Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg Lemming -- Even simple Vehicles may Hold their Actions -- pg. 174, TUV. Do missiles hold their actions? Steve Long or Bob Greenwade basically said buy the missile intelligence and be done with it for convenience's sake but I'm not sure they are advocating missiles holding their actions or pausing in mid-air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > I think you would know which 180 degree arc it's coming > from. Again, I speak from real-world experience -- you quite often do not. It may sound counter-intuitive to you, but it's the truth... trying to locate an aircraft by sound alone is /incredibly/ deceptive, if the aircraft is any good distance away. Sure, you can hear where it is if it's right on top of you... but remember, this scenario assumes that the closest point of approach is going to be several miles. And the approach would probably be from a higher altitude than Firewing is flying at. Meaning Firewing can place the damage shield above him and take care of the missiles regardless of whether they are coming front, back, etc. If the Fighters are going to compensate for this (which just seems like a stretch to me), they are going to be risking flying into each other's flight path as they whizz by and toss missiles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 [snip] > is just plain ugly and it distracts from your posts (at least > for me). Is there anything you *can't* find to complain about? Or are you just looking for excuses? > Another thing. You accuse me of ignoring your posts when I > disagree with something you say. No, I accuse you of ignoring my posts when you say argue as if I had taken a point entirely contrary to the one I'd actually made, or when you hotly contest a point that I had already conceded over 24 hours ago. > Since I disagree with something you say I then set up a > different series of consequences And when you tried /that/, your "different series of consequences" either ignored written rules, published material, the basic details of the scenario, or else simply had the opponent conveniently suffer a brain hemorrhage. Feh on that. > which you then accuse me of ignoring your point when I > didn't. I disagree with it. And nobody is required to make a > comment on every thing you say. Red herring. > And if they don't comment on something you say it isn't a > concession. Red herring 2. > I'm not sitting here making an outline of your statement to > check everything off. Red herring 3. > For that matter, you aren't doing that with my posts. And > I'm not trashing you for that. Attempt to look more generous than he actually is by oh-so-graciously refusing to criticize me for something even he admits I've never done. > You are basically setting up a standard for me that you can > then rationalize the need to berate me for. Yes, and said "standard" is, "pay some basic attention to what's going on". Another "standard" is 'When you make a rules call, and I open the book to check it, that rule ought actually to be there.' If you can't meet either standard then you're not keeping up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > I think you would know which 180 degree arc it's coming > from. Again, I speak from real-world experience -- you quite often do not. It may sound counter-intuitive to you, but it's the truth... trying to locate an aircraft by sound alone is /incredibly/ deceptive, if the aircraft is any good distance away. Sure, you can hear where it is if it's right on top of you... but remember, this scenario assumes that the closest point of approach is going to be several miles. I've been near an airport before. I can tell the direction of a jet passenger plane from pretty far off. At least to within 180 degrees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > Yeah, and one hit from a tank shell will con stun Dr. > Destroyer if he's surprised. We're not dealing in a surprise > scenario. Yes, we /are/. We're talking about Firewing getting hit with a missile launched from several miles away, when he does not even know that said missile was launched, as he'd need a PER roll at -18 worth of Range Modifiers to know that. Furthermore, he does not even know for certain that fighters are sharing the sky with him -- he only suspects. (If he's attacking anywhere but the most desolate area, there will already be other jets in the sky, so he'll already be hearing planes.) If that is not a surprise situation, what *is*? I thought surprise meant that the character had to be out of combat. If Firewing is in combat, which he is or why are the fighters heading toward him, then he's not taking x2 stun even if he doesn't perceive the attack. That's the way we play it anyway. If you have a pertinent reference from the text I would be glad to read up on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > Do missiles hold their actions? Steve Long or Bob > Greenwade basically said buy the missile intelligence and be > done with it for convenience's sake but I'm not sure they > are advocating missiles holding their actions or pausing in > mid-air. It doesn't/ have/ to "pause in mid-air", and the next time you say something like that, I'd appreciate it more if I'd actually said it first. The missile merely has to wait on Segment X for Firewing to finish moving first before it then decides which hex it wants to end up at the end of its turn on Segment X. Given that it's a /homing/ missile -- i.e., it's programmed to /react/ to the enemy's movements -- making it move /first/ is what would be counter-intuitive to me, not making it move last. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > You were the one who was suggesting staggering the > missiles earlier. Yup... but 'staggering' can be done in groups 2, 3, or 4 just as easily as it can be done 1 at a time... and presumably, the pilot has a basic Tactics roll. Tactics familiarity. The average pilot wouldn't have the genuine skill. And if guesses wrong and the first salvo hits the FW, he's SOL. Originally posted by Chuckg [snip] < They aren't *that* far apart. Just within the same 180 < degree arc. Firewing has to put the Force Wall in an adjacent hex -- if it's in the same hex as he is, he still eats the damage. That means he can cover 60 degrees of arc from him, not 180. He puts it up on his own hexside. The base FW can cover 3 of the 6 hexsides of a hex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg [snip] > is just plain ugly and it distracts from your posts (at least > for me). Is there anything you *can't* find to complain about? Or are you just looking for excuses? > Another thing. You accuse me of ignoring your posts when I > disagree with something you say. No, I accuse you of ignoring my posts when you say argue as if I had taken a point entirely contrary to the one I'd actually made, or when you hotly contest a point that I had already conceded over 24 hours ago. > Since I disagree with something you say I then set up a > different series of consequences And when you tried /that/, your "different series of consequences" either ignored written rules, published material, the basic details of the scenario, or else simply had the opponent conveniently suffer a brain hemorrhage. Feh on that. > which you then accuse me of ignoring your point when I > didn't. I disagree with it. And nobody is required to make a > comment on every thing you say. Red herring. > And if they don't comment on something you say it isn't a > concession. Red herring 2. > I'm not sitting here making an outline of your statement to > check everything off. Red herring 3. > For that matter, you aren't doing that with my posts. And > I'm not trashing you for that. Attempt to look more generous than he actually is by oh-so-graciously refusing to criticize me for something even he admits I've never done. > You are basically setting up a standard for me that you can > then rationalize the need to berate me for. Yes, and said "standard" is, "pay some basic attention to what's going on". Another "standard" is 'When you make a rules call, and I open the book to check it, that rule ought actually to be there.' If you can't meet either standard then you're not keeping up. When I said you aren't doint that, I meant you aren't living up to the standard for responses you've placed for me. Please stop and just deal with the issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > I thought surprise meant that the character had to be out > of combat. If Firewing is in combat, which he is or why are > the fighters heading toward him, And in yet *another* example of why I keep slapping Agent X for not paying enough attention, he has yet agani forgotten the very original scenario that prompted this particular sub-thread. Scenario is "Firewing is spotted flying towards city X. The fighters are scrambled to intercept him." i.e. -- Firewing is just in the air, going from point A to point B, and *WHAM*, suddenly he gets an AMRAAM up the butt. Launched by people who didn't bother to let him know they were there first, because they could see him a lot further away than he could see them. Plus, that Surprise is necessary only if it's one missile. If it's two missiles arriving at the same time, well, he's CON Stunned anyway from the Coordinated Attack that ol' "Maverick" and his wingman just threw... same diff, same ending. If Firewing is, for example, already strafing the White House... then he's already too low for F-18s to be attacking. They'd have to use helicopter gunships and Hellfires, and in that scenario they're going to lose a couple helicopters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > Yeah, and one hit from a tank shell will con stun Dr. > Destroyer if he's surprised. We're not dealing in a surprise > scenario. Yes, we /are/. We're talking about Firewing getting hit with a missile launched from several miles away, when he does not even know that said missile was launched, as he'd need a PER roll at -18 worth of Range Modifiers to know that. Furthermore, he does not even know for certain that fighters are sharing the sky with him -- he only suspects. (If he's attacking anywhere but the most desolate area, there will already be other jets in the sky, so he'll already be hearing planes.) If that is not a surprise situation, what *is*? The missile takes 2-3 phases to arrive. Plenty of time to spot the incoming missile, especially for someone with the incredible reaction time, hand-eye coordination, and reflexes of a Firewing. And if you're going to stack the deck, then Firewing simply attacks all the Hornets on the ground before they take off in the air. That's as fair as you claiming a 2X out of combat surprised modifier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > Do missiles hold their actions? Steve Long or Bob > Greenwade basically said buy the missile intelligence and be > done with it for convenience's sake but I'm not sure they > are advocating missiles holding their actions or pausing in > mid-air. It doesn't/ have/ to "pause in mid-air", and the next time you say something like that, I'd appreciate it more if I'd actually said it first. The missile merely has to wait on Segment X for Firewing to finish moving first before it then decides which hex it wants to end up at the end of its turn on Segment X. Given that it's a /homing/ missile -- i.e., it's programmed to /react/ to the enemy's movements -- making it move /first/ is what would be counter-intuitive to me, not making it move last. You didn't catch the "or" in there? This is exactly what I'm talking about; you are misrepresenting me almost every time you get a chance. Are you saying the missiles always hold their action? Is that part of their programming? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > Do missiles hold their actions? Steve Long or Bob > Greenwade basically said buy the missile intelligence and be > done with it for convenience's sake but I'm not sure they > are advocating missiles holding their actions or pausing in > mid-air. It doesn't/ have/ to "pause in mid-air", and the next time you say something like that, I'd appreciate it more if I'd actually said it first. The missile merely has to wait on Segment X for Firewing to finish moving first before it then decides which hex it wants to end up at the end of its turn on Segment X. Given that it's a /homing/ missile -- i.e., it's programmed to /react/ to the enemy's movements -- making it move /first/ is what would be counter-intuitive to me, not making it move last. And if Firewing holds his action, the missile is going first. It doesn't have the brains to play a waiting game with him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > Tactics familiarity. The average pilot wouldn't have the > genuine skill. Incorrect -- all US combat pilots (and we're talking about US-trained pilots here... nobody else flies F-18s! Even our foreign allies who get F-18s have to take our training courses...) and most other pilots of other world air forces, are officers. Any reasonable writeup for OCS or the military academy grants 3 points of Tactics. > And if guesses wrong and the first salvo hits the FW, he's > SOL. The missile in question has several possible terminal guidance packages -- most of which can tell the difference between the Force Wall and Firewing. Especially given that it's Transparent To Physical, and he's not. [snip] > He puts it up on his own hexside. Unless I am way off base, if the missile enters the same hex as he does before it detonates, Firewing will still take the damage. If he wants to use the Force Wall as a point defense system, he needs at least a couple meters of stand-off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > I thought surprise meant that the character had to be out > of combat. If Firewing is in combat, which he is or why are > the fighters heading toward him, And in yet *another* example of why I keep slapping Agent X for not paying enough attention, he has yet agani forgotten the very original scenario that prompted this particular sub-thread. Scenario is "Firewing is spotted flying towards city X. The fighters are scrambled to intercept him." i.e. -- Firewing is just in the air, going from point A to point B, and *WHAM*, suddenly he gets an AMRAAM up the butt. Launched by people who didn't bother to let him know they were there first, because they could see him a lot further away than he could see them. Plus, that Surprise is necessary only if it's one missile. If it's two missiles arriving at the same time, well, he's CON Stunned anyway from the Coordinated Attack that ol' "Maverick" and his wingman just threw... same diff, same ending. If Firewing is, for example, already strafing the White House... then he's already too low for F-18s to be attacking. They'd have to use helicopter gunships and Hellfires, and in that scenario they're going to lose a couple helicopters. They have teamwork skill? The pilots and the missiles? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent X Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > I thought surprise meant that the character had to be out > of combat. If Firewing is in combat, which he is or why are > the fighters heading toward him, And in yet *another* example of why I keep slapping Agent X for not paying enough attention, he has yet agani forgotten the very original scenario that prompted this particular sub-thread. Scenario is "Firewing is spotted flying towards city X. The fighters are scrambled to intercept him." i.e. -- Firewing is just in the air, going from point A to point B, and *WHAM*, suddenly he gets an AMRAAM up the butt. Launched by people who didn't bother to let him know they were there first, because they could see him a lot further away than he could see them. Plus, that Surprise is necessary only if it's one missile. If it's two missiles arriving at the same time, well, he's CON Stunned anyway from the Coordinated Attack that ol' "Maverick" and his wingman just threw... same diff, same ending. If Firewing is, for example, already strafing the White House... then he's already too low for F-18s to be attacking. They'd have to use helicopter gunships and Hellfires, and in that scenario they're going to lose a couple helicopters. Why in the world would Firewing be announcing his presence to the world like that and not be in combat mode? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > You didn't catch the "or" in there? I did -- but since I explicitly cited the rule that says that even simple Vehicles may hold their actions, your point that missiles cannot delay is alerady proven wrong. So leaving out the 'or' did precisely jack and squat to misrepresent your argument... said argument was DOA to begin with. [snip] > Are you saying the missiles always hold their action? Is that > part of their programming? I am saying that any reasonable portrayal of a homing missile is "you move, then missile moves". It's supposed to be mindlessly following you, after all. To follow implies to wait and see where you're going first. So yes, I would say that the missile always holds its action until after it's target has taken one... or it's next action is about to come up, whichever comes first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > They have teamwork skill? The pilots and the missiles? The pilots, yes -- the missiles, no. *nods* This, Agent X, is how you get a polite answer from me -- when you make a valid point without any unnecessary excess. All right. Two missiles arriving at once will clock Firewing for an average of 60-some Stun, but /not/ CON Stun him. OTOH, given that he's only got 80 STUN, he's not feeling very well... and the next hit he takes from anywhere is going to floor him. And if the pilot chose