Thrust to Change Range

[vladthemad]

I saw on the forums posts about how the thrust to change range part of the core rule book combat system doesn't take into account current speed each round. Meaning, every round you spend thrust on movement to increase or decrease your range to the target, your ship doesn't suddenly stop afterward. Would it be a simple enough house rule to keep track of changes in speed for every round? I spend three thrust to move from 0 to 3 the first round, three thrust to go from 3 to 6 the second, 6 to 9 the third, etc. Pretty soon I'm flying across range bands...and knowing my players, they will zip past the target and end up out of range before they manage to reverse their thrust.

Has anyone tried this, are there any failings I'm not seeing? It seems like writing down the current speed at the end of each round and either decreasing or increasing it each round is simple enough to do.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Try it and see what your players think of it.

 

[wbnc]

I saw on the forums posts about how the thrust to change range part of the core rule book combat system doesn't take into account current speed each round. Meaning, every round you spend thrust on movement to increase or decrease your range to the target, your ship doesn't suddenly stop afterward. Would it be a simple enough house rule to keep track of changes in speed for every round? I spend three thrust to move from 0 to 3 the first round, three thrust to go from 3 to 6 the second, 6 to 9 the third, etc. Pretty soon I'm flying across range bands...and knowing my players, they will zip past the target and end up out of range before they manage to reverse their thrust.

Has anyone tried this, are there any failings I'm not seeing? It seems like writing down the current speed at the end of each round and either decreasing or increasing it each round is simple enough to do.

In Highguard, ( pg 83)there are rules for keeping track of vectors and accumulated thrust. It's fairly simple. But it does add some complexity to maneuvers in space.

 

[Reynard]

Vector movement has been part of Traveller since the beginning. Look in a copy of Classic Traveller or Mayday for vector play back in the day. It's a cute idea for playing 'realistic' movement but it bogs down RPG play. Mongoose again K.I.S.S.ed the rules keeping the game fast and fun. Still though, give vector movement a try as a tabletop game.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

For me, vector movement has worked fine with role-play. It didn't matter how ships traveled in space, or if there was sound in space or not. It was more the initiatives and combat rounds/turns that would make Traveller turn-based instead of role-based.

I've seen "professional" role-players completely lose it when told that they've miss-jumped, and they are 40 parsecs from nowhere. They absolutely have no idea how to role-play or handle such a situation. "What do you mean 'no more combat turns'? There's no one we can fight out here? What do our characters do now?" I suspect they were more wargamers than role-players. They lied to me.

 

[dragoner]

Has anyone tried this, are there any failings I'm not seeing? It seems like writing down the current speed at the end of each round and either decreasing or increasing it each round is simple enough to do.

I figure there is quite a bit of maneuvering going on, it is not straight line acceleration, then you have both timescale and enemy maneuvers to figure into it.

 

[wbnc]

The issue of information overload, and work load, come into play when you start modeling realistic ship movements. a simple two object scenario wouldn't be impossible to do, with a bit of math on the art of player and Ref, but add a third object, and things begin to bog down.

Adding some sort of software support to a virtual tabletop a gm could load and run would be a possible means of giving players and Refs a boost, and allow more detailed movement and velocity tracking..but otherwise you end up with players heads down in their notes, and calculations and totally out of the role play frame of mind.

The entire round based, abstract combat system is only a simple means of relaying, and organizing information at the most basic level possible. It simplifies... where am I, where are they, what is going on, who goes first,and what factors alter my planned course of action.short of programming a 3-d interactive video display that both players and ref can instantly update real time some sort of round based system is about required for most people.

story telling combat is far more difficult, since it relies on both player, and Ref being able to visualize the various factors without pausing to give a moment by moment breakdown of the situation. And of course that Ref and Players have the same mental image of the situation, and various rapidly changing variables.

The real art of gaming comes in the form of being able to think both tactically, and creatively at the same time. And being able to both role play and wargame in the same moment of time.That sort of mental gymnastics is rare in deed, so we get role play up to first contact, then wargame until the fights over, and back to role play.

 

[dragoner]

If your players aren't involved, spacecraft operations can be hand waved entirely.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Adding some sort of software support to a virtual tabletop a gm could load and run would be a possible means of giving players and Refs a boost, and allow more detailed movement and velocity tracking..but otherwise you end up with players heads down in their notes, and calculations and totally out of the role play frame of mind.

