 April 4, 2010 - 1:25pm | Has anyone come up with some good rules that would simulate the fighters diving in on star destroyers as in Star Wars? The way I see it there are a few things to adress: 1. Minumum size of ship for this sort of action; should it be based off of Hull size or MR or ADF? 2. must keep it simple so how do we incorporate this into the game without bogging it. 3. Might as well adress dogfighting as well since one defense against fighters doing this is other fighters intercepting. 4. what is the advantage of do this? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 4, 2010 - 2:11pm | some ideas that popped into my head as I wrote this: 1. Whenever a fighter enters the same hex as a large ship it can declare a strafing run and target specific system Like ADF or laser battery. A strafing run is modified by -5% per difference of speed but the fighter gets +5% per unused ADF & MR for that turn (plus the pilots skill or the gunners skill? which one piloting or gunnery?). This would let a wing of fighters take out a destroyer in that they could go for its ADF or MR and make it dead in the water. 2. to defend against this large ships can have fighter escorts that stay in the same hex and move and maneuver with the ship. The minute an enemy fighter enters they hex and declares strafing run they can declare intercept. The strafing player then declares boring in or dogfight. on boring in the intercept fighters get first shot at the strafing fighters at a bonus and all damage is applied before the strafing fighters shoot at the big ship. if its dogfight then 2 sets of fighters resort to dog fight rules and there is no strafing of the big ship. Other modifiers: if a strafing fighter takes damage during its bore in -5%/ weapon hit reguardless of how much damage taken in each hit. If a strafing fighter end its turn in the same hex as the ship its attacking during consecutive turns then it gets +10%/ consecutive turn. 3. the problem of dog fighting? once ships use up their MR they travel in a striaght line and would thus ending a dogfight. Im thinking to make it once a fighters are in the same hex and a dogfight is declared then they either remain in that hex till the fight is over or all the fighters "drift" together till the fight is over (some sort of mechanic like a number of hexes equal to 1/2 the average speed of all fighters involved with a die determining direction of drift sort of like the grenade bounce table. each phase the dogfight will drift as per the mechanic suggested. 4. Mechanic for dogfighting: pair off each fighter (possible to have 2 vs 1 or 3 vs 1 pairings) Each fighter gets +10/ point of ADF & MR and skill level of pilot this is the dogfight bonus(DB)- each pilot rolls and adds his DB highest total gets advantage and can fire at the other. If there are extra fighters in the pairing then + 5%/ extra fighter but DB is figured on the primary fighter in the pairing. the fighter that lost the advantage cannot shoot this phase unless is has a rear firing weapon. evasion subskill needs to be figured into the roll in some way, to see if the advantaged fighter hits the disadvantaged fighter (maybe 1/2 RS +10%/level for the disadvantaged pilot is subtracted from the to hit roll of the advantage pilot/gunner's shot) each phase (2 per turn) a new advantage roll is made. At the time immediately after the advantage roll the player with advantage can declare breaking off and the dogfight is ended and there is no shooting. At any time a fighter is destroyed a new pairing is declared during the next phase or turn thus one side will steadily gain more and more advantage till it wipes out the opposition. 5. one more thing on strafing: a critical success adds an extra d10 of hull points to a strafing run reguardless of what was targeted. To keep track of the the parings in a dog figh: I would place a dog fight counter and move all the fighters to a "off table" card to show the pairings I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 4, 2010 - 2:17pm | I didn't even address the issue of what size ship strafing can be done against but it seems to me that what ever the rule is for the minimum Hull Size for strafing it should include destroyers since they are the work horse of the sathar. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 5, 2010 - 2:35am | Without drifting away from the general KH rules --- First off the basic KH fighter is just as effective at point blank as it is from 40,000km (4 hexes) away, the assault rocket is unaffected by range. Getting in that close allows it to be targetted more efficiently by the defending craft's laser batteries, not to mention in range of the more deadly rocket batteries (30K max range). Throw in a +10% head on bonus at 40K out and you have a rather lethal threat, no need to put the pilots in further risk by getting closer. But the most deadly squadron of fighters? Those helmed by more experienced pilots. Have a group of five LVL:2 pilots led by a LVL:3 pilot and you have a 70% base chance (75 for the leader) to hit at 40K out assuming head on shots. With that kind of hit probability, six inbound rockets capable of inflicting an average of 15HP damage each (not counting the 20% probability for each one inflicting double damage on the damage table) is gonna hurt any capital ship. As far as dog fighting goes, pilots may exercise the "evasive maneuver" portion of their skill with a fighter craft so any inbound assault rockets can be evaded as such. Feasibly (unlikely, but not impossible) both sides could deplete their ammunition without suffering any casualties... Again, more experienced pilots will fare better. _________________________ Now, throwing in some house stuff --- I have an entire star fighter campaign that deals with such scenarios, and a slew of variants to the basic design (pod lasers, pod lasers and a single rocket, dual pod lasers, heavy fighters with similar light fighter combinations plus a pod laser turret, etc). And all of them have "auto eject modules", sort of a built in escape pod (a la suggstions from the source books) that promotes pilot longevity.  