Archive for January, 2016

Crashes

Posted in Intercept on January 11, 2016 by Mr Backman

The best scene from the wonderful Pitch black movie (you know, Riddick before becoming some kind of Warhammer thing) is easily the ship crash in the beginning with the ship taking severe aerobrake damage and getting pounded some more when actually crashing on the planet. Good stuff! (full disclosure: I did the AI coding for Riddick: Escape from Butcher bay, and Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena so I am a bit partial to Pitch black, which these games are prequels to. Assault on Dark athena actually contain both games, and a multiplayer too).

Aerobrake damage

Crashing on a planet with atmosphere will first do a step of aerobrake damage where the ship slows from braking against the atmosphere. Any remaining speed will be taken as crash damage which is much worse, believe me.

A crash occur when a ship with non-zero speed during Drift has its Past on a planet. Remember that ships with Past on a planet are not affected by gravity (what direction should the gravity be?). If the ship has an atmosphere mandatory aerobrake will occur, if not continue to landing damage below.

Aerobrake with Atmos drag from page 20, you may brake more if your ship has wings, up to your ship’s Wing drag. If aerobrake damage modifiers are 1+ roll damage, streamlining is treated worse if the ship isn’t facing along its vector before the drag, ships will always face along the original vector after drag, yeah, turning for free.

Landing damage

A crash occur when a ship with non-zero speed during Drift has its Past on a planet with speed remaining after . Remember that ships with Past on a planet are not affected by gravity (what direction should the gravity be?).

Add up all damage modifiers from page 21 and if 1+ roll landing damage, the relative ARM and DAB modifirers are only used for docking and ramming. How hitlocation is rolled is based on the ships facing relative its vector, facing forward roll 2 D6 and use highest, if ass first roll 2 D6 and use lowest, all other cases roll 1D6. If the hitlocation is Destroyed reroll on Hull damage as usual. Don’t forget the whooping +6 Damage modifier when landing upside down, which can only really happen when landing on large planets.

Docking / Ramming damage

Docking and ramming works similarly to landing damage above but have some more damage modifiers, also on page 21, those taking relative ARM and DAB into account, the values used are from the actual hitlocatins used so larger ships docking with smaller are not safe. Roll damage if modifiers are 1+.

For an actual docking to occur both ships must hit Crew or Core and both ships must face and be rolled the same.

If you are ramming a larger ship, try to hit with your Hull versus their Surface or Thrust locations for better relative DAB and let us just hope you have better ARM there too.

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Post new year post

Posted in Intercept, Rules, Traveller on January 11, 2016 by Mr Backman

Well this will be a short update where I briefly mention some of the new stuff added, I’ll go into more detail about some of them later on. Sorry about the long delay. Rules are hereand designs are here.

Jumpdrives

Before jumping the ship must inject fuel into its jump bubble, a layer of ionized hydrogen surrounding the ship, thicker the longer distances that are jumped. Jump prep takes 15 min to 60 minutes and uses 10% of the ships volume in jump fuel, per number of parsecs jumped, or Jn as the range is called. Small intrasystem jumps termed J0 spend only 5% of fuel but takes the same prep time. Ships with very small powerplants must turn off floor field and other power hungry components when prepping, the procedure is then called jump dimming, because traditionally the earlist jump capable ships turned interior lighting red during this, to warn the crew that a jump was in progress.

Rules can be found on page 30-31 as well as well as in the design rules on page 36, basic Jump prep or Jump dim time is on a row below the underpower modifiers, Underpower Thrust, Underpower Drift and Underpower Prep respectively.

Batteries

Batteries are either set to power just the floater and possibly Impulse thrust, or power for the entire ship. In both cases you input a nominal endurance in hours and Ship.xls will calculate the actual endurance loaded / unloaded. Multiply the hourly endurance by 4 and tick off each turn running on batteries, Impulse thrust is noted in GTurns used, typicaly twice as much as Floater alone. Ships running on batteries have the same IR(Power) signature as with a running powerplanet but no Neutrino(Power).

Don’t add batteries to your designs unless you fully understand the above rules, batteries are tricky and costly and not really needed for most designs.

All you need to do is to set the TL of the battery, whether you want its data for powering Float or the entire shio and the nominal endurance in hours, rules are on page 36.

Fuel converters

The Ammonia and Methane fuel converters have been combined into one, the water cracker is still a separate unit as it requires much more power. The special tankage row of ship.xls can hold any of water, ammonia or methane, but only one at a time.

I have added one Cutter fuelconverter and one Cutter fuelshuttle to the designs as the cutters are such common I though it would be good to get two ready made specialties aside from the regúlar one. Both the Mercenary cruiser and Survey cruiser has them as small craft.

See the sidebar on page 36 for details.

Workstations

The various waorkstation rows has been turned into one so all workstations must now be of the same type. The bridge workstation, aside from being a tie breaker for when Ship tactics skill are equal it also gives longer endurance, used by the optional Fatigue rules on page 25.

Battery modifiers

The modifiers for attacking with multiple indentical weapons, maybe from different ships if a Ship tactician is commanding them, have been modified to simplify designs at the cost of slightly harder to remember the breaks. The breaks are 2 for +2, 3 for +3, 9 for +4, 30 for +5 and 90 for +6. Fit three turrets with small missile launchers each for a +4 bonus from 9 missiles in a volley for example.

The tables are on page 9 and page 41 and of course in the 4 page table dupes at the back. Print out the last four pages at the back of the book to get handy references during play. All commonly tables and figures are there.

Detailed ranges and relative vectors

Those who want more detailed breakdowns of ranges and relative vectors can find tables for both on page 32.

Brace for impact

Every submarine movie has the captain yelling ‘brace for impact’ and now you can too in Intercept! At the end of movement, right before rolling for G-Loc you may opt to have the Crew and Repair Crew brace themselves. Bracing means they cannot Scan, attack or defend and they cannot perform repairs or power up powerplants. Bracing for impact ends at the end of the turn so you can thrust and turn or aerobrake while bracing for impact any number of times in a row. Basically, you cannot sense, fight or repair but take less battle, crash and aerobrake, you can also stand high G effects better.

The rules are on page 32, G-loc specific on page 25.

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