Starship combat...

Okay, I need some input (and clarifications) on starship combat. :confused:

First let me start by saying that my game is going into a heavy starship combat session and I am having some trouble with the system how it reads. I am going to list the problems that I am facing (some are questions) and then I will list the solutions that I am thinking about using. If anyone has official clarification on any of this, I'd appreciate it - if not, I'd like your ideas too. :D

1. Do the Range Combat Modifiers listed under Table 6.17 play a part in Starship combat? If not, besides damage reduction of weapons, what purpose is range, and should there be range modifiers?
   
2. Do (or should) the Target size modifiers and Target Motion modifiers play a part in ship combat?
   
3. What is the fire rate of a starship per weapon system? I looked through both the Narrator's Guide and Starships to find an answer and could not. Can a ship fire torpedoes twice in one combat round using both ship maneuvers?
   
4. Plasma Torpedoes (per Starships) have a re-load time of 'every other round' - should there be a re-load time for other torpedo types?

I know I have other challenges with the combat system rattling around my brain, but I can't think of anymore at the moment - probably because my wife just got home and she is talking incessantly about her evening. :rolleyes:

Anyway, here are the solutions that I am thinking about for the above mentioned problems:

1. I am going to enforce a range modifier in Starship combat - I am going to use the numbers in parenthesis that are listed on Table 7.7, but apply like this instead:
   Point Blank = -0
   Short = -1
   Medium = -3
   Long = -5
   Extended = -7
   Extended +1 = is irrelevant due to no damage effects beyond Extended
   
2. I am going to include a Size modifier... it's always easier to hit something bigger, but I am going to need to spend some time on this to get an idea of how to group the ship sizes. It will work on the same principle as the LotR rules... +2 to hit for each size level above your own
   
3. I am of the mindset that ROF should be one Fire Maneuver per weapon system per round - so, a ship could Fire twice, but it would be phasers and photons.
   
4. Lastly, I am going to house rule that Plasmas require two charge rounds and then fire and photons require 1 charge round and then fire.

Starship Combat

Range modifier in Starship combat - All Tactical maneuvers will be affected by range; the following penalties are incurred based on range:
Point Blank = +1
Short = ±0
Medium = -1
Long = -3
Extended = -5
Extended +1 = is irrelevant due to no damage effects beyond Extended

Size modifier in Starship combat - Ship size will affect Tactical maneuvers in combat; the following penalties or bonuses apply based on the size of the target ship in comparison to the attacking ship. An attacking ship gains or suffers a +2 / -2 modifier for each size difference of its target. Example: a Medium ship attacks a Huge ship and gains a +4 bonus to all Tactical Maneuvers; the same ship attacking a Tiny shuttlecraft would suffer a -4.

Ship Size (Size scale)
Tiny (1)
Small (2-3)
Medium (4-6)
Large (7-9)
Huge (10-12)
Gigantic (13-16)
Titantic (17-20)

Rate of Fire - a ship may make one Fire Maneuver per weapon system per round - so, a ship could Fire twice, but it would be phasers and then photons.

Weapon Recharge time - after firing a weapon system, it needs time to re-charge; see the table below

-Phasers may be fired each round
-Photon Torpedoes require one round to re-charge after the round that they were fired
-Plasma Torpedoes require two rounds to re-charge after the round that they were fired

Another question - can Maneuvers be held once announced? Can a player who wins initiative, perform one maneuver, and then hold the other until the enemy ship has performed its own maneuvers?

I seem to recall reading somewhere that a ship may postpone its maneuvers, but once it acts, it must perform both.

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Originally Posted by Tomcat

Do the Range Combat Modifiers listed under Table 6.17 play a part in Starship combat? If not, besides damage reduction of weapons, what purpose is range, and should there be range modifiers?

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No. There are intentionally no range modifiers in starship combat. On the show, the distance didn't seem an issue as far as accuracy, just for the power of the shot. Thus, penetration drops by range for beam weapons.

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Do (or should) the Target size modifiers and Target Motion modifiers play a part in ship combat?

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Like range, movement (short of an actual dodge maneuver) or size never seemed to be a factor for accuracy, so in the game, they're not taken into account.

