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Decelerating vs. Coasting
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 1:10 am    Post subject: Decelerating vs. Coasting Reply with quote

So, the RAW has long allowed ships and vehicles to accelerate or decelerate at a rate of one Move Level per round, so long as the pilot makes the appropriate Piloting roll for the new level. However, nothing is said about what happens when said pilot simply lets off the throttle and lets the ship / vehicle coast.

Now, under Newtonian physics, a ship operating in vacuum would theoretically just keep on going at whatever speed the ship was traveling when the pilot let off the throttle. However, the rules don't really seem to work like this, particularly when it comes to the Long Distance Movement rules, where ships take progressively increasing damage the longer they travel at Full or All-Out Speeds. For that rule to work, a ship at Full or All-Out must be under constant thrust in order to generate the strain being put on the engine. Now, relative SUs could represent acceleration, but it would make tabletop combat very strange for anything other than one-on-one fights or chases.

For my part, I've been going with the headcanon concept that the culprit is the inertial compensator, which is standard equipment aboard pretty much every starship. The idea is that the compensator dumps the inertial energy externally, which creates a space-time anchor effect that must be constantly thrust against or else the ship will gradually coast to a stop, but do so at a slower rate than it would if the ship were decelerating under its own power (car metaphor: coasting to a stop instead of applying the brakes).

So what would be a good rate of reduction for "coasting"? Right now I'm thinking 1 Move Level every 4 rounds, as in, if a ship is traveling at All-Out, and the pilot simply lets off the throttle, as opposed to braking, it takes 4 rounds for the ship to drop from All-Out to Full, then a further 4 rounds to drop from Full to Cruising and so on. Pilots still have to make their Piloting rolls against Terrain, so this will have to be used selectively; sometimes it will be better to decelerate from All-Out to Full in one round in order to be able to negotiate difficult Terrain. And of course, when you coast, rounds spent coasting no longer count against Long-Distance Movement Damage.

Thoughts?
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 3:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For me, i've usually just said they 'coast' along at what speed they have, TILL EITHER they turn (thus shave ff some momentum), OR slow down..
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Doesn't that effectively allow them to side-step the Long-Distance Movement rules? If you can just thrust up to All-Out, then coast along at the same speed from there, the ship's engines aren't really doing anything.

The "slowing down when turning" thing does fit with the technobabble I have going, as my explanation for "etheric rudder" is essentially just redirecting the ship's inertial energy laterally, forcing its course to curve in the specified direction.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Doesn't that effectively allow them to side-step the Long-Distance Movement rules? If you can just thrust up to All-Out, then coast along at the same speed from there, the ship's engines aren't really doing anything.


Not really. Remember, when going all out, you CAN DO NO OTHER actions.. So good luck maneuvering out of the way of that asteroid that suddenly appears, or dodging those shots coming your way...
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Remember, when going all out, you CAN DO NO OTHER actions.. So good luck maneuvering out of the way of that asteroid that suddenly appears, or dodging those shots coming your way...

That doesn't really address my question, though. The Long Distance Movement rules require that a ship moving at All-Out roll its Hull once every hour against increasing Difficulty to see if the engine suffers "strain" from being overworked. Based on what you're suggesting, a ship that accelerates up to All-Out, then cuts its drive and simply coasts at that speed won't have to roll against engine strain because it isn't using its engines; it's just coasting on the thrust it used to get there.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're right. The rules don't work like physics, and ships don't move in the films according to physics either. Your explanation of inertial compensation being a resistance to accelerate against is a good one to make the rules make sense.

In my starship damage system, there are a couple things relevant to this discussion.

I was also inspired by your ion damage chart to have a minor temporary ion damage effect that reduces speed, but since these effects are not in effect beyond the round subsequent to the damage, I just made the rule that the max speed the following round is one less than the current speed. It makes sense that coasting takes more rounds than braking, but this was one of several different effects that all expire after the subsequent round, so the speed reduction has to occur on the next round. But I guess that effect can be thought as a forced braking. Multiple sequential effects of this could eventually stop a ship in my rules, but it is unlikely that same result would keep being rolled.

I have a 'controls ionized' cumulation effect like 'controls frozen' in RAW where the ship is stuck moving the same speed and direction. Multiple subsequent results of this will also expire eventually. I think we talked about this elsewhere and I posited that the ionization could effect the inertial compensators, so I don't have to worry about the ship coasting to a stop under the resistance effect. Ionization in this case could be allowing more Newton to have effect.

I have it that all ships have primary and backup inertial compensators, and a damage result that can knock them offline. If both are knocked offline, the ship has a failsafe to freeze the controls of the ship, for the safety of all aboard. To then slow down slow enough to be safe without inertial compensators (which if going fast could take a long time in space with only Newton), the failsafe can be deactivated to effect that.

Since it didn't come up in my rules (or any circumstance ever in play that I can remember), I don't think I ever thought out how long a coasting ship should take to slow down. I don't know that it should be four rounds per level, but it makes sense to be more than one round per level. Maybe two rounds per level?
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Ray
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Space Opera, not Hard SF.