to lead off with a /four/ missile salvo... or two each from two planes... well, sucks to be Firewing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg > Tactics familiarity. The average pilot wouldn't have the > genuine skill. Incorrect -- all US combat pilots (and we're talking about US-trained pilots here... nobody else flies F-18s! Even our foreign allies who get F-18s have to take our training courses...) and most other pilots of other world air forces, are officers. Any reasonable writeup for OCS or the military academy grants 3 points of Tactics. It depends on your philosophy. Does *every* officer in your world have the full 3 pt tactics skill, or is that reserved for exceptional officers and leaders? Originally posted by Chuckg > And if guesses wrong and the first salvo hits the FW, he's > SOL. The missile in question has several possible terminal guidance packages -- most of which can tell the difference between the Force Wall and Firewing. Especially given that it's Transparent To Physical, and he's not. But is the FW transparent to Radar? That is the key question. I don't think it is since it is perceivable by radar. Originally posted by Chuckg [snip] > He puts it up on his own hexside. Unless I am way off base, if the missile enters the same hex as he does before it detonates, Firewing will still take the damage. If he wants to use the Force Wall as a point defense system, he needs at least a couple meters of stand-off. It doesn't *enter* the same hex. It detonates at the hexside before it gets in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Agent X Why in the world would Firewing be announcing his presence to the world like that and not be in combat mode? He's done it at least one in canon -- see 'Firewing at GATEWAY space station', UNTIL sourcebook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metaphysician Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Agent X As to the No Range Penalty RKA option for the missiles - the writeup of the Hornet does not use that option. It uses the additional vehicles option. Um, I said *Mechanon* could use such a slot on his multipower. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg All right. Two missiles arriving at once will clock Firewing for an average of 60-some Stun, but /not/ CON Stun him. OTOH, given that he's only got 80 STUN, he's not feeling very well... and the next hit he takes from anywhere is going to floor him. Actually, even if both hit and aren't blocked by the FW, that's only 21 stun on average each or 42 net stun. And Firewing is going to get back 25 of that on his 12 recovery. And since the missiles take 2-3 phases to arrive, Firewing can simply shoot them out of the air with his explosion attack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Originally posted by Chuckg Lemming -- Even simple Vehicles may Hold their Actions -- pg. 174, TUV. I had this vision of a Warner Brother's cartoon. Ok, I read your response about the delay being a course correction special effect. However, I'm going to give an actual brain the advantage here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > It depends on your philosophy. Actually, it "depends" on virtually every officer-training Package Deal I've seen written up in Champions products. Furthermore, even without that, it would not depend on my philosophy -- it would depend upon how extensive military training actually was, which is an objective fact, not a personal taste. > Does *every* officer in your world have the full 3 pt tactics > skill, or is that reserved for exceptional officers and leaders? No, every single one of them gets the basic 11 or 12-... the exceptions are those who somehow managed to scrape through the course without actually learning the material they were supposed to. Even a junior company-grade officer has to make command decisions, and rather complicated ones. The thoroughness and comprehensiveness of military training is often underestimated... hell, the average squad leader nowadays is exposed to an education of tactical concepts at the platoon and company levels, just so he can understand WTF his superiors are supposed to be doing well enough to allow him to intelligently exercise his own initiative in fluid circumstances! And that's for *infantrymen*. Pilots have a *much* higher training budget, and are expected to execute a much higher degree of Thinking It Through than infantrymen... and at approximately twenty million dollars per aircraft, you can easily see why. [snip] > But is the FW transparent to Radar? That is the key > question. I don't think it is since it is perceivable by radar. The base power construction of Radar is "Detect Physical Objects" -- page 106, Big Black Book. A Transparent To Physical Force Wall is not a Physical Object. (A normal Force Wall, since it does have tangible substance, would be a physical object.) Q.E.D. [snip] > It doesn't *enter* the same hex. It detonates at the hexside > before it gets in. Actually, it takes an average of 7 BODY worth of damage... ... vs. the missile's 2 DEF and 10 BODY... ... hmmm. Hasn't lost all its body yet. That means we have to use the Vehicle Damage Table on page 322 of the BBB. You have a 1-in-six chance of disabling the warhead... the "lose largest Power" result. Anything else won't save you, as the missile's already reached Firewing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > Actually, even if both hit and aren't blocked by the FW, > that's only 21 stun on average each or 42 net stun. Or 84 net STUN on a four-missile salvo.. and each F-18 carries 10 AMRAAMs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 Re: the Force Wall question... If we go by special effect, then the answer is even simpler -- the question then becomes "Does a bonfire give a radar return?" The answer is "No." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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