How many times can I dodge in Close Combat?

[AnotherDilbert]

Example: I have a fighter with 25G.
In the Manoeuvre Phase of round 3 of a combat I use 15G to move into close range of a ship. I have 10G left for Combat Manoeuvres such as dodge.
We immediately start Close Combat.

How many times can I dodge in each 6s round?
25?
10?
10 in all 60 short combat rounds?

 

[PsiTraveller]

Well if you use the Dodge rules from pg 72 you can dodge unlimited but suffer a -1 per Dodge attempt on your next action.

If you use the Thrust points system on pg 160 under Evasive Action each Thrust point dedicated will allow an Evasion attempt.
This could give you 25 points to play with each 6 s turn, barring what you use for movement.

It seems to open up another grey area.

 

[Nerhesi]

Yeah - this will become clear (I hope shortly) - but the reactions, and personal combat rules of page 71 have nothing to do with dog-fighting.

This becomes abundantly clear when you take a look at dog-fight rules for vehicles (page 132) and realise they have nothing to do with page 71, and that page 71 is not referenced at all.

So the only question this leaves is really: "Do my thrust points available "reset" per dog fight turn?" - to which my only clear answer is yes. Dog-fights seem to do the following:

Make the rounds 6 seconds
add opposed rolls
not allow you to change range/exit until the next "space combat" turn arrives (aka 60 turns later).

Perhaps the best way to look at a dogfight is a bunch of normal space-combat rounds happening quickly in their own little instanced space.

 

[PsiTraveller]

so if reaction drives have an hour of thrust you do not lose any extra fuel in 6 second rounds right? your thrust 6 move does not use up fuel except every 60 rounds? Your fuel points do not suddenly burn up faster due to the faster time rate?

just checking. missiles can now fire every 6 seconds, so can lasers, but not in space combat mode. So I figured I should check on fuel usage as well.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Fuel consumption is given per hour of operation, so in shorter rounds it uses proportionally less fuel.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Make the rounds 6 seconds
add opposed rolls
not allow you to change range/exit until the next "space combat" turn arrives (aka 60 turns later).

Perhaps the best way to look at a dogfight is a bunch of normal space-combat rounds happening quickly in their own little instanced space.

After giving it some thought I would disagree. I would imagine that the dogfighting replaces the Attack Step [p154] of the space combat round, and only the Attack Step, not the entire Round.

Dogfighting does not include a Manoeuvre Step. We cannot move away from the dogfight.
Dogfighting should probably not include an Action Step, otherwise we can do Repairs and EW 60 times per space combat round. On the other hand this cripples the Boarding action.

So instead of
1. Manœuvre Step
2. Attack Step
3. Action Step
we have
1. Manœuvre Step
2a. Short Attack Step
2b. Short Attack Step
2c. Short Attack Step
2d. Short Attack Step
2e. Short Attack Step
...
3. Action Step
So no dogfighting "Rounds", but dogfighting "Attack Steps". This is a big change.
Logically the Thrust used in the Manoeuvre Step is gone and cannot be used in the Attack Step(s), I would imagine. This will slow down fighters a bit, which is a good thing.


If we want to complicate things we could consider the case of a battleship engaged by some fighters. The battleship wants to fire its spinal at a long range target (once per space combat Attack Step) and fire its turrets on the fighters (once per dogfighting Attack Step). We cannot do that today, as far as I can see.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Either way this needs spelling out clearly, not just in a generalised sentence.
Nerhesi, you "know" how this should be played out, but the rules are at best unclear. It is very easy to completely misunderstand them.

A lot of things in the rules refer to "rounds" or "once per round", without defining which type of round. Probably it sometimes means space combat round, and at other times it means any type of round, this is very problematical.

 

[Nerhesi]

Absolutely it needs clarity.

In my opinion stating that weapons and power cycle each mini-round (allowing you to shoot each 6 seconds), but not allowing dodging, ew etc creates massive imbalances and gets it out of synch with vehicle dog-fighting. Reasons:

A) as indicated, doesn't matter if you win the dogfight anymore, since you apparently can't dodge in the combat mode where dodging is most effective (dogfighting!)

B) Vehicles can dodge all day in dog-fights - it takes no thrust. So is that 40dton 5g grav vehicle infinitely more maneuverable than that 25G 20 ton fighter? Hell no.

C) it simply doesnt make sense to abstract power requirements for weapon firing, but not do the same for micro-maneuvers.

Yeah , Matt agrees it needs clarity too so we will soon be hope

 

[AnotherDilbert]

My "creative interpretation" of the rules allow dodging and EW.

If in the Manoeuvre Step you use 15G of your 25G, you have 10G left for Combat Manoeuvres in the Attack Step, as usual. So each Short Attack Step you have 10G available for Combat Manouevres (such as dodging) and dogfighting.

EW is done in the Action Step as usual, once per 6 minutes. Since you cannot use EW at short range anyway, as the missiles hit immediately, but only against missile salvoes from long range (hence not involved in the dogfight) I did not see that as a problem

I simply wanted to clarify details such as you cannot repair critical hits every 6 s.

 

[Nerhesi]

That sounds logical - the left-over thrust that got you into combat is available each dogfight turn.

This I like! Good job