 November 28, 2011 - 1:49am | I have been thinking about the the way spaceships move through space in the Knight Hawks rules. The Acceleration/Deceleration Factor makes sense, but not so much with the Maneuver Rating system. In real-life, a spacecraft can thrust forwards and maintain a constant speed until countered with reverse thrust, but when the craft change its facing, it will stay in its original heading. The craft can spin like its in "death blossom mode", and it will keep to the original heading. If the craft turns to a heading, it will keep moving to its original heading, but must work start a new heading. So if a craft tuns 60 degrees and boost to a new heading, its going to drift forwards at 30 degrees. As far as realistic space combat goes, the only one that got it right was Jovian Chronicles. Its "Lightning Strike" system is neat, but its +/-X/Y/Z hex system is a little to abstract for me. I have seen a houserule that address this, but it fell flat with me. I used to like hard realism, but I found that slaving a setting to it tends to makes it a little flat, and I remembered what makes a good sci-fi setting: stunning fights, cool toys, and a world (so to speak) that defies the normal conventions of our reality to make things cool or workable. That is, I like realism, but I also like flashy space battles found in most sci-fi shows and movies. Then I was thinking about all of the artificial gravity used in these shows, then it it hit me: what if the gravity fields used on ships allows it to alter its heading, but can only tilt so far - much like in the KH rules. Artificial gravity also makes sense in that crew can move around normally (allowing them to implement damage control in battle), the ships can move at speeds that would otherwise kill it's crew (or not have to suffer with consciousness rolls or death saves), and the gravity field could be a way to counter all the inertia that comes with FTL travel. (chances are, only Fusion-powered ships can generate the power needed to generate a ship-wide field, but Ion ships sucks, so who cares about those oversized hot-plat burners) Plus, before the Knight Hawks rules came out, ships seen in Alpha Dawn were designed like the sort of ships found in sci-fi shows - having a horizontal deck layout. Hell, even in the KH books ships are seen with the horizontal layout. I still like vertical decks over horizontal, but I like having both options available. This is just an idea I have been mulling over to make make sense of things, even if its feels like cheap phlebotinum cop out. |
 November 28, 2011 - 6:04am | Perhaps this thread should have been about "What Makes Good Science Fiction" instead of gravity fields in KHs as I found your comments about that much more interesting. Flashy space battles, are fairly straight forward, cool toys- again pretty straight forward, a world that is not conventional to what we're use to- that has some scope for discussion. As the way that it breaks convention could be environmental or cultural or some other way. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 28, 2011 - 5:41pm | Fear Not Phlebotinum comes to your rescue, I did a d100 table of Techno Babble for the zine perfect for the next time a referee needs a phlebotinum. As for gravity fields; with the existence of inertia screens I would stipulate that some smart cookie learned how to tune them to reduce g forces on ship crews. They still have to be strapped into the acceleration coach with its integral field embitter but the experience is not as tough as it would be otherwise. BTW I have yet to try it out but I think using vectored thrust by simply tracking movement in 3 axis on a hex map aught to be simple enough. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 29, 2011 - 6:43am | I find one thing missing from almost all space battle rules is the consideration of mass in velocity equations. While in space you have no or little weight you still have mass. When deciding how ships should turn it is almost never thought of that a 5 ton fighter should be able to turn faster than a 50,000 ton capital ship. While scale may have something to do with it when it comes to realism this area needs more work. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
November 29, 2011 - 8:14am | In reality are not course changes a matter of thrust? the MR rating of KH is totally contradictory to the laws of physics. Would not the mass to thrust ratio work out that smaller mass ships have higher ADF? and thus in a vecotr thrust system lower mass ships are more maneuverable. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 29, 2011 - 10:27am | Jedi is exactly right. It is the thrust to mass ratio or ADF that determines the maneuverability of a ship in real world physics. There is not MR in the real world. 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 |
 November 29, 2011 - 11:21am | Ad Hoc Turning Rule Use the following table to determine a ships turning capability.
* A ship must move this number of hexes forward before making a facing change. Optional Rules: High-tech engines, larger size or adding more of the same size reduce the number of hexes by 1. Brought to you by Knight Hawks Expanded. |
November 29, 2011 - 11:27am | Jedi is exactly right. It is the thrust to mass ratio or ADF that determines the maneuverability of a ship in real world physics. There is not MR in the real world.
Well maybe there is MR in the real world but for wet navy ships. Speaking of which, next time a new player is rolling up a starting character and says, "I want a ship!" Give him one. A sloop or a schooner or a submarine. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 29, 2011 - 11:32am | Brought to you by Knight Hawks Expanded
Where is that? No such project by that name?I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 29, 2011 - 11:46am | Brought to you by Knight Hawks Expanded
Where is that? No such project by that name? |
 November 30, 2011 - 11:13am | I like realism in flashy space battles... and over-sized hot-plates... Space: Above and Beyond. Give me Vectored Thrust and Orbital Mechanics as a base, and attach your kitchey AG-fields and Inertial-thrust engines after there are physics in the rules to break... XD My frustrations are often not that the sci-fi has applied anti-physics, or uses phlebotinized gold-pressed unobtanium... I can even deal with a carpus-pivoting-manus activated turbo-encabulator (altho the autoelectric-hyper-reencabulator systems seem to be gaining a slight advantage over the drawn reciprocating dingle arm, possibly due to obfuscation of the formant bivalve operative discouragement of previous systems when limiting sinusoidal depleneration) ...but I'd like to know where the rules are broken so I can paste them back together for low-tech needs within a setting. All to often I have just wanted some simple orbital-mechanics and chemical-rocket rules-set that actually integrates with the rest of the system... n/m that the big ships can do it better... sometimes realistic "low-tech" is fun... just because the autoelectric-hyper-reencabulator is all the rage and easier to interface with digital-operative static-posteriors when applying sufficient ventral thrust... doesn't mean that the retro-encabulator won't be around for a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away to come... Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
