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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | Personally I wouldn't worry about reconciling the listed combat ranges for orbital bombardment. |
Mostly I just put it out there for discussion purposes, showing how WEG's idea had progressed from 1E to 2E.
| Quote: | | Remember that weapons like turbolasers don't just evaporate at their max listed ranges they would slowly deteriorate (lower their D code) until they are gone over a large distance. |
Agreed, however, we game in a system that uses an arbitrary maximum distance, likely for simplicity's sake. If there were am uncomplicated way to represent that fall-off without dragging down the plot's pace and adding more to the GM's workload, I would be all for it.
| Quote: | | More evidence that targeting is part of the abstraction is that an SU is not a fixed distance it varies with the terrain of the area. |
I'm well aware of this already (even used the same quote in a different topic just a few days ago). However, at some point in low orbit, the units used in the RAW transition from SUs to kilometers, and WEG has rather badly mishandled how weapons function across that transition. One of my goals here is to resolve that muddle using real world orbital altitudes and conditions, so while SUs are obviously an unfixed value based on conditions, kilometers are fixed, and knowing where to transition from one to the other is a useful thing to know when trying to game combat in orbit, or when transitioning between deep space, orbit and/or atmosphere.
| Quote: | | Lastly a word about repulsorlift vehicle combat in orbit, based on what I remember from TCW cartoon, I don't believe that such vehicles would be as maneuverable in orbit as they are in atmo, at least they didn't seem to be from what I remember, they simply transited between ship and surface usually with starfighter escort. In any case that's my thoughts on the subject. |
This is actually part of a larger conversation, but I'm leaning strongly toward capping Speeder-Scale airspeeders at the 50 km limit imposed by WEG, and allowing Cloud Cars and equivalent craft like the LAAT (which I've moved up to Starfighter-Scale under my own system) to operate up to Low Orbit Range. The reasoning is, in short:-Strictly speaking, a repulsorlift drive will function at any altitude, so long as A) it has sufficient gravity to push against (up to about 6 planetary diameters from an Earth-type planet like Alderaan), and B) its support and power systems can function.
-Pure repulsorlift propulsion is relatively slow, and must be augmented by some other form of thrust system to achieve high straight-line speeds. Examples include the thrusters on Luke's landspeeder or the central drive engine on the Cloud Car.
-To achieve that added thrust, airspeeders use air-breathing engines that draw atmospheric gases in to fuel onboard fusion reactors that both provide thrust and power the repulsors (much like how a modern car engine needs a battery to start, but then charges the battery and provides electrical power for continued operation).
-The 50 kilometer limit for airspeeders is (for the purposes of what I'm doing) the limit at which the air is too thin to continue fueling the onboard fusion reactor.
-Cloud Cars, LAATs and the like, however, due to their larger size, have greater onboard fuel capacity, and can shunt over to a purely internal fuel and reactant supply once they go above 50 kilometers.
-However, they lack navigation shields, and thus can't operate in or above the Van Allen belts.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Orion wrote: | | Remember that weapons like turbolasers don't just evaporate at their max listed ranges they would slowly deteriorate (lower their D code) until they are gone over a large distance. |
Agreed, however, we game in a system that uses an arbitrary maximum distance, likely for simplicity's sake. If there were am uncomplicated way to represent that fall-off without dragging down the plot's pace and adding more to the GM's workload, I would be all for it. |
My reasoning for pointing this out was not to advocate a fall off system but to point out my belief that the weapons ranges are limited by the targeting systems not the weapons themselves, and as such increasing the ranges for the purpose of orbital bombardment wouldn't break the system as you would be dealing with large, relatively stationary targets. Doing this would allow ships in orbit to hit installations and fixed things at longer ranges but would have to close to very low orbit to shoot directly at moving vehicles.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | One of my goals here is to resolve that muddle using real world orbital altitudes and conditions, so while SUs are obviously an unfixed value based on conditions, kilometers are fixed, and knowing where to transition from one to the other is a useful thing to know when trying to game combat in orbit, or when transitioning between deep space, orbit and/or atmosphere. |
For simplicities sake I would say just run combat as in atmo, as many spaceships have atmo ratings and for those that don't there is the chart on page 129 of R&E. Then all you have to do is decide if traveling in space slows down the repulsorlift vehicle and by how much if it does.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | This is actually part of a larger conversation, but I'm leaning strongly toward capping Speeder-Scale airspeeders at the 50 km limit imposed by WEG, and allowing Cloud Cars and equivalent craft like the LAAT (which I've moved up to Starfighter-Scale under my own system) to operate up to Low Orbit Range. The reasoning is, in short:-Strictly speaking, a repulsorlift drive will function at any altitude, so long as A) it has sufficient gravity to push against (up to about 6 planetary diameters from an Earth-type planet like Alderaan), and B) its support and power systems can function.
