Re: DSII questions

Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> When drawing damage chits for a weapon with "All/2" chit validity, do
you
round fractions and if so which way? (Personally I'd say "don't round at
all", but I want other opinions. The authors are welcome to chip in as
well - hint, Mike! ;-) )

Add them all up, them divide by 2. For 0.5 and up, round up.
Alternatively,
roll a dice for 50% round up and 50% round down. Actually, I would
prefer to
use my dice damage system and avoid this problem all together.

> Then a somewhat harder one:
>
> I know I said I didn't want to meddle too much with the parts of DSII
which aren't directly related to the design system, but, well...
>
> Can someone explain the difference between Stealth and ECM to me? Not
the
effects in game terms, I'm well aware of those, but in the PSB?
>
> Stealth is described as:
> "STEALTH covers a wide variety of methods, both physical
(radar-absorbing
paint, heat-emission masking etc.) and electronic, which render the
vehicle
more difficult for the enemy to see and 'acquire' as a target."
>
> In other words, Stealth is designed to disrupt enemy targeting systems
in
general. The "electronic" Stealth systems can either be passive (e.g.
de-magnetizing systems like those on some of the later ex-Soviet tanks)
or
active (i.e., ECM) - the description doesn't say.

In my background, DSII Stealth is advanced manufacturing, fitting more
stuff
in less space. It seems to fit better that way.

> ECM is described as:
> "Systems designed to jam the guidance of incoming Missiles."

In my background, ECM is a combination of chaff, flares, smoke, laser
blinders, radar jammers, holographic imagers, directed EMP and similar
systems directed by an automatic computer system. All these designed to
confuse and deflect an incoming missile into not impacting with the
target
vehicle.

> DSII Missiles are fire-and-forget - i.e.. self-guiding, so there is no
link between the firer and the missile which can be disrupted by active
sensors.
>
> What is the big difference between the guidance systems of a GMS and
the
sensors of an AFV or a sensor drone which makes the systems able to fool
the
AFV or drone unable to fool the missile and vice versa?

In my background, I think I solve this problem.

> The reason I ask is this:
>
> In the current rules, ECM works against GMSs but nothing else (should
work
against MAK artillery too, though),...

I assume that artillery MAK just overwhelms defensive system with
numbers.
So ECM, PDS and Stealth have no effect versus Artillery.

> ...whereas Stealth works against just about everything except missiles
and
artillery. By coincidence, level-1 Stealth gives pretty much the same
protection against direct-fire weapons as Basic ECM gives against GMSs,
level-2 Stealth corresponds very closely to the effects of Enhanced ECM,
and
level-3 Stealth to Superior ECM. There's no ECM equivalents to level-4
and
higher Stealth, of course - not yet, at least <g>

Just use Brilliant ECM, and roll a D12! :-) SMSFFD.

> So... we have two complementary systems with very similar effects
against
their respective "targets", and which seems to have rather similar PSB.
Baking them together into one system would make it *much* easier to
determine their proper points values :-/
>
>
> Finally the hardest question of them all:
>
> Do you have any feelings for how much high mobility is worth in DSII,
de-coupled from weapon types used etc?
>
> That is to say, assume that two forces have identical vehicles, except
that one uses (say) Hi-Mob Wheeled and the other Fast GEV mobility.
Further
assume that the two commanders are of roughly equal skill. How many more
(or
less) vehicles will the Wheeled side need to have an even chance to beat
the
GEVs?
>
> I know that this is a very artificial set-up and that few people would
willingly fight such a battle... especially enough times to determine
the
force levels necessary for balance :-/
> Unfortunately this is one game balance aspect which is utterly
impossible
to do any meaningful mathematical analysis on, which means that the only
data I have at the moment is my DSII gaming experience and that of the
other
locals... I'd much prefer to have a considerably larger sample of
opinions
than this, from as many people as possible
> <g>

In my opinion, about 10% roughly. So the wheeled force might need 10%
more
vehicles than the GEV force.

Andrew Martin
SMSFFD: See my site for further details.
ICQ: 26227169
http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/
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