"Defense: Cover vs. Skill" Topic
10 Posts
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RTJEBADIA | 10 Dec 2014 6:16 p.m. PST |
So I've been thinking about how defense is handled in different games for skirmish (think squad-ish) modern combat (think WW2--Science Fiction). I'm not talking about the overall interaction of unit stats, firepower, and terrain. I'm specifically thinking about how games cover the chance that any given shot actually connects with the target. There seem to be two main schools of thought, with most games using some combination: 1) It's all about terrain. The basic structure tends to be: Being in hard cover reduces your chance of being hit by X amount, being in soft cover reduces it by (1/2)*X amount, and being in the open means that if the enemy makes their to-hit roll, you're hit. 2) It's about skill/action. An example structure: A Veteran gets 3 defense dice, Regular troops get 2 defensive dice, and Green troops get 1 defense die. Being in cover might give an additional defensive die (very few rules totally remove the influence of terrain). Maybe if your troops "Go to Ground" as an action then they get an additional defensive die, at the expense of being unable to shoot/opfire or whatever. Realistically the better simulation would include cover as well as the ability of a soldier to use it (which would depend on a combination of his skill and his ability to implement that skill based upon whatever else he is doing). It should also be taken into account that even in the "open" someone who is actively trying to not be hit (getting down in the grass, rolling around, moving in short bursts and hitting the deck, etc) is harder to hit than someone standing up and not trying to avoid being hit. I'm currently playing around with some rules concepts for squad-level skirmish where each character gets a number of action points based upon their Training. Action Points are spent on: 1) Move (1" each) 2) Take Cover (each action point spent gives a defensive die) 3) Shoot (different weapons cost different numbers of action points to fire, and have different effects, but fundamentally more action points = more accuracy or more shots fired) 4) Hide (each action point spent makes it harder to be detected at all). Cover (which is categorized separately from concealment, although a lot of terrain gives both) gives automatic defensive dice, with very good cover giving enough dice that it's usually enough to make a character near-impervious to regular fire. Concealment has a similar effect in adding Hide dice. Shooting is basically an interaction of the number of dice spent on any individual shot against the number of defensive dice, making hits rather unlikely against troops of roughly the same ability in cover-- suppression and other morale effects happen more or less due to the total amount of firepower/accuracy expended on a position, and so a soldier is very much suppressible even if he is nearly impossible to hit. But first you must spot the enemy-- any dice not spent on moving or shooting are automatically used in detection, compared to the number of Hide dice the hiding unit has. Potential problems: 1) Should Hide and Cover be separate actions? On one hand I can definitely think of cases where it makes sense to take a position of better concealment rather than one of only fair cover, but that is better represented by choosing position within terrain and not necessarily by different actions once in that terrain. 2) Would much be lost by taking away all of these action points and what not (which require a not small amount of time to be tracked, reducing this game to only a few figures to a side, realistically) and replacing them with just a few actions-- A potential list: move and shoot, double move, overwatch/suppressing fire (both would sacrifice movement in favor of shooting or waiting to shoot), take cover (gives bonus to defense/hide but no shooting or moving), cautious shoot/ambush (which takes some cover/hides but also allows shooting), recon (which allows very slow movement, some cover/hide, and maybe some shooting ability but significantly weakened). One the one hand I think this would work fine, but it would lose some of the granularity that makes one feel like they are controlling individual fighters (almost more like an FPS than a skirmish game). 3) And this is perhaps the greatest focus-- to what extent should skill matter vs. terrain effects? Should an untrained guerrilla fighter be too ineffective to make cover very protective (granted without it they are practically guaranteed to die!)? Should a highly skilled special ops soldier be able to make himself a hard target while still having enough AP to get some shots off? I'd appreciate any feedback. |
saltflats1929 | 10 Dec 2014 7:57 p.m. PST |
Action points= might as well play an RPG. If you plan to run more than a squad it will slow the game down. You could probably simplify all the things you said above by giving the player a few choices. All out movement, move and spot, move and fire, all out fire, fire and take cover, hunker down, etc. A units skill could then affect how good they are at these things. |
RTJEBADIA | 10 Dec 2014 10:08 p.m. PST |
To be fair I'm kinda just playing around with concepts-- if something works more as an RPG combat system, then I'll use it as an RPG combat system. If I do simplify a bit I'd still want to take skill into account for defense, and I'd still make most things interact as reactions, with your capabilities in a reaction based more on what action you took than on anything else--so for spotting it's not that you choose "spot" as your action, its that your action/chosen "stance" keeps you alert and undistracted. |
