Fleet Combat System (don't post yet, WIP)

Do ships need to be a battleship and or carrier class to launch carrier vessels such as bomber planes, or can we have destroyers and cruisers and frigates operating like modern vessels wherein a small contingent of fighters would be on a smaller bay on the ship, obviously the carrier having the more attack types would be a natural way of accommodating more fighters, but it makes sense that you could have smaller purpose vessels, and mechanically this also makes sense, as you have listed Fighters as an attack method to be equipped in an attack slot, if carriers can carry guns, why shouldn't gunships be able to carry jets?

E.G. You could have a Frigate with a only a few carrier "tubes" with Ballistic Jets, say it has the two feats of GenericGun+2 And Ace Pilots, you'd have like a mini, nation budget support carrier, and its not OP due to its lack of any defence but the fighters it holds, does shit sort of shit fly? If it does it needs to be clarified.

As of current there are no "corvette" style ships, meaning that there is no AA vessel.

While you have provided the means to us to use an AA vessel you need to change the stats of "light weapons" in order to better suite fighting lighter enemies. Heavy weapons is massively damaging, it is an upgrade, waiting an extra turn in battle for another 4 points of damage, when lets say, a frigate, can only do a maximum of 5 damage anyway, maybe more if you push it with racial traits, is a huge factor.

As it stands, carrier fleets could destroy a different fleet within seconds and stand there unopposed. When really this universe is advanced enough to have the equivalent of an S-500, a ship designed to make fighter commanders grimmace, which is why I propose the light guns to be changed to this, to make it worthwhile in a players inventory

Quote :

Light Weaponry
Your ship designates one attack type as a "light weapon."
- This attack type can now fire twice in one turn.
-4 to attack roll against other ships, bigger than fighters or boarding units.
-2 to attack roll against Boarding Vessels
-8 AC to Fighters and Bombers
-4 AC to Boarding Vessels

This means players will have to OPENLY forfeit their ability to effectively combat other ships in order to micromanage and specialize their ships to combat fighters and bombers, because right now, Light Weaponry is as Useful as Life Support, and if this isn't changed, everyone can just go carrier fleet, tank the carriers and sit and watch as their fighters miserably swarm the enemy and win. AKA AmongsttheFighterscript. With this light weaponry add on, it not only could be coupled with CIWS masters and point defence, but you could have a REAL balance amongst your ships, that I think was previously overlooked, because an someone told me in previous iterations "Carrier fleets are the best, all the best players have carrier fleets." And that was, like this, due to the people who wanted to play the whole carrier setup, win the whole game and not lose. You guys pride yourself on military knowledge, so we should incorperate that into this;

Fighters already incorperate a stupid amount of roles, in this script, fighters are bombers, gunships, lancers, ground attack, and SEAD. And I understand that that is to create less hastle, but that shit really doesn't sail, especially when there is nothing that can absolutely counter and chew up fighters. Everything else has a counter, smaller ships get dicked on by big ships, big ships can have big guns to dick other big ships, hundreds of small ships can dick on one big ship with one big gun, hundreds of small ships can be taken down by boarding vessels, and/or fighters, however NOTHING can counter fighter spam, BUT fighter spam, which breaks the term "balance" in general, Rock beats Paper beats Scissors, but you cant add in that Bullets beat Scissors and can only be countered by Bullets, its a gamebreak mechanic, implement something similar to, or a different style of weapon that is designed to absolutely MASH fighters, and but it in an attack slot, because its nothing more than a basic counter, and put it this way, it can, at MAXIMUM, engage one fighter fleet at once. So all the carrier fleet crybabies that will be annoyed at implementing this won't have anything to gripe about, since the fleets arn't even set in stone yet. And plus, since I've brought this issue to a head, if you don't want to implement this, who's to stop people from just cheesing and spamming carriers 24/7.

Another thing I wanted to talk to you about is so far there is no "Interdictor Feat" which would be a role to interdict the enemy, this could be paired with a Crew Skill that increases the change to Interdict by +4

I did the feat in your style too.

Quote :

Interdictor:
Your ship is equipped with powerful hyperspace jamming modules.
- At any point during combat, you may initiate a hyperspace jamming roll, countered against the enemy's roll. If you roll higher than the enemy, you have effectively jammed their hyperspace module.
- The target ship will be jammed and cannot jump for 3 turns.
- Regardless of if you fail or pass the roll that round, you cannot attack until the next round.
- By equipping this, you take up space on the surface area of your ship. If your ship has 2 attack type slots, it will take up one of the slots. If your ship has one attack type slot, it will negate 2 points from your attack roll.

