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New Scale System
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 9:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
I've been thinking of eliminating scaling completely, and instead replace it with multipliers that are included in the vehicle stats.

For example, a X-Wing could have Hull 4Dx2 and it's Lasers could do 6Dx2. When fighting other starfighters the multipliers could be ignored. Or, if I got with crmcneill's variant, something like:

Speeder x2
Walker/Starfighter x3
Transport x4
Escort? x5
Capital Ship x6


This looks like a good system, but it seems as though it might narrow the gap between the different scales too much. Each single step in multiplication value is equal to a single D6 in value. Might be better to go with something x3 / x6 / x9 multipliers, and so on.

I know in WEG's post-SW D6 system, they used a new scale system that ascribed difficulty modifiers to hit/damage rolls based on the size disparity of the attacker and target. The problem with that seems to be that it overcomplicates the scale system (with 30 or more individual scale steps as opposed to a half-dozen steps in the current system).
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Wed May 26, 2010 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

crmcneill wrote:
atgxtg wrote:
I've been thinking of eliminating scaling completely, and instead replace it with multipliers that are included in the vehicle stats.

For example, a X-Wing could have Hull 4Dx2 and it's Lasers could do 6Dx2. When fighting other starfighters the multipliers could be ignored. Or, if I got with crmcneill's variant, something like:

Speeder x2
Walker/Starfighter x3
Transport x4
Escort? x5
Capital Ship x6


This looks like a good system, but it seems as though it might narrow the gap between the different scales too much. Each single step in multiplication value is equal to a single D6 in value. Might be better to go with something x3 / x6 / x9 multipliers, and so on.


Maybe.I suppose it depends on where one feels the stats should be for certain vehicles. I gues some vehicles might pose problems, like a Capital scale Starship with a 1D Hull code would "loose" about half it Hull.

Maybe going with a fixed add might work betterl. Then just modfier for the difference.


crmcneill wrote:

I know in WEG's post-SW D6 system, they used a new scale system that ascribed difficulty modifiers to hit/damage rolls based on the size disparity of the attacker and target. The problem with that seems to be that it overcomplicates the scale system (with 30 or more individual scale steps as opposed to a half-dozen steps in the current system).


I'm not sold on any of the scale systems. Part of the problem I have is that it doesn't always make sense. For example, when a character shoots at a X-Wing with a laster Rifle he gets a 6D (or 8D) bonus to hit. Now if the X-Wing is stationary, maybe. but in most cases the X-Wing is going to be doing staffing runs and probably zooming by pretty fast.It is like trying to hit a fighter jet with a slugthrower rifle. It can be done, but it isn't easy.

Realistically, it is a lot easier for a guy with a rifle to shoot a man-sized target at short range, than to hit a SUV or house at long range. But the scaling rules tend to work out the other way. For instance an Imperial Juggernaut tank is larger and slower than an X-Wing, but the X-Wing easier to hit due to scaling!


Last edited by atgxtg on Thu May 27, 2010 10:26 am; edited 1 time in total
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Leon The Lion
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 6:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
I'm not sold on any of the scale systems. Part of the problem I have is that it doesn't always make sense. For example, when a character shoots at a X-Wing with a laster Rifle he gets a 6D (or 8D) bonus to hit. Now if the X-Wing is stationary, maybe. but in most cases the X-Wing is going to be doing staffing runs and probably zooming by pretty fast.It is like trying to hit a fighter jet with a slugthrower rifle. It can be done, but it isn't easy.

Realistically, it is a lot easier for a guy with a rifle to shoot a man-sized target at short range, than to hit a SUV or house at long range. But the scaling rules tend to work out the other way. For instance an Imperial Juggernaut tank is larger and slower than an X-Wing, but easier to hit due to scaling!

You do have a point here, several in fact.

There really should be some rules for to-hit penalties based on relative speeds. Right now the game has none.

I think it could make sense to cap the to-hit bonus received due to scaling at some reasonable level. After the target reaches a certain size, it's not really very important how big it is, it's not going to get any easier to hit. If you're standing right next to a wall, it doesn't really matter to your chances of hitting it if it's the wall of a small house, a hangar, or a skyscrapper, right? And the scale to-hit bonus seems too high in general. Maybe we could cut the scale bonus it in half when applying it to to-hit rolls?

The situation with the Juggernaut (I'm assuming you ment the X-Wing being easier to hit) is mainly an artifact of the sometimes downright absurd scaling policies in the official stats. Earlier crmcneill mentioned the Leviathan for another royally screwed-up case. The Juggy really should be at least "Starfighter" scale. Just adjust the Hull and Maneuver ratings accordingly.

We could even as appropriate go for vehicles and ships of mixed scale. The Juggy, say, could have the Hull raing in "Starfighter" scale, but Maneuverability in "Escort", so it's as hard as a fighter, but much easier to hit. I've been known to assign split Maneuver ratings to vehicles. To represent for example a vehicle that has excellent off-road performance, but is otherwise not so agile, like the Juggy again, I'd give it two Maneuver ratings, one high one used only for handling terrain, and a second much lower one for Dodges and other complicated maneuvers.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Leon The Lion wrote:

You do have a point here, several in fact.

There really should be some rules for to-hit penalties based on relative speeds. Right now the game has none.


I've got an idea for that. Probably a function of the Move rate.


I think it could make sense to cap the to-hit bonus received due to scaling at some reasonable level. After the target reaches a certain size, it's not really very important how big it is, it's not going to get any easier to hit. If you're standing right next to a wall, it doesn't really matter to your chances of hitting it if it's the wall of a small house, a hangar, or a skyscrapper, right? And the scale to-hit bonus seems too high in general. Maybe we could cut the scale bonus it in half when applying it to to-hit rolls? [/quote]

Possibly. Or we could eliminate the scaling and just give a bonus based on the overall size of the target. I was thinking of something like taking the square root of the vehicles length (or longest dimension) and treating that as the number of characters on the old (2E) combined fire table. That would translate to:

X-Wing (12m): 3 characters, about +1D+1
AT-AT (20m long, 22.5m high): about 4-5 characters, +2D or +2D+1
ISD (1600m): 40 characters, +7D




Leon The Lion wrote:

The situation with the Juggernaut (I'm assuming you ment the X-Wing being easier to hit)


Oops. Yes that was what I mean. Embarassed


Leon The Lion wrote:

is mainly an artifact of the sometimes downright absurd scaling policies in the official stats. Earlier crmcneill mentioned the Leviathan for another royally screwed-up case. The Juggy really should be at least "Starfighter" scale. Just adjust the Hull and Maneuver ratings accordingly.



To be fair, I think the problem wasn't with the "downright absurd scaling policies" but with the totally horrible stats WEG gave things before they came up with the scaling system. The scaling systems have largely been attempts to correct the crummy stats in the Star Wars Sourcebook without changing anything.

Leon The Lion wrote:

We could even as appropriate go for vehicles and ships of mixed scale. The Juggy, say, could have the Hull raing in "Starfighter" scale, but Maneuverability in "Escort", so it's as hard as a fighter, but much easier to hit. I've been known to assign split Maneuver ratings to vehicles. To represent for example a vehicle that has excellent off-road performance, but is otherwise not so agile, like the Juggy again, I'd give it two Maneuver ratings, one high one used only for handling terrain, and a second much lower one for Dodges and other complicated maneuvers.


We could do that. IMO it would be easier to keep the MAN rating, but note that it can ignore/reduce the terrain difficulties.
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
crmcneill wrote:
atgxtg wrote:
I've been thinking of eliminating scaling completely, and instead replace it with multipliers that are included in the vehicle stats.

For example, a X-Wing could have Hull 4Dx2 and it's Lasers could do 6Dx2. When fighting other starfighters the multipliers could be ignored. Or, if I got with crmcneill's variant, something like:

Speeder x2
Walker/Starfighter x3
Transport x4
Escort? x5
Capital Ship x6


This looks like a good system, but it seems as though it might narrow the gap between the different scales too much. Each single step in multiplication value is equal to a single D6 in value. Might be better to go with something x3 / x6 / x9 multipliers, and so on.


Maybe.I suppose it depends on where one feels the stats should be for certain vehicles. I gues some vehicles might pose problems, like a Capital scale Starship with a 1D Hull code would "loose" about half it Hull.

Maybe going with a fixed add might work betterl. Then just modfier for the difference.


crmcneill wrote:

I know in WEG's post-SW D6 system, they used a new scale system that ascribed difficulty modifiers to hit/damage rolls based on the size disparity of the attacker and target. The problem with that seems to be that it overcomplicates the scale system (with 30 or more individual scale steps as opposed to a half-dozen steps in the current system).


