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My movement system

BlackJaw

First Post
This is taken from some other posts I have made, and some things I have seen.
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Minum Speed: How fast you need to go just to stay aloft. For crafts that can hover, this is 0. If not zero, then the pilot must at least make one movement action to stay aloft, and move that base amount. Keep in mind that in a zero-g environment this is ignored.
Maxium Speed: The fastest you can move in a round, regardless of if you take one or two movement actions
Maneuverability Ratting: See Bellow
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Each craft gets a maneuverability ratting just like creatures do, but we ignore nearly everything in the DMG pg 69 about what that means. Instead we use this system:
Clumsy Flier: can make use of simple slides (starwars thing, diagonal movement with-out changing facing) but otherwise flies forward. During the one stunt per movement action the Hard Turn stunt can be used to change face (turn).
Poor Flier: can make use of simple slides, and one 45o turn per movement action. Other turns can be made using the single “Stunt” per movement action.)
Average Fliers: can slide, and make 45o turns. That’s one 45o turn per square.
Good fliers: can slide and make 90o turns per square.
Perfect fliers: can slide and make 180o turns per square. This is supposed to be UFO like flight after all.

The Turn per Square system means there is no "travel x distance before turning" idea. This may be over simplified. I DO NOT want to see a system were you expend "speed" to make turns (see the DMG page 69). Also, this per square system more or less scales with speed/grid size so it could be included regardless of what system we decide to use. If a system of moving before turning is used, then we run into problems trying to scale the system.

ALSO, during a movement action you can make a single “Stunt” (or if we can’t use that term as it is part of Starwars, we can just call it a Pilot skill check) for things like hard turns, hard slides, loops, etc. such actions are defined in both Starwars and Dragonstar.

Slide: A simple slide is a move to the forward angles without changing your face. You more or less move forward and to the side (left or right). Another way to think about it is to drift to a side while moving forward. Under Starwars, this kind of movement is more costly in movement points. In my system this doesn't "cost extra." This is a little un-realistic and maybe a little unbalanced, but it is simple to work with.
Stunt: Once during a movement action, the pilot can make special action, requiring a pilot skill check, to make a special maneuver with his craft. Common options include Hard Slides, Hard Turns, Landing, etc
Hard Slide: A stunt. You move a number of spaces to the side and one space forward, without changing face. The number moved at an angle increases the Stunt DC.
Hard Turn: A stunt. You change your face in a quick turn. The DC is determined by how much you turn. Keep in mind that some crafts with bad maneuverability rattings may have to use this stunt to turn at all.

EXAMPLE VESSELS:

Gnome Blimp
Max speed: 90 (Blimps are slow)
Min speed: 0 (Blimps can float easily)
Maneuverability: Clumsy (Blimps are slow to respond to the controls)

Stunt Fighter
Max speed: 360 (Fighters are fast)
Min speed: 90 (Fighters can fly slow if they have to, but still need to fly forward to stay aloft)
Maneuverability: Good (the fighter's purpose is to out maneuver the enemy crafts)

Transport Shuttle
Max speed: 150 (shuttles are not designed for speed or long trips)
Min Speed: 0 (Shuttles in atmosphere use thrusters to stay aloft and do not need to be moving in a forward direction)
Maneuverability: Poor (shuttles can get in and out of ports and landing pads, but they are not going to out maneuver a ship designed for combat)

I.S. Bulk Transport
Max Speed: 210 (Inter Stellar Transports mostly fly slow enough to conserve fuel, but their large engines can move fast when needed)
Min speed: 0 (transports do not operate outside the 0-g environment of space, and therefore do not have to worry about staying aloft)
Maneuverability: Clumsy (The large mass of a transport makes it unresponsive)

Attack Helicopter
Max Speed: 150 (An attack copter can move well, but its not going to win any races)
Min Speed: 0 (helicopters can hover)
Maneuverability: Perfect (the Attack helicopter can maneuver expertly)
 

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Will Stanton

First Post
Attack Helicopter
Max Speed: 150 (An attack copter can move well, but its not going to win any races)
Min Speed: 0 (helicopters can hover)
Maneuverability: Perfect (the Attack helicopter can maneuver expertly)

I don't know about perfect, I mean what about the difference in maneuverability between an attack helicopter and a UFO? Or even a large bird?
 

Wyvern

Explorer
Helicopters

Will Stanton said:
I don't know about perfect, I mean what about the difference in maneuverability between an attack helicopter and a UFO? Or even a large bird?
I agree. I'm not an aviation expert by any means, but helicopters never struck me as particularly graceful. The rules from the DMG wherein only Good or better maneuverability allows hovering weren't designed to be used with things like blimps or even flying galleons. Your lift rules, on the other hand, allows ships to hover regardless of maneverability, so there's no need for helicopters to have Perfect maneuverability.

Wyvern
 

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