Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

[Runehammer]

I have been asked to do a conversion of the Flashing Blades rpg and one of the main points is ship to ship combat. I have a good grasp of the mechanics of normal vehicle combat but could someone loan me an idea on how I should run this?

I plan on using some of the Pirates cardstock ships and a large floating hexmap then a pair of large deck maps for boarding scenarios that have yet to be completely put together. I need to work out the smooth mechanics of wind powered ships. Should the ships be high Spd?

My brain isn't grokking well at the moment, perhaps I'm over complicating, any idea would be helpful.

Thx, guys...

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

The Hero System Vehicle Sourcebook (which is on sale for half price right now) has a lot of sailing ship writeups. The Ultimate Vehicle also has a couple of sailing ship writeups, as well as pointers on how to design your own and how to use them in combat.

 

Before I got TUV, I made sailing ships with SPD 1 and enough Swimming to represent their speed (most ships didn't do more than 12 knots, or about 14 miles per hour). This made them pretty unwieldy, so you didn't have players trying to drive them like speedboats. TUV does it a little differently, though.

[Runehammer]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

So, Cap'n, by your reference then say the HMS Algiers, a three masted 32 gun brig, size 19, 80" long, at a Spd of 1 to reflect the approximate velocity you'd have the surface swimming at 13" to 16"?

To further push the envelope a bit, to reflect better handling on say, a galley at Spd 2 and a sloop at Spd 3, I would drop the swim number to around 7" and 3" respectively?

Thx for yer attention, matey....

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

Your brig looks about right. When I worked those ships up, though, I had galleys and sloops at SPD 1 also.

[Runehammer]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

Ok, now that I've had more coffee, I can see the line better, I'll need to do a bit more research on size and speed. Good thing the Naval War College is nearby, thx, Cap'n!

[sbarron]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

If you want to keep it simple, and have some cool ships to battle on...

 

Broadsides and Boarding Parties

 

Game Components

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

That's a great game. It's a shame they only made it for a couple of years.

[Outsider]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

Another option would be to make all your vehicles "speed 12" to smooth out movement*, but only allow them to be given directions as to how to move at a lower speed, to represent their inherent 'wieldiness' and the quality of their crew. And/or you could require the players to tell you how they are going to move some number of phases in advance, to represent the same thing, plus the time it takes to communicate the orders and re-rig the sails and all that. More unwieldy ships would have to plot their orders farther in advance.

 

 

*This way you wont have a situation where two ships are heading the same direction, with the one ahead of the other having a higher movement rate,but still being 'caught up to' by the slower one (temproarily) because the slower one had a phase first. IE if I am sailing due south at 14"/turn, Speed 2, DEX 10, and you're behind me by 6" sailing due south at 12"/turn, Speed 2, DEX 11, then on Phase 6 you will be able to close the full 6" between us, and fire (or board) before my DEX, despite the fact that I am ahead of you and moving away at a higher speed.

[gojira]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

So, Cap'n, by your reference then say the HMS Algiers, a three masted 32 gun brig, size 19, 80" long, at a Spd of 1 to reflect the approximate velocity you'd have the surface swimming at 13" to 16"?

To further push the envelope a bit, to reflect better handling on say, a galley at Spd 2 and a sloop at Spd 3, I would drop the swim number to around 7" and 3" respectively?

Thx for yer attention, matey....

I've actually done a little sailing (even skippered a couple of times) and this feels like a neat solution to me. I don't have the vehicle books, but your ideas above feel about right.

 

As for smoothing out a boats movment, I wouldn't bother. Waves, currents, even the wind itself is not even and steady across the surface of the water, and a sailboats movements are not even and steady either. Boats do NOT move like automobiles. If 3" of extra movement for a phase allows a slower boat to catch a faster one, then so it goes. This might be a better model for how real boats move anyway.

 

 

One last hint: bigger boats are faster than smaller ones. They set more sail area, for one, and they have porportionately less hull resistance. That's why clipper ships are HUGE, and fast. But quick deft manuver can allow a smaller slower boat to catch up to a bigger faster one.

[Markdoc]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

One last hint: bigger boats are faster than smaller ones. They set more sail area' date=' for one, and they have porportionately less hull resistance. That's why clipper ships are HUGE, and fast. But quick deft manuver can allow a smaller slower boat to catch up to a bigger faster one.[/quote']

 

Good point, and often forgotten.

 

You should be able to cover ships with the following approach:

 

All largish vessels (sailing ships, galleys and the like) are SPD1, small manpowered craft like canoes and ships boats are SPD 2.

 

Actual travel speed can probably be grabbed from net - a canoe might be SPD2, but it'll never catch a sailing boat under full sail....

 

Most boats should have turning circles - the larger the boat, the larger the turning circle. Sailing vessels should have also have limited acceleration/deceleration modes and cannot reverse, while oared vessels can accelerate/decelerate faster and can reverse.

 

Last of all you need a limitation on swimming for sail - something like "limited swimming: cannot sail into the wind, 1/2 max speed if wind is not on the beam" or something similar - just edit it for boats that can make way into the wind.

 

Applying those 4 guides should allow you differentiate lots of different types of vessel. I am glad you bought this up: my current fantasy setting will involve plenty of travel by sea - I obviously had not thought about this enough!

 

cheers, Mark

[The Monster]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

Just to add dirt - and a bit of realistic feel, depending on how tactically minded and up on their Hornblower and Aubrey novels your group is, you might steal an idea from the old AH boardgame Wooden Ships and Iron Men. There, movement was directly related to wind direction, and since it was set up on a hex grid, it's an easy translation.

For example, headed directly into the wind, your move was, well, zero, but you could turn to either hexside on your move (I'm pulling this from rusty memory, so the precision is lacking). If the wind was coming from either port bow or starboard bow, your move was maybe one or two. "Broad Reaching," where the wind was coming over the port or starboard aft, was your full move (4-6 hexes IIRC). And full stern-on wind was a bit less than your full move.

 

So, for example, you might figure a ship with 8" "Swimming" mght get the full 8" only if broad reaching; 6" if you're running with the wind, 4" if the wind's over your forward quarters, and 0" dead ahead.

 

Then you have an easy game mechanic for maneuverng with or against the wind - a crucial bit of strategy for sails - and you can play with occasionally shifting winds and magical wind intervention.

 

BTW: I remember the 7th Sea sea fight I did, I used the WS&IM pieces and everybody was pleased. Then the Pirates minis came out and blew them out of the water (pun intended). Ah, progress.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Help with Vehicle Combat (Ships)

 

Here's a little file I put together after reading Under the Black Flag. It's a table for randomly determining the makeup of a pirate fleet from piracy's golden age (early 1700s). I used the stats from the book to work up the various numbers, with a little bit of inference on my part.

 

It's a little undeveloped, as I don't have definitions for the various ship types or Hero stats for them. Several are mentioned in The Ultimate Vehicle or The Hero System Vehicle Sourcebook, though.