[Diaspora] Space Combat comments and questions

[Yunus Wesley]

So, I'm about half-way through a close reading of the space combat chapter,
making sure I understand every main bit of it. I may make more posts as I
have further concerns.

Comments:

Bravo, obviously. I'm excited to play this in a way I haven't been with
Traveller or GURPS Spaceships.

The space combat chapter, or the vsca.ca site, would benefit from one or
more detailed examples of a combat, going through all phases.

>From the space combat play sheet, detection (phase 0) is not repeated like
"phases 1-5, as necessary." But the Detection text does not indicate this.
Some players will, like me, have no previous experience with space combat
rules and would benefit from not having to figure this out on their own!


Questions:

All phases where Ship's rating is rolled, not crew skill
In Positioning, EW, Beams, and Guns, the ship's rating is rolled "amplified"
by the crew member's effective skill. Under Torpedoes (p133) this is defined
as "the Torpedo rating is used and increased by one if the effective Gunnery
rating is higher." Is this the same rule for EW and Beams?


Detection phase:
In in-universe narrative terms, can you say that the winning Navigator has
arranged the beginning of the engagement in positions and vectors he finds
most favorable?

If the winning Navigator is trying to escape, he puts himself on a +/- 3
band and his opponents as far away as possible. If the winning Navigator is
seeking an engagement, is there any reason to put his own and an opponent's
ship on the 0 band?


Positioning phase:
Applying burn in the Positioning phase adds to the V-shift _roll_, not the
rating. Ships' movement across the map is limited by V-shift rating. So burn
applies to relative maneuvering between ships, not sustained acceleration
that would imply a change to the V-shift rating?

The V-shift roll is _limited_ by the pilot's effective Pilot skill; there is
no mention of augmenting/amplification. So if a V-shift 3 boat is flown with
effective Pilot 2, it rolls V-shift at 2; but if flown with Pilot 4, it is
still V-shift 3?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://box547.bluehost.com/pipermail/diaspora_phreeow.net/attachments/20100217/204e4eb3/attachment.html>