It has actualy been my impression that when playing a ship you are not just playing the Captain, but the whole crew.

BTW, MJC. You might want to exclude Andros from this rule. Resaon: I figure that the comunication between whatever is running the ship and the robotic systems would be plenty quick. OTOH, that might be defining what Adros are too much.

By Mike Raper (Raperm) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 - 01:30 pm: Edit

SOP and implied tasks are a big, big part of fire commands. For instance, If I were to order my tank crew to engage a pair of tanks, I'd likely say "two tanks, near tank, fire." During that second, alot of information is implied and understood. For example:

Two tanks: Tells loader to be prepared to load a second round in a hurry, as there is more than one target. It also tells him to let ME know when the gun is loaded/armed, and that he's out of the way of the breach. He does this by shouting "up."

Near tank: Tells gunner to use best judgement and eyeball the nearest tank. I've basically left it to him to decide which is closer. Once he has, he'll let me know by saying "identified." That means that he understood my command, has found the target, and has a good reticle aim and firing solution.

Fire: Pretty obvious, but it also tells the crew other things. It means to the driver to watch for dust, and move through it if any pops up so that we can be clear. It tells the loader to be ready to load in just a second, and tells the gunner to pull the trigger.

Granted, all this isn't necessarily applicable to starship combat, but you get the idea. Fire commands include a great deal of practiced, implied tasks. A well-coordinated crew can make an enormous difference in getting that first round off.

By Geoff Conn (Talonz) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 - 02:51 pm: Edit

A simpler solution: put an egg timer on the table and every 3 seconds all units movements and fire must be resolved or the impulse is over.

Or just play the game as is, a chess style paced simulation of a RTS, rather then trying to put the RTS back into it.

By John Trauger (Vorlon) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 - 04:31 pm: Edit

That why we have SFC.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 - 10:32 pm: Edit

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Quote:

For instance, if an enemy ship launches a drone at point blank, the defensive weapons officer will not wait for the captain. He will think "heck!" and fire whatever is appropriate without prompting. Chances are he will do exactly what the captain would have ordered. He will after all be extremely competent, and will have discussed these situations with the captain.

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By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Super Inteligent Battle Computers should skip Preplotted fire when preplotted fire is in play, the ship is afterall almost completely automated.

By David A Slatter (Davidas) on Thursday, June 20, 2002 - 05:22 am: Edit

MJC

Gunner Andrew will have control of his own tractor beam. After all, most ships have more than one.
Gunner Andrew, like Worf, has control of ALL the weapons. No-one else can fire them unless he delegates responsibility. (or gunner Andrew has been delegated some weapons/tractors that represent the maximum the main gunner and captain wish to spend on defensive fire - this could be altered without speech - just by the main gunner flicking switches - faster).
Gunner Andrew will have a display in front of him that will relay any information the labs can give him as soon as they get it.

And in "real life", drones won't jump from range two to range zero. They are just incoming faster.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Thursday, June 20, 2002 - 09:47 pm: Edit

DAS:

I think you should watch more TOS and less TNG.

By David A Slatter (Davidas) on Friday, June 21, 2002 - 07:18 am: Edit

TOS - The orginal startrek? Yeah - I realised later that my reference to Worf may have been out of order. Seriously, though, these will be highly drilled teams however the delegation is done. They only fight on one type of ship and mostly against one enemy race (unlike SFB players). While they may make the odd mistake like firing on and tractoring the same drone, it would be pretty rare. After all, they will have simulated similar situations many times over.
Furthermore, if they ship is on the offensive, it may know the composition of the enemy forces and be prepared.

Where things *do* get more tricky is how the Admiral will "interface" with the fleet's ships on these kind of timescales (assuming that one impulse is indeed one second). Given that death and destruction can happen in less than 5 mins, things would get rather exciting...

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Friday, June 21, 2002 - 10:19 pm: Edit

Yeah...I may have to write a lot of exra stuff about gunnery crews choosing not to fire if they don't have the target in arc and if that were the case...

