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1E Range Concept
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 23, 2017 12:54 am    Post subject: 1E Range Concept Reply with quote

When it comes to combat rules, there are times I feel a little bipolar. I waffle back and forth between wanting a complicated, realistic system and wanting a fast, simple system that gets the job done. In the past, I've suggested using a static range system, with varying Difficulty for individual weapons based on each weapon using the same ranges. For example, Medium Range would be the same for, say, both blaster rifles and blaster pistols, but pistols would be at a +10 Difficulty to hit at the range.

What I'm leaning toward at the moment is taking a page from the Mini-Six system, where individual vehicles have Speed Scales depending on which environment they operate in. This is then applied as a modifier to their Speed Code. The four Speed Scales are:
    Primitive Craft / Muscle Powered - 0D
    Motorized Ground / Water Craft - +2D
    Aircraft - +5D
    Spacecraft - +10D
What I'm thinking of doing is Range Scaling, with five different Range types based on the type of combat, each broken down into five different range categories, all of which are then offset based on the same ratios from above.

The five Range Types will be:
    Personal
    Vehicle (+2)
    Atmosphere (+5)
    Orbital (+8 )
    Space (+10)
Each Range Type will then be broken down into five Ranges:
    Point Blank
    Short
    Medium
    Long
    Distant

    (Distant range will be generally be beyond the reach of weapons in that Range Type, but still be visible to Sensors in that Range Type)
The Range Type modifiers then tell you how the Range Types overlap. For instance, say a character with a Personal Weapon attempts to attack a speeder equipped with Vehicle Weapons. Applying the +2 modifier for Vehicle Weapons means that combat is possible between shooters of differing Range Classes, but that the Difficulty shifts when the modifier is applied:
    Personal Weapons vs. Vehicle Weapons:
    Point Blank = Can't Attack
    Short = Can't Attack
    Medium = Point Blank
    Long = Short
    Distant* = Medium
    Blind** = Long
    Blind** = Distant*

    *Can see / observe on Sensors, but can't attack.

    **Can't detect or attack.
Weapons, then, rather than having differing Metric distances for the different ranges (as in 2E), would be limited much like how proton torpedoes are limited in 1E (can only fire at Short Range).

For instance, a Holdout Blaster, rather than having a Range of 2-4/8/12, would have a Range of Point Blank / Short (+10), with the (+10) representing the added Difficulty of hitting a target in that Range.

In addition, certain weapons (like sniper rifles or other precision weapons) will operate in higher Range Types while still inflicting Character-Scale damage, so a Sniper Rifle's Range would read like so:
    Personal: Point Blank (+5) / Short (+5) / Medium (-5) / Long (-5)
    Vehicle: Medium / Long

It's a little disjointed at the moment, but lately I'm finding myself more and more disillusioned with aspects of the 2E system, and I think a static range rule system is a better fit for 1E than 2E.

Just me rambling, but if anyone is interested in pursuing this with me, I'd appreciate your input...
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A big part of this is going to be generating ranges and modifiers for a list of generic, common weapon types, like those listed in the WEG Core Rulebooks:
    Hold-Out Blaster
    Sporting Blaster Pistol
    Blaster Pistol
    Heavy Blaster Pistol
    Blaster Carbine
    Blaster Rifle
    Sporting Blaster Rifle
    Repeating Blaster (Light, Medium & Heavy)
    Blaster Cannon (Light, Medium & Heavy)
    Laser Cannon (Light, Medium & Heavy)
    Turbolaser Cannon (Light, Medium & Heavy)
    Ion Blaster (Light, Medium & Heavy) (Starfighter-Scale Ion Cannon)
    Ion Cannon (Light, Medium & Heavy)
    Proton Torpedoes
    Concussion Missiles
    Tractor Beam Projectors
A range list for these weapons should provide a sufficient baseline to modify other weapons accordingly.
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TauntaunScout
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 8:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm confused. Which side of your combat rule bi-polanerosityness scale is this supposed to be on? Are you making simple or complex rules?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TauntaunScout wrote:
I'm confused. Which side of your combat rule bi-polanerosityness scale is this supposed to be on? Are you making simple or complex rules?

Simple.

