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Whats up with the AT-ST
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 6:31 pm    Post subject: Whats up with the AT-ST Reply with quote

Perhaps its not the AT-ST specifically, but some things really dont add up IMO. Perhaps its the scale rules again.

To beging with, with a 3D body strength the walker is vulnerable to even light repeating blasters. Not very but still not unlikely if you fire a few times (and with the scale bonus you will most certainly hit). And then its the speed. Come on, 90km/h? Thats about 25 meters/second!
How do you handle the twin light blaster cannon? Its effectively a long range light repeating blaster with a +4D bonus to dodge. As it has the same Fire Control theres no real reason to fire it. Its better to have the co-pilot pilot the walker and use the heavy gun.
(I think its better to treat the twin light blasters as a medium repeating blaster and be done with it).

Quote:

Craft: All Terrain Scout Transport
Type: Medium walker
Scale: Walker
Length: 6.4 meters long, 8.6 meters tall
Skill: Walker operation: AT-ST
Crew: 2, skeleton: 1/+15
Crew Skill: Missile weapons 4D, vehicle blasters 4D+2,
walker operation 5D
Cargo Capacity: 200 kilograms
Cover: Full
Cost: Not available for sale
Maneuverability: 1D
Move: 30; 90 kmh
Body Strength: 3D
Weapons:
Twin Blaster Cannon
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (pilot)
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 50-200/1/2 Km
Damage: 4D
Twin Light Blaster Cannon
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (co-pilot)
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 50-300/500/1 Km
Damage: 2D
Concussion Grenade Launcher
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (co-pilot)
Skill: Missile weapons: grenade launcher
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 10-50/100/200
Damage: 3D

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Esoomian
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A lot of the D6 vehicles have problems.

Dark Empire Sourcebook (pages 123-124) wrote:

TIE Crawler (Century Tank)
Craft: Santhe/Sienar Technologies Century Tank
Type: Compact assault vehicle
Scale: Speeder
Length: 6.7 meters
Skill: Ground vehicle operation: Century tank
Crew: 1
Crew Skill: Vehicle blasters 5D, ground vehicle op. 5D+2
Passengers: 1
Cargo Capacity: 200 kilograms
Consumables: 5 days
Cover: Full
Cost: 37,00 credits
Maneuverability: 2D+1
Move: 30; 90 kmh
Body Strength: 2D
Weapons:
2 Medium Blaster Cannons
Fire Arc: Front
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 2D
Range: 50-400/900/2 Km
Damage: 5D
Light Turbolaser
Fire Arc: Turret
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D+2
Range: 50-300/500/1 Km
Damage: 4D+1


This thing is supposed to be made of TIE parts but it's body strength equates to 4D character scale. Jo average (2D strength) has a decent chance of hurting this with just an axe!

Again it has a move of 30 so it's super fast, faster than a number of speeders despite using tank treds to move and the maneuverability of 2D+1 seems quite high.

It seems designed to be a light infantry killer as it's primary guns do 7D damage character scale and it's fire control is equal to the 2D scale bonus that character scale entities get for dodging. With it's range of 2 kilometres the dodge bonus probably won't come into play as infantry may get blasted well before they're aware of the threat.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:42 am    Post subject: Re: Whats up with the AT-ST Reply with quote

ZzaphodD wrote:
Perhaps its not the AT-ST specifically, but some things really dont add up IMO. Perhaps its the scale rules again.

Coincidentally we recently had an AT-ST vs. AT-ST combat in our game recently. The stats worked OK for walker vs. walker, but as ZzaphodD indicated they were a bit off for walker vs. human combat.

Usually I assume the larger scale weapons have an area of effect for the shot, otherwise the use of walker-scale low damage weapons instead of character-scale repeating blasters makes no sense. But I also like the idea of having a heavy weapon and then lower scale lighter weapons similar to real world tanks that have a main gun but also carry .30 MGs.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:56 pm    Post subject: Re: Whats up with the AT-ST Reply with quote

ZzaphodD wrote:
Perhaps its not the AT-ST specifically, but some things really dont add up IMO. Perhaps its the scale rules again.


Yup, it7s the scale rules again.

Remeber, back when all these vehciles were first sttated (the Star Wars Scourcebook) there were not scaling rules.

I think two things would help:

1) Replace the fixed scaling rules with the scaling rules from D6 Spaceships. That would give up a much smoother rpogression, and keep things like the Skipray blast boat from being such a problem.

2) Some sort of default armor rating that comes off the damage dice before they are rolled. That way we could have walkers and tanks that are immune to small arms fire.


As it stands now there isn't much wiggle room. Since all the tanks and walkers need to fit in somehwere between a person with a blaster and an AT-AT, its impossible to make an effective APC, let alone a tank.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Add another vote in for scale rules being off. As it stands a wookie with a vibro axe (7d+2 max damage for most) will be doing +2 OVER what an At-st's body strength is... WITHOUT spending a FP and going into hand to hand. I am sorry..

As to the blast radius.. i asked about that a while back, as it did seem that way in both Empire strikes back and return of the jedi that they did not need to hit directly to cause damage.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 1:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Add another vote in for scale rules being off. As it stands a wookie with a vibro axe (7d+2 max damage for most) will be doing +2 OVER what an At-st's body strength is... WITHOUT spending a FP and going into hand to hand. I am sorry..


Yeah. THat is one reason why I've been arguing against high firearm damages in the other thread. If you don''t, then modern APCs and Tanks have Body STR scores much, much higher than the vehicles in Star Wars.
What is scarey is that the Wookiee is also a serious rthreat to a TIE fighter (2D Starfighter scale = 8D).



garhkal wrote:

As to the blast radius.. i asked about that a while back, as it did seem that way in both Empire strikes back and return of the jedi that they did not need to hit directly to cause damage.


