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How exactly does Ion damage affect starships?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Esoomian wrote:
What I am saying (and what I infer garhkal is also saying) is that this system makes ion cannons less able to disable ships quickly. I suspect this is something you were trying to achieve but it means that low damage ion cannons (4D and less) will have a harder time achieving what they used to achieve.


You are correct. I'm going more for the action I see in the novels, where even barrages of ion cannon fire between capital ships wear down the shields before striking the hull. Using this rule variation may require more shots from the ion cannon to disable the target ship, but the ion cannon will still be rolling damage against the same hull value it is under the RAW; it will just have to hit more times to have the full effect.
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Esoomian
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So while ion cannons can still be used to achieve the same ends they will have to work harder to do so and therefore will not be as effective.

I'm not sure I like it. While I agree that the EU is full of ships having their shields stripped before he ion cannons cause any ionization effects on the target I'd probably just make shields soak ion damage and the hull not soak any ion damage unless someone gone to some sort of extra effort such as reinforcing the hull with some sort of ion dampning alloy or something.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Esoomian wrote:
So while ion cannons can still be used to achieve the same ends they will have to work harder to do so and therefore will not be as effective.

I'm not sure I like it.


Well, to each their own.

Quote:
While I agree that the EU is full of ships having their shields stripped before he ion cannons cause any ionization effects on the target I'd probably just make shields soak ion damage and the hull not soak any ion damage unless someone gone to some sort of extra effort such as reinforcing the hull with some sort of ion dampning alloy or something.


The problem there is that hull dice is an indirect reflection of the mass of the ship. If you make it so that hull dice has no effect on ion damage, an ion cannon would end up having an equal effect on a Corellian Corvette as it would on a Star Destroyer. Rolling against Hull Dice is the closest formula we have to account for mass absorbing energy.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

crmcneill wrote:
Esoomian wrote:
How is that not making them less effective overall?

If I normally do 4D damage and you normally have a soak of 4D then the system changes so you now have a soak of 5D then my 4D damage is less effective.


Because you aren't actually rolling against 5D. The soak is not added to the result of the dice roll; it's a one for one trade off, negating one Controls Ionized result for every 1D of shields lost. That gives the ion gunner a window to hit the target as per the RAW because the target's shields are down for the next round and a half or so. The ion cannon are just as effective; they just have to take out the ship's shields first.


So i roll say.

Twin heavy ion cannon (5d) against a HT-2200 (5d hull, 2d shields).

I roll 5d vs 5d. If i get a CI result, it loses a D of shields??

Quote:
Now it seems that is the goal of your system and that is fine but a lot of the ion cannons I've seen tend to have a low damage rating which is fine when you don't have to deal with shields but when shields are also factored in then that low damage rating means the viability of the ion cannons might be a little more suspect.


Especialy since most ion weapons on ships are 3-4d..

Quote:
The problem there is that hull dice is an indirect reflection of the mass of the ship. If you make it so that hull dice has no effect on ion damage, an ion cannon would end up having an equal effect on a Corellian Corvette as it would on a Star Destroyer. Rolling against Hull Dice is the closest formula we have to account for mass absorbing energy.


Then just use its shields rating.. An ISD has better shields than a CC..
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
So i roll say.

Twin heavy ion cannon (5d) against a HT-2200 (5d hull, 2d shields).

I roll 5d vs 5d. If i get a CI result, it loses a D of shields??


Yes. Normally, a CI result would last the remainder of the round and all of the next round, dissipating automatically at the beginning of the round-after-next. However, with Shields Blown results under this optional rule, the shields do not come back up automatically. The shield operator must wait for the CI result to dissipate as normal, and then he has to roll his Shields skill to bring the shields back up. On top of that, he can only bring back 1D per round, even if the ship was hit with more than 1D of Shields Blown results.

I can see how this would make ion cannon attacks less effective, but I would compromise by allowing ion attacks to affect engine speed (-1 Speed per CI result) and the difficulty of making hyperspace jumps (+1 Difficulty Level per CI result). It makes ion cannon have to work harder, but increases the pay-off on success.
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vanir
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My own leaning is still towards ionisation damage being more theatrical than mechanics, aside from the basic guidelines already set in the rules. I often add dramatic effect to game mechanics and it really changes the whole scene, often inspiring many additional rolls you might not have thought of if it gets too bogged down in game mechanics.

Our campaigning has leaned heavily on large scale fleet combat, generally speaking it's been the climactic stage of a particular gaming group's character points accumulation. I mean after you fight dark jedi and and defeat a full sized sector battle fleet, what else is there? (sure there is much more, but then you're into high level gaming like running around with 28th level PCs in AD&D and every session takes weeks of preparation doing the simplest things)

When we get into detail, like a starfighter assault on a SD in the middle of a fleet battle, what I do is concentrate attacks on specific ships systems.

Realistically you don't go around desintegrating vessels the size of a battlecruiser unless you're using a superlaser. Look at how the New Republic got their hands on two star destroyers, after a massive fleet battle lasting days two were left burned out hulks floating in space, but they still had thousands of armed troops on board and further weeks were spent in boarding actions to finally capture two ruined hulls that had to be repaired and refitted, which took years.

