Re: Full Thrust : Electronic Warfare

On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
> 
>    To fire on a target, you must establish a lock on.  You cannot
engage
> the enemy ship with a weapon without getting a lock on first.

how long does a lock last? do you need to reacquire each turn? in this
case, ships need to be able to make several lock-ons a turn or multiple
firecons are useless.

i think a rule like this makes for interesting play. here's a modified,
Sensors Lite (tm) version:

to fire at another ship, you need a lock-on. to make a lock-on, you need
to win an opposed die roll against the target. the die you roll is
determined by your sensors on the BasEnhSup scale, poss using d4 for
civillians. the target's die is determined by its stealth level, again
on
the BasEnhSup scale. unstealthed ships, as seen in the standard designs,
get a d4 stealth die. you may make one lock-on attempt per firecon per
turn, all at once and before firing. lock-ons can be made at up to the
range of your sensors. only active sensors may be used to make lock-ons
(scope for extra rule here!). lock-ons last for the rest of the turn.
extra lock-ons on the same target have no effect (scope for extra rule
here!). the use of FCs for locking on is not connected to their use for
controlling fire (scope for extra rule here!).

eg, a cruiser (2 FC, basic sensors, no stealth) is fighting an identical
cruiser: it rolls twice to get a lock-on on the target. it rolls (on a
d6)
a 4 and a 2. the target (on a d4) rolls a 3. he has locked on.

eg, a battleship (3 fc, bas sens, no stealth) is fighting two stealthed
destroyers (1 fc, bas sens, enh stealth). it directs 2 tries against one
target and one against the other. it rolls 1,5, target rolls 6: no
lock-on. it rolls 4, target rolls 2: lock-on.

firing at fighters, missiles and associated swarming irritants, a
lock-on
is not required. likewise, fighters need to lock-on to attack. they
should
do, but i can't figure out how to do it. maybe their carrier needs a
lock-on?

i'm not sure how big or how expensive stealth systems should be.
probably
half the cost of a cloak per level, max 3 levels (1->bas,2->enh,3->sup).

-- possible extra rules:

a firecon may only direct fire against the target which it locked onto.
i
don't think this rule actually affects play in any way. however, it
would mean that to fire needles you need to lock on to a particular
system
on the target, using the same procedure as general lock-on.

multiple lock-ons give better fire control. add one to each firing die
roll per extra lock-on. this may not be such a good rule, or it could
tie
in with the rule above and be a fire control rule, not a sensor rule -
mulitple fcs can be used to improve fire accuracy. rerolls still only on
natural six, AA battery blowback based on natural rolls.

lock-ons can be copied to other ships in the squadron. if one of your 3
cruisers gets a lock-on on the target, they all get it. if all three get
lock-ons, they all transfer and all of them get a +2 on the roll.
squadrons must be given the same movement orders and must have the same
speed and heading, and some proximity (6"? 12"?).

alternatively, a fleetcon action may copy a lock-on to one other ship,
or
to all other ships. which? i just don't know.

if the ship uses its sensor fit (standard hull sensors or big active
sensors) for locking on in any given turn, it cannot use it to scan
enemy
ships. passive sensors are still available.

-- end extra rules

>  A
> successfull lock on tells the scanner the speed of the enemy ship and
> direction of travel as well as a fire control solution.  The Scanner
must
> make a scan roll greater than that of the target in question to gain a
lock
> on.  If the scanners roll is two times that of the defenders roll then
he
> gets an estimate of the Mass of the enemy ship rounded off to either
upper
> or lower  factor of ten(15 becomes 10 or 20, target owners choice). 
If the
> Scanners roll is three times that of the defenders roll, the he knows
the
> class type of ship being scanned, and must during the next turn will
know
> if the enemy ship is changing velocity in what direction (course
> change(left or right), speed change(faster or slower)) before writing
his
> ships orders.  Four Times, he gains critical information (Flag Ship,
etc.)
> and knows the course and speed of the enemy ship before he writes his
own
> orders.

this is addressed in the existiong sensor rules, isn't it? or are you
replacing them?

ok, your proposals on calculating stealth look ok. maybe use those
instead
of my simple (and largely undefined) one. however, i'm not sure smaller
ships are actually harder to detect. not linearly, anyway. ecm die can
also go against lock-on: roll a secondary defence die as you do for ecm
with pds vs gms in ds2 (tla overload!). you'll need BasEnhSup ecm scale
too.

Tom