Privateers, Pirates and Mercenaries!

Both look good.

So, first thing, for the PCG forum admins/mods/whoever. Is there any sort of randomizer we can use for the roleplay? I'm familiar with this one:

Random number (3,847) : 93

...But unfortunately it has the drawback of changing numbers every time someone edits the post it's in.

So any help on getting something better (or even figuring out a method to make this or another RNG thing to work) would be appreciated.


In the meantime, I've got an idea floatin' around for game mechanics.

Power Output:
   Ships could use a "power output" thing, to begin with. Basically, this would amount to telling how much power goes to a handful of specific ship systems, like thrusters, weapons, shields, and so on.
...So let's say the Hades' Gate has a power output of 50. It could do, say, 30 to guns, 10 to shields, and 10 to thrusters, giving each of those systems a certain effectiveness. This would essentially be your "move" each turn: telling how many points of power you want to put into each thing.
-Guns would probably have, say, just one point of power to use. So that would determine how many guns you can fire off per turn.
-Shields would simply be able to take so much of a beating depending on how many points of power you fed them. Or something. Suggestions are welcome. Maybe it could be recharge time or something like that...
-Now, thrusters is something else entirely. Basically, I'm thinking that the number of points put into thrusters would actually affect a ship's evasive abilities. So, like, let's say someone fires thirty cannons at you. Then what would happen is that you'd "roll" something equivalent to how many guns you fired, and the number you get is how many shots hit their target.
For example, you've got those thirty cannons. You fire all of them. Then you do a RNG between 0 and 30, and the number you get (let's say you roll a 17) is how many of them hit their target.
But what would happen with thrusters is that for every point you put into them, that's an extra shot that misses you, or something of that sort.
-I think sensors could also factor into this as basically the opposite of thrusters: the more power you put into your sensors, the more "hits" you get bumped up on your accuracy rolls, sort of counteracting the effects of thrusters somewhat.

Range/Accuracy:
   I think it'd also be handy to include an "engagement range" part to it. Like let's say there's long, medium, and short ranges that you can be from your opponent. Then, also, ships are classified into heavy, medium, and light categories by their sizes and/or maneuverability.
-Heavy ships would be guaranteed to get hit and short and medium ranges, and would have a chance to evade (i.e. with thrusters) at long ranges.
-Medium ships would be impossible hit to hit at long ranges, have a chance to evade at medium range, and be guaranteed hits at close range.
-Small ships would be impossible to hit at long and medium ranges, and have a chance to evade at close ranges.

...Maybe a tad complicated I know, but I just can't see the Hades' Gate evading incoming fire just because it puts enough power into its thrusters except at very long ranges. Maybe this mechanic could still be simplified or eliminated though. I'm open to input.

Weaponry:
   I think it'd make sense for a ship to have a certain number of "weapon mounts". So let's say the Hades' Gate can mount fifty guns. That'd be fifty spots to put new weapons onto, and each one would theoretically take a point of power to operate it. Though I might switch things up some. We'll see after this.

Each weapon could theoretically have certain properties. Here's some examples that won't necessarily make sense:
-Disruptors could be extra-powerful weapons that take 2 points of power, and also deal 2 points of damage. This would be handy because they'd be double the firepower for a single weapon mount. However, they'd be considered "less-accurate" than other guns, and also get just one accuracy thing per gun. So like this: If you have 10 guns and you roll an 8, any disruptors you have would be counted first as guns that missed. Thus, that's 4 shots' worth of power that you just wasted instead of 2. This could sort of counteract the extra firepower, by making them power-guzzlers that are unreliable in battles where you might not hit.
-Mass-driver turrets might be considered "powerless" weapons due to their power efficiency over conventional energy weapons. However, this could be offset by them not having much damage, requiring multiple guns to be mounted to count for a single damage point. Thus, you have to mount them in "banks" of several guns each that suck up your weapon mounts, but with the bonus of not taking power that you can instead put into other systems.
-Photon Torpedoes could essentially be single-use weapons. Like say you have a dozen onboard your ships, and they deal high damage, but you have to restock your supply of them when buying weapons or else run out (or just not use them).