"Fire All" and "Fire All Facing Weapons" would both have exactly the same effect and yet one would require 1 impulse to say and the other 2.


Perhaps to say that fire is pre-allocated is to say that the crews are incompetent.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Saturday, June 22, 2002 - 01:18 am: Edit

Re: Prepoltted Movement already makes Seeking weapons more effective.


I think if we had preplotted fire then the cost of drones would be that the racks are considered empty when the vessel is first purchased and must be paid for to fill.

That is 1 BPV to put 1 Type I drone in each warhead space on the drone track.

Or 6 PBV per B rack and 4 BPV per everything else.
Add-6 will cost 3 to fill ( they can fire dogfights you know ) and ADD-12s will cost 6 to fill.
GX racks will cost 6 BPV to fill.

I'm not sure if Plasma should be increased or by how much.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, June 22, 2002 - 02:25 am: Edit

MJC: In SFC drone defence is handdled with one pre-given order. I suggest some thing like this. Defensive weapons can be designated as such at the begining of each turn and can fire at drones, plasmas, and shuttles unrestricted. No need to fiddle with drone load outs and BPV.

By default defensive weapons are defigned as P-3s, P-Gs, ADD, G-racks, Plasma D and rear P-2s on Klinks.
Any weapon can be designated as defencive but it takes a one impulse order to bring it/them out of defencive mode.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, June 23, 2002 - 12:45 am: Edit

C1.323___.5 Defensive mode

... to Defesive Mode 1.5 Impulses
Weapons can be set to defesive mode. The order to set the weapons to defensive mode is simply the name of the weapon and then "to Defensive Mode".

When a weapon is set to defensive mode it is both freed from some restrictions and bound by others.

During defensive mode, the gunnery crews watch incomming drones listed on their monitors and tag them, serveral seconds before they fire.
They tag the drone on the montor such that they are stating that they are commiting to fire at that target.

The target drones have a meter indicating the estimated or known damage ( usually listed as GPa M³ ( Unidentified drones are listed with an E next to the meter to indicated Estimation )) that the incomming seeking weapon can withstand and since the gunnery crews have a pretty good idea how much damage their weapons can yeild, they can organise amoungst themselves in a few seconds, particularly with lots of DRILL that the weapons officer puts the gunnery crews through, which weapons will fire.
Hardly ever do two weapon crews commit to fire on the one target and thus overkill it, and drilled into the gunnery crew is the proceedure as to which gun the Weapons Officer would prefere remove it's tag ( Usually the aft most of the two weapons stays, freeing the forward weapons for other possible tasks ) and then that gunnery crew does so.

Pros and Cons
C1.323___.51 When the weapons are set to defensive mode, the gunnery crews ( under the command of the gunnery lieutenant ) fire their weapon(s) under they're own volition.
For this reason the fire of the weapons is not listed by the player on his orders page but rather is just announced on the impulse that it is to be resolved.

C1.323___.52 The weapons fire shall unfortunately be under the restrictions outlined in D13.21 ( 6 hexes range and size class 6 targets or small ).


C1.323___.53 Prioritisation

Prioritise... 1 Impulse
The defensive mode can be set to normal mode by simply saying. Prioritise and then listing all the weapons to be prioritised, that is, removed from the defensive mode.
The weapons are "freed" the impulse after the order is completed and may start taking new orders that impulse.

After the order is give, the freed weapons will follow the written orders of the player instead of opperating in defensive mode.


This concept of taging the weapons comes from playing cricket.
When two feildsmen are both able to catch the ball, one will call "MINE" ( rarely "YOURS" ) and will attempt to take the catch whilst the other runs behind so that if the ball is failed to be caught; the other player can grab it "on the half volley" and throw it to the 'keeper or the bowler in an attempt to "effect a runout".
Calling is a very important part of the game as it mittigates the likelyhood of injury causing collisions.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 25, 2002 - 11:28 pm: Edit

C1.323___.6 Standing Orders

C1.323___.61 Standing Order Slots
A ship's captain may develop standing orders for engaging the enemy in battle with respect to particular manouvers, target prioritisation and weapon availibility.
The table belows shows the number of standing orders that a particular may have.

