Targeting critical systems

[Tank_Santa]

You could always use Battletech way, called shots cannot be aimed at head, similar you could always just say no calling the vital systems chart.

Another option is simply allow the shooter to re-roll his crit location dice, second result stands.

The point is however to target a specific system, so maybe it needs an additional negative to balance out its potential benefits. Such as any dice rolling 6 indicating a critical must be rolled again and on a 4, 5 or 6 it then gets to roll on your system of choice, a roll of any less means the shot counts as a bulkhead hit and normal rules apply.

Daishi's idea is sorta neat, I like it.

 

[Banichi]

well in the show they have had ships attack other ships and had the order "aquire external targets only" when Captain Sheridan was kidnapped by the Stribe. Perhaps you can use this special action, but only target weapons and engines.

I think as a special rule for a capturing scenario this would be spot on.

What about this. Use the setup plan, and fleet allocation points for the 'flee to the jumpgate' scenario. One of the defending players ships is carrying a VIP and must get off the table at all costs. Victory conditions would be.

Defender victory: The Ship containing the VIP sucessfully leaves the table.

Attacker victory: The VIP's ship is captured by being sucessfully boarded, or by having an attacking ship suceed with the SDAPTBB special action.

Draw: The VIP's ship is destroyed. Both fleets have failed in their mission.

For this scenario the following special rules count

-The 'manuvour to shield them' SA is bought back. This shows how determined the defenders are to get the VIP to safety.

-A SA called 'aquire external targets only' exists for the attackers.
Crew quality check:9 Attempted before firing. Declare which weapon
system you are using to target the enemy ship (+1 to the dice roll if the system is precise). If any of the hits cause a critical you can choose to roll on the engines or weapons sections of the crit table. After all you want to slow down the VIP's ship, and soften it up for boarding. Not destroy it.

At the begining of the game roll to see which side has control of the jump gate. This is to see if the defenders are ambushed on the way to their own jumpgate, or trying to get through an enemy controlled one.

I can't vouch for how balanced this would be, I'm probably not going to get a chance to playtest it this year, but it sounds interesting.

 

[Methos5000]

What about a SA to be able to assign the first rolled crit to a non-vitals system and then roll severity? You trade a chance at vitals for a more directed crit without increasing crit chances. EDIT: Or without putting all the crits into one system.

The biggest problem I see with being able to select which crit type you do is the potential for abuse against 1 arc fleets (Volrons, Shadows, ISA, Vree, Drazi, Gaim Queen ships). Their opponents would always opt to do a weapon crit against them hoping to disable the whole arc. Ships with low crew scores could also be constantly hammered with crew criticals.

 

[Sulfurdown]

What about a SA to be able to assign the first rolled crit to a non-vitals system and then roll severity? You trade a chance at vitals for a more directed crit without increasing crit chances. EDIT: Or without putting all the crits into one system.

The biggest problem I see with being able to select which crit type you do is the potential for abuse against 1 arc fleets (Volrons, Shadows, ISA, Vree, Drazi, Gaim Queen ships). Their opponents would always opt to do a weapon crit against them hoping to disable the whole arc. Ships with low crew scores could also be constantly hammered with crew criticals.

I recognize that, especially if you were assigning multiple crits. But the severity is still uncontrolled and ONLY the first crit from that ship would be something that could be assigned.

Assuming you need more of a balance for the advantages versus Drazi or ISA fleets, what about having to give up two criticals to score one on the specific chart and then roll for severity and only once for the S/A?

Target Vulnerable Systems; CQC 9+; This ship nominates a target enemy ship. The first two criticals scored by this ship against the targeted ship are not rolled, instead the attacking player rolls once for severity on his/her non-Vitals critical chart of choice. Any remaining criticals are rolled as normal.

 

[stryve]

What about throwing in some kind of range restriction? Kind of like how distance can affect a roll to beat stealth.

 

[emperorpenguin]

well in the show they have had ships attack other ships and had the order "aquire external targets only" when Captain Sheridan was kidnapped by the Stribe. Perhaps you can use this special action, but only target weapons and engines.

I tried to get that added as a SA in 2nd edition.

I'd really like to see it in the game.

 

[Methos5000]

well in the show they have had ships attack other ships and had the order "aquire external targets only" when Captain Sheridan was kidnapped by the Stribe. Perhaps you can use this special action, but only target weapons and engines.

I tried to get that added as a SA in 2nd edition.

I'd really like to see it in the game.

If something like this were added to the game I would think the Weapons and Engine crits would need to be toned down to compensate. Like make the -1 AD weapon crit subtract 1AD from a single weapon system instead of all of them. Otherwise like I mentioned before this could be heavily abused against races with low AD or single arc ships (or slow ships for Engine Crits)

 

[Banichi]

What about throwing in some kind of range restriction? Kind of like how distance can affect a roll to beat stealth.

I think this would go a long way towards balancing out the scenario I cooked up. Otherwise the VIP's ship would just get sniped from the getgo. Maybe the special action could only be performed from 15 or 20 away. This would make the hunters close more with the target, and give the guarding ships more of a chance to defend the target ship.

I do think this SA would be easy to abuse in regular play, espesially against (as Methos5000 said) fleets that are slow, or lack high numbers of AD. It is probably best kept as a house rule, or used to spice up certain scenarios.

 

[Ripple]

Folks have suggested before that you only roll a D3 on the crit chart before. That has the nice affect of reducing criticals damage potential. Might represent the 'external targets thing' fairly well.

Ripple

 

[Banichi]

bumped in regard to the "matching the show" thread. And also because I don't know how to make links.