| From: | Charles E Thul <cthul@****.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Drones in Close Quarters (long) |
| Date: | Thu, 3 Dec 1998 20:35:48 -0600 |
of replys I'm making (as well as hopefully limiting my rambling with only
having one message to write) but I'm going to reply to several messages
here: Also I do what to thank people for replying (yea I'm a newbie here,
if you couldn't tell) its nice to finally have people to talk this stuff
over with....
>D.Ghost writes
>Fourth, you only need to make the Sensor test once until you loose track
of the target.
But it takes a complex action to make a Sensor test (according to R2),
and once you can shoot the target it should be dead necessitating using
another complex action to make another Sensor test to acquire another
target, etc...
>Fifth, you can let the drone handle the Sensor test or the Gunnery test
while you >handle the other.
I always thought that it was either the Rigger or the Pilot controlling
the drone at any one time, not both...besides, doesn't the Rigger need to
expend a simple (?) action ordering the drone to perform a Sensor test?
(leaving him with a simple action to do nothing with)
Anyway, I've got something (that I haven't playtested yet, my Rigger
seems to have vanished....). Basically this applies to any drone type
except for fixed wing or blimps (which you probably wouldn't bring to a
firefight in a building anyway). There are two basic types of movement
available to drones. The first is a slow and carefull advance where the
Rigger is sacrificing his edge in movement in order to control his
drone's advance, and look for targets, and take advantage of terrain
modifiers (cover, limited visiblity, smoke, etc.). In this mode a drone
moves it's acceleration rating in meters every time the Rigger acts (and
like a character this movement is free). But since it is a vehicle it is
not unreasonable to assign a T# penalty for people shooting at the drone
due to its movement/speed, I'm thinking +2 instead of the normal
modifiers of +4, +6, or +8. Of course the Rigger can always move a
shorter distance, however, if he wants to go faster things get a little
more complicated.
In order to determine how far a drone is going to move every time
the Rigger acts you can divide its speed by the number of actions a
Rigger gets in a combat turn. I've abstratcted that a little by creating
a new drone characteristic called Actions per Turn (APT). That is
calculated by taking the Rigger's Reaction rating, adding three to it,
then multiplying by the number of initiative dice the Rigger has then
taking that total and dividing by ten, then rounding down. For the
mathematically inclined that would be:
APT = (Rigger's Reaction +3) * # init. dice / 10 (truncated)
Now every time a Rigger acts he takes the drone's speed (modified by any
changes the Rigger is going to make in it), divides by his APT to
generate the number of meters the drone can move. Again movement is free.
So if a Rigger (APT = 3) decides to start his drone moving from a dead
stop (Accel 6), the Rigger can move 6/3 or 2 meters his first action. On
his next action he can continue at this speed (allowing him to move an
additional 2 meters) or he can decide to increase his speed by his Accel
rating, this would allow him to move (6 + 6) = 12 / 3 = 4 meters this
action. On his third action he can maintain his speed (allowing him to
move 4 meters) or increase it by his accel again bringing his current
speed to 6 + 6 + 6 = 18 meters and allowing him to move 18 / 3 or 6
meters this action. His total distance moved would by 2 + 4 + 6 or 12
meters, and he would start the next Combat turn moving at 18mpt. Again
this movement is all free. If a Rigger chooses to spend a Complex action
and perfrom an Acceleration test to increase his speed (and therefore the
distance he moves) he can do so. Not allowing him to would mean that in
the above example the drone would only move the same distance as a
running pedestrian (kinda embarassing isn't it?).
Along with this I allow a Rigger to fire a RC weapon expending
whatever action would be appropriate if he were personally firing that
weapon. Also, I let the Rigger perform one of two types of Sensor tests.
One requires a Simple action and allows the Rigger to "lock" onto a
single target, the second one requires a Complex action and allows the
Rigger to "lock" onto a number of targets equal to the drone's Sensor
rating. That and allowing a drone to move for free kind of equalizes
combat for drones and characters.
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