The standing orders are written on seperate sheets of paper and turned face down with the name of the order written on the back.
The name of each standing order will be one or two one or two syllable words, such as:-
Alpha Attack, Beta Blast, Gamma mode, Delta Strike or even Epsilon Repsonce.
The order is considered to be 1 Impulse long to issue.

Standing orders may be setting varrious weapons to Defensive mode:-
"All Phaser Threes and all Anti-drones to Defesive Mode" might be one standing order that a ship uses whilst "All phasers and all Anti-drones to defensive mode" might be another standing order that the same vessel uses.
Or they may be regular fire command, like' "On my mark, fire all facing weapon at the CVA."

The player should write out the standing order before play begins, he can not change the standing order before a battle but may change them between scenarios.
When the Order is to be resolved the player should show that he has written the name of the standing order on his " regular orders sheet " to the controller and then turn over that standing order page to reveal the exact nature of that order to the controller if the controller asks or player will simple be expected to follow the rules without oversight.

The ship shall have a number of "Standing Order Slots" that the crew can deal with. The table below shows the effects of the crew quality and the effect of outstanding officers.

Crew and Officers	Standing Order Slots
Poor Crew	1*
Regular Crew	2
Outstanding Crew	4
Legendary Science Officer	1*
Legendary Navigator	1**
Legendary Weapons Officer	2
Legendary Captain	3

* These Standing Order slots, becasue the Admiralty are loave to give the captaincy crews that have had no training in Defesive Mode at the Academy, and because Legendary Science Officers feel that there is no point in his underlings identifying drones and plasma if the gunnery crews can not use that information competently, can only be used to make a standing order that sets weapons to defensive mode.

** The Legendary Navigator seeks to couple Fire with manouver and as such the extra Standing Order that he can DRILL into the gunnery crews will never be a Defensive mode order.

C1.323___.62 Standing orders may be undone simply by naming the weapon in a new order.


C1.323___.7 Precedence
When a weapon is switched to opperate in a particular manner and it can not then it will switch but not opperate until it can. E.g if a G rack has launch a drone within eight impulses but on a previous turn then it can not switch to opperate as an ADD until after the eight impulse period has been resolved.

Similarly if a plasma torpedo is ready to launch and the commander orders, Fire All Facing Weapons, then it will be bolted, because it has been "ordered to do so".

If a weapon can not fire such as an ADD that had already launched a dogfight drone this turn, then it switches to the orded task but does not engage in it, until it is free to do so, in this case; next turn.

If a weapon is ordered to fire and can not at that impulse, such as a phaser that fired late in the turn before, shall fire as soon as it has cycled if it is ordered to fire.

Weapons ordered to fire that can not bear on the target will still fire out into deep space.
Andro's may use this to release built up energy.

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 01:34 am: Edit

Is this topic STILL going on??

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 02:25 am: Edit

Ya! He is developing it. It is interesting. It may not be a rule, but it's an interesting study. I am curious to hear how it plays.

By Stuart C. Brennen (Evlstu) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 04:09 am: Edit

Really ???
Imagine playing a fleet scenario with pre-plotted fire!!!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 05:14 am: Edit

SCB:

Yeah and once upon a time, people said, imagine playing a fleet scenario with Energy Allocation Forms.


It's only one extra sheet of official paper until you add in the Standing Orders and most captains will just use; standing orders and their names, from the group that the fleet has amassed...things like ALL PHASER TO DEFENSIVE MODE are pretty universal and so the entire fleet can have that as a Standing Order of ALPHA RESPONCE or some such.


Besides, who uses preplotted movement for fleet scenarios!?!

By Ryan Peck (Trex) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 09:50 am: Edit

Anyone ever here of Imediate Action Drills? Special Forces and other infantry units use them. Pretty much they train for any situation they know EXACTLY what each and every guy on the team will do.

