Martial Arts iiinnn ssspppaaaccceee!!! Which style is flexible enough?

[Xavier Onassiss]

Another question about unarmed combat for a science-fiction campaign. The campaign I'm working on doesn't have artificial gravity, and most of the action takes place off-world. As a result, space habitats using spin-gravity will be very common in this setting, and zero-g will be equally common.

I'm working on rules and martial arts styles specifically for zero-g and for spin-gravity, and that's going fairly well. But those styles are for specialists -- people who need to defend themselves in zero-gravity, or fight inside rotating space habs.

(For the curious, I got the idea for a spin-g martial arts style from one of the stories in the Man-Kzin Wars series. There's a dramatic scene inside a rotating asteroid colony where a kzinti attacks a local; he uses the asteroid's spin to throw off his attacker's timing just enough to escape with his life.)

However, I'd like to know if there's a more generally useful martial style, one flexible enough to be adapted to the wide variety of conditions in this campaign: "normal" gravity, spin gravity, and zero gravity. If you had to pick a martial art to be used in all these environments...

1) which style would it be?
2) how would it be adapted?

Or is this whole question just complete nonsense?

[lapsedgamer]

I would start from an "art" like Krav Maga or the Marine Corps Martial Arts system. Anything similar to Commando Training really. You figure the people who are going to be fighting in space are generally going to be looking to end things quickly.

What would bring about the need to fight another person in space? Mostly this would have to be some sort of life or death combat situation. You figure that just as in the early days of aviation most early interplanetary spacecraft on different sides of a political dispute would generally ignore each other. Eventually someone would start shooting at each other at range.

At some point, the concept of boarding another person's spacecraft or habitat comes up. Who is generally going to be called in to come up with a plan for this? Rangers and or other Special Forces types.

Knowing that the gravity will be variable or absent, they would rely on moves that do not rely on large body movements. I would assume that the goal would be to close with the enemy and attach yourself. At that point you would use gouging, knives and choking. In certain limited situations , where possible arm locks and the like. However, they would have to come up with some techniques that allow you to trap someone in a corner and use the surfaces within the habitat for leverage. This is sounding a lot like ground fighting.

However there is no real ground and pound, because there's no or little gravity. It would be more like "trap and cap" or "grip him and rip him". So add some grappling maneuvers to a commando system and require environmental movement as a required skill. If you had a true spacer, you would have to make him buy use art in gravity as a additional familiarity.

I think spin gravity is just another familiarity and or environmental movement skill, but YMMV

Also, I would look at some of the stuff that folks did to grapple in armor back in the day. Think about how cumbersome a lot of space suits are. I think they would definitely come up with some sort of long stabbing blade or even something like a palm pistol that you put right up to someone's suit and put rounds directly into the body mass or head. Something with caseless ammo. No oxygen needed. No jamming from being out of battery.

I could see space commandos using compression suits instead of full on space suits for mobility. You figure they are only planning to be exposed for x amount of time, and they wouldn't want to be bothered with a bulky suit.

[Old Man]

Wing Chun and Muay Thai for strikes and grab/strikes that work at close range and don't necessarily need a lot of footwork. Jiujitsu and shootfighting for chokes and locks that can work without contact with the ground. More cinematically, maybe capoeira and TKD for flashy circular kicks that might somehow take advantage of a spinning environment.

[Cancer]

Under what sort of circumstances will your game-world make real HtH combat happen? Will it ever happen, excepting perhaps personal disputes? Or do you expect more or less nothing in microgravity to survive the exchange of heavy firepower (and with relative velocities more or less guaranteed to be on the order of kilometers per second, I'd go to that), in which case infantry combat will be limited to perhaps airless but still gravity-influenced planetary surface environments?

[Xavier Onassiss]

Under what sort of circumstances will your game-world make real HtH combat happen? Will it ever happen, excepting perhaps personal disputes? Or do you expect more or less nothing in microgravity to survive the exchange of heavy firepower (and with relative velocities more or less guaranteed to be on the order of kilometers per second, I'd go to that), in which case infantry combat will be limited to perhaps airless but still gravity-influenced planetary surface environments?

Melee combat will probably end up being more frequent than expected. Many artificial habitats will have bans on firearms, and the scanning technology to enforce such laws. The same thinking applies on most spacecraft, for obvious reasons. The scenario I'm working on for GenCon involves a mutiny on board a spacecraft, and most of the crew are unarmed. (It's not a troop-carrier, sidearms are locked up.) So definitely some melee combat happening there!

