Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Plan: Reconstruction
Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
I don't see the actual combat rules anywhere, just a single line about opposed rolls in the rules post and a clarification about initiative. I think the whole thing needs a comment period. There are enough geeks here that someone would probably have caught that they didn't follow Lanchester's Laws, and someone might have caught the satellite problem and there will probably be suggestions for making the rules better approximate Battletech, or at least not leave all the canonical units other factions field hopelessly out of the meta.
The full combat rules are posted on the first 'Combat Rules' sheet of the Unit Record Sheets
Turn 15 - Results
Turn 15 - Results
----
Unfortunately for the kids, but fortunately for what remains of your alleged parental sanity, the Pee-Wee Hovercraft Racing season was cancelled, so you wouldn’t have that ulcer causing headache to deal with now that your twins were eligible to compete.
It’s totally your loving husband's fault that they are so competitive and eager to race! You’d make him sleep on the couch for such a great transgression against keeping your babies safe and wrapped in cotton but then your feet would get cold. The sacrifices you make.
Sekhmet is looking extra smug these days, and Bastet seems to relish the additional playtime she gets with the older kids since they’re not able to go off zooming around in hovercraft that she’d crush if she looked at them funny.
Your thoughts stray back to the near riot at the Shinto temple, and seized by some inspiration you take out a tablet and write up some proposed legislation, which you send to Janet, Professor Chapman, and Dr Young for comment. In broad terms, it was for the government to finance programming intending to show the stark differences between the local ethnic Japanese population, the historical traditions of actual Bushido and Shinto, and contrast them to the abominations that are the Combines viewpoint of both.
[] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
[] Might be premature, wait for further analysis
[] Write-in
You get a report from the parliamentary liaison (formerly one of your interns who’d impressed you with his diligence) about some of the latest shenanigans from Parliament… only to find that for once they not only were extremely helpful, but that they’d managed to do it without asking ‘mother may I’ first.
They had expedited the repairs to Huế mới by passing inventive tax breaks to companies involved in the reconstruction. They’d even managed to structure the whole thing to be revenue neutral, not favor any of their cronies, and generally lived up to the high expectation you’d publicly declared for them, rather than living down to the low expectations you really had.
You get a report about the final establishment of the blue water coast guard. You wish you’d had this earlier, because the SAR facilities would have been priceless in the immediate aftermath of the battle, but they’re on their collective feet and have already sent in their first actual budget request, for a few large cutters (why they can’t just call them ships is beyond you, when you asked you’d just gotten a vague statement about tradition from Captain Stinnett. So you’ll defer to the coasties and call them cutters). Ahhh, new government bureaucracies grow up so fast, one day they’re just a gleam in your eye, the next they are already wanting their budgets expanded.
You attend the official handover ceremony where the 1st Interceptor Wing officially stands up with their new Gyrfalcon interceptors. Willis has managed to get a few hours in one of them and tells you that they’re extremely responsive and have a superb combat computer that seems to help with energy and thermal management. You just think they look wonderfully capable and are glad to see them in service.
The old Falcons have been sent off to the new Pilot Training Center outside Huế mới where they were being used to train up the next generation of ASF pilots.
You also are on hand as the new Rocs are handed over, bringing the attack wing up to a full squadron in strength. Those big monsters had performed well, just there hadn’t been enough of them and the tactics hadn’t been right for what they were facing.
You get to tour the new dispersal facilities around Griffsport, another thing you should have thought about before the landing. You sigh a bit, hindsight is 20/20 and nobody can be perfect.
Try telling your emotions that at 3 in the morning when you wake up in a funk of self-doubt and pity over your failures.
The terminals and control facilities, hangars, and tank farm at the Huế mới Drop Port are rebuilt, you are glad so much of the harder to replace infrastructure is underground. Commerce between the continents is slowly edging back up to normalcy now.
You get to play with a few early prototypes of needler rifles and pistols. They are far too delicate still for issue to troops, and you can already tell that they’d be almost useless against anything with any armor whatsoever, but you can also tell that they would be utterly devastating against unarmored targets and since they have essentially no actual penetration extremely well-suited to boarding actions.
The new Academy labs open up with a great fanfare, and you spend the day wandering about admiring the setup. To be honest, most of the explanations sail right over your head, but you’ve gotten quite good at knowing when to nod knowingly and make appropriate mouth noises to appease excited geeks.
Decoding the recovered datadisk, however, isn’t going that well at all. They’ve not given up however, and hope to have something useful soon (™).