basileus66 | 11 Dec 2014 12:15 a.m. PST |
There is a ruleset, Skirmish Sangin, that simulates that kind of small actions. If memory serves me, they differentiate between how cover protects your soldier when shot at, and how the skill of the soldier influences his chances to spot/be spotted by the enemy. For instance, if the soldier is in heavy cover and trying to stay concealed -i.e. not taking any action that would make him easy to spot, as firing or running- it will be more difficult for the opponent to spot where he is, and therefore to shot at him; once he is spotted though (must spend actions spotting) cover affects the skill of the shooter to hit by reducing his chances; better trained shooters start with a higher hit number, so they have better chances to hit, but cover reduces those chances at the same ratio that to worse shooters. For instance, a veteran soldier has a 70% chance to hit to start with. Then, if his target is in Hard Cover, that chance is reduced by 40% (we assume he has spotted the enemy by now); now, he spends one action trying to aim, and that improves his chances to hit by 10%. His final to hit number will be 40%. Suppose that instead a veteran is a rookie irregular, barely trained. He starts with a to hit number of 40%, which is reduced by 40% for hard cover; his chance to hit goes down to 0, so he needs to spend action aiming to improve his chance to 10%; and he would have had to spot the veteran soldier first -who uses cover better and is more difficult to spot-, spending more actions in doing so. The veteran has an edge in the firefight, thanks to his ability to use cover more effectively, but if he would have been in the open and the rookie in hard cover their chances would have been the same for both (and he would have been spotted inmediately, without actions being spent in spotting by the rookie). |
Bombshell Games | 11 Dec 2014 8:04 a.m. PST |
I think you would enjoy checking out my game The Battlefield. It covers all the design concepts you mention above with additional options for loadouts and abilities that specifically affect spotting, hiding, stealth, and fog of war. |
leidang | 11 Dec 2014 11:55 a.m. PST |
I'd go with terrain type for the base mechanic and then give the better troop type between shooter and target a bonus. IE. If veteran shooting at green troops then they get a plus to hit, If green troops shooting at veteran then they get a minus to hit, if the same quality, only use the terrain distinction. I also tend to use rules that assume even when you are in the open you are doing your best to not be hit. |
Sabresquadron | 12 Dec 2014 4:27 p.m. PST |
In Sabresquadron we use a comparison of the training levels of the firer and the target to modify the die rolled to gauge if a hit is scored. If a hit results, the target rolls a save that is adjusted for the cover it is in.Heavy weapons can reduce the effect of cover. sabresquadron.com/index.html |
Last Hussar | 13 Dec 2014 4:43 a.m. PST |
Chain of Command combines this in a 2 stage mechanism: target skill determines to hit number, terrain determines the effect. |
SouthernPhantom | 04 Mar 2015 1:34 p.m. PST |
I'm working on a system in which the target's skill determines the chance of Stress Points being inflicted. The cover, if relevant (some cover is ineffective against some weapons) determines how many of those Stress Points are converted into casualties. There are also to-hit penalties if the target is in a structure, representing difficulty in getting a clear shot. There is, of course, provision to destroy the cover with a suitable application of HE or incendiaries. |
Rudysnelson | 05 Mar 2015 8:36 a.m. PST |
From a military Science point of view, here are some comments. The definition of cover is the ability of terrain to protect an individual from direct small arms fire. Concealment is the ability of the surrounding terrain to hinder a shooter from acquiring a target. So if a guy can still be wounded by fire then he is not in cover but concealment. As noted, the term cover was changed to use the terms hard and soft. Soft cover would provide protection from small arms. However a person in this could still be wounded by heavy weapons or cannon fire. The term Hard cover means that an individual would be protected from any type of fire. Now the condition is for the soldier to stay in the cover, sometimes called pinned. If a soldier tries to move or fire, they would expose themselves, thus negating the benefits of cover. So a soldier firing changes cover to concealment. In gaming terms they can now be engaged but at a lesser chance of hitting the target due to deductions for partial cover. A question about your sequence of action would be the time frame covered. Back in 1981 with the 'GLORY' skirmish rules, we had a large number of action options and it proved to complicated. So we increased the time frame and reduced the number of options. One set of skirmish WW2 rules from the 1990s was set at 5 seconds which required a lot of book keeping. It even took several turns just to reload a weapon. I do not advise a very small time frame. Sorry but I do not remember the rules name (out of professional courtesy, :) ) |
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