 August 6, 2011 - 6:32am | To be fair KHs had a strategy level of play, the cartoonish cover to the WoWL module with the sathar start circles and transit boxes. The problem with that is that it precluded having a strategy level of play for anything over then SW2.
So this bread is to discuss ways of having strategy level of play in KHs. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 6, 2011 - 6:44am | First thoughts is what is the current detection range in KHs? Energy sensors is 500,000 km or 50 hexes game scale. Radar is 300,000 km or 30 hexes game scale . What
These detection ranges pretty much cover the hex map or standard area of tactical play. What is needed is a method of detection that will work on a strategic level or star system wide. In David Weber's Honorverse ships leaving hyper leave a hyper footprint that reveals their entering the system. I'm proposing that in SF ships exiting the void also leave a void footprint detectable with either energy sensors or something else. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 6, 2011 - 9:27am | The only reason that a ship could be effectively intercepted is if the hyper or void footprint also conveyed vector. That combined with with the knowledge of speed (1% C) would give you the ability to predict course within a certain are providing you are using vector rules and not MR. A 2nd consideration is play scale and time scale. For playability you need a system map with the star in the center hex. Perhaps there needs to be a translation limit of ships cannot translate out of void or hyper any closer than 5-7AU. The strategic game would then involve ships seeking to hit targets in system and the defenders seeking to intercept with enough of a concentrated force to stop the invaders/pirates. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 6, 2011 - 9:45am | So I'm guessing that scale will be dictated by how much AU we want represented, perhaps just enough for the inner planets and at least 1 gas giant. Then time scale would be adjusted to what will give you a hexes worth of movement in a turn or at worst one move every other turn. I suspect that planets will likely remain motionless. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 6, 2011 - 10:01am | Now that I think about it movement would be keyed to speed and require a chart that says at certain speeds you can move 1every hex in x number of turns etc. Or the chart will read saying to excellent form speed X to speed Y at such and such an ADF will take so many turn and move so many hexes. It will also require a chart for if moving speed A with no ADF (coasting) then you will move so many hexes per turn. Not sure yet how to handle turning as vector rules might be obsolete at this level of play. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 6, 2011 - 1:33pm | A void entry footprint or signature is both plausible and useful in game terms, i'd go with it. Anything releasing that much energy is bound to be detectable by something. |
August 6, 2011 - 5:05pm | A void entry footprint or signature is both plausible and useful in game terms, i'd go with it. Anything releasing that much energy is bound to be detectable by something. I guess we can just make it that energy sensors will work for the energy detection; its a piece of equipment in the game already. While a void footprint gives you an initial warning and possibly a heading for the incoming contact that still leave you without the ability to detect the movements of contact after it begins moving in system. One solution is that most systems, especially those that have a militia will have a sensor net for the inner system that allows them to watch ship movements at Light speed. Systems without a sensor net are trickier as scout ships must be stationed in patrol zones so that one or more can respond to a void footprint that looks like it could be a large force. a scout ship would have to shadow a raiding force to relay data to allow the defenders to get concentrated and generate an intercept. Thus the strategic game would have 2 levels of difficulty: easy-with sensor net and hard without sensor net. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 9, 2011 - 9:05am | I've been kicking around ideas about this for years, wanting to build a strategic game for every space-ship game I have. Starfire made the best stab at it so far, IMO-- when ships enter a system, you lay out a system map, planets and all, and try to maneuver into the same hex. Those hexes were so big, that you then had to go to an interception level (1 hex of that map = 1 tactical map), before you got to sensor and weapons range. I definitely recommend the idea that there is a "hyper limit," or a range at which you can't reach the Void. The size of that limits the space that needs to be mapped. 2300AD uses 0.01g from a system body, Traveller says 100 diameters from that body, the Honorverse has something even bigger. What you'll want to consider is that as soon as one determines that going from system A should deposit you in system B in roughly the same spot every time, some joker's going to want to make an indirect approach and pop out of the Void farther out, or use a dogleg vector, or off the plane of the ecliptic. Anyway, maybe hour-long turns? |