Just some thoughts on that.

System Damage:
   Just a word of warning, from the way I plan it, you guys'll be spending more on repairs than actual ships.
   Basically, I think that every time a ship breaks through another ship's shields and deals damage, I roll behind the scenes to see if something breaks.  This could include a system like shields, impulse, warp, sensors, etc. (and from this I think it should be obvious what the effects of those breaking would be... ), and also case the loss of some weapons as well.
  Most systems could be repaired through a generalized "repair your ship at the local space station", but a few things like weaponry or any fancy gizmos you've bought would have to be repurchased.

Point-Defense and Starfighters:
   Unlike other weapons, I think I might simplify PD by not counting it in a ship's power requirements. So if starfighters fly in, you just roll real quick for the number of PD guns (or clusters? Depends kinda) you have and count off enemy fighters based on how many hits you get. Then the remaining fighters deal you damage. ...Nice and easy.
   On that note, you might be buying lots of replacement fighters too...




...Anyway, I think that's my full idea. What's everyone think? I think it might need to be simplified a liiiittle bit (I'm looking at you, weapons) in order to not be an excessive amount of bookkeeping, but I'm kinda happy with it overall if I do say so myself.

So, opinions?

To keep it quick:

Power Output: Sounds good. I'd say maybe total shield strength be equal to 2x and regen time being like +x/3 per turn, where x is the total power in a system.

As a side note, it would be interesting if we could have "emergency power" move; basically, we divert power from vital systems like artificial gravity and life support for a temporary power boost.

Range: Hmmmm... Not sure I like it. Y'know, this RP isn't quite complex enough yet; maybe making an equation to calculate it, factoring in the ship's size, the distance, and the power diverted to respective engines and sensors. Yeah... I'll get to work on that.

Weapons: That all sounds good, with torpedoes being expendables, weapon slots, and all that. I will say we should probably divide the weapons into light, heavy and PD slots, or something along those lines. If you want, I can get to work on that too, though It'll take me a little time.

System damage: Another hmm. Perhaps, instead of having traditional HP and such, we could have a sort of Star Trek: Armada system. In that game, every ship had the same five or six systems, like engines, life support, etc., with each having a green, yellow, red, and grey state, corresponding to that system being operational, damaged, inoperative, and destroyed, respectively; ships are destroyed when all systems reach the grey state. With that, perhaps we could have a similar situation; armor and shields would absorb some amount of damage, but after that, each system would become damaged with successive shots, until all systems (and thus the ship) are down.

PD/Fighters: Not sure how fighters would operate or what they would do, but whatevs.

Other: Maybe instead of buying "new" systems, we can spend STUs to upgrade our existing ones, which have the dual purpose of making them sturdier and improving their base function. In addition, maybe ships could have one or two upgrade slots, which would allow for various effects- stuff like extra engines (more dodging), advanced fire control (more hitting), secondary hangars, etc.yeah... I like all that. I sorta want to start typing it up now. I'll hold off until this all gets green-lit, though.

{OOC} I'm just a ground guy for once. I have no clue what's going on. {/OOC}

I have new thoughts on shields. I'll get back to it. ....I might go out of order with a lot of these, actually...

Emergency power could maybe be a thing, but I think I'd restrict it to sort of a PC-only plot device thing. If every NPC ship decides to pull that one when it's near death, that'd be sort of a pain.


Weapons:
To be honest, I'm thinking of simplifying the weaponry list to just phasers or something else generic (at least for what's used on the main weapon mounts. I'd keep torpedoes, the HG's coaxials, PD, etc.). Reason being is that having to figure out which weapons you just fired, every single move, sounds like kind of a pain.

...Unless everyone's okay with it, anyway. If my players (which includes people besides over-ambitious Tetra here ) would like to go with it, then sure, let's do it, and I think I'll be able to handle the NPC enemies' book-keeping. Otherwise, let's find some way to simplify more.

