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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 12:05 am Post subject: Tractor Beams and Engines |
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The RAW for tractor beams rolls their Damage Code against a ship's Hull only, but doesn't take into account engine power. A ship like an A-Wing with its 2D+2 Hull would have a difficult time escaping from most tractor beams (assuming they could hit it in the first place), but wouldn't the power of its engines give it an additional boost when trying to escape the grasp of a tractor beam?
Here's what I'm thinking (spitballing, really)...-When attempting to break the grip of a tractor beam, ships may add their 1E Speed Code to their Hull when rolling to resist.
-However, they must also roll their Speed Code as Damage against their Hull Dice when making the attempt. Basically, fast but fragile ships have to take care when attempting this, because there is a very real chance that their own drives will cause structural damage to their own ship.
Thoughts?
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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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Mamatried
Commodore
Joined: 16 Dec 2017
Posts: 1861
Location: Norway
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 1:08 am Post subject: |
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use all out movement?
I think this can be done but the ship can't use weapons and shields as in all...all and then all the rest all power to engines. and could then a all out simply add a bonus to the escaping ship or a penalty even a dice reduction on the attacking ship.
something like if going all out you gain +3D or somethingg, or the attacker recive a -2D penalty or something |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 1:41 am Post subject: |
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| Mamatried wrote: | | use all out movement? |
What good would that do? How would this convert to a dice value to be added to the targeted ship's roll to resist the tractor beam? And All-Out movement requires that the ship be given several rounds to accelerate up to it, but how can a ship accelerate to a Speed Level if it can't move due to being stuck in a tractor beam?
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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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Potroclo
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 5:04 am Post subject: |
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I like it. How about, ships may add whatever speed code they like, and risk receiving the same amount of damage? As in the ship must make more movement than the reeling of the tractor beam, until it's out of tractor beam range. So say a ship has Space 4, and tractor beams have a standard "reeling in" speed of 5, the ship will have to reach at least High speed to escape the beam, which would give it 2x 1E Speed Code bonus to the Hull roll to resist. But if it fails, it would also receive 2x1E Speed Code bonus.
So say a ship's being reeled in, the pilot tries to resist at cruising speed, succeeds but can't really escape the tractor beam, so he takes the engines up to High speed... And is crushed like an empty soda can  |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 10:47 am Post subject: |
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Doubling Die Codes can get out of hand pretty quickly. I like your idea of allowing a character to select how much throttle they want to use to try and break free, but I think it would be simpler to just let them have the option of using less than their full Speed Code.
Another possibility is adding 1D to the Damage roll for every round the ship attempts to break free. So, say an X-Wing rolls 8D to attempt to break free from a tractor beam (4D Hull + 4D Speed Code), and rolls 4D Damage against the 4D Hull (it's possible to even use the same dice values for the results), but fails to break free. The pilot tries to break free again the next round, and still rolls 8D, but this time he rolls 5D Damage against his Hull. And 6D the following round, and so on...
I'm guessing something like this is what Han was thinking when captured by the Death Star tractor beam ("Nothing I can do about it, kid; I'm full power, I'm gonna have to shut down.")
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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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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:25 am Post subject: Re: Tractor Beams and Engines |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Basically, fast but fragile ships have to take care when attempting this, because there is a very real chance that their own drives will cause structural damage to their own ship. |
Makes sense. I think an A-wing would be more likely to be structurally damaged than it would be able to break away.
In ANH, when caught by the Death Star tractor beam Han says he has to shut down. Presumably this is either to avoid engine damage or the engine overheating or to avoid structural damage to the ship. |
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cheshire
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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It sounds like you'd be adding a bonus to all rolls to get away from the tractor beams. With that much bonus would the current die codes on all tractor beams become almost moot? Would we have to re-do all of the tractor beams to give them even a chance of catching someone?
I'd like to see how it all works out play-tested, because I have some game balance questions.
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Potroclo
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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What about adding dice instead of a fixed bonus to the Hull roll? Say +1D for cruise, +2D High, +4D all out. If most ship have a 3D or 4D Hull code, and most tractor beams have a 4 to 6D damage it's still balanced. The extra dice would apply for resulting damage if the roll fails to liberate the ship. Of course you would have to start at cruise and build up to all out round by round.
So for example, a 4D Hull ship is caught by a 5D tractor beam, the pilot activates the engines, so he rolls 5D Hull against 5D tractor beam damage, which is 50% odds. Let's say hull roll < tractor damage; the +1D is counted for tractor damage, so at 3.5 average it results in at least -1Move. Let's give the ship Space:5, he's now at 4.
The pilot tries harder, at High speed. It's now 4+2D hull vs 5D, the ship as better odds but it's still tight. And if the hull roll<tractor damage, now it's probably -2 move at least so the ship's at 2.
Try it once again at High or worse, increase to all out, and you'll most probably burn your ship engines.
The ship has more options to escape at first, but once it's in the beam it gets harder and harder... Kind of what Han tries in ANH... |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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If I'm reading you right, and you're suggesting just a bonus based on what speed level the ship is going, then there would be no difference between a Space 12 A-Wing and a Space 4 YT-1300, as both would receive the same bonus by dint of going All-Out (or whichever speed level). Using this system, a ship with more powerful engines wouldn't receive any sort of advantage over other, slower ships.
If, on the other hand, you're talking about stacking the Speed Level Bonus, the Speed Code and the Hull, then cheshire's comment takes on even more weight, as we'd be adding even more dice on the target's roll, while not modifying the tractor beam's dice roll to match.