P.S. Gilbert also has a few strafing rules, IIRC involving a special strafing type of laser weapon system. Hopefully he'll chime in |
April 5, 2010 - 2:38am | Okay...what's up with three copies of the same post? |
 April 5, 2010 - 8:55am | Fighters are misnamed. They are really more akin to the torpedo and dive bombers of the WWII era. Their strength was in numbers. Attack with enough bombers and some are going to get through even the most spirited defenses and cause serious damage. As Shadow said (and said it often ;) ), the evasive maneuver skill offers a decent resemblance of dog fighting. Jedi, your ideas are certainly workable. IMHO, I'm not sure if they are needed. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
 April 5, 2010 - 6:25pm | W00t and myself have made the strafing rules into an article in the SFman mag. I hope it comes out in 14. The original rules were pretty indepth and I had assistance of two fighter pilots while I was in the AirForce in putting them together. Therules that became final were made much more compact and easier to use. The rules are custom made for fighter attacks using a new weapon called a straffer laser pod/gun, depending on point of view. The damage can be very high but the advanced damage is nothing due to how the damage is spread out over the hull. The rules also cover fighters attacking any other ships that come into range of these weapons. Do not get to excited about the damage that can be don because they have limited ammo. |
April 6, 2010 - 2:22am | Glad you chimed in Gil, I didn't want to post the same thing three more times  (psssst...hey, Larry - can ya nix those extra posts?) |
April 6, 2010 - 8:35pm | Sorry guys I was just watching Return of the Jedi and thinking about the fighters going in against capitol ships but then the combat of KH and the SW movies are probably apples and oranges naturally if you had a total AR load out you wouldn't really care to get closer than the range Shadow specified but then I like to swap out for pod lasers and the ability to fire every movement phase. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 6, 2010 - 8:49pm | Well, in its defense, SW is a cinematic combat. It would be pretty boring if those ships were ranged out at intervals of 10,000km: pan to a ship or two executing some maneuvers, ship fires a weapon...camera pans shot for a long distance of 30K-50K kilometers and it misses...second or third shots follow/pan, one finally hits. Yeah, that scene where the super star destroyer gets tagged and falls into the Death Star would have taken hours to depict LOL The reality of it is SW patterend their fights after old WW2 dogfight footage, there's a depiction of this in the special features of one of the DVDs showing how the Millenium Falcon escaping the Death Star (New Hope) fending off a quartet of TIE Fighters that is scene for scene from an actual footage of a B-17 being attacked by some german ME-109 fighters. Meaning the whole thing is based on line-of-sight targetting. KH utilizes computer/radar enhanced range finding, hence the much longer ranges between ships. It would take a trained eye to spot a single fighter craft at 5,000km away in dark space. But that doesn't mean you can't recreate such epic cinematic combat scenes. Just compensate for the greater range, having a sextet of UPF fighters assaulting a Sathar heavy cruiser can be just as entertaining. |
April 7, 2010 - 5:47pm | I just had a thought. What if the fighters are also armed with machine guns/auto canon for atmospheric fights? Once a capital ship is disabled, the fighters could sweep in to straf repair robots or defenders in preparation for boarding. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
April 7, 2010 - 6:45pm | I just had a thought. What if the fighters are also armed with machine guns/auto canon for atmospheric fights? Once a capital ship is disabled, the fighters could sweep in to straf repair robots or defenders in preparation for boarding. pod lasers work just as well for this too. especially an X wing with 4 pod lasers. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 8, 2010 - 3:32am | From a space/volume point of view, the pod laser chews up 20 cubic meters. An assault rocket launcher with three rockets takes up 40. It's a simple swap in that scenario to drop two rockets and add the laser for a multi-purprose fighter: dogfighting with other fighters and unleashing payload against a target capital ship. Of course considering that a standard HS:1 hull measures 31 cubic meters...well, at least it still makes for a fair game balance with the swap. It was my first star fighter I made under the KH rules after digesting the Laser Pod article in Dragon or whatever mag it was in --- I dubbed the basic KH fighter as a F-40 Vulcan so I made the weapon systems modular: it could carry either three rockets or a single rocket and pod lasers, which could be swapped over in a re-arming session if need be. Hence the F-40C Vulcan, with C designated as a convertible model. |