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What is the fire rate of a starship per weapon system? I looked through both the Narrator's Guide and Starships to find an answer and could not. Can a ship fire torpedoes twice in one combat round using both ship maneuvers?

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I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but since rate of fire wasn't an issue on screen, it wasn't in the game, either. So, yes, you can fire torpedos twice in two different maneuvers per round.

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Plasma Torpedoes (per Starships) have a re-load time of 'every other round' - should there be a re-load time for other torpedo types?

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Nope. See previous responses for why.

You might just want to rewrite the entire combat system to something more tactical. Their design goals and yours differ enough.

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Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King

You might just want to rewrite the entire combat system to something more tactical. Their design goals and yours differ enough.

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TTK has a point here. The main goal of the starship combat system in CODA was to mirror what we saw on screen. They never worried about power, range, movement, size or any of that unless it was a plot point. Neither does the system as written...

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Originally Posted by Doug Burke

TTK has a point here. The main goal of the starship combat system in CODA was to mirror what we saw on screen. They never worried about power, range, movement, size or any of that unless it was a plot point. Neither does the system as written...

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Yes, and a major point, too.

Different game designers can stress different factors in a game. For example, the number of weapons fired was rarely a factor on-screen, either, but IS a factor in CODA (but not in ICON). Direction, IS usually a factor on screen, but not in CODA.

It all depends on just what the designers want to emphasize.


Personally, I find it a bit odd that a weapon's Penetration rating has little effect on it's ability to Penetrate a ship's shields. (If you don't beat the protection TN, you don't do damage, and Penetration doesn't reduce Shield STR faster, either). I like to add Penetration to the attack roll and combine Protection and have th attack do 1 damage per point the attack exceeds the combined total of Protection+Threshold, but that is what I like to emphasize.

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Originally Posted by tonyg

Different game designers can stress different factors in a game. For example, the number of weapons fired was rarely a factor on-screen, either, but IS a factor in CODA (but not in ICON). Direction, IS usually a factor on screen, but not in CODA.

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I think you've got it a bit backward. The number of weapons doesn't really matter in CODA. You fire and you base your damage on the type of weapon, not on how many were fired. Where as in ICON (IIRC), you fire two phaser banks and you do twice the damage.

And since when has direction mattered onscreen? Kirk or Picard says "fire phasers" and they fire, never have they said, "They're outside our firing arc, sir, we need to maneuver to get a shot."

Then again, that could just be me...

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Originally Posted by Doug Burke

I think you've got it a bit backward. The number of weapons doesn't really matter in CODA. You fire and you base your damage on the type of weapon, not on how many were fired. Where as in ICON (IIRC), you fire two phaser banks and you do twice the damage.

And since when has direction mattered onscreen? Kirk or Picard says "fire phasers" and they fire, never have they said, "They're outside our firing arc, sir, we need to maneuver to get a shot."

Then again, that could just be me...

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Uh,m no Doug. In CODA, the Penetration values are based on the total number of weapons. You total up the OFFENSE of all the beam and torp weapons to get the final PEN score. In fact, that's is a wekaness of CODA. Basically any ship can usually double it's firepower by ripping out all those "inefficient" Type IX, X, and XII phasers and replacing them with Type II (or Type III if you gotthe right type of ship) since you can get a 2 or 3 OFFENSE/SPACE payoff with the "weaker" phasers. Personally I think PEN should be capped based on the weapon type used, say equal to the rating?. 1000 rifles do not equate to 1 cannon.


In ICON it didn't matter how many phasers you had. In fact, ICON ship writeups don't bother to number the quantity of phasers, just what arcs they covered (usually all). If you fired a Type X phaser it did 20 points. In CODA is is something like 10 Offense per Type X.


Direction almost always mattered for defensive purposes. As in "We've lost our port defector screen!" or "Aft ahields down! One more hit there are we're finished!"

Size sometimes mattered. Small ships seem to be able to "dodge" and the few times I7ve seen phasers miss on TNG it was usually while firing at smaller ships. Probably enough to warrent a +1 TN to hit craft of SIZ 3 or less.

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Originally Posted by tonyg

Uh,m no Doug. In CODA, the Penetration values are based on the total number of weapons.

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Actually, if you want to get technical, penetration is based on approximately half the total number of weapons.

