Space Combat - Did I miss something?

[Vormaerin]

It really depends on the game you want to play.

Well, I said several pages back that the correct answer is "what makes the best gameplay". And that's probably not the same between different groups. And the game focuses on the things the player can make a difference in. There's no point where "rolling 1000s of dice" is useful gameplay. So the gamemaster is going to determine if the player needs to make a roll and, if so, what that roll will be about and how difficult it is.

All I need to know is that detection is possible in certain parameters or not. I don't think Mongoose's version of the sensor rules is actually very good at that. It has lots of fiddly bits that have vague effects.

I mainly need to know how much difficulty traffic control has in tracking commercial shipping and in spotting smugglers and pirates. And, to a lesser extent, what sort of ranges make sense for ships making interplanetary runs in real space.

Fleet battles should just be a boardgame, imho.

 

[swordtart]

OK, so a battle fleet will detect anything, and detail everything, at Very Distant or even Far range in a round or so, long, long before we get into Distant range and can start shooting?

You just have to engage Virtual Crew and have the computer roll a few thousand dice...

If you like. I would be wondering how many instances of sensor op you could be running simultaneously and how good the virtual Senor Op was, but that is just detail and heavy automation is the most likely scenario. Actual sophont Sensor Ops are going to be be focussed on detailing the objects of interest picked out from the noise by the automated systems. Hopefully those automated systems err on the side of caution and throw anything that isn't unequivocally benign in the "object of interest" list.

I would also be interested in the number of fleet actions that have panned out that way, with an enemy fleet jumping in, both sides immediately identifying all possible targets, and letting loose all munition stores at maximum range. I am sure examples of this style of battle will have been set out in the Imperial Navy Handbook or some such.

For my tiny part of the game, no normal player or peer adversary is instantaneously going to know everything that is out there and like a sail boat passing blissfully ignorant over a pack of sharks in a feeding frenzy, that is probably a darn good thing.

 

[J. L. Brown]

To repeat the quoted text from earlier, ships with good sensors (like those accompanying BBs, for instance, absolutely can tell an asteroid from a ship. They can also detect out to Far (over 5 million kms) with the right sensor options (discussed already: sensor arrays) and a roll (14+) that’s in practice pretty easy for a ship with decent sensors and a skilled operator.

Most of the last couple of pages could have been avoided with this text! Distant range detection with appropriate detail is absolutely to be expected of a military fleet containing BBs.

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This is at least the fourth time this section of rules has been cited; and it seems you still have not read it. You seem to think it supports your point, when it does the exact opposite. No, Sensors do * NOT * provide 'Minimal' information at 'Very Distant' or 'Far' range; the quoted rules do not say that. The longest range sensors provide 'None' -- that is * NO INFORMATION * at 'Very Distant' and 'Far'. This is explicit in both the Core Rules Update on page 160, and High Guard update on page 26. All Sensors, even the fancy arrays are * OUT OF RANGE * at 'Very Distant' and 'Far' -- that is what 'provides no information' (and 'details available = None') means.

A Sensor can make a detection (put a numbered-but-undescribed blip on a list of thousands of other numbered-and-undescribed blips; and sometimes even the dTonnage is a guess) to out to as far as 'Far' IF the target creates a Jump-flash. Contacts which were previously detected (at shorter ranges, for example) can still continue-to-be (with Formidable rolls) tracked at 'Very Distant and 'Far', but no new information can be gained -- the sensors cannot provide any details, after all. But any contact which is lost cannot be re-acquired at 'Very Distant' or 'Far' unless it creates a Jump-flash, at which point it is gone anyway.

Determining if a blip is a rock or a ship is described in the rules -- the assumption is (given the extremely limited amount of information every sensor can provide) that a blip which is 'active in radio' is a ship. This requires an EM Sensor to provide at least 'Minimal' information, which they cannot do at 'Distant' without the help of an Extension Net, and cannot do under any circumstances at 'Very Distant' or 'Far'.

Ships are not picking out which of a lengthy list of numbered-but-undescribed blips is the enemy warship at 'Distant' range; although someone can make a wild, uniformed guess. But to have any assurance that those weapons were not wasted on a rock with an attached prospecting-beacon requires Active Radar / Lidar providing 'Limited' information -- that is the first time 'shape and structure' can be determined. That happens (with fancy sensor add-ons like an Extended Array) at 'Very Long' range and no further.

 

[Endie]

This is at least the fourth time this section of rules has been cited; and it seems you still have not read it. You seem to think it supports your point, when it does the exact opposite. No, Sensors do * NOT * provide 'Minimal' information at 'Very Distant' or 'Far' range; the quoted rules do not say that. The longest range sensors provide 'None' -- that is * NO INFORMATION * at 'Very Distant' and 'Far'. This is explicit in both the Core Rules Update on page 160, and High Guard update on page 26. All Sensors, even the fancy arrays are * OUT OF RANGE * at 'Very Distant' and 'Far' -- that is what 'provides no information' (and 'details available = None') means.

A Sensor can make a detection (put a numbered-but-undescribed blip on a list of thousands of other numbered-and-undescribed blips; and sometimes even the dTonnage is a guess) to out to as far as 'Far' IF the target creates a Jump-flash. Contacts which were previously detected (at shorter ranges, for example) can still continue-to-be (with Formidable rolls) tracked at 'Very Distant and 'Far', but no new information can be gained -- the sensors cannot provide any details, after all. But any contact which is lost cannot be re-acquired at 'Very Distant' or 'Far' unless it creates a Jump-flash, at which point it is gone anyway.

Determining if a blip is a rock or a ship is described in the rules -- the assumption is (given the extremely limited amount of information every sensor can provide) that a blip which is 'active in radio' is a ship. This requires an EM Sensor to provide at least 'Minimal' information, which they cannot do at 'Distant' without the help of an Extension Net, and cannot do under any circumstances at 'Very Distant' or 'Far'.

Ships are not picking out which of a lengthy list of numbered-but-undescribed blips is the enemy warship at 'Distant' range; although someone can make a wild, uniformed guess. But to have any assurance that those weapons were not wasted on a rock with an attached prospecting-beacon requires Active Radar / Lidar providing 'Limited' information -- that is the first time 'shape and structure' can be determined. That happens (with fancy sensor add-ons like an Extended Array) at 'Very Long' range and no further.

Oh come on. The rules explicitly say in that quote that attacks can be made at Distant range. Which is what we discussed. The extra range bands for detection far beyond that are just icing on the cake.

If your position is now that detection and attacks by opposing fleets can be made distant range then great. The last few pages have achieved agreement.

 

[MonsterX]

This is at least the fourth time this section of rules has been cited; and it seems you still have not read it. You seem to think it supports your point, when it does the exact opposite. No, Sensors do * NOT * provide 'Minimal' information at 'Very Distant' or 'Far' range; the quoted rules do not say that. The longest range sensors provide 'None' -- that is * NO INFORMATION * at 'Very Distant' and 'Far'. This is explicit in both the Core Rules Update on page 160, and High Guard update on page 26. All Sensors, even the fancy arrays are * OUT OF RANGE * at 'Very Distant' and 'Far' -- that is what 'provides no information' (and 'details available = None') means.

I don't think your interventions have been helpful. This is a legitimate and civil discussion about what the RAW means, what is most realistic, and what is best for gameplay and dogmatic assertions about what you think the rules say are not helpful. It's about thinking through the problem, assessing whether the current rules serve our purposes, and if needed proposing better solutions. Since people have different campaigns and different priorities, the solutions might sometimes be different, but it is not about "owning the other side," (there are no sides).