Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

[Jaxom]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

continous beam weapons

or a beam that lasts 2 to 4 seconsds(speeds 3-6)

with that length of time how much of an arc could you swing the weapon

 

modern jet fighters(F-14,15,16,18) all have a gun sight mode that projects a line that a 1 second burst will cover

If the target is touched by the line then some bullets will hit it( at 3000 rnd per min that is a burst of 50 rnds but it might only be hit by 5 rnds

your working on the assumtion that all the energy will hit the target and will be needed to damage it

where a beam weapon may be x100s as powerful but usually hits with only 1percent of the beam (effectively the same damage)

so you have the limitation of full phase to use a weapon

in 3 seconds(spd 4)you could have a beam weapon do a outward sprial(closing ot chasing target or a zig-zag w for a crossing target wWwWwW that creates line of death that the fighter's HUD creates

 

Like I said, Lasers work much better than projectiles but it's the pointing that becomes an issue. Given the scales involved for fighter sized craft (say 10-100 m long) and the angles you're talking about at a range of 60 kilometers, the zig-zag or spiral pattern you are likely to generate is as likely to miss as to hit. Consider it like this... I hand you a pen-light. I'm going to take a dime (roughly 1 centimeter across) and I am going to walk to the other side of the room (6 meters away) and put it somewhere on the ground (see, you already have an idea where to look for it). How quickly can you get the laserbeam from the penlight onto the dime? 1 second? 4? Now, I am going to be shooting at you while you try to do it... Better be quick.

 

This is, as was mentioned initially, why fighter pilots strafe things from a few plane-lengths, not a few kilometers.

[Beast]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

as I posted earlier

you can go to a beam that lasts how ever long a phase is for the craft in question(spd 4=3seconds)

why are you stuck that your weapon has to be a point or single pulse type of attack

even modern aircraft use multiple rounds in their cannon attacks and only a small percetage will hit the target(5 rnds out of 50 is more than enough to disable or destroy any aircraft

 

if you where running around and I had a high pressure water hose I could easily hit you with a 3 second burst so long as you where in range of it while even having a good chance of dodging the water balloon you might throw at me

you are also not going to shoot in a few plane lengths more like hundreds of yrds to maybe a kilometer or 2 at 400 mph for something from today

strafing is for hitting non or barely moving target(from the planes point of view)

[Nyrath]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

I looked at that and had to make a comment about this... assuming no miracle engineering such as inertialess drives, you can determine current direction, acceleration and speed with in milliseconds (real life device example - air combat radar) and your sphere quickly becomes a cone, and depending on your speed and acceleration that cone becomes very tight vector.

 

Targeting is then just a matter of trianglation on the most likey point of contact.

Agreed.

A related concept is C.J. Cherryh's "longscan". Go to

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3w.html

and scroll to the very bottom.

[Nyrath]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Quite true, but questions about tactical options should come after you've settled questions about technology and the most likely strategic situations.

 

There's lots of instances of people choosing what they want spaceship combat to look like purely from their own preferences, ignoring the physics/technology/economics/strategy of the rest of their game world. In fact, approximately all space combat games that I know about are this way.

True.

The game I know that avoids this the most is Attack Vector: Tactical. They actually had help from some physics experts to make the game conform to the laws of physics as close as possible.

 

However, they did have to suppress some technologies in order to make a game that was fun to play. The major item was particle-beam weapons. Between the penetration factor and the deadly Bremsstrahlung caused by the armor, the weapons were far too effective to make a playable game.

 

AV:T also has large realistic heat radiators on all their spacecraft, unlike almost all other spacecraft combat games. A weapon strike on one of these fragile structures will essentially kill your ship.

 

So ships fight with the radiators furled, and rely upon internal heat sinks. The heat sinks can only store a few minutes of heat, which severely limits the duration of a battle. A ship in battle that deploys its radiators is "striking the flag" and surrendering, much in the same way that a dog in a dogfight will roll over and bare its throat to the other dog.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

At escape velocity, vehicles are traveling at least 10-15km per second, so it would seem like 10km per hex would be the minimum scale for a near-planetary encounter.

At "one-quarter impulse", if full impulse = about 1/3 c, then minimum scale would have to be about 10,000 km per hex.

 

For an orbital combat, you might be able to use 1km per hex.

 

The fudge factor would be "relative velocity".