Watch any role-play game, using map apps and dice apps, come to a halt while players become data entry error checkers.

story telling combat is far more difficult, since it relies on both player, and Ref being able to visualize the various factors without pausing to give a moment by moment breakdown of the situation. And of course that Ref and Players have the same mental image of the situation, and various rapidly changing variables.

It's almost no different from "non-combat" situations. As long as players narrate what their characters are doing. Mind-reading almost never works though. It really helps though when players are honest, and they can see their characters like they're all in a movie together. Otherwise, you'll need the combat rules to fall back on and just boardgame some sort of plot along. Best to have honest players. Because non-honest players will try to find cheats even in the combat-round methods used.

The real art of gaming comes in the form of being able to think both tactically, and creatively at the same time. And being able to both role play and wargame in the same moment of time.That sort of mental gymnastics is rare in deed, so we get role play up to first contact, then wargame until the fights over, and back to role play.

In movies, I don't see much wargaming from characters. Mostly just action. I get players to keep the action going in games. There's no pause button to make a chess move. Combat needs to be in real-time, just like any other situation in the game. There is nothing more boring than players pausing even the most ordinary starport scene. I just don't get it. Actually, I do get it. That's why I stay away from those players.

 

[wbnc]

Watch any role-play game, using map apps and dice apps, come to a halt while players become data entry error checkers.

unfortunately,a very accurate prediction.

It's almost no different from "non-combat" situations. As long as players narrate what their characters are doing. Mind-reading almost never works though. It really helps though when players are honest, and they can see their characters like they're all in a movie together. Otherwise, you'll need the combat rules to fall back on and just boardgame some sort of plot along. Best to have honest players. Because non-honest players will try to find cheats even in the combat-round methods used.

I agree, a good group needs no rules, and no rules can compensate for bad players..same goes for a bad REF/storyteller.

In movies, I don't see much wargaming from characters. Mostly just action. I get players to keep the action going in games. There's no pause button to make a chess move. Combat needs to be in real-time, just like any other situation in the game. There is nothing more boring than players pausing even the most ordinary starport scene. I just don't get it. Actually, I do get it. That's why I stay away from those players.

Movies have the advantage of being planned out ahead of time with all the plotting and planning going on off screen. Hours of planning go into moments of action. I hate to slow down for the necessary evil of plotting, and thinking through a situation.

Since most of my games take place in a game store setting where i have only limited control of players involved. I have to deal with guys who want to stop check their abilities, skills, equipment , and reread the rules ten times before we continue....A side effect of running an open table to try and build up the number of players in town, and try and teach new players.... I'd pay real money to have my old group back.

We'd been playing together for years, and the process was streamlined to a point where a lot of the routine was down to memory, and note checking was about a minute at best..during which time i switched focus to another player and rotated through the crew to allow everyone to have a minute to do some thinking.

At times I didn't even have to refer to the rules we'd mostly talk out, or role play the scene.

 

[Reynard]

One thing to remember with normal Traveller space combat, there is no advantage or disadvantage to offense or defense based on position, only distance. Vector movement looks pretty and that's it. Shields, sensors, armor and weapon fire are normally 360 degrees everywhere. If they ever made a Traveller space combat game based on A Call To Arms. we could have directional combat with weapons having limited battery facing and internal/external damage having consequences.

 

[AndrewW]

Shields, sensors, armor and weapon fire are normally 360 degrees everywhere. If they ever made a Traveller space combat game based on A Call To Arms. we could have directional combat with weapons having limited battery facing and internal/external damage having consequences.

Fixed mount weapons don't have 360 degrees.

Also 2300AD has firing arcs.

 

[Reynard]

I didn't mention the Fixed Mounting feature because there is no actual game mechanic for it. Are there actually any ship other than fighters using the feature? People assume fighter are are turning on a dime in combat. In game terms, a fixed mounted hardpoint should either incur a penalty to firing or the ship should have restrictions on movement when the weapon is used.

Just in case, did I miss a line in the Space Combat section for fixed mounts?

 

[CosmicGamer]

I didn't mention the Fixed Mounting feature because there is no actual game mechanic for it. Are there actually any ship other than fighters using the feature? People assume fighter are are turning on a dime in combat.

Not on a dime, but a ship combat round is 6 minutes. Plenty of time to turn as in rotating to change facing, not changing momentum and vector.

In game terms, a fixed mounted hardpoint should either incur a penalty to firing or the ship should have restrictions on movement when the weapon is used.