I agree. We see people react to near misses much the same way that they react to artillery. At least "Movie" artillery. That is everyone within 10-15 feet drops. I've got a quick fix for this that I swiped from EABA. In that game, a weapon can be built with "explosive" damage. Such weapons do 2D less damage than normal, but have a blast radius. The nice thing about that rule is it would helpt to justify the Atgar artillery.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 12:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perhaps we can modify the AT-ST for the followng..

Craft: All Terrain Scout Transport
Type: Medium walker
Scale: Walker
Length: 6.4 meters long, 8.6 meters tall
Skill: Walker operation: AT-ST
Crew: 2, skeleton: 1/+15
Crew Skill: Missile weapons 4D, vehicle blasters 4D+2,
walker operation 5D
Cargo Capacity: 200 kilograms
Cover: Full
Cost: Not available for sale
Maneuverability: 1D
Move: 40; 130 kmh
Body Strength: 5D
Weapons:
Twin Blaster Cannon
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (pilot)
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 50-200/1/2 Km
Damage: 5d/4d+1/3d+2/3d
Blast radius: 0-3/7/10/12
Twin Light Blaster Cannon
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (co-pilot)
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 50-300/500/1 Km
Damage: 3d+1/2d+2/2d
Blast radius: 0-4/8/12
Concussion Grenade Launcher
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (co-pilot)
Skill: Missile weapons: grenade launcher
Scale: Character
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 10-50/100/200
Damage: 8d/7d/6d/5d/4d
Blast radius: 0-4/7/10/15/20
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is my take.
-Slower, 90km/h for a walker is a bit silly.
-Main gun has a blast radius, but its not an artillery weapon so the radius is rather small and damage not so severe. Main danger if you are not almost hit is stun or occasional wound.
Made the small gun an anti-personell weapon, which is really what the AT-ST needs. Its more or less a medium repeater. If you dont like my take on autofire, just raise the damage 1D and youre back at how the RAW handles repeaters.
-Increased range for the grenade launcher.

garhkal wrote:
Perhaps we can modify the AT-ST for the followng..

Craft: All Terrain Scout Transport
Type: Medium walker
Scale: Walker
Length: 6.4 meters long, 8.6 meters tall
Skill: Walker operation: AT-ST
Crew: 2, skeleton: 1/+15
Crew Skill: Missile weapons 4D, vehicle blasters 4D+2,
walker operation 5D
Cargo Capacity: 200 kilograms
Cover: Full
Cost: Not available for sale
Maneuverability: 1D
Move: 20; 60 kmh
Body Strength: 5D
Weapons:
Twin Blaster Cannon
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (pilot)
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 50-200/1/2 Km
Damage: 5D
Blast Damage*: 5D/4D/3D/2D
*: Character Scale
Blast radius: 0-1/3/5/8
Twin Light Blaster Cannon
Character Scale
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (co-pilot)
Skill: Vehicle blasters
Fire Control: 1D
Autofire +1D
Range: 3-60/150/400m
Damage: 6D
Concussion Grenade Launcher
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 1 (co-pilot)
Skill: Missile weapons: grenade launcher
Scale: Character
Fire Control: 1D
Range: 10-50/150/300
Damage: 6D/5D/4D/3D
Blast radius: 0-2/5/9/12

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jmanski
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 07, 2010 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Either of those is better than the official version.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds like me an Z need to have a poll to see which is better
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think it is opening up a can or worns. If we redo the AT-ST, then we will have to rewrite a lot of the other miltiary vehicles. Most of the tanks in starwars suffer becuase they are lumped in with the other speeders.
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
I think it is opening up a can or worns. If we redo the AT-ST, then we will have to rewrite a lot of the other miltiary vehicles. Most of the tanks in starwars suffer becuase they are lumped in with the other speeders.


Thats why I do these things 'on the fly'. I know vaguely whats wrong, but cant be bothered to go through all the tanks and speeders to make sure they are consistent.

I have a general idea what body values I want for 'standard' versions of the different bikes, speeders and walkers. I then modify these stats depending on what model Im using atm.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perhaps then, we need to shift the walkers up from only being 4d diff, to more... say 6 or 7d.
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Perhaps then, we need to shift the walkers up from only being 4d diff, to more... say 6 or 7d.


I think 5D is enough actually.

But the problem is not only scales, its the extreme inconsistency between vehicles. Look though Vehicle stats and you will find some horrible exampls. Speeder truck having about the body strength of a tank is the most extreme I think.

Thats why I have the above 'on the fly' solution. Saves a lot of time to adjust the values on the spot instead.
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

...I have no problem with the original AT-ST...

...then again, I do things a bit differently:

1= Original Scaling Rules from the Star Wars Rules Companion; dice capped in regard to "to hit" & "damage". Should a character's damage roll exceed the cap then the number is discarded (makes Walker-scale mean something even in a small Walker; though this affects a Walker's chances to hit, even a 3D Walker scale weapon hurts!). I never liked the R&E version of scaling.

2= The AT-ST is a scout, not a front-line weapon, except in flanking maneuvers. One would not send an Abrams Tank to do the job of a man on point. So its high speed is appropriate to the assigned role.

3= The AT-ST is meant to be cheaper & easier to mass produce than its larger counterparts, so it isn't going to be as nasty as some of the other weapons in Imperial inventory. Being Walker-scale as opposed to the more widespread Speeder-scale vehicles sets it apart from other craft.

4= Imperial forces combine fire very effectively (no initial penalty to coordinate), & even the most nimble character should get nervous when there are 3-5 AT-STs combining fire in his/her direction--especially with concussion grenades as the first barrage & blaster cannons to follow on a weakened target.


...but I digress (the again, I've played Star Wars since 1st Ed. came out)
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