Boarding Actions

[denis]

I was going over the section, and I see a fatal flaw (at least for the poor Marines who are going to get stranded in space). The moment a Marine leaps off his launching ship towards the ship they are trying to board (at least while underway) they are screwed. Why? Because that ship is still under thrust, and the Marine has either suit thrusters, or none. So he would never have enough Delta-V to make it. Not to mention that he'd be trailing his launching ship as well. Anybody who has skydived will understand that analogy.

I think you're forgetting that we're talking about space. Skydiving is in atmosphere and in a gravity well. In space, if both ships are at matched velocities it's as if they were both immobile and the Marine only has to cross over.

But in any case, I always imagined that they'd use magnetic grappling lines, just because there no reason the target can't change course...

 

[snrdg121408]

Hi denis,

I was going over the section, and I see a fatal flaw (at least for the poor Marines who are going to get stranded in space). The moment a Marine leaps off his launching ship towards the ship they are trying to board (at least while underway) they are screwed. Why? Because that ship is still under thrust, and the Marine has either suit thrusters, or none. So he would never have enough Delta-V to make it. Not to mention that he'd be trailing his launching ship as well. Anybody who has skydived will understand that analogy.

I think you're forgetting that we're talking about space. Skydiving is in atmosphere and in a gravity well. In space, if both ships are at matched velocities it's as if they were both immobile and the Marine only has to cross over.

But in any case, I always imagined that they'd use magnetic grappling lines, just because there no reason the target can't change course...

With my luck my character will be crossing over when the target ship does a maneuver snapping the grappling line, the thruster pack fails, or some other exciting event occurs adding another NPC to my collection. ;-)

 

[denis]

With my luck my character will be crossing over when the target ship does a maneuver snapping the grappling line, the thruster pack fails, or some other exciting event occurs adding another NPC to my collection. ;-)

Nice description of an exceptional failure with an Effect lower than -6

 

[phavoc]

I was going over the section, and I see a fatal flaw (at least for the poor Marines who are going to get stranded in space). The moment a Marine leaps off his launching ship towards the ship they are trying to board (at least while underway) they are screwed. Why? Because that ship is still under thrust, and the Marine has either suit thrusters, or none. So he would never have enough Delta-V to make it. Not to mention that he'd be trailing his launching ship as well. Anybody who has skydived will understand that analogy.

I think you're forgetting that we're talking about space. Skydiving is in atmosphere and in a gravity well. In space, if both ships are at matched velocities it's as if they were both immobile and the Marine only has to cross over.

But in any case, I always imagined that they'd use magnetic grappling lines, just because there no reason the target can't change course...

That assumes that the ship to be boarded will cooperate. I assumed that as long as they have drive power and the will to resist, trying to board a starship is an impossible maneuver. All they need to do is change their heading. A person who has launched from the attacking ship has to try and counter any heading change while still going in the same direction. Remember this is Newtonian movement and in order to stop you have to apply equal amounts of thrust. So a ship that has been pursuing another for say 20 minutes will impart that much energy to anyone/thing leaving it. If there is a change in speed or direction that has to be overcome or at least taken into account. While you are IN the ship it's not a big deal. But when you LEAVE that ship, it becomes a VERY big deal. And thruster packs don't have the G-ratings that a starship does.

So while this could be hand-waived (too), why not just fix all those little problems that are going to pop up with players in the first place. Plus unless you have some sort of super-duper airlock, you can't board another ship underway with standard extended airlocks if they aren't cooperating. A simple thruster jet firing would snap off any airlock because they can't take that kind of torsional stress. Even trying to get a shuttle or small craft to hook up would be some really fantastical piloting. If the ship is large enough, and the hull weak enough, you could make a boarding shuttle that simply rams through the hull and allows entry that way.

Grapple lines are a potential - once you are able to lock on to the other ship you can simply pull yourself over. Depending on the length of the line though the defender could do some maneuvers that would make the person on the end of the line unconscious or throwing up in their helmet (the joys of physics!). But short enough you could get close enough where you could pull / be pulled by a motor would make it possible to get onboard in a single turn, thus minimizing that whipsaw effect.

