Re: FT: Damage Track Sliding Scale Suggestion

rickr @ ss1.digex.net (Rick Rutherford) wrote:

> On 24 Feb 1997, Alun Thomas wrote:
> > How about changing the damage track, so that it forms a triangle,
with each
> > row being 2 or 3 boxes shorter than the one above it?
> > 

> There's a problem with this: "the poor get poorer". Once a ship has
> taken about 1/2 damage, it starts to degenerate into a drifting lump
of
> wires & circuit boards as more and more systems fail due to all those 
> threshhold checks.  This would make it easier to destroy the ships in 
> the game, especially the large, "fear-of-ghod" capital ship. [...]

> Here's an extreme example for a 98-mass capital ship:
> 
>      damage boxes   Threshhold roll:
> (13) XXXXXXXXXXXXX		6
> (11) XXXXXXXXXXX	      5,6
>  (9) XXXXXXXXX	    4,5,6
>  (7) XXXXXXX		    4,5,6
>  (5) XXXXX		    4,5,6
>  (3) XXX		    4,5,6
>  (1) X		     dead

Well, I was aware of this, which is why I suggested making all threshold
rolls at 6. Unfortunatly, as Graham Tasker noticed, this is too easy on
damaged ships.

So, I changed the proposal so that the first threshold check is still
against
6, but all subsequent ones are against 5 or 6. This seems to give fairly
similar
results to the current system.

      damage boxes   Threshhold roll:
(13) XXXXXXXXXXXXX    6 (83% of equipment should survive)
(11) XXXXXXXXXXX    5,6 (56% of equipment should survive)
 (9) XXXXXXXXX	    5,6 (37% of equipment should survive)
 (7) XXXXXXX	    5,6 (25% of equipment should survive)
 (5) XXXXX	    5,6 (16% of equipment should survive)
 (3) XXX	    5,6 (11% of equipment should survive)
 (1) X		   dead (0% :-] )

This is actually fairly similar to the rate at which the mass 98 ship
falls 
apart
under the current system, except that it's less granular.

Alun.