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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: Fri Jan 05, 2018 1:45 am Post subject: The Geometry of Maneuvers |
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What method do you use to resolve how many SUs or Meters a ship/vehicle moves during a Maneuver?
For instance, when performing a 90 degree turn while moving at Full Speed, does an X-Wing move forward 16 SUs, then make a 90-degree turn, or does it move forward 8 SUs, make a 90 degree turn, then move forward another 8 SUs? Or do you use something more esoteric?
Or, to make it even more complicated, if the pilot/driver executes a 180-degree turn, where do you put the angles? Two 5 SU legs connected by two 90-degree turns and a 6 SU leg?
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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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Naaman
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| Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 4:15 am Post subject: |
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Our games literally have never dealt with this. A faster ship is faster (so it gets away or catches up when both ships are at wide open throttle).
A higher maneuverability roll (reactions skill or whatever) out maneuvers the lower one. The effect desired is achieved by the player if the roll succeeds.
Now... this could be a problem depending on the scenario and the gaming group... for us, it never once came up. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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I run it like b/tech, where the player moves his ship, performing the maneuver.. Moving costs 1 'su' on the map per hex gone, and each 'hex face (45/90/135/180) costs one move. So in that case of the fighter going 16, he could move 3 forward, do a 90 turn (2su cost), go 2 more hexes for a 'half move'..
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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: Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Naaman wrote: | Our games literally have never dealt with this. A faster ship is faster (so it gets away or catches up when both ships are at wide open throttle).
A higher maneuverability roll (reactions skill or whatever) out maneuvers the |
Yes, but a faster ship is going to cover much more distance per round than would a slower ship. For example, an SR-71 at Mach 3.2 requires over 160 kilometers to affect a 180 degree turn, and take about 4 minutes to do it. A Cessna traveling a fraction of that speed can turn itself around much more quickly and requires much less area in which to do it.
So, in the event of something like, say, a strafing run by a TIE Fighter, it's important to know how many meters it covers in a turn, which affects how fast it can go...
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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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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: Fri Jan 05, 2018 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I run it like b/tech, where the player moves his ship, performing the maneuver.. Moving costs 1 'su' on the map per hex gone, and each 'hex face (45/90/135/180) costs one move. So in that case of the fighter going 16, he could move 3 forward, do a 90 turn (2su cost), go 2 more hexes for a 'half move'.. |
But a six-sided hex doesn't readily lend itself to Maneuvers that are based on a four-sided square (divided into fire arcs by the facing of the square).
Based on the Movement rules, I've always allowed a ship to make a course heading anywhere within their Front Arc (i.e. upto 45 degrees off the bow) as a Free Action as part of the Move. Turning into either the Left or Right Fire Arcs (turns of up to 135 degrees) count as Extreme Turns.
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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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garhkal
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: |
So, in the event of something like, say, a strafing run by a TIE Fighter, it's important to know how many meters it covers in a turn, which affects how fast it can go... |
That's one thing adnd had good, was maneuverability class for flying creatures, which told you how far they had to move before and after turning before they could turn again and the like..
| CRMcNeill wrote: |
But a six-sided hex doesn't readily lend itself to Maneuvers that are based on a four-sided square (divided into fire arcs by the facing of the square).
Based on the Movement rules, I've always allowed a ship to make a course heading anywhere within their Front Arc (i.e. upto 45 degrees off the bow) as a Free Action as part of the Move. Turning into either the Left or Right Fire Arcs (turns of up to 135 degrees) count as Extreme Turns. |
Maybe not, but most game systems do use a 6 side hex for maneuvering i've seen. So it imo was easier to adapt that, than come up with my own for SW..
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Naaman
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 5:16 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Naaman wrote: | Our games literally have never dealt with this. A faster ship is faster (so it gets away or catches up when both ships are at wide open throttle).
A higher maneuverability roll (reactions skill or whatever) out maneuvers the |
Yes, but a faster ship is going to cover much more distance per round than would a slower ship. For example, an SR-71 at Mach 3.2 requires over 160 kilometers to affect a 180 degree turn, and take about 4 minutes to do it. A Cessna traveling a fraction of that speed can turn itself around much more quickly and requires much less area in which to do it.
So, in the event of something like, say, a strafing run by a TIE Fighter, it's important to know how many meters it covers in a turn, which affects how fast it can go... |
Yes and no. Let the declared speed at which the maneuver is attempted affect the difficulty of the maneuver. I also, long ago, suggested a maximum performance cap for vehicles so that certain things would literally be impossible with some vehicles, regardless of operator skill.