Janet is extremely excited that her pet project about establishing a royal police force is finally finished. They have little direct authority, but will mainly serve in the role of watchdogs over local police forces while being overseen directly by a special court of the judiciary, which is in turn drawn from and overseen by local law enforcement. It’s a neat setup, in that each element of it is in dynamic tension with the others. Moreover, it is specifically set up so that you can easily intervene if you feel that things have gotten out of hand. They also will provide specialized crime labs and specialists in more esoteric or rare corners of forensics and investigation.
It looks good to you, at least.
Economic Roll - N/A due to martial law
Health Roll - 7 degrees of success
Stability Change roll - N/A due to martial law
Stability Rolls
-Political - N/A
-Research - N/A
-Economic - N/A
Meta Event Roll - ** - SPECIAL
Dynasty Luck Roll - 17 - surviving datachip from destroyed Triumph
Crown Influence Roll - 5 - fail
Lords Influence Roll - 9 - no roll
Commons Influence Roll - 5 - SUCCESS… positive event - Accelerated rebuild of Huế mới
Health Roll - 7 degrees of success
Stability Change roll - N/A due to martial law
Stability Rolls
-Political - N/A
-Research - N/A
-Economic - N/A
Meta Event Roll - ** - SPECIAL
Dynasty Luck Roll - 17 - surviving datachip from destroyed Triumph
Crown Influence Roll - 5 - fail
Lords Influence Roll - 9 - no roll
Commons Influence Roll - 5 - SUCCESS… positive event - Accelerated rebuild of Huế mới
[X] Agree - +10 support in both Commons and Lords, +1 Influence for Commons and Lords, costs 2000 a year for 10 years. Reduces damage from scorched earth attacks by enemy forces by 25%.
[X] Slayer F2A
Establish Blue-Water Coast Guard*
Roll already done last turn - SUCCESS
After Action Review*
1st Interceptor Wing - 1 success (banked, need 10 to become elite)
1st Strike Wing - 1 success - promoted to Crack
RRF 1st Regiment - 1 success - promoted to Crack
RRF 2nd Regiment - failure
Garrison - failure
ASF Dispersal Fields - Griffsport
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS
Advanced Tactical Training Annex - Pilot Training Center
Target - 75
Roll - 99, reroll thanks to CURTIS LEMAY, 39
Result - Success
Recruit 4 Flights Rocs (bring to full squadron), Upgrade interceptor wing to Slayer F2A
Target - 60
Roll - 32
Result - Success
Strengthen Central Bank*
Target - 40
Roll - 89, reroll thanks to ECONOMIST trait 17
Result - SUCCESS
Rebuild Huế mới Drop Port
Target - 85
Roll - 39
Result - SUCCESS
Expanded Academy Labs
Target - 65
Roll - 97, reroll thanks to SHADOWARXXY, 95, reroll thanks to Jarow, 5
Result - SUCCESS
Advanced Infantry Weapons - Gauss
Target - 110
Roll - 51
Result - Success
Decode recovered data drive
Target - 35
Roll - 98
Result - FAIL
Establish National Police Force*
Target - 60
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS
[X] Slayer F2A
Establish Blue-Water Coast Guard*
Roll already done last turn - SUCCESS
After Action Review*
1st Interceptor Wing - 1 success (banked, need 10 to become elite)
1st Strike Wing - 1 success - promoted to Crack
RRF 1st Regiment - 1 success - promoted to Crack
RRF 2nd Regiment - failure
Garrison - failure
ASF Dispersal Fields - Griffsport
Target - 75
Roll - 51
Result - SUCCESS
Advanced Tactical Training Annex - Pilot Training Center
Target - 75
Roll - 99, reroll thanks to CURTIS LEMAY, 39
Result - Success
Recruit 4 Flights Rocs (bring to full squadron), Upgrade interceptor wing to Slayer F2A
Target - 60
Roll - 32
Result - Success
Strengthen Central Bank*
Target - 40
Roll - 89, reroll thanks to ECONOMIST trait 17
Result - SUCCESS
Rebuild Huế mới Drop Port
Target - 85
Roll - 39
Result - SUCCESS
Expanded Academy Labs
Target - 65
Roll - 97, reroll thanks to SHADOWARXXY, 95, reroll thanks to Jarow, 5
Result - SUCCESS
Advanced Infantry Weapons - Gauss
Target - 110
Roll - 51
Result - Success
Decode recovered data drive
Target - 35
Roll - 98
Result - FAIL
Establish National Police Force*
Target - 60
Roll - 5
Result - SUCCESS
----
Unfortunately for the kids, but fortunately for what remains of your alleged parental sanity, the Pee-Wee Hovercraft Racing season was cancelled, so you wouldn’t have that ulcer causing headache to deal with now that your twins were eligible to compete.