August 9, 2011 - 4:38pm | @ putraak: interesting points 1. Going for a void translation further out or outside the elyptic should be a option with the caveat that your navigator should have to roll for it with the possibility that your force could be scattered initially or you don't get the exact position you wanted. Since the established routes are so well travelled and known these don't pose significant risk of an off jump. But someone trying to be sneaky runs a risk. I also like the idea that 1 hex on the strategy map equates to one tactical map. But I think that system scale may determine hex scale. No doubt map scale will determine time scale. I'm still toying with how to handle long range detection as this sort of game almost requires something that works on a system scale or at least a significant % of a system. Large population systems with a militia could be assumed to have a sensor buoy next giving them a good look of the inner system and heavy traffic lanes. But with out some way to detect each other 2 fleets would have to stumble onto each other. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 9, 2011 - 5:22pm | RE:long range detection. What if we stated that the energy sensors stated range of 50 hexes is the range at which they work well enough to assist with full identification of a ship and targeting. IIRC the book suggested that they could detect a super nova or something at light years distance. So what if they could be used after the initial warning of a void footprint to follow the contact's movement but with out giving away any information. As range drops they can tell if the contact is a large or small based on a chart listing total number of hull sizes. As the range drops more The the e sensors will identify the total number of hulls. Eventually as range drops you'll be able to identify ship classes. What that will do for the player is create opportunity to deceive by sending in multiple taskgroups and trying to fake out his opponent into thinking the capitol ships are not where they are. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 9, 2011 - 5:31pm | Radar could probably be good for a lot farther out than the KH rules allow. I'd probably give it a factor of 10, so 3 million kilometers instead of 300,000. Of course at the extreme range, you are getting information about where things were 10 seconds ago. At 300,000 km your data is 1 second old. Energy sensors should be effective out to probably tens of millions of kilometers. And the exact range would depend on the type of energy source. I'd say they possibly even detect the brightest stars even though they are light years away. Larger, more concentrated (or collimated in the direction of the sensor) sources could be detected at a larger distance. So maybe say you could detect a Class A Atomic engine at a range of 1 million kilometers, a Class B Atomic at 5 million kilometers and a Class C at 25 million. If you had more of those engines clustered you could detect the source at even greater distances. That still doesn't allow a central sensor to see the entire system since even 50 million kilometers is just barely over the distance from Earth to Venus and not as far as Earth to Mars. But it would greatly reduce the number of dispersed sensors you need to watch a system. Of course if ships came in and then shut down their engines or ran at a reduced thrust, they would be harder to detect. Anyway that's just some ideas on how I might work it. I'd have to really sit down and think about it to come up with actual numbers. 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 |
August 9, 2011 - 6:52pm | So We could easily expand the range on radar and e sensors (I wouldn't try to state what the sensor is) and this means defenders need patrols and send out scouts to see what the void footprint is. in a built up system sensor buoys will be available to cover critical areas. with the ranges that Terl's specified there would be a protion of the game that would play like Battleship; where each player would only see his ships and have to guess where the enemy ships are. Somehow it has to play out in a way that you move your ships around till contact is made. How to do that though? Its complicated by the fact that the defender aught to send out scouts to spot and shadow the invader but still have speed and maneuverability to keep outside of effective engagement range. So a defender will be moving several smaller groups around trying to concentrate his forces and keep an eye on the enemy so it wont just be moving 2 fleets but multiple targets till contact is made. This could easily be done with a referee but you dont normally need a referee for a KHs game so how to make this work? One way would be to have the defender mark what hexes his ships are in on a sheet. Each hex will have a number and he simply records that number each turn. the invader puts a marker on the first hex he enters on the first trun, he also records the hex number for each hex that his ships are in as they move but each turn puts a marker on each hex he could have entered from the first. each turn the marked hexes for the invaders spread out like a cone representing where his ships could be. this is information that the defender can compute. When one of the defenders ships are in position to see into one of the invaders hexes the defender places three markers that could see that hex (2 are dummies and one is the ship or ships) the invader must tell the defender what he sees and some of the invaders markers are removed from the map for the hexes that the defender can now eliminate. of course having sensor bouys can help this process immensely but these will be emplaced probably by scenario instructions. I still like the idea that there are ranges at which you can simply tell you have a large, medium or small contacts, then number of hulls or number of atomic drives, then actual classes of ship. Another way would be to write the scenario so that one player can see what the other is doing; system is loaded with sensor platforms and the invader must manuever blind till the defender's ships are in detection range. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 12:22pm | after googling "the size of the solar system" it occurs to me that a game system map of larger than 5AU is probably too much and possibly smaller is better. This would mean the Void/hyper limit would be in this region. it would also allow for mirco jumps outside the limit. assuming a strategic play area of 5 AU and a hex map of 100 hexes wide then each hex will be on the order of 150,000,000 km. Somehow I think ships will keep a cruising speed of 0.5-7% of C just to move around the system and similated gravity be damned. Also with hexes this size it puts any earth like planet about the edge of 1 hex from the system primary. It further complicates puting orbit on the map as you could easily have 3 planets within the hex bordering the star I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 1:48pm | Alright the KH's map is 55 hexes by 39 but I believe the strategy game will do with a square map of 50 or 55 hexes by 50 or 55 hexes. This will represent an area of about 5 AU but since an AU is based on the distance between the sun and the earth I'm recommending that we round it up to an even 150,000,000 km as the Frontier Standard Astronomical Unit. This gives us a proposed playing field of 750,000,000 km and at 50 hexes square thats 15,000,000 km per hex. which is incidently more than Terl Obar's expanded radar and e sensors range, such that neither could detect a ship on the other side of the hex. so we either expand the energy sensors range or invent a new detections system for the game to be playable. BTW I'm for a 4 AU hyper/void transition limit; meaning that void space or hyper must be entered outside of 4 AU from the star. It would actually be better to have a chart that makes the limit based on the mass of the star but I figure that would get fiddly and perhaps its best to just make it 4 AU. With the map being 5 AU there is room for ships to maneuver as they "enter" the system. In game terms a AU is 10 hexes so the hyper limit is 40 hexes from the star. Most inhabitable planets will be in the general neighborhood of where earth is (about 1AU) which is an orbit of 60 hexes if 10 hexes from the star. So whats needed is a long range sensor that has could reach a significant distance from the orbit of the inhabitable planet. Perhaps take a page from the new BSG and call the long range sensor something like "Dradus" and dont explain what it actually is other then a long range sensor. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 1:48pm | Alright the KH's map is 55 hexes by 39 but I believe the strategy game will do with a square map of 50 or 55 hexes by 50 or 55 hexes. This will represent an area of about 5 AU but since an AU is based on the distance between the sun and the earth I'm recommending that we round it up to an even 150,000,000 km as the Frontier Standard Astronomical Unit. This gives us a proposed playing field of 750,000,000 km and at 50 hexes square thats 15,000,000 km per hex. which is incidently more than Terl Obar's expanded radar and e sensors range, such that neither could detect a ship on the other side of the hex. so we either expand the energy sensors range or invent a new detections system for the game to be playable. BTW I'm for a 4 AU hyper/void transition limit; meaning that void space or hyper must be entered outside of 4 AU from the star. It would actually be better to have a chart that makes the limit based on the mass of the star but I figure that would get fiddly and perhaps its best to just make it 4 AU. With the map being 5 AU there is room for ships to maneuver as they "enter" the system. In game terms a AU is 10 hexes so the hyper limit is 40 hexes from the star. Most inhabitable planets will be in the general neighborhood of where earth is (about 1AU) which is an orbit of 60 hexes if 10 hexes from the star. So whats needed is a long range sensor that has could reach a significant distance from the orbit of the inhabitable planet. Perhaps take a page from the new BSG and call the long range sensor something like "Dradus" and dont explain what it actually is other then a long range sensor. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 3:44pm | I just did an excel chart to see how long it would take a KHs ship accelerating from speed 0 at the ship's maximum accel, how long would it take to transverse the porposed hex size for the strategic game. A ship needs to travel 1,500 KHs hexes to transverse a strategic hex. A ADF 1 ship will travel 1540km after reaching a speed of 55 in 9:10 hours. a ADF2 ship will travel 2 strategic hexes in that time, and a ADF3 ship will travel 3 such strategic hexes starting from 0. I expect that ADF 4 will travel 4 and 5ADF will travel 5. I had contemplated 1 day or 1/2 day turns so on a GST day of 20 hours a 10 hour turn seems work able. A KH's ship will have a Strategic game ADF equal to its tactical game ADF. Thus an assualt scout with a tactical ADF of 5 will have a strategic game ADF of 5 meaning it could change its speed in a strategic game turn by 5 hexes in that game scale. So if the assualt scout was travelling at a speed of 5 on the strategic game map it could accel to 10 and if the game opened with him on patrol 5 or 10 hexes from the orbit of the inhabited planet it could be within striking distance of the proposed hyper limit in one turn. so the next issue is MR; I'm of a mind to simply scale up the MR same as the ADF for the strategic game. which would mean that assault scouts and fighters will be the ships that could manuever to with in detection range of an enemy and watch them as the heavy hitters in the fleet concentrate and move to intercept. Note: this level of game is not about battles but about interception. the battle will resort to the standard KHs rules and scale. though the speeds of the ships at interception will have to translate over to the KHs battle. need to figure out what the 1%C is in strategic game terms and that will be the speed limit in game too. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 3:44pm | Just a bit on the scale. If you've got a 50 hex map and the star at the center and you want it to cover an area that is 5 AU in radius from the star, then each hex is 30 million km not 15 and the entire map covers 10 AU total. That would make 1 AU equal 5 hexes. I'm all for making the jump limit 4 AU. That's what we effectively did in Frontier Space and it what I'm doing in my stories. Technically there is no jump distance limit in canon, just a velocity but I'm all for adding one in in a revamp. 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 |
August 10, 2011 - 4:02pm | yeah I made a mistake in the 50 hexes to keep 10 hexes equal 1 AU and one hex equals 15,000,000 km which matches the rough upscale of the ADF for the strategic game with a 10 hour turn; that would require putting the star on the edge of the map. or doubling the play surface to 100 hexes on a side. So keep the initial numbers or re-scale for 1AU at 5 hexes? If 1AU equals 5 hexes then the game turn could be 1 day and the ADF would scale up to 1 ADF for 1ADF as well I guess. That might be the way to go. 50 hex map, 1 AU equalls 1 hex, 1 turn equals 20 hours or a day and what ever a ships ADF is in the regular KHs game is what it is in the strategic game. But while that works for movement it brings us again to detection range issues. In a 1 AU= 10 hex game I was ready to just say that new developments in energy sensors gave them a 2-3 hex reach which would require sensor buoys and patrol ships to police a system- not a bad deal really. But in the 1 AU equals 5 hexes that makes a hex 30,000,000 km. detection range needs to be beyond the hex the ship is in so that would require detection ranges at 60 to 90,000,000 km. Part of me perfers to shrink the scale to a managable size 50 x 50 hexes but part of me wants to go with 100 x 100 hexes for the detection range issues. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 4:26pm | Several thoughts off the top of my head: 1) Remember, due to the scales of the maps, 1 ADF is actually equal to about 2.8g 2) I would almost say that the standard acceleration for the strategic game is 1g. Assuming of course you are keeping to the SF flavor of no artificial gravity. Maybe you allow a 2g turn every once in a while but I just don't see being able to sustain that kind of acceleration for prolonged periods. And it gets even worse as you go to higher accelerations. The stress on the biologicals is just too great. 3) I would love to go with no MR and do vector movement on the strategic map. If you start accelrating in one direction, you have to completely stop and the start up in the new direction you want to go. Although that is not completely true. If you wanted to just make a one hexside turn, I may be you only have to expend a number of ADF (without really changing direction) to execute the turn. I could probably come up with some reasonable solution if I had enough time. But I'd still rather couple it to the ship's ADF and get rid of MR. Maybe this is where you could differentiate the ships and keep the max accleration to 1g. Allow the ships with higher ADF to execute turns faster. Still not really realistic as they would have to sustain the high gees for long periods but something to think about. 4) Translating speeds between scales. Most likely, what you'll find when moving to the tactial map is that the relative closure speeds will be high unless both sides close to intercept or one side is just slowly overtaking the other. The are going to be one pass battles for many of the ships as they flash by each other. 5) Speed limit. With 15 million km hexes and 10 hour turns, 1% of c is 7.2 hexes per turn. 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 |
August 10, 2011 - 5:06pm | 1 I would contend that in a game with inertia screens as a personal defense that some bright individual would find a way to adapt that tech as an inertia screen to reduce g forces on ship crews. Perhaps not ship wide but it could be incorporated into an acceration couch or action station. 2. Let's just round that speed limit down to 7. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 5:07pm | 1 I would contend that in a game with inertia screens as a personal defense that some bright individual would find a way to adapt that tech as an inertia screen to reduce g forces on ship crews. Perhaps not ship wide but it could be incorporated into an acceration couch or action station. 2. Let's just round that speed limit down to 7. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 5:07pm | 1 I would contend that in a game with inertia screens as a personal defense that some bright individual would find a way to adapt that tech as an inertia screen to reduce g forces on ship crews. Perhaps not ship wide but it could be incorporated into an acceration couch or action station. 2. Let's just round that speed limit down to 7. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 5:38pm | I hear you on the MR issue except that I never actually play tested the vector rules. I was just assuming that at the scale of movement we're talking about that ships would have space and time to turn but I guess that is unrealistic. If the strategy game limits ships to a 1-7 hexes speed then the vector rules shouldn't be to difficult to handle? What do you think about a 3 hex detection range with the 1hex being 15mil km? Also I'm kicking around the idea of a piece of strategic game equipment that would be essentially an unnamed drone with insane ADF, ie significantly better than a fighter that would be launched and set to light of its long range sensors when it reached a certain hex then radio back its data. My question on that is what speed do you think is reasonable? Should the 1% of C speed limit apply? It seems to me that the way the game is shaping up that sensor buoys and sensor drones as well as scouts and patrols will be critical to game play. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 6:07pm | I'm all for the drones but I think they would still have to be capped at 7 hexes per turn. The difference would be that I'd be willing to give them and AFD of 7 and they could get up to max speed in a single turn instead of taking 7 turns to get there. They would move 3 hexes the first turn (since in real life if you increase your speed by a given distance per time period, you only travel half that distance in time period you are accelerating) and then 7 hexes after that. So it could have traveled 3 hexes on turn one, 10 on two, 17 on three, 24 on turn four, etc. And could slow down as well. That means that if you get a void entry signature out at 40 hexes and your planet is on the same side of the star, you have 30 hexes to cover. It would take 3-4 turns for the drones to get there and intercept the incoming fleet (remember the attacking fleet enters the system with a speed of 7) and a bit longer for your ships. On the inertia screens. I always looked at them as removing kinetic energy from incoming objects (ala the defensive screens in Dune) not as something that softly dampens out the effect of acclerations. It's hard to explain but in my mind they don't extrapolate. It's probably more that I don't want them to  .The three hex detection range sounds good to me. That should just tell you that something is out there. i.e. you see the "fleet". You might have to get closer to count ships. And at speeds of 1-7 hexes and a limiting ADF of 1 or 2, the vector rules simplify quite nicely and would be relatively easy to use. There is another way to do the vector movement that is used by optional rules in either the Battlespace or Star Strike rule system (I don't remember which one) that just involves keep track of your velocity in the three hex axes. When you move you just move the correct number of hexes in each of those directions and accelerations just increase or decrease your speed in one or more of the axes. Again, with accleration limited to 1 or 2 ADF and max speeds of 7, this actually would simplify down quite easily as well. 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 |
August 10, 2011 - 6:37pm | And here's another wrinkle you could consider: Fuel limitations on the smaller ships. I don't know how much this would actually influence things but it would work like this: The KH rules state that a atomic feul pellet lasts for one insterstellar jump. Doing some math that is about a minimum of 170 hours at 1g so call it 200 hours of 1g acceleration. The other way to look at it is it corresponds to about 400 ADF in the tactical game (those doen't really correlate due to the 2.8 conversion factor). So since we're talking 10 hour turns, that corresponds to 60 KH turns. Using the ADF rule, which is more appropriate for the accelrations your talking about, a fuel pellet would last for just under 7 turns. (Using the 1g rule it would be 20 turns, that that requires different scales to be correct.) Since your Class A Atomic engines can hold only 3 pellets you have a maximum of 20 turns of accelration before your Assault Scouts and Corvettes are out of fuel. Class B engines hold 6 pellets so your frigates, destroyers, and light cruisers have 40 turns of accleration and the big ships which have Class C engines that hold 10 pellets have about 67 turns. It would be interesting to see how those time frames play out relative to an encounter. 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 |
August 10, 2011 - 6:43pm | I'd say that the penalty of running out of fuel would be simple. No accelleration for a turn and you just have to continue on your same vector. After that you are fully refueled (the extra fuel was in your cargo hold) and you can resume acclerating. 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 |
August 10, 2011 - 7:12pm | Well extrapolating the inertia screens leaves ADF 5 in place which is already in the game. and limiting assault scouts to ADF 2 makes the ship class pretty pointless; not enough hull points to take a hit in combat. so having the limitation being crews must be at action stations for high ADF ends up being a limitation and we could tack on a penalty for crews that have been at high ADF for multiple turns meaning that they have been at their action stations eating freeze dried food or paste from a tube, peeing in their vacuum suite and napping strapped in to their station; all of that is bad for morale and probably wears on the crew when its for multiple strategic game turns which are 10 hours thus making it a whole day at action stations so a penalty for crew performance after that sort of experience is warrented. However, if its the choice of leaving a frigate out of the coming battles or abusing the crew a little then you're going to hot foot that frigate across the map for it to make the "dance". this feature to explain the high ADF of KHs combat could be written into a revamp as well. Concerning the 3 axis vector system. Let me see if I get this right: its 3 axis because its hex based and you have 3 axis through a 6 sided hex. The way it will work on the map is that the front of the counter or miniature base always points in the same direction so that you always identify which axis is which. Dead ahead would be axis B and to its left is axis A and to its right is Axis C and we add a section to the ship data sheet that has the 3 axis on it and you just record the speed in each axis so say a ship is moving 3 on axis A 12 on axis B and 4 on axis C then the ship will move 3 to the right 12 straight ahead and 4 to the left? or do you use axis A to cancel 3 of axis Cs movement and simply move the ship 12 forward and 1 to the left? on the drone: a ship with 5 ADF goes 5 hexes more that turn not half, so to be consistent if a drone has 7 ADF that means it has the capability to accel to 0.9% of C in 5 hours and spends the next 5 hours of the turn burning along at 0.9% of C to reach 7 hex distance? I'd prefer it to be a 1 turn movement "weapon" for simplicity and less record keeping. but there is also the speed at launch issue with this too. unless we say that its a drone body that is just too big to put on a ship even a HS 20 ship. Thus its mounted in a launcher on a moon or a space station. or even left orbiting a planet. though giving it a high ADF and forcing it to use vector rules to pilot to a predetermined activation point. Some aditional rules for the drone: if an enemy ship is in the same hex as an activated drone its automatically destroyed but otherwise it continues to act as a sensor buoy but it coast out system at a speed of 7 for 2 more turns and continues to report its sensor finding before on board power dies. RE: Detection range at 3 hexes you just have a contact, at 2 hexes you just have a size value: total the HS of vessels present using engines and consult a chart that will state if the contact is small, medium, large, huge or kiss your feaking system good bye. At 1 hex you have number of hulls and within the hex you get the classes of each ship. this would presuppose that ships within a hex may not automatically go to a tactical encounter, ie one fleet at least seeks to avoid a tactical encounter. Also on the blow by of a group of ships that fly by an engagement range at a speed that is so fast that they will only get 1 or 2 shots that will be fine, you take your shots, record damage and return to the strategic map. for more maneuver I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 7:17pm | I'm thinking the fuel rule will be optional or advanced rules. but I also had the impression that a ship could make the jump and slow down at the other side so I'd perfer to increase those numbers some. But I like it. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
August 10, 2011 - 8:36pm | Thinking about the inner system- in our system contents of the asteroid belt are really spread out so I was thinking that in the Frontier, systems that had an asteroid belt in the inner system could have a % roll assigned to them to represent the concentration of material. Since most of the material in the belt is very small this % chance would represent the chance that any given ship is holed by a small fragment. If the ship is travelling under a certain speed then the hole was quickely detected and sealled with little damage but if over a certain speed then a roll is made on the advance damage table. basically at speed 1 there is no effect but at anything faster the % chance is rolled for each ship crossing the asteroid belt and a damage roll is made for those that are holed. This creates a little bit of terrain to contend with. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 16, 2015 - 4:50am | I am going to try and crunch SP/SE ranges of things next to compare to KH... right now working on Hulls... I think one reason the ranges are huge in KH is they are borrowed from SP/SE but I have to do the checking but this is what I suspect. If that is so the reason is in those game there are tech levels that increase and decrease ranges & ship abilities & a third map scale that KH lacks... the System Scale in which ships with better tech can come out of void closer to the System's Sun. I have figured out the Jump system for distance is the same between KH and SP/SE but no adjust for map size was made between the games... but that is okay as it will allow me to identify Tech Level of KH Void Engines... KH era engines are 3s capable of going 1-15 ly. Tech Level of Void engines 1 rating =s 5 light years, so a 2 can do 10 light years, and so on "safely". I the MR in KH is also more advanced, so SP/SE turn much wider, I will fiddle with some TSL modifiers so that by KH the ships can turn quicker. However the SP/SE rules have a lot of Space Hazard ideas & discuss size of planets. Got to crunch the hulls first, but I have been studying the 3 games. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 July 7, 2016 - 2:10am | This link is from a Traveller forum, but if you scroll down far enough, there are some assumptions and arithmetic exercises bearing on the question of how many sensors/patrol boats (and at what economic cost) it would take to achieve different probabilities of detection for ships arriving in a system: http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/jumpimpl.html |
