Ok. Let's see what I can speculate in completely non-scientific game speech...
It should be said that my version of Tintamar is... not really Tintamar. I'm calling it Sepsis, yeah, I know. There's no FTL (yet) and speeds max out at 0.025 to 0.035c, acceleration higher than 300 is unheard of, but speculations and conspiracies flourish. So the below isn't a suggestion for the game itself. Still, feedback and suggestions would be great
1: Would it be too much to say that to maintain speed would require energy per day equal to mass x acceleration/100 ? So the Angelica with a mass of 1000, going from Eris to Jupiter, a journey of a distance of ~35 AU (in 2281) with 300G acceleration, would require 1000x3 = 3000 energy per day? This would, with Angelica's top speed of 0.025c require a total of about 24000 energy units - it should be a bit more than 8 days total by my account.
So, trying to write the equation:
- AU*hours per AU at top speed: 35*5,56 = 194,6 hours.
- Deduct time for acceleration and deceleration 2*0,69 = 1,38 = 193,22 hours maintaining speed (if it is safe to assume that by removing said time you remove distance travelled, which the social scientist in me believes to be ok.)
- Divide by 24 and you get: 8 days add ~13 minutes (22*0,6).
I know there are some fractions in there, but this is still a game. Right?
- So in total the journey would require 1000*300*1,38 = 414000 plus 24000 energy units.
- 438000 energy units expended going from Eris to Jupiter
Too detailed? It's just that I want to play with fuel and one of my players it way too much into the math and science, and he hopes this new game to be real hard sci-fi after a year and a half of Star Wars.
I was thinking about mass/1000 too. So 300 per day to maintain speed. But perhaps mass/1000 is more fitting per combat turn (1 minute)? And divide by 30 to get per 2 second round?
I had some thoughts on going inwards and outwards in the system too, proximity to the sun and massive gas giants ... but I figured
that's too fiddly
and I feel perhaps this route is going against the design idea behind the gravitic technology presented in the game.
I'm letting a good astrogation checks result in reduced travel time, which in turn reduces fuel consumption - or just fuel consumption, for instance 1 percent fewer energy units per 20 over 101. To represent how making use of the gravitational forces in the solar system is a boon.
2: I guess here I must adhere to narration on my players' part as well as my own ideas about the encounter. I quite like this idea that a detailed game like this leaves it (seemingly) somewhat open. I'll let pilots decide how much they want to try to decrease or increase distance, then use the percentage column to determine how much closer/further away of the distance they declared they got... it seems like too much book keeping, but there must be a better way than the "winner of the initiative" ... of course this could force increases in acceleration and daring manoeuvres into asteroid belts to lose pursuers... and initiative changes every round, potentially.
3: making my own.
4: see 1.
5: I would assume these only apply in atmosphere, or in really close dog-fights.
-I'm ruling the additional -20 can also be off-set by combat driving. Until further notice.
Second post: I'll have the player make a second roll, even if that strictly speaking becomes two actions in one round/turn.