Now maybe this where a boarding 'drone' of sorts could come in handy. Think of it like those motorized little torpedoes divers use to pull themselves rapidly through the water. In this case it's essentially a powered rocket, with a magnetic grapnel on the forward end that automatically fires within say a few hundred meters of the target starship. Since it's accelerated the person strapped on, it will need to fire retros to reduce its velocity, otherwise you'll have a smashed boarder on the full. The grapnel means it will match the velocity of the target, and then it can reduce it's velocity without missing it's mark. It works (more or less) with real physics, and it solves the problem of how to board a ship that still can maneuver.

 

[phavoc]

The reason I'm bringing this up is because a player who is trying to avoid being boarded, (or a Ref who is trying to make his players work at trying to board) needs to know what the parameters are for doing so.

This isn't a "it's an RPG" sort of question. If that was the case then why bother with things like "lasers" or "missiles". Just make crap up, throw dice, ignore the results, and make more crap up. And neither should this be one of those "the referee can rule on it"... because that's just lazy rulemaking. Not to mention you are burdening referees to come up with even MORE stuff on their own. Why bother buying a game system when you are just going to make rules up as you go along??

No, cases like this is where the rules need to be fairly clear about what you can, and cannot do. Clever players will always look for ways around the rules to their advantage, just as tired ref's will try to find rules already made up so they don't need to bother arguing with their players.

 

[denis]

All true. I think the trick is to try and disable some of the systems on the target ship first (ideally maneuver drive). And the grapple lines could be anchored on the attacking ship instead of the Marine. In a similar fashion as pirates did in boats before the pirates would swing over.

Something like that can be seen in Serenity IIRC.

In any case, if you find it's impossible to do, just don't let your players do it

 

[Condottiere]

Remember on The Expanse when someone tried at Tycho to crawl around the outside of the gunship?

Don't know if that feature will be retained in the next HG, but that's one way to repel boarders.

 

[snrdg121408]

The web gremlins are messing with me very badly today.

I have made two posts one to denis' time stamped Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:36 pm and a general reply. I made sure to wait until I saw my postings show up on the forum page. I logged out and now they are gone.

Can anyone let me know what is going on.

Here is a recap.

1.

With my luck my character will be crossing over when the target ship does a maneuver snapping the grappling line, the thruster pack fails, or some other exciting event occurs adding another NPC to my collection. ;-)

Nice description of an exceptional failure with an Effect lower than -6

A majority of my characters at some point achieve exceptional failures. The best is one is when a party had to evacuate using two different ship's boats, the one my character was flying was blown to pieces taking out the rebel forces besieging the landing field and saving the government. The government rebuilt the field naming it after my character and billing the part survivors for damages.

2. A quick look at space combat in CRB 1st and 2nd editions boarding actions handled either by using a abstract system or as personnel combat after the attacking ship achieves an advantage I guess. I'll admit that my knowledge of combat is very subpar.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this post gets through and stays on the forum.

 

[snrdg121408]

I've spent time reading through CRB 1st and 2nd editions Space Combat rules and concluded that boarding actions, if I have understood the rules, can be conducted while the target is underway, however all the factors required for success has to be in the attacker's favor.

Here is what I think happens during a Space Combat Round.

After one or both combatants detects the other they maneuver to either close or open the range. If one or both get into weapons range or boarding range an attack can be conduct. Once the attack has been completed the combatants can try to make repairs, reload weapons, or any actions that are not considered an attack.

Space Combat continues until the attacker defeats the defender, the defender beats the attacker, mutual destruction, either combatant breaks off combat.

In CRB 2nd the success of a boarding action is determined by the attacking ship's pilot dice rolls being better that the defender to able to stay at the range bands of adjacent/close allowing the boarders to EVA across the distance or for a ship/small craft to dock. Of course if the attacker's rolls are horrible, this would be my case, the defender avoids being boarded.

A spacecraft, similar to modern large aircraft, have a limited number of normal ingress/egress points which are airlocks and the hatches to the cargo hold in which the cargo hold accesses the ship's interior. Of course one can also blow a hole into the hull somewhere away from the normal access points.

Of course I may be totally out to lunch or in a whole different world and thank you all for allowing me my Cr2s.

