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MrNexx
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Location: San Antonio
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 Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:30 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | MrNexx wrote: | | Could this be simulated with something like a Crybaby? Or even a communications droid? (I'm picturing something like a repurposed exploration droid, that would have good Sensors, both skills and on-board, and thus able to throw up the field). |
That's more like opposite ends of the high-tech vs. low tech spectrum. I'm looking to preserve the low-tech feel of a cloud of smoke in space, and while there is certainly a place for high-tech, I'd rather reserve that for something like what we saw in the Firefly pilot, where the Crybaby sends out a false distress signal to lure the cruiser away. |
From what I have seen, they'll stick a droid brain in ANYTHING in the Star Wars universe.
Computer? Droid brain.
Armor? Droid brain.
Ship? Give it a droid brain... no, three.
Heck, I'm pretty sure there are dildos with droid brains... and I'm not just talking about in the Senate. 
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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: Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:47 pm Post subject: |
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True, but anything with a droid brain is automatically more high-tech than a big cloud of burning ion flares throwing off sensor static.
It's also worth mentioning that there would be some sensors that can see through the screen. I see it being effective against EPRs, FSTs and DERs (and, to a lesser extent, LFIs), but CGTs and HSIs would be unaffected, as the static would be electromagnetic in nature, not gravitic.
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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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Argentsaber
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 07 Oct 2017
Posts: 127
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| Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 12:43 am Post subject: |
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| Has anyone considered just adapting the rules for smoke grenades? It seems like a natural fit to me. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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Thing is there's no real official rules FOR smoke grenades.. The closest we see anything mentioning modifiers for smoke is in the combat section under cover.. Nothing about 'how quickly a smoke grenade can make a 'cover modifier'. How long it lasts, how big it gets etc..
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:26 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Thing is there's no real official rules FOR smoke grenades.. The closest we see anything mentioning modifiers for smoke is in the combat section under cover.. Nothing about 'how quickly a smoke grenade can make a 'cover modifier'. How long it lasts, how big it gets etc.. |
I'd go with smoke grenades functioning essentially instantaneously (i.e. fast enough that the difference doesn't matter). For how big their area is, I'd go with the spread of a frag grenade... 2m radius of complete concealment (very thick smoke, +4D), dropping by 1 category up to 4m (Thick Smoke +2d), and 2 categories by 6m (Light smoke, +1D), and useless beyond that. If I wanted to get tricky, I'd have it dissipate at the rate of 1 pip per round, unless there was something to make it dissipate faster (so, after the first round, the center would be +3D+2; in 3 rounds, the 6m category would be gone, and the 4m category would be +1D, but it would take 12 rounds for the smoke to entirely dissipate from the center).
The pip tracking could get a little tricky (though, if lowering it got forgotten, I'd just say "Well, it lingered a bit longer than you expected"), but it's a simple set of rules that works with what we have.
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Naaman
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| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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That sounds pretty good.
FWIW, a smoke grenade can put out about 20m worth of smoke in optimum conditions. |
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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: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:36 pm Post subject: |
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The simplified rules in the ImpSB (under the stats for the CSPL) creates an area 40 meters across (20 meter radius) in which the smoke / gas has an equal effect. It works that way in World of Warships, too, with the smoke screen creating an area within which a ship can not be spotted. As for the effect, it could be as simple as applying a Cover Concealment equivalent dice penalty, like -4D to Sensors when trying to detect a target in a screen.
Another factor is that destroyers in WoW are relatively stealthy, and will often lay a smoke screen so as to break sensor contact, then sneak out the opposite side of the screen and be somewhere else while the screen is attracting attention. To pull this off requires being small and stealthy, yet there aren’t any rules for smaller ships being stealthy...
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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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MrNexx
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| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Another factor is that destroyers in WoW are relatively stealthy, and will often lay a smoke screen so as to break sensor contact, then sneak out the opposite side of the screen and be somewhere else while the screen is attracting attention. To pull this off requires being small and stealthy, yet there aren’t any rules for smaller ships being stealthy... |
I could see scale modifiers getting applied to some aspects of Sensors... it's easier to notice a Star Destroyer than it is a TIE Fighter.
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“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | Thing is there's no real official rules FOR smoke grenades.. The closest we see anything mentioning modifiers for smoke is in the combat section under cover.. Nothing about 'how quickly a smoke grenade can make a 'cover modifier'. How long it lasts, how big it gets etc.. |
I'd go with smoke grenades functioning essentially instantaneously (i.e. fast enough that the difference doesn't matter). For how big their area is, I'd go with the spread of a frag grenade... 2m radius of complete concealment (very thick smoke, +4D), dropping by 1 category up to 4m (Thick Smoke +2d), and 2 categories by 6m (Light smoke, +1D), and useless beyond that. If I wanted to get tricky, I'd have it dissipate at the rate of 1 pip per round, unless there was something to make it dissipate faster (so, after the first round, the center would be +3D+2; in 3 rounds, the 6m category would be gone, and the 4m category would be +1D, but it would take 12 rounds for the smoke to entirely dissipate from the center).
