Any Good Hero System Examples of Starship Combat?

[C-Note]

The plethora of rules options make ship to ship combat laborious.  Are there any examples of starship combat using Hero rules?

Some questions: 

What if the crew (the players) have different SPDs than the ship? What effect does that have?

Can the ship make a full move and the gunners still fire?

If the ship is travelling at non-combat speed, can the gunners still fire? Will they suffer the same non-combat OCV penalty as the ship?

If a ship has multiple weapons, can they all be fired at once? Combined Attack or Multiple Attack?

etc.

 

Star Hero makes reference to a book, "Hero System Vehicles", which doesn't seem to exist.

[Doc Democracy]

You should chase down the dog-fighting rules from the original Justice Inc (I think). I remember having a lot of fun with those.

[IndianaJoe3]

You should chase down the dog-fighting rules from the original Justice Inc (I think). I remember having a lot of fun with those.

 

How close are they to the ones in APG 1?

[bigdamnhero]

Star Hero makes reference to a book, "Hero System Vehicles", which doesn't seem to exist.

The full name is the Hero System Vehicle Sourcebook. It gets a fair amount of use in my games.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/store/product/267-hero-system-vehicle-sourcebook-bookpdf/

There's also The Ultimate Vehicle, which has more rules & design discussion; the Sourcebook is just sample vehicles.

[zslane]

6e Star Hero is probably referring to the final volume of the 6e "core library", which unfortunately never got published. Instead, you have to make do with the 5e books bigdamnhero refers to.

[bigdamnhero]

The plethora of rules options make ship to ship combat laborious.

I think the key is to narrow down which options you want to use to tailor your game to the technology of your gameverse and the style of play you want. If you try and use all the options, yeah things can bog down.

 

There are rules for if the pilot's SPD differs from the ship's, but most characters will act on their Phases, so they may be firing, etc on different Phases than the ship moves. Any modifiers from ship maneuvers, etc. remain in effect between movement Phases.

 

We normally let the ship make full moves and let the gunners still shoot, especially if it's different crew members doing different actions.

 

I haven't ever used NCM for ships, but if you allow it then yeah the gunners should probably have the usual penalty or else there's no downside. I'm not sure how that makes sense from an sfx standpoint tho.

 

The way I typically play it is each crew member can fire one weapon per phase, or do Multiple Attacks at the usual penalties. So if you have enough crew you can fire all the guns at once. But it really depends on how you see the tech working in your gameverse: if everything is computer controlled, it may not matter.

 

Bottom line: decide what you want space combat to look like in your game, and use the rules that support that.

[Netzilla]

If the pilot's speed is lower than the ship's the ship can only maneuver on the pilot's phases. The ship will travel straight forward on it's 'uncontrolled' phases.

 

If the pilot is faster than the ship, the ship can still only maneuver on its phases, but the pilot will have extra phases for doing non-pilot things.

 

Either way, the pilot must dedicate a 1/2 action each of his phases to controlling the ship.

 

Gunners act and fire guns on their own phases, regardless of the ship's speed. However, they are still subject to any OCV mods from the ship's maneuvers. So, if you have enough gunners, you can keep all the ship's guns firing.

 

All of the above is from memory, so I reserve the right to be wrong.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Someone needs to come up with Starship combat which differs from dogfighting. Maybe something that breaks down into different "phases" of command/tactics, sensors/electronics, maneuvering, attacking/defending, damage control etc. Then everyone on a ship gets actions during a Turn which helps to simulate what everyone on a ship is doing at any given moment.

[bigdamnhero]

Someone needs to come up with Starship combat which differs from dogfighting. Maybe something that breaks down into different "phases" of command/tactics, sensors/electronics, maneuvering, attacking/defending, damage control etc. Then everyone on a ship gets actions during a Turn which helps to simulate what everyone on a ship is doing at any given moment.

Can't you pretty-much do that with the base rules? Whoever is responsible for sensors acts on their Phase, whoever is responsible for maneuvering goes on their Phase, etc.

 

If I ever run the Big Space Opera Campaign I have in my head, I've thought about melding in a set of SF miniatures rules like Full Thrust, using them similar to the FH Mass Combat rules. The challenge is games like Full Thrust are focused on the fleet level, and lose granularity at the level of individual crew actions.

[Doc Democracy]

How close are they to the ones in APG 1?

I have no idea...need to compare and contrast...

[Jhaierr]

Someone needs to come up with Starship combat which differs from dogfighting. Maybe something that breaks down into different "phases" of command/tactics, sensors/electronics, maneuvering, attacking/defending, damage control etc. Then everyone on a ship gets actions during a Turn which helps to simulate what everyone on a ship is doing at any given moment.

 

This exists in Star Hero 5th edition, exactly as described. It did not seem to survive the move to Star Hero 6E. I suppose this was planned for Hero System Vehicles 6E, but that was never made?

[Christougher]

From memory (trust that as you will), the dogifghting rules in APG 1 are the same as from 4E/5E.  A lot of the APG stuff is previously written items that didn't make it into the main rulebook.

