The effects of a failed landing roll

[Enlightened]

The ship operations section says that landing at a starport is at +2DM. If you take extra time you can get an additional +2. If you have, let's say, Pilot 1, then in total you're rolling at +5.

But you roll a 2. 2+5=7, a failure. What happens?

 

[alex_greene]

You roll up new characters?

 

[Captain Jonah]

The ship operations section says that landing at a starport is at +2DM. If you take extra time you can get an additional +2. If you have, let's say, Pilot 1, then in total you're rolling at +5.

But you roll a 2. 2+5=7, a failure. What happens?

Crunch.

Unless its something like a -6 or worse effect which comes from landing with no engine
Oddly or perhaps not, while MonT tells you the roll for landing it doesn't tell you what happens when you fail.
Treat it as a ram since technicaly you are ramming the planet :twisted:
Try this:
Fail by 1-2 take 2D6 in damage per 100dtons of ship
Fail by 3-4 take 5D6 in damage per 100dtons of ship
Fail by 5-6 take 10d6 in damage per 100dtons
Fail by 7 or more Boom, all crew eject in Life Pods or small craft if they can.

Pilot failure will be noticed about halfway through the task so if taking time you will have a few minutes to hit the pods or strap in. If coming in fast you will have at most 30 seconds to panic

 

[Hopeless]

How about auto-pilot?

Most current aircraft have the facility to warn the pilot when they're seriously screwing up their final approach so it should be the same in the future sort of a Tom-Tom except you could throw in the fact its being very sarcastic ala Orin the last starchaser or that new tom-tom they're talking about using Yoda or Darth Vader and so on.

So its base difficulty of 8 and you have a pilot skill of 1 and a landing dm of +2 for 2d6+3 or a minimum of +5 perhaps another +2 for the ship's computer for +7 with the possibility of another roll on behalf of the ship's computer to act as an aid another check except they have +0 pilot skill and a +2 landing bonus so thats two checks to mess up before you wreck your ride!

 

[alex_greene]

Does this remind you of a certain movie from 2005?

Wash: "Yeah well, if she doesn't give us some extra flow from the engine room to offset the burn through, this landing is gonna get pretty interesting."

Mal: "Define interesting."

Wash: "Oh god oh god we're all gonna die?"

Mal: "This is the captain. We have a ... little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then ... explode."

...

Mal: "Yeah well, just get us on the ground."

Wash: "That part will happen pretty definitely."

-Serenity


---


If the Pilot has time, best if he considers expanding the timeframe of the landing to obtain at least a +1 DM.

If not, fudge the Effect to be a marginal success at best; the ship lands, but roughly, and it needs repairs. Probably the Port Authority ends up billing the Captain for repairs to the landing pad, the Pilot takes a cut in pay or - at worst - the Captain demotes the Pilot to Astrogator or Engineering Assistant or Assistant Steward or something and hires a new Pilot with a better Pilot skill and a track record of not landing the ship nose down on the tarmac.

 

[DFW]

Unless the sensors & flight computer are out, it is pretty much impossible to crash on a standard landing at a star port. Unless, you are in one of those TL 5 star ships...

 

[rust]

In my setting an effect of -1 would mean that the starship landed either
in front or after the landing pad or on the wrong landing pad - just a mi-
nor nuisance, the only consequence is the damaged pride and reputation
of the pilot, and perhaps a small fine.

An effect of -2 to -5 results in a damaged starship and/or a damaged spa-
ceport. I do not use any fixed amount of damage for this, it depends on
the specific situation. For example, a blunder during a water landing is ve-
ry different from one in mountainous terrain. In any case, if it happens on
an inhabited planet, the pilot will lose his pilot's license.

An effect of -6 or worse adds the risk of damage to the crew of the ship
and damages the ship so badly that repairs would cost more than a new
ship. If the pilot should survive the crash, and it happened on an inhabited
planet, the pilot will most probably take a time out from the campaign for
a couple of years in prison.

 

[rinku]

It'll probably be some kind of rough landing - but an effect of -1 to -5 only indicates a normal failure, so I'd be thinking of damage to the ship not destruction, or being forced to land away from the starport. Possibilities:

* Extreme weather prevents landing and the ship is placed in a holding position for 1D6 hours/days (and on some planets extreme weather may be EXTREME).

* Landing gear fails to deploy properly or gives way (the latter maybe due to coming in too hard).

* Political unrest or enemy attack has closed the spaceport.

* While coming in to land a joyriding teen in an air/raft collides with the ship. The damage to the ship is fairly minor, but the inquest is going to hold the pilot in port until resolved.

* Traffic control is down due to sabotage or equipment failure.

* Spawning acid beasts cross the flightpath and damage the sensor array, resulting in an emergency landing outside the starport.

 

[Enlightened]

Unless the sensors & flight computer are out, it is pretty much impossible to crash on a standard landing at a star port. Unless, you are in one of those TL 5 star ships...

Can you explain a bit more?

By sensors, do you mean using the sensors skill in a task chain to give a bonus to the roll?

What do you mean by "flight computer"? What page is it on?

 

[Enlightened]

How about auto-pilot?


So its base difficulty of 8 and you have a pilot skill of 1 and a landing dm of +2 for 2d6+3 or a minimum of +5 perhaps another +2 for the ship's computer for +7 with the possibility of another roll on behalf of the ship's computer to act as an aid another check except they have +0 pilot skill and a +2 landing bonus so thats two checks to mess up before you wreck your ride!

What program is being run to give the ship a roll?

I didn't see a pilot program on the ship program list.

 

[DFW]

By sensors, do you mean using the sensors skill in a task chain to give a bonus to the roll?

Sensors are covered in ship design section.

What do you mean by "flight computer"? What page is it on?

It is the computer that runs the Maneuver software. See ship design section.

 

[rust]

Unless the sensors & flight computer are out, it is pretty much impossible to crash on a standard landing at a star port.

At least it would require a true active pilot error, a CFIT (controlled flight
into terrain). This happens surprisingly often in the real world, despite all
the technology designed to prevent it. And even autopilot, sensors and
contragrav do not help much if a pilot mistakenly decides to accelerate
the starship into a mountainside or a starport building - unless the tech-
nology would be able to override the pilot's decisions, in which case there
would be no longer much need to have a pilot on board at all.

 

[Enlightened]

By sensors, do you mean using the sensors skill in a task chain to give a bonus to the roll?

Sensors are covered in ship design section.

What do you mean by "flight computer"? What page is it on?

It is the computer that runs the Maneuver software. See ship design section.

Do either of them give a bonus to the Pilot roll to land?

 

[DFW]

By sensors, do you mean using the sensors skill in a task chain to give a bonus to the roll?

Sensors are covered in ship design section.

What do you mean by "flight computer"? What page is it on?

It is the computer that runs the Maneuver software. See ship design section.

Do either of them give a bonus to the Pilot roll to land?

No, the pilot just instructs the computer to land "there". Unless, like I said, you are flying TL5 space ship. ROLF

 

[Enlightened]

So if a human is landing he has to roll but if the computer is landing then there is no roll?

Are you sure this isn't just your houserule?

 

[DFW]

For anyone who wants to know the TL7 auto landing system for something MUCH more difficult than a starship landing...

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/94/941018Arc4088.html

 

[rinku]

DFW has a very entrenched view of high technology being foolproof. I sometimes wonder what caliber of fools he deals with in his day to day life...

In any case, players crapping out on "sure thing" rolls *may* indicate equipment failure, or external events. Be creative.

 

[DFW]

DFW has a very entrenched view of high technology being foolproof. I sometimes wonder what caliber of fools he deals with in his day to day life...

None as I don't know you personally.

 

[rust]

I think this here is a nice example of what a combination of minor prob-
lems and errors can result in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_965

 

[DFW]

I think this here is a nice example of what a combination of minor prob-
lems and errors can result in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_965

I know! Sucks not to have on board radar systems.