Another Starship Manuevers Question

[Champions Guru]

Why is it that the Come About, Hard About and Cochrane Deceleration only affect the ship you have chosen as primary target?

Shouldn't these manuevers affect all ships in the combat? or at least those that have picked your ship as their primary target?

It would seem that if any ship took such radical movement wouldn't all the ships in the combat have to readjust their sensors and tactical computers to target said same ship?

What is the thinking in this?

In almost every other tactical game I've ever played a ship's movement effects everyone wanting to target it not just one opponent.

It's like saying now I'm going to zig and zag my ship but only so that ship there has a horrible chance to hit me, but all of the other X number of ships aren't affected.

I just don't get it.

Da Guru

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Champions Guru
Why is it that the Come About, Hard About and Cochrane Deceleration only affect the ship you have chosen as primary target?

Shouldn't these manuevers affect all ships in the combat? or at least those that have picked your ship as their primary target?

It would seem that if any ship took such radical movement wouldn't all the ships in the combat have to readjust their sensors and tactical computers to target said same ship?

I don't think these maneuvers are really that radical. The description of Come About reads "... a quick turn to avoid an incoming attack". To me that sounds like a last second dodge, i.e. someone at the sensors cries out "Incoming torpedo!" and the helmsman tries to get the ship out of the way. But as there is no change of primary tragets involved other combatants still have a chance to anticipate your next moves, as you are still pressing your own attack on your primary target.
In that way I see the Come About more as a quick sideswipe and then returining on the original course, than as a zig-zaging around the battlefield like crazy.

The same can be said about the Hard About maneuver that is more or less the same as a Come About. The only difference is that Hard About involves accelerating or decelerating at the same time.

When I try to imagine what these maneuvers look I think about the Defiant pressing its way through Dominion battle lines:
They choose the biggest battlecruiser as primary target and ignore the fighters at their tail (or have the "ablative Mirandas" take care of them) as avoiding the big guns is much more important to the Defiant, than fighting off the smaller enemies.


Now the Cochrane Deceleration's main objective is to have your enemy overtake you, so you can get a surprise attack against them. While I can see this working against several opponents who are hot your tail, gaining an advantage of this situation would require split-second timing. To achieve that you must concentrate on a single opponent, giving other combatants a chance to react to your maneuver while you still engage your primary target.


Just my 0.02$ and as always YMMV.

[Champions Guru]

I don't think these maneuvers are really that radical. The description of Come About reads "... a quick turn to avoid an incoming attack". To me that sounds like a last second dodge, i.e. someone at the sensors cries out "Incoming torpedo!" and the helmsman tries to get the ship out of the way.

This would work if the weapon had already been fired and still you are moving and then all targeting resolutions should be changed for all ships.

In that way I see the Come About more as a quick sideswipe and then returining on the original course, than as a zig-zaging around the battlefield like crazy. The same can be said about the Hard About maneuver that is more or less the same as a Come About. The only difference is that Hard About involves accelerating or decelerating at the same time.

Again shouldn't all ships targeting you have to recallibrate targeting systems?

Now the Cochrane Deceleration's main objective is to have your enemy overtake you, so you can get a surprise attack against them. While I can see this working against several opponents who are hot your tail, gaining an advantage of this situation would require split-second timing. To achieve that you must concentrate on a single opponent, giving other combatants a chance to react to your maneuver while you still engage your primary target.

Wouldn't all those targeting you have to react in the same way as the primary target? They are all having to react to the same manuever at the same time, relatively. The way initiative works wouldn't your primary target if he reacts after you have time to adjust to the manuever you just did, if everybody else in the combat can react to this shouldn't the primary target be able to as well?

[mattcolville]

Originally posted by Champions Guru
Why is it that the Come About, Hard About and Cochrane Deceleration only affect the ship you have chosen as primary target?

Shouldn't these manuevers affect all ships in the combat? or at least those that have picked your ship as their primary target?

It would seem that if any ship took such radical movement wouldn't all the ships in the combat have to readjust their sensors and tactical computers to target said same ship?

What is the thinking in this?

In almost every other tactical game I've ever played a ship's movement effects everyone wanting to target it not just one opponent.

It's like saying now I'm going to zig and zag my ship but only so that ship there has a horrible chance to hit me, but all of the other X number of ships aren't affected.

