Planetary Assault Rules (was: Re: Troop Capacity)

> Did you come up with any rules for planetary defenses yet?
> I'm still knocking some ideas around my head on at least an abstract
> method of doing planetary assualts, with a view to expansion to
> something that can actually be 'played' in a more traditional sense.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Richard Slattery	       richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk

One idea I had last year (I can't remember if I posted it) was to
abstract planets & consider them a Sa'Vasku starship.
If you assign planets a mass rating based on population/resources/raw
defence, & double the cost of Sa'Vasku OFFENSIVE fire & halve the range,
this gives the basics for planetary assault FT scenarios (& takes into
account that no thrust expenditure is used).  Ships can target the
planet: total the number of beam dice & divide by 5.  This is the amount
of fire that can actually reach the surface (through atmosphere). 
Ortillery systems roll a flat 3 die per system if at orbit or less
range. 
Resolve using normal Sa'Vasku/beamfire rules.

Using population, divide by 100 & use the square root as the mass, gives
a good figure.

For example, a mass 20 colony (say, 40,000 colonists) would have a PF of
2, hits: 10;5/5.  Offensively at 6" range (orbit on most planets used),
it could at maximum do 6 dice of beam fire (with no defences).	While a
Mass 100 sector capital (1 million) could  put out 30 dice of beam fire
(with no defences).

Planetary assaults (using FT:FB crew) can be worked out as a normal
boarding action.  Total the number of boarding parties sent to the
planet by ships in orbit (1 per mass of Troop cargo, optionally sending
the ship's BF).  If any Power was allocated to PDS, then the PDS can be
allocated against the assault, killing boarding parties as per
antifighter rules.
Any surviving BF then resolve a normal assault using the boarding action
rules, BUT each  boarding roll uses a full FT turn, due to the time
required to lock down a planet (disable defence systems, draw out troops
etc).
Use the new 1 crew/20 mass for militarised planets & 1 crew/50 mass for
civilian planets.  This only represents the ACTIVE component of the
defences.  The actual pacification of the planet would take days or
weeks depending on resistance.

This is very abstracted, but should give a quick resolution (and
emphasises the importance of destroying those troop transports before
they can reach orbit).

'Neath Southern Skies
denian@shepparton.net.au
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/