System Damage:
I was just starting to think that myself. Just wondering, would more or less "eliminating" armor be realistic? Shields ought to be a bit to keep track of already, so eliminating the other "health stat" would be kind of helpful for streamlining things.

Destroying every single ship system to blow up the ship is kind of a cool idea (doesn't make a ton of sense, but I don't necessarily mind as long as it's fun and works well as a game mechanic ). So I think I'll do that.
However, I don't think I'll add the "multiple hits to full destroy one" thing. I think that'd make battles take too long, and I don't want to deal with tracking all the little bits of every system having so much damage.

But yeah, I like that. *Ship is down to thrusters and sensors. The thrusters are blown up* "Sir! We've been immobilized! And the ship's in critical condition!" *The sensors are blown up, and the ship suddenly explodes*

Shields:
So, an update, I talked with my brother real fast about this, and came out thinking that something needs to be done about shields and thrusters.
Why? Because the way I have them, they're sorta the same thing: "Put point into shields/thrusters, and absorb/evade one enemy shot."

So with shields at least, I'm modifying it. Instead of stopping as many shots as you put into it, different strengths of shield have certain "max capacities" of damage they can take. Then any points you put into goes into recharging the shields.

For example: Let's say you have a shield that can take 20 hits. What happens is you put so many points of power into recharging them on your turn, then the enemy attacks and damages the shields, then the shields are healed for as many points as you put into them. Like this-
-PC turn 1: *Puts 10 points of power into shield recharging*
-NPC turn 1: *Attacks, deals 7 damage, lowering PC's shields to 13*
-PC turn 2: *Turn starts and those 10 points fix shields*

The strategy behind it? You have to guess how many points you need to put into your shields. For example:
-PC turn 1: *Puts 10 power into shields*
-NPC turn 1: *Attacks, deals 16 damage, PC's shields are now at 4*
-PC turn 2: *Shields are recharged by 10, PC's shields are now 14*
-NPC turn 2: *Attacks, deals another 16 damage, PC's shields collapse and ship take damage*
...So put too little in, and you could be left unprotected by your enemy's next attack.

Whereas you can also put too much in:
-PC turn 1: *Puts 20 power into shields*
-NPC turn 1: *Deals 2 damage, shields are at 18*
-PC turn 2: *Shields are recharged by 2*
...In which case you just wasted 18 points of power that first turn that you could've put into weapons and stuff.

So a little bit of strategy there.

Range/Thrusters:
Nuuuuu, "Not complex enough" is baaad! I need minimal work, or the roleplay will die off.

I'm not sure I like it, either, though, so I'm totally open to (non-complex) ideas.

Riiight... I'm not good with "simple".

Shields and Systems Damage all sound fine. As for weapons... yeah,that does kinda sound difficult to track in hindsight.

As for the range equation, that was really just a quip; it would probably be fairly straightforward, so long as we have accurate numbers (which we should). I'll PM you an example tomorrow, probably.

Yeah...

With weapons, how would it sound to sort of generalize, with a "main gun" that includes generic phasers, disruptors, etc. that all (in-game) basically have the same specs? Then we'd keep the additional "extra" guns like photon torpedoes and other unique more-powerful weapons and just have them usable separately.

Sounds fine. Like I said, just make it easy and quick to do, and I'll be fine with it.

All sounds good.

{OOC} #Ihasnocluewhatsgoingon {End OOC}

[OOC] #IizgladIamnottheonlyone [END OOC]

[OOC] Move along, move along, folks, nothing to see here; just nerds trying to get computers to do their math for them. [/OOC]

{OOC}*waits for GM post*{/End OOC}

Hola space-peeps!

Is there anyone interested in (and active enough) starting this one up again? I might be slow getting it back in gear because I'm busy, but I can make an effort and if I don't bite off more than I can chew I should be able to manage it.

Hey, I'm ready any time. Hmmm... should probably see about getting the Wreker now.

*raises hand and flails about*

YES. YES YES YES YES YES.