"Dirtside II Vehicle Rules for Stargrunt?" Topic
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Achtung Minen | 25 Jan 2015 10:43 a.m. PST |
I've seen it recommended before to use Dirtside II vehicle rules to enhance armoured combat in Stargrunt. Has anyone actually written house rules on how to do this? Admittedly, it seems pretty straight forward, since the rules are fairly compatible, but I was thinking about modifying the DSII mechanics even further to have more skirmish-level details. One of the strengths of the DSII vehicle system is the "fire effect" chit, which adds supplemental damage effects beyond the regular numerical damage value of the attack. I think it may be possible to expand this idea to get even more dynamic effects for Stargrunt II. What do you think? House Rules: To make the range of damage more dynamic, the total sum of the damage chits must be more than TWICE the target's armour value to destroy the vehicle. If damage is only greater than the armour, the only damage dealt is by "damage effect" chits alone (see below). Damage equal or less than the armour means the attack has no effect (ignore any damage effect chits drawn that would harm the target). To balance this increased defence, Major Hits draw twice as many chits as normal (i.e. an RFAC/2 would draw four damage chits). Range: DSII only has three range bands, so in order to use the "valid damage" table, treat range band 1 as "close," bands 2-3 as "medium" and 4-5 as "long." New Damage Effect Chits: These rules add a number of new damage effect chits to the sack. Only resolve a damage effect chit if the weapon counts that colour chit for that range/target. For example, since an RFAC only counts red and yellow chits at close range, ignore any green damage effect chits as well (such as "Glance"). Hull Hit Chits (3 chits each) Glance (Green): A lucky glancing hit! Ignore the attack completely and treat as a miss. Recoil (Yellow): Full reverse! The vehicle immediately moves back 6" and into cover or out of line of sight (if possible). Shell Shock (Red): Crew is stunned. Immediately lose a level of confidence and the vehicle may not be activated again this round. Systems Hit Chits (2 chits each) Comm Damage (Green): Vehicle shifts quality die down one step for any communication tests. Secondary (Yellow): A random secondary weapon has been destroyed. Primary (Red): The attack has disabled the vehicle's primary weapon! Rare Hits (1 chit each) Sights Damaged (Green): One random weapon treats all targets as size 1 for determining range band for the rest of the game. Turret Ring (Yellow): Any turret weapon is now stuck in the last direction it was pointing and fires as a fixed direction weapon for the rest of the game. Brew Up (Red): Vehicle is immediately destroyed as ammo or fuel catches fire. Each crew or passenger model must roll a reaction test to escape alive (the threat value is equal to the highest weapon rating on the vehicle, if any). Resolve damage effect chits from green to yellow to red (yes, a glance can negate an attack that would otherwise destroy the target!). The only other chits that would stay from Dirtside II are the Immobile (M) chit and the attack malfunction (F) chit (which aren't associated with any colour). What do you think? |
Katzbalger | 25 Jan 2015 1:19 p.m. PST |
I think the modeled range in DSII is much greater than SG, so the range band mechanic you added above (1=close; 2,3=medium; and 4,5=long is just WAY too limited). Also, you really are significantly reducing the total amount of damage dealt, so may want to factor in something that boosts the threat to vehicles a bit. Rob |
Achtung Minen | 25 Jan 2015 2:01 p.m. PST |
To be fair, SGII weapon ranges for vehicles are already something that has come under some criticism. To be honest, I personally don't mind the artificially limited ranges as it means I can play with my toy tanks on a dining room table without a headache. If an adjustment was required, you can always say medium range is 2-4 range bands or 3-4 even (or modify Stargrunt to allow more than five range bands). In any case, a tank gun firing at a regular size 3 medium tank can fire up to 15 feet on the tabletop, which I think is more than enough! With these rules, everything 144" (12 feet) and beyond is long range. As far as damage, I see what you mean. There are two issues here: the doubling of armour values means you effectively need to get a major hit to have the regular chances to destroy the target found in Dirtside II. That is not so much a problem for me, as Stargrunt is more granular. Four or five rounds of shooting in SGII could represent only a single round of fire in DSII. We could change the damage formula to "equal or greater than" rather than "greater than" to give a slight edge. The other (and more pressing) problem is that by adding 18 new chits to the sack means the numeral damage chits will be drawn less often. I see at least two solutions to this. You could play with double the DSII chits (meaning you would have to print another sheet out or buy a backup sheet). This is a perfect fix for the unbalancing effect of adding extra "non damage" chits, but requires you to produce or buy more chits. The other solution, which I think I prefer, is that you play with one set of chits as normal, but whenever a "damage effect" chit is drawn that would permanently or temporarily effect the target, you put that chit next to the target instead of returning it to the sack. Not only does this help you mark the various effects (main gun disabled, shell shock etc.) but it also has a weird but nice side effect on the game. Early shots traded between vehicles will tend to have damage effects, while shots traded later in the game will tend to destroy targets completely. Of course, it's not perfectly simulationist (why, after all, can there only be two vehicles at any given time with main guns disabled?). However, it makes the flow of the game go from early disabling shots to later knock-outs, and thus controls the flow of the game in a nice cinematic way (allowing for more dynamic tank duels). Edit: Another, third solution would be to use spare Stargrunt II unit quality chits for the damage effect chits. Thus they would still count towards the damage chits in the sack, but if the damage didn't double the armour, then the numbers would correspond to the "hit categories" above. That is, green, yellow and red 1's would be hull hits, 2's would be system hits and 3's would be the critical (rare) hits. |
Achtung Minen | 25 Jan 2015 6:01 p.m. PST |
Just realized another issue. It's possible that a minor damage result is achieved (damage greater than but not twice armour) and no damage effect chits are drawn. In that case, I would treat it as a default damage effect: armour spalling/flaking, which would injure a single random crew member or passenger (roll the target's armour die above the weapon rating, just like the normal rules for casualties to vehicle occupants). That way, it is possible to get a "soft kill" by disabling the vehicle's crew. |
Lion in the Stars | 25 Jan 2015 7:26 p.m. PST |
Honestly, I just yoinked the DS2 vehicle design rules, used SG2 vehicle combat rules. |
Achtung Minen | 26 Jan 2015 10:51 a.m. PST |
Ok, finished compiling these rules and put them online here: link Let me know if there need to be any changes! |
tmason | 26 Jan 2015 11:31 p.m. PST |
For what it is worth, I did try using the DS rules, but found them too granular for the infantry style skirmish games I was playing. In the end I went for a minor mod to the basic rules that was really just so I could play with monsters (aliens) and mechs (vehicles that can egnage in close combat). From my house rules: The rules for shooting (or close assaulting) vehicles are changed in the following way: Determine the firing dice and range dice as normal and roll to hit. If a single firing dice beats the range dice, the vehicle is suppressed. If more than one firing dice beats the range dice then the vehicle has been hit. Determine the number of hits as usual by totalling the firing dice and dividing this by the range die type. For each hit, roll weapon impact versus armour to see if the vehicle was penetrated. If any of the impact die rolls doubles the corresponding armour dice the vehicle (or monster) is destroyed. For each impact dice that beats the armour dice without doubling it, add a damage marker to the vehicle. For each damage marker, the vehicle's mobility is reduced by shifting the terrain type to the next most difficult terrain. For example, clear becomes poor, and poor becomes difficult and difficult becomes impassable. Once a vehicle has accumulated sufficient damage markers, all terrain will become impassable. Additionally, for each damage marker, any targets the vehicle tries to engage or spot are treated as one range band further away than they really are. Thus, after enough damage, the vehicle will no longer be able to shoot at all. Finally, for mechs and monsters, for each damage marker, the vehicle's quality die is shifted down (minimum d4) whenever it is defending itself in close combat, making it progressively easier to hit. It would be very simple to replace the damage points above with a chit draw instead and give vehicles 'hit points'.
On the issue of weapon ranges mentioned in one of the earlier posts, it is easy to add a new attribute to weapons – range modifier. So pistols might have a 0.5 modifier while rifles get a 2.0 modifier. Then the range band for regular (Q8) troops using a pistol are 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 inches, while the same troops with rifles get 16, 32, 48, 64 and 80 inches. I have never actually tried this, but it was something I was toying with when I was looking at doing ww2 with SG. What was driving me then was sub-machine guns, I wanted them to have more range than a single range band like a pistol, but to drop in effectiveness quite quickly compared to a rifle. If you give them a high FP rating then they are really effective at short range, but drop off compared to a rifle as the range increases. Even better to give them FP of d6 which is great at range band 1 and 2, but quickly fades at longer ranges. Imagine a squad of 4 commandos rolling a d10 (quality) and 4d6 (FP), they would mow down the Jerries at close range, but have difficulty getting hits at range band 4 or 5. |
Achtung Minen | 27 Jan 2015 6:30 a.m. PST |
Hm, the house rules for vehicles aren't bad. I think I'd like a little more detail than that, but it is interesting how you brought it in line with infantry fire rules and the slow degrading of the vehicle is nice. As a side note, I really like systems where a tank hit can result in all sorts of things beyond just damage, such as in Chain of Command, where a tank hit might stun the vehicle or cause it to suddenly reverse and hide. Just out of curiosity, in the rules as written, you can only have one support die, right? So you are only ever rolling 1 quality, 1 firepower and (optionally) 1 support. |
Lion in the Stars | 27 Jan 2015 10:17 a.m. PST |
No, you can have as many support dice as support weapons firing. For example: A modern-day 2015 US Army squad (d8 Quality) with 3x Assault Rifles (FP2, d8 Impact), 1x Assault Rifle with underbarrel grenade launcher (FP3, d8 Impact), 1x M25 Punisher Automatic Grenade Launcher (FP d12, Impact d8*), 2x SAWs (FP d8, Impact d8), Designated Marksman Rifle (FP d10, Impact d10), and GMS/P (Guidance d8, doesn't shoot in infantry firefights) opens up on a 'squad' of Taliban fighters. It rolls d8 Quality, a d8 for the squad's rifle Firepower (total FP9), a d12 for the autoGL, 2x d8 for the two SAWs, and a d10 for the DMR. The Taliban squad should be pretty screwed. INFANTRY SUPPORT WEAPONS, as opposed to Small Arms, have their FIREPOWER given as a DIE TYPE as opposed to a numerical value; this is because each such weapon adds an extra die (of it's Firepower type) to the combat resolution roll. Emphasis mine. |
Weasel | 27 Jan 2015 12:31 p.m. PST |
Yeah, you can pile on the support dice though I'll note that the game tends to get a little wonky if squads have more than 2 support weapons. |
tmason | 27 Jan 2015 2:17 p.m. PST |
The rules certainly allow more than one support weapon. In general most of my squads only have 1, but there are some exceptions. It does get "wonky" in some cases – esp if you have a squad will ALL support weapons (of different types) what value do you use for impact? I treat such things as part of a scenario and define them there (or make them up when they occur) |
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