It’s totally your loving husband's fault that they are so competitive and eager to race! You’d make him sleep on the couch for such a great transgression against keeping your babies safe and wrapped in cotton but then your feet would get cold. The sacrifices you make.
Sekhmet is looking extra smug these days, and Bastet seems to relish the additional playtime she gets with the older kids since they’re not able to go off zooming around in hovercraft that she’d crush if she looked at them funny.
Your thoughts stray back to the near riot at the Shinto temple, and seized by some inspiration you take out a tablet and write up some proposed legislation, which you send to Janet, Professor Chapman, and Dr Young for comment. In broad terms, it was for the government to finance programming intending to show the stark differences between the local ethnic Japanese population, the historical traditions of actual Bushido and Shinto, and contrast them to the abominations that are the Combines viewpoint of both.
[] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
[] Might be premature, wait for further analysis
[] Write-in
You get a report from the parliamentary liaison (formerly one of your interns who’d impressed you with his diligence) about some of the latest shenanigans from Parliament… only to find that for once they not only were extremely helpful, but that they’d managed to do it without asking ‘mother may I’ first.
They had expedited the repairs to Huế mới by passing inventive tax breaks to companies involved in the reconstruction. They’d even managed to structure the whole thing to be revenue neutral, not favor any of their cronies, and generally lived up to the high expectation you’d publicly declared for them, rather than living down to the low expectations you really had.
You get a report about the final establishment of the blue water coast guard. You wish you’d had this earlier, because the SAR facilities would have been priceless in the immediate aftermath of the battle, but they’re on their collective feet and have already sent in their first actual budget request, for a few large cutters (why they can’t just call them ships is beyond you, when you asked you’d just gotten a vague statement about tradition from Captain Stinnett. So you’ll defer to the coasties and call them cutters). Ahhh, new government bureaucracies grow up so fast, one day they’re just a gleam in your eye, the next they are already wanting their budgets expanded.
You attend the official handover ceremony where the 1st Interceptor Wing officially stands up with their new Gyrfalcon interceptors. Willis has managed to get a few hours in one of them and tells you that they’re extremely responsive and have a superb combat computer that seems to help with energy and thermal management. You just think they look wonderfully capable and are glad to see them in service.
The old Falcons have been sent off to the new Pilot Training Center outside Huế mới where they were being used to train up the next generation of ASF pilots.
You also are on hand as the new Rocs are handed over, bringing the attack wing up to a full squadron in strength. Those big monsters had performed well, just there hadn’t been enough of them and the tactics hadn’t been right for what they were facing.
You get to tour the new dispersal facilities around Griffsport, another thing you should have thought about before the landing. You sigh a bit, hindsight is 20/20 and nobody can be perfect.
Try telling your emotions that at 3 in the morning when you wake up in a funk of self-doubt and pity over your failures.
The terminals and control facilities, hangars, and tank farm at the Huế mới Drop Port are rebuilt, you are glad so much of the harder to replace infrastructure is underground. Commerce between the continents is slowly edging back up to normalcy now.
You get to play with a few early prototypes of needler rifles and pistols. They are far too delicate still for issue to troops, and you can already tell that they’d be almost useless against anything with any armor whatsoever, but you can also tell that they would be utterly devastating against unarmored targets and since they have essentially no actual penetration extremely well-suited to boarding actions.
The new Academy labs open up with a great fanfare, and you spend the day wandering about admiring the setup. To be honest, most of the explanations sail right over your head, but you’ve gotten quite good at knowing when to nod knowingly and make appropriate mouth noises to appease excited geeks.
Decoding the recovered datadisk, however, isn’t going that well at all. They’ve not given up however, and hope to have something useful soon (™).
Janet is extremely excited that her pet project about establishing a royal police force is finally finished. They have little direct authority, but will mainly serve in the role of watchdogs over local police forces while being overseen directly by a special court of the judiciary, which is in turn drawn from and overseen by local law enforcement. It’s a neat setup, in that each element of it is in dynamic tension with the others. Moreover, it is specifically set up so that you can easily intervene if you feel that things have gotten out of hand. They also will provide specialized crime labs and specialists in more esoteric or rare corners of forensics and investigation.
It looks good to you, at least.
It's now so obvious! The disk clearly contains a beta copy of Star Citizen.
[X] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
Last edited:
Wageslave
Well-known member
[X] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
Ridli Scott
Well-known member
[X] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
That's not very complete. They don't specify how units are aggregated (I can't tell if they're the original rules where attack ratings aren't summed or the new rules where they are). They don't say how anything is calculated. I'm seeing columns in the record sheets (eg. Attack Bonus on column K in the garrison sheet) that aren't mentioned in the rules.
I can tell they don't attempt to differentiate weapons outside aerospace combat and makes that binary in a way that doesn't account for different targets having very different armor thresholds (eg. a large laser will threshold a Shilone, but not a Union) and does not capture the leveling effect of crits. The bonus damage for armor penetration should be a fraction of the target's max HP to represent the chance of the crit rendering the unit combat inoperative, which is largely constant. Similar mechanics apply to weapons that will breach armor in one shot on mechs with less than some level of armor (some light mechs breach to AC-10s and all lights and some mediums breach to AC-20s) or weapons with many location rolls (or units mounting many weapons like the Ontos) against vehicles with their potential for crippling motive and turret ring crits.
Jarow
Well-known member
Combat rules are very abstracted to allow handling combat in a reasonable time frame. There are a bunch of columns that exist only for calculation purposes, the one that actually matter in combat are here:
Fuel and speed in ASF now also have an effect (#combat rounds and withdrawal ability), but the base stats have been abstracted away.
For aggregating different units, the way it's worked so far is combine health pool and use highest attack value, but units can fight combined or separate. (I split the ASF wings, but kept the RRF together) Not sure if new version will result in combining the other values or not; we haven't actually had time to run tests yet beyond a quick evaluation of RRF vs Drac mechs (where they hit CLG round 2 - they hit the city round 4)
| Health | Initiative Base | Attack Roll | Defense Roll | CLG HP | Shattered HP |
For aggregating different units, the way it's worked so far is combine health pool and use highest attack value, but units can fight combined or separate. (I split the ASF wings, but kept the RRF together) Not sure if new version will result in combining the other values or not; we haven't actually had time to run tests yet beyond a quick evaluation of RRF vs Drac mechs (where they hit CLG round 2 - they hit the city round 4)
First, attack bonus (column K) is incorporated as part of attack dice (column R). Defense bonus is incorporated into defense dice.
Second, the reason that Armor-Piercing is a trait restricted to ASF combat (and restricted to AC/20s) is because of the abstractions needed to keep from having to spend a full day gaming out a single battle. In the 4th Succession War meta there are nearly no platforms that aren't thresholded in ASF combat by an AC/20, so giving them that damage boost is justified. As the meta progresses, there will be a counter-quirk available for units with sufficient armor to not be auto-thresholded.
Third. The entire combat system is intended to support the narrative process, not take its place. My intention is to allow for storytelling, a sandbox-like setting, and creative flexibility. It is not intended as a perfect model of a Mechwarrior session on the tabletop. Once I have it tuned correctly a major regiment on regiment battle should take ~1 hour to roll at most (if Urist is being Urist).
Second, the reason that Armor-Piercing is a trait restricted to ASF combat (and restricted to AC/20s) is because of the abstractions needed to keep from having to spend a full day gaming out a single battle. In the 4th Succession War meta there are nearly no platforms that aren't thresholded in ASF combat by an AC/20, so giving them that damage boost is justified. As the meta progresses, there will be a counter-quirk available for units with sufficient armor to not be auto-thresholded.
Third. The entire combat system is intended to support the narrative process, not take its place. My intention is to allow for storytelling, a sandbox-like setting, and creative flexibility. It is not intended as a perfect model of a Mechwarrior session on the tabletop. Once I have it tuned correctly a major regiment on regiment battle should take ~1 hour to roll at most (if Urist is being Urist).
I will further note that the calculations for every single rating are shown in the column headers of the sheets. Just hover your mouse over them and a note should pop up with the details.
Do you have any idea how much time it would take to play out planetary defense force sized battles using anything remotely close to full BTech rules? Besides, if Sunhawk had anything remotely like that much time and energy, it would be better put to developing less Mech-centric rules that give tanks, artillery, and air support their proper dominance.
[X] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
-[X] Write-In: Consult with the opposition to further this policy goal. The idea of this being "We're all in this together, for the Combine isn't playing favorites, and tougher times are to come."
-[X] Write-In: Give a speech that is equal parts "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" and "We shall fight them on the beaches."
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
-[X] Write-In: Consult with the opposition to further this policy goal. The idea of this being "We're all in this together, for the Combine isn't playing favorites, and tougher times are to come."
-[X] Write-In: Give a speech that is equal parts "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" and "We shall fight them on the beaches."
[X] Go for it, it’s a great idea and will certainly help with communal tensions
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
That reminds me that my comparative religion class was one of the more fascinating and useful general education level survey classes I ever took. . .
-[X] While they're at it, get a compilation of ALL the different faiths on-planet (not counting Periphery Studies pet projects!) so folks can learn of different ways of faith, AND recognize them all as part of the culture of our society.
That reminds me that my comparative religion class was one of the more fascinating and useful general education level survey classes I ever took. . .