 

[phavoc]

Keep in mind that if these starships are moving (which in the example they are), once a person leaves the hull of the attacking ship they will be falling behind because they are not using the ship for acceleration. And, assuming we get passed that with a handwave, if they fail their boarding action, what then? In theory they should then be drifting behind their target since both ships have maintained their current velocity.

As a player it would be fair for me to call out to the ref that since his boarding party "missed" the rendezvous with my ship, they are now floating helplessly behind me. So I don't have to worry about THAT particular boarding party, unless the attacker is wiling to slow down and make the effort to pick up his floating boarding party, which should give me a fair amount of time to get away, or at least increase the distance between us again.

Without that in the rules there is ambiguity in how this action should play out. And, again, this goes back to the very tired point of why bother having rules if the referee decides how to interpret everything when it happens?

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello phavoc,

Keep in mind that if these starships are moving (which in the example they are), once a person leaves the hull of the attacking ship they will be falling behind because they are not using the ship for acceleration. And, assuming we get passed that with a handwave, if they fail their boarding action, what then? In theory they should then be drifting behind their target since both ships have maintained their current velocity.

As a player it would be fair for me to call out to the ref that since his boarding party "missed" the rendezvous with my ship, they are now floating helplessly behind me. So I don't have to worry about THAT particular boarding party, unless the attacker is wiling to slow down and make the effort to pick up his floating boarding party, which should give me a fair amount of time to get away, or at least increase the distance between us again.

Without that in the rules there is ambiguity in how this action should play out. And, again, this goes back to the very tired point of why bother having rules if the referee decides how to interpret everything when it happens?

Here is how I am understanding the rules, which may be wrong, described in CRB 2nd edition.

During the maneuver phase of a Combat Round the attacking ship succeeds in getting into the adjacent range band. During the combat maneuver sub-phase the attacking ship's pilot might try docking if there is any thrust left. Once the Maneuver phase is completed the two ships attack each other and resolves the damage. If both ships survive to entire the Action phase the attacker launches a boarding action that takes 2D rounds to complete.

If the 2D rounds are combat rounds the two ships have to be adjacent to each other or docked the entire time. If the two ships are no longer docked together the boarding action does not happen.

If the range band opens to close before time expires the boarding party will fail to make contact with the defender's hull and are really hoping that their ship has sent out a small craft to pick them up.

If the ships remain docked together or the they stay in the adjacent range boarding party makes contact with the defender's hull and the boarding action is resolved using the procedure and table on CRB 2nd Ed. p. 163.

If I had a character involved both sides would want the character on the other ship or better yet anywhere but on the ships or in the boarding party, since they have a habit of rolling spectacular failures.

(My first submit returned an invalid post try again. The second got through)

 

[fusor]

I always assumed they launched the marines from a cannon of some type. Is that not the case in Mongoose edition?

edit: I suppose you could have single person 'boarding torpedos' too.

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hqcGK72XYQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1h16m13s

(don't think about it too much )

 

[wbnc]

I always assumed they launched the marines from a cannon of some type. Is that not the case in Mongoose edition?

edit: I suppose you could have single person 'boarding torpedos' too.

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hqcGK72XYQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1h16m13s

(don't think about it too much )

oh the cheese, the delicious bad effects, bad acting, cheesy goodness.

 

[phavoc]

Hello phavoc,

Here is how I am understanding the rules, which may be wrong, described in CRB 2nd edition.

During the maneuver phase of a Combat Round the attacking ship succeeds in getting into the adjacent range band. During the combat maneuver sub-phase the attacking ship's pilot might try docking if there is any thrust left. Once the Maneuver phase is completed the two ships attack each other and resolves the damage. If both ships survive to entire the Action phase the attacker launches a boarding action that takes 2D rounds to complete.

If the 2D rounds are combat rounds the two ships have to be adjacent to each other or docked the entire time. If the two ships are no longer docked together the boarding action does not happen.

If the range band opens to close before time expires the boarding party will fail to make contact with the defender's hull and are really hoping that their ship has sent out a small craft to pick them up.

If the ships remain docked together or the they stay in the adjacent range boarding party makes contact with the defender's hull and the boarding action is resolved using the procedure and table on CRB 2nd Ed. p. 163.

