 January 26, 2011 - 2:36pm | I'm sure this has been answered before but I couldn't find it while looking at the forum. One thing that always seemed odd was the question of acceleration and manuevering. At the low speeds we played back when the game was new it didn't seem to matter much. You were moving at the astronomical speed of NINE hexes per turn and went through a 180 degree turn and were now moving at a speed of nine hexes per turn the other way. I loved it! However.... That would be effectivly an 18G move and my ADF was only 3. This was before David Webers inerital compensators and the crew who had NO artifical gravity would be unconscious and suffering severe brain damage. Compound that with ships moving up to 200 hexes per turn able to turn 180 degrees and reality is not only suspended it is essentially drinking a double espresso every minute and having paranoid thoughts! Moving at 3Gs would be a burden on a crew anyway but sudden turns would paste them on the walls. Has anyone addressed these problems while still preserving what was my favourite sci-fi game of all time? |
 January 31, 2011 - 10:18pm | Instant house rule: Just change the size of the hex to 3600 km and 1ADF does equal 1g. You can leave everything else the same (since ranges are given in hexes not km). Then you can keep the ruling as well. You can try to get up and repair but you're going to get battered around. If you really want to repair the ship, it's going to have to take it easy for 3 rounds (only 1 ADF or MR per round). If you move more than that, you only get half DCR from directed robotic repairs. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 February 2, 2011 - 7:25am | Just change the size of the hex to 3600 km and 1ADF does equal 1g. You can leave everything else the same (since ranges are given in hexes not km). The exception being sensor range which is expressed in km. So I guess you'd have to pick whether you prefer radar range of 30 or 80 hexes, and energy sensor range of 20-50 hexes or 55-138 hexes. |
February 2, 2011 - 7:37am | Back to the original topic....I love the idea of capping MR based on current speed as long as it could be expressed in a formula that's simple like "speed/3 = max MR" or something like that. If I even knew how to make those calculations, I'd look at what divisor of speed gives us the best approximation of a sensible MR. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be simple enough for quick gameplay. |
February 2, 2011 - 8:01am | In reality it would be more like MR/speed is the number of turns you could make in a game round (and yes that quickly becomes less than one  ). However, that's not really very playable. I'd recommend the following (throwing this out off the top of my head, probably needs some revision):Number of hexes to move before a one hex facing change = Speed/(MR+1) (round fractions down, minimum is one). That way you still get your full MR but if you're going fast, it takes time to make a turn. So if you were moving at a speed of 10, a Fighter with MR of 5 could make a turn every hex (10/(5+1) = 1.66 rounded down = 1). The Assault Scount, with a MR of only 4 would have to move two hexes before each turn (10/ (4+1) = 2). The big ponderous Battleship, with a MR of 2 would have to move 3 hexes between turns. At 20 hexes per turn, those numbers would be 3, 4 and 6 hexes between turns. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 February 2, 2011 - 9:20am | I like Terl's suggestion for handling MR (it feels better than the current system though I'm wondering how a fighter or assault scout's evade ability plays out with this?) and a set of charts can be produced to save on doing math during the game. concerning DCR- we could assume that the reason that DCR happens every 3rd KH turn is because of the limitations on the engineer moving around thus in a standard (advanced game) players only roll every 3rd turn. However, if a player made the choice to not accelerate or turn then the engineer could attempt a roll every turn. This would not be advisable if surrounded by enemies. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 2, 2011 - 9:20am | here's the way I do it in the Star Frontier's (URS) though I have to convert it from my system to classic Star Frontiers. Ships Accelleration factor=ADF/MR rating MR= difficulty to hit, bonus or penalty for pilot making piloting skill rolls. A ship can accellerate a number of hexes/round equal to his ADF, but if he has to make turn (60 degree turn) he must sacrifice 1 hex of movement per 60 degrees of the turn. thus a fighter with an ADF of 5 could accellerate 3 hexes and make a 180 degree turn (sacrificing 2 hexes to make the turn) If the fighter had an MR of 5 the pilot would gain a +25% bonus to any piloting checks he makes, and reduces an opponent's chance to hit him by -25% because of how maneuverable his ship 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 |
February 8, 2011 - 7:09pm | In reality it would be more like MR/speed is the number of turns you could make in a game round (and yes that quickly becomes less than one ). Ah....yeah on re-reading it's obvious my first idea does the inverse of what's intended. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Speed/(MR+1) makes the turning radius a lot larger, but the fundamental oddness of a frigate taking hours to accelerate to tremendous speed and making a U-Turn in 10 minutes is still there. I know it won't approach correctness without turning into math class, but I think the closest thing that's easy would be for speed to place a cap the number of facing changes in one turn. What about an MR Penalty equal to current speed minus the ship's MR? Have a minimum of one for the sake of playability. A fighter, Assault Scout, and a battleship all moving speed 10 would all have an MR of 1. At a speed of 5 they would have an MR of 5, 3, and 1 respectively. |