 October 27, 2010 - 4:11pm | In my game Space craft weapons can not properly target ships smaller then their hull size -4 unless they purchase specialized (point defense weapons ) weapons with special targeting modules allowing them to attack smaller sized ships, and causing half normal damage of course because of their size. Now at first this might sound insane, but it justifies larger ships requiring smaller ships, or fighters as escorts. Also I ruled that ships moving faster then 10 ADF points faster then the ship trying to hit them can not be properly targetted though the occassional lucky shot might hit. these rules were geared to keep my group's fighter pilots from becoming cannon fodder in a fight (I hate the thought of a well loved player character, being vaporized because he/she happens to be flying a fighter, unless he/she is involved in some dramatic dog fight that is ) "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
October 27, 2010 - 5:18pm | I love it! This makes a Taffy-3 / Battle off Samar style fight viable! The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
October 27, 2010 - 6:10pm | The other option is to include speed in a calculation but this is a bother to stop and do calculations on if you hit the menacing sather fighter that has been pelting your ship with assault rockets. You could go with the laser batteries are the only weapons that can hit faster ships. My group liked the idea of "the bigger the weapon, the slower it is to wield" and it does work but not canon SF rule. This is how I made the players that liked to pilot fighters from getting killed right at first battle. After the players that liked to use fighters left the group, I sort of let this idea slip my mind until Deryn_Rys mentioned the idea of fighters having a hard time surviving in your games. I did maintain the weapons and tactics that we generated made to much fun keeping track of all those rockets that a carrier has to restock all the time. |
 October 31, 2010 - 2:23pm | I like the idea of different weapons for different threats. If you have ever visited a WWII battleship then you can easily see how realistic this is. The big guns used for attacking other ships and ship to shore bombardment would never hit an incoming fighter. But stick a crew on a quad 50 and watch the fighters go down. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 October 31, 2010 - 4:46pm | I would recommend the following stats for point defense gun emplacement. Max Range 3 Hexes, 1d10 Damage Per Turn Per Unit against space craft hulls that are with in range, count each unit as same effect as an ICM against incoming missile attacks (seekers, torps, Rockets, and Assault Rockets that enter 2 hex radius of defending ship). Player must declare weather Point defense is targeting inbound missiles or ship hulls for close combat. Damage is considered cumalitive over time of the turn as the individual weapons do not deal out a great deal of damage per burst. The type of weapons could be armor piercing projectiles, explosive ordinace (Flak), or laser weapons. |
 October 31, 2010 - 8:35pm | I like diminishing the effectiveness of the defensive weapon as it gets further out from the ship. But as there is no atmosphere to cause drag on projectiles they would not stop at say three hexes. Rather the projectiles are so dispersed by three hexes that most miss. A one in a million shot or such. If one hits it has nothing to be cumulative with to really count. When the fighter pilots get back he finds the stray bullet hole and counts his lucky stars. The flip side of this is that in the same hex the hit ratio should be its best. Then it goes down at 1 hex out, down more at 2 hexes out, and then amounts to nil at three hexes out. This brings in the question, how close do you dare get to launch your torpedo? -iggy |
October 31, 2010 - 11:49pm | i would submit for consideration that the farther away the target is the more sophiticated the targeting/tracking system needed to maintain lock. So after three hexs shots are harder to keep on course with moving ships without the use of the larger more powerful gunner systems of the main batteries. Point defense weapons also would not be designed to be powerful that would be designed to be close combat weapons that were compact and aided in the ships defense. Thus laser based and flak type weapons would be most effective at their optimal ranges. Projectile weapons such as gauss / rail gun type weapons would have potentially far reaching ranges but would not have the sophisticated targeting systems of the larger batteries which would limit their effective range. |
November 1, 2010 - 7:34am | Why not simply add point defense weapons as a new defense with a description stating that any anemy ship 4 hull sizes or more smaller than the ship with this defense takes x amount of damage unless the ship's pilot rolls a sucessful piloting check in which case his/her ship takes 1/2 damage, or no damage if he/she scores an exceptional piloting check (1-10% roll). "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