If I had a character involved both sides would want the character on the other ship or better yet anywhere but on the ships or in the boarding party, since they have a habit of rolling spectacular failures.

(My first submit returned an invalid post try again. The second got through)

But this rule makes no practical sense. A ship that still has power would be able to maneuver away, or even roll, and break any extended airlock mechanism. That's just plain common sense. Unless the attacking ship has a claw of some kind, standard airlock extenders (the mythical ones that exist, cause they are never detailed) would never have the strength to hold on to a starship that is capable of moving at 1G or greater speeds. That's extending the fantasy a bit too much in my opinion. Which is why a ship under power and actively resisting would be damn hard to board unless you could make a hard dock and keep that dock in place. I doubt most starships are going to have a handy docking cradle right by their airlock. so that means the ship trying to board has to be equipped with the necessary stuff to do so.

Jumping across from another ship would be crazy... but somewhat doable under the right conditions, or at least with the right additional equipment - suit thrusters wouldn't be strong enough.

I know what the rules are printed as... doesn't mean they are good rules though or can't be fixed with a teeny-tiny tweak that would clear this whole thing up. "Ships still capable of moving under their own power cannot be boarded while under way without the boarding ship deploying a docking claw to make a physical, unbreakable connection" or something like that. No more pirates in space leaping across on ropes!

 

[Condottiere]

Stealth drone, delivering one or more boarders.

Matches velocity, and they jump on the hull. Or the drone attaches itself to the hull.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello again phavoc

Hello phavoc,

Here is how I am understanding the rules, which may be wrong, described in CRB 2nd edition.

During the maneuver phase of a Combat Round the attacking ship succeeds in getting into the adjacent range band. During the combat maneuver sub-phase the attacking ship's pilot might try docking if there is any thrust left. Once the Maneuver phase is completed the two ships attack each other and resolves the damage. If both ships survive to entire the Action phase the attacker launches a boarding action that takes 2D rounds to complete.

If the 2D rounds are combat rounds the two ships have to be adjacent to each other or docked the entire time. If the two ships are no longer docked together the boarding action does not happen.

If the range band opens to close before time expires the boarding party will fail to make contact with the defender's hull and are really hoping that their ship has sent out a small craft to pick them up.

If the ships remain docked together or the they stay in the adjacent range boarding party makes contact with the defender's hull and the boarding action is resolved using the procedure and table on CRB 2nd Ed. p. 163.

If I had a character involved both sides would want the character on the other ship or better yet anywhere but on the ships or in the boarding party, since they have a habit of rolling spectacular failures.

(My first submit returned an invalid post try again. The second got through)

But this rule makes no practical sense. A ship that still has power would be able to maneuver away, or even roll, and break any extended airlock mechanism. That's just plain common sense. Unless the attacking ship has a claw of some kind, standard airlock extenders (the mythical ones that exist, cause they are never detailed) would never have the strength to hold on to a starship that is capable of moving at 1G or greater speeds. That's extending the fantasy a bit too much in my opinion. Which is why a ship under power and actively resisting would be damn hard to board unless you could make a hard dock and keep that dock in place. I doubt most starships are going to have a handy docking cradle right by their airlock. so that means the ship trying to board has to be equipped with the necessary stuff to do so.

Jumping across from another ship would be crazy... but somewhat doable under the right conditions, or at least with the right additional equipment - suit thrusters wouldn't be strong enough.

I know what the rules are printed as... doesn't mean they are good rules though or can't be fixed with a teeny-tiny tweak that would clear this whole thing up. "Ships still capable of moving under their own power cannot be boarded while under way without the boarding ship deploying a docking claw to make a physical, unbreakable connection" or something like that. No more pirates in space leaping across on ropes!

The combat system is based on the abstract not the reality and omits a lot of detail for play ability. I have provided my best interpretation of the combat rules and indicated that I could be wrong. I have not said that the rules do or do not need tweaking.

Rolling of the ship is not covered in the rules at least from what I have determined by reading the through the rules, thruster packs are capable of getting boarding parties to the target ship or they use small craft.

From what I've seen rule tweaks may fix one thing and usually breaks something else, not to mention that someone else does not agree with the tweak or has a different one.

Hopefully this gets worked out to the point that a majority will find boarding actions more playable.

