My House Rules

[Soulmage]

You can check them out here:

http://soulmagesvasfiles.pbwiki.com/

I was going to wait until OOB came out, but got bitten by the bug. I will just revise them after I have seen the changes the supplement makes.

I did put in alternate rules for bad weather and night fighting, even though I know the supplement might address these.

I didn't do anything about aircraft though, preferring just to see what OOB says.

We've found that these changes to the rules add more tactical depth to the game. Be warned though. . . concessions were made for the sake of interesting gameplay. For instance, we use the 1"=1000yds scale for some things, and treat the ships as actual sized for others. Totally throws scale issues out the window. . . but to us a fun and engaging game was more interesting than one that was perfectly scaled.

Anyway, try them out if you're interested!

 

[juggler69uk]

While most of the rules have merit or value as improvements or for playability (I always liked that variation on the to hit that allows weak crits on smaller ships), however, as splashes generally are adjusted for on second and subsequent shots, Im not convinced that splashes from ships firing would affect another ships first shot to the extent of a cumulative -1 for each splash....

So trying to sink a 5+ target (like the Japanese cruisers with reload torps)
1st ship no penalty
2nd ship -1
3rd ship -2
4th ship -3
5th ship -4
6th ship -5 now cannot even hit with your 6+ to hit rule mod
and thats without any other negative modifiers like range etc

And yes I did read the squadrons part, but we wont always be using squadron move/fire as it can give a huge advantage to your opponent to know where all your squadron is before he moves his ships (especially if he has longer range guns).

So if you need it then, as on a d6 one is a big loss (16.66%) perhaps just a single -1 for any splash markers would be sufficient

 

[Soulmage]

The intent of the shell splash rule was to encourage some variation in target selection. In our games we found that a player would concentrate his entire fleet on one ship, sink it, then move onto the next ship. Its just much more efficient to do it that way.

The shell splash rule makes it less efficient and encourages people to spread their fire around a little more. We find that it makes the game more fun that way.

So. . . I wouldn't expect a particular ship to be targeted more than once or twice in the same turn as the shooter would move onto other targets.

As far as squadrons go, I used to agree with you. . . until it was somewhat brutally demonstrated to me that squadrons are deadly.

It is true, that moving ships in squadrons hands some positional advantage to your opponent as you finish moving all your ships before he does. . . HOWEVER that drawback is more than outweighed by the fact that during the shooting phase you are able to shoot two, three, or four ships for every one of his. I'm sure you've experienced how crucial shooting first can be in your own games. . . the ability to shoot multiple ships at the same time is devastating.