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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 Jun 06, 2011 1:36 pm Post subject: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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Say, for whatever reason, your character is being shot at by a Starfighter-Scale laser cannon. With current scale rules, there is a pretty good chance that the character can dodge the shot. However, with the level of damage being inflicted (most likely to some object in close proximity to the character), there is a definite chance that the character would be caught in the blast radius of whatever object actually did get hit by the laser blast. What rules have you used to deal with this?
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Praxian
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 190
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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I typically increase the radius depending on the scale.
personal weapons = a small spot (typically the target in the hex it's being aimed at)
Vehicle Weapons = 2 hex radius area
starfighter weapons = 5 hex radius area
capital ships = 15 hex radius area
and death star weapons wipe out everything in a small city area. |
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| And how big is your hex? |
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Praxian
Lieutenant Commander
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Posts: 190
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | And how big is your hex? |
The Hexes that you would see on Battle-mats (so typically 1-inch I believe is the standard scale here in the US) |
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Bren
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Praxian wrote: | | Bren wrote: | | And how big is your hex? |
The Hexes that you would see on Battle-mats (so typically 1-inch I believe is the standard scale here in the US) |
I meant to scale. Typically I use 1 inch hexes as 2 meters for individual miniatures at close range, but for ship-to-ship 1 hex is the size of a pretty large ship so 15 hexes would exceed the range of some weapons. So we must mean different things by hexes.
Also, I would think for most beam weapons the blast effect will do less damage outside the actual area hit which even for capital weapons seems less than 1/3 meter in diameter, think of the weapon bores on the ship broadsides at the beginning of RotS for a sample diameter. Even with only 2 meter hexes a capital weapon doing full damage to a 30 meter radius circle would blow holes in ships wide enough to fly two X-wings through at the same time. That seems a bit excessive. Perhaps something that reduces the damage 1-2D per some unit of distance (like with grenades) might be a more reasonable effect. |
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:28 pm Post subject: Re: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Say, for whatever reason, your character is being shot at by a Starfighter-Scale laser cannon. With current scale rules, there is a pretty good chance that the character can dodge the shot. However, with the level of damage being inflicted (most likely to some object in close proximity to the character), there is a definite chance that the character would be caught in the blast radius of whatever object actually did get hit by the laser blast. What rules have you used to deal with this? |
Weapons vary so greatly that I don't use any standardized rules for dealing with this. For laser cannons, I'd probably give 1 m radius per D damage at Starfighter scale.
For concussion missiles it may be more like 100 m radius per D damage.
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
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Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 5:57 pm Post subject: Re: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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| Fallon Kell wrote: | | For concussion missiles it may be more like 100 m radius per D damage. |
So an 8D concussion missile wipes out everything in a 160 meter diameter circle? 
EDIT: Sorry I miss calculated, thats a 1.6KM diameter circle.
Last edited by Bren on Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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In the Sparks realm, we usually go with a 2 cat reduction in BR for large grenades (so a TD successfully dodged from 0-2m blast radius would go to the 10-14m iirc)..
I would put a SF scale laser (say an Xwing) as having a
full DR out from 0-3m
-2d out from 3-5m
-4d out from 5-7m
-7d out from 7-10m
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16326
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:16 pm Post subject: Re: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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| Fallon Kell wrote: | Weapons vary so greatly that I don't use any standardized rules for dealing with this. For laser cannons, I'd probably give 1 m radius per D damage at Starfighter scale.
For concussion missiles it may be more like 100 m radius per D damage. |
So what scale would that damage be? After all, with a linear energy blast, the majority of the damage inflicted will be the result of shrapnel effects from whatever was struck by the energy beam?
And how do you translate SF-scale energy blasts and blast radii into Character scale terms and distances.
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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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atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 2460
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:26 pm Post subject: Re: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Say, for whatever reason, your character is being shot at by a Starfighter-Scale laser cannon. With current scale rules, there is a pretty good chance that the character can dodge the shot. However, with the level of damage being inflicted (most likely to some object in close proximity to the character), there is a definite chance that the character would be caught in the blast radius of whatever object actually did get hit by the laser blast. What rules have you used to deal with this? |
That is a good question. But, would laser cannons have a blast radius, or is the damage coming from the target exploding?
For missiles and other area effect wepaons, I'd be incldined to cheat and just subtract the falling damage dice from the weapon's damage, treating the height as the range. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16326
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:43 pm Post subject: Re: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | That is a good question. But, would laser cannons have a blast radius, or is the damage coming from the target exploding? |
Definitely from the target exploding. Same principle as large bullets; it may just go whizzing by, but if it hits something nearby, whatever gets hit is going to throw off shrapnel from the impact, which means the character has a definite chance of getting hit by it.
| Quote: | | For missiles and other area effect wepaons, I'd be incldined to cheat and just subtract the falling damage dice from the weapon's damage, treating the height as the range. |
Hmmm. I'll have to look at that.
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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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atgxtg
Rear Admiral
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 3:18 pm Post subject: Re: Scale vs. Blast Radius |
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| crmcneill wrote: |
Definitely from the target exploding. Same principle as large bullets; it may just go whizzing by, but if it hits something nearby, whatever gets hit is going to throw off shrapnel from the impact, which means the character has a definite chance of getting hit by it. |
Okay. Now are we thinking "shapnel as shrapnel" or as energy/plasma thrown off? For example, the difference between a piece flying off, the blater bolt richocheting, or the secondary blast that a tank round gives off when it hits the target?
I know I'm nitpicking, but what I'm getting at is:
Is the attack physical or energy?
Is it a area effect/explosion that should effect everyone within a set radius, or just the odd piece that could hit one guy?
| Quote: |
Hmmm. I'll have to look at that. |
Like I said it was a cheat. It is quick and dirty, and probably a bit too forgiving, but then so are grenades in the RPG.
What I would like to do is work out a blast radius for an attack based on it's damage dice (in character scale). Damage would drop off for each doubling or so of the radius until you ran out of dice. Something like what the newer D6 games do. |
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Praxian
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 30 Mar 2010
Posts: 190
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Praxian wrote: | | Bren wrote: | | And how big is your hex? |
The Hexes that you would see on Battle-mats (so typically 1-inch I believe is the standard scale here in the US) |
I meant to scale. Typically I use 1 inch hexes as 2 meters for individual miniatures at close range, but for ship-to-ship 1 hex is the size of a pretty large ship so 15 hexes would exceed the range of some weapons. So we must mean different things by hexes.
Also, I would think for most beam weapons the blast effect will do less damage outside the actual area hit which even for capital weapons seems less than 1/3 meter in diameter, think of the weapon bores on the ship broadsides at the beginning of RotS for a sample diameter. Even with only 2 meter hexes a capital weapon doing full damage to a 30 meter radius circle would blow holes in ships wide enough to fly two X-wings through at the same time. That seems a bit excessive. Perhaps something that reduces the damage 1-2D per some unit of distance (like with grenades) might be a more reasonable effect. |
Not sure how I missed your response - lol. Anyways, they're character scale unless the PC's are in space. |
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Bren
Vice Admiral
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Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Praxian wrote: | | Not sure how I missed your response - lol. Anyways, they're character scale unless the PC's are in space. |
And I thought I had a large game room. For ship to ship combat that is one big battle map.  |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16326
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Praxian wrote: | | Not sure how I missed your response - lol. Anyways, they're character scale unless the PC's are in space. |
And I thought I had a large game room. For ship to ship combat that is one big battle map. :wink: |
That's why I prefer to use estimated ranges instead of hex maps, with counters just used to keep track of general location.
_________________
"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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