Re: [SG] Discussion about weekend questions

>Correct, but that's an artifact of the turn sequence.	 If you follow
>it, you get absurd results.

yes and no.  you can get absurd results, if you try to have races
between
armoured vehicles, for example...  ;)

that's an example of pushing the rules to cover a situation for which
they
were clearly not designed... and so they break or don't make sense.

  Picture a race between grav APCs.  The
>red one pours on the hydrogen and zooms off at top speed, moving down
>the track.  The green one also zooms off, but then slams to a stop,
>whereupon troops jump out and run past the speeding grav vehicle.  No,
>sorry, I don't buy it.
>

This is *also* an artifact of the turn sequence.

Let's look in more detail. We hold your race, according to the Stargrunt
rules and using the turn sequence, activations, and vehicle movement
(even
assuming we were using Travel movement, giving the vehicles their
maximum
possible movement for the turn) and no command reactivations.  What
happens?  In that race, in one turn (lasting approx 5 minutes, maybe),
the
first grav APC would be able to travel 480 meters, at which point it
would
come to a halt.  The other grav APC zooms up next to it, 480 meters away
from the starting line.  The infantry leisurely gets out, and saunters
ahead another 60 meters.  

Are those distances possible in 5 minutes?  Of course they are.

Is this situation silly, considering that this was supposed to be a
race?
Sure.

But that is exactly what would happen if you play the rules.

And yes, I'm fully in support of the "play the game, not the rules"
mentality, but you have to look at what the rules are trying to
represent
in this case, not what should be possible in situations the rules are
NOT
designed for.

The Grav APCs in question, could probably zoom off at hundreds of
kilometers per hour and travel thousands of meters in that five minute
period, and CERTAINLY the infantry wouldn't be jumping out and running
ahead in that case.

But that isn't what the Stargrunt movement system is trying to
represent...
 It is not going to work for a passenger car driving down the highway at
120kph, but it is intended to work for an APC, in battle, making *small*
movements from cover to cover, jinking around the battlefield, etc etc.

"Realistically", in a five minute period, a vehicle could move further
than
vehicles do in an average Stargrunt game turn, looking at maximum
possible
movement rates.

BUT...

a) there have to be some limits on vehicles, or they'd move around the
entire board in a 25mm stargrunt game virtually at will, and that would
be
too much of an advantage;

b) everything else in the game is limited by the nature of the turn
sequence... so for example you have the situation where the more
"realistic" speeding vehicle, driving 60", drives by 10 enemy squads who
can't do anything about it because they've already been activated that
turn...  The mechanics of the turn sequence are part of the game.  Part
of
the "balance" here is that vehicles just can't move too far, which works
fine in play.

BUT, if you create further restrictions on what infantry getting in or
out
of vehicles can or can't do, you make things *even more* unrealistic...

If the vehicle had to spend the action to disembark the infantry, then
what
you're saying is that an APC is limited, in a roughly 5 minute period,
to
driving 120 meters, depositing infantry, and doing nothing else.  Now,
*that* is absurd.  

And this doesn't address the issue of breaking the activation sequence,
which is what Tom's method does.

>I think it would make more sense to say it costs an action for both
>the squad and the vehicle; but if you don't want that, then charge the
>VEHICLE one action.
>

Nope.  I don't buy it.	If the infantry is moving, they're the ones who
should be paying the cost of moving.

If we assume that stuff happens more or less "simultaneously" in the
turn,
then the APC crew should be able to do stuff while the infantry inside
are
getting in or out.  Fight, for example, or plan their next movement
bound.
This gets represented by the fact that the crew can fight and move,
while
the infantry gets in or out, etc.

>>  In this case the squad is moved by the
>> vehicle, but that's pretty much the WHOLE POINT of putting troops in
>> APCs... to get extra movement distance (well, and to protect them
>from
>> arty, but that isn't such a big deal in an average SG game).
>
>Not in one turn.

Gotta disagree with you.  Yes, in one turn.

A troop carrying vehicle has to be able to travel further than 120
meters
and disembark its infantry in a five minute period... 

  If you keep your troopies in APCs for several turns,
>then they will move farther than they could if they dismounted  and
>ran.

If the turn sequence represented short fixed-period turns of 30 seconds,
I'd agree with you.  But the time period is much more abstract than
that.
As Jon points out in the "Timescale" section of the book, 

"...the timescale is... pretty irrelevant to normal play;  most real
combat
consists of sudden bursts of frantic firefight, separated by long
periods
of movement, scouting, observation and general inactivity."

And so on.

I think we've established that the maximum movement distances possible,
even in the best conditions, using the Stargrunt rules are absurdly
short
(half a kilometer in five minutes in a Grav APC on a racetrack... people
can run faster than that, even carrying gear...).  So, what gives?
Movement in the game is abstracted, and consists of these sudden bursts
of
activity and the long periods of scouting, inactivity, observation, etc,
that Jon outlined.  Is it reasonable to suggest that within that
abstract
period of time, the exact order in which movement and disembarking
happens
doesn't really matter?	I think so.  Could a vehicle reasonably move 240
meters?  Sure.	Could it drop off troops first, and then move 240
meters?
Sure.  Could it travel 240 meters and then drop off troops?  Sure. 
Those
are ALL reasonable, in the rough time period represented by a game turn. 

***************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca