)
- Aft   (1)

I see two ways of applying this beyond as straight up armor. We could treat the threshold as a damage modifier, requiring that much plus one damage to damage structure (kind of like armor) but it doesn't go away right away, like armor currently does. Think of the armor in the card game, but you don't have to wait until the end of the mission for it to still have full effect against later attacks. We can still let it degrade with successful hits that exceed the value, but only by one point, say.

The other option I see is to have the threshold apply as a critical hit roll modifier (hence the -1 or -2) applied to a crit check from damage. Since the damage would be applied to structure at all times, there would always be a crit check.

Now, for an interesting complication, if we want it, you could have the threshold reduced each time the ship takes damage, whether a crit is scored or not, to represent armor damage. This could even go above 0 making it accumulative from any particular direction.


But, of course, going this route means that dropships no longer directly mirror their larger counterpart.