I just don't get it.

Da Guru

The system presumes all ships are *always* maneuvering and 'readjusting sensors' and whatnot, all the time. It's also designed more for ship to ship battles than fleet combat because, frankly, we see a lot more ship to ship battles than fleet combats in Trek.

So there's the ship you're trying to monkey with, that's the one who's TNs and stuff you can affect. Since at any given time, you're only concentrating on one ship, the other ships are capable of maneuvering around to 'keep you in their sights' so to speak. And they don't need to execute manuevers to do so, because, as I said, it's presumed that the maneuvers a ship executes are not literally the only things it does in a round. They're just the two most important ones.

[Champions Guru]

The system presumes all ships are *always* maneuvering and 'readjusting sensors' and whatnot, all the time. It's also designed more for ship to ship battles than fleet combat because, frankly, we see a lot more ship to ship battles than fleet combats in Trek.

Yes this system is set up for one-on-one starship combats, but it doesn't seem to want to allow a single ship with a good captain and crew to tactically out do two or more ships. The only manuever that any defense to attacks from all attackers seems to be the Pickard Manuever and you just can't do this in every combat.

No matter what tactically ingenius idea a captain can come up with at least one ship in the above scenario has a shot at his ship with no modifiers at all.

Yes we all like to have the big mano-a-mano starship fight, but these rules seem to punish the force with the fewest combatants more than they would normally be. In a two v three fight only the side with the two moves can only gain a bonus to defense versus only two of the three they are combating, this is a penalty above and beyond just being outnumbered.

As an example when a Starship/Jumpship in Battlespace, the Battletech space combat game, does a manuever all those wanting to target it has the modifiers to hit, not counting range.

I know this system isn't supposed to be a tactical game but that's what I think of when I think of this scale of combat.

And that's my 2 slips worth,

Da Guru

[Calcoran]

Sorry, I'm a bit late to contribute to this thread ... actually, I was giving it a go a few days ago, when my computer decided to go Iconian. I was a bit too upset to write it again. I feel better now thank you .

Warning, longish post .

You know, CG, it's good to see I'm not the only one puzzeled by the starship combat rules!
In fact, I must say I'm beginning to understand the Primary Target rule (at least I think I am ): As ... was it Querlin or Lancer ... can't recall (and too lazy to look it up) ... anyhow, as someone on these boards surmised, the Primary Target rule can be seen as a mean to compensate for the fact that CODA makes abstraction of weapon arcs and more generally of the influence of starship positions relative to each other. Well ... why not, it sure simplifies things, and can generate interesting dilemmas (but in this case, I think it'd be more realistic to have ships disengage to switch target <I>even</I> when the previous target has been destroyed or has fled).
However, it sure gives a real advantage to the side with most ships, and more importantly it makes pursuits rather hard to simulate.

Here are two light house rules I'm working on that could be of some help there.

<B>House rule 1:</B> Primary Threat.
Instead of chosing only a Primary Target at the beginning of a fight, each ship now has to chose a Primary Target, and a Primary Threat. Both will often be the same ship (specially for 1vs1 battles), but these can also differ. In a way, PTa is the target the tactical officer concentrates on, while PTh is the ship on which the helm officer keeps an eye.
The disengage maneuver can be used to change PTa or PTh, or both (with a doubled modifier). All evasive maneuvers (like hard about, etc.) bonus apply to the PTh rather than the PTa, and all attack maneuvers (say, lock on for instance) apply to the PTa of course.
<I>This first House rule makes it easier for a bigger ship to handle two smaller ones for instance ... I'll try to give an example for both rules at the end of the post.</I>

<B>House rule 2:</B> Evasive Modifiers.
There are two things that CODA doesn't take into account, and that would nicely enhance starship combat IMO.
- Size difference: A ship's to-hit TN is modified by the size difference between the other ship and his ship (as seen in ICON). For instance, a Runabout attacking a Galor class won't have much trouble hitting it, as the Galor probably already fills the main viewer of the Runabout . The Runabout gets a Size(Galor) - Size(Runabout) bonus to hit. And reverse, the Galor get this modifier as a penalty to hit (kind of like the Lion trying to hit a mosquito).
- Piloting skills: When a ship takes an evading maneuver, the amount by which its skill test exceeds the maneuver's difficulty increases the tactical TN of any ship aiming/firing at it until it acts again or until the end of next round. This on top of other modifiers specific to the maneuver that might apply to the ship's Primary Threat (break lock on, to-hit TN increase, etc.).
I like this one because it really favorizes skilled helmsmen oven clumsy ones, and it also helps make a difference between a good helmsman and a very good one (otherwise, above a given skill value, helmsmen keep succeeding at their maneuver tests and it makes little difference if one is better than the other).

