Space Combat Fix

[Samcollins]

I think that in addition to an effect 6 hit causing a critical hit, a critical hit should also be rolled for every 10 PTS of damage inflicted, regardless of the effect when hit. Simple, easy. And round up, so say 11 pts. Would be a severity 2 critical. If the hit was effect 6, then it would be severity 3.

Also, the spare parts to fix hull points seems broken. Try .1 tons of spare pts to repair hull damage.

 

[Nerhesi]

Agreed with Sam - I'd argue maybe we even need to down to 5 points of damage, or maybe every 5% of hull points.

The key here is to have criticals happen! They're just super rare at the moment.

 

[Samcollins]

I incorrectly stated I would be doing .1 ton for spare parts to repair hull. I think I will keep things the way they are in that regard.

 

[Samcollins]

I think I will be running a scenario later where I will use the 5%. So, for a 40 T hull, two points will be enough to trigger a role on the critical hit table. For 160 Ton hull, which is what I will be using, it will be eight points. I'm posting it in a play by post form so others can see how it goes and I will link up to that

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I posted this on the other thread that you mentioned this same possiblity.

Larger ships will shrug off 10 points of damage (A Tigress wouldn't even notice it). I suggest 10% of Hull Value in damage (you can argue if it should be current Hull or Original Hull). That means that it takes more damage to get a critical hit on a larger ship.

 

[Nerhesi]

I think it needs to be 5%. 10% would mean that a total of max 10 crits before a ship I destroyed (9 actually) I don't think that's sufficient - 5% and effect rolls of 6+ (cumulative) would be enough I think.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Fair enough. I just threw out the 10% number without really looking into it too deeply. Besides, 10% is easy to calculate; but you are probably right.

 

[Samcollins]

I play tested the 5% threshold and thought it worked well.

 

[DerLautrer]

Maybe make the % of HullPoints needed to call a critical a Weapon Trait.
e.g.: Crit 0.05 means 5% of HullPoints.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Sounds good - in at 10%! (5% is going to be too low for smaller ships).

Given the lower Hull scores, I don't think we need to enact this with vehicles?

 

[Nerhesi]

Sounds good - in at 10%! (5% is going to be too low for smaller ships).

Given the lower Hull scores, I don't think we need to enact this with vehicles?

Up to you Matt. As long as we understand that means you wont really be crit much/at all in vehicles.

I also want to point out Matt, that while 10% is a rounder number, what this means is that most craft will never have a system disabled. Nearly ever.

I just think it runs counter to how MGT1 was, which had a lot of Jury-Rigging. I won't oppose the move to repair-free space combat, but that is what 10% means. At most, if you are perfectly hit for 10% of your hull, every single time, you will take 9 crits, total. More likely, between regular non-critting hits, and critting hits, you're looking at a total of 5 levels of crits, being spread across systems. So maybe, at best, 2-3 repair rolls in the entirety of any space engagement.

If that is fine, then so be it, I just think it reduces the engineers role considerably and seems to be waste of such a big and intricate crit chart

 

[Samcollins]

Playtested the 10% and it works well. 4 points to a 40 hull seems a reasonable amount of damage to trigger a crit. Here's the way I was working it:

Crit if 6 effect (and actual damage is done);
Crit if take take damage equal to 10% of hull;
Severity determined by dividing total damage by 10, round up

So, here was an example from our game: a hit, effect 6 against a patrol corvette and causes 12 pts of damage after armor. Crit severity 1 for the 6, crit severity 2 for 8 pts. of damage, crit severity three for being over 10 pts.

I'll also say when I did 5% I thought it worked well too. But for the smaller craft every hit practically was a critical.

 

[Nerhesi]

Oh hey whoah.. hrm..

Sam, are you taking your example as a single Sev 3 crit (A)? or a Sev 1 + Sev 2 + Sev 3 Crit(B)?

In the case of (A), assuming in that round you were struck for another 3 hits (varying effects less than 6), total damage of 15 (conservative). Then you're taken 27 damage, and one Sev 3 Crit. So one crit, but you're down 33% of your hull.

We ok with saying the Patrol Craft, is good to take only two sev 3 crits before being destroyed?

In the case (B) - I'd understand as that is a lot more crits, and showcases a lot more damage dealt and work for the engineer to do.

As for constant crits on small craft - I'm actually very fine with that but maybe that is just my bias

 

[MongooseMatt]

But for the smaller craft every hit practically was a critical.

That is why it didn't work - it slows things right down and small craft are too prevalent in the game for that.

 

[Samcollins]

Narhesi: in the above example from my game it was a hit for 12 pts of hull damage against the ship, and it was at a severity level 3--all from one attack. The factors that triggered it were: effect 6 of the hit, 8 pts of hull damage (10% threshold) and 12 pts total (more than 10 pts, less than 21 as a severity kicker). Only house rule I was using was the 10% which contributed to an extra level of severity.

Another thing to keep in mind...with many systems you need not get to crit level 6 to trash it. For example, I think jump drive may be destroyed on a 3 or 4 level crit. Not near book at the moment.

Edit: I see what you are saying about the Severity 3 all coming against one system. What if a hit like that described above rolled 3 times on the critical hit table (across potentially 3 different systems). One hit could conceivably affect multiple systems. I'm not saying it should be this way, just throwing it out there.

 

[Nerhesi]

Gents - I'm actually a fan of robust ships.

I'm just pointing out by having it this way, by the time you have a single system disabled, your ship is either half-dead or more so.

Which could be great! But I'm just pointin out the change from engineers repairing every round, to engineers repairing 2-4 times the entire engagement

Not sure if we want engineers solely making the same "gimme more power and more speed" rolls as their prime responsibility.

 

[FederationUnitedNews]

Can someone explain the logic that was used to justify scrapping the old spacecraft damage system? Of all the weird and wonky rules that were in Mgt1, the spacecraft damage rules were not one of them in my experience. I've seen many people mention a playtest of the current rules that happened at some point, and am wondering as to the logic that lead to going with the new rules over the old ones.

 

[Samcollins]

Uhh...probably because they needed an overhaul. Space combat was too long, too clunky. Just my guess as to the logic. Previous space combat system seemed broken. This one fixes a lot of what was broken. Play test it and see if you agree. I've done several battles with the new rules. No complaints here

 

[Nerhesi]

Can someone explain the logic that was used to justify scrapping the old spacecraft damage system? Of all the weird and wonky rules that were in Mgt1, the spacecraft damage rules were not one of them in my experience. I've seen many people mention a playtest of the current rules that happened at some point, and am wondering as to the logic that lead to going with the new rules over the old ones.

The previous spacecraft/vehicle system, was the weirdest wonkyest system out there.

You could get hit with a giant particle bay blast, and get basically a few systems damaged, of which the engineer would fix most if not all (a good engineer). Meanwhile, your hull was perfectly fine... Also, see fighters when they had advanced hull or even reinforced bulkheads....

We definitely needed hull damage every turn.

 

[Infojunky]

Sounds good - in at 10%! (5% is going to be too low for smaller ships).

Given the lower Hull scores, I don't think we need to enact this with vehicles?

Yes I think we should, was going to mention it over there today.