 

[wbnc]

something to consider. Since a ship can only generate it's thrust number in any direction, of rotation or travel. if a ship has a higher thrust and any sort of decent sensor flight control system it can detect and match any movement by a ship with a lower thrust number.

fly by wire, computer assisted systems can execute hundreds of corrections per second, and respond in nano seconds to new input...and all starships are fly by wire, computer assisted systems.

A ship can only execute maneuvers as radical as the crew of the ship are willing to risk. deliberately forcing a collision to forestall boarding would require a truly brave or desperate crew.

if hit with a forced linkage system( grapnels etc..) the smaller ship is at more risk from a collision than the larger one..doubly so if the other ship has better armor to absorb the impact.

A starship can only generate 6 gee acceleration at best.(under old rules) this is well within the tolerances of humans, and a decent magnetic anchor and cable line can easily hold six times the weight of the person attached to it.

a cable attached to a target vessels hull can be fed out, or retracted rapidly to prevent being snapped by a ship executing a fast roll. and a single displacement ton of cable could be several miles long.

there is no need for the cable to be fixed to the person using the cable at one end, and the target ship at the other it could be attached between the two ships.if one end of the cable is attached to each ship the control system of the boarding ship can match acceleration and feed out cable, or retract it to keep constant tension on the cable. matching acceleration and direction of movement with the target ship, or executing counter maneuvers to remain in proper position. as long as the aggressor ship has higher thrust than the target ship.

Boarding troops could attach themselves to the cable between ships by a D-ring, or sliding connector to the cable allowing them to slide along it's length and be pulled along by the cable between the two ships, which would be forming . forming a zip line that someone with thrust packs could move across without needing to be able to personally match the target ships acceleration.

 

[phavoc]

something to consider. Since a ship can only generate it's thrust number in any direction, of rotation or travel. if a ship has a higher thrust and any sort of decent sensor flight control system it can detect and match any movement by a ship with a lower thrust number.

fly by wire, computer assisted systems can execute hundreds of corrections per second, and respond in nano seconds to new input...and all starships are fly by wire, computer assisted systems.

A ship can only execute maneuvers as radical as the crew of the ship are willing to risk. deliberately forcing a collision to forestall boarding would require a truly brave or desperate crew.

Not really. If you think about it, the ship that is trying to match the maneuvers to dock with a ship that does NOT want to be boarded has a monumental job ahead of it. Because we are talking Newtonian movement for all Traveller ships, it's not simple. For example, the ship at the center expends 10 'thrust' to rotate along it's axis. The ship trying to mate airlocks has to expend 12 'thrust' to match the maneuver. Why? Because it is farther out from the ship, it requires more energy to match the maneuver. If the defender then stops their rotation (10 thrust) and goes back the other direction (10 more thrust), it will have expended 20 thrust for the turn. The attacking ship has to expend 24 thrust to just maintain relative position. The further the attacking ship is, the more energy that is required, and the more time required. Remember that if you spend 10 minutes boosting in one direction, you must spend 10 minutes to just come to a relative stop (assuming same thrust - more thrust = less time).

Even with super-sensors, simply physics means the attacking ship will always be at a disadvantage. Which is why the argument is being put forth that a ship has to have no maneuverability before it can be boarded. There are some obvious exceptions, and I would say these rules apply to smaller ships. Clearly a 250,000 Dton battleship ain't gonna roll or maneuver like a 200 ton free trader.

As far as what the crew is willing to risk, well, we don't know what the damage would be for two ships colliding. I've never seen anything written up on that. Plus these ships have anti-gravity on the inside. They may not even notice it unless the force exceeds what the field is capable of. Since we are now talking about ships being able to accelerate in the double-digits, one must assume the inertial gravity systems are capable of handling this. Or else we should see systems designed to absorb G's.

if hit with a forced linkage system( grapnels etc..) the smaller ship is at more risk from a collision than the larger one..doubly so if the other ship has better armor to absorb the impact.