All right, an example maybe?
<I>
Something like the one I used in a prevous post:
Round 1: The Defiant is in hot pursuit of a Breen ship.
The Defiant's PTa and PTh is the Breen ship, the Breen's PTh is the Defiant. The Defiant acts first. Let us consider that Nog has Combat Maneuvering (i.e. one extra Helm maneuver each round ... err, when the Defiant does 3 H maneuvers, does Nog get a penalty for his 3rd action?). The Defiant makes a lock on, fire (only lightly damagin the Breen ship), and close. The Breen decides to evade, and takes two hard abouts (the first one shakes the Defian's lock and increases the Defiant's tactical TNs slightly, the second one cancels this first increase, and sets a new (higher) increase (5 + success margin of the Breen) ... both are used to increase the range).
Round 2:
Sisko says "Stay on him Lt.!", the Defiant tries the same maneuvers, but fails to hit this time (because of the TN increase caused by the Breen maneuvers). The Breen keeps making hard abouts.
Round 3: Two Jem'Hadar attack ships begin chasing the Defiant (which is their PTa and PTh).
Sisko shouts "Lt., evasive pattern Omega3!"
Let us consider that this is an Immelman Turn (despite utter lack of comment from people in the know, I still keep on hoping these spiffy maneuvers will be explained in some CODA supplement once day ).
The Defiant acts first, thus tries a disengage (switches PTh to the first Jem'Hadar ship), close (to the PTa, i.e. Breen), and hard about. The Breen does a come about, then open (for instance) to get away from the Defiant. The Jem'Hadar both do a close, then fire (thanks to the hard about penalty to the Primary Threat, the first Jem'Hadar misses, the second hits but the shields hold).
Round 4:
The Defiant acts first again (hey have you seen Sisko's Tactic skill?). Immelman turn, free shot (at the Breens, severely damaging them), then disengage (switch PTa to the second Jem'Hadar ship), and close (decreasing range by one). The Breen ship manages to get away, and the Jem'Hadar both fire, and miss due to the immelman turn modifier + Nog's success margin.
Round 5:
And so on ...
</I>

There ... I hope I haven't forgotten anything ... anyhow, I thing those two small house rules are easy to implement without strongly modifying the combat rules, and they make combat run much more smoothly. Of course YMMV .

[Cmdr Powers]

Your house rule on ship size may find its way into our games.

At the moment, CODA ship combat treats shields the same way D&D treats armor- the more armor you have, the harder it is to hit you. Otherwise why would a small ship have, say, 12 shields and a large ship have 17, and these numbers are the target numbers? In other words, its harder to hit the big ship.

Ship size rules help modify that. A size 4 ship attacking a size 7 ship would be +3 and vice versa -3 the other way around. Yup, I like that! It sure helps when those size 2 fighters we carry on Vanguard have to take on a D'Deridex. I'm all for it.

[mattcolville]

Originally posted by Calcoran
In fact, I must say I'm beginning to understand the Primary Target rule (at least I think I am ): As ... was it Querlin or Lancer ... can't recall (and too lazy to look it up) ... anyhow, as someone on these boards surmised, the Primary Target rule can be seen as a mean to compensate for the fact that CODA makes abstraction of weapon arcs and more generally of the influence of starship positions relative to each other. Well ... why not, it sure simplifies things, and can generate interesting dilemmas (but in this case, I think it'd be more realistic to have ships disengage to switch target <I>even</I> when the previous target has been destroyed or has fled).
However, it sure gives a real advantage to the side with most ships, and more importantly it makes pursuits rather hard to simulate.

There aren't really pursuits in Trek. If one ship wants to get away, it just warps out.

Originally posted by Calcoran
Here are two light house rules I'm working on.

You play in a lighthouse?

Originally posted by Calcoran
Primary Threat.