The pip tracking could get a little tricky (though, if lowering it got forgotten, I'd just say "Well, it lingered a bit longer than you expected"), but it's a simple set of rules that works with what we have. |
http://www.rancorpit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3348&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=smoke&start=0
Check out the above thread from 2011..
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Naaman
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| Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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| MrNexx wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | Another factor is that destroyers in WoW are relatively stealthy, and will often lay a smoke screen so as to break sensor contact, then sneak out the opposite side of the screen and be somewhere else while the screen is attracting attention. To pull this off requires being small and stealthy, yet there aren’t any rules for smaller ships being stealthy... |
I could see scale modifiers getting applied to some aspects of Sensors... it's easier to notice a Star Destroyer than it is a TIE Fighter. |
Excellent idea. |
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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: Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | | MrNexx wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | Another factor is that destroyers in WoW are relatively stealthy, and will often lay a smoke screen so as to break sensor contact, then sneak out the opposite side of the screen and be somewhere else while the screen is attracting attention. To pull this off requires being small and stealthy, yet there aren’t any rules for smaller ships being stealthy... |
I could see scale modifiers getting applied to some aspects of Sensors... it's easier to notice a Star Destroyer than it is a TIE Fighter. |
Excellent idea. |
Maybe as part of a graduated range system, but when combined with the RAW, that would give pretty much every Starfighter-Scale ship a +6D Stealth bonus against Capital Ships, and that's not something I want to incorporate in my game. Capital ships generally have much more powerful sensors with much greater ranges (the range is at least better represented in the RAW).
Not that smaller ships being harder to detect than larger ships - all other things being equal - is a bad idea; it just needs to be better applied...
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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.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 12:32 am Post subject: |
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If anything the bigger ships, since they push out more energy IN their sensor scanning, should make it harder for smaller ships to hide..
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 12:50 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | If anything the bigger ships, since they push out more energy IN their sensor scanning, should make it harder for smaller ships to hide.. |
I've been considering applying a -5 Difficulty Modifier to Sensors if the target is inside of 50% of the Sensors' max range, and a +10 out to 2x the Sensors' max range, so as to better represent how sensors work in real life without having to re-write all the stats to give Sensors Point Blank, Short, Medium and Long Range. So, for example, an ISD with a Scan Range of 100 at Easy Difficulty would be at Very Easy Difficulty inside 50 SUs, and at Difficult between 100 and 200 SUs.
Now, if the Scale Modifier to Sensors could be reduced to fit within those parameters, I could see it working. For instance, converting the Scale modifier from dice into pips, so that a 6D modifier between Starfighter and Capital Ship was a +6 to Difficulty, would be a better fit.
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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.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Naaman wrote: | | MrNexx wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | Another factor is that destroyers in WoW are relatively stealthy, and will often lay a smoke screen so as to break sensor contact, then sneak out the opposite side of the screen and be somewhere else while the screen is attracting attention. To pull this off requires being small and stealthy, yet there aren’t any rules for smaller ships being stealthy... |
I could see scale modifiers getting applied to some aspects of Sensors... it's easier to notice a Star Destroyer than it is a TIE Fighter. |
Excellent idea. |
Maybe as part of a graduated range system, but when combined with the RAW, that would give pretty much every Starfighter-Scale ship a +6D Stealth bonus against Capital Ships, and that's not something I want to incorporate in my game. Capital ships generally have much more powerful sensors with much greater ranges (the range is at least better represented in the RAW).
Not that smaller ships being harder to detect than larger ships - all other things being equal - is a bad idea; it just needs to be better applied... |
Good point. I was mostly thinking it would be easier to detect upscale... i.e. a positive modifier to your Sensors skill to detect big stuff... rather than a negative modifier to detect small stuff... though setting Standard Sensor resolution at Starfighter, making it harder to detect Walker or Speeder scale objects (escape pods, for example) might work.
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"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Posts: 16394
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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There already is, sort of. One of the modifiers listed under the Sensors skill is a +10 to the Sensors roll if the target is a Capital Ship, and +20 if the target is Death Star Scale. That very nearly fits with converting the Scale modifier on the 1D = 1 pip ratio I suggested above. For an universal sensor rule for the RAW, the modifiers would look like so:Character +0
Speeder +2
Walker +4
Starfighter +6
Capital Ship +12
Death Star +24
Conversely, using my Scale System, the modifiers would look like so:Character +0
Swoop +2
Speeder +4
Starfighter +6
Walker +8
Frigate +10
Destroyer +12
Dreadnought +16
Death Star +24
There is also a +30 modifier for stellar objects, such as stars, black holes, nebula, etc.
So, while the above modifiers would certainly make it easier for a Character-Scale Sensor Pack to detect, say, a Capital Ship, it also lacks the range to be able to do so usefully (i.e. by the time you pick it up on Sensors, there's a pretty good chance you can already see it with the naked eye).
_________________
"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.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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