-Pure repulsorlift propulsion is relatively slow, and must be augmented by some other form of thrust system to achieve high straight-line speeds. Examples include the thrusters on Luke's landspeeder or the central drive engine on the Cloud Car.
-To achieve that added thrust, airspeeders use air-breathing engines that draw atmospheric gases in to fuel onboard fusion reactors that both provide thrust and power the repulsors (much like how a modern car engine needs a battery to start, but then charges the battery and provides electrical power for continued operation).
-The 50 kilometer limit for airspeeders is (for the purposes of what I'm doing) the limit at which the air is too thin to continue fueling the onboard fusion reactor.
-Cloud Cars, LAATs and the like, however, due to their larger size, have greater onboard fuel capacity, and can shunt over to a purely internal fuel and reactant supply once they go above 50 kilometers.
-However, they lack navigation shields, and thus can't operate in or above the Van Allen belts. |
I understand and agree with most of your reasoning. Rather than just capping them at 50km due to air breathing engines not functioning above that, I would introduce efficiency of the repulsor engines (as pertains to altitude), where engines of greater efficency are capable of greater altitudes. Vehicle designers aren't likely to place an engine in the vehicle that will allow it to freely operate way outside what it's being designed for, it's not cost effective. That's not to say that the altitudes would line up exactly just that they would choose one that's closer to what they envision for the vehicle. An open air air speeder with an engine capable of a 50km altitude limit just wouldn't happen in my opinion(even if it's limited by other things), but one with a something like a 10km limit might. BTW did you miss what I was saying about atmo types? |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 9:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | Doing this would allow ships in orbit to hit installations and fixed things at longer ranges but would have to close to very low orbit to shoot directly at moving vehicles. |
My prefered solution, which I've played with in the past, is a uniform ranging system based on the narrative. For example, if a ship were in Low Orbit, it would have a flat Difficulty to hit a target on the planet's surface. Another weapon, with a shorter range under the 2R&E rules, would have a higher Difficulty to hit at the same distance, and so on and so forth.
| Quote: | | For simplicities sake I would say just run combat as in atmo, as many spaceships have atmo ratings and for those that don't there is the chart on page 129 of R&E. Then all you have to do is decide if traveling in space slows down the repulsorlift vehicle and by how much if it does. |
You should go back and read the first page. The point I made there was that there is no consistency in weapon ranging for orbital combat. For example, under the RAW, a turbolaser has a maximum range from orbit to surface of 150 kilometers, which is shockingly low for real-world ranges. However, the main weapon that would be used against a ship in orbit is the KDY v-150, with a Range of Atmosphere / Low Orbit (1 SU) / High Orbit (3 SUs). There is no conversion ratio for kilometers to SUs, and thus no way to resolve combat between ships in orbit and anti-orbital defenses. It's rare, but it does occur in games; I once had a PC who was in command of an automated version of a v-150 engaging a star destroyer in orbit, and the GM had to wing it because the ranges used were literally like apples and oranges.
| Quote: | | Rather than just capping them at 50km due to air breathing engines not functioning above that, I would introduce efficiency of the repulsor engines (as pertains to altitude), where engines of greater efficiency are capable of greater altitudes. |
Unfortunately, this ignores a key piece of canon information on repulsorlifts. As stated in the film adaptation novel of the original Star Wars (and repeated by WEG in the SW Sourcebook), repulsorlifts function by pushing against the gravity field created by a large object, and not directly against the object itself. As such, distance from the object (altitude) actually has an inverse relationship to the strength of the pull of gravity, as in "the further away you are, the weaker the gravity becomes." As such, the further away the repulsorlift gets from the gravity source, the less gravity it has to counter. As such, repulsorlifts operating at higher altitudes wouldn't need to be as efficient as repulsorlifts operating at lower altitudes.
However, the idea of efficiency does lend itself to something else I was considering. Per WEG, larger ships lacked the ability to enter atmosphere, yet the prequels show some truly massive ships coming down all the way to the ground. An explanation for ships like the ISD and SSD being restricted to orbit could be that, as mass increases, repulsorlifts become less efficient, requiring more and more massive banks of repulsorlift systems to counter the pull of gravity, until it reaches the point where truly massive ships can only get so close to a planet before their repulsorlifts no longer have sufficient power to resist the pull of gravity.