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You total up the OFFENSE of all the beam and torp weapons to get the final PEN score. In fact, that's is a wekaness of CODA. Basically any ship can usually double it's firepower by ripping out all those "inefficient" Type IX, X, and XII phasers and replacing them with Type II (or Type III if you gotthe right type of ship) since you can get a 2 or 3 OFFENSE/SPACE payoff with the "weaker" phasers.

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IIRC (which I might not, not having the book handy at the moment), DOn wrote limits on the number of weapons you could have based on ship size into Starships. Thus, you couldn't replace 4 Type X with 12 Type IIs on a Size 5 ship.

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In ICON it didn't matter how many phasers you had. In fact, ICON ship writeups don't bother to number the quantity of phasers, just what arcs they covered (usually all). If you fired a Type X phaser it did 20 points. In CODA is is something like 10 Offense per Type X.

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However, in ICON, if you fired all phasers, you would deal 20 points of damage per Type X, whereas in CODA, if you fire phasers, you will always do the same penetration, regardless of how many phasers fire. The system assume you use any weapons that can make the shot to do so. (Which is also why arcs don't matter).

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Direction almost always mattered for defensive purposes. As in "We've lost our port defector screen!" or "Aft ahields down! One more hit there are we're finished!"

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Not really. They'd say that to raise dramatic tension and then that shield would either be hit or not as the story required...

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Size sometimes mattered. Small ships seem to be able to "dodge" and the few times I7ve seen phasers miss on TNG it was usually while firing at smaller ships. Probably enough to warrent a +1 TN to hit craft of SIZ 3 or less.

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WHich is why there's the "Nimble" edge... :)

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Originally Posted by Doug Burke

WHich is why there's the "Nimble" edge... :)

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And the maneuver modifiers for Helm, Command and Tactical. And Helm maneuvers like Come About and Hard About.

First and foremost: I believe CODA abstract systen is briliant, becuse it reflects what we see on the screen.

But for my taste I feel the need of some house rules:

Firing arcs:

* Federation ships usually have many phasers banks, basicaly covering all arcs. So assuming optimal conditions, usually the crew keeps pointing the charged weapons to the enemies (using attack patterns). No change here, maybe eventually for a torpedo spread.

* Klingon and cardassian ships, as I imagine then, are way more powerfull on the frontal weapons and shields, but are weaker on sides and behind. So I usually ajust their maneuver dififculties. As they are NPCs on my campaigns I didn´t bother to write down a rule system, but when the players overmaneuvers the bad guys they receive protective bonuses ("keep us away from their main guns Mr. Helmsman!").

* Some less belic cultures could have even less firing arcs, making possible for ship to completely outmaneuver and avoid their main weapons.

* Maybe Borg Cubes and Space Stations do have 720degrees to aim weapons, but federation shuttles and fighters can´t do much if the enemy is above, below or behind.


Rate of Fire:

* Federation, Klingon, Cardassian and similar torpedoes can fire full spreads every other round. By full spreads I mean maneuvers like multifire. Again its abstract ok?
Its pretty confusing indeed, considering Enterprise-D can fire 10-torpedo spreads, but I believe we have never seem that on screen (generatins maybe?:rolleyes:). I personaly would consider 4-torpedo spreads the "regular attack".

* Romulan Plasma Torpedoes: If you - like me - love the old plasma torpedoes, then i suggest using 2 rounds to recharge. I have no idea why "modern romulans" seem to be using green photon torpedoes, but i prefer to believe that its just stupid CGI lazyness issue.
Plasma torpedoes were originally imagined by the authors as a "Yamato Type" super weapon, slow to charge and very deadly. I like that, becuse its diferent... It´s sneaky.. its intimidating.... its romulan. :o


Again: nothing above is cannon, or official ruling. :p

But keep something in mind: using different guidelines for diferrent ships make crisis situations more interesting.

I like the system as is my PC's always come up with ass crazy manuvers I just pick the type set a TN add watch em burn hero points to do amazing things. If fireing arcs and directional shield rateings was an issue it would confine my PCs ability to BS their way out problems which Star Trek is famous for. Not saying some days I wish they coulden't...light speed grape shot oh boy....one hell of a day..