9 hours ago, mithril2098 said:the basic TIE/LN should do good going straight, and in climbs/dives as long as they aren't going side to side. they look like they'd be terrible on a turn or sideslip.
Of course, even this is just from air resistance, before even factoring in wind. In the scene I remember from the books, it was wind that really played the major factor.
Easiest ways to approximate restrictions in the atmosphere would be to simply ban maneuvers that flip the ship around:
Ships may not execute maneuvers which would flip the ship 180 degrees (K-Turns, Tallon Rolls, and Segnor Loops). If a ship reveals such a maneuver, execute the maneuver normally but do not rotate the ship, then the ship suffers 1 Damage. Note that the U-Wing (Pivot Wing) can still rotate, as intended, since it's landing wings are designed to do such things in the atmosphere. With most ships unable to flip around, TIE Strikers and Reapers get more of an edge out of Ailerons, since it adds 45 degrees to their total possible turn-around efforts each round, which helps simulate how these craft were designed for atmospheric combat.
For terrain, you can add in
cloud/