Thoughts on Ships
Dec 12, 2016 8:11:50 GMT -8
Post by mrwigggles on Dec 12, 2016 8:11:50 GMT -8
An additional pilot action.
Juking. The Pilot can attempt to Juke and Dodge out of the way. The maneuver rating of the vessel is a penalty or the target number for the pilot. The successes, are penalties to the Gunner of the ship itself and any ship targeting the Juking vessel. Each movement spent Juking counts as moving straight, and not toward trying to turn. Without it written out for public consumption, I cant offer a means how the Maneuver rating impacts the Pilot skill. Its goal is that the more plodding the ship, the harder it is to make it juke. Very clever.
Ship stuff
So the game has been stated to take place around 1905, with sapient difference engines. In 1906, the HMS Dreadnaught had an electromechanical fire control system. The British Navy, and the US navy (in the real world, this was late WW1, and WW2) had computers to figure out firing solutions. The Dreyer Tables and Argo computer, to name a few early FCS.
Mechanically, this would make Conventional Cannons, or even all weapons more accurate. Depending how many stations you want on a ship for Players to do stuff during combat, this would be nother station, to give bonus to the Gunner. Give the Computer Use skill, a neat combat use.
Babbage Difference engine, should totally be on ships. Even though the Analytical Engine was never built, it would have been pretty big. Dreadnaught's in this Edwardians era of modern battleships are also pretty big. There should be one on the Navies flagship Dreadnaught, acting like a Cortana (from Halo), supporting the Admiral, and the task force at hand. Probably one of the most valuable set of Punch Cards in Sol. You just gotta steal one and takes out the AI. If you manage to take all of them, then you got an AI. Babbage was nuts as he was genius, and paraphrasing, 'There no reason why a computation cant take 2000 cards.' So an AI stack can be in the thousands or tens of thousands.
Ship Defense
Lighting Rod
With Electrical Zapping and and X Rays, one of the best defenses is to ground the electrical discharge and store the current in banks of flywheels and or capacitors. A lighting rod like structure, able to swivel on to any arc of the ship. The downside is that Electricity is lazy, and often takes the shortest path. If you fire your Electro Cannon on the same arc as you have your lighting rod, it goes to the lighting rod. The other downside is that the banks of flywheels and or capacitors have limits. If those limits are exceeded, they catch fire and or explode. And they of course have a bus, where the circuit can be broken. Mechanically the Lighting Rod, can absorb, for simplicity sake, a flat number of damage. This number can be exceeded, each time its exceeded the Engineer rolls an appropriate skill. If they fail, it catches fire. If they get a 1, it explodes regardless of successes. If they get two 1 then the normal dramatically exciting calamity happens.
Musing on Dreadnoughts
So Dreadnoughts, are big, slow, highly armored, really big guns with big boom, and the longest range. With the aid of an FCS, and depending on how big convention cannons can get in this universe they can have the greatest range with them. Depending how big and crazy you want to get. The Fornication of Gibraltar, had '100 tons' guns, which supposedly had functional range of the horizon. Though in space, there isn't a horizon so just super long range. Beyond that, I do think the primary armament for Dreadnoughts should be conventional cannons, with support Beamers to fend off cheeky smaller crafts. I also like the idea of it being its own forward operating base, having a Telewave operation center, to communicate and coordinate between the other ships during the fray, and render repairs to its task force when under way.
Juking. The Pilot can attempt to Juke and Dodge out of the way. The maneuver rating of the vessel is a penalty or the target number for the pilot. The successes, are penalties to the Gunner of the ship itself and any ship targeting the Juking vessel. Each movement spent Juking counts as moving straight, and not toward trying to turn. Without it written out for public consumption, I cant offer a means how the Maneuver rating impacts the Pilot skill. Its goal is that the more plodding the ship, the harder it is to make it juke. Very clever.
Ship stuff
So the game has been stated to take place around 1905, with sapient difference engines. In 1906, the HMS Dreadnaught had an electromechanical fire control system. The British Navy, and the US navy (in the real world, this was late WW1, and WW2) had computers to figure out firing solutions. The Dreyer Tables and Argo computer, to name a few early FCS.
Mechanically, this would make Conventional Cannons, or even all weapons more accurate. Depending how many stations you want on a ship for Players to do stuff during combat, this would be nother station, to give bonus to the Gunner. Give the Computer Use skill, a neat combat use.
Babbage Difference engine, should totally be on ships. Even though the Analytical Engine was never built, it would have been pretty big. Dreadnaught's in this Edwardians era of modern battleships are also pretty big. There should be one on the Navies flagship Dreadnaught, acting like a Cortana (from Halo), supporting the Admiral, and the task force at hand. Probably one of the most valuable set of Punch Cards in Sol. You just gotta steal one and takes out the AI. If you manage to take all of them, then you got an AI. Babbage was nuts as he was genius, and paraphrasing, 'There no reason why a computation cant take 2000 cards.' So an AI stack can be in the thousands or tens of thousands.
Ship Defense
Lighting Rod
With Electrical Zapping and and X Rays, one of the best defenses is to ground the electrical discharge and store the current in banks of flywheels and or capacitors. A lighting rod like structure, able to swivel on to any arc of the ship. The downside is that Electricity is lazy, and often takes the shortest path. If you fire your Electro Cannon on the same arc as you have your lighting rod, it goes to the lighting rod. The other downside is that the banks of flywheels and or capacitors have limits. If those limits are exceeded, they catch fire and or explode. And they of course have a bus, where the circuit can be broken. Mechanically the Lighting Rod, can absorb, for simplicity sake, a flat number of damage. This number can be exceeded, each time its exceeded the Engineer rolls an appropriate skill. If they fail, it catches fire. If they get a 1, it explodes regardless of successes. If they get two 1 then the normal dramatically exciting calamity happens.
Musing on Dreadnoughts
So Dreadnoughts, are big, slow, highly armored, really big guns with big boom, and the longest range. With the aid of an FCS, and depending on how big convention cannons can get in this universe they can have the greatest range with them. Depending how big and crazy you want to get. The Fornication of Gibraltar, had '100 tons' guns, which supposedly had functional range of the horizon. Though in space, there isn't a horizon so just super long range. Beyond that, I do think the primary armament for Dreadnoughts should be conventional cannons, with support Beamers to fend off cheeky smaller crafts. I also like the idea of it being its own forward operating base, having a Telewave operation center, to communicate and coordinate between the other ships during the fray, and render repairs to its task force when under way.