So I'm having trouble envisioning rules where starfighters run around ionising star destroyers and blowing them up with torps when the shields are down.
I'd rather a specific shield projector station might get blown out by a concentrated starfighter attack, then a deck area, perhaps a vital system might be destroyed. The overall effect would just be a reduction in combat effectiveness of the gargantuan vessel.

Remember a star destroyer or similar large battlecruisers aren't like attacking a WW2 bomber. They like trying bomb a naval base in harbour, and ultimately all you can do is take out its capabilities...if you're prepared to lay out the cost of doing so in men and materiel.

I think of it along those lines, then work from there. But that's just me.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

crmcneill wrote:

I can see how this would make ion cannon attacks less effective, but I would compromise by allowing ion attacks to affect engine speed (-1 Speed per CI result) and the difficulty of making hyperspace jumps (+1 Difficulty Level per CI result). It makes ion cannon have to work harder, but increases the pay-off on success.


Seems more work than its worth.. yanking its effectiveness back, then giving it something more to compensate.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Seems more work than its worth.. yanking its effectiveness back, then giving it something more to compensate.


Well, my issue all along has been that I thought it was ridiculous that shields don't stop ion cannon. I can't keep everything the same if I'm changing something, so to make things balance out again, I have to change something to compensate.
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vanir
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

but shields are just an energy field using type specific harmonics...


(not trying to poopoo your idea here, just bouncing ideas as well Smile)
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

vanir wrote:
but shields are just an energy field using type specific harmonics...


(not trying to poopoo your idea here, just bouncing ideas as well :))


It's OK. That's what we are here for.

Even if that's the case for how shields function, I have a hard time believing that starship designers, when faced with the fact that ion cannon shots were ignoring their shields, simply shrugged their shoulders and kept on doing things in the same old fashion. Military R&D would've assigned a team to find some way to adjust the shields to block ion cannon shots, even if it is just partially. WEG made a blanket ruling to this effect based on a single movie scene, but the rest of the EU official material has ignored WEG's rule and made it so that shields do have at least some effect against ion cannon. That's what I'm trying to simulate here.
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vanir
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

But if we think of shields as harmonics, different spectrums will be exclusive.

Plus we don't know precisely how ion-energy weapons work. In physics ionised particles are deflected by a magnetosphere, but energetic radiation aren't. You need a different kind of shielding than an active metallic core to protect against energetic radiation, usually a high density material.

And starship hulls are made up of a combination of physical armour and particle shielding technology (projected both beneath layers of hull armour and above it). So hull rating represents both physical structure/armouring and particle shielding.

These are effective against ion particle assaults, where ray shielding isn't. Technically it's the precise reverse of how physics works, but is still an accurate representation for a fictional universe in where "the rules of physics are turned upside down."
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

vanir wrote:
But if we think of shields as harmonics, different spectrums will be exclusive.


You're assuming that's how shields work. The Wookieepedia article on shields covers a lot of information, but never goes into the actual physics. It could be harmonics, but it could just as likely be any of a dozen other theories. WEG made this rule up for its own reasons, based on a single movie scene that doesn't really provide conclusive evidence. The rest of the EU (those that bother with the details) seemed to have sided with the original X-Wing video game and allowed shields to stop ion cannon, but be rapidly worn down by them. That's the game action I'm trying to duplicate.
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Gamer
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That same video game action that allows you to take on and defeat star destroyers and other capital ships as well as large space stations with a single fighter. Laughing
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gamer wrote:
That same video game action that allows you to take on and defeat star destroyers and other capital ships as well as large space stations with a single fighter. Laughing


The only time I ever saw one starfighter take on an ISD in a video game all on its own and blow it up was when a friend used a cheat code on X-Wing that gave him unlimited health and ammunition. He just parked off the SD's side and blasted massive amounts of proton torpedoes into it until it blew up.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

crmcneill wrote:

Even if that's the case for how shields function, I have a hard time believing that starship designers, when faced with the fact that ion cannon shots were ignoring their shields, simply shrugged their shoulders and kept on doing things in the same old fashion. Military R&D would've assigned a team to find some way to adjust the shields to block ion cannon shots, even if it is just partially. WEG made a blanket ruling to this effect based on a single movie scene, but the rest of the EU official material has ignored WEG's rule and made it so that shields do have at least some effect against ion cannon. That's what I'm trying to simulate here.


Maybe they tried, but just could not figure it out? OR if they did the shields were uneffective for regular weaponry.. so they asked the common folk (those who bought their stuff) whether they would rather protect against higher damage lasers, or lower damage ions...

Quote:
The only time I ever saw one starfighter take on an ISD in a video game all on its own and blow it up was when a friend used a cheat code on X-Wing that gave him unlimited health and ammunition. He just parked off the SD's side and blasted massive amounts of proton torpedoes into it until it blew up.


I have played XvT many a time and taken out star destroyers with ease using the tactic fly up and to the side, then come down and shoot 3 torps into each of the shield domes.. That destroys both and leaves the ISD without shields.. THEN i pound it from close range (and you can destroy the turrets).. It is even more easier to do so with a B wing... Which i have racked up over 200 ISD kills with in balance of power..
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