From: David Chong
Newsgroups: rec.games.miniatures.misc
Subject: Re: Dirtside II
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 13:12:37 -0800
Organization: UCCSN System Computing Services
In-Reply-To: <
[email protected]>
On Sat, 2 Dec 1995, Iceburg wrote:
> I too have a set of house rules. Mine include rules for commandos,
> mortat teams, cruise missiles, air to air dog fighting combat, surface
> to air missiles (SAMs), and many rule changes as well.
>
> If people are interested, I'll convert it to text (it's in MS Word
> now) and post them here.
>
> I'd be interested in seeing what you've come up with for air to air
> combat as well. I wonder how close our rules might be.
>
> I've even written a QBasic program that draws chits. You just type
> the number you want to draw and it tells you the total red, yellow and
> green values as well as if a special chit was drawn.
>
> -Greg
I'd very much like to see what you have written - please do post
your rules here, I'm sure others would benefit from them as well.
Of particular interest to me are your air to air rules and such (SAMs,
cruise missles incl.), and your rules for mortar teams. I am not very
happy with these aspects of the game. Following are summaries of what
has already been discussed, what points I have found could use work, and
included are my gaming group's house rules.
ARTILLERY:
On Artillery: the responsiveness of tactical artillery support is
lower in Dirtside II than it is on the modern battlefield. On-board,
"company" - level mortars have between a 25% and 50% chance of being
"unavailable" in a 15-minute turn, depending on the quality and type of
stand calling the fire. In a game where the figure scale is 1:1 and
command is at the battalion level, I find that ridiculous. What are my
mortars doing roughly a third of their time, for 15 minutes, if not
supporting their parent unit? In a larger scale, such as 1:platoon, I
could swallow this as representing "fog of war", shoot and scoot, or what
have you. But when I have the single vehicle on the table and one of the
12 units it is supporting can't get it to fire over a 15 minute period,
that is unacceptable. We have therefore installed a stop-gap house rule
that mortar teams/vehicles attached at the company level automatically
land. Again, even this is a lower level of coordination than exists
with, say, the modern M-1A2/Paladin artillery system.
Also a problem with artillery and bombs is effectiveness. Infantry
walking around in a field are just as vulnerable as infantry dispersed
within buildings in the middle of a city. This is, again, ridiculous.
Soft cover such as forest (and for that matter hard cover such as
buildings) aid infantry not merely by physical protection from shell
fragments: their great aid is in obscuration. It is difficult to call in
fire or drop bombs effectively when you cannot determine the precise
location of enemy troop concentrations. Seeing one or two troops milling
about does not mean you have located the enemy to such a degree that
directing fire on their position will have the same effectiveness as if
the target were playing volleyball on the beach. Our house rule, again
stop-gap until we write/read something better: artillery fire at infantry
in cover (soft or hard) draws HALF as many chits as normal, rounded down.
In order to claim this benefit, target stand must be _completely_ within
said cover - cannot be on edge firing out, claiming cover by contact, etc.
MORALE:
Allen Goodall mentioned in a post that he had written some morale
rules. I'd be very interested in seeing these, as I have never seen a
platoon survive long enough to have _any_ effect from morale checks.
I think a morale check for simply taking fire is in order. Artillery
and airstrikes should _certainly_ have morale effects, which they do not
in the core rules. I hope Allen posts these.
OPEN TOP ARMOR:
Open top armor is mentioned in the rules, but there is no benefit
whatsoever to designing a vehicle so-equipped. Therefore, we decided
that open top armor cuts a vehicle's base point value in half. (cost of
size + cost of armor).
MOBILITY:
We wanted our motorcycles in on the action! The mobility rates
for wheeled vehicles were not appropriate for an all-terrain bike.
High-Mobility 2-Wheeled: Base Move 12. Cost: 20% BPV
Special: No turrets may be mounted on the vehicle
Terrain -
Easy: Roads
Normal: Open, Lt. Scrub, Urban
Poor: Cultivated, Hills, Light Woods, Rough
Difficult: Swamp, River/Stream (crossing), Dense Woods
Impassable: Mountains, Open Water
AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT
Any aircraft armed with one or more MDC, HEL, RFAC, or GMS weapon
systems may use its activation to attempt to engage an enemy aircraft.
These weapons are considered to have a high-volume rate of fire - large-
caliber single-shot weapons are innapropriate for the high speeds and
angles of attack inherent in Air Combat.
A/A combat may be declared as opportunity fire, interrupting the
activation of an enemy air unit. This is called "interception". When an
enemy air unit declares its intention to activate, a friendly, previously
unactivated aircraft may elect to intercept it. This declaration of
opportunity fire must be made as soon as the enemy aircraft activates. A
player may not wait and see where an enemy intends to run a ground attack
before declaring interception.
An intercepted target aircraft must decide whether it intends to
"engage" or "evade". If the target engages the intercepting aircraft,
whatever action it was originally taking is abandoned. Attempting to
evade allows the target to continue its original activation, provided it
survives the A/A interception.
Note that multiple interceptions may be declared in response to
one another, as in a domino effect. Record the order of activation, and
targets. When all sides are finished declaring interceptions, resolve
the combats one at a time, with the _last_ attack to be declared being
resolved first. This gives some small advantage to the units which
declared their actions first, as they are given the choice to engage or
evade, or, if their attackers are eliminated, do not have to choose at
all. Important Note: All interceptions on a single aircraft must be
declared simultaneously. A player cannot declare one interception, and
then wait to see the outcome before activating additional fighters to
intercept the same aircraft. If player A intercepts player B's fighter 17
with one aircraft and loses, fighter 17 is no longer subject to
interception.
