Starships - Should Large Ship Hitting Smaller Ships be Harder?

[Gauntlet]

Removed

Edited August 8 by Gauntlet
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[Chris Goodwin]

 

The size based difficulty in hitting a target should be based on the target's size.  The attackers size should have nothing to do with it.  That said, it is slightly possible that a big enough attacker could be attacking a target in its own hex and still be hundreds or more meters from the target.  Use common sense.

 

16 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

I only played Robot Warriors a few times, and don’t really remember the rules that well.  What I do remember is that the vehicles were built with mass units not points like normal champions.  From what I remember the cost in MU scaled up so larger vehicles tended to have much higher armor values and their weapons did a lot more damage.  This meant smaller scale vehicles had a harder time damaging the larger vehicles.   So, attacking a vehicle that was too many sizes larger was usually a waste of time.  When the larger vehicle used and area of effect attack, they actually did not have trouble hitting, because the smaller vehicle could not get out of the area.  

 

With Robot Warriors there are three factors at play:

• BODY increases at +3 BODY per 2x robot mass
• DEF increases at +1 DEF per 2x armor mass, with an initial penalty equal to the robot's Size Class, due to making the same amount of armor material cover more area
• The penetration table permits individual system/hardware disabling with attacks that get through defenses.

The Robot Warriors rules aren't necessary to use the rules in the document link I posted.

Edited August 8 by Chris Goodwin

[Gauntlet]

The only problem I have found with Robot Warriors is due to the difference in point variables it is hard to utilize them it in any type of game other than an actual vehicle combat game (like a Hero Based Battletech game).

[Duke Bushido]

On 8/8/2024 at 2:07 AM, Gauntlet said:

The way you are all stating is that small craft have no chance of even damaging a larger ship. So should an Apache Attack chopper go up against a Destroyer then it has no chance of even damaging the Destroyer. But then again in real life a Destroyer will be extremely worried about an Apache as they have enough firepower to absolutely sink a Destroyer, yet they are tiny in comparison.

 

Right.  The missiles carried by thw helicopter are weapons designed to tackle larger size classes.  Similarly, these missiles will vaporize another helicopter, but only put holes in  aircraft carriers.  They are weapons deaigned to take out size classes above the helicopter they are mounted to. 

 

 

 

On 8/8/2024 at 2:07 AM, Gauntlet said:

In Star Wars the Death Star was the size of a moon, yet they still considered a small group of enemy fighters to be a threat

 

The Devil is in the details. Now I am in the minority of this country: I have only seen Star Wars twice: once in a  theater back ib the seventies, and again ten or so years ago when my kids were little and wanted to see it (it fills pop culture even today, after all).  Turns out I still hate it.

 

 

But I remember several things about it (mostly the pain caused trying to figure out how Peter Cushing and Alex Guiness got suckered into this).  And I remember three things- three (I thought) well-placed and well-flowing (ie, some very small bits of actual real-sounding dialogue that somehow snuck past Lucas and into his otherwise cumbersome character interactions) interactions that seem to be the most ignored details in the movie every time the Death Star v fighter craft topic is brought up:

 

The guy at the rebel base who mocked the plan to attack with fighters because there was no way it would work.

 

Peter Cushing's haughty derision of the squad of fighters that was attempting to take out the massive space Goliath.

 

The guy who eased up next to Cushing mid-battle and whispered "we have analyzed their attack, Sir, and there is _some_ danger..."

 

(For me, that was the best part of an otherwise really terrible movie-  beautiful movie, great SFX, etc, but just an awful script).

 

What we have here is a well-executed affirmation of the information given to us at the Rebel base.  At the rebel base, we learn that the Death Star, to get some much-needed build points, may have taken a Disadplication: vulnerability.

