Boarding combat

Some time ago - before Beth went off-line - there was a discussion
about boarding combat, and some people - Firefall and Beth, IIRC -
suggested that I look at costs for various boarding aids. I had already
started looking at boarding battles in more detail, but the debate
added a lot of input.

This isn't nearly as thoroughly done as I would have liked, due among
other things to the big artillery/ GEV/AC/etc debate I got involved in,
but here goes:

First, my thanks to Schoon for his boarding article at the Ship
Registry. While I don't agree completely with it, it was a very useful
starting point :-)

So far I've encountered four different boarding mechanisms in the SF
literature and various other SF games (other than FT, that is): 

1) "Individual" boarding, eg as described in the Fading Suns games.
This is the basic More Thrust way of boarding, and doesn't cost
anything at all. The only addition I'd make to the MT way of moving BFs
is that the target's point defence can fire at the boarders, killing 1
BF per hit.

2) Single-shot Boarding Torpedoes, eg the "sleds" used by the Thebans
in Weber's "Crusade" novel (too bad they don't work in Starfire due to
horrendous game balance problems). 
	Each boarding torpedo salvo is handled just like an SM salvo,
but
instead of inflicting 1D6 damage per missile which actually makes it to
the target it delivers 1 BF per such missile. Cost and size is the same
as SMs of the same range. Note that the BFs carried by the missiles
must be bought separately (either as marines or as crew factors - see
below); they don't automatically come with the missiles!

3) Re-usable Boarding Shuttles, eg like the pod used to attack B5,
Silent Death wormpods or the longboats described in several of the
stories in the "Fleet" antologies. 
	Cost and size as a normal fighters; fight other fighters as
torpedo/attack fighters, and each boarding shuttle which makes it
through to the target delivers 1 BF (after which it is empty - the
squadron may return to a friendly carrier to pick up more BFs.). As
with the boarding torps, the BFs must be bought separately from the
shuttles.

4) Teleporters, featured prominently in a background with a prominent
and highly insubordinate bald captain or old Scottish engineers (I
watched ST: Insurrection this Tuesday. Cute story, but...), and also in
backgrounds where human hyperspace navigation is made possible by
sacrificing hundreds of low-powered psykers each day to a millennia-old
semi-corpse held in stasis. 
	Each teleporter is a Mass 1, cost 12 (or more - I haven't tested
it
anywhere close to enough yet) system able to transport 1 beam dice
(incl. re-rolls) of *friendly* BFs between the ship mounting the
teleporters and any one friendly ship within 12mu or any one shieldless
enemy ship within 12mu. (Yes, I know that ST transporters can move
enemy crews as well, but I'm *NOT* going to introduce the "beam the
enemy fighter pilots out of their craft" tactic into FT!). PDS are not
able to stop teleporters.
	Note that the BFs can travel in either direction, but each
teleporter
system can only "link" to one other ship per turn and the number rolled
on the die is the total number of BFs it can transport (ie, count both
directions). 

Note that it is quite legal to send boarding parties to your own ships
using any of these mechanisms, though I'm not entirely sure if boarding
torps should be allowed to do this unless it is explicitly declared
when the torps are fired. PDS don't have to fire on friendly boarders,
but of course you *can* do it if you really want to... However, no BF
can move to more than one new ship in a single turn. It is NOT possible
to board enemy fighters, missiles or other small craft.

Individual, torpedo and shuttle boarding all take place in the Fighter
Combat phase. Teleport movement take place when the ship carrying the
teleporters fire its weapons. All boarding combat is handled after all
ships have fired - ie, in the "Turn End" phase in the FB turn sequence.

So far the transport of boarders. Now for the boarding combat itself:

Boarding parties are made up of two components: crew and marines. 

The crew are the same people as form the DCPs - effectively everyone
not manning a vital combat station (eg, making sure the fusion reactors
don't blow, aiming a weapon or something like that), so a single crew
factor can either fight in a boarding battle or repair damage, but not
both. They come "for free" when you buy the ship, and are lost when the
corresponding crew marker on the damage track is crossed out (or when
they are killed by enemy boarders, of course). No ship may send more
than half its original crew factors to board enemy ships - if it has
lost half or more of its original crew factors, it must use Marines to
board.

Marines are bought at a cost of 1 Mass, 3 pts per marine BF. They are
marked as "tech systems" on the ship data panel and are lost in
threshold checks or needle beam hits, and cannot be "repaired" by DCPs.
(Any BFs aboard an enemy ship which takes damage are treated as marines
for damage purposes!).

Boarding combat occurs whenever there are beings from more than one
side aboard a single ship. Both sides roll 1d6 for each BF involved in
the fight, and score it just like a beam weapon (including re-rolls). 

The result is the number of casualties inflicted on the opposing force.
Any
losses suffered by the attacker are taken directly from his BF (losing
marines first, then crew). The defender may replace up to half (round
up) of his losses with threshold damage against tech systems of his
choice. Each non-core system damaged replaces 1 BF lost, while each
Core system damaged replaces 2 BFs; remaining casualties must be taken
against marines first.

Only one round of boarding combat is fought each turn, so it is quite
possible for boarding fights to rage on for several turns.

The main difference between these boarding combat rules and Schoon's is
that I allow non-Core systems to be lost. The main reason for this was
to give small ships - DDs and the like - a chance to survive being
boarded by cruisers :-/

I'm looking at boarding morale rules at the moment, but haven't yet
worked out (or stolen <g>) anything I'm satisfied with.

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry