Re: Morale ideas for FT.

David & Anita Crowhurst wrote:

> Failing the test.
> Any ship that fails a morale test is marked with a 'stunned' marker. A
> stunned ship may not fire upon an enemy ship, though may return fire
if
> fired upon and may use PDAF/ADAF as normal. A stunned marker is
removed if a
> subsequent morale test is passed.
> A stunned ship may attempt to 'steady' itself. If a stunned vessel is
not
> attacked for 1 turn then it may attempt a new morale test. If it
passes then
> the stunned marker is removed.
>
> If a stunned ship fails a subsequent morale test then it is routed and
the
> 'stunned' marker is replaced by a 'routed' marker.It must move at full
speed
>away from the nearest enemy ship. It may not engage in combat other
than use
> of ADAF/PDAF systems.
>

I disagree with this, in that you are treating ships like units of
soldiers(which are not built to run full speed from combat while
firing). Ships, however, are meant to move and fire, whereas foot troops
are not. I would suggest maybe only allowing the ship to fire at medium
range or shorter, or perhaps put a -1 penalty to any to hit rolls to
simulate the ship not trying to destroy another ship so much as covering
its retreat.

I am about to use a system similar to this in my own Campaign(based
VERY loosely on B5), but without quite as many modifiers. Something
along the lines of if your fleet takes a certain percentage of losses,
you must take a bottle test. If you fail, your fleet retreats. Each
different race would have a different threshhold level at which they
would automatically rout(Narn were at something like 80% casualties
before a full rout, unless fighting Centauri, in which case they rout at
90%). Leadership values were also based on racial characteristics(with
EA being the average of 7 or 8, I forget which).

Gary A. Ballard
gdaddy@misnet.com