 February 10, 2011 - 3:07pm | This is nice. I was going to do this myself, but I'm just sitting back and watching others do it for me.  It will end up in my article on the subject of grav acceleration and maneuvering.Now, a question, I've been trying to bash my head on this centripetal force math and I get a headache just looking at it. Can someone give me some dumbed-down explanations, please? (Math and all, without the confusing math symbols.) Explain it like you're explaining it to a very smart third-grader rather than to a professor of physics at Harvard. Graphs and theories and all would be cool. I want to understand every bit of it without having to go back to highschool (I was never given physics classes) and then take 6 years of college for it. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 October 12, 2015 - 10:36am | I know this is an old thread, but I have been reviewing the SP/SE rules and it seems KH is related but more importantly the Turning in those earlier games has rules of intrest... first each ship type has a max number of turns it can make so that ='s SF's MR but each turn requires ADF to be used to compensate for lost speed caused by the turn. Thus ADF must be used to maintane current speed or loose speed. The turn degree allowed in SP is 45 degrees, in SE 60 degrees same as KH. Further the turn must be done and then the ship continues straight so many hexes in relation to its speed, then it can turn again and so on... thus the faster the ship goes the harder it gets from what I can tell to turn. SE also takes a long time to calculate jumps unless ships are jumping between stations & "nexuses" it seems these points are givens in the navigational systems. It looks like KH battles may be a SP/SE simplified to some extent/streamlined and converted from miles to kms. I think I may fiddle with a basic scenerio adding these ideas. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 October 12, 2015 - 5:23pm | So, what would be less lethal? Getting a brain aneurysm form experiencing prolonged high-acceleration form of Knight Hawks-styled combat, or getting a brain aneurysm form having to figure out the more "realistic" alternative to space combat with systems like Silhouette Core or Attack Vector Tactical?  |
October 12, 2015 - 7:33pm | LOL... I know I look at the math and my head sometimes goes pop, however it is a valid question people ask, I figure you either fudge it a little or go all physics on people and then they quit playing 'cause their heads go pop. LOL. I don't mind the math too bad but it does need to be used in such a way that the action does not bog down. I am getting ready to walk through the various rules, and suggested rules changes on my dinning room table this week. Along with the deadly real world math. I need to see what I like or don't, what I can use a little handwavium on with sci-fi tech or not. I am concerned about the splatter effect, not that anyone I play games with will ever ask me about g forces. I will actually move ships around the hex paper and try and see what is realistic enough without bogging the action down or loosing the SF feel. I also need to crunch & convert for the in between map size between Battle Board & Star Map... the System Map scale suggested by Star Empires and I want to review astro body sizes and actual gravity wells versus the KH game as those are off... I also want to test out the comet & cloud rules in SE. At this point I really believe KH ship to ship combat is basically the SP/SE system tweaked a bit. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 September 7, 2016 - 7:21am | Instant house rule: Just change the size of the hex to 3600 km and 1ADF does equal 1g. You can leave everything else the same (since ranges are given in hexes not km). Then you can keep the ruling as well. You can try to get up and repair but you're going to get battered around. If you really want to repair the ship, it's going to have to take it easy for 3 rounds (only 1 ADF or MR per round). If you move more than that, you only get half DCR from directed robotic repairs. This is one of those old discussions that I like reading. I hope something like this makes it into the Frontier Explorer space issue. I never really looked into the physics of the Knight Hawks game or what acceleration would equal 1 g in the real world. I always thought there was something messed up about the ADF and MR factors for the game. Unless another house rule would be the MR can be used to change the facing, but not the direction, the ship is traveling in. Sort of like how the Earth Force fighters from Babylon 5 could whip around to fire behind them, but they are still travelling in the same direction until they fire their thrusters the other way. Joe Cabadas |
 January 21, 2017 - 8:04pm | I realize this will be unpopular. I will not alter the rules. I find the rules fun, easy to learn and play. All in all, a fine adjunct to the KH rules. All here have made fine, well thought out points. I enjoyed the entire thread. FIAWOL
TANSTAAFL!! |