 

Keep in mind the space nukes and anti-matter missiles in TE are scaled to 1"=10km, so you might even want to go up to 1"=1000km and work out some reasonable relative movement scale for vehicles(say, 5-15 hexes per phase for large ships, and 10-30 hexes per phase for fighter-scale ships).

 

It does seem almost criminal that there was no effort to clarify the standard space combat "scale" in either Star Hero or any of the supplements.

[Cancer]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

However' date=' it's also perfectly legitimate IMO to do it the other way around: decide what you want space combat to look like, then figure out a technology mix that supports it. I'm not a theoretical astrophysicist, nor do I play one on the Internet. I'm a story-teller. I figure out what kind of stories I (and my players) want to tell, and then speculate about what sort of technology, etc, will support those stories. [/quote']

 

I will say this from experience: this is a legitimate approach, and is more likely to end up being an enjoyable game for both you and your players. It's also just about certain to result in major contradictions in your game-world's reality structure, but only rarely will those jump up to bother anyone unless they are sensitive to such things.

 

I am an astrophysicist by training, and because of that, certain things that don't matter to anyone else bother me. I've tried doing some "top-down" game-universe creation, positing big-picture items (like choices for FTL tech and so on), and trying to build an internally consistent picture of interstellar commerce, interspecies relations, warfare, and so on, from there; I have the education that lets me work out the technical details, and I enjoy doing that. (I'm also fascinated by the impact of techological and social change upon history and military developments, which feeds my interest in this kind of "what-if" construction.)

 

... but that doesn't mean your players will enjoy what comes out. (For the case I have experienced, they sure didn't.) This approach is more for a first-type storyteller, that is, a fiction writer who can compel the characters to sit through what he cooks up.

 

Like I referred to in an earlier post, I can imagine a set of suppositions that would make space combat look like the miserable, inhuman, randomly deadly environment of the trenches of 1916. And if that isn't just about the suckiest possible combat environment for roleplaying ever, I don't want to hear about what's worse.

 

The internal consistency that I crave may be impossible to reach, but it's something I like to work for. If the result is something unplayable, then I'll mess with my overlying principles and see what falls out from there. But this is a pie-in-the-sky idea, and it may never be finished....

[Brother Jim]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

slightly OT:

 

i got some questions:

 

1) how fast does an object have to be moving to reach escape velocity on an earth size/density planet ??

 

2) how much time does it take to reach orbit when moving at escape velocity ??

 

thanks

[megaplayboy]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

slightly OT:

 

i got some questions:

 

1) how fast does an object have to be moving to reach escape velocity on an earth size/density planet ??

 

2) how much time does it take to reach orbit when moving at escape velocity ??

 

thanks

1. it's about 25,670 mph or something like that--7 miles(11.2km) per second.

2. at LEO(c. 90+ miles), it should take about 13 seconds.

 

at 30m/s^2, it takes about 6-7 minutes to reach escape velocity. At 1 g acceleration, about 20 minutes.

[Nyrath]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Like megaplayboy said, escape velocity is about seven miles per second.

 

The time it takes to go from the planet's surface to low orbit depends upon the acceleration of the spacecraft.

 

The idea is to accelerate as fast as possible, limited by the available engines and the acceleration tolerence of the crew. You see, while near Earth, Earth's gravity imposes a "tax" of one Gee of acceleration every second. The longer the spacecraft takes to accelerate into orbit, the bigger tax it has to pay. Most ships have precious little fuel to spare, so it wants to accelerate as fast as possible.

 

On the other hand, accelerating more than about ten Gees will harm the crew.

 

There are some technical notes here:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3d.html

[Brother Jim]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

thank you megaplayboy and nyrath.

[tgrandjean]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Not to interrupt too much but even though I haven't yet run space combat, it seems reasonable to scale at 1" = 10km. You could certainly run it at 1" = 100km or greater, but at the lower scale it allows space fighters some reasonable chance of existing. Weapons are generally assumed to be either beam or guided weaponry. Defenses in the range of sand casters and ECM are also reasonable.

