austenandrews Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. Good point, Shem. This does call for a plan in case the PCs' rolls suck like a vacuum cleaner orbiting a black hole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herolover Posted March 11, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. Once again Shem I really like your idea. I like the idea of a "speed mod" to the maneuvers. I too, have been concerned that if I get into a situation where the groups rolls begin to suck I could put them in real danger. However, as a long time GM I always make sure to have some outs. Mine, in this situation, are: 1) They will not know the exact distance to get out of the belt. If things go bad...wham they are out of the belt. 2) I played with the idea that the sensor ops roll also determined the number of targets that could hit the ship. I decided not to do this so if things get to hairy."..look no asteroids are headed your way". Who knows maybe they hit a void area in the belt. 3) How much damage does an asteroid hitting the ship do anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. 3) How much damage does an asteroid hitting the ship do anyway (Ship's BODY - 1)/(# of Turns In Asteroid Field) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shem_whistler Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. Once again Shem I really like your idea. I like the idea of a "speed mod" to the maneuvers. Glad to hear it 1) They will not know the exact distance to get out of the belt. If things go bad...wham they are out of the belt. That's a good way of doing it, when they first encounter the belt "Your sensors can not scan the entire width of the belt, you don't know how long it will take to cross" Hmm, just a couple of thoughts as I type that, would this lack of knowledge effect the PC's tactics? "We're nearly at the edge let's just blast it" Also what happens if they fumble every roll on the first turn and suddenly appear the other side of the belt? The one time it might be better to fumble. 2 creds Shem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebuchet Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. How much damage does an asteroid hitting the ship do anyway Well, the slower the ship is travelling the less damage it should take when it hits an asteroid, although I don't know how relevant that'll be at relativistic speeds. I presume your ship has some sort of shields? You might allow the engineer to not only Push the engines but to Push the shields as well, and a "shield failure" (Burnout) just as they near the end of the field might add a bit of tension. On the small starship I designed for our Champions game the ship has not only a 20 PD/20 ED Force Field but +100 BODY defined as "defensive screens." That way each individual hit getting BODY through the Force Field can do X% ("Silhouette, our screens are down to 62% after that last hit! We can't take too many more of those!") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. It occurs to me that space-faring societies would, at some point, develop formulas and what-not for dealing with asteroid belts. Plug all the values for variables like cluster density, materials present (being hit by a chunk of lead is very different than a chunk of ice the same size), and the computer spits back the maximum recommended speed for getting through the belt. BTW, age of the belt itself should be a factor in how many micro-asteroids you'll find. The older the belt, the more likely those little chunks will have gotten sucked up into the larger ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. A true space-faring society would just go around a dangerous asteroid field, but that's no fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Posted March 11, 2005 Report Share Posted March 11, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. A true space-faring society would just go around a dangerous asteroid field' date=' but that's no fun. [/quote'] Maybe, maybe not. There's mining to be done in Asteroids and other things that might call for you to go through it. It may be so wide that the fuel cost of going around it would be prohibitive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxiekins Posted March 12, 2005 Report Share Posted March 12, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. I looked at the DCV velocity chart and it isn't worth it. Velo Base DCV 1-32 1 32+ 3 Admitedly this is based upon the ship I am using. It will an added amount of complexity for very little gain. Basically the ship, if I was going to use it, would have an extra -2 DCV only when going full speed. The DCV chart on page 237 of 5th edition is based on Velocity per *TURN*, not per phase... At 35" x 4 Speed, it has a Velocity of 140" at full speed... 280" if it has a x2 Non-Combat Multiple... Looking at the chart, and dividing by the ship's speed of 4, that would be a DCV of 1 as long as the ship doesn't use more than 8" of move... DCV is +2 for each doubling... Range Penalties also follow this +2 for x2 pattern, so going to page 246 and looking at the Alternate Range Penalties, and modifying, we get: Move____DCV _0-6_____0 _7-8_____1 _9-12____2 13-16____3 17-24____4 25-32____5 33-48____6 49-64____7 65-96____8 Looks usable to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herolover Posted March 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. Oooppps!!! Your right. I checked my notes and not the book. Ummm, then I may play around with using it. For something I was wanting to be pretty simple this is starting to get really complicated. I hope to playtest this tomorrow with a group and if I do, then I will post what I did and how it went. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxiekins Posted March 12, 2005 Report Share Posted March 12, 2005 Re: Flying through an asteroid belt. What's complicated...? The table is in my previous post... Just make sure the player deciding how fast the ship goes has access to it... Let the player agonize over the decision... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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