Crew

[Morsleib]

Am I missing something? As far as I can see the only way to reduce the crew stat of a ship is by critical hits and it would need an awful lot to make a dent in the numbers. Is there some other mechanism which I haven't spotted?

Terry

 

[leopard]

Critical hits and failing to put out fires if memory serves - the fires one can snowball if you're unlucky.

Doubt ships will often fall due to crew losses but it can happen, especially between smaller craft.

Its a nice mechanic that stops the ships being just a counter with damage points, and allows fires to do something other than make smoke

 

[Ecclesiastes]

I stopped using the crew stat altogether, a fire causes extra damage when not put out anyway and it saves me an entire level of bookkeeping, speeding the game up .

I also noticed that the VaS 2 previews don't show the crew rating anymore, hinting that Mongoose also got rid of it in the next version.

 

[Morsleib]

Thanks for the replies guys. I think the fires are the mechanism which I was looking for as they persist beyond the initial critical.

I am glad that crew will be dropped in the next edition though. It seems too much detail for this scale of game.

Terry

 

[leopard]

If its going its a pity, given its not a massive issue - and makes for campaign rules that are a lot better.

I.e. all replacement crew units are 'green', you can mix/match and average with more experienced crews etc.

I can see it as an 'optional' rule in normal games but for the effort to put a number against each craft it seems a pity to drop the ability to use it.

 

[shaaneson]

Doubt ships will often fall due to crew losses but it can happen, especially between smaller craft. :roll: :roll:

 

[leopard]

Doubt ships will often fall due to crew losses but it can happen, especially between smaller craft. :roll: :roll:

Exactly, death of a thousand cuts and all, plus it also provides the potential (not in the game at present) of allowing crew quality to fall as the crew are hit - e.g. you drop the 'skeleton crew' down to the very last result, but incrementally drop quality as you take hits.

Its a minor rule for sure, but needs only to be a number on a profile really to be 'there' (or check boxes on an SSD ideally) - but provides a link to these steel behemoths having actual people inside them