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Question about controls ionized in space combat
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Tinman
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

DougRed4 wrote:
Tinman wrote:
It's also worth noting that an ion disabled ship doesn't suddenly stop dead in space either. It's going to keep heading along its original trajectory for those two rounds.


Completely agree.


It's one of those rules (not house, it's in the core book) that gave us an "Er, didn't consider that.." moment the first time we attempted a boarding action after ion disabling. The pilot apparently does have some minimal control over the ship (I assume stabilizing thrusters only) even in this state, given that they still have to make a piloting roll to avoid spinning out of control or colliding with obstacles in space.

DougRed4 wrote:
Tinman wrote:
(once you're docked and grappled, continuing to fire ionizing shots at the other ship obviously isn't an option anymore.)


Why not? Because the ships are connected (and the ion charges might also affect the attacking ship?


You're right in correcting me there, there's nothing in the actual written rules which suggests it.. but it seems like common sense that one shouldn't attempt to make attacks which affect electrical systems on something you're in physical connection with. I suppose it would be possible to insulate your grappling and docking equipment though?
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tinman wrote:
. I suppose it would be possible to insulate your grappling and docking equipment though?


Yeah, in fact it's actually easier to do it that way. The shape of the docking tube would probably automatically count as a sort of Faraday Cage.
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Tinman
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:09 pm    Post subject: Re: Question about controls ionized in space combat Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
To some extent yes. In part because with multiple shots the likelihood of beating the hull code goes up.

Maneuverability Code is probably more important than Hull Code as far as ion weapons go. Since most ships with high Hull Codes tend to have low Maneuverability Codes, one lucky shot can end up completely disabling a ship for a couple of rounds.

And that means the ionized ship can't dodge, so a single gunner can just hose the ship down with ion fire and let the laws of probability work for him.


That can be catastrophic for groups that fly around in light freighters - like most PCs. One lucky ion shot and the PCs ship is helpless for at least two rounds.


Our group has been considering ditching the completely ionized rule and just stacking up the dice penalties to give those in ionized ships an chance to do something.


I think it's probably because our experience on the subject comes from two very different types of scenarios, but our first two privateering runs which involved depending on ion disabling for taking a prize gave a very strong "looks good on paper, but.." impression, using the rules as written. After one whopping repair bill and a couple rounds of "what can we do to improve our performance?" discussions, we settled on using a secondary tackling ship, and subsequently relegated ion disabling to a backup option and moved on to timed sabotage. (If we'd had access to a Y-wing, it probably would have worked very well as a tackler, yes. We ended up using a refitted Ghtroc 720 because it was what we had available, and it had the advantage of looking innocuous.)

Dogfights are obviously a very different sort of situation.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ion Guns are feat or famine weapons. When they work they tend to produce overkill. When they don't, they just fizzle. And since the other ship is usually shooting at you with real weapons, the fizzle is painful.

Sounds like you saw the fizzle.

Oh, and any weapon that does less than 3D isn't worth having in space combat.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2014 5:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Question about controls ionized in space combat Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:


Our group has been considering ditching the completely ionized rule and just stacking up the dice penalties to give those in ionized ships an chance to do something.


Have you seen the house rules thread on what i Do with ion damage?
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:14 pm    Post subject: Re: Question about controls ionized in space combat Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:


Have you seen the house rules thread on what i Do with ion damage?


Almost certainly, but it's been awhile so a refresh might be in order.

I've been thinking of house ruling thinga so that the ion dice penalties do not' affect maneuverability directly. A ship with more ionization dice than it's hull code goes dead, and ion damage past that point can cause permanent damage.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 12, 2014 12:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The gist is that rather than having it be as normal where if you get a ship killed result (16+) its dead in the water, and each 'system affected' result prior to that reduces the maneuverability by 1d, you have to chart out how many systems your ship has.
Each bracket of 4 damage over soak an ion cannon gets, shuts off one system (rolled randomly) of those charted. The first "Hit" shuts it down for d6 combat rounds, regardless of how many times you roll it for THAT damage resolution bit. But each additional hit that scores that system for damage adds 1D more (so say your nav comp got hit, next round it gets hit again, you are rolling 2d this time for added time it's down.