[Jaxom]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

as I posted earlier

if you where running around and I had a high pressure water hose I could easily hit you with a 3 second burst so long as you where in range of it while even having a good chance of dodging the water balloon you might throw at me

you are also not going to shoot in a few plane lengths more like hundreds of yrds to maybe a kilometer or 2 at 400 mph for something from today

strafing is for hitting non or barely moving target(from the planes point of view)

 

Ok, as I said after reading your first post, the issue is not point-source. It's apparent size of target. At 30 yards I am still a huge target for you by comparison. For a plane that is on order of 10 yds long (give or take) even at a kilometer you're talking 100 plane lengths which is a small number by comparison to the scales we're talking about. Specifically it covers 3 degrees or more of angle. Further, the reason that 5 bullets is enough to destroy the plane has far more to do with aerodynamics than anything else (change the airflow over the surface and it will make it difficult or impossible for the plane to fly and make it very likely that they would disintegrate). Remember that the space shuttle was fine in space and tore itself to pieces on re-entry.

 

A destroyer class vessel 100 m long at a distance of 60 km is, by comparison, 6 times smaller or half a degree on the sky. That's why I used the example of a dime on the other side of the room. Take it a step further and make it a 10m long fighter-class vessel and you won't even be able to see it with the naked eye.

 

The math is simple. You can easily figure out what is comparable and do some tests. If I were standing 30 yards from you, you could hit me with a hose probably. By comparison, the scale under discussion is if I were standing just over a kilometer away. More power to you.

[Beast]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

the question is how slow the weapon has to be to deliver enough energy on to the target

target has 1 mw second defence(just using a number)it will sustain no damage under this threshold

beam weapon that generates 100mw per second and can sustain that beam for 2 seconds(then the next set of capacitors kick in and 1 second reaquire fire cycle)(3 seconds total)

or just make the continous

your computer taking data from your sensors should be able to generate and envelope that the target will be in

the question is how fast a nuetation(the pattern your beam is going to make inside the envelope)

this assumes fighting ranges under 1/2 light second and moving at no more than 0.1c(just my estimates)

 

using the above 1 weapon will not cover that whole area unless there is very little vector change

How much vector change can the target make at .1c

 

you need to define what the target can do

 

 

 

 

Ok, as I said after reading your first post, the issue is not point-source. It's apparent size of target. At 30 yards I am still a huge target for you by comparison. For a plane that is on order of 10 yds long (give or take) even at a kilometer you're talking 100 plane lengths which is a small number by comparison to the scales we're talking about. Specifically it covers 3 degrees or more of angle. Further, the reason that 5 bullets is enough to destroy the plane has far more to do with aerodynamics than anything else (change the airflow over the surface and it will make it difficult or impossible for the plane to fly and make it very likely that they would disintegrate). Remember that the space shuttle was fine in space and tore itself to pieces on re-entry.

 

A destroyer class vessel 100 m long at a distance of 60 km is, by comparison, 6 times smaller or half a degree on the sky. That's why I used the example of a dime on the other side of the room. Take it a step further and make it a 10m long fighter-class vessel and you won't even be able to see it with the naked eye.

 

The math is simple. You can easily figure out what is comparable and do some tests. If I were standing 30 yards from you, you could hit me with a hose probably. By comparison, the scale under discussion is if I were standing just over a kilometer away. More power to you.

[Jaxom]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

you need to define what the target can do

 

In all my examples including this response I am assuming a completely stationary target because we're theoretically talking about speed-of-light weapons. Since nothing in the system happens in 0.0002 seconds (light travel time for 60 kms), you can pretty safely do that. Even assuming that between the time you acquire your target and the time you fire he does *nothing* I still don't think you can hit with the accuracy you need to.

 

You also need to define what the beam can do in terms of cross-section. I understand perfectly what you are saying about continuous beams and sweeping out sections of space using a moving cannon. What you seem to be missing is the area of space you're trying to hit and the area of that space covered by the target. That's why I've been posting the hard numbers on ranges and angles. You may also never have dealt with specific targetting of a mechanical device.

 

Your numbers suggest that you have to be "on target" for roughly 1/100th of a second which I will suggest means that you're moving no more than 100 beam-widths per second or you don't put enough energy into a single location to punch the shielding. Now, assume a monster beam that is actually 1 meter across just for simple math. That means that in 1 second you can sweep out 100 square meters of space. Make it a 4-second beam. Now you can sweep out 400 square meters of space. That means that instead of trying to hit a dime on the other side of the room (i.e. 10-20 feet away) you are now trying to hit an area somewhere between the size of a quarter (assuming straight path fire) and just a smidge larger than the dime (assuming a spiraling pattern to create a circle 20-meters across).

 

Then again, maybe your computer actually determines exactly what you are firing at and how big it is and therefore can figure out exactly how much space you can have between beam passes and still hit your target in which case you can now, firing at the 100m long target, make a circle just over 100 meters across at the distance of the target which means you effectively have an area about the size of a quarter to hit again.

 

The math here is simple trig. You can work out for yourself based on any numbers you chose exactly how big the target is and how quickly you can sweep your beam and still have effect.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

I realized I made a mistake in my earlier post where I said that the Empress IBV's 42" of Flight equals 8Gs. According to SH the 5†flight = 1 G rule is by segment, not by phase; really 60†per turn equals 1 G. Using that calculation, the Empress IBV’s 42†of Flight and 3 SPD calculates out to just over 2 G, or 8 G at (x4) non-combat speed.

 

At escape velocity, vehicles are traveling at least 10-15km per second, so it would seem like 10km per hex would be the minimum scale for a near-planetary encounter.

At "one-quarter impulse", if full impulse = about 1/3 c, then minimum scale would have to be about 10,000 km per hex.

 

For an orbital combat, you might be able to use 1km per hex.

 

The fudge factor would be "relative velocity".

 

Keep in mind the space nukes and anti-matter missiles in TE are scaled to 1"=10km, so you might even want to go up to 1"=1000km and work out some reasonable relative movement scale for vehicles(say, 5-15 hexes per phase for large ships, and 10-30 hexes per phase for fighter-scale ships).

Ah! I had missed the 1†= 10km scaling for the nukes – thanks!

 

It does seem almost criminal that there was no effort to clarify the standard space combat "scale" in either Star Hero or any of the supplements.

Yeah, I understand why they wanted to keep it as open-ended as possible for SH itself. Problem is it’s difficult to put together any kind of coherent system until you start making some choices. I would’ve liked to see sample space combat systems, the way FH has sample magic systems. And I really was hoping for a bit more specificity in TE +/or AW.

 

Lemme think this through a little. For purposes of discussion, let’s say “typical†ship combat speeds range from 10kps (escape velocity) to perhaps a few thousand kps. [Assumptions: an 8G ship making a 500 million km trip (Mercury to the asteroid belt), assuming max accel for half the trip followed by max decel for the second half of the trip, will hit a max velocity of 6000kps (0.02 C) at mid-point. Yes, I know that’s a lot of assumptions, but as I said we have to make some choices. YMMV.]

 

Anyway… at 1†= 10km, that gives us scale speeds up to 600†per second, which is going to be pretty hard to keep on the tabletop. If we trade up to 1†= 100km, that gives us speeds up to 60†per second, which is much more manageable. And if we postulate that most battles are likely to be fought closer to one end of the journey or the other (ie – not at max velocities), then we’re looking at more like 1-20†per second, which sounds like Hero Scale. At that scale, the slowest speed you’d be able to reflect on the map would be 1†per turn, or 100km per 12s or 8.3 kps, which is close to escape velocity! So 1†= 100km seems like a workable number.

 

Another way to look at it is: How big are planets compared to the map? Earth’s diameter is 12,800km, which at 1†= 10km gives us an Earth 100’ across, way bigger than the room. At 100km Earth is 11’ diameter, and could perhaps be one edge of the table. If we went up to 1†= 1000km, our scale Earth would be 13†across and could fit on the table. At 1†= 10,000km, Earth just about fits in one hex. Again, not saying there’s a right or wrong answer here; just playing with numbers to see what feels right.

 

 

bigdamnhero

"In jazz, there are no right or wrong notes; only good and bad choices."

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Even assuming that between the time you acquire your target and the time you fire he does *nothing* I still don't think you can hit with the accuracy you need to.

You make a compelling argument for what space combat would not look like. But I'd be curious to hear what you think it could look like, in game if not in reality. Not trying to be cantankerous, but I would like to hear how you would run it, given the assumptions & examples you've used?

 

 

bigdamnhero

"Wars are not won by respectable methods."

[megaplayboy]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

FYI, for other examples, in the Star Trek games, 1 hex = 10,000 km, typically(maximum range of weapon systems is under a light second).

the most extreme example I can think of is Space Opera, where weapons had a maximum range of over 1000 light seconds(about 300 mln. km)! At that scale, 1"=1 million km, or 1"=10 million km seems about right-- a star would fit into a hex or three. A ship traveling 10 hexes per segment(SPD 3 vessel with 40" of flight) would be moving about 300x light speed.

[LoresLost]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

I have been thinking about the nature of space combat. The biggist limitation is would be the sensors used to detect the other ship.

 

If you are limited by light speed (real physics) you have a time lag in your information. the "best range" would be where the information lag is less then "human" reaction time but greater then any danger zone of your weapons. that being said if your oppent is truly human then the sweat range is more then likely slightly under 50 mSecs. Light travels a kilometer in 3.336 microseconds (approx) with a round trip of 6.672 microseconds (active sensors) giving you an approx sweet range of 7494 km for sweat range (short ain't it). The max practical range is where lag becomes unbearable and that is really dependant on other technologies (drives, inertial dampers, missle warhead and missle tracking systems/AI)

 

edit: A Test __ μ

[Jaxom]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

You make a compelling argument for what space combat would not look like. But I'd be curious to hear what you think it could look like, in game if not in reality. Not trying to be cantankerous, but I would like to hear how you would run it, given the assumptions & examples you've used?

 

 

bigdamnhero

"Wars are not won by respectable methods."

 

I've discussed this with the guys I game with (since I am not running anything like it) and the answer varies based on who is playing. I am, by habit, a grognard. I get out my miniatures and push them around and enjoy a 5-hour session of beating on things from a tactical perspective. Some of the guys I game with are not interested in that at all and would much rather play a "HERO dogfight" style battle with tailing and maneuvers and such. Then there's the debate about whether you want to have small fighter craft which allows each character to go his or her own way versus the pair of capital ships slugging it out with players performing the bridge roles...

 

If the question is about what kind of scenario I like to play then the answer is real-physics, hordes of ships (both fighter and capital) a la Star Fleet Battles. The best mechanic that I have been able to come up with for doing something like that is to steal a bunch of ideas that I liked from the old Spacemaster (Iron Crown Enterprises) system...

 

For each vessel, build it like you would any other. Buy acceleration, buy ability to change heading (call this "roll"), buy speed (like for vehicles, this determines the highest speed usable by the crewmen). Then buy weapons and mounts. Mount properties are Limitations/Advantages (fixed mount might be -1, for example, and only allow firing along a straight line of hexes). You can also take "steering" Limitations/Advantages on the acceleration which determine what fraction of the acceleration can be used in an off-axis direction. I have not worked out fixed numbers although I started working on it back when this thread began. I also know that this is more easily done mathematically using a computer but am trying to make simplifications which make it playable on a hex map with miniatures.

 

Ships, of course, also have Body, END, PD/ED and probably Stun. I'd lean toward giving the ship a CON stat and then using CON and Acceleration (instead of STR) to detemine base ED/PD, END, Stun and BODY. Also, because of the reversal of roles, I would suggest using CON for PD and Accel for ED which, if memory serves, is the reverse of 5ER. Note that I would keep the concepts of PD/rPD where one is shields or some sort and the other is actual hull reinforcement.

 

I have not really considered scaling ships to characters at all so how weapon damage and body should compare to characters is not well defined, nor is the cost of turning hero points into ship points for such a system. I'd like to use the same ratios that bases and vehicles do but then weapons don't quite scale right. The competing idea is that I would like to use the same EB/RKA system that HERO has and using the number of points in that weapon to determine range. Since we're defining a different scale for hexes in the space combat system, you're talking a factor of maybe 500 larger range for these weapons but I would hesitate to suggest the same scaling for damage or shielding.

 

A ship moves on its speed always, regardless of crew. It has a velocity vector which you track and on its phases it will move that far. This is probably easiest to track as a number of hexes along each of the three "cardinal directions" on the map and the number of hexes up or down (represented by tokens under the miniature if you're using them). Note again, this has nothing to do with the speed of the crew, not even the pilot. He has other things to do.

