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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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 Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:13 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I don't recall the WEG rules ever specifically using the word "deflectors" when describing how shields operate. |
I don't either but it is possible that they were somewhere since the term "deflector shield" was spoken in the films. At first I was just going to post a general comment in this thread that the word "deflector" being or not being used to describe shield technology has no bearing on the game mechanics of them, but then I realized a more in-depth reply is warranted here...
| ClaytonH wrote: | Guide to the Star Wars Universe 1994 : Bill Slavicsek page 396
"Shield generators produce power needed to create and maintain deflector shields, then focus those shields around a given object be it a ship, building, or even parts of a planet. (source return of the jedi)" |
This checks out.
| ClaytonH wrote: | | Not exactly "THE" rule book but that guy wrote the rule book and owned the company. |
Bill Slavicsek is the quintessential father of the EU. But for the record, he never owned WEG. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend reading his book, Defining a Galaxy: 30 Years in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.
More on point to this discussion, his important role in the EU doesn't add any authority on this matter because he just provided the wording of Shield Generator entries in his Guide to the Star Wars Universe books. He is not the source of the content. The RotJ film and/or novelization is the source of the information, which predate the RPG.
FYI, the entire book is not transposed on Wookieepedia word for word. The Wookieepedia entries for the guides list all the the guide entry terms, and then each item links to the Wookieepedia page for that term, not the text word for word from the guides. Wookieepedia is like a Death-Star-sized, interactive, online, more up-to-date version of the guide to the Star Wars universe.
| ClaytonH wrote: | | The timeline and canon ends here for me. |
Understood. To each Star Wars fan, his own.
| ClaytonH wrote: | | I do not wish to debate the canon and timeline but the basic "rules" of physics and equipment should be rather universal. |
Earlier in the thread you acknowledge inconsistency in Star Wars lore. The body of the lore growing so much since then has not done anything to make it more universal. So despite what you feel about the way things should be, the unfortunately reality is that these things aren't always universal.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:14 am Post subject: |
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| ClaytonH wrote: | | ...In the forward Bill admits to writing this for the people he worked with at WEG while playing Star Wars the roleplaying game but it appears it is not published under WEG officially so by your definition it is not official. Although in the epilogue it says it is an official sourcebook for the roleplaying game. I guess your mileage may vary. |
What forward and what epilogue? I realize you are maybe just using these terms to mean something else, so for absolute clarity, could you please provide page numbers?
There were three editions of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe. I have them all. All three were published by Ballatine/Del Rey. None of the guides were sourcebooks for the roleplaying game. The first edition came out in 1984, before the RPG even existed or WEG even had the game license. Bill Slavicsek wrote the second and third editions. RPG materials are some of the many sources for the information in the second and third guides.
| ClaytonH wrote: | | The guys who wrote the WEG books wrote quite a few novels as well |
Which WEG authors wrote quite a few novels?
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:59 am Post subject: Shields |
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In my experience a ship's fore and aft arcs are the ones shot at most of the time, depending on if the ship is flying towards or away from the enemies shooting at it. So that is where the shield dice are allocated most of the time.
So I'm thinking of instituting six fire arcs by adding dorsal and ventral. I figure in 3D space (or aerial combat), with maneuvering around it is just as likely to get hit on the top or bottom of the ship as it is on the port or starboard sides of the ship.
As a minor balance to this, I'm also thinking of having a +1 shield as a default to any arc without any shield dice allocated to it. This +1 is not added to shield dice allocated to any arcs. The +1 is only for un-shielded arcs so it does nothing to boost the arcs you want to cover with the ship's dice. When you move shield dice to an arc, the +1 disappears for that arc. I think this would help explain how shields seem to envelope the entire ship, but they can still also be 'angled' for best protection. If all the shield dice are blown, then these +1s disappear too. You can think of them as placeholders or structure for the more concentrated shield energy to move into.
These are just minor tweaks to otherwise using shields as in RAW. Thoughts on these tweaks?
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:54 am Post subject: |
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If I were to use the RAW, that would be an excellent solution. I'm not too concerned with factoring in 3D combat, as I think there are practical reasons why most space combat would ultimately devolve into a 2D affair, albeit with fairly steep angles of attack on occasion.
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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You know, given the way turbolasers look (like WW2 battleship guns), the ventral or dorsal arc may be the best angle of attack... they wouldn't be able to aim up or down.
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | If I were to use the RAW, that would be an excellent solution. |
Thanks!
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I'm not too concerned with factoring in 3D combat, as I think there are practical reasons why most space combat would ultimately devolve into a 2D affair, albeit with fairly steep angles of attack on occasion. |
All a ship has to do is roll 90° to bring the other dimension into it. Although common in sci-fi depictions, ships battling each other in space do not even have to 'orient' themselves to each other. There's no 'up' in space. 'Up and down' are completely relative to each ship.
| MrNexx wrote: | | You know, given the way turbolasers look (like WW2 battleship guns), the ventral or dorsal arc may be the best angle of attack... they wouldn't be able to aim up or down. |
Yeah, I was thinking about that for turrets. For the top-down (or bottom-up) view of the four RAW shield/fire arcs, they all cover 90° from some center of the ship point. To take the idea into three dimensions by looking at a ship from a side view, then you have the same thing where the front and back arcs cover 90° each (and again the same thing if you take a front or back view of ships with the right and left arcs), so the top and bottom arcs would cover 90°. That makes sense with the angle of turret guns on the tops and bottoms of ships, they can't angle straight up or straight down. But if you have a side-turret gun, then their four arcs would be top, bottom, forward, back and not each side. Of course, for turret guns on the top, bottom, or sides, to bring them to bear on more arcs all the pilot has to do it is roll 90 degrees. Turrets still only cover 4 arcs.
I actually got the six arc idea idea from looking a die. You can divide a cube into six squat pyramids whose points all meet in the middle, and the bases of the six pyramids are the outer faces of the die. The angles of the tips of these pyramids are 90° in any face of the pyramid, so all fire arcs can vey easily be translated to adding the third dimension with the same angles involved.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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The alternative would be to mount the ship’s main batteries in such a way that as many of them as possible can be brought to bear on a given zone of fire, then roll the ship to bring the primary target into that zone of fire. Then secondary and anti-starfighter weapons could be distributed more generally to cover the arcs the main batteries can’t cover.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | If I were to use the RAW, that would be an excellent solution. I'm not too concerned with factoring in 3D combat, as I think there are practical reasons why most space combat would ultimately devolve into a 2D affair, albeit with fairly steep angles of attack on occasion. |
All a ship has to do is roll 90° to bring the other dimension into it. Although common in sci-fi depictions, ships battling each other in space do not even have to 'orient' themselves to each other. There's no 'up' in space. 'Up and down' are completely relative to each ship.
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That's something we humans often don't think about.. But iirc some aliens do (such as mon-cal)... Space is a 3d environment, and folks would be attacking from as many angles as possible....
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