The ATS technology is not advanced enough for 'interdiction', nor is this actually possible from what I've discussed with Alien. Neither are massive planetary shields, and the like. Personally, I do not at all understand this combat system and have not taken the time to learn it because I personally will not be using it.

However, I will add this 'Light Weapon' into the RP for now, and allow Blitz to make changes later. I'm on an airplane right now, so I have the next two hours un-opposed to work on this shit.

Rook wrote:

Do ships need to be a battleship and or carrier class to launch carrier vessels such as bomber planes, or can we have destroyers and cruisers and frigates operating like modern vessels wherein a small contingent of fighters would be on a smaller bay on the ship, obviously the carrier having the more attack types would be a natural way of accommodating more fighters, but it makes sense that you could have smaller purpose vessels, and mechanically this also makes sense, as you have listed Fighters as an attack method to be equipped in an attack slot, if carriers can carry guns, why shouldn't gunships be able to carry jets?

E.G. You could have a Frigate with a only a few carrier "tubes" with Ballistic Jets, say it has the two feats of GenericGun+2 And Ace Pilots, you'd have like a mini, nation budget support carrier, and its not OP due to its lack of any defence but the fighters it holds, does shit sort of shit fly? If it does it needs to be clarified.

you need the carrier attack type. ships without it can only hold RP'd vessels like exploration/landing craft

fighters are another ship in of themselves in the way they're built, and i can see them being devastatingly good.

maybe I can do something that will add +2 attack roll because you have a couple of fighters on board, but you won't get the actual fighter/bomber craft and the rules that apply with them.

Rook wrote:

As of current there are no "corvette" style ships, meaning that there is no AA vessel.

While you have provided the means to us to use an AA vessel you need to change the stats of "light weapons" in order to better suite fighting lighter enemies. Heavy weapons is massively damaging, it is an upgrade, waiting an extra turn in battle for another 4 points of damage, when lets say, a frigate, can only do a maximum of 5 damage anyway, maybe more if you push it with racial traits, is a huge factor.

As it stands, carrier fleets could destroy a different fleet within seconds and stand there unopposed. When really this universe is advanced enough to have the equivalent of an S-500, a ship designed to make fighter commanders grimmace, which is why I propose the light guns to be changed to this, to make it worthwhile in a players inventory

Quote :

Light Weaponry
Your ship designates one attack type as a "light weapon."
- This attack type can now fire twice in one turn.
-4 to attack roll against other ships, bigger than fighters or boarding units.
-2 to attack roll against Boarding Vessels
-8 AC to Fighters and Bombers
-4 AC to Boarding Vessels

This means players will have to OPENLY forfeit their ability to effectively combat other ships in order to micromanage and specialize their ships to combat fighters and bombers, because right now, Light Weaponry is as Useful as Life Support, and if this isn't changed, everyone can just go carrier fleet, tank the carriers and sit and watch as their fighters miserably swarm the enemy and win. AKA AmongsttheFighterscript. With this light weaponry add on, it not only could be coupled with CIWS masters and point defence, but you could have a REAL balance amongst your ships, that I think was previously overlooked, because an someone told me in previous iterations "Carrier fleets are the best, all the best players have carrier fleets." And that was, like this, due to the people who wanted to play the whole carrier setup, win the whole game and not lose. You guys pride yourself on military knowledge, so we should incorperate that into this;

Fighters already incorperate a stupid amount of roles, in this script, fighters are bombers, gunships, lancers, ground attack, and SEAD. And I understand that that is to create less hastle, but that shit really doesn't sail, especially when there is nothing that can absolutely counter and chew up fighters. Everything else has a counter, smaller ships get dicked on by big ships, big ships can have big guns to dick other big ships, hundreds of small ships can dick on one big ship with one big gun, hundreds of small ships can be taken down by boarding vessels, and/or fighters, however NOTHING can counter fighter spam, BUT fighter spam, which breaks the term "balance" in general, Rock beats Paper beats Scissors, but you cant add in that Bullets beat Scissors and can only be countered by Bullets, its a gamebreak mechanic, implement something similar to, or a different style of weapon that is designed to absolutely MASH fighters, and but it in an attack slot, because its nothing more than a basic counter, and put it this way, it can, at MAXIMUM, engage one fighter fleet at once. So all the carrier fleet crybabies that will be annoyed at implementing this won't have anything to gripe about, since the fleets arn't even set in stone yet. And plus, since I've brought this issue to a head, if you don't want to implement this, who's to stop people from just cheesing and spamming carriers 24/7.

Another thing I wanted to talk to you about is so far there is no "Interdictor Feat" which would be a role to interdict the enemy, this could be paired with a Crew Skill that increases the change to Interdict by +4

I did the feat in your style too.

Quote :

Interdictor:
Your ship is equipped with powerful hyperspace jamming modules.
- At any point during combat, you may initiate a hyperspace jamming roll, countered against the enemy's roll. If you roll higher than the enemy, you have effectively jammed their hyperspace module.
- The target ship will be jammed and cannot jump for 3 turns.
- Regardless of if you fail or pass the roll that round, you cannot attack until the next round.
- By equipping this, you take up space on the surface area of your ship. If your ship has 2 attack type slots, it will take up one of the slots. If your ship has one attack type slot, it will negate 2 points from your attack roll.

i like your suggestions, i will implement these.

i'm sweating out a hang over and getting my dress blues ready for a command formal so i'm indisposed currently.

You could also roleplay things like your point defense as a few defensive squads without adding anything to it, just changed it RP

also I think everyone should check/create their fleet list before posting because I already see one person way over the limit, which im sure he is changing just making a statement

I think, at the minute, for what it's worth, the destroyer is just a low budget cruiser, and it feels like there is no way to determine the difference between a destroyer and a cruiser, let us give players an incentive for buying this ship, give them reason for having a destroyer, make a destroyer have an automatic +4 to detection, so it functions like a real-world destroyer, and not just:

A ship that's bigger than a frigate and smaller than a cruiser, with less guns and costs more.

Quote :

POINTS PER SHIP: 15

Destroyer
HP: 35
AC: 12
# Of Attack Types: 1
Base Attack Damage: 1
Crew Skills: 1 (2 more can be added if veterancy achieved, refer to GM for veterancy auths.)
Feats: 2 (1 more can be added if veterancy achieved, refer to GM for veterancy auths.)
+4 To Detection Checks
-2 To Jamming Defence (The Detection Equipment on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its communications defences)
-2 To Laser Jamming Defence (The Detection Equipment on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its laser targeting defences)

Obviously you could go ahead and say "Well shit, then what's the point in all these jamming laser cruisers I've made lately, FUCK!" and flip your keyboard and curse your mother for buying the wrong Linkin Park CD for Christmas. But, if you didn't want to just impliment this system for a destroyer basic, you could have a round-robin of check effects, examples below.

Quote :

TYPE A
+4 To Jamming Checks
-2 To Detection Defence (The Detection Equipment on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its communications defences)
-2 To Laser Targetting Defence (The Detection Equipment on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its laser targeting defences)

TYPE B
+4 To Laser Targetting Checks
-2 To Detection Defence (The Detection Equipment on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its detection devices)
-2 To Jamming Defence (The Detection Equipment on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its jamming defences)

TYPE C
+4 To Detection Checks Checks
-2 To Laser Targetting (Laser Targeting  on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its Targetting defences)
-2 To Jamming Checks (Laser Targeting on the Destroyer is so good it sacrifices its Jamming defences)

I have to agree with Rook on this one. From what I've read the Destroyer doesn't appear to offer much benefits apart from being a upgraded Frigate. If we add the detection ability to the destroyer it would, in my opinion, add more tactical flexibility and make it a useful additions to our fleets. It may also force us, to actually take into consideration proper fleet composition, as if the Destroyer class was upgraded it may deter people from spamming a single or only a handful of ship classes.

Also, since Blitz is gone and probs won't be returning and neither will mother superior, we will only be using the point system for ships. RP ship combat, and the GM's will keep tabs.

Although its sad news about Blitz, and obviously not very encouraging to leave so quickly, I do think we should keep the combat system, it's very easy to understand, not only that; but it now makes more sense to have it in place. I always had gripes that the people who understood combat in previous iterations were the designers of the system themselves, this puts everyone on an equal level. Plus, it means even the less experienced RPers that will hopefully join in the future if we take off will be able to still feel victories when going up against giants who think they can just RP their way to fleet victories.

I think we should have a more democratic approach to how things are run. You said yourself that in a small community such as ours people should have the responsibility to call things as they see fit, fleet combat delayed our start significantly. If it isn't broken, don't fix it, if people want to use the system they should be allowed to use the system.

As much as I appreciate your devotion to the concept, I doubt this particularly niche site will really take off anywhere and this isn't necessarily a bad thing either, it means the few that stick around are dedicated and capable.

I've always found it odd that somebody would leave ATS due to perceived inactivity on part of it's players since large numbers of people isn't really the point to begin with anymore, in the past we've kept this active and with quite decent RP with only three players before one of them had to leave due to actual IRL obligations.