Re: [FT] Hull strength and Stress

Jared,
	I think your ideas about hull stress ratings and damage are good
strarting
points.  I like the idea of creating ships with any amount of hull
integrity as long
as it is above 10%.  I also like the idea of being able to model the
damage to the
ship as it relates to maximum safe thrust.  Here are a few ideas I have
on the
subject.

Jared E Noble wrote:

> If integrity measures how much you can remove before before it can no
longer
> withstand its own engines, then is it an all-or-nothing affair. Why
take the
> leap from full strength (can take th8) to destroyed (when the ship is
destroyed)
> It seems a middle ground is reasonable (assuming it doesn't disrupt
game play
> too much).

    I agree.  There is nothing wrong with an optional rule that allows
you to model
a slowly (or quickly!) deteriorating hull integrity.  The problem I have
with the
system you proposed, and then quickly retracted, is that it seems to be
an
additional burden to smaller ships, as they are less likely to have
enough hull
points to soak up any stress damage and they are exactly the kind of
ships that
would be designed with high thrust factors.
    We should assume that all ships are designed to withstand the thrust
factor with
which they have been built.  So why not just reduce the "safe thrust
factor"
proportional to the amount of damage the ship has taken?  At the first
threshold
check, have the ship's maximum safe thrust be 75% of the original
thrust, rounded up
to the nearest whole number.  At the second and third checks, the ship
would be at
50% and 25%, respectively.

> So I am more than happy to retract the concept of tying initial Stress
Rating
> from the proposal, but would like your opinion -
> Does the concept (not necessarily implementation) of reducing the
'structural
> integrity' due to damage make sense? Is it any more or less logical
than a ship
> which has lost 90% of it's hull points still thrusting around at th8?
(I know
> that question sounds horribly biased, and that was not my intent - I
just can't
> figure out how to word it to not reflect bias one way or the other.)
> Is it illogical to assume that a ship, after taking damage, could have
it's hull
> weakened to the point that full use of its own drives could actually
further
> damage the hull?

    I like your idea, and that's why I proposed the system mentioned
above.	The way
I propose to handle damage from stress is a bit different from what you
proposed.  I
like the idea you had about having to roll a die for each level of
thrust above the
maximum safe rating.  I feel we should keep that.  On a roll of a 4 or
5, the ship
takes one point of structural damage.  On a roll of a 6, the ship takes
two points
of structural damage, if you're using the optional re-roll rules (and
who doesn't?)
re-roll all sixes.
    Structural damage, though, should be handle differently from normal
weapons
damage.  First, it never effects armor.  It's unlikely that a ship will
have armor
left after the first threshold check, but it is certainly possible,
however, in
sci-fi, I've never seen hull plating break off in chunks when a ship
makes a crazy
move or accelerates, so I'd like to keep the armor out of the mix. 
Second, in a
turn, the first point of damage is removed from the highest available
row, the
second point of damage from the next available row, and so on.	If
you've already
taken stress damage on the last available row this turn, start taking it
from the
top again.
    This means that the ship doesn't take the full effect of the damage
unless the
ship is further damaged.  I feel this is in keeping with the dramatic
elements of
fiction which we are trying to model by this rule.  The choice of which
box to check
on a row lower than the top row, is up to the player.  In other words,
you don't
have to check all the boxes on the lower rows in any particular order. 
You'll
probably want to keep all the damage to the "far" side of the hull track
and skip
over all of the boxes with DCPs for as long as possible.
    The combination of only taking damage half the time (only on fours,
fives, and
sixes) along with the delayed effect of damage makes this systema real
crap shoot,
which is EXACTLY what we're trying to model.

Engineer: Sir, we've lost a lot of hull integrity.  Recommended safe
limit is thrust
factor two.
Captain: What happens if I exceed the recommended safe limit?
Engineer: There's nothing in the tech manuals about this.
Executive Officer: I guess no one has ever been this desperate.

    Let me know what you think.

-Michael

--
Michael Sarno

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