D20 Future (SRD) what's (not so) good and what can be improved (and how)?

[C. Baize]

We can always hope that there's more stuff OGLed...
I personally would have loved to have seen the player races of Star*Drive OGLed, i didn't think it would happen, guess i was right. Not complaining jst a tiny bit disappointed, not because i want it for free, but because i want it (no one else is using the material).

I can agree with that.
I was hoping to see the Moreaus in OGL... *shrug* they're not...
But a whole lot of other stuff is.

 

[Mr. Draco]

What would you change?

Probably the only thing I'd change are some of the weapon descriptions and the construction system for vehicles (in general, including mecha and starships) to mesh better with my setting, but I'm working on that already, so no alternative just yet... but give me a few weeks and when I'm done I'll post it up.

 

[Robbert Raets]

While skimming through my new copy of d20 Future, I found a lot of good stuff (Robots?! W00t!) and funny stuff (Nerve Pinch feat?! *Pimp me up, Scotty!*), there's also a few problems:
- No CR/ECL adjustments for 'gene theraphy'
- Transformable Mecha are no longer an option
- There's no real way to 'buy' a beneficial mutation (say, with a feat)
- No 'proper' system for crossover between the 'toolbox' chapters

 

[Pol-Detson]

Vigilance, you're certainly right that there is no 'real' model upon which to base space combat, but decades of sci-fi movies have depicted spaceships in certain ways and it would be nice of the system allowed for that. The least Wizards could have done was make the rules compatible with their own vehicle system; space combat has more in common with a car chase than a 12th century melee, IMHO.

 

[Zethnar]

First thing I want is someone to explain to me the "reality" of space combat.

You know, last I read, there had never been one. Not a single ship or weapon designed for such a combat, and not a single engagement in the history of mankind.

But please, tell us all how it should go down in "reality".

Did you do physics in school?

Well there are two major problems with the space combat system that completely blow newtons three laws out of the water with their 'playability'

The first one (and one, I have to admit, isn't everyone's cup of tea so its omission can be overlooked) is that a body in motion remains in motion.

Now the fact that my spaceship can move three squares go left one square, go up one square then stop dead for three rounds basically takes that and throws it out of the window.

In 'reality' that spaceship would have to fire forward thrusters until it had no forward momentum, then turn and move. In game turns after moving three squares it would have to expend three squares of movement to come to a stop.

There is, as I said before, a second problem with the starship rules. Now, if you want to move an object you must apply a force to it. The formula for this is:

Force = Mass*Acceleration

so in order to figure out the acceleration of something you need to divide the whole equation by the mass of the object:

F = MA
-------
M

therefore

F/M = A

So if the force applied to the object is divided by the mass of the object then as the object gets larger the rate at which it accelerates (with the same amount of force applied) becomes slower. Bare with me, this is going somewhere.

Now the starship combat rules say that a supercarrier can move and accelerate exactly as fast as a fighter of the same PL (faster than one of a lower PL). By that I mean it can move the same amount of squares.

'But it can have larger engines' I hear you say... well my friend, those engines better be pretty damn powerful if my starcarrier can accelerate at the same speed as a fighter.

When you combine the two problems you have starcarriers that can move just as fast and manoeuvre just as well as a fighter, which makes you think, "What's the point of having fighters, why don't I just build a whole heap of ultra manoeuvrable battlecruisers?"


If you want a real world example of what starship combat should be like, look at aerial combat, that will give you a good idea. Sure, there aren't any capital ships, but the fighters zip around really quickly while the large bombers sluggishly pull themselves through the air.

If you're happy with the current space combat rules then hooray for you. But don't go around saying "You don't know what it will be really like because you've never seen it." Because the laws of physics can give us a good idea what it would be like... And unfortunatly that's made a few people fairly dissapointed that instead of a real space combat system, they were supplied with a rehashed version of the D&D melee combat rules.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Vigilance, you're certainly right that there is no 'real' mode upon whichl to base space combat, but decades of sci-fi movies have depicted spaceships in certain ways and it would be nice of the system allowed for that. The least Wizards could have done was make the rules compatible with their own vehicle system; space combat has more in common with a car chase than a 12th century melee, IMHO.

