Is a primary target really necessary?

[Champions Guru]

In an age of sensor and tactical computers with umpteen trillion gigabytes of memory do you really need a primary target in starship combat? If a starship can traverse an asteroid field or nebula would it have trouble keeping track of just a few ships in combat and only be able to fire effectively on one?

Looking to see what the rest of you think,

Da Guru

[Dan Stack]

While realistically I tend to agree with you, it seemed to me that on the shows ships tended to face only one opponent at a time (for the most part at least - I can think of a couple of exceptions on TNG). Couple that with just one person at tactical (again, rather unrealistic, but very much in keeping with Trek) that it seems to reflect the genre.

[C5]

Let's not forget, too, that a RPG system always has to use some simplifications to make it easy to play (for instance, I doubt you do exactly 2 actions every 5 seconds in a fight ).
CODA seems actually to have chosen a synthetic, easier approach, to a more realistic one (like the number of phaser banks). I agree it bugs me too, but maybe it makes starship combats more enjoyable/faster/easier/true to Trek/what you know...

[KillerWhale]

I think the reason we need a primary target is not because the comps cannot handle all the data; on the contrary. I think the limitation is the tactical officer, who is just a human...oid and can handle only that much information; he cannot fire on a zillion ships at once; he has to choose.

Well, at least that's the way I see it and how I'll explain it to my players...

[loryk]

you really have a so bad vision of your tactical officer mr killerwhale

i think that he can't target a zillion of ships but 5 or 6 it's not impossible if he really knows his job

[KillerWhale]

Howdy, my dear tactician friend

5 or 6 ships?? Well, if you are ready to use the multifire will the according maluses, that will make a +15 to the base TN to hit. That is, double the average difficulty to hit.

Quite a feat here...

[loryk]

i'm very curious to see tuvok skills level in coda because he fires (with an interesting success ) 5 or 6 different ships without targetting sensors +20 or +25 to the base TN no ????.

double six each action you think ???

he is my master (after worf of course)

[KillerWhale]

You are referring to "Dragon's Teeth" when Voyager takes off and shoots multiple fighters...

My interpretation would be Evasive Attack (Tier III) that allows for an additional free Tactical maneuver (and that would be Multifire, targeting several ships).

Still, on these little fighters, one can indeed wonder about which Primary Target Voyager has. My take is that Tuvok keeps changing Primary Targets as he destroys successive fighters.

[loryk]

yes of course i thought at this episode

i agree about the fact he is changing each time of primary target

we are here before the eternal problem of the difference between the rpg and the series. How many rounds of rpg are contained in this scene ???
each fire is a round or ten fires are a round, i'd prefer the first option it's better for my dear character's pride

[KillerWhale]

IMO, there are no more than 3 rounds during this scene, with performing at each round at least one Multifire. There would also be lots of Evasive Attacks and Hard Abouts accounting for Tom Paris' abilities...
That accounts for Voy's leaving the surface, while taking down so many ships.

I can even guess that at round 3, the weapon systems go down to damage C (no Tier II maneuvers), hence the "Targeting scanners off-line, switching to manual" line. Then Tuvok simulates Multifire with mutliple Fire maneuvers instead.