Author Topic: Crashing Vehicles  (Read 2325 times)

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Offline Aotrs Commander

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Crashing Vehicles
« on: July 15, 2019, 11:06:25 AM »
I have another one of my infrequent rules issues to work around!

This time, it is the final adventure of one of our parties - it's a bit event, since it's for my 40th, and this party has been around for about 22 years! Anyway, one of the things that is intended (barring a lot of PC ingenuity and/or luck!) is that the PC's ship is going to get shot down. (Among other reasons, it provides a good excuse for the adventurers to go their separate ways after the end of this climactic adventure!)

However, SM seems quite on on major aspect of vehicular combat - rules of crashing. The critical hits seem mostly to assume a space-going vessel and there are a few result of "out of control," but nothing I could immediately see in the Vehicle Manual on what to do when a ship actually, y'know, crashes. (At space velocities, the question but be irrelevant, but the PC's ship will be at atmospheric speeds where survival is at least possible).

There isn't even a fall/crush equivalent attack table for vehicles I can see to do it that way.

So, I am thinking about maybe some form of attack roll on the Autocannon table for the damage to the vehicle, and maybe in addition to whatever that does (or instead of) applying a critical (no more than B or C ideally) to the PCs aboard, or an appropriate fall/crush attack on them.

Does anyone have any better, more elegant (or even official) ideas on how to resolve crash damage? I would greatly appreciate the help!


Offline Ynglaur

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2019, 11:27:24 AM »
Are you looking to adjudicate the damage to the vehicle or to the people inside?  I seem to recall that the official rules in SM2 for ramming were to use the Autocannon table, with vehicle size (S, M, L, XL) as the Mark damage caps and an OB based on mass.

Offline Aotrs Commander

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2019, 12:12:37 PM »
Are you looking to adjudicate the damage to the vehicle or to the people inside?  I seem to recall that the official rules in SM2 for ramming were to use the Autocannon table, with vehicle size (S, M, L, XL) as the Mark damage caps and an OB based on mass.

Both, really, though the people inside are probably the most important (I can hand-wave the vehicle damage if I have to!)

Offline Ynglaur

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2019, 07:29:18 AM »
I'd probably go with Fall / Crush and use Unbalance or Impact criticals, with OB based on velocity and DB on things like protective restraints, armor, etc.

Offline Aotrs Commander

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2019, 07:55:20 AM »
How does this sound?

(Context: surprise attack on the PC's ship as it emerges from a portal 10m above a circle of flat stone on the ground. The PCs are about level 11 and high powered and thus the difficulty checks I scale a bit to that! Ship has 80 DB shields (if/when raised!) and no DB bonus for armour quality.)

If the attack would cause the Aggamemnon to crash and it is floating above the circle, everyone on board takes a +30 Fall/Crush attack (+0 if seated in crash restraints) from the drop to the ground (only armour DB applies) and the ship itself will suffer a +50 Mk50 Autocannon attack (net +100, no evade/combat pilot DB).

The PCs now have a problem if they try to flee back through the portal. The return portal only functions in one direction (if they have attempted to scan, it’s a vertical circle, not a sphere), which will put them out the other side in the orientation of the causeway. So to get out, they will either have to back up, or have to fly out an turn around (giving the lazer cannon a shot at their rear).

Flying backwards requires a Very Hard (-20) Atmospheric pilotic check; failure results in the Aggy’s rear crashing into the rock wall behind [1] it (+25 Fall/Crush +1 for every point of failure , +20 if not in crash restraint, only armour DB applies)  and a +50 Mk 30 autocannon (net +80) attack (no evade/combat pilot DB) on the ship. In any case, the PCs will immediately discover that while the lazer cannon can’t activate the portal, the 3-burst railgun turret can. This attack also ignores the Evade/Combat Pilot bonuses, as the Aggamemnon can’t dodge while there is not space for it to do so.

If the PCs attempt to fly the Aggamemnon towards the temple and/or fight, they will take two rounds of fire from the tample’s weapon systems before they reach it (though as normal DBs). Perform these attacks as before; if the PCs would be killed again, instead reduce their invulnerability down to 2 each. If they would be killed a third time, or on the second round of fire regardless, the attack instead will knock out the computer (again), causing the ship to crash (as above, but with an addition +30 to the OBs).

If, by some miracle, the PCs take out both weapons emplacements in one round, they will avoid being shot down.


[1]The portal is located about 250' (85m) off of a cliffside on the other side of the portal; Aggy is itself 52m long and will appear at the centre of this exit point, so it has onlt about its own length stopping distance. (As mentioned above, the portal can be entered from any direction on that side, so the PCs won't necessarily know that is the direction they will come out.)

Offline David Johansen

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2019, 12:47:14 AM »
Well, for spacecraft, given the velocities involved I'd use the Apocalyptic Weapon table.  Especially if the reactor goes up.  For lesser matters I'd probably use Blast verses Vehicles crits.  Probably start at 'C' for vehicles of equal size and shift up and down for every order of magnitude of difference.


Offline Aotrs Commander

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2019, 06:25:00 AM »
Well, for spacecraft, given the velocities involved I'd use the Apocalyptic Weapon table.  Especially if the reactor goes up.  For lesser matters I'd probably use Blast verses Vehicles crits.  Probably start at 'C' for vehicles of equal size and shift up and down for every order of magnitude of difference.



The velocity the ship will at (given the standing start and atmosphere) will be relatively low, but yes, apocalyptic would probably be better for crashes for starships generally.

The latter suggestion, I'll take under advisement; I'll have a look when I next do so quest writing (I'm off on holiday tomorrow), and decide whether I want to use crits or an attack table.

Offline David Johansen

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Re: Crashing Vehicles
« Reply #7 on: July 29, 2019, 09:09:44 AM »
I guess it would fall under Blast Verses Vehicles for an attack table.  Though I'm not sure where I'd look for modifiers.  Velocity, Relative size, and hull construction I guess.   Relative Velocity x Size / Other Guy's Size on CAT column maybe?