 

The "pilot" of any vessel handles manuver. He can change ship heading one hex-side (60 degrees) per point of Roll (might make sense to use 30 degrees instead since that allows you to reach stright up and down but then you have to come up for a mechanic for moving along hex spines). He can also turn up or down (relative to the hex map) 60 degrees using a point of roll. He can then accelerate which means an instantaneous change in the velocity vector. Turning is a 1/2 action, acceleration is a 1/2 action. Turning gets you an OCV penalty (maybe -2 per point of roll used?). If you are pointing up or down when you accelerate then the acceleration gets split between the up-down axis and the direction the ship is facing. 30 degrees out of plane is 1 point up/down, 2 points along facing. 60 is the opposite. Pilot gets to place fractional points as he choses (i.e. accel of 4 is 2 and 1 with 1 left over, he can make it 2 and 2 or 3 and 1). A ship may only accelerate once between moves no matter how fast the pilot is.

 

Firing any weapon on the ship is a 1/2 action. Weapons with the appropriate Advantages could fire twice as two 1/2 actions or could fire beams (modifies damage or OCV or something), etc. I have not defined these advantages, just an idea. A pilot can only fire a bow-mounted weapon on any phase that he also turns or accelerates.

 

Might allow an Engineering type to "rest" for the ship restoring END or perform emergency repairs restoring Stun or Body. Stun probably represents stability of electrical systems in this interpretation.

 

 

Since this is a hero campaign and you want to think about the folks inside the ship, not just the ships, you want to make sure that everyone can fullfill a role on the ship (be it gunner, pilot, communications, etc.) or that everyone can fly a fighter. I'd pick a hex-scale of about 1 km so that I can multi-hex capital ships and star-bases and could abstract planetary atmosphere as a straight line.

 

I haven't worked out point costs but acceleration and roll because there are some considerations... For a multi-hex capital ship you need to decide if roll represents a complete 60 degree rotation of the ship or just a shift of the nose one hex to the side. I'd lean toward the former because of the effect that it has on the velocity vector but then that means some bizarre mechanics if you have ships bigger than about 2 km long... That leads to the suggestion that acceleration and roll costs should be based on the size of the ship which I would equate to Body.

 

 

This is *not* a polished idea, obviously. There are probably things that I have not considered. I've been working on a system in my spare time (thinking that I might be able to set something up for a summer con this year) but I have vanishingly little of that as it is. In the mean time, I *know* that this doesn't feel at all like a dogfight or anything and that is intentional... As I said above, if you want that then go for cinematics, throw out realism and just use the dogfight rules from HERO. This is specifically intended to appeal to grognards and should be applicable as a decent abstraction of combat in any regime where you don't have inertial dampners or the ability to use ftl in combat regimes. See Cancer's prior posts for why allowing things like that in a combat regime changes all mechanics.

 

Another consideration per offline conversations with Cancer... In a regime where FTL is possible and engagement ranges are small, a majority of combat will consist of getting into sensor range, assessing chances of winning and then the side that looks like it will lose running away at FTL velocity before engagement occurs. Only in the situation where the smaller side has no choice will there even *be* space combat.

 

 

 

Ok, enough of the book. As you can see, it's something I am thinking about but I am trying to do a number of things including integrating ideas and point costs with HERO and making the system appeal to people who want to fly both fighters and capital ships. I am not doing anything in particular to address the issues Cancer has mentioned about whether or not space combat should occur in your universe based on technological ability to flee from combat... I doubt that I will post the final system here but if folks are interested in what I come up with, PM me and I will send out a copy to anyone who is interested.

[Jaxom]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Some things I should add...

 

I recognize that this scale limits things significantly... You don't ever represent a whole planet, much less multiple planets. This is intentional... As LoresLost mentioned, sensors are going to be an issue as will weapon travel times, communication lag, etc. If you choose to keep the one second per segment timescale you want things to be reasonably close to one another.

 

Also, at the scale represented, an acceleration of 1 represents roughly 100 Gs of impulse for 1 second. You could divide that if the vessel actually accelerates for 2-4 segments because it has speed between 3 and 6. Still, you're going to be requiring inertial generators to keep anything manned from turning occupants into paste.

 

Second, you have the ability to do all sorts of things built in within the HERO system without working too hard. Mines, Homing Missiles, etc. All can be built as "ships" with very simple systems. Sensors and Stealth are already represented.

 

ECM can be represented by buying DCV with a Limitation (only applies against active targetting systems, like ship weapons and missiles but not mines, etc.). You can also, of course, use the charges limitation liberally.

 

One thing that is not addressed (although it could be using foci) is the idea of ships systems and the ability to knock out a particular system. No targeting the shield generators or the inertial generator.