A starship can only generate 6 gee acceleration at best.(under old rules) this is well within the tolerances of humans, and a decent magnetic anchor and cable line can easily hold six times the weight of the person attached to it.

a cable attached to a target vessels hull can be fed out, or retracted rapidly to prevent being snapped by a ship executing a fast roll. and a single displacement ton of cable could be several miles long.

there is no need for the cable to be fixed to the person using the cable at one end, and the target ship at the other it could be attached between the two ships.if one end of the cable is attached to each ship the control system of the boarding ship can match acceleration and feed out cable, or retract it to keep constant tension on the cable. matching acceleration and direction of movement with the target ship, or executing counter maneuvers to remain in proper position. as long as the aggressor ship has higher thrust than the target ship.

I dunno know about you, but I sure as hell couldn't do much under a 6G load. A person leaving a starship also leaves the protection of their antigravity field. Sure, if the two ships are coasting, they could be doing 100G's, but the effect is nullified. However we are talking about two ships under thrust. So that means the person in the spacesuit is under the influence of the thrust factor. Say they are "only" poking along at 3G. That's a 300 percent gravity increase. Without powered armor most people are incapable of doing anything along the lines of a boarding action.

An interesting question - does a ships antigravity field extend beyond the hull? If not, then any boarders are subject to the G stress of the ships maneuvering. Plus the whole idea of it rotating. A fast spin on the ship has no effect on the inside crew, but borders would be subject to the rotation effect.

Boarding troops could attach themselves to the cable between ships by a D-ring, or sliding connector to the cable allowing them to slide along it's length and be pulled along by the cable between the two ships, which would be forming . forming a zip line that someone with thrust packs could move across without needing to be able to personally match the target ships acceleration.

But that only works if the target ship isn't actively trying to shake off the boarders. I would assume any victim ship is going to actively try to stop this. A simple spining maneuver would wreak hazard on the cable, as would a directional change. Heck, all the boarding ship has to do is turn its tail towards the boarders and (potentially) fry them with its engines. Though we have no info if that is hazardous or not. But the reaction engines should be to an extent.

The more I think about this, the more reasons why I see why a boarding action is almost doomed to failure if a target can still maneuver. There are only very specific scenarios where it would actually work. Or at least should work.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello all,

I'm glad not the only one that thinks some rules leave out details I'm interested and the Boarding Actions rule seems to be one of those. Of course I'm glad someone else got to this one first. ;-)

Thank you phavoc for introducing the topic, even if I am probably wrong about the rules as written.

Traveller rule sets have different degrees of abstraction and MgT is following the trend.

The Space Combat rules are no exception at abstraction for example a docking maneuver requires a successful Pilot Check. The check has modifiers that alters the dice roll none of which covers in any detail the real world physics that also must be overcome.

Boarding Action rules are written without the fine details of What if the target rolls the ship to break the connection between airlocks? How do boarding parties cross <1 km of space when the ships are under thrust with one trying to prevent the boarding?

Basically Boarding Actions results are yes or no

Combat Turn: Does the attacker succeed in docking with the target? Yes the attacker successfully docked with the target.

Combat Turn: Is the attacker able to maintain docked with the target? No, the defender was able to undock.

Combat Turn: Has the attacker achieved or maintained the range band of Adjacent (<1 km) from the target? Yes, the attacker
is successful and decides to send the boarding party across the gap.

Combat Turn: Is the target successful in the chosen reaction? No , in the 1st edition the boarding party succeeds in landing on the target's hull and begins to resolve the combat using the abstract rules or personal combat. In the 2nd edition the boarding party has to wait 2D rounds before resolving combat using the abstract rules. Personal combat has been moved to HG 2nd edition.

Combat Turn: Is the target successful in the chosen reaction? Yes , if the target opened range the boarding party misses landing on the hull. Yes, point defense weapons or fired sand take out none, some, or all of the boarding party.

Again thank you all for letting me chime in.

 

[phavoc]

That's a very good summation sndrg. Because the rules are ambiguous, a player can say that "it's not against the rules", and a ref can say "its not in the rules". Certain topics need additional clarity, and I think Boarding Actions are one of those areas.

Which is why I tend to bitch when I see TOO much ambiguity and open-endedness. I don't expect rules to cover every little detail, but I also do like them to be a tad rational and at least defined enough that I don't have to make a ruling or have an argument when a player is, well, being a player! Abstraction works well for lots of things, and some things, like this, not so much.

Now if it will get addressed or not... that's an entirely different question.