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Battery Dice for Capital Ships
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:48 am    Post subject: Battery Dice for Capital Ships Reply with quote

Something I've been toying with is, rather than giving ship stats a specific number of weapons, simply saying that a ship has turbolaser batteries, and then giving a D rating that is used as a dice pool when allocating fire. For example, rather than saying an ISD I has 60 turbolaser batteries allocated equally between the Front, Left and Right Arcs, the stat would read like so:
    Turbolaser Batteries
    Fire Arcs: 4D Front, 4D Left, 4D Right
That number can then be allocated by the ship's captain as a bonus to Damage, Fire Control, or could cancel out MAPs when firing at multiple targets.

While most of us are used to using the numbers generated by WEG, the simple fact of the matter is that we game in a system where fans have the dedication to pore over the various models and come up with actual numbers for how many turbolaser batteries a given capital ship may have.

That's why I'm wondering if a non-specific D rating might be less prone to dispute in stat writing. It won't really matter exactly how many guns an ISD has, because the Battery Dice would just be an aggregate rating of how well the various cannon can coordinate their fire.

Thoughts?
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Zarn
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the abstraction this allows - it might make it easier to have capital ships involved in fighting, rather than just as big blobs of stats.
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thedemonapostle
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

very nice. this looks like it might make things more streamlined and keep the flow of the games smoother, rather than the stop and figure out how many individual guns hit and their damages.
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Absolutely, CR. Exact # of weapons doesn't matter, only the net result of the coordination of them. Most of the time in my game, anything except the smallest capital ships are effectively a big wall that says 'Go the other way' so even the stats you are suggesting aren't going to come into play too often. We definitely don't need exact # of weapons, so battery fire arc stats is a great idea.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 5:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another thought is that, with a Dice Value instead of a straight numerical value, it would also be simpler to represent how weapons become less effective at close range. For instance, a weapon firing at Point Blank range might have a penalty to Battery Dice to show how not all of the weapons in a given Fire Arc may be able to bear on a target if the target is too close. Possible examples would include the Death Star's defenses in ANH or the defensive fire from the Avenger in ESB and the Executor in ROTJ.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of something along the lines of my Auto-Fire rules, putting a cap on how many Battery Dice may be applied to a single target, so that, as a targeted ship gets closer, fewer and fewer individual weapons may be brought to bear. On an ISD, using the stat concept above, there may be 4D of Battery Dice in a given Fire Arc, but at Point Blank Range, only 1D of Battery Dice would be available to engage a particular target.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 10:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So what would be a good conversion formula? Right now, I'm thinking of using the x2 = 1D method, so that every time the number of guns doubles, that arc gains 1D of battery dice, then round up in the event of anything left over. For example, using the above example of an ISD, it would actually have 5D of Battery Dice per Fire Arc: 2 = +1D, 4 = +2D, 8 = +3D, 16 = +4D, and 20 (rounded up from 16) = +5D.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've often thought of using the Combination rule for ship batteries.

And, I've thought about using the same rule for fighter squadrons that attack capital ships. Combine fire for a squadron--one dice roll per squadron per combat round vs. the capital ship. Still use scaling modifications.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
I've often thought of using the Combination rule for ship batteries.

And, I've thought about using the same rule for fighter squadrons that attack capital ships. Combine fire for a squadron--one dice roll per squadron per combat round vs. the capital ship. Still use scaling modifications.

That's the standard method used, in my experience. Of all the RAW variants, I prefer the 2E version, since the 2R&E version (+1 per each additional cannon being coordinated) scales up so fast that the forward turbolasers on a Super Star Destroyer outgun the Death Star's Superlaser. The 2E version increases the required number being coordinated as the dice bonuses go up, but does so inconsistently. That's why I prefer the x2 = +1D method.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 2:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CR,

I already do what you are suggesting for capital ships. Not for the reasons you mentioned of not needing to count exact weapons. I do it so I can gauge power levels for ship types and so I can match the attack dice up with the Hull and Shield dice for the ship classes. In general, I don't want ships to be glass cannons nor iron clad turtles armed with pop guns. (Unless something like that really makes sense for the ship type and design.)

Some time ago I house ruled combined actions to use powers of 2. It makes GMing simple since I don't need a look up table and as you mentioned, it keeps the numbers from blowing up too fast. One difference: I don't round 20 up to 5D. I keep it simple and only add a D on even powers of 2.

2-3 = +1D
4-7 = +2D
8-15 = +3D
16-31 = +4D
32-63 = +5D
etc.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 2:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
I already do what you are suggesting for capital ships. Not for the reasons you mentioned of not needing to count exact weapons. I do it so I can gauge power levels for ship types and so I can match the attack dice up with the Hull and Shield dice for the ship classes. In general, I don't want ships to be glass cannons nor iron clad turtles armed with pop guns. (Unless something like that really makes sense for the ship type and design.)