November 1, 2010 - 2:19pm | This brings in the question, how close do you dare get to launch your torpedo? That one's easy. Stay out at the weapon's maximum range: 4 hexes. Since there's no range modifiers for AR and torpedo weapons...just stay out of their range when deploying. It's an effective tactic even by canon rules. |
November 6, 2010 - 5:53pm | Why not simply add point defense weapons as a new defense with a description stating that any anemy ship 4 hull sizes or more smaller than the ship with this defense takes x amount of damage unless the ship's pilot rolls a sucessful piloting check in which case his/her ship takes 1/2 damage, or no damage if he/she scores an exceptional piloting check (1-10% roll). I would say factor in ship size; a HS20 isn't going to jink and dodge. limit the pilot check to FF size and smaller. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 7, 2010 - 3:52am | Never mind dodging, the HS:20 ship is incapable of getting out of its own way. Utilizing the civilian ship modification rules, that same HS:20 ship can mount a quartet of laser batteries with no performance penalties --- 360º weapons that can fire on both the defensive and offensive phases (compared to the fighters' MPO/FF rocket systems). Anyone that can afford such a craft can surely afford the wages to cover four high level gunners...at four hexes out a sixth level energy gunner has a 50% hit probability and he gets to shoot during both phases to boot, that's an average of four hits per combat turn versus fighter craft attacking from maximum range. |
November 7, 2010 - 9:25am | That opens up another can of worms all together, namely crew quality. how many level six gunners exist, that are not PC's and how many of them are not already commissioned officers in the Frontier navy? I know the Frontier is a big place, but should there be an over abundance of ultra high level specialists in the Frontier? I use crew quality in my campaign with grades of trainee, average, good, exceptional and superior. Trainees are at best (thinking in star Frontiers terms) level one in their skills (or the bare minimums in their PSA's). Average are like trainees except that their area of expertise (pilot, gunner, engineer, navigator or whatever) is level two. Good crews would have skills at level two with their specialized skills at level three, while Exceptional crews would have level three skills (including specialty skills), and lastly Superior crews would have level 3 skills, and level four specialty skills. Characters or NPC's having level 5 or 6 skills would be very rare and exceptionally well paid if they were available to be hired by the players. Most characters (NPC's) with skills this high would more then likely be serving on the few command ships in the Frontier navy, and if not might be monitored by Star law just to make sure they don't use their exceptional skills against the interest of the common good. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
November 7, 2010 - 2:15pm | good point deryn,but i don't think that pay would always be the motivation of a level 5 / 6 gunner. It maybe service, maybe the gunner had family killed by pirates or Sathar and they devote their skill for some legal payback or service to a nobel cause. Others, though maybe questionable motivation may love the thrill of combat and will do at whatever price will get them into the fight and pay their basic expenses. Others may be motivated by ambition, hey if I ever want to make level 6 I better start working any job that uses my skills as long as that job doesnt violate some moral, political, or social value. Or fear, master gunner so and so was spared by the pirates he now serves and therefore serves because if he doesnt they will kill him and his family for certain. These are some examples of other motivators other than money that would get a high level gunner to do his/her work in situations that pay is not the issue. |
November 7, 2010 - 3:16pm | Well it wasn't meant to be the proverbial can of worms, I was merely citing an extreme example --- fighters attacking from maximum range against a ship defending itself from such craft. Realistic boardgame play will have them closer (after all, the fighter can be four hexes away for their offensive phase but the other guy still gets to move, it all depends on how the fighter player makes his move and stays out of range with his speed and agility more than anything) so the skill level doesn't need to be as high, so they're still hitting closer to half the time at twice the number of shots taken per turn. Even a fourth level energy gunner (more realistic availability) shooting at four hexes still gets a 40% chance to hit, twice per combat turn. Still, considering that a LVL:6 pilot will be needed at the minimum, a LVL:6 gunner needs just under half the XP that the LVL:6 pilot requires so it's safe to say that for every LVL:6 pilot, there are two LVL:6 gunners out there. One thing is for sure though, there are far fewer HS:20 ships than there are LVL:6 gunners  |
