Ship Combat

--BenofZongo 15:05, 24 February 2007 (MST)Just had an inspiration about this, so I thought I'd put it down before I lost it. My feelings on Marmots in the mini-bar are pretty convoluted, but I like what Ed said about it having potential when layered on another system, combined with Matt's enthusiasm for it for ship combat. Which got me thinking...so i came up with this idea that a modified version of the loosed dogs in the vineyard of war system could be cool for ship combat by sort of merging it with my idea for initial character creation:
The skeleton framework:
When ship combat is initiated, it can be done so at 3 levels:
1.) Atmospheric: because speed is highly limited by the danger of collisions/burning up, maneuvers are less effective than technical, while type III weapons get bonuses for threat. Maneuver pool dice results are decreased by 25%. Type III weapons gain a +50% to any dice roll result. Lasers are not effective.
2.) Coastal: low speed space combat. Maneuvers and technical are equal. No change to how maneuvers and technical work.
3.) Deep: Deep space combat. speed is at maximum. All weapon effectiveness greatly reduced. Maneuvers are much more effective than technical. Any maneuvers dice results are increased by +50%. Type III weapons subtract 25% from dice roll results.

The play, and what some of that shit means:
1.) When ship combat is initiated, each person involved that is actively manning some "part" of the ship rolls dice. Lots of dice. Add your appropriate stat, appropriate skill, and roll that number of D6 dice (!). What device you are manning will affect which pools you may play into (ie, weapons into threat, engines/hull/defense systems into technical, and pilots and navigators into maneuvers...). Typically, a single character may man more than one device if this is logically feasible (ie the mechanic can fix several things, while a gunner in front of a combat array for all of the ships weapons could use each of the systems. Do not show your numbers to other players or to the GM. The navigator and the pilot may share knowledge about their dice pools.
2.) In front of the players are three pools. These are threat, maneuvers, and technical. play alternates between enemy and players, with one player seeing the opponents' last action, and then raising themselves. A player may raise only once a turn, but may see as often as they like. Play continues until each player and enemy that is participating and that may play into the threat or maneuvers pool has raised once (or passed), and then the turn ends.
3.) A player operating a weapon raises by placing one, two, or three dice into the threat pool on his side, appropriate to the device/skill that he/she is using. If the player raises with one dice, this is a "feint". A feint must be countered with at least two dice or it succeeds. If a feint succeeds, remove your dice from the pool: you will be able to add it to your raise next turn without fallout. If you raise with two dice, this is a standard attack: the enemy may reverse the blow or see. If you raise with three dice, this is an all out attack: you suffer 3 points of fallout.
4.) At the beginning of a turn, the pilot and the navigator each place one, two, or three dice into the maneuver pool (same rules as above). Only a single raise may be played into the maneuver pool a turn by each the pilot and the navigator.
5.) When an enemy plays into the threat pool, the dice rolled are supplemented with additional dice for the weapon being used, unless the attack was a feint. If the total on the weapon dice exceeds the maneuver total (the pilot/navigator or the GM should just indicate this by a "yes" or "no", not by showing the value), it hits. If it does not, it misses. If the attack missed, remove the dice from the threat pool and proceed with a player raise.
6.) If the attack hits, any player manning a device with technical dice may see the total of the attack with as many dice as they like. The ship suffers one fallout point per dice used to counter the attack. The player rolls additional dice for the device that they are using at the time of the see. For technical dice, a partial see is allowed, rounding down (ie, you may remove as many dice as you can, with partials going to the attacker)
7.) If insufficient technical dice remain, any attack dice that make it through inflict damage. Each damage dice that makes it through generates 10 fallout points for the ship.
8.) Once all players that are able to have raised, the turn ends. remove all dice from the pools from play, and total fallout points generated for your ship during this turn. Any character who has access to technical dice may burn a single technical dice at this point and remove its rolled number in fallout/structural damage points at this point if he or she so wishes. Fallout that remains is converted to structural damage points suffered by the ship. Consult the fallout tables (not yet generated, surprise) for effects on the ship. Any ship that suffers the loss of all structural damage points is destroyed and all crew are killed(!).
9.) At the beginning of a turn, either pilot may switch combat one slot from atmospheric (if available) to coastal to deep, in either direction, if their ship is capable of it. In order to do this, the pilot/navigator must play at least 3 dice each (they may play more in this instance) into the maneuver pool, and an equal number of technical dice must be played by any characters. If there are insufficient technical dice, treat excess dice as damage dice. The opposing pilot may attempt to keep up: they must make the same sacrifices as the accelerating player, and must in fact exceed the accelerating player's total (remember, pilot/navigator moves are made in secret), or they fail to keep up and lose the enemy ship. There is one exception: decelerating from deep space to coastal space combat does not work this way. If a ship decelerates from deep to coastal, it remains in combat.
10.) a player may use fate points for his/her own dice pool, or to affect actions that he is taking.
11.) Psychology rules will apply, based on cool, leadership, and teamwork, just like for ground combat (never wrote those rules either, surprise!), but this hasn't been worked out yet.
12.) turns proceed until one ship is either destroyed, crippled, surrenders, or escapes/flees. If all dice have been expended by both sides, and they wish to continue fighting, all dice are rolled again and play begins from the top. If you have dice left and your enemy doesn't, go to town: you may raise until you are out of dice.
That's what I've got so far, hope it's not terribly confusing.