For example, when in space, all weapons would have the same ranges, but as per 1E, proton torpedoes would only work at Point Blank Range, laser cannon would only work at Point Blank and Short Range, while Turbolasers would work at the normal ranges (Point Blank, Short, Medium and Long) with an additional range (Extreme) which is out of weapons range, but in sensor range.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is good. Though, it may be worth considering that all ground combat should happen on the same scale category: some weapons are character scale in terms of their portability, but speeder (or even walker or starfighter) scale in terms of their targeting capabilities and/or damage.
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
This is good. Though, it may be worth considering that all ground combat should happen on the same scale category: some weapons are character scale in terms of their portability, but speeder (or even walker or starfighter) scale in terms of their targeting capabilities and/or damage.

Good point. Having one uniform range for ground combat would certainly be easier than converting on the fly. It might also help to add an additional range bracket beyond Distant to keep things from getting too crowded...
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"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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Whill
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 12:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So will this still involve static ranges?
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
So will this still involve static ranges?

It will. After chewing on this for a while, I've come to the conclusion that static ranges are a better conceptual fit to the simpler 1E system than they are to 2E or 2R&E. The revived interest in 1E through the Classic Adventures revamp gave me the idea of pursuing parallel house rule concepts, one simpler for 1E and one more granular for 2E.
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"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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Whill
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Whill wrote:
So will this still involve static ranges?

It will. After chewing on this for a while, I've come to the conclusion that static ranges are a better conceptual fit to the simpler 1E system than they are to 2E or 2R&E. The revived interest in 1E through the Classic Adventures revamp gave me the idea of pursuing parallel house rule concepts, one simpler for 1E and one more granular for 2E.

A while back I made a spreadsheet of blasters of many different types and other range weapons, with charts for your revisions from your blaster thread and RAW just for completeness. There are color coded range increments comparing all weapons to each other in charts. Then I made decisions for the static range increments and made a new chart that indicated which weapons had which ranges. Instead of having modifiers for each range increment, I tried to minimize changes from RAW so the chart has difficulty number ranges. What I ended up with was not in any way simpler than the variable range increments for each weapon as in RAW (and your revisions).

But it made me realize that if I backed up and just had little modifiers for each static range for each weapon, there is no way that it wouldn't veer away from the relationship of established ranges and difficulty ranges, in some cases significantly. Some of the WEG RAW range information made its way into the EU and some of that made its way into canon. I didn't want to drastically change things for the sake of simplicity so I scrapped it.

I in no way want to put a damper on your endeavor for static ranges for 1e/classic adventures. I'm just pointing out that I am quite certain the end result will be significantly different than RAW weapon ranges/difficulties in some ways. If that is worth it to anyone for the sake of simplicity, then more power to you. I love the concept and I really wish they had just went with static ranges in the first place.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 10:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not sure whether CRM feels this way, but I PREFER to have weapons fit into categories for a few reasons, even at the expense of deviation from canon:

1) Character concept - the character who makes an informed decision to take a carbine over a rifle is choosing to give something up to get something. I see static ranges (and bonus/difficulty modifiers) as the SIMPLEST way to achieve this. Bonuses or penalties (instead of difficulty modifiers) also eliminates the problem of substituting a dodge roll for the range difficulty: a hard shot is still a hard shot (penalized) regardless of how the target's dodge roll turns out.

2) Consistency. Players can easily understand that some weapons are BETTER in some cases even if they are generally inferior. Within 2m, a pistol becomes way more handy than a rifle, even though it is weaker (I give pistols a bonus up close, while rifles get a penalty; conversely, most pistols automatically "miss" at medium range or farther). Players choose between having specialized weaponry (submachine guns or designated marksman rifles, for example, or more general purpose weaponry such as a carbine and pistol or a battle rifle or whatever). The combination of weapons chosen becomes more deliberate depending on how the player wants to fight.

3) Simplicity: why keep separate info for what each individual weapon does at each of it's own range increments? If we know that short barreled rifles pack the power of a rifle but give up range for faster handling in close quarters, we get a tangible trade-off that actually results in an informed choice, versus the player/gm having to check the weapon's stats every time a fight starts.

The system I use disregards the specific weapons in the RAW and instead uses generic types (playgroups can add more variety by creating specific models within each type). A rifle is a rifle, a hold-out is a hold out, etc.

Of course, Whill, you've already seen what I'm talking about, so you know that I favor "what makes sense to me" over RAW or even canon to some extent.


