Lifepods in ACTA

Banichi

Cosmic Mongoose
Hi guys. I'm in the process of trying to start a campaign at the local club, and I was thinking about how ships usually have crew left over when they pop. What about this for an idea. If you play a game were you are left controling the area of space,ie you win an annihilation senario, then look at your fleet list for that game. look at your ships that have been destroyed, and tally up the crew left over. For each crew member (or troop unit for that manner) roll a d6. On the roll of 4+ they made it to a lifepod and were picked up. They can then be redistrubuted around the remaining ships in the fleet ready for the next campaign turn. If you are driven from an area of space, or lose all your ships, you don't get this roll, as you are to busy trying to get away, or all your ships are destroyed. I guess you could roll for them, but I can't think of a rule for POWs. (the "work in the salt mine" rule?) What do you guys think?
 
Sounds like a good house rule to me. Of course ships that explode don't get any survivors (unless they perform a "Get to the lifepods!" special action the turn before they explode?). You could even let your opponent have his surviving crew back if you're feeling nice. Or sell them back for RR's.
 
I like the ransom idea :twisted: . You could always make the test a 6+ for ships that explode. There always seems to be some stunned looking marine or rating that survives. Even on occasions like the sinking of the Hood.
 
good point, in the sea if your raft gets a hole in it you may hve to cling to other bits of debris and float until you can be picked up, in space you'd die straight away as the air is pulled out of the pod
 
Hmmm, you guys do raise a good point. The odds on surviving an explosion in space would be pretty bad, probably a lot worse than 1 in 6, and unfortunatly I don't have a D1000000..I think the "if the ship explodes, surviving crew don't get a lifepod roll"rule does add more realism. If you were using a character on board the destroyed ship (and the ship didn't explode) I suppose you could roll a seperate d6 for him. It could make things interesting if you didn't regain control of the area of space, and he was picked up by your opponants forces. If he was "questioned" you might automatically lose initative for the next turn if your opponant rolls a 6(or 5-6 for example if your opponant is playing dilgar, they sound a bit nastier than most people)
 
you could also say for example, that IF enough crew survive from say a G'Quan with CQ 5, they can man a new Ka'Toc at CQ5?
 
Do you think they could move to a new ship and still maintain their crew quality? Espesially if it is a different class of ship. Maybe if you move them to a ship with CQ4 or 3 the next time you spend xp dice to increase CQ you could get a bonus to the dice roll to represent the influence of the veterens on the rest of the greener crew.
 
hmmm, well we assume to an extent that ships share common design pholosophies in navigation and wepons systems, but the bonus to an improving CQ roll is a good idea
 
Keep it simple... any rescued crew members are likely to be the engineers and cleaners and vending machine repair men, not the command staff who would want to go down with their ship anyway. So they lose their CQ, and the ship they are put onto isn't raised in CQ (or lowered either).
 
hiffano said:
hey vending machine repair men are very important!
Yes, but their level of training rarely affects the overall CQ of the ship they are on! Unless it's an EA ship of course.
 
Burger said:
Keep it simple...

You could be right. This is the first campaign we will be playing, maybe I should fight my urge to think up rules. But I do like the idea of capturing crew, and ransoming them. Espesially personalities. Just as an aside, is it just me, or did it seem that everytime Sheridan said "get to the lifepods" the stricken ship promptly exploded.
 
I think this is a very nice option for a campaign...

Personalities surviving on a 4+ (major plot character immunity to disasters)

Crew remaining at point of destruction survive on a 4+ unless the ship explodes.

Bear in mind that we shouldn't be talking about many survivors, as a result, regardless of the size of ship - unless the ship has a massive disparity between crew and damage scores, or suffers some seriously bad critical hit karma.

I agree that CQ probably shouldn't change; the new crew would get retrained to their new jobs by the current crew of whichever ship they were assigned to - it just seems simpler not to mess about modifying the CQ roll when you can argue both for improving and reducing their effective CQ. You wouldn't be using them to man a new ship -any new ship arrives at the front fully crewed, after all, but instead using them to patch up a ship with crew casualties.


On a similar note; if a ship of yours ends the battle with no crew (but still servicable to some degree), and you control the battlefield, shouldn't you be able to recrew it?
 
locarno24 said:
On a similar note; if a ship of yours ends the battle with no crew (but still servicable to some degree), and you control the battlefield, shouldn't you be able to recrew it?

My friends got my rulebook so I can't check, but I would have thought that it was a given. But what you say makes a good deal of sence. I think you can't use alien ships that are adrift.
 
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