For example say your Seal platoon is marching along and they bump into bad guys directly ahead.
-Point man screams 'Contact Front' he then emptys 2 magazines in the direction of the bad guys. He runs back towards his comrades.
- The second guy throws a grenade as soon as the first man passes him. He empties a magazine and falls back
- The third guy is the slack man, he carries a M-249. He fires a massive amount of rounds. When done he falls back.
- The fourth man has spent this entire time setting up a claymore mine. His buddys rally near his postion. When the bad guys chase them, he blows the mine, and they iniate (sp) an ambush.

This paticular IA drill is something I just made up, but if I was the squad leader I would make sure each and every man knew EXACTLY what to do. Other drills would exist for Contact left, Contact rear, etc.

I find it very hard to believe that starship crews that spend MONTHs in space do not have some similar drills. Remember when 'out to sea' there is very little to do that is not ship related.

The computers are advanced enough that the entire Fire Control system is intergrated. When the labs Id drones, mark them as red. The Gunnery officer can add a blue halo to the drones he wants tractored. Standing order #57 says any drone not tractored that gets closer then 10,000 km gets a phaser 1 assigned to it etc.. A modern Tico cruiser can ID, track, and tell the crew the most dangerous threat. I'm sure in 300+ years that will get at least a little better.

I dont see a need for more compliacted rules, that I dont think fit a realistic background.

By Stuart C. Brennen (Evlstu) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 01:59 pm: Edit

The fact that the ships and crews would be doing drills and that there would be somesort of fleetwide doctrine for dealing with different enemies would eliminate the need for most of the "preplanning" being mentioned.

As far as the "Me too fire" debate goes, the people I game with always assumed that every time a weaponed was fired it was preceded my some for of energy buildup thus allowing for the other side to get off what might be considered a snap shot.
Again, this would eliminate the need for preplotted fire and would keep most of the players playing the game.

By L.LeBlanc (Lessss) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 05:09 pm: Edit

Proposed Rule, snapshot me too firing.

All weapons fire is proceeded by a power buildup so an opponnent can see your intention to fire. His normal computer locks can't operate that quickly but the human(oid)-ish firing officer can, although not as accurately. This "ME TOO" firing is penalized by an automatic shift of one which can not be be negated except by a legendary officer and 1 ecm.

Anyone cares to do the anal retentive rule numbering stuff feel free.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 05:40 pm: Edit

post deleted.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 10:59 pm: Edit

R.P.:

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Quote:

For example say your Seal platoon is marching along and they bump into bad guys directly ahead.
-Point man screams 'Contact Front' he then emptys 2 magazines in the direction of the bad guys. He runs back towards his comrades.
- The second guy throws a grenade as soon as the first man passes him. He empties a magazine and falls back
- The third guy is the slack man, he carries a M-249. He fires a massive amount of rounds. When done he falls back.
- The fourth man has spent this entire time setting up a claymore mine. His buddys rally near his postion. When the bad guys chase them, he blows the mine, and they iniate (sp) an ambush.

This paticular IA drill is something I just made up, but if I was the squad leader I would make sure each and every man knew EXACTLY what to do. Other drills would exist for Contact left, Contact rear, etc.

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Quote:

As far as the "Me too fire" debate goes, the people I game with always assumed that every time a weaponed was fired it was preceded my some for of energy buildup thus allowing for the other side to get off what might be considered a snap shot.
Again, this would eliminate the need for preplotted fire and would keep most of the players playing the game.

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By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 11:11 pm: Edit

Yup, just what the game needs, more complex rules.

MJC, see if you can rival the mid-turn speed changes for abiguity.

By Jeff Williams (Jeff) on Thursday, June 27, 2002 - 12:38 am: Edit

I guess I'm just missing the point of this academic excercise. At a certain level, the game breaks down in terms of realism. Just compare warp speed units engaging sublight units for a first step in chucking reality out the window. Next step is elements of a nova going translight. There are more, but I'm trying to cut back on my rambling nowadays.

While you try to keep it as consistent as possible, and always look to improve the format, at a certain point, you discard "realism" in favor of playability. Otherwise the game breaks down hopelessly.