 

Here, Cushing is informed (for the benefit of the audience, this is from the defender's POV, so we know it is "real") "uh...  We needed some more build points, so we took a vulnerability of sorts.....  Yeah; any hit to the reactor core does like, time a million BODY...  No; we tried to cover ourselves by burying the actual reactor core in the very center, protected by layers and layers of armor, but the GM said, like, no way!  If you want those thirty points, there has to be a reasonable way to bring that Disadplication into play, so you need like a vent or something that goes all the way to the surface, so we said cool, cool, Dude.  We can do that....  But we tried to make it, like, really, _really_ small so enemy ships couldn't target it, and then we buried it inside the seam of weapons around the equator so they couldnt even find it unless they, like, stole the blueprints or something, and to make it extra safe, and the GM said, fine, but if you are going to do all that, then you only get fifteen points, and we said, okay, cool, and picked up the other fifteen we needed by by letting Bothans handle our internet security and, well, looks like the GM check our Disadplications, and we may have chosen rolls that were a _little_ high to boost the points....

 

 

 

Anyway, the script itself made no bones about how attacking rhis thing with small craft was laughably futile, and that it only worked because the target had an exploitable disadvantage (that it would take _again_ in the third movie and again in the seventh movie, because, hey!  If they liked the first movie that much, I bet we can make the exact same movie at least two more times and still rake in the cash, right?)

 

Moreover, the weakness itself was, as shown in the film, insanely difficult to exploit: several attempts from several shooters, and absolute decimation of the attacking force just to get close to the weakness, and _even then_, it took the ghost of a wizard to convince an abnormally talented adept to stop attacking by any sensible means and use an super-exclusive space magic to guide his attack.

 

So, all that taken together....

 

The Death Star had a three-point quirk around which the entire campaign was built, and only the Chosen One and his Space Magic had a chance in Hell of making the plan actually work.

 

 

So...

 

No.  I- and as before, this is just one man's opinion, and worth everything you paid for it... Possibly less.  Uh,  _probably_ less, really.      But in my personal opinion, helicopter v aircraft carrier _is_ a reasonable example of David and Goliath scenarios.  David and Goliath is a reasonable example of David and Goliath-  a rock to the forehead will kill _anybody_, really, and anyone with practice can put it there.

 

Death Star v five hundred fighter ships is not a good example, because we the audience were informed _twice_ (once by each side of the battle) that this situation is one-hundred percent unworkable, and we were similarly twice-informed that this battle was about exploiting a Disadplication on the build sheet, and then we we're shown that without space magic and wizardry guidance, even this Disadplication was unlikely to be a problem.

 

This was not the story of tiny birds taking down an eagle one feather at a time.  It was the story of how Space Magic can do impossible things.

 

 

Now, since modern internet has developed a bias that all long-winded posts are personal attacks, let me say this:

 

No.  That isnt what this is.  I love the people here, and you, Sir, are no exception.  In fact, several of your subsequent examples (not addressed here because I shoukd have left for North Carolina two hours ago,but things are stacking up, and at this point, one post wasnt foinf to make it worse) are good, thought-provoking examples.

 

But the fighter v Death Star thing....  Well, that is a personal burr, I suppose: it is all-to-often held up as an example, and almost _always_ by people who really should know better.  I mean, I _hate_ that movie, have only seen it twice, and yet still have a solid understanding of the story and it's progression, even though everything I know about Star Wars outside that movie I learned entirely against my will. 

 

 

anyway, I have to get going.

 

 

peace!

 

  

 

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Anyway, the script itself made no bones about how attacking rhis thing with small craft was laughably futile, and that it only worked because the target had an exploitable disadvantage (that it would take _again_ in the third movie and again in the seventh movie, because, hey!  If they liked the first movie that much, I bet we can make the exact same movie at least two more times and still rake in the cash, right?)

 

The "Space Magic" element seems very RPG-friendly.  The otherwise indestructible enemy can be destroyed because of a special power unique to a PC, or a special maguffin the PCs seek out over the course of several adventures.  The Armies of the Invincible Overlord can never be defeated, except if a small band of PCs slips behind enemy lines and takes out the Overlord.  The game simulates the genre and the genre aligns with the game.

 

The second Death Star in RoTJ had likely addressed the venting issue, but its superstructure was incomplete, so fighters could just fly in. But, once again, only the fighter highly customized  by the PC's, piloted by a PC, could slip in and do the necessary damage.

[BhelliomRahl]

Thank you for the input.

Some interesting ideas.

Ideas from this:
1) Use the differennce between the ships' To Hit OCV modifer from the Size table as a bonus or penalty when attacking ships of different sizes.

