Re: Traveller + SG2/DS2/?

The GZG Digest wrote on 3/30/2005 1:00 AM:
> 
> Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:41:44 -0600
> From: Allan Goodall <agoodall@att.net>
>
> In sg2 I was under the impression that the vehicles where moving at
the 
> speeds that are in line with supporting infantry no where close to 
> vehicle vs vehicle speeds. 

I don't think they are even close to infantry speeds, either. Infantry 
can make combat moves which, if you roll well, will equal a vehicle's 
top speed in a single game turn. If rolling a 6 represents the upper 
level of movement for a human in a combat environment, a vehicle should 
at least have the capability of moving faster than that in combat 
situations. It's possible for an infantry unit to fire at a vehicle and 
run back in a combat move without that vehicle being able to fire back 
_and_ decrease the the range band. This is due to a "gamey" restriction 
on vehicles.

One of the reasons for my change in vehicle rules is to allow 
vehicle-on-vehicle games in SG2 using 1/144, 1/285 or 1/300 scale 
vehicles. That would necessitate faster vehicle movement, as not all 
vehicle-on-vehicle engagements are going to involve a lot of infantry.

My ultimate goal is to allow vehicles to move at realistic speeds in a 
game turn, with the limitation to that speed coming from a realistic 
combat environment. A vehicle should be able to move more than 120 
metres in a 3 to 5 minute turn and fire it's main weapon. Whether or not

it's a good idea should depend on the terrain, the opposition, and 
things like opportunity fire rules.

Now, this may not be possible. An attacking tank will have to be wary of

hidden unit markers, but a defending tank (based on the rules as 
written) will have a pretty good idea of what he is facing. That gives 
the player much greater freedom of movement than a real tanker would 
have. The player knows he can move his tank from one side of the board 
to another with impunity, but in real life a tank driver may not know 
that. I originally thought of allowing vehicles to have free movement, 
that is they could move anywhere on the board, much like the aerospace 
vehicles can do now in the game. I'm not sure that's acceptable. My 
latest idea is one that I've been thinking about for a while: give 
vehicles the ability to do combat moves. It may be too drastic to have 
them roll 2D12 for combat movement. I'm still thinking about this. I 
think playtesting will shake out what might work best.

While I'm on the topic, one house rule I've never posted to my site but 
which works well is to give a squad a die shift down if they conduct a 
combat move. Right now combat moves are mostly cheesy affairs. I most 
often see them when a player wants to move a squad about 8 inches. He 
will declare a combat move first. If he succeeds at rolling an 8 or 
more, he made it in a single game turn and has an action left. If he 
fails to roll an 8 or more, he simply uses his second action to move to 
his target. I rarely see players rolling combat moves for shorter 
distances. By giving a squad a die shift down on the range band, you 
give them an incentive to use a combat move the way the rule manual 
implies the rule was intended. This brings up the question of whether or

not a vehicle should get a similar shift down if vehicular combat moves 
are allowed.

Finally, one thing Oerjan really would like to see modeled isn't so much

a vehicle's top speed but it's acceleration. He points out that this is 
actually more important in combat situations. I may have it backwards, 
but I think he said the Merkava has a lower top speed than the Abrams 
but the Merkava has faster acceleration, which in some tight combat 
gives it a plus. I'm still thinking about how I could implement this. 
One easy way is to allow vehicles to do combat movement, but give them a

minimum roll based on acceleration. For instance, a quick accelerating 
vehicle might roll 2D12 but have a minimum roll of 8 while a slowly 
accelerating vehicle may have a minimum roll of 4. If either vehicle 
rolled 1 on each die, the player would use the minimum roll value
instead.

Oh, and to round this out, another idea I had was giving vehicles speeds

based on power plant values. The power plant values would be anywhere 
from a D4 to a D12, in increments of 2. A normal move would be the 
movement die type x 2. Combat movement would be calculated by rolling 
two dice equal to the movement rate, and multiplying the result by 2 
(with a minimum value based on acceleration). So, a slow vehicle may be 
D4, giving it an 8" movement and 2D8 x 2 combat movement. A fast vehicle

may be D10 giving it 20" movement or 2D10 x 2 combat move. This still 
keeps them below realistic speeds, but it seems to be more palatable for

most gamers.

> having spent some time on the ground with 
> close vehicle support in areas of close terrain the speeds portrayed
in 
> the game are in line with my experience. Though patrol and road
movement 
> might be a little stilted.

If you don't mind my asking, when was this? As I mentioned, Oerjan 
quoted stats for combat vehicle speeds in both Gulf conflicts at about 
15mph.

> Ok, I can see that when you have multiple vehicle gunners. Maybe the 
> vehicle commander needs to be treated as a infantry commander and be 
> able to pass on activations as such so each vehicle would have
potently 
> up to 4 actions in a turn. That might go forth to solve some of you 
> speed complaints.

That's something I thought about, allowing the driver to have two 
actions and the gun team (gunner/loader) to have two actions. It would 
essentially split a tank into two fire teams: a "movement" fire team 
that would get up to two actions, and a "gun" fire team that would get 
up to two actions.

The main complaint stems from vehicles, like some modern tanks and APCs,

that have main guns and missile systems. You can't fire both of these 
weapon systems in SG2. You can't even take two move actions and fire 
_either_ weapon system. Your idea could solve the problem and make the 
vehicles more mobile.

>>6. There are no stealth options for vehicles in SG2. These need to be 
>>added.
> 
> 
> Why? Or when fighting at basically visible ranges stealth doesn't do 
> that much.

Why? Because DS2 has stealth signatures for vehicles, and SG2 does not.

Besides, its a sci-fi game. Jon doesn't go into detail as to what 
"stealth" entails. It could mean electronic camouflage, like the 
chameleon surfaces in _Traveller_, which would be useful at visible
ranges.

> Ok, I can kinda see that, for some the simplified armor for AFVs is
one 
> of the strong point in my opinion, though I wouldn't mind some more 
> detail on the lower end to represent hardened soft skin vehicles (i.e.

> the applique armor kits for Hummvs and armored sedans)

My vehicle rule ideas probably wouldn't be implemented by those who are 
happy with the rules as they are, anyway.

I've come across two camps in SG2, the "it's not realistic enough where 
vehicles are concerned" camp and the "it's good enough" camp. I suspect 
the latter is bigger, which is one reason I haven't touched my vehicle 
house rules in a year. (I haven't touched my SG2 as a board game idea in

a year, either.)

> Ok, lost me here, both hull and turret down are cover postures that 
> probably could be covered best by the base cover rules.

They don't. You could say that if a vehicle is completely hidden, it's 
turret down. That means you can't fire at it, with the rules as written 
(RAW). However, if you were to know the tank was there, you could fire 
at it with top-attack missiles. Those weapons don't exist in the RAW and

firing at a hidden vehicle isn't allowed.

Hull down can be handled with the cover rules, true, but you have to 
take turret traverse into account (see below).

> In the time scale of the game Turret traverse isn't a factor.

In the RAW, a vehicle can point in any direction after movement. I can't

remember if turrets are listed in the RAW. I don't think they are, I 
think the rules basically say that a turreted gun can fire in any 
direction. If you allow proper hull down rules, you have a turret that 
is sticking out of cover. What happens if that turret engages a target 
90 degrees to the right using opportunity fire? Well, the turret would 
turn that direction and engage the target. What happens then if another 
target attacks that tank from straight ahead, with regard to the tank's 
hull? The turret is now pointing 90 degrees to the right, so thinner 
side turret armour is now facing the second enemy unit.

So, do you allow the turret to swing back around to take the shot in the

front, or do you force the turret to stay pointed 90 degrees to the 
right of the hull?

I'm still working on this. I'm leaning toward allowing a tank to turn 
its turret in the direction of an enemy when conducting an opportunity 
fire attack, and allowing the turret to turn in response to being fired 
on. This is how the _Steel Panthers_ computer game handled it. At any 
rate, turret traverse can be a factor, though not in the way you thought

I meant.

> Open topped vehicle have no effective armor on top.

Not quite true. An open topped World War II AFV usually had some armour 
on the top of the hull.

If a mortar barrage hits the vehicle, is the crew considered in soft 
cover, hard cover, or no cover? Can they be considered IP? Obviously if 
the vehicle is attacked from the same elevation, there's not much of a 
problem. If you include top-attack weapons, how do you handle open 
topped vehicles without inventing detailed tables for where the weapon 
hit relative to the vehicle and the crew. Do you force open topped 
vehicles to have zero armour on top, or do you allow it to have some 
armour for protecting the hull with only the turret crew exposed?

What situations would result in direct fire hitting the top of a vehicle

(important if you have top armour, regardless of whether or not the 
vehicle is open topped).

Some of this stuff is pretty simple, but it's all stuff that should be 
listed so that players don't have to guess at it.

> And tank riders can be treated in the same way as troops in a truck.

If a machine gun is fired at the front of a tank at the riders, it has 
no real chance of penetrating the tank but should have a real chance of 
hurting the riders, though the riders should be considered under hard 
cover. If the machine gun fires at the tank from the side, the tank 
would mostly be unharmed but the riders would get, what, no cover shift?

Soft cover? What if the weapon is an RFAC, with the possibility of 
hurting the tank and the riders? What if a weapon is fired at the tank, 
hits, but does not penetrate? That should have an effect on the riders.

I think you can use the "troops in trucks" rules as a starting point, 
but I think you'd have to treat this as a special case.

> Um? Realistic amounts of cover? Gonna need a better explanation / 
> description.

I've seen a lot of games where combat takes place on what's essentially 
a salt flat with a few bushes and houses.

> Ok, I gotta look at that. Thou most of what are referred to as Heavy 
> Machine Guns in reality are light autocannons whose cycle rate are 
> fairly low until you either put multiple weapons on a mount (twin 50s 
> rock) or go to a multibarrel (gattling guns also rock)

And I wouldn't have a problem treating an HMG as an RFAC, really, but 
something has to be done about the impact of RFACs against dispersed 
targets.

> Ok. might have to see that, but mostly you could just say that a
certain 
> class of guiled missile is rigged for top attack. at most missile
speeds 
> in the combat regime you really are only gonna have 2 choices the
facing 
> side and the top.

Today you might. In 200 years, I can see missiles being smart enough to 
recognize the outline of a tank, figure out its aspect, and decide where

to hit it. I understand they are working on this issue today.

> You've made some good points there, but one must remember to take in
the 
> scale the game is supposed to be in. Which is primarily an infantry 
> game. In the areas that infantry is best armor has many very
disastrous 
> disadvantages. Which I think the base rules illustrate very well.

There were two reasons for me going in that direction. One was mentioned

above, the ability to play SG2 as a small armour engagement game using 
microarmour. It would allow 10 or so tanks per side, which could be an 
interesting game. The other issue is that vehicles are a big part of 
infantry combat these days, even if it's just some infantry supported by

a Bradley or a Warrior. Even when I'm using these vehicles, the game 
seems to treat them a little bit simplistically.

The idea isn't to replace the SG2 vehicle rules, but to include a bunch 
of ideas that players can pick and choose from, in case their scenario 
requires it.

> The biggest point you made about how vehicles fight and move is food
for 
> thought, And yes some kinds of vehicles need some overhaul. Point
being 
> unlike modern and earlier tanks vehicles with multiple independent 
> gunners and weapons should be able to engage multiple targets while
the 
> driver moves the vehicle.

To that end, I like your idea (or my interpretation of your idea?) of 
giving a vehicle two move actions and two fire actions, though probably 
restricting the weapon to firing each weapon system only once. That, 
too, has issues. A main battle tank can certainly engage more than one 
target in 3 minutes! I'm not sure if this can be handled realistically 
without it wrecking the feel of the game completely.

-- 

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@att.net    agoodall@hyperbear.com