Vehicles OCV confusion

[doccowie]

Dear All, 

Plea for advice from a long time lurker. 

 

Dead Eye Dick is in his trusty modified F15 (OCV 8). He has fitted it with a 20mm cannon, and added a patent targeting system (+4 OCV with cannon), and rangefinder (+2PSLs vs range penalties)

 

Dick himself has OCV 6 (he's more technical than combat orientated), but he's not called Dead Eye for nothing (+2 levels in ranged combat, +3PSLs vs Range). 

 

So, he's trying to strafe a tank below (DVC 3, +4 OCV to hit, -10 range penalty). 

 

What the heck roll does he need to hit? 

 

Do you compare each of their chances to hit and take the lowest (Dick final OCV 5)?

(Plane OCV 8, + 4 targeting, +2 rangefinder, -10 range, +4 tank size - total OCV 8 vs DCV 3)

(Dick OCV 6, +2 ranged combat, +3 PSLs, -10 range, +4 tank size - total OCV 5 vs DCV 3)

 

[in which case, what is the point of the rangefinder (unless you are very skilled it does nothing)? In fact, what is the point when creating a custom vehicle of installing anything that puts it higher than your chosen pilot's OCV?]

 

Or do you just take the lower of the two initial OCVs (6), and then EVERYTHING else stacks 

OCV 6, +4 targeting, +2 rangefinder, +2 ranged combat, +3 PSLs, -10 range. +4 tank - OCV 11? 

 

Or some arcane combination of the two? 

 

Now, once we have that sorted, what the heck happens at Non-Combat Movement? I mean, it must be Non Combat movement, right, otherwise the F15 is only moving at 114 kph (76m x5 SPD)?

 

Is OCV just 0?

Do some of the bonuses and penalties apply? If so, which? 

Does it make any difference if Dick makes a Combat Pilot roll as a half phase? What if Dick is just a gunner (not the pilot) in a slightly different plane (though every other number is identical)? 

 

Thank you in advance...

[Chris Goodwin]

For the first part of your question: the vehicle's DEX, SPD, OCV, and DCV are the maximum values the vehicle/pilot combination can act at.  You always take the lower of the two for base OCV and DCV, and then everything else stacks.  

 

According to RAW, a character, including a Vehicle, moving at Noncombat velocity is always at OCV 0 and 1/2 DCV, and it wouldn't make any difference whether Dick was a pilot or a gunner.  A frequent optional but commonly used rule, especially with vehicles, is the Velocity-based DCV table.  And another optional rule that my old group used was to apply the velocity-based DCV as a penalty to the character's OCV, instead of making them OCV 0.  

[doccowie]

Thanks, Chris.

What you say certainly makes sense. I particularly like the velocity DCV as a penalty rule.

However, in RAW the F15 (and pretty much all other planes) will always be travelling using NCM (I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure 114 kph is below its stall speed).

Why bother giving it an OCV of 8? Would that only be useful when it was stationary on the ground?

It's even worse in Star Hero. How can you have dogfights when all craft will at the very least be travelling at NCM, probably megascale, and possibly even FTL? If by RAW there will be no difference between Luke and Jar Jar Binks at the controls of an XWing (I know, they can use Combat Piloting to evade, but, you know, shooting).

Now, I love the Hero system for its flexibility, and the last thing I want to be is That Guy moaning about something i could just rewrite.

But given the comprehensiveness and duration of the system - has this never cropped up before?

I will go and check out my old Adventurer's Club mags :- )

[Tasha]

Thanks, Chris.

What you say certainly makes sense. I particularly like the velocity DCV as a penalty rule.

However, in RAW the F15 (and pretty much all other planes) will always be travelling using NCM (I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure 114 kph is below its stall speed).

Why bother giving it an OCV of 8? Would that only be useful when it was stationary on the ground?

It's even worse in Star Hero. How can you have dogfights when all craft will at the very least be travelling at NCM, probably megascale, and possibly even FTL? If by RAW there will be no difference between Luke and Jar Jar Binks at the controls of an XWing (I know, they can use Combat Piloting to evade, but, you know, shooting).

Now, I love the Hero system for its flexibility, and the last thing I want to be is That Guy moaning about something i could just rewrite.

But given the comprehensiveness and duration of the system - has this never cropped up before?

I will go and check out my old Adventurer's Club mags :- )

Because there could be PCs that have an OCV of 8 and High Dex and SPD. What it means is that the vehicle is very reactive, quick on the controls.