2) Give Capital ships a number of anti-fighter lasers which are treated as a smaller size but have more limited damage, similiar to the fighters themselves.
 

......

Another question is how are crewed weapons used? Do they go at the speed of the ship and are classed as multi-attacks or is each weapon crewed by a person treated as independant weapon and attacks on its own.

 

......
To be honest with how I have built the ships an X-Wing almost has zero chance of taking out a Star Destroyer because its average damage output is unlikely to get past the shields or the armor.

The issue comes because I use Hit Locations and Critical Hit rules.

The major issue is that due to the size of a Star Destroyer, the PCs have a +19 to their OCV to hit it. So they almost always score a Critical and do max damage, then targeting a vital location such as the Bridge or Reactor to double that damage.
They are doing numbers that I never considered when I designed the ships' defenses

My other mistake was allowing Ion Cannons (Dispel) to be effective against Shields and Culmlative which means that given enough time they can take down the Shields.

I may need to add Power Defense to the ships to represent them being hardened against Ion damage, but again due to Critical Hits the players are getting max damage on every shot.
 

[Gauntlet]

One interesting way may be to have the anti-fighter weapons purchased as separate vehicles themselves. That way their size would not be the same as the full sized starship.

[Chris Goodwin]

On 8/8/2024 at 4:09 PM, Gauntlet said:

The only problem I have found with Robot Warriors is due to the difference in point variables it is hard to utilize them it in any type of game other than an actual vehicle combat game (like a Hero Based Battletech game).

 

That was the whole point of them.

 

The updated Size Class and Ground Scale rules work independently of them and seem to be exactly what you're looking for.

[Duke Bushido]

11 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

The "Space Magic" element seems very RPG-friendly.  The otherwise indestructible enemy can be destroyed because of a special power unique to a PC, or a special maguffin the PCs seek out over the course of several adventures. 

 

 

Oh, absolutely.  I have zero disagreement with that.  And seeing as how Star Trek cosplayers want to various aliens and different branches of the sevice, and Star Wars cosplayers all want to be Stormtroopers or Jedi, I dont think either of us is alone in thinking that. 

 

 

11 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

The second Death Star in RoTJ had likely addressed the venting issue, but its superstructure was incomplete, so fighters could just fly in. But, once again, only the fighter highly customized  by the PC's, piloted by a PC, could slip in and do the necessary damage.

 

 

And the third one was an entire freakin' planet, powered by the corpse of Han Solo.

 

 

 

 

[Gauntlet]

4 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

That was the whole point of them.

 

The updated Size Class and Ground Scale rules work independently of them and seem to be exactly what you're looking for.

 

I just had a lot of players want to utilize those rules in a Champions game, which would mean that their character wins and beat's everyone, no questions asked. Hell, I was able to create a mech on 0 base points (disadvantages only) that could kill most 350 point superheroes. I was just making a point that if you were wanting to use it for anything other than a Battlemech campaign, you couldn't.

[Duke Bushido]

 

 

16 hours ago, BhelliomRahl said:

Another question is how are crewed weapons used? Do they go at the speed of the ship and are classed as multi-attacks or is each weapon crewed by a person treated as independant weapon and attacks on its own.

 

Like any other "vehicle-esque" thing, it may well have ita own SPD score, useful for things like eunning automated firing routines, etc, but if manned, it's speed cannot in any useful way exceed that of the people using it.

 

 

16 hours ago, BhelliomRahl said:

......
To be honest with how I have built the ships an X-Wing almost has zero chance of taking out a Star Destroyer because its average damage output is unlikely to get past the shields or the armor.

 

Makes sense to me.

 

16 hours ago, BhelliomRahl said:

The issue comes because I use Hit Locations and Critical Hit rules.

 

 

 

One of many reasons I don't generally do critical hits.  Try this simple change:

 

A critical hit will now only occur on a natural 3, regardless of CV bonuses, etc.

 

So half a percent of all rolls will be critical hits.  Seems reasonable enough for a "lucky shot" sort od thing.

 

As far as the hit location chart (assyming you mean vehicles), you can always modify that as well.