Starship troopers fleet engagements

[locarno24]

possibly (probably ) based off ACTA - it'd be interesting to see one. Obviously the big difference would be a much greater emphasis on planetary assault and "ship-to-shore" fire from plasma bugs to low orbit.

Obviously the bugs have *something* spacegoing - partly just bug asteroids but the book does describe them as having ships, it just says they're rubbish....

I'm sure the Skinnies must have some ships as well - as raiders it'd be much more light-and-fast than the big Rodger Young type cruiser/carrier/assault ships.

Some sort of swarmey-boardingey type thing (technical terminology) might work quite well, and drop capsules/retrieval boats would ideally make an appearance.

Essentially, much more focused on combat in high/low orbit than the system-spanning A Call To Arms; a battle with an 'empty map' would be unusual, at the very least there'd normally be a 'planet surfacewards' edge (faster orbit by cutting 'below' someone?')

 

[Paladin]

The idea has merit, but with the limits of the factions available it will be tough to pull off with more than a minor 30-40 pg pdf supplement to ATCA.

Obviously the bugs have *something* spacegoing - partly just bug asteroids but the book does describe them as having ships, it just says they're rubbish....

The CGI Roughnecks Chronicles miniseries has them in giant living transport ships. They fly to new planets and drop off hordes of bugs and eggs and then fly back for more. Later in the series there is a queen that escapes aboard one to continue the fight elsewhere.

Their ship to ship combat ability is limited to Plasma bugs walking out on the surface of the large transport bug and firing as the whole vessel travels through space.

 

[Armydillo978]

Perhaps "extending" some ideas from the CGI series and haves regular ships crewed by Hybrid Clone Bug with the Zander Bug or another type like Zander.

Then you could have ship to ship and boarding actions.

This site has some pics of the different bug types.

http://misterhook.tripod.com/roughnecks/

 

[locarno24]

I'm not so sure that ACTA by itself is the way to go - a lot of the Victory At Sea stuff is probably worth copying through...

For example - in Babylon 5 it's rare that ships ever miss when firing.
Watch the series and unless shot down by interceptors or fired at (a) white stars or (b) fighters I'm not sure you ever see anyone miss at all.

As a result, it makes sense for the attack roll to be soley against the targets hull, whilst actually 'missing' is rare enough to be incorporated into the 'dodge' trait.

There's no starship engagement in the book, and the only engagement in the film is the Klendathu drop through fire from plasma bugs and king plasma bugs on the surface - which, whilst definitely 'not random fire' or whatever the quote was, misses as often as it hits.

Combined with starships packing big missiles as a primary armament (which, regardless of ACTA, are quite slow-moving weapons in a naval engagement; even in a modern 'wet' navy missiles have a flight time in an order of a few minutes at normal firing range) and I find myself leaning more towards the mechanics used in VAS for torpedos - i.e. stuff gets 'fired' during the shooting phase, then impacts later.

One difference might being having a chance to shoot the incoming stuff down if it's missiles and smaller plasma bug fire.

So the result is:
(1) place missiles in the shooting phase,
(2) once everything firing that turn is placed, you get to fire flak/intercept it with swarms of expendable bug 'fighters' (think the squids from the matrix protecting the drillers)/pray,
(3) anything left gets its chance to hit and punch through armour (and do critical damage if appropriate - although fed battleships and bug ships look different enough that seperate critical hits might make sense; an A/B/C/X/Y turret etc version for the humans, and a less rigid -attack dice for the bugs (since there's no single 'turret', you're just killing the plasma bugs on the hull).

Not everything should be interceptible; fire from king plasmas can - did - break a Valley Forge in half with one hit, and even a proximity detonation rather than a direct hit from an Ajax nuke warhead will be distinctly unhealthy for a ship or transport bug. (It's Starship troopers - there has to be the option for nukes somewhere)

As far as different ships are concerned, you have two starship classes between the film and series, and reference to more in the book (the comment is made about the fleet preferring regiment-carrying battleships to faster platoon-carrying corvettes as 'the amount of fleet crew isn't all that much less', suggesting that there's quite a size variation. Equally, the concept of a 'defender bug' as a sort of escort ship is quite possible, as is several grades of transport bug (the queen's transport bug was much tougher than normal, which is why they had to board it and blow it up from inside).




Boarding actions make sense. Drop shuttles can quite happily double for breaching pods, and/or one can imagine drop capsule equivalents used as boarding torpedos. An analogue for the bugs isn't unreasonable either (hullbreacher bug?) to deliver a swarm of warriors. For that matter, if having a load of vacuum-adapted hopper-esque things as fighters/interceptors, they could quite happily swarm onto a ships hull and eat their own way in....

There's nothing wrong with the ACTA boarding actions rules as is, to be honest, it's just a case of figuring out how to deliver the troops from one ship to another.


TAC fighters work fine for fighter units

Infested ships with hybrid bugs is another nice option.

Skinnies.....raiding ships, as noted, so smaller, faster things

 

[Armydillo978]

I don't play the B5 game, so, how do they handle boarding actions? Do they actually play them out, or just roll for outcome?

 

[locarno24]

It's pretty stylised - roll for outcome, but damage is done over several turns.

Ships have a 'troops' score.

I board a ship with X troops on board with Y troops from my ship. You can only do this by getting really close to a ship moving quite slowly - but specific troop-carrying fighters (AKA breaching pods, assault shuttles, boarding torpedos or whatever depending on the game system) can deliver them much faster.

Opponent rolls X dice, killing one of my troops with each roll above a certain value. I then roll Y dice (less any casualties). In some situations I get to attack first, in some one side or other gets a bonus to their roll (e.g fortifications during planetary assaults)

This continues (can't remember if it's instantaneous or strung out over several turns as my rulebook's still at a friend's house) until one of us wipes out the other.

At that point, any leftover troops on my side start rampaging through the enemy ship - each troop unit each turn will kill a certain number of crew and has a chance of doing critical hits - but also has a chance of being killed by the remaining crew.

It's definitely effective - a patrol-level wing of breaching pods can cripple a raid or even battle-level ship given time.



I think the mechanic works quite well and it'd be fine to re-use wholesale.

Obviously different classes have different troop levels relative to their size - so a fed ship that's principally a troop transport (like the Rodger Young) would carry oodles of MI grunts in addition to its navy complement, whilst a hypothetical escort frigate class (not seen in film, book or series that I recall, but surely not every warship is a troop barge!) is very vulnerable to this sort of attack.