Space vs. Atmosphere Movement

[Mazeus Xenon]

OIkay, folks, I have been asking Steve about this and wanted to get other people's opinions and input (as no one seems to be unwilling to talk about game rules here! )

 

Anywho,

I am workingon my starships for my Star Hero campaign. One of the things that is really sticking in my craw is the idea of whether ot not to require megascale movement for space flight. Basically, if you look at any of the sample ships, they will just have something like "Flight (30")" with a x8 noncombat multipler. If I looked at this in real-life figures, a 30" flight and a 4 SPD is... uh (math)... about 45mph. Even with the x8 multipler that is 360mph. That means it would take quite a long time to simply fly from the Earth to Mars, yet we see ships in all sorts of shows and movies doing it in a matter of minutes.

 

So, basically what I am asking from people, is do YOU assume the 30" of movement is automatically scaleable between distances. A ship with 30" of flight can go 30" in any reasonable scale without also applying "Megascale" to it. Again, this is all based on the fact that every sample ship I have seen has only a flat "Flight" movement and an FTL drive (if at all)

[L. Marcus]

Re: Space vs. Atmosphere Movement

 

For simplicity's sake, you can just handwave and say that all space-going vehicles can accelerate their full inches of Movement per Phase -- i. e., Movement becomes acceleration rather than top speed.

 

If you want to, take a look at the spaceship construction guidelines in Star Hero and The Ultimate Vehicle (they're both virtually the same, word for word). The handling of Flight, acceleration, NCM Multipliers and customized Advantage is covered.

 

I'm gonna go look for a build of mine that's posted somewhere around here . . .

 

Edit: Found it: The Le Havre! Interesting discussion followed the publication . . .

[Mazeus Xenon]

Re: Space vs. Atmosphere Movement

 

Oh, I know about all the stuff that is in the book (I've been doing my research!). I just want to know if it would be a safe assumption to have a starship buy one flight and automatically scale it based on the map rather than buying a multipower with "Atmosphere" and "Space" movement (Space movement being megascaled).

 

And I know it is Hero - do whatever I want, right? I am just looking for input and how people interpret the rules in StarHero and UV and the like...

[Mazeus Xenon]

Re: Space vs. Atmosphere Movement

 

Here's a thought - what about having the "Megascale" Advantage limited so it can only be used in a Vacuum (essentially space)? Of course this would not be a very big limitation (at BEST a -1/2 but prob. a -1/4) as a starship would not normally be used in an atmosphere and pointless on any Capital Ship (as they would never be able to go into a vacuum). What do you folks think about that kind of a variation?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Space vs. Atmosphere Movement

 

Oh' date=' I know about all the stuff that is in the book (I've been doing my research!). I just want to know if it would be a safe assumption to have a starship buy one flight and automatically scale it based on the map rather than buying a multipower with "Atmosphere" and "Space" movement (Space movement being megascaled).[/quote']

 

It sounds like what you're saying here -- and I will admit it could be my misreading of your post -- that if a map is scaled to 10 meter hexes, then the 30" of Flight is 300 meters per Phase, and if it's scaled to 1km hexes, that same 30" of Flight becomes 30km per Phase. I'm not sure that that's a good idea.

 

On the other hand, you could decide that in space one hex always equals 1km (or whatever your space scale hexes are), and that all spaceships buy their movement at that rate? So that when a ship buys, say, 5" of Flight, that's 5km per Phase. The potential drawback to doing it this way is that most published ship designs are either built to reflect 2 meter hexes, or they include a "normal and MegaScale" Flight Multipower. But that's not a huge issue, and can easily be handwaved. If this is what you're saying above, then I wholeheartedly agree.

[novi]

Re: Space vs. Atmosphere Movement

 

My first question for you is how important is tactical ship movement to your game? Are ships going to be fighting other ships on a regular basis? Or are they just a means to get from one adventure site to another?

 

(Yes, I realize this also depends on the players, but no one can account for player action.)

 

If the later, you don't need detailed ship specs. If the former, you need to work out who will be fighting what where.

 

Also, you need to consider how realistic you want to be, and what the movement really represents. For example, in many [disclaimer]but by no means all or every sci-fi story[/disclaimer]* space battles, the relative speed between opposing ships is roughly what the example ship speeds are. Look at the Battle of Endor. The fleets were in a rough orbit of moon, giving them a speed of several kps relative to the planet, which is moving several kps relative to its sun, which is moving many kps in orbit around the center of the galaxy, etc. Yet that is not important, as the two fleets weren't moving faster then 1 or 2 kps towards each other.

 

SO I guess my answer is megascale flight between planets, but when ships fight their movement is rated relative to each other.

 

*I've put up a disclaimer! You can't say that I forgot your favorite sci-fi story that does it differently!