Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Move It! Move It! Let's talk about movement!

Hi everyone,

Great suggestions and feedback from everyone so far, keep it coming!

So, my desire with this game is to have the actual mechanics be straightforward, and then have the details and crunchy bits in building the units and scenarios and campaign.

So, it's important to define a standard "average" non-combat person. Perhaps a conscript or civilian.  Right now on a scale of 1 - 10 the average person would register at a 3.  Of course, Special Forces troopers are not average troopers.  Their stats are going to start at more like 5 or 6. That means that most SF troops are going to have twice the ability as an average joe.

Each figure has a Physique rating.  It is defined as:
(P)hysique: A measure of general physical fitness of the figure.  Higher physique indicates the figure can take more damage, run faster, and carry more gear.
Each figure also has a derived rating called "Move" (oddly enough) that details how many inches they can move with a normal walk (like a tactical combat movement).

Right now it is set at:
Move = ((P)/2)+2) +Armor Mods
An average person can probably sprint at 7 mph or so.  That translates into about 1" per second in 15mm (~1/100) scale.

That means an average joe will have a Move rating of (3/2)+2 [Rounding Up]... so 4". That looks about right for the 5 - 10 seconds that each activation is supposed to represent.

A Hell Diver with a Physique of 5, with armor that grants an additional +1 bonus gives a total Physique of 6.  That means they will have a Move of  5".  While not a big gain, it still sounds about right. You don't really want figures zooming across the board, but you want there to be some benefit to being in better shape.

Armor can have both bonuses and negative modifiers to physique. If you have really thick, heavy armor it could slow you down and make it hard to do physical things, but provide better protection.  Of course, the high-tech stuff will not only protect you, but have systems that provide a boost to your athleticism (Physique) as well.

Of course, there will be a run action as well.  Running uses additional actions, and means you can move up to twice your move stat.  This will incur shooting penalties.

How about rough terrain and obstacles?  I'm going to keep this simple.  Rough terrain means each inch through it takes two inches of movement.

Impassible terrain is just that, impassible.  But what if you run up to a wall?  Normally that would be impassible, but say you take an action, move up to it, then you declare you're going to climb over it.  You use another action, roll a Physique test (1D10, equal or less than your Physique) and if you succeed you climb over.  Don't want to take a chance that you'll fail?  Take another action and add +2 to your Physique skill for the roll.

Of course, you don't have to jump over it, what if you have bolt cutters as equipment?  Maybe your Initiative rating is higher than your Physique.  Maybe your fancy bolt cutters give you a +2 already to get through the fence. So, instead of hopping the fence, you cut a hole right through it. And now all your buddies can get through too with just a normal move action.

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Ok... thoughts?