Here's my advice.

If a maneuver increases your protection, but only vs your primary target, remove the 'vs your primary target' bit. So Hard About, for instance, would grant a Protection bonus, period. vs all ships attacking you.

<B>House rule 2:</B> Evasive Modifiers.
There are two things that CODA doesn't take into account, and that would nicely enhance starship combat IMO.
. [/B][/QUOTE]

The system presumes the battles we see in Trek are typical. And we very rarely see one ship miss another in Trek. Ships usually hit. Size rarely has anything to do with it. If your tactical computers have locked on (and, when we see people miss, its usually because the plot prevents them from using their tactical computers) and you fire, you hit. You might not do any damage, or the damage might be cosmetic, but you hit.

[Cmdr Powers]

This just means that a successful Lock-On maneuver cancels out size modifiers (and so on). No problem with that either.

[mattcolville]

Originally posted by Cmdr Powers
This just means that a successful Lock-On maneuver cancels out size modifiers (and so on). No problem with that either.

I would agree with this.

[Calcoran]

Originally posted by mattcolville
There aren't really pursuits in Trek. If one ship wants to get away, it just warps out.

Well, there are a number of them in DS9 alone. Be it when a faster (enemy) ship chases a slow runabout "Drop out of Warp!" "Are you crazy?" "They're faster than us, if we drop to impulse we might be able to outmaneuver him!" (well, as a matter of fight err... fact, I've never seen it work, but still ), when going to warp would be suicidal (Badlands for instance), or during a full scale battle when you focus on just a few ships (my example with the Defiant during one of the last DS9 episode).

Originally posted by mattcolville
You play in a lighthouse?

I wish I did . It'd make my house rules lighter maybe?

Originally posted by mattcolville
Here's my advice.
If a maneuver increases your protection, but only vs your primary target, remove the 'vs your primary target' bit. So Hard About, for instance, would grant a Protection bonus, period. vs all ships attacking you.

Well, I kind of like the Primary Target system to simulate bearing of the ship ... and the idea of Primary Threat just seemed natural to me. I mean, sometimes you just do all you can to avoid one opponent, and realize that this has put you to the other ship's mercy. Besides, I found that this gave the players some interesting tactical choices to make that were very in keeping with the show's combats spirit (rather than simply granting the modifier versus all attacking ships).

Originally posted by mattcolville
The system presumes the battles we see in Trek are typical. And we very rarely see one ship miss another in Trek. Ships usually hit. Size rarely has anything to do with it. If your tactical computers have locked on (and, when we see people miss, its usually because the plot prevents them from using their tactical computers) and you fire, you hit. You might not do any damage, or the damage might be cosmetic, but you hit.

You've got a point there. And since we sometimes hear things like "I can't lock on it sir", I think I'll use Cmdr Powers idea to deal with it.
That said, you're right about the "hitting most of the time", I have to check that the "evasive modifiers" house rule does not make dodging fire an easy thing. If it does, I can see two ways to handle it:
- Use the degree of success rather than the margin of success: barely succeeded grants no modifier, and it goes up to extraordinary success which grants a +3.
- Reduce the margin of success by the ship's size. I'm not sure about this one, since the type of ship already influences the H maneuvers in the right direction, but it seems reasonable to think that it'd be almost impossible for a D'deridex or a Borg ship to "dodge" while a runabout should still have a chance to do it.

Well, I think I'll just have to revive this thread in 2 or 3 months, when we've had ample opportunity to test those rules .

[Antonsb214]

You can always use the personal ranged combat rules and adapt them to starship combat. Things like taking cover in nebulas and asteroid fields. But then you have to revamp the ship design rules and figure out what you firing arcs are. I suppose some of this will come out in the Starships book.

[Calcoran]

You know, I kind of like the "no specific firing arcs" approach. It makes it easier to narrate without the players nitpicking about their heading and such .

[KillerWhale]

So do I. But I think having rules for natural hazards (asteroids, nebulae) could be nice as well... Hmmm, there's an idea for house rules here.

[Doug Burke]

Pages 230-233 of the NG have rules for space hazards such as Nebulae, Gravimetric Shear, Ion and Plasma Storms, Shockwaves and nucleonic wavefronts. Anything else would qualify for cover modifiers as suggested by Calcorn.