Alright, so I'm working on making a custom Gundam setting, and I'm trying to come up with a series of weapon qualities for capital ship weapons that allow them to be dangerous to other ships, but not to the mechs that most of the party are assumed to be using. As well, ideally, these weapon qualities would actually help show the vulnerability of the ship towards these fast moving units. Blanket Barrage doesn't quite work for these purposes either, as there often aren't multiples of these weapons per firing arc (there actually would be smaller point defense weapons in play, but I'm talking the big battleship cannons - you would not use those to hit a speedboat). Generally, these guns likely wouldn't even be used against players' mobile suits, but I would personally like to have some means of to promote this other than a gentleman's agreement, as this aspect of warfare is pretty strongly baked into the setting. The party will have a ship of their own with similar weapons, and some players will be acting as crew on that ship, so I don't want to just handwave or ignore these mechanics, they really do need to mesh and work well.
Ideally it should be extremely difficult to nigh impossible for a regular opponent to hit a mobile suit with one of these guns, at any range. Assuming gunners with a dice pool of 1 yellow and 2 green, they need to be up against at least 4 purple at any range. Traditionally, this is a sil 6+ ship firing at a sil 3 target, so the difference there is adding 1 purple to the check base (note I'm considering house ruling that every two points of sil difference = increase/decrease by 1, to minimum of 1, but these rules will likely cause that to not be necessary).
My first thought was to give these weapons a minimum range, to say these guns can't even target something closer than medium range, and chalk it up to it the turrets being slow moving or unable to track targets too close. However this idea breaks down when attacking large targets, such as an adjacent ship. So one thing I'm considering is to instead have it work off of just range, to instead be Range Bands (Engaged = 0, and count up) + Silhouette, and instead of saying it can't shoot, increase the difficulty by the net difference between the rating and the target, to a maximum of 5. So if a gun has the Minimum Range 6 quality, that means for it to target something, its Sil + total range bands out must exceed 6. So this gun could hit a Sil 6 ship at Medium range (6 + 2 = 8 > 6) with no issue, but would have to increase difficulty by two in order to attack a Sil 3 Vehicle at Short range (3 + 1 = 4 < 6, 6 - 4 = 2).
Formally:
QuoteMinimum Range (Passive)
A weapon with a minimum range is designed to attack sufficiently large targets at range, and has trouble hitting small targets at close ranges. It isn't necessarily inaccurate, but rather has difficulty aiming at the target. When making an attack with a weapon with a Minimum Range, subtract the target's Silhouette from the rating, as well as the number of range bands from the attacker to the target (Engaged = 0, Short = 1, etc.). If the result is a positive number, increase the difficulty of the attack check by that amount. For example, a Minimum Range 7 weapon attacking a Silhouette 5 target at Short Range increases difficulty by 1 (7 - 5 - 1 = 1). A Minimum Range 9 weapon attacking a Silhouette 3 target at Medium range increases difficulty by 4 (9 - 3 - 2 = 4).
Note this can make checks become Impossible.
Secondly, as a part of the setting, guided weaponry/sensor based weapons have been severely diminished in effectiveness due to the introduction of the "Minovsky particle". This has caused weapons such as this to be tremendously inaccurate at range as the targeting systems are receiving heavy interference from the dispersal of this particle. So in gameplay terms, this means I'm going to have situations where there is heavy/medium/light/no dispersal of Minovsky particles, similar to other environmental conditions. Equipment/character actions may also impact the degree of particle dispersal, so it seems like something PCs should be able to measure as an aspect of the environment (i.e. measure it like 0-5 in a given situation).
On the front of it, this sounds like an environmental condition like harsh sunlight, but the idea this just adds setback die doesn't really fit with the setting. In the setting this changed the face of warfare from large fleet engagements fought at extreme ranges using long range beam weapons and missiles, to instead focusing on tactics at much closer range and incorporating mechs that fought at extremely short range (a mobile suit using a melee weapon against the bridge of an enemy ship is rather common in setting, although that will likely be handled as a crit, and making some classes of ships minions).
Currently, what I'm thinking is to add a weapon quality to certain Gunnery class weapons ("Minovsky-susceptible"?) that causes them to fall under this system.
For the Minovsky effect generally, this means that certain set of actions (e.g. computers checks at range, sensor based perception checks, attack checks by Minovsky-susceptible weapons), that the difficulty is increased by an amount depending on the action's range and current particle density. This difficulty is calculated by using the density rating at Strategic difficulty, and counting back by 1 per range band closer (to a minimum of 0, and it doesn't result in a decreased difficulty). So if the density is 3, then this means increase difficulty by 3 at strategic range, 2 at extreme, and 1 at long range, and no change at medium or closer ranges.
Formally:
QuoteModifiers:
Minovsky Density
Often before battles, combatants will disperse Minovsky particles to interfere with electronic sensors and communications. This renders long range senors unreliable and communications at vast distances spotty. This is measured from 0 - 5 (0 - None, 1 - Minor, 2 - Light, 3 - Medium, 4 - Heavy, 5 - Extreme). This increases the difficulty of checks using sensors at longer ranges. To determine this, increase the difficulty at Strategic range by the density, increase the difficulty at Extreme range by the density - 1, by the density - 2 at Long range, and so on. Primarily, this effects checks made using the vehicles sensors, as well as any computer checks affecting a target at range. Weapon checks may also be affected if the weapon has the Minovksy Susceptible quality.
Weapon Qualities:
Minovsky Susceptible (Passive)
This weapon uses sensors rather than visual sights for aiming, and as such is affected by Minovsky Density. Increase the difficulty according to those rules for attacks with this weapon.
Stacking the Minimum Range effect and Minovsky effect together (and causing it to be an impossible check requiring a story point if it exceeds 5 purple) seems like it would achieve my goal, and generally represent the setting. My main concern is remembering to apply this, and if its really too much math. Its at least fixed for the most part. Mobile suits will almost always be Sil 3, and most combat ships will almost always be Sil 6-7, so once you're using those weapons you kind of know what difficulty changes are made at what range. Same goes with the Minovsky effect, its at least consistent for all players (expect in some cases where its ignored/reduced by equipment, or increased for the encounter by character actions).
So I guess I'm just kind of seeking people's thoughts on this. Is it too calculation/crunch oriented? I'm not worried about it being overly penalizing, I want to limit the ability to attack certain targets with certain weapons, at varying ranges. But I'm wondering how much this might affect pacing, or even the story point economy if skilled players try to test their luck on Impossible checks.