[SG2] Vehicles and Heavy Weapons

1) Mr. Johnson, my Factor will attend to the 
arrangement of details. As the challenged party, 
you have the right to declare our use of waffles. 
Might I humbly suggest an appropriate fruit 
such as blueberries or strawberries as an 
augmentation? Of course, the loser of the duel 
must render unto the winner the cost of 
breakfast. 

And yes, I was tawkin to yoo, ya Tron-tonian! ;) 

2) Silliness aside: 

If anyone has seen modern weapons 
stabilization (let alone that of 2183), I can't 
imagine why you'd penalize a fire on the move. 
You might argue it from game balance, but that 
shouldn't be required. What are the hazards of 
movement? Being spotted (easier), having a 
harder time spotting (very bad), drawing 
attention to yourself (target priority rules), and 
of course it takes you out of cover and exposes 
you to all sorts of reaction fire or overwatch 
shots. I'm not sure I'd penalize stabilized 
weapons at all. I've seen an M-1 bouncing over 
terrain that made the hull sway and buck like a 
rowboat in a high sea state, and the main gun 
was rock solid and pointed at its target.... I 
don't think things are likely to get feebler in the 
future.

3) Adrian has an interesting idea. Let's try out 
another form: I fire my RFAC at PA. I get the 
following two results: Suppression or hits. If I 
get hits, roll the first one as 2d10 (assume 
RFAC/1) and the others as D8. That grants one 
contact hit and fragmentation effects. That 
might give a reasonable compromise. Pretty 
good chance of killing one soldier and maybe 
wounding some others. 

3) Another interesting bone to pick: 
PA not getting cover benefits to armour. They 
have D12 armour, sure, but if I'm PA behind a 
brick wall, I'm arguably better off than PA in the 
open. If we allow an open shift on armour to 
2d6 and 2d8 or d16 and d20 or something 
(details fuzzy in my head now), then PA could 
still benefit from cover. An earth berm or a 
concrete wall should still give cover benefits!

4) Allan has an interesting idea. Another 
approach might be to say that range bands are 
12" for no FC, 16" for basic, 20" for enhanced, 
and 24" for superior. This then makes 
groundmounts without FC able to get 12" 
range as well as pintle mounts, but a remote 
mount MG/RFAC could apply for at least a 16" 
range due to the built in target stabilization 
gear. 

Don't get me wrong, I like unit quality to 
matter, but I get the impression that DS2 
weapons ranges were more determined by 
technology (at a certain point, your FC probably 
matters moreso than your skills in determining 
when a weapon can hit). 

5) Allan said:
Chris mentioned the problem of a vehicle 
moving 24" and then
the squad racing forward another 12" (I 
don't think he put these numbers to it, but 
that's the maximum: two move
actions for the vehicle, 6" free disembark 
range for the troops, 1 troop move action 
of 6").

[Tomb] Um, what if both did combat 
moves? 

 Let's take another
situation. The vehicle wants to move up 
12", disgorge the
infantry, and then move another 12" into a 
safe location.
You can do this with the current system.

[Tomb] Not necessarily. What if the 
position you want to move to is 12" 
forward (the endpoint of the first vehicle 
move) and 12" out to the side. Your 12" 
disgorge from end of move will not 
(because it is the hypoteneuse, assuming 
you head for the point you wanted to get 
to) allow you to arrive there.	You'll come 
up and inch or two short. 

Allan also said:
If you let the vehicle pay the cost of 
disembarking the
troops, the vehicle moves and then they 
jump out 6". They
are now _out of the vehicle_. They are no 
longer vulnerable.
Unless you use overwatch rules (and not 
everyone does), you
won't have that moment of vulnerability. 

[Tomb] Agree. But what if I, as a vehicle, 
want to drive half my available move and 
disgorge my troops? I'm giving up half my 
movement range in exchange for removing 
this vulnerability (assume no overwatch...). 
Isn't that a valid trade off? I'm choosing 
caution. I'm spending an even smaller 
percentage of my turn moving in exchange 
for wanting my troops out sooner (for their 
safety). 

Allan also said:
Chris points out that in most cases there's 
no reason to do
a combat move. The average isn't really 
worth it. I've
decided to give a combat move a die shift 
up on the range
band if attacked while moving. I would do 
the same die shift
up for doing a combat move while firing 
(which would give
the range band two die shifts up for 
vehicles).

[Tomb] Oddly, I think I may have been the one 
to bring this up first years ago. For long and 
weary, I've been toying with giving a die shift to 
combat moving units. I have two problems with 
this (as someone who has tried it). It reduces 
already easily reducible range bands yet again 
(not great) and it presumes that non-combat 
move would be the default in the game, which 
mostly revolves around combat. It strikes me 
we should take the other tack: Anyone NOT 
engaging in a combat move is fired at as if 1 
range band closer. This makes effective infantry 
range a bit LONGER instead of shorter, and 
makes the default move a combat move. Try it 
out... it makes for a more exciting game. 

---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte