Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Working out the kinks...

After a long night I think I have solved at least my first kink in my table top issues. I just had to change how I was thinking about the issue. Something that happens allot when I am writing. I was treating sensors and sensor deception as a different thing then the basic attack. Instead I had to consider they were integral to attacks. May be a little explanation.

Every gun on the ship is rolled as 1D12. Batteries are rolled together against targets. A battery is defined by the officer in charge of the battery. And the batteries roll is enhanced by that officers skill and the skill of of crew. That may sound complicated, but the chain of bonuses is very well defined and simple.

Most weapons have a range increment. Guns add a +1 to their attack rolls per increment, while guided weapons get to reroll to see if they lock on when they reach a range increment. For guns this means that there is an upper limit to how far out they can hit based on the target number they are facing.

To alter this and add extra reach, I have added in a sensor roll. The player can roll sensor dice with successes (every other) adding a circumstance bonus to gunnery rolls. this extends the range of the ship, but can also make hitting smaller targets easier.

To counter this though, as there is always a counter, player can equip Sensor Deception gear on their ships. Sensor Deception (SD) rolls versus the attackers sensor strength. Successes with SD reduce the number of successes from the sensor roll. If all sensor dice are removed, then there is no bonus possible till the next combat round.

This opens a more organized can of worms then I had at the time of the last post. And this can be applied to different areas to. Environments in space can be designed to block visual targeting making the battle closer ranges. Or sensors can be disrupted to to make accuracy at range more random. I will have to keep tweaking this a bit. but in the end it should add a good touch with battles occurring at longer ranges making maneuvering a little more important. Or that is at least the hope.

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