| Quote: | | Vehicle designers aren't likely to place an engine in the vehicle that will allow it to freely operate way outside what it's being designed for, it's not cost effective. That's not to say that the altitudes would line up exactly just that they would choose one that's closer to what they envision for the vehicle. An open air air speeder with an engine capable of a 50km altitude limit just wouldn't happen in my opinion(even if it's limited by other things), but one with a something like a 10km limit might. BTW did you miss what I was saying about atmo types? |
No, I caught it, but I must've misread the numbers, because I was thinking you were just reaffirming what I had already written, rather than advocating moving things up a notch. I actually posted a rule for this here, then applied it to open-cockpit speeders here, so future discussion of it would probably be more appropriate over there.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Orion
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 146
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 5:27 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | My prefered solution, which I've played with in the past, is a uniform ranging system based on the narrative. For example, if a ship were in Low Orbit, it would have a flat Difficulty to hit a target on the planet's surface. Another weapon, with a shorter range under the 2R&E rules, would have a higher Difficulty to hit at the same distance, and so on and so forth. |
If it works for you, I just prefer the idea that a ship in orbit would need to move closer to hit smaller more maneuverable targets...to each their own.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | You should go back and read the first page. The point I made there was that there is no consistency in weapon ranging for orbital combat. For example, under the RAW, a turbolaser has a maximum range from orbit to surface of 150 kilometers, which is shockingly low for real-world ranges. However, the main weapon that would be used against a ship in orbit is the KDY v-150, with a Range of Atmosphere / Low Orbit (1 SU) / High Orbit (3 SUs). There is no conversion ratio for kilometers to SUs, and thus no way to resolve combat between ships in orbit and anti-orbital defenses. It's rare, but it does occur in games; I once had a PC who was in command of an automated version of a v-150 engaging a star destroyer in orbit, and the GM had to wing it because the ranges used were literally like apples and oranges. |
Ah, I had somehow gotten fixed on the idea that you were concerned with speeders combating in orbit. However, since low and high orbit ranges in km were discussed in this thread, it shouldn't be to hard to convert using those numbers and get something workable. As for the "short" ranges for turbolasers and such, I would use multiples of those ranges with an increasing minimum target size for each multiple until I had ranges I felt matched up with the low/high orbit ranges I just spoke of converting. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to adapt it to your preference.
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
Unfortunately, this ignores a key piece of canon information on repulsorlifts. As stated in the film adaptation novel of the original Star Wars (and repeated by WEG in the SW Sourcebook), repulsorlifts function by pushing against the gravity field created by a large object, and not directly against the object itself. As such, distance from the object (altitude) actually has an inverse relationship to the strength of the pull of gravity, as in "the further away you are, the weaker the gravity becomes." As such, the further away the repulsorlift gets from the gravity source, the less gravity it has to counter. As such, repulsorlifts operating at higher altitudes wouldn't need to be as efficient as repulsorlifts operating at lower altitudes. |
As the gravity decreases the replusorlift also has less to work with as well. How much is enough? Can a repulsorlift at the very edge of a gravity well operate exactly the same as near it's center? IMO no, or at least it shouldn't, just like wings need a certain amount of air density to work.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | However, the idea of efficiency does lend itself to something else I was considering. Per WEG, larger ships lacked the ability to enter atmosphere, yet the prequels show some truly massive ships coming down all the way to the ground. An explanation for ships like the ISD and SSD being restricted to orbit could be that, as mass increases, repulsorlifts become less efficient, requiring more and more massive banks of repulsorlift systems to counter the pull of gravity, until it reaches the point where truly massive ships can only get so close to a planet before their repulsorlifts no longer have sufficient power to resist the pull of gravity. |
Interesting
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
No, I caught it, but I must've misread the numbers, because I was thinking you were just reaffirming what I had already written, rather than advocating moving things up a notch. I actually posted a rule for this here, then applied it to open-cockpit speeders here, so future discussion of it would probably be more appropriate over there. |
Looks like I've got a bit of reading then. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | If it works for you, I just prefer the idea that a ship in orbit would need to move closer to hit smaller more maneuverable targets...to each their own. |
Well, that's sort of what we already have, since the RAW uses different Difficulties for different range brackets. Using uniform ranges would be similar, but rather than having different ranges for a given difficulty, it would have different difficulties for a given range.
| Quote: | | Ah, I had somehow gotten fixed on the idea that you were concerned with speeders combating in orbit. However, since low and high orbit ranges in km were discussed in this thread, it shouldn't be to hard to convert using those numbers and get something workable. As for the "short" ranges for turbolasers and such, I would use multiples of those ranges with an increasing minimum target size for each multiple until I had ranges I felt matched up with the low/high orbit ranges I just spoke of converting. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to adapt it to your preference. |
That's why we have Scale modifiers. Smaller targets receive a bonus to avoid being hit, or (if a stationary object of a given scale is being fired at by a larger scale weapon) a penalty to their FC roll.