 

I'd suggest that any multi-hex structure like a 2 km ship or a 50 km across orbital space platform be assigned Body (and possibly Stun) per hex so that ship can puncture the station hull without reducing the whole thing to rubble. It might also be possible to build bulkheads that segment such a ship but I have not considered such mechanics and costs.

 

Representing a space-station on a hex map is fairly simple as you simply lay out a bunch of tokens in a circle on the map and then move the ones that matter (mostly weapon emplacements, damaged sections and any exhaust ports ) as the thing rotates.

 

For those not familiar with rotating stations, the mechanics for determining gravity on the inside of a rotating ring are pretty simple. If you know what radians are you can use a=r(theta)^2 which, for a 50 km (diameter) ring translates to 10 m/s/s = 25,000 m (theta)^2 or theta is 0.02 radians per second; roughly 1 degree per second. Likewise, you can see that gravity then drops directly with radius... Climb halfway to the station core and it goes to .5 G.

 

If you would rather do the work in degrees, the formula simplifies to roughly

 

theta (degrees) = 57 * sqrt( gravity / r ) where gravity should be 10 m/s/s for 1 G and r is in meters (and hence theta is the angle that the station would rotate in one second or segment).

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Thanks for the input!

I'd pick a hex-scale of about 1 km so that I can multi-hex capital ships and star-bases and could abstract planetary atmosphere as a straight line.

Another consideration per offline conversations with Cancer... In a regime where FTL is possible and engagement ranges are small, a majority of combat will consist of getting into sensor range, assessing chances of winning and then the side that looks like it will lose running away at FTL velocity before engagement occurs. Only in the situation where the smaller side has no choice will there even *be* space combat.

Exactly my concern. From a technical standpoint that makes perfect sense, but from a storytelling standpoint it's not what I'm looking for. Of course, good ECM adds to the fog of war considerably: are those 12 cruisers coming towards me? Or 12 destroyers trying to look big? Or 12 dreadnaughts trying to look small? By the time you're close enough to tell the difference, it may be too late to refuse action, especially if you have vector movement and realistic accel levels (ie no inertial dampers). You could probably write a whole "combat" system around the sensor & countermeasures battle, where the outcome is decided before the shpis ever get into weapons range of one another.

 

[sigh] One of these days, I'll get around to doing some actual playtesting...

 

 

bigdamnhero

“Well, my days of not taking you serious are certainly coming to a middle.”

[Inu]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Like I referred to in an earlier post' date=' I can imagine a set of suppositions that would make space combat look like the miserable, inhuman, randomly deadly environment of the trenches of 1916. And if that isn't just about the suckiest possible combat environment for roleplaying ever, I don't want to hear about what's worse.[/quote']

Medieval siege warfare.

 

But only marginally.

[Inu]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

Thanks for the input!

 

Exactly my concern. From a technical standpoint that makes perfect sense, but from a storytelling standpoint it's not what I'm looking for. Of course, good ECM adds to the fog of war considerably: are those 12 cruisers coming towards me? Or 12 destroyers trying to look big? Or 12 dreadnaughts trying to look small? By the time you're close enough to tell the difference, it may be too late to refuse action, especially if you have vector movement and realistic accel levels (ie no inertial dampers). You could probably write a whole "combat" system around the sensor & countermeasures battle, where the outcome is decided before the shpis ever get into weapons range of one another.

 

[sigh] One of these days, I'll get around to doing some actual playtesting...

 

 

bigdamnhero

“Well, my days of not taking you serious are certainly coming to a middle.â€

Yah, the role of ECM and ECCM is vital. In most of my space settings, I've included AWACS vessels which travelled with the fleet.

 

I've long been tinkering with a system/setting more like the stuff presented in the Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual, a third-party supplement detailing all you need to know about the CMarines. It had some nice space combat stuff, placing the Sulaco into context. It said that space combat was about two things, and two things only: stealth and detection. If you could see the bad guy before he could see you, you could launch your nukes first and blow him up.

 

Basically, submarine warfare in space. To make it more submarine-like, I was considering adding in 'terrain' effects. It's well-known that there's no such thing as a true vacuum... the average density of interplanetary space is a few atoms per cubic centimetre, and I'm not sure how much we know about interplanetary space at the moment. But it leaves open the possibility of 'terrain' -- some areas might have more matter than others, which could throw off scans. Ejecta from comets might provide a 'ridge' to hide behind... or if you wanna get really scifi, space could include various folds that could even simulate the thermocline of submarine warfare.

