High Guard Fleet Combat

[locarno24]

Just got a copy of High Guard. The Fleet combat system looks interesting - especially the Fleet Manouvres 'map', which looks very interesting and looks like it could work very well for an [integer extremely large number of credits] squadron type game.

Has anyone used it for something like this? Anyone who can offer advice, recommendations, experiences, and so on?

 

[Linwood]

I’m also interested in this. My campaign has a large fleet battle coming up in a couple of sessions...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I've played around with it a bit.

The fleet movement system is quirky and has some interesting properties. It is generally easier to decrease the range. You are generally highly manoeuvrable in the centre of the map, but get stuck at the periphery.

It's bad news for fighters: Since squadrons move in Initiative order, ships with lower Initiative can move away from the fighters after the fighters have moved.

Definitely try it out and practice a bit before you use it in anger.

 

[locarno24]

Okay....
Looking closer at capital combat:
- Is the 'divide by ten' superfluous? As the Gazelle's 6 beam lasers and 2 particle barbettes line up with 6 damage and 30 damage correctly
- The Fleet Manouvre chart skips short range. I suspect close should be 'short' because close and adjacent are both effectively 'single point sized' regions at the centre of the crosshairs compared to any other range band.
- The basic 'capital combat stats' only give an offense bonus for Advanced Fire Control but the squadron rules give it for normal Fire Control. I would assume normal fire control would count if you have enough to boost every weapon on the ship (most obviously for scouts and fighters which might only mount a single turret)?
- How does armour and the Fleet Damage damage modification stack - e.g, if I roll a net attack roll of 7 (50% damage modification) against a target with an armour rating of 12% (like the Harrier), with a pair of particle barbettes (30 damage)
Does it cause 50% x 88% = 44% damage (13) or do you 'add up' the percentage reduction 50% + 12% = 72% (8 damage)
- One weakness of the system is that there is no connection, when firing into a squadron of smaller ships, between the number of guns and the maximum number of kills - an accurate fusion barbette shot from a single mount does 25 damage - enough to turn four or five scout-class ships to paste.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

- Is the 'divide by ten' superfluous? As the Gazelle's 6 beam lasers and 2 particle barbettes line up with 6 damage and 30 damage correctly

Both damage and Hull is divided by 10. It's probably easier to keep it standard to keep compatibility with published sources.

- The Fleet Manouvre chart skips short range. I suspect close should be 'short' because close and adjacent are both effectively 'single point sized' regions at the centre of the crosshairs compared to any other range band.

Fighters need Close range.

- The basic 'capital combat stats' only give an offense bonus for Advanced Fire Control but the squadron rules give it for normal Fire Control. I would assume normal fire control would count if you have enough to boost every weapon on the ship (most obviously for scouts and fighters which might only mount a single turret)?

By RAW, no. It's as simple as possible.

I allow ships to use Fire Control for any single weapon, e.g. spinal or bay, in addition to Adv Fire Control for any other weapons, as long as it has a big enough computer to run all the software.

- How does armour and the Fleet Damage damage modification stack - e.g, if I roll a net attack roll of 7 (50% damage modification) against a target with an armour rating of 12% (like the Harrier), with a pair of particle barbettes (30 damage)
Does it cause 50% x 88% = 44% damage (13) or do you 'add up' the percentage reduction 50% + 12% = 72% (8 damage)

I believe it is one after the other. So 30 damage, reduced by 50% is 15 damage, reduced by 12% is 13 damage. (30 × 50% × 88% = 13)

- One weakness of the system is that there is no connection, when firing into a squadron of smaller ships, between the number of guns and the maximum number of kills - an accurate fusion barbette shot from a single mount does 25 damage - enough to turn four or five scout-class ships to paste.

Both weapon damage and Hull are divided by 10. So a Fusion barbette does a max of 2.5 damage (reduced by armour) against a Scout Hull of 4, not even a single Scout destroyed (as expected).