Re: [DS3] Dirtside Accelerator for Infantry

CS Renegade wrote:

 >I've introduced the Dirtside Accelerator
 >[http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/199903/msg00351.html] at my local
club.

That was Jon's first draft. It has undergone a few rounds of development

since, eg. this one:

<http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/200110/msg00036.html>

IIRC this is the latest iteration that was made public; it tweaks the 
Impact die types a bit to get a better fit with the chit results 
(especially for the DFFGs - but note that making the DFFG Impact
D12x2xSize 
still falls a bit short of their lethality with the chits!), adds the 
"special damage" types back in (since quite a few people wanted to
retain 
them), and handles artillery and infantry explicitly. More recent
versions 
have changed the "special damage" mechanics.

 >Regarding the accelerator itself, we find that it does deliver a
 >considerable increase in speed even before all those irritating repair
 >rolls and "what about that damaged tank?" cases are taken
 >into account.

As long as you can do multiplications quickly, yes. If some of your
players 
are mathematically challenged though it can get rather slow :-(

 >Against that, I'm having difficulty losing my "weapon X beats armour
x"
 >& "armour X is proof against weapon x" wargamer's mentality, where X >
x.

Hm? The *accellerator* allows armour X to be proof against weapon x and 
vice versa (for large enough values of X and small enough values of x);
the 
*chits* don't (thanks to those "0" and "BOOM" chits). Why do you have to

lose this particular mentality when you change *from* the chits *to* the

accellerator...?

 >Am I correct in thinking that single opposed dice give a flatter
 >distribution than drawing N chits against a fixed target total, when N
>
 >2?

Yes. This is why most "simple" DS-FMA systems (the ones that try to map 
weapon sizes/armour ratings directly to particular unmodified die types)

tend to make all weapons very similar to each other, and why the 
Accellerator concept *doesn't* use just "single opposed dice" but
"single 
opposed dice multiplied by the armour rating or weapon size" - the 
multiplication gets you away from those narrow distributions.

 >As published, the accelerator doesn't cater for infantry

The original draft didn't, but see above :-/

 >Direct Translation Of Existing Rules (DS2 pages 33-36)
 >====================================
 >Ranges and limitations remain as per existing rules; the following
 >purely replaces the chit draws.
 >
 >Militia / Line Infantry	 roll 1 D6
 >APFC / HEL / RFAC / HVC / MDC  roll 1 D6
 >APSW / Powered / DFFG / SLAM-3 roll 1 D8
 >SLAM-4			 roll 1 D10
 >SLAM-5			 roll 1 D12
 >target Militia		 roll 1 D4
 >target Line Infantry		 roll 1 D6
 >target Powered Armour 	 roll 1 D8
 >
 >target +1 die type if in soft cover
 >target +2 die types if urban or dug in
 >
 >Statistically a bit rough-and-ready, but spot checks suggest that
these
 >are not far from the current chances.

Spot checks can be quite misleading if you happen to pick the best
spots, 
though!

Now it's number-crunching time <G>

Once you've straightened out the following tables which will undoubtedly
be 
mangled by the email programs, here are the kill probabilities in % for 
fire against infantry targets using the chits, your above "direct 
translation", your below "alternative infantry fire", and my 
above-mentioned update of Jon's DS Accelerator:

Chits:
Values are for the chit validities All/R&Y/R/Y (remember that infantry
fire 
during Close Assaults shifts the validities one step upwards):

Weapon:\Target: Militia 	Line		PA
Militia/Line/APFC	53/36/22/10	28/16/07/02	11/06/03/01
PA/APSW 	79/58/37/16	60/37/18/05	38/21/09/02
HEL etc.:		10		2		1
DFFG:			37		18		9
SLAM/3: 	16		5		2
SLAM/4: 	22		9		4
SLAM/5: 	29		13		7

Note that DS2's heavy weapons ignore any cover the infantry is hiding
in! 
Can't say that I agree with that (at all) - a considerable part of the 
protection given by cover is that it makes the infantry harder to target

properly, and it doesn't matter how hard-hitting your weapon is if you
aim 
it off target - but it is something to keep in mind when you do a direct

translation of the rules.

Above "direct translation" system:
I couldn't see anything about increasing firepower in Close Assaults, so

put a "-" in that entry rather than assuming some random die shift. The 
other three values are for targets in the Open/ targets in Soft Cover/ 
dug-in targets:

Weapon:\Target: Militia 	Line		PA
Militia/Line/APFC	-/58/42/31	-/42/31/25	-/31/25/21
PA/APSW 	-/69/56/44	-/56/44/35	-/44/35/29
HEL etc.:		-/58/42/31	-/42/31/25	-/31/25/21
DFFG:			-/69/56/44	-/56/44/35	-/44/35/29
SLAM/3: 	-/69/56/44	-/56/44/35	-/44/35/29
SLAM/4: 	-/75/65/55	-/65/55/45	-/55/45/38
SLAM/5: 	-/79/71/63	-/71/63/54	-/63/54/46

You seem to allow cover to protect infantry against heavy weapons (which
is 
good), but even with maximum cover the heavy weapons fire is FAR more 
lethal in this system than it is when using the chits. Infantry fire
also 
gets a fair bit more lethal, particularly for units in cover.