 

In such a setting, fighters are all but useless... except possibly if they're stealthy sensor vehicles or the like. But certainly, no dogfighting, no 'pitched capital ship combat'. A few nukes is all it takes to end most engagements.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

I've long been tinkering with a system/setting more like the stuff presented in the Aliens Colonial Marines Technical Manual' date=' a third-party supplement detailing all you need to know about the CMarines. It had some nice space combat stuff, placing the Sulaco into context. It said that space combat was about two things, and two things only: stealth and detection. If you could see the bad guy before he could see you, you could launch your nukes first and blow him up.[/quote']

I love that book! (Time to pull it out for a re-read.) That would certainly give a very different feel to space combat than what we're used to seeing/reading. My concern would be that all-or-nothing combats are problematic in gaming, where the GM (unlike an author) doesn't have absolute control over what all characters do. Better hope the Bad Guys are in a prisoner-taking mood, or the first time the PCs make one stupid mistake or blow a couple rolls they're dead.

 

OTOH, if your campaign wasn't built around space combat but just had it there for background color, you could handle it all in "box text" and just narrate what happens to get the PCs where you want they to be. Want the PCs to make it out of the system? "You sneak out of system, narrowly avoiding detection." Want them to get captured? "An enemy cruiser has just detected your presense; do you surrender or let them vaporize you?"

 

Basically' date=' submarine warfare in space. To make it more submarine-like, I was considering adding in 'terrain' effects. It's well-known that there's no such thing as a true vacuum... the average density of interplanetary space is a few atoms per cubic centimetre, and I'm not sure how much we know about interplanetary space at the moment. But it leaves open the possibility of 'terrain' -- some areas might have more matter than others, which could throw off scans. Ejecta from comets might provide a 'ridge' to hide behind... or if you wanna get really scifi, space could include various folds that could even simulate the thermocline of submarine warfare.[/quote']

I can't see particle densities high enough to affect movement or firing, but enough to throw off scans? That might be plausible, `tho I would think it would be rare. Anyone more knowledgeable want to weigh in?

 

In such a setting' date=' fighters are all but useless... except possibly if they're stealthy sensor vehicles or the like. But certainly, no dogfighting, no 'pitched capital ship combat'. A few nukes is all it takes to end most engagements.[/quote']

Another good reason to keep the range open. Seriously, wouldn't it depend on the tech assumptions you make about missile guidance vs anti-missile defenses? For example, in the Honnor Harrington books, missile duels are fought at distances of thousands-to-millions of kilometers. At that range, a "near-miss" is still a long ways away, even for a nuke. Point defenses are good enough that it's very difficult to get "old fashioned" nukes close enough to an enemy ship to destroy it. So the primary missile warhead generates bomb-pumped lasers to give it a larger burst radius. But ships are big enough and tough enough to survive getting hit by a few lasers. So even nukes are not necessarily one-shot-one-kill weapons.

 

 

bigdamnhero

“I think I'm going to be unwell.â€

“Ladies are unwell, Stone. Gentlemen vomit.â€

[LoresLost]

Re: Space combat: how big is an inch, how long is a turn?

 

I can't see particle densities high enough to affect movement or firing' date=' but enough to throw off scans? That might be plausible, `tho I would think it would be rare. Anyone more knowledgeable want to weigh in? [/quote']

 

I won't pretend to be an expert on this, but I did work on radio and navigation equipment in the US Navy and I do know that the particle densities of space should have no effect on scans BUT plasma and other highly ionized areas might, depending on the type of scanner, part of EM Spectrem used, equipment timing and redundency and harding of the equipment.

 

If you use a Naval model for your Ships then each ship would have ECM and ECCM equipment. There is no need for an AWAC, EA-6B or Wild Weasle type craft, each vessel would be self contained for electrionic warfare. Also note the expected life of a warship in a full modren naval combat is measured in minutes, so most combat would be very quick in a 'realistic' space combat game and very deadly.

 

Subs make a good choice when modeling living conditions but the surface fleet would be closer to combat with a lot of missles flying every where.

 

I don't think I would want to play in such a thing (I consider either exploration or poltical intrege the best course for a SciFi RPG. More likely to survive it by wit I would think)