Re: Engineers Was Re: TOE

Hi Beth (and Brian),

--On Wednesday, June 30, 2004 9:46 AM +1000 Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> I've been going over the rules for Engineering Equipment in DS, and
they
> seem pretty sketchy.
...
> Bridging Equipment:
> Capacity: (Maximum Class of vehicle the bridge can support) x 4
>

Looks good.

> Excavation Equipment:
> Capacity: 8
>

I think that this is a bit too much.  A lot of tanks have dozer blades 
hooked on that can do the excavation per the rules, but still retain
their 
turrets and weapons.  Unless there a ton of spare capacity, you can't
have 
a dozer tank very easily...

What about halving it?

> Demolition:
> Capacity: 2
> This allows a vehicle to engage in the demolition of targets as per
the
> engineering rules in the book.
> Essentially this is to simulate a set of robotic arms, small RC
drones,
> etc. for the placement of the charges.
>

Could also represent a really short range bombard like ones used in
WWII. 
They lob a bomb less than 100m, so you have to be "in contact".  2
capacity 
looks fine.

> I was going to design a Demolition gun -- low velocity, high explosive
> head, but realized that for clearing structures and obstacles, the
game
> rules turn the DFFG into a highly effective Breaching Gun.
>

I think that there is still value in having some kind of demolition gun,
or 
even a range of them... LVC/3, 4, and 5.  Give it a very short range and

lots of valid chits so that it can boom things up, but only if it gets
into 
knife fight range, or is shooting at bunkers and the like.

> Other support equipment:
> Recovery & Repair
>
> Recovery
> Obviously, the rules cover the amount of capacity to carry a vehicle. 
But
> what about that required to load a disabled
> vehicle onto the transporter, or to tow it behind?  I'm toying with 3
x
> (vehicle class being recovered) for winch/crane gear
> and 5 x (vehicle class being recovered) to tow it behind.
>

Well, if it's a true crane system, then yeah, it makes sense to give it
a 
capacity cost. But there are certainly examples of tanks being used with

tow cables to pull other tanks out of bogs, ditches, etc.  <shrug>

> <Note from Beth: Based on the towed artillery rules wouldn't you just
pay
> for the towing vehicle and say it can tow something up to equal size?>
>

That works for me, but I don't know that I'd allow it to load a disabled

vehicle onto a transport unless it had a crane, which took up
capacity...

> Repair
> A field repair module should be a fixed capacity amount,
> probably 8.
>

8 is a significant amount of capacity, IMHO.  OTOH, you can easily fit
it 
onto a size 3 chassis, so maybe it's not bad. :)

Nice work.

John

John K. Lerchey
Computer and Network Security Coordinator
Carnegie Mellon University

lerchey@andrew.cmu.edu