EVADE procedure:
The attacker rolls based on the aircraft's fire control system.
FCS on an aircraft is taken to be not only to be the guidance systems for
the weapons, but also the radar and sensor suite. Thus, this is a
'detection" roll. A Basic system rolls a D6, Enhanced D8, and Superior
D10. An aircraft without an FCS may roll a D4, attempting a "visual"
interception.
The defender (the intercepted aircraft) rolls based on its
signature, class 1/D12, 2/D10, 3/D8, 4/D6, and class 5 rolling a D4. If
the defender has ECM, it may have a secondary die roll: Basic/D4, Enh/D6,
Sup/D8.
If the attacker rolls a higher number than the defender, the
defender has been intercepted, and the attacker conducts A/A fire. If
the rolls are equal, the defender was forced to abort its activation in
order to escape the attacker, but no fire is conducted - both units are
activated, and play continues. If the defender rolls higher, it
successfully evades interception and may continue with its original
mission or remains unactivated as the case may be.
ENGAGE procedure:
Both fighters involved in the combat roll a competitive die
roll. This roll is an ADDITIVE roll, meaning any primary and secondary
dice are totalled, rather than taking the best result. The primary die
is based on the pilot skill - any veteran pilot will tell you pilot
training is far more important in ACM than hardware. A Green pilot rolls
a D4, Regular/D8, Veteran/D12. Each aircraft is eligible for a secondary
die based on the A/A rating of the aircraft (explained later). An
aircraft without an A/A rating (without air-to-air capability) does not
get a secondary die. Aircraft with a rating of Poor roll a D4, Fair/D6,
Good/D8, Superior/D10.
The aircraft with the highest total die roll conducts A/A fire.
If the rolls are equal, _both_ fighters conduct fire - essentially a
simultaneous head-to-head shot!
A/A FIRE Procedure:
The firing aircraft draws a number of chits based on the A/A
rating of the aircraft. An aircraft without an A/A rating may not draw
chits - in the event that such an aircraft "won" an engagement, this
means it was able to outmaneuver and escape its assailant. A Poor
aircraft draws one chit, Fair/2, Good/3, and 4/Superior. All chits
count, including specials. Mobility hits are equivalent to taking out
the target's engine(s) - the aircraft is lost, but the pilot may eject.
Results are as follows. The target uses its flank armor value.
Less than target armor value: Target aborts.
Equal to armor: Target is damaged, must RTB (Out of the game)
Greater than armor: Target is disabled, pilot may bail out
Systems (T): No Direct fire or A/A fire, _may_ drop DFO.
Systems (F): Shot not resolved, and same effects as Sys (T)
Boom: Boom
Mobility: As greater than armor result.
"Bailouts" are really only relevant to campaign games.
A/A RATING
The A/A rating of an aircraft is a measure of its overall
capability in ACM (Air Combat Maneuvers). Size, electronics, and weapons
all contribute to the A/A capabilities of an airframe. The following
system is my attempt at reconciling the general capabilities of an
aircraft with the design system of Dirstside II.
Signature Base Rating
1 20
2 10
3 0
4 -10
5 -30
6 -55
ECM Value
Basic 1
Enh 2
Sup 3
Weapons Value
Class 1 DFG (any type) 4
Class 2 DFG, GMS/L 7
Class 3 DFG, GMS/H 10
Each Ordinance Capacity -4
*Note: Ordinance capacity makes an aircraft "dirty", and not
optimized for ACM, thus the penalty.
Defenses Value
Basic PDS 4
Enhanced PDS 6
Superior PDS 8
*Note: PDS are not the same in aircraft as in ground vehicles.
Rather than an anti-missle system, these are electronic and thermal
decoys and the like, and do _NOT_ count against the aircraft's total
mounts.
Fire Control System Value
Basic 4
Enhanced 7
Superior 10
*Note: FCS in aircraft cost more, because they do more: calculate
cost at 10 x class of largest weapon.
Rating:
10 or less: Poor
11-25: Fair
26-40: Good
41 or more Superior
This system has worked well thus far in playtest, but I am open
to any suggestions on tweaking the values or ratings bands. Note that
superior aircraft should be hard to come by, and they should be "pure"
fighters, not fighter-bombers, or if so, then few and far between. Note
that fighters do have a nice strafing ability.
That's it! Hope you like them. If you use or reprint these rules,
please include my name with them.
David Chong
[email protected]
From: David Chong
Newsgroups: rec.games.miniatures.misc
Subject: Re: Dirtside II/ Air to Air
Date: Tue, 5 Dec 1995 15:08:21 -0800
Organization: UCCSN System Computing Services
I forgot to add one section of my air rules. in my previous post...
CAP
An aircraft may declare itself to be on Combat Air Patrol, thus
using up its activation. Aircraft so - activated may take no other
action during the turn other than declaring interception fire on an
activating enemy aircraft. Thus, the turn may end with several fighters
on CAP, if no one wants to initiate air superiority operations, but wants
to retain the ability to respond to such. Essentially, these units are
partolling the airspace over the battlefield, watching for enemy
aircraft, especially those attempting air to ground runs. Note that an
aircraft on CAP, since it has used its activation, may not be used later
in the turn to activate for an A/G strike.
David Chong
[email protected]