Below "alternative infantry" system:
Again there's no equivalent to "All" (ie., no mechanic making Close
Assault 
fire more lethal) so the first entry is a "-"; the other three values 
reprensent the die combinations given below (for targets in the Open)/
-1 
firer's die for targets in Soft Cover/ -1 firer's die AND +1 target's
die 
type for dug-in targets:

Weapon\Target:	Militia 	Line		PA
Militia 		-/75/38/25	-/50/25/19	-/6/3/2
Line/APFC		-/150/113/75	-/100/75/57	-/37/28/16
RFAC/1 etc.:		-/116/58/42	-/84/42/31	-/19/9/5
HEL:			-/79/-/-		-/71/-/- 
-/42/-/-
DFFG (D6):		-/232/174/126	-/168/126/93	-/37/28/16
DFFG (D8):		-/276/207/168	-/224/18/132	-/78/58/33
SLAM/3 etc.:		-/174/116/84	-/126/84/62	-/28/19/10
SLAM/4 etc.:		-/232/174/126	-/168/126/93	-/37/28/16
SLAM/5 etc.:		-/276/207/168	-/224/168/162	-/78/58/33
MDC (flech.):		-/150/75/65	-/130/65/55	-/62/31/19

Note that since each shot can potentially kill multiple targets, these 
values are the average numbers of elements killed per shot *provided
that 
there's at least one target available per die thrown*, not the
probability 
of killing one specific target element. This is why several of the
values 
are larger than 100%, representing weapons which will normally score
more 
than one hit.

This system gives the best approximation of the chit results for Militia

firing at PA I've seen so far for any dice-based DS damage system, but 
unfortunately it makes all the *other* combinations of weapon and
infantry 
target anything from quite a bit more lethal to horrendously more lethal

than the chits (...OK, with the exception of HELs and RFAC/2s firing at 
infantry in cover, since they end up with zero dice if the target has
any 
cover at all!).

***
Updated Accellerator version:
Here the values map directly to their chit equivalents:

Weapon\Target:	Militia 	Line		PA
Militia/Line/APFC	46/38/21/13	31/25/13/06	13/10/5/3
PA/APSW 	63/55/31/19	53/44/25/16	28/33/19/6
HEL etc.:		13		6		3
DFFG:			31		25		13
SLAM/3: 	19		16		6
SLAM/4: 	34		19		13
SLAM/5: 	44		31		16

Generally a bit more lethal than the chits for PA and the "Yellow" 
validity, and somewhat less lethal than the chits for the "All"
validity; 
the SLAM/4 and SLAM/5 in particular are overpowered relative to their 
performance with the chits. (OTOH they're not nearly as *much*
overpowered 
as in some of the other DS dice systems :-/ )

***

 >Alternative Infantry Rules
 >==========================
 >This is more of a personal interpretation of the DS arsenal; to do
this
 >properly I'd need to rewrite bits of pg 6, 8 and 9, and then
re-examine
 >the ranges and other governing rules specified later in the book.
 >
 >Militia			    roll 2 D4
 >Line Infantry, APFC		    roll 4 D4
 >RFAC-1, HVC, most Powered Armour  roll 2 D6
 >APSW, SLAM-3			    roll 3 D6
 >MDC (cannister), SLAM-4	    roll 4 D6
 >SLAM-5, Powered Armour (AP)	    roll 5 D6
 >RFAC-2			    roll 1 D8
 >DFFG				    roll 4 D8/D6
 >MDC (flechette)		    roll 2 D10
 >HEL				    roll 1 D12

I'm a bit confused by the distinction between "cannister" and
"flechette" 
here - today at least flechettes are usually used just in cannister 
("beehive") rounds.

 >target Militia		    roll 1 D4
 >target Line Infantry		    roll 1 D6
 >target Powered Armour 	    roll 2 D6 (not D6x2)
 >
 >firer  -1 die if target in any cover

This makes RFAC/2 and HEL completely ineffective if the target is in any

kind of cover (since they only have 1 die to start with).

 >target +1 die type if urban or dug in
 >
 >A hit is scored per single weapon die that exceeds the total thrown by
 >the target, thus a weapon may eliminate multiple adjacent infantry
 >stands.

As you can see from the tables above above, this makes most
anti-infantry 
fire *extremely* deadly  (with some exceptions, eg. Militia firing at
PA).

 >if some of the chances I propose seem a bit strange it's because I've
 >assumed that anything larger than RFAC-2 is mainly effective through
 >blast or equivalent effect rather than a direct hit.

...whereas RFAC/1 is effective mainly through rate of fire, and the
RFAC/2 
isn't effective at all if the target is in any kind of cover?

FWIW today's "HVCs" (large-caliber tank guns) firing at infantry
typically 
use fragmenting HE grenades or canister/beehive rounds, so the main
damage 
mechanism against infantry is shrapnel rather than blast.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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