Which space combat "model"?
Startrek? That´s usually two ships engaging, firing all their weapons, and at some time, someone will say "let´s TECH their TECH, this will TECH their TECH and we will disable them". So, until the final TECH solution to the fight, it`s usually a 12th century melee.
Babylon 5? That´s several ships engaging launching weapons at each other and sometimes (but not always) using some unusal tactic or suprising action to win the day. Here, it´s not really a car chase
Starwars? Yeah, that are mostly car chase situations. (Millenium Falcon on the run) But the big engagements are once again - ships engaging each other (maybe with the added possiblity of forcing star destroyers into "melee combats" and getting cover from the Death Star)

Still, the main problems with the current (and most others) are two-fold:
1) Unless everybody is a space gunner/pilot/technie, not everyone in the group is engaged.
2) Tactical solutions to make the combat more interesting do usually not exist. Most the time it is just "hacking each other" with laserbeams. D&D melee combat allows more - and useful - options - tripping, grappling, disarming, sundering, and if you add ranged weapons and spell even taking cover.

Using Real WOrld Physics for combat:
It is possible, but difficult. The current rules lack 3d, that´s one problem, but let us ignore it for the moment.
An explaination: Assume that every ship maneuvers so that it "stops" at the end of its turn. But then the question comes up - Why are they always doing it? (Maybe one reason could be the engine - we don`t really accelerate, but fold/warp space to move, and this mechanismn is without inertia - though this would be a very fantastic/futuristic approach)
Okay, let´s add inertia. Simplest solution (at least I could think off so far): Remeber your "vector" (direction and length of movement), you will have to add it you your next movement. If you have any remaining turns left, you may use it to reduce the vectors length.
In any given round, you first determine the path you want to fly (taking into accound the movement you have left from last round), and than "travel" along it.
This doesn`t account for the two move actions in space combat, maybe you could apply the inertial movement to only one of the move actions (and thus using thrusters to negate it, if possible)
The problem is, if you have to many space ships in combat, this system is really difficult.
But if you do something more abstract (like the nonrevised Starwars Rules), you might get boring space combat.

Hmm. This is quite off-topic, isn`t it?

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Dismas]

Vigilance, you're certainly right that there is no 'real' mode upon whichl to base space combat, but decades of sci-fi movies have depicted spaceships in certain ways and it would be nice of the system allowed for that.

Decades of sci-fi moives have also shown that sound carries in space (except for Firefly, one of the first things I noticed).

I have always liked the idea of Space combat being like submarine combat.

 

[Cergorach]

The first one (and one, I have to admit, isn't everyone's cup of tea so its omission can be overlooked) is that a body in motion remains in motion.

Now the fact that my spaceship can move three squares go left one square, go up one square then stop dead for three rounds basically takes that and throws it out of the window.

In 'reality' that spaceship would have to fire forward thrusters until it had no forward momentum, then turn and move. In game turns after moving three squares it would have to expend three squares of movement to come to a stop.

Ohhh...
Asteroids!

 

[aurance]

When you combine the two problems you have starcarriers that can move just as fast and manoeuvre just as well as a fighter, which makes you think, "What's the point of having fighters, why don't I just build a whole heap of ultra manoeuvrable battlecruisers?"

The point is, fighters are cheaper, and you can build a whole mess of them. It's not really about maneuverability.

Anyway capital ships that can out-accelerate smaller ships aren't something that totally goes against sci-fi conventions - Star Wars, for example.

By the way, I think we all know the F=MA formula from high school. It's blastantly obvious that increasing M will decrease A, if F is constant, so we don't need an algebra lesson. What we don't know is how well power generation scales with size, so you can't make any claims to the acceration capability of larger ships vs. smaller ships.

If you want a real world example of what starship combat should be like, look at aerial combat, that will give you a good idea. Sure, there aren't any capital ships, but the fighters zip around really quickly while the large bombers sluggishly pull themselves through the air.

If you really think this is what space combat will look like, then my friend, you are the one in need of some physics lessons. I could explain, but someone else has done it better:

Why rotation means little for maneuverability in space

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Did you do physics in school?

Huh, my advanced physics courses never covered science discoveries of a few hundred years from now. My courses only covered the science as it is known today.

Now the fact that my spaceship can move three squares go left one square, go up one square then stop dead for three rounds basically takes that and throws it out of the window.

In 'reality' that spaceship would have to fire forward thrusters until it had no forward momentum, then turn and move. In game turns after moving three squares it would have to expend three squares of movement to come to a stop.

Who says that future TECH uses chemical based "thrusters"? Who says that there aren't computer-assisted propulsion systems that couldn't compensate for what the pilot's actions asked for on-the-fly, and the result being exactly what the D20-future rules "simulate"?

How about gravity drives for explaining the turning at right angles without use of chemical thrusts? Or that anti-gravity reasearch would advance enough to facilitate stopping on a dime without use of chemical thrusting?

Physics and science of today can't duplicate it (yet?), but we're talking about D20 Future here.


Regards,
Eric Anondson