And I am concerned with speeders operating in orbit, as WEG has stated in multiple sources that this is the case. However, the operating altitudes WEG assigned are ridiculously low for anything above the lowest orbital levels. What I'm looking for here is combining real-world science (insofar as orbital altitudes go) with what fictional information from WEG tells us about how repulsorcraft operate in the SWU.
| Quote: | | As the gravity decreases the repulsorlift also has less to work with as well. How much is enough? Can a repulsorlift at the very edge of a gravity well operate exactly the same as near it's center? IMO no, or at least it shouldn't, just like wings need a certain amount of air density to work. |
And what we are discussing with airspeeders is an altitude range of roughly ground level out to a maximum of ~250 kilometers. Considering repulsorlifts can function out to roughly 6 planetary diameters (around 36,000 kilometers), gravity will not be so varied in close to the planet as to be an issue. Vessels that are equipped to go all the way past 6 planetary diameters and beyond will be equipped with other drive systems to compensate.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Orion wrote: | | If it works for you, I just prefer the idea that a ship in orbit would need to move closer to hit smaller more maneuverable targets...to each their own. |
Well, that's sort of what we already have, since the RAW uses different Difficulties for different range brackets. Using uniform ranges would be similar, but rather than having different ranges for a given difficulty, it would have different difficulties for a given range.
| Quote: | | Ah, I had somehow gotten fixed on the idea that you were concerned with speeders combating in orbit. However, since low and high orbit ranges in km were discussed in this thread, it shouldn't be to hard to convert using those numbers and get something workable. As for the "short" ranges for turbolasers and such, I would use multiples of those ranges with an increasing minimum target size for each multiple until I had ranges I felt matched up with the low/high orbit ranges I just spoke of converting. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to adapt it to your preference. |
That's why we have Scale modifiers. Smaller targets receive a bonus to avoid being hit, or (if a stationary object of a given scale is being fired at by a larger scale weapon) a penalty to their FC roll.
And I am concerned with speeders operating in orbit, as WEG has stated in multiple sources that this is the case. However, the operating altitudes WEG assigned are ridiculously low for anything above the lowest orbital levels. What I'm looking for here is combining real-world science (insofar as orbital altitudes go) with what fictional information from WEG tells us about how repulsorcraft operate in the SWU.
| Quote: | | As the gravity decreases the repulsorlift also has less to work with as well. How much is enough? Can a repulsorlift at the very edge of a gravity well operate exactly the same as near it's center? IMO no, or at least it shouldn't, just like wings need a certain amount of air density to work. |
And what we are discussing with airspeeders is an altitude range of roughly ground level out to a maximum of ~250 kilometers. Considering repulsorlifts can function out to roughly 6 planetary diameters (around 72,000 kilometers), gravity will not be so varied in close to the planet as to be an issue. Vessels that are equipped to go all the way past 6 planetary diameters and beyond will be equipped with other drive systems to compensate.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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So, as I've been reading more and more of the Renegade Legion system, a solution to this question has presented itself. Renegade Legion has five different sub-games depending on the kind of combat you want to run; Centurion for small unit armor combat; Legionnaire for standard roleplay; Prefect for operational level ground combat; Interceptor for space fighters; and Leviathan for capital ship combat. The system also includes rules with how you can play multi-environment games, with Leviathan and Interceptor used to influence ground combat.
Of particular note here is a concept Renegade Legion uses called the "Interface Zone". For gaming purposes, the Interface Zone is the transition zone between atmosphere and space. To engage in orbital bombardment, capital ships must be within the Interface Zone; any attacks from above the Zone are dissipated by distance and the target planet's atmosphere.
For gaming purposes, I want to adapt the Interface Zone rule to orbital combat, giving it a maximum altitude of about 300 kilometers, with 50 still being the upper limit of atmosphere. Anything within the Interface Zone is essentially in the same SU as the planet. Starships do not switch from Atmosphere to Space speed until they leave the Interface Zone, and ships wishing to do orbital bombards must enter the Zone and stay in it for the duration of their fire mission.
Using my house rule scale system, Frigate and Destroyer-scale weaponry would be limited to their Orbital Range when operating in the Zone, while Dreadnought and Death Star Scale weapons may ignore it. To match this rule, I'd re-stat the KDY v-150 up to Dreadnought-Scale, which would allow it to engage enemy Capital Ships long before they would be in a position to return fire.
I haven't settled on a range yet; at 50 SUs maximum, enemy capital ships could be outside of its range, and still be able to engage orbital installations, like Golan-Series battle stations or space docks. This would actually fit well with how the v-150 performed in the battle of Coruscant during the Thrawn Trilogy.
The other option I'm considering is to give it a range of 100 SUs, which would allow it to create a decent fire perimeter in defense of low and mid-orbit installations.
Thoughts?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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