There will also be non-lethal weaponry in the campaign, but that's a different topic.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Regarding spin-gravity:

The important thing to remember is that some spin-habs are going to be rather small. The smallest case would be a medium-sized spacecraft with a rotating hull, about 60m in diameter, spinning at three revs per minute, for about one-third of a G. (Any faster than that, and you'll have a rather dizzy crew.) The 'floor' moves at about 10m per second. Now put a couple of Hero characters in melee here; they're both SPD 3 and have 16m of running. (8m half-move; which is 2m per second given an average of 4 seconds per movement phase.)

Let's say the Attacker makes a half-move with the spin to approach the Defender. He's adding his movement speed to the rotation; therefore he'll feel heavier; he goes from 1/3 to almost 1/2 G! He's going to hit lower and harder. (Assuming he knows what he's doing.)

In the opposite case, the Attacker approaches a Defender against the spin, and his movement counters the spin-gravity; by the time he reaches his target, he feels slightly more than 1/5 of a G. He loses momentum but he can gain a lot of height, if he so chooses.

Now let's turn things around again; what can the Defender do? Against an Attacker approaching from up-spin, he's at a disadvantage, but he can use the Attacker's extra weight to trip him up, and put him on the ground. Against an Attacker approaching from down-spin, the Defender has the advantage; the Attacker's footing is bad due to his reduced weight. He'll be easier to throw, but it probably won't do as much damage.

(Disclaimer: the above is all written purely from a 'physics 101' viewpoint. I'm not a martial arts wonk.)

A good spin-G martial art style should capitalize on these effects; with lots of passing/flying, and other moves that take advantage of movement. It will also have a good assortment of throws to use against opponents who aren't spin-G adapted and make the mistake of moving around too much.

Note that larger spin-habs will be designed to simulate 1G at 1rpm. The above characters would feel gravity variations of +/- 10% (at most) when making full moves in combat. Much smaller effects than the first example, but still enough to make a difference in a fight.

All calculations for spin gravity were made using this handy online utility.

[Susano]

See? This is why you need lightsabers. They're a far more elegant weapon from a more civilized age. And not as clumsily or random as a blaster.

[Xavier Onassiss]

See? This is why you need lightsabers. They're a far more elegant weapon from a more civilized age. And not as clumsily or random as a blaster.

Laser katanas are better.

Edited to add:

[Cancer]

Though the viscosity of water makes the comparison less than fully apt, HtH between swimmers (especially swimmers at depth) has some similarity to microgravity. Now most combats like that which I've seen depicted invariably end up with combatants targeting the other's breather; with a pressure suit with high-impact bubble helmet and safe breather design this won't be an issue, and in a pressurized microgravity environment it's irrelevant entirely. Still, that's where astronauts are trained for space duty now, underwater.

[Kraven Kor]

I'd say Jiu-Jitsu or any art heavy in grappling, trapping, joint locks, throws, etc. Martial Dodge, Martial Throw, Sacrifice Throw, Throw-By, etc.

[Susano]

I'd say Jiu-Jitsu or any art heavy in grappling, trapping, joint locks, throws, etc. Martial Dodge, Martial Throw, Sacrifice Throw, Throw-By, etc.

While any grappling style will be useful... I'm not sure if throws will. In microgravity you send both people flying and in reduced gravity you don't do any impact damage.

[Xavier Onassiss]

While any grappling style will be useful... I'm not sure if throws will. In microgravity you send both people flying and in reduced gravity you don't do any impact damage.

True. However, keep in mind I'm interested in styles versatile enough to work in micro-, spin-, and normal gravity... if possible. So, a style with both grapples and throws isn't out of the question.

[Susano]

True. However, keep in mind I'm interested in styles versatile enough to work in micro-, spin-, and normal gravity... if possible. So, a style with both grapples and throws isn't out of the question.

Brazilian ju-jitsu?

[Escafarc]

Is there some reason that you are not using the Zero Gravity Combat Style from HSMA page 235? And I think in one of the 5E books there was also a Zero-G stlye.

[Susano]

Is there some reason that you are not using the Zero Gravity Combat Style from HSMA page 235? And I think in one of the 5E books there was also a Zero-G stlye.

Grady won't get his copy of HSMA until GenCon.