This was something I considered, as well. When stat-writing, I convert cannon numbers over to dice to have a gauge of weapon strength for balancing purposes, so simply having the Battery Dice as the gauge of strength (along with all the other uses) would very neatly eliminate a step in the calculation process all around.

Quote:
Some time ago I house ruled combined actions to use powers of 2. It makes GMing simple since I don't need a look up table and as you mentioned, it keeps the numbers from blowing up too fast. One difference: I don't round 20 up to 5D. I keep it simple and only add a D on even powers of 2.

I actually went a step further by dividing each +1D step into 3rds so that coordination bonuses could increase by pips as well as D. Here's the link. In fact, I originally proposed the Battery Dice in that topic (although not under that name).

My main reasoning for rounding up is that, under the Battery Dice rule as proposed, capital ships lose some of their ability to engage multiple targets. For example, an ISD under the RAW would have the ability to engage up to 20 different targets in a single fire arc, whereas a ship with 5D Battery Dice in that same arc would only be able to simultaneously engage 6. Obviously, a combat scenario in which a star destroyer would need to roll 20 separate attacks against 20 separate targets is almost unheard of, but it seemed appropriate to offset the disparity, even if just a little, so rounding up to 5D from 4D was simple enough.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 3:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Using pips is way too fiddly for something that is supposed to simplify not complicate running an ISD. We already have a complicated rule in the RAW.

The problem for me with rounding is the extra damage gained by rounding up. In addition I don't see restricting a capital ship like an ISD to 5 targets per firing arc as a problem. In fact, I think restricting the number of targets per firing arc is a good thing and 5 targets per arc seems just fine. That is, after all, 15 targets (5 left, 5 front, 5 right).

Do we ever see a capital ship target even that many capital targets? Under what situation would that ever occur?

But if I did want to have an ISD target more than 5 targets per arc, then that means the ISD is firing weapons not as a battery, but more or less as individual guns. In that case just decrease the damage dice as you increase the # of targets.

Simple version: decrease damage by 1D for every additional target over the battery dice, i.e. since battery dice are 4D allowing 4 extra targets for a total of 5 targets, to get 6 targets is -1D, 7 targets is -2D, etc. If the ISD has 5D damage turbolasers they can increase targets by 4 by decreasing damage by 4D (down to 1D). That won't do much of anything to a similarly scaled ship, but with scale modifiers its still a lot of damage to smaller scale vessels.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All fair points. I'll put some thought into the rounding up vs. rounding down.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 10:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
I've often thought of using the Combination rule for ship batteries.

And, I've thought about using the same rule for fighter squadrons that attack capital ships. Combine fire for a squadron--one dice roll per squadron per combat round vs. the capital ship. Still use scaling modifications.

That's the standard method used, in my experience.


Of course it is. For capital ship attacks.

The point of the post is that I've thought that combined fire could be used with fighter squadrons against capital ships.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 1:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
The point of the post is that I've thought that combined fire could be used with fighter squadrons against capital ships.
I've used combined actions for squadrons using proton torpedo volley fire vs. capital ships.
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nuclearwookiee
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 10:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use a similar setup. I base my "battery dice" total on the coordination table from 2d ed. and round down. So for an ISD, 20 turbolasers in one arc would be 5d battery dice; for an MC80, 12 turbolasers in one arc would be 4d battery dice.

But the way I handle the coordination bonus is a little different. The coordination bonus always applies to the to-hit roll when firing the battery. For every 5 points that the roll exceeds the target difficulty, 1d gets added to the damage roll. But this bonus gets capped at the coordination bonus.

For example, using the stats for an MC80 from 2d ed. R&E, a full battery attack from one arc would roll 12d+0 to hit (5d+0 crew skill + 1d+0 Mon Cal bonus + 2d+0 fire control + 4d+0 coordination bonus). If the attack beats the target difficulty by 20 or more, the damage roll would be 8d+0 (4d+0 base damage + the full coordination bonus). If the attack beats the target difficulty by 15, the damage would be 7d+0 (base damage plus 3d+0 of the coordination bonus), etc.

Btw, it just so happens that for an MC80 attacking an ISD, using average rolls for both results in the MC80 getting the full 4d+0 coordination bonus to damage. The average for the MC80's 12d+0 to hit (see above) is 42. The average defense roll for the ISD would be 6d+1 (5d+1 crew skill + 1d+0 maneuverability) for an average roll of 22. (42 - 22)/5 = 4.

Like others, I've used this for handling unit combat as well (e.g., treating an X-wing squadron as a single unit).
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