 November 7, 2010 - 3:56pm | . how many level six gunners exist, that are not PC's and how many of them are not already commissioned officers in the Frontier navy? If you think about the macroeconomic picture compared to the scale on which characters are likely to be hiring gunners, that question is easy to answer: At a high population industrialized world, particularly one with a starport and shipyard, as many high level gunners are available as the PC's are willing to pay for. Since the PC's are unlikely to hire more than a handful of any type of NPC, they can probably find them. Taking Shadowshack's assumption to the next level I could argue that anyone who can afford a HS20 ship and to equip it with weapons and gunners could also pay for training and live fire exercises and such to maximize their skill. So Frontierwide demand for NPC Mercenary gunners should be relatively stable I would think. If on the other hand you're talking about someone trying to equip an entire fleet by directly hiring high level freelance gunners then I guess there might be a problem. |
November 8, 2010 - 3:47am | Exactly...big ship economics mandates a big wallet. Even if you skimp on the construction by going with absolute minimums (ion drives instead of atomics, standard astrogation packages instead of deluxe, minimal crew for minimal LS capacities, etc) it still costs a fortune. The hull alone (HS:20) costs 1,000,000Cr, assuming a class I SCC (it escalates from there for "lesser" construction centers). Eight ion drives (class C) will run another 1.6 million, or atomics mandate 6 million (not to mention all the additional upkeep and maintenance/overhauls just to boost ADF from 1 to 2). So there you are (depending upon drive selection) at 2.6 (ion) or 7 (atomic) million and the vessel isn't anywhere near being spaceworthy yet. Now add the most basic of computers (a single access panel with Alarm:6, Damage Control:6, Astrogation:4, Life Support:1...and either ion drive(C):5 or atomic drive(C):6) and you're tossing away another 170,100 or 250,100 Credits --- but your mainframe is still incapable of calculations (analysis program), managing Communication between decks, Information Storage, security (installation or computer), maintenance scheduling/management, or robot management just to name a few desirable things. And you'll want an Industry program to coordinate the ship's hydroponics and machine shop, a bureaucracy program to coordinate robot management with security and maintennace programs, and a Transportation program for the lift shafts unless you prefer huffing it up and down 600 meters worth of ladderwells. Might as well budget another 200-250K Cr for that software package. And then there's the communication and detection arrays. 30K nets you the basic radar and subspace radio, but you didn't build a dreadnaught just to forego the really neat stuff like a Deluxe WNB or an Energy Sensor at 400K & 200K credits respectively. Yeah, you're easily looking at 3½ million with no weapons, defenses, or fuel to poke her nose into space for the first time. Forego the guns and you're looking at another 800,000Cr for LHyd fuel (the full load of atomic fuel comes out to the same figure). Now you're creeping up to 4½ million (add another 4,480,000 for atomics) before hiring a crew, and you'd better have some cash ready for other operational costs once you leave port, because that's a pricy way to cruise the stars without rhyme or reason...and you still have nothing to defend your 100 hull points. So...your crew --- LVL:6 pilot @ 300Cr/day. You might not exactly need a LVL:6 engineer to run the boat, but you'll need to hire one to build it...that's 240Cr/day for twenty months (1 month per HS to construct) or whatever flat architectural rate he may charge instead). Since the guy already knows everything there is to know about the ship, you might as well hire him on when it's finished. Optionally throw in a handful of lower level engineers as assistants to boost your overall DCR. And throw in an astrogator, LVL:1 minimum for basic interstellar plotting but you'll want experience if you plan to do any risk jumping. 120/day minimum there. That's your basic skeleton crew, no relief/round the clock availability on demand. Robots make the job easier as such, or spring for secondary/back up pilot, astrogator, and engineer(s...see, those assitants come in handy anyways). But your basic skeleton crew of one pilot, engineer, and astrogator costs 660/day, or 132,000Cr before you need to recharge your life support equipment half a year later. And you're still a long ways off. Spacesuits, cabins, freight equipment, laboratories, WEAPON SYSTEMS....it all adds up to even more. Five to ten million up front isn't a tough figure to hit on such a big ship. So yes --- if you can afford five to ten mill up front, why skimp on low-level crewmembers? If you can actually afford that, a well qualified/experienced crew should never be an issue. But hey, if you can afford it and skimp anyways, surely you can afford to replace that big boat often...right? |
November 8, 2010 - 6:42pm | ten million doesnt seem that bad a number when you consider billions we spend on millitary equipment and maintenance yearly. |
November 9, 2010 - 6:42pm | Apples & oranges, it's a different economy. Unskilled labor in the Frontier pays 20Cr/day, here it's easily $80/day. The farmers paying undocumented workers shell out more than $20/day. The brand new SF 5000Cr ground car was cheap even by 1980s dollar standards... That, and I'd love to be able to sink only half my income towards the cost of living. |
