Greetings all. I sent a few questions to Patrick, who has graciously been helping with them. He is pretty busy of late, so I thought I'd post thema few here in case anyone else had ideas. Thanks in advance for any info! Cheers, Leo
1. Bases, Size and Starship Combat. Narrator's p. 117 has the Full
Stop move which suggests that stationary objects, like a stopped
starship, or presumably any stationary base, get +5 to Systems
Operation (Tactical) tests and -5 to their protection. So that would
mean that any base (except the occasional moving base) would always be
subject to these modifiers - base combat would be particularly lethal.
I note on Narrator's p. 143 that Stations typically have +2 to +5
Tactical maneuver modifiers, which perhaps serves the same purpose. If
the base has a +5 Tactical maneuver modifer, no need to give it an
extra +5 bonus for being Full Stopped I guess. How do you handle this?
Would you always give a stationary base/station -5 to protection as
well?
And that leads me to the next part of this question. What about
size and protection? Narrator's p.114 tells us that a failed attack
may still have hit a target, but without damaging its shields, etc.
Fair enough. But when you are designing a starship, Narrator's pg 143
(Starships p. 22), the only way to give a ship a high Protection is to
give it a powerful shield grid. But what about a speedy little ship
like the Delta Flyer that is highly maneuverable but doesn't have a
super shield? It could have a low threshhold, so that when it does get
hit, it really feels it. But I'd want it to have a pretty good
protection to reflect its quickness, size and maneuverability. Hard to
hit, but not very tough when it does get hit. Thoughts?
2. About the Galor and Keldon writeups in Starships. They seem tactically pretty much the same. Shouldn't the Keldon pack more punch? If so, any suggestions?
3. This is about the Systems Operation skill. I notice in starship combat that attacking generally uses the Systems Operation (Tactical) specialty, though you
can also use the Systems Operation (Disruptors) skill, for example, My
first question is why anyone would select the Systems Operation
(Disruptors) specialty (besides roleplaying) when they evidently
wouldn't get the benefit of the specialty on a phaser-equipped ship.
I'm also assuming that when someone fires at another ship, and the
attacker has Systems Operation (Tactical) +4, then when they attack
they roll their 2d6 and add 4 for their level, 2 for having the
specialty (Tactical), plus their Intellect modifier if any. Did I miss
anything? Seems like that +2 for the (Tactical) specialty will almost
always apply, as so many ships will have someone with Systems
Operation (Tactical).
And finally, about the Tactics skill. I notice that some of the
sample characters (like Kirk and Picard, Players pp. 239 and 242) have
Tactics (space). When determining starship combat initiative and
command maneuvers, we use the Tactics skill, but is it the (Space)
specialty that applies, giving a +2 for the specialty to anyone who
has it? I notice some characters have Tactics (Federation), but based
on Narrators p. 112 ("a captain with Tactics (Romulan) squaring off
against a warbird would +2 for his specialty"), I assume this
specialty would only help against a Federation ship, not when
commanding one. Curious what you think.