Last edited by Naaman on Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bren
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I feel like I get the desired trade offs between weapons with the existing individual weapon stats. Though I will admit I tweak some weapons to mitigate the tendency in later supplements to invent killer weapons e.g. 6D damage heavy blaster pistols with the same range and number of shots as an ordinary heavy blaster pistol.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Not sure whether CRM feels this way, but I PREFER to have weapons fit into categories for a few reasons, even at the expense of deviation from canon.

I agree. As I mentioned above, the 2E/2R&E rules are, IMO, better suited to weapons having hard range numbers. 1E, however, is much looser, and better suited to generalization.

In the 2R&E Rulebook, on page 89, there is a section on estimating ranges:
    Estimating Ranges. Rather than measuring out ranges
    every round, you can use estimates:
    • Targets that are very close — within three meters of each
    other — are at point-blank range. (Very Easy difficulty.)
    • Most combat indoors is at short range. (Easy difficulty.) If
    the room is fairly large and the combatants are at opposite
    ends of it, blaster rifles will still be at short range (Easy
    difficulty), but blaster pistols will probably be at medium
    range (Moderate difficulty).
    • Most combat outdoors is at medium range (Moderate
    difficulty). Sometimes, blaster pistols are at long range
    (Difficult difficulty), while blaster rifles are still at medium
    range (Moderate difficulty).
    • Outdoor combat at great distances is generally at long
    range (Difficult difficulty).

The thing is, this doesn't take into account how different weapons will have varying degrees of effectiveness at a given range. If the above is the baseline for a Blaster Rifle, a Blaster Pistol is going to be much more effective at Point Blank while being of reduced / minimal effectiveness at Medium and useless at Long.

I've been chewing on this for quite a while, and while I think the various counterarguments have value when applied to the 2E/2R&E rule system, I think the different feel of 1E is a better fit to this sort of estimating system.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
I feel like I get the desired trade offs between weapons with the existing individual weapon stats. Though I will admit I tweak some weapons to mitigate the tendency in later supplements to invent killer weapons e.g. 6D damage heavy blaster pistols with the same range and number of shots as an ordinary heavy blaster pistol.


I think such a weapon can be okay depending on the campaign. If money is hard to come by, for example, then simply price such a weapon out of normal reach for the PC party, and make it a trade-off: "You can't afford both the blast vest and the super-duper heavy blaster; but you can afford a standard 4D blaster, a blast vest, and a vibro blade, or you can skip the vibro blade and just get a 5D heavy blaster and the blast vest."

Because of the nature of D6 combat, I find that the range to a target rarely, if ever, becomes a factor. A static range increment (with modifiers for specific weapons at specific ranges) forces--albeit artificially--that additional tactical element into play: now the players will actually try to get to their weapon's optimum range, while denying the enemy their bonuses, creating a more dynamic scene where maneuvering becomes necessary to gain advantage instead of merely having a shoot-dodge-shoot-dodge-shoot-dodge experience.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 03, 2020 11:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A thought on this...

1E hardly deals at all with increasing or decreasing range, such as in the case of chases/pursuits, charging/fleeing an enemy, etc. 2E largely dealt with this problem by the use of Move values, which gave hard numbers for exactly how many meters/SUs a character or vehicle could cover in a particular round. If one were to track the relative speeds of two craft involved in a chase, one could generate a specific value w/r/t the distance between the two, and thus determine the range for weapons. However, the 1E rules simply compared Speed Code results, with the higher roll moving one Range Bracket closer or further away. The problem comes in that, under the 2E/R&E Range rules, Range Brackets increased in size the greater the distance became.

I'd like to incorporate that aspect into this proposed range system somehow. In broad terms, what I'm looking for is some sort of graduated system, whereby the "winner" of the Speed Contest must clear a bar that gets consecutively higher as range increases. For instance, if a chase is occuring at Point Blank Range, and the character being chased wins, the range increases to Short Range. However, to increase from Short to Medium, the character now must not simply beat his pursuer's Speed Code roll, but must do so by 10 points. If the character wins by less than 10, the Range stays at Short, but must now only beat his pursuer by 5 points. Then once, the runner beats his pursuer, the Range increases to Medium, at which point the bar for success is +20.

This is just a rough draft of the idea at the moment, but I think it shows the direction I'm leaning well enough. Thoughts?
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am not sure what you are gaining besides mode "simulation" in the game by going this route and don't quite grasp why it would be harder to loose someone in a chase the further you are way from them. At first glance this is complicated and counterintuitive to me as a fresling to this system.
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