All the space battles are based off guncamera footage from WWII.

Well, at least, in the Original Trilogy.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
You're right. The rules don't work like physics, and ships don't move in the films according to physics either. Your explanation of inertial compensation being a resistance to accelerate against is a good one to make the rules make sense.

Thanks. I'm pretty proud of that one, actually. It broke open a lot of new ideas.


Quote:
I was also inspired by your ion damage chart to have a minor temporary ion damage effect that reduces speed, but since these effects are not in effect beyond the round subsequent to the damage, I just made the rule that the max speed the following round is one less than the current speed. It makes sense that coasting takes more rounds than braking, but this was one of several different effects that all expire after the subsequent round, so the speed reduction has to occur on the next round. But I guess that effect can be thought as a forced braking. Multiple sequential effects of this could eventually stop a ship in my rules, but it is unlikely that same result would keep being rolled.

The other option would be to revert to the RAW where Ion Cannon don't affect engine speed, or just technobabble that the ionization causes the engines to function erratically, which is part of the aggregate of ionization penalties to Maneuverability. EDIT: We catch just a glimpse of the drives fickering out on the ISD at Hoth after it gets hit by the ion cannon, so that fits with the theory, too.

Quote:
Ionization in this case could be allowing more Newton to have effect.

Which in the case of this house rule, the RAW actually fits, because if the inertial compensator conks out completely, it is also no longer generating the drag effect that was slowing the ship down, and it truly is on a ballistic course with 0g of acceleration, just whatever speed it had at the moment it went dark.


Quote:
Since it didn't come up in my rules (or any circumstance ever in play that I can remember), I don't think I ever thought out how long a coasting ship should take to slow down. I don't know that it should be four rounds per level, but it makes sense to be more than one round per level. Maybe two rounds per level?

As much as I hate to reference TLJ, it does have one scene where we see a ship lose power and decelerate relative to the ships around it, and it does so relatively quickly. I mostly went with 4 rounds based on personal experience with how long a vehicle can coast, all else being equal, but I suppose 2 rounds will do as well.
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Last edited by CRMcNeill on Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:57 am; edited 1 time in total
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2021 1:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ray wrote:
Space Opera, not Hard SF.

All the space battles are based off guncamera footage from WWII.

Well, at least, in the Original Trilogy.

Yes, but extremely advanced science is a key part of the underpinning of Space Opera. It helps to have "science" to explain what we see on the screen.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2021 3:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
The Long Distance Movement rules require that a ship moving at All-Out roll its Hull once every hour against increasing Difficulty to see if the engine suffers "strain" from being overworked.

Do you remember where that rule is?? Off the top of my head, i don't..
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2021 3:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Do you remember where that rule is?? Off the top of my head, i don't..

2R&E, pg. 125, under Long Distance Movement.

And I misspoke; it’s actually one roll every 10 minutes at All-Out and once every hour at High.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow.. Must have missed that all this time.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
The other option would be to revert to the RAW where Ion Cannon don't affect engine speed, or just technobabble that the ionization causes the engines to function erratically, which is part of the aggregate of ionization penalties to Maneuverability. EDIT: We catch just a glimpse of the drives fickering out on the ISD at Hoth after it gets hit by the ion cannon, so that fits with the theory, too.

Well, the speed reduction is just one of six random possible 'controls ionized' effects in my system. It's the only one that changes speed.

Quote:
Which in the case of this house rule, the RAW actually fits, because if the inertial compensator conks out completely, it is also no longer generating the drag effect that was slowing the ship down, and it truly is on a ballistic course with 0g of acceleration, just whatever speed it had at the moment it went dark.

Yup.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 1:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Well, the speed reduction is just one of six random possible 'controls ionized' effects in my system. It's the only one that changes speed.

I'm on this fence as to whether I want to use your version or revert back to the RAW. I've been trying to place more emphasis on simplicity, and in order to incorporate this idea, I get the feeling that the simpler approach will be easier for the GM to apply mid-combat.

While I still think that ionization would affect engine systems, I can see that simply applying a D penalty to Maneuverability has the advantage of being fewer things for a GM to keep track of. For example, if a YT-1300 is going All-Out, and takes 2D of Ionization, that 2D penalty is applied not just to evasion maneuvers, but also to the ability of the pilot to perform the required rolls needed to safely negotiate terrain at that speed. The more I think about it, the more I think that will be sufficient.
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 19, 2021 4:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You've come around quite a bit.

I actually started with a much crunchier ionization system and now it is very short and only crunchier than RAW in that there is a 1d6 roll to determine minor effect. Other than that it is only tweaked from RAW and not more complicated.

And based on other discussions, unless you've changed on this too, shouldn't it be -1D to piloting checks and not maneuverability? This still penalizes pilots of ships with zero (or negative maneuverability). But it would equally penalize a pilot on movement rolls too, not just evasion.
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