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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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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:43 pm Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | | It sounds like you'd be adding a bonus to all rolls to get away from the tractor beams. With that much bonus would the current die codes on all tractor beams become almost moot? Would we have to re-do all of the tractor beams to give them even a chance of catching someone? |
Good points all around. Technically, most tractor beams in official stats are Capital-Scale, so they come with a built-in +6D bonus to Strength. Getting a successful lock in the first place is the hardest part, with coordination bonuses playing a major part.
| Quote: | | I'd like to see how it all works out play-tested, because I have some game balance questions. |
Me too. Unfortunately, I'll have to see if anyone volunteers (not a lot of scratch SWD6 games at truck stops).
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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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Potroclo
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Joined: 01 Jul 2019
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| Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:01 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | If I'm reading you right, and you're suggesting just a bonus based on what speed level the ship is going, then there would be no difference between a Space 12 A-Wing and a Space 4 YT-1300, as both would receive the same bonus by dint of going All-Out (or whichever speed level). Using this system, a ship with more powerful engines wouldn't receive any sort of advantage over other, slower ships. |
Correct.
And a faster (more Space) ship doesn't mean it's more powerfull (Hull code) than a slower (less Space) ship. It takes less engine power to accelerate a low mass (Hull) ship than a high mass (Hull) ship. It's the mass to engine power ratio that counts. (Top speed vs torque.) Factor in the tractor beam, and the mass (Hull) is even more important. As there is no dice code for "engine power", we have to use a constant, and this is what this proposed homemade rule introduces: a +1/2/4D "bonus" standardized across all ships, which still represents a dice roll, so randomness is respected, and the player can chose how much he bets (it's a bet because however this gives an edge, if it fails the consequences are worse), so gameplay is respected.
But yeah, I don't see it either... I thought it would be a simple enough way to introduce a bit more granularity into the tractor beam mechanics, but I too have balance concerns with this... And that's not even taking into account the flaws in the explanation above
Anyone got a better idea? |
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cheshire
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| Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 7:39 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: |
| Quote: | | I'd like to see how it all works out play-tested, because I have some game balance questions. |
Me too. Unfortunately, I'll have to see if anyone volunteers (not a lot of scratch SWD6 games at truck stops). |
If there were, I would totally be spending more time in truck stops on my road trips.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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The closest thing starship stats have to torque is cargo capacity, but for the sake of a game rule, a combination of Hull and Speed (expresses by the 1E Space Code) is good enough for gaming purposes. And things will tend to average out; an A-Wing will just barely edge out an X-Wing (8D+2 over 8D) despite its higher top speed due to the X’s heavier/tougher/more durable frame. A hot rod like the Falcon would get to roll a 10D (6D Hull + 4D Speed Code), but even that wouldn’t be enough to escape the coordinated fire of the dozens or hundreds of tractor beams on the Death Star.
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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
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10436
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 5:45 pm Post subject: Re: Breaking Tractor Beams |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | The RAW for tractor beams rolls their Damage Code against a ship's Hull only, but doesn't take into account engine power. A ship like an A-Wing with its 2D+2 Hull would have a difficult time escaping from most tractor beams (assuming they could hit it in the first place), but wouldn't the power of its engines give it an additional boost when trying to escape the grasp of a tractor beam?
Here's what I'm thinking (spitballing, really)...-When attempting to break the grip of a tractor beam, ships may add their 1E Speed Code to their Hull when rolling to resist.
-However, they must also roll their Speed Code as Damage against their Hull Dice when making the attempt. Basically, fast but fragile ships have to take care when attempting this, because there is a very real chance that their own drives will cause structural damage to their own ship.
Thoughts? |
I seem to have missed this thread last year. I like this concept.
So if I follow completely, the suggestion is to have this damage roll vs the speed code replace the damage result in the chart on R&E p. 127? I was looking at that and I just do not like that target's engine damage relating directly to the Space units reeled in when resisting. (It would seem the opposite relation might make more sense.) But tying the engine damage to the target's own engine power makes more sense to me, especially using the same roll (so the "speed code" roll would have to rolled separately from the Hull). And sure, we could have it so the pilot of the target ship can choose how much engine power to use if they don't want to dial it up too much, making a calculated risk of how much juice to pour on to break the tractor.
A minor note, to not have to bring 1e into it, we could simply have a formula for the speed code that divided the Space by two, made the whole part of the result the number before the D and any remainder translate to +2. Going from 1e to 2e, all the +1s and +2s became the odd Space stats, but going the other way for this, +2 is closer to half-way between the actual die average value of 3.5.
Like you said, with the scale of most tractor beams as capital, the scale modifier helping the tractoring ship's damage roll means starship-scale ships don't have much of a chance to break tractors with Hull alone. Even the example in the book had an Imp SD against a light freighter so with the scale modifier it was 12D vs 4D. And that was just for one single tractor beam, not a coordinated group of them like the Death Star would have had on the Falcon. I do not see a balance issue here.
Regarding torque and cargo capacity, wouldn't it also be true that a ship with an empty cargo hold should do better against the tractor beam than the same ship with a hold filled to capacity? Should unused cargo capacity of a ship equate to a modifier that helps the target ship? Maybe we could make a chart with increments of unused cargo capacity that add to the 'speed code' roll? Or should that add separately so this modifier does not endanger the ship more than the Speed Code roll by itself against the Hull roll?
Thoughts?
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16320
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 8:16 pm Post subject: |
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I would think that an empty cargo hold would be the default, and that the presence of any cargo would decrease the ship's Move and, by extension, its ability to resist the tractor beam. Since my Cargo Increment rule already includes a system for reducing a ship's speed when it's loaded with cargo, this would also apply to the 1E Move Code.
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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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