I get where you're going with this, but at this stage in the discussion, it feels like a solution in need of a problem.
OTOH, if you've got a space-battle heavy campaign, where tactical maneuvering is central to thegame, this bears consideration, IMO. |
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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 Jan 06, 2018 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | That's one thing adnd had good, was maneuverability class for flying creatures, which told you how far they had to move before and after turning before they could turn again and the like.. |
I'm trying to do something similar with Maneuverability penalties based on Scale differences. If a larger scale ship attempts to perform the same maneuver as a smaller scale ship, it suffers a penalty equal to the difference in their scale modifiers, which rolls off at a rate of 2D per round. For example, if a YT-1300 is being pursued by an ISD, and the YT makes a 90 degree turn, the ISD suffers a -6D penalty if it attempts to make the same turn. If it waits one round, the penalty drops to -4D, and then to -2D the round after that. Only by the third round can the ISD make the turn unpenalized, but by the third round, it will have traveled an additional 36-72 SUs down its original course before it can make a normal course change (although per the rules, it could conceivably make two consecutive 45 degree turns as part of its Move, and be back on the YT's tail within two rounds).
Obviously, a rule like this makes larger ships a lot easier to avoid, and also increases the necessity and utility of starfighters and ships like Assault Shuttles and Blastboats aboard ISDs, as their smaller Scale will allow them to stay with enemy vessels in a maneuvering pursuit. It also makes for a
| Quote: | | Maybe not, but most game systems do use a 6 side hex for maneuvering i've seen. So it imo was easier to adapt that, than come up with my own for SW.. |
How do you adapt the left and right side fire arcs? IIRC, all the Renegade Legion variants used hex-maps as well, so there might be some pointers there, especially since the game is subdivided into systems for vehicle, fighter and capital ship combat respectively...
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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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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 2:23 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: |
How do you adapt the left and right side fire arcs? IIRC, all the Renegade Legion variants used hex-maps as well, so there might be some pointers there, especially since the game is subdivided into systems for vehicle, fighter and capital ship combat respectively... |
F
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Not that good at drawing...
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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Joined: 25 Mar 2016
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Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 11:33 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: |
How do you adapt the left and right side fire arcs? IIRC, all the Renegade Legion variants used hex-maps as well, so there might be some pointers there, especially since the game is subdivided into systems for vehicle, fighter and capital ship combat respectively... |
F
Fl H Fr
L R
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Not that good at drawing... |
ASCII is s*** for drawing, especially when they omit spaces
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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 Jan 08, 2018 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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Anyway, based on the RAW's four fire arcs, I could see a consensus on this being helpful for GMs in mapping out chase scenes in tight quarters, such as canyons, cave complexes or artificial tunnels, as seen in many of the films. Knowing how far a ship at a given speed will move will allow the GM to make better estimations of relative Difficulty of Maneuvers.
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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
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:23 am Post subject: |
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I did up something for my campaign a few years ago, based on the moment rules from Star Warriors, and the maneuver examples in the Sorucebooks, but simplified.
In a nutshell, rather than treating each maneuver as a separate action (with MAPs) each maneuver added to a running total which was rolled against. Most maneuvers didn't use up any SU of movement. The exception were maneuvers where the vehicle went vertical (loops and half loops) since the vehicle was moving, but stayed in the same square on the battle map.
We even did some stuff like race tracks where the inner lanes were shorter, but but required sharper turns, and the outer lanes were longer but the turns more gradual. So racers had to decide just how fast they could go and how tight a turn they could pull off.
I had something in there for scale, too. It pretty much limited capital ships to the slow ponderous maneuver we see in the films.
One of the other things I did with it was pushed any maneuver failure results into the next turn's difficulty, so we didn't have to go back and alter or take away part of a vehicle's movement >it worked out fairly well, too. Rather than a fighter spinning out of control the second someone tried to turn it, the increasing difficulty lead to the fighter becoming increasingly harder to control.At times players (and NPCs) would actually reduce speed in oder to be able to make a turn or regain control of a of an erratic ship.
All in all it was pretty simple, and I know I have to handout I did for the players on computer. Somewhere. |
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yomama360
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| atgxtg, I'm actually working (trying to work) on something similar. Using hex grids but not as complex as Star Warriors. I would be interested to see what you came up with. Thanks |
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garhkal
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garhkal
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2018 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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Just switch out right arm/left arm for "port side weapons/starboard side weapons"..
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