I'm not sold on any of the scale systems. Part of the problem I have is that it doesn't always make sense. For example, when a character shoots at a X-Wing with a laster Rifle he gets a 6D (or 8D) bonus to hit. Now if the X-Wing is stationary, maybe. but in most cases the X-Wing is going to be doing staffing runs and probably zooming by pretty fast.It is like trying to hit a fighter jet with a slugthrower rifle. It can be done, but it isn't easy.

Realistically, it is a lot easier for a guy with a rifle to shoot a man-sized target at short range, than to hit a SUV or house at long range. But the scaling rules tend to work out the other way. For instance an Imperial Juggernaut tank is larger and slower than an X-Wing, but the X-Wing easier to hit due to scaling!


The problem is not actually scaling (or at least not mainly scaling), its the fact that theres no penalties for hitting fast moving targets. The scaling rules say that its easier to hit a X-wing sized object moving at mach 1 than a human sized object (iron man?), which is quite reasonable. However, the problem of hitting something moving at mach 1 is not taken into consideration.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2010 8:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ZzaphodD wrote:

The problem is not actually scaling (or at least not mainly scaling), its the fact that theres no penalties for hitting fast moving targets. The scaling rules say that its easier to hit a X-wing sized object moving at mach 1 than a human sized object (iron man?), which is quite reasonable. However, the problem of hitting something moving at mach 1 is not taken into consideration.


The scaling problem is that it becomes easier to hit a stationary X-Wing at long range than to hit a stationary man at short range. At long range the X-Wing would be a harder target, due to perspective.

Also, there are cases where vehicles are placed in one scale for particular reasons where it doesn't make much sense for others. The skipray blastboat, small walkers (AT-RT, AT-PT) and so on.

I think I'll tweak around with using some function of a craft's Move rate on the combined action chart to get a difficulty penalty for Movement. The drawback is that some things (starfighters for example) can probably negate the penalty through their F/C. X-Wings are supposed to be able to hit something flying at mach 1.
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 12:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
I've been thinking of eliminating scaling completely, and instead replace it with multipliers that are included in the vehicle stats.

For example, a X-Wing could have Hull 4Dx2 and it's Lasers could do 6Dx2. When fighting other starfighters the multipliers could be ignored. Or, if I got with crmcneill's variant, something like:

Speeder x2
Walker/Starfighter x3
Transport x4
Escort? x5
Capital Ship x6


You realize that by having multipliers, you've still got a scaling system, it just works differently. To eliminate the scale system you'd simply have to ever-increasingly boost dice higher and higher to reflect differences but keep them all at the same resolution.

crmcneill has a pretty good idea for scales. I don't like the "added dice" method of scales, but the different classifications that were presented are right in line with what I did for a revamping of scales. So on that note, I think you're on the right track crmcneill. Definitely, though, give your scale system a good run through and test out different sizes to verify whether your changes actually work. Test it with things 1 scale difference apart and with things multiple scale differences apart so you can see how well your numbers work. You don't want to fall victim to the same issues WEG encountered with certain things (as mentioned in this thread).
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

atgxtg wrote:
ZzaphodD wrote:

The problem is not actually scaling (or at least not mainly scaling), its the fact that theres no penalties for hitting fast moving targets. The scaling rules say that its easier to hit a X-wing sized object moving at mach 1 than a human sized object (iron man?), which is quite reasonable. However, the problem of hitting something moving at mach 1 is not taken into consideration.


The scaling problem is that it becomes easier to hit a stationary X-Wing at long range than to hit a stationary man at short range. At long range the X-Wing would be a harder target, due to perspective.

Also, there are cases where vehicles are placed in one scale for particular reasons where it doesn't make much sense for others. The skipray blastboat, small walkers (AT-RT, AT-PT) and so on.

I think I'll tweak around with using some function of a craft's Move rate on the combined action chart to get a difficulty penalty for Movement. The drawback is that some things (starfighters for example) can probably negate the penalty through their F/C. X-Wings are supposed to be able to hit something flying at mach 1.


The closest the rules come to addressing this issue is in 2nd R&E, under the rules for proton torpedoes and concussion missiles (page 127), assigning increased difficulty numbers to targeting based on how fast the target was moving.

Something else to consider for this difficulty is aspect to target. A starfighter or speeder moving lateraly to its attacker is a very difficult target, while the same vehicle that is closing or moving away from the target is easier to hit, as it isn't presenting nearly as much lateral movement.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 10:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="Grimace"]
You realize that by having multipliers, you've still got a scaling system, it just works differently. To eliminate the scale system you'd simply have to ever-increasingly boost dice higher and higher to reflect differences but keep them all at the same resolution.

Only if the scale itself (speeder/walker/starfighter) is kept. If I drop the "ladder" and just put the multipliers into the stats (like X-Wings lasers doing 6Dx3 damage, and X-Wing Hulls stopping 4Dx3) then the scale can be removed. It's not a scale as the multipliers would be constant. X-Wings will always do x3 damage, not just against characters.

Essentially, what this is doing is using ever increasing numbers of dice, but making them more manageable by using multipliers.. 6Dx3 is quicker to roll and count that 18D.

But, when fighting other starfighters the multiplier would cancel out.


Or, if preferred, instead of multipliers, a flat bonus could be used. For example, X-Wings might do 6D+20 damage, and have 4D+20 Hull.

Again there would be no scaling effect, it would just mean the ships have a higher value, all the time.

But when fighting against most other starighters, the adds would just happen to balance each other and cancel out.
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atgxtg
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2010 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="crmcneill"]

The closest the rules come to addressing this issue is in 2nd R&E, under the rules for proton torpedoes and concussion missiles (page 127), assigning increased difficulty numbers to targeting based on how fast the target was moving.

I'm going to checkout a couple of other D6 products for inspiration. Ultimately I suspect I'll be using the combined action table in some way, or the square root of (Move/10) as the pip bonus.


Quote:

Something else to consider for this difficulty is aspect to target. A starfighter or speeder moving lateraly to its attacker is a very difficult target, while the same vehicle that is closing or moving away from the target is easier to hit, as it isn't presenting nearly as much lateral movement.


Yeah, but I think I can use the collision rules as a guideline.
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 9:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any final conclusions I could use for my house rules Smile ?
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nico_Davout wrote:
Any final conclusions I could use for my house rules Smile ?


Final, no. BUt I have been getting interested in the way the do scaling in D6 Space. Each object get a scale number, a fixed value, that is treated about the same way scaling is handled in R&E.

What is nice about it is that you get a smooth progression, and don't have jumps in increments of 2D6, 6D6, or 12D6.

About the only drawback is that the scaling systrem used in D6 Space gives numbers a bit smaller than in R&E, so starships end up being a bit fragile in comparsion to other vehicles in D6 Space. But this might not be as big if a problem in Star Wars.
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 6:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ZzaphodD wrote:

The problem is not actually scaling (or at least not mainly scaling), its the fact that theres no penalties for hitting fast moving targets. The scaling rules say that its easier to hit a X-wing sized object moving at mach 1 than a human sized object (iron man?), which is quite reasonable. However, the problem of hitting something moving at mach 1 is not taken into consideration.


There is in R&E, ut it is only for missiles hitting a moving target. IIRC +10 at speeds of 3-6 SU, +15 at speeds of 6-8 SU, and +20 at 9 and above.. or something like that.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As I flesh out the concept of this scale system, I've come across a dilemma. If I make Capital Ship-Scale purely the domain of the larger cruisers and destroyers while relegating the smaller frigates and cruisers to a lower scale (Starship, Escort, whatever), there is now a gap in the weapon systems. If I downgrade all the turbolaser cannon to Escort scale, what do I arm Capital Ships with?

The idea I'm currently running with is the Lance, ala Warhammer 40K. For those who are unfamiliar, the Lance is a huge turret-mounted high-intensity beam weapon, similar to the ball turrets on the LAAT/i's in E2, only on a much larger scale. These weapons would be a micro-sized version of the superlaser, with multiple emitters combining to generate a single high-intensity beam. For simplicity's sake, I want to make the lances capable of firing high intensity ion beams as well (rather than inventing two entirely new weapons).

Dreadnought-Scale (the interim scale step between Capital Ship and Death Star) would be the realm of axial superlasers and the two-stage gravshock device (mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook), weapons with the power to inflict massive damage on a planet-wide scale without the planet-shattering effects of a Death Star superlaser.

Thoughts?
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2011 5:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why not make each scale have their own turbos.. so there is a frigate scale one and a cap ship one..
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