It would seam to take more maneuvering to fire non guided weaponry at a target and then rotate to thrust in a different orientation with a fixed weapon vs a turret - but then we get into another discussion on the maneuver grav drive. Can a ship go backwards? Sideways? Is the drive omnidirectional? Can you maintain thrust in a desired direction while rotating the facing of the ship?

 

[Reynard]

As we really don't know the physics of Mongoose gravitic and maneuver drives, all speculation. At best it can be assumed, in a game turn, a ship has lateral thrust ability to spin in a new direction then drive thrust to move in the new heading or actually move in one direction while facing in another including backward. All conveniently transparent.

 

[vladthemad]

The issue of information overload, and work load, come into play when you start modeling realistic ship movements. a simple two object scenario wouldn't be impossible to do, with a bit of math on the art of player and Ref, but add a third object, and things begin to bog down.

Yeah, I'm talking about 1v1 ship combat. Before we get to 1v1v1, we'd probably have to switch to the vectored format. I think maintaining velocity in the more abstracted core book system would also help my players get a feel for the need to slow down when getting close prior to switching over to vectors too.

I figure there is quite a bit of maneuvering going on, it is not straight line acceleration, then you have both timescale and enemy maneuvers to figure into it.

Granted, and I figure spending thrust on maneuver takes care of that abstraction. Assuming your players aren't thrusting headlong into enemy fire and are using some of the thrust to dodge, if you have a 5G ship, and you use 3G to accel close with the target and 2G on maneuver each turn, after 3 turns you'll be at 9G. If they do run headlong at the target at full speed, after 3 turns they'd be at 15G.

Even if you're dodging all over the place, roughly speaking there's really only going to be two directions you're going to move in, towards or away from your target. I'm talking abstractly here.

When I brought up the possibility of vectored thrust, my players groaned. We are still sorting out the rest of the rules, why things work the way they do, etc. I guess I'm trying to add a bit of realism without jumping headlong into vectored thrust...yet.

With college started back up for most of my players, we are on a bit of hiatus...so it might be a bit before we get to try it out. Two players are currently MIA right now. I was hoping maybe someone else had saw this possibility and tried it out already. At any rate I'll see how it goes once we get everyone back together and let you know.

 

[dragoner]

I figure there is quite a bit of maneuvering going on, it is not straight line acceleration, then you have both timescale and enemy maneuvers to figure into it.

Granted, and I figure spending thrust on maneuver takes care of that abstraction. Assuming your players aren't thrusting headlong into enemy fire and are using some of the thrust to dodge, if you have a 5G ship, and you use 3G to accel close with the target and 2G on maneuver each turn, after 3 turns you'll be at 9G. If they do run headlong at the target at full speed, after 3 turns they'd be at 15G.

Even if you're dodging all over the place, roughly speaking there's really only going to be two directions you're going to move in, towards or away from your target. I'm talking abstractly here.

When I brought up the possibility of vectored thrust, my players groaned. We are still sorting out the rest of the rules, why things work the way they do, etc. I guess I'm trying to add a bit of realism without jumping headlong into vectored thrust...yet.

With college started back up for most of my players, we are on a bit of hiatus...so it might be a bit before we get to try it out. Two players are currently MIA right now. I was hoping maybe someone else had saw this possibility and tried it out already. At any rate I'll see how it goes once we get everyone back together and let you know.

Yes, the vectors do make people groan. The other solution is to try to fudge it using a travel times calculator like this one: http://www.transhuman.talktalk.net/iw/TravTime.htm
I've tried doing the ship movement a few ways, the mongoose rules work fine, if somewhat abstract. In reality I there would be a lot of slowing down, and spacecraft going so fast to cover the ranges in seconds, but in some ways becoming "too fast to fight".

It is always good to hear what works and doesn't work for other groups of gamers.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Yes, the vectors do make people groan.

Especially if you do it properly for space instead of a paper tabletop battle.

Now take into consideration the distance and the time even light speed weapons will take. Will that target still be in your "sights" when the laser reaches out?

Not just 3D, but 4D.

 

[Reynard]

Just like 21st century (or any other century) weapons, you always learn to adjust for distance, target speed and weapon velocity to predict where the target will be. Modern weapons have sensors and computers to aid in the prediction. Game mechanics either give bonuses to hit using a targeting system or it's considered transparent to the hit roll while a person's gun or gunnery roll is also partially predicting impact point. Same thing for piloting a ship to an optimal position. One roll to rule them all.

 

[vladthemad]

If this little guy right here has taught me anything...

...Orbital Mechanics are tricky.