A standard fighter (lets take an Xwing for instance) has the following systems (11 systems total, roll 2d6-1 to see which system affected)
Main power (1)
Life support (2)
Shields (3)
Maneuvering thrusters (4)
Ion drive (sublight) (5)
Droid interface (6)
Main computer (includes comms) (7)
Repulsor lift (8)
Weapon 1 Lasers (9)
Weapon 2 Torpedo launcher (10)
Hyperdrive (11)

Where as say a YT-1300 freighter has
Main power (1)
Life support (2)
Shields (3)
Maneuvering thrusters (4)
Ion drive (sublight) (5)
Hyperdrive (6)
Nav computer (7)
Main computer (includes comms) (8)
Repulsor lift (9)
Weapon 1 Ion cannons (10)
Sensors (11)
B/u Hyperdrive (12)
For a D12 roll to see which system

Lets say (using the above freighter as an example) in round 3 of combat it is hit by an Ion cannon from a Y-wing (pirate ship), and soak sucks giving 9 damage over soak. 9 damage over equates to 3 systems affected (and yes the same system can be affected more than once in the same damage resolution), which when you roll the d12 gets a 11 (sensors just got done for d6 or 3 rounds), 2 (life support for 4 rounds) and say 7 (nav comp) for 2 rounds.
Later in round 5 another ion damage result gets through and affects life support again adding this time 9 more rounds (11 total now as 2 have passed since it was hit)..
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DougRed4
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do like it, but it would make a lot of work for the GM if you had to make up a chart for every single ship (if the PCs commonly used ion damage as one of their main attacks).
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not if you chart it out during prep time before you get to the game. And just reference it in combat.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmm, this looks like it would work well with another idea I was working on. I was working on tweaking the damage tables so that the same system is hit on a given die result, but with the damage increasing with the severity. For instance if a "2" was a maneuverability hit, then light damage might mean a 1D reduction, heavy damage might mean a 2D reduction, and so on.

I was thinking of expanding the damage to allow for damage to other systems like sensors, communications, and such. I was thinking of having one damage chart for all ships, maybe with some modifiers for position (attacking from the rear increases the chances of hitting the engines), or maybe for scale.

Anyway, the alternate ion damage houserule would work well with my alternate damage table. in
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the idea of one (more generic) chart for all ships, which of course could always be modified by the GM as makes sense.
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
Hmm, this looks like it would work well with another idea I was working on. I was working on tweaking the damage tables so that the same system is hit on a given die result, but with the damage increasing with the severity. For instance if a "2" was a maneuverability hit, then light damage might mean a 1D reduction, heavy damage might mean a 2D reduction, and so on.

I was thinking of expanding the damage to allow for damage to other systems like sensors, communications, and such. I was thinking of having one damage chart for all ships, maybe with some modifiers for position (attacking from the rear increases the chances of hitting the engines), or maybe for scale.

Anyway, the alternate ion damage houserule would work well with my alternate damage table. in


Some systems would be ok for that, such as maneuvering/sensors/shields and weapons, as they have a D value associated with them. But what of the other systems which don't? Such as life support, comms, computers etc?
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:


Some systems would be ok for that, such as maneuvering/sensors/shields and weapons, as they have a D value associated with them. But what of the other systems which don't? Such as life support, comms, computers etc?


That's easy. Just apply a penalty to their use. For instance upping the difficulty a level or applying a MAP when the system is used. For life support you could mess with the consumables (i assume things like air and drinking water are included under that category). If you think about it, nearly any system can go on the fritz somehow.


I'll admit though that my ship design rules kinda gave me a bit of a help with some things. I had a method for working out a ship's power requirements in a simple form and could use that to mess with the power generator.
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Tinman
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Some systems would be ok for that, such as maneuvering/sensors/shields and weapons, as they have a D value associated with them. But what of the other systems which don't? Such as life support, comms, computers etc?


Considering that the controls will also have electrical arcs playing across them, it also seems reasonable that a character could easily get zapped and end up with some damage (and that "plugged in" look for a new hairdo) trying to mess with their ship controls.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 5:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In a Star Trek game (Decipher's CODA version) me and my group play, one of the first results that happens in ship to ship combat is a random bridge station explodes in a shower of sparks, doing damage to the person manning that position.
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