 

I've been working bit by bit on my Masters of Orion space campaign.  One of its planned features was to separate a lot of the combat mechanics, to spread it across /players/ so that everyone had something to do in ship to ship combat.

 

Pilot: Moves the ship.

Tactical: Assigns ship-based levels.

Sensors: PER rolls to lock on enemies.

Missiles: Makes Attack Rolls.

Gunner: Makes Attack Rolls

Weapons: Makes Damage Rolls.

Countermeasures: ECM, Point Defense.

Engineering: END management, Pushing.

Shields: Shield/Armor damage.

Damage Control: Repairs

 

Chris.

[Nolgroth]

I used pretty much the same kind of thing in my old space opera game. Combats took a long time because we were using the Terran Empire write-ups, but the "battle stations" model worked well. Kept everybody engaged.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I used pretty much the same kind of thing in my old space opera game. Combats took a long time because we were using the Terran Empire write-ups, but the "battle stations" model worked well. Kept everybody engaged.

Could those ships even damage each other?

[Nolgroth]

Yes, because of the presence of Ablative defenses. It just took several turns before the shields dropped and the damage began to wear on the hull. Some battles were painful.

[Old Man]

From memory (trust that as you will), the dogifghting rules in APG 1 are the same as from 4E/5E.  A lot of the APG stuff is previously written items that didn't make it into the main rulebook.

 

I've been working bit by bit on my Masters of Orion space campaign.  One of its planned features was to separate a lot of the combat mechanics, to spread it across /players/ so that everyone had something to do in ship to ship combat.

 

Pilot: Moves the ship.

Tactical: Assigns ship-based levels.

Sensors: PER rolls to lock on enemies.

Missiles: Makes Attack Rolls.

Gunner: Makes Attack Rolls

Weapons: Makes Damage Rolls.

Countermeasures: ECM, Point Defense.

Engineering: END management, Pushing.

Shields: Shield/Armor damage.

Damage Control: Repairs

 

Chris.

 

This is a good start but remember to emphasize decisions and teamwork.  Should the helmsman steady the ship so the gunner can make more accurate shots, or evade so as not to be a sitting duck?  Should the engineer divert what energy he has to weapons, engines, or shields?  Should the science officer scan the enemy ship or jam their sensors?  And what exactly are the implications of failed or successful skill rolls?  This kind of interaction between all the PCs' jobs is what needs to be fleshed out in Hero.

[Xavier Onassiss]

This is a good start but remember to emphasize decisions and teamwork.  Should the helmsman steady the ship so the gunner can make more accurate shots, or evade so as not to be a sitting duck?  Should the engineer divert what energy he has to weapons, engines, or shields?  Should the science officer scan the enemy ship or jam their sensors?  And what exactly are the implications of failed or successful skill rolls?  This kind of interaction between all the PCs' jobs is what needs to be fleshed out in Hero.

 

 

I'd adapt the rules for Complimentary skill rolls for this: +1 for every 2 points of success on the assisting character's skill roll.

[Vanguard]

The plethora of rules options make ship to ship combat laborious.  Are there any examples of starship combat using Hero rules?

Some questions: 

What if the crew (the players) have different SPDs than the ship? What effect does that have?

Can the ship make a full move and the gunners still fire?

If the ship is travelling at non-combat speed, can the gunners still fire? Will they suffer the same non-combat OCV penalty as the ship?

If a ship has multiple weapons, can they all be fired at once? Combined Attack or Multiple Attack?

etc.

 

Star Hero makes reference to a book, "Hero System Vehicles", which doesn't seem to exist.

 

If the pilot has a different speed than the starship then he has a choice to make.  If the ship has a greater SPD than he does, he has to decide if he should operate it at it's full SPD or reduce the ship's SPD to his own.  If he does, then there's no real issue.  If he doesn't, then the ship does what Netzilla said. It will also automatically crash, or have something else bad happen, if a Control roll is needed on a phases that doesn't correspond with the pilots. But again, this is only if the ship is operating on a different SPD.

 

It doesn't matter what the crew's SPD is as they are operating independently of the ship.  They can fire weapon systems, control repair terminals etc.

 

The ship can make a full move and the gunners till fire. After all, they aren't moving, the ship is. Now the pilot  might not be able to do anything as he's controlling the ship.

 

Gunners can still fire if the ship is moving and NCM but they will suffer the penalties. And with the speeds that some ships travel when moving NCM, the chance of them hitting their target is pretty much nil.

 

I can't recall what the RAW state, but for ships with multiple weapons, if they're individually fired by (N)PCs, I don't count them as Multiple Attacks.  If the ship's Computer is firing them, then I do.  

 

As for the vehicle book that was mentioned, it's already been said that it was the last part of the "core" 6e books that never made it to print.

 

The Ultimate Vehicle. while a 5e book, is still very useful and doesn't take much if any, modification to be used with 6e.

[Jhaierr]

I kind of wish we could have a small Kickstarter to get the Ultimate Vehicle published for 6th edition... at least in PDF.