 

The assumption is that vehicles will be moving COMBAT speeds and not Non Combat speeds for dogfighting. The difference being that at combat speeds the vehicle has it's DCV.

 

The Complete Vehicle should have more detailed rules for this.

[doccowie]

Thanks, Tasha,

I do get this for "normal" vehicles, but planes simply cannot move at their so called "combat" speeds, they will stall and crash. And for spacecraft the number of points required to get a vaguely useful combat speed would be (literally) astronomical.

So, by RAW, including the stats given for the F15 in book 2, it simply doesn't matter what the plane or the pilot's OCV is, they will end up with an OCV of 0.

 

We seem to have a choice. Demand that planes buy at least 200m flight and 6 speed (to get to a still pretty slow 360kph), or look at tweaking the rules if vehicular combat is relevant in the campaign. Which it usually isn't in super heroic campaigns, obviously.

 

In fact, just to be controversial, is it easier for a gunner to aim a gun out of a car when the driver has his foot down travelling 120mph in a straight line (NCM), or when they are being whipped back and forth in sharp turns to get the full DCV?

NCM works well for characters moving under their own power, but just doesn't work when trying to recreate Top Gun, Star Wars or even any car chase scene in the movies...

[Chris Goodwin]

I recommend picking up the Ultimate Vehicle and the Advanced Player's Guides.  One of the APG's (and I can't remember which one, and I don't have them in front of me) has the dogfighting rules included, which are strongly recommended when using vehicles vs. vehicles, or vehicles vs. targets that can move at vehicular speeds.  

 

As far as whether the F-15 can even move at combat speeds, had it been up to me to build them I would have done it a bit differently.  The stats given in 6e2 are intended to be pretty generic, used if you need one to do a flyby on a supers combat.  If I were running a military air combat game, I would rebuild them with a lot more detail, reference to real world performance values on things like stall speeds and the like.

[Greywind]

It does seem that the op is getting caught in the space between "reality" and "game rules".

[doccowie]

Without being lame and defensive, I don't think it's reality vs game rules, it's genre and coolness vs game rules.

If there is one reason to play HERO it's because it is so good at simulating so many genres. Obviously, that's why we're all here.

Lots of movies especially involve vehicular combat, this just seems like a bit of a gap for SOME campaigns. Many campaigns it really doesn't matter. Hero is so good at so much other stuff.

RAW Hero doesn't simulate jets strafing ground targets terribly well, just like it doesn't simulate bricks destroying tanks (I really enjoyed that thread, which perhaps reveals my simulationist bias).

If your 120 STR hero punches a tank, and literally nothing happens, you feel a bit let down. There were so many cool ideas about how to work round this In the last thread, I wondered if similar approaches existed for vehicles - because if your hero in a tricked out T16 can't hit a womp rat you don't get that feeling of how heroic your character is.

 

Again, to defend bringing in reality - two superheroes battling in a comic is difficult to quantify, if you don't know how hard they punch, how do you know how tough their defences are? You get a baseline power level by comparing them with real world objects.

"Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound"

 

Thanks for the tip on UV and APG, Chris, I will totally look at this.

[Greywind]

But even as cinematic there are things in movies with/about vehicles that those vehicles can't do in reality without either heavy modification or cgi.

[doccowie]

Greywind, of course you are right. This isn't a big thing. "Newsflash - Hero NOT perfect for EVERY game in EVERY way"

But - given that we love the system - can we tweak it to do what we want?*

I wanted to swoop down on tanks like a bird of prey, rather than buzzing them like an ineffectual wasp. Now I have some good ideas on how to do it, so I'm happy and will once again lurk in the background ....

 

PS Loved Business Unfinished. Would have been polite to mention it before now...

 

*NB We all want different things, obviously :- )

[Tasha]

Also combat speeds are slower since it assumes that forward momentum is being wasted dodging, jinking etc to avoid fire. It's not perfect and probably should be rethought along with all of the Vehicle rules.

[Greywind]

Greywind, of course you are right. This isn't a big thing. "Newsflash - Hero NOT perfect for EVERY game in EVERY way"

But - given that we love the system - can we tweak it to do what we want?*

I wanted to swoop down on tanks like a bird of prey, rather than buzzing them like an ineffectual wasp. Now I have some good ideas on how to do it, so I'm happy and will once again lurk in the background ....

 

PS Loved Business Unfinished. Would have been polite to mention it before now...

 

*NB We all want different things, obviously :- )

 

Stop lurking and participate in the discussions.

 

Thanks.

 

I think we all want to have fun.

[TheDarkness]

I've been struggling with the same thing(the relative strangeness of combat speed for vehicles). I toyed with the idea of using "relative speed" as a benchmark, but that might prove hard, at least for those segments where the uber quick and people of varying speeds are in the same area.

[doccowie]

_{The dogfighting rules in APG 1 are very good for positioning and a cinematic effect, though they don't seem to solve the problem of vehicular OCVs.}

_{Useful suggestions in the Ultimate Vehicle, suggesting -2 penalties for gunners using their own weapons from a vehicle.}

_{But this seems to make things worse!}

_{My OCV with the F15 autocannon is always 0, but if I wind the window down and shoot a pistol I'm just at -2!} 

 

_{I suspect this comes down to the problems associated with OCV/DCV multiples. Everyone is happy with adds and subtraction, some people are less happy about halving and reducing to zero - it just seems too extreme. If I can make a Breakfall roll at -10 to survive terminal velocity (meaning that if I use enough points to buy up the skill I can eventually have a reasonable chance to do it), why does it not matter how many points I put into my skills - I can't get a decent shot at a tank from a plane?}

_{I think my favoured options would be penalties rather than absolutes, and I will scurry away and come up with something that makes me happy.}

 

_{Alternatively, the only fix by RAW seems to be ... my old copy of Autoduel Champions!}

[Greywind]

You should also take into account the purpose of what you are choosing. The F-15 is/was a tactical superiority fighter intended for air-to-air engagements. If Dead Eye Dick wants to strafe a tank he should purchase an A-10.

[doccowie]

Touché!

[Tasha]

I suspect this comes down to the problems associated with OCV/DCV multiples. Everyone is happy with adds and subtraction, some people are less happy about halving and reducing to zero - it just seems too extreme. If I can make a Breakfall roll at -10 to survive terminal velocity (meaning that if I use enough points to buy up the skill I can eventually have a reasonable chance to do it), why does it not matter how many points I put into my skills - I can't get a decent shot at a tank from a plane?

I think my favoured options would be penalties rather than absolutes, and I will scurry away and come up with something that makes me happy.

 

Alternatively, the only fix by RAW seems to be ... my old copy of Autoduel Champions!

I dislike the halving of CV, I don't mind CV going to Zero because it makes real sense that there are times when you ARE base CV 0. Halving of CV is very problematic esp if you wish to go to a roll high system instead of roll low. it also penalizes high CV characters more than it does low CV.

 

Autoduel Champions isn't really the answer either.

[Chris Goodwin]

I meant to check the Ultimate Speedster, as I think there's probably stuff in there that will be helpful.  

 

IMO, the best fix would be to rebuild the F-15's stats to more closely match real world performance numbers.  Maximum speed data is readily available (mach 2.5+ at high altitude; mach 1.2 at low altitude); some Google searching suggests to me that jet fighter pilots don't go above about mach 0.7 in combat.  These give us numbers to work with.  I'd say make its combat speed about mach 0.7, leave its basic NCM at x2, and give it an additional x2 NCM for high altitude flight.  

 

Edit:  Google says the speed of sound is 767 and change mph.  Round that however you like, as the actual speed of sound varies by density and temperature of the medium, but we can assume a combat speed of about 535 mph, low altitude NCM at 1070 mph, and high altitude at 2140 mph.  535 mph comes to just under 240 meters per second, so I'd round.  That becomes 2880 meters per Turn, and with the F-15's SPD of 5 that comes to 576m of Flight per Phase.  Sticker shock, methinks, but for the hypothetical Air Combat Hero we're not going to worry much about the characters paying for it.  

 

Some more Google searching suggests that the stall speed of the F-15 is about 75 knots, or 38 and change meters per second.  That comes to around 91m per Phase, which is less than half its combat velocity, so IIRC you get no Limitation value for that.  

[doccowie]

Oh, my goodness, Chris, that is awesome.

I bow to your epic technical geekery.

No-one on D&D forums adjusts their replies on the basis of the speed of sound in variable air density:-)

[Chris Goodwin]

Haha, I'm not that good.  I just searched Google for speeds and converted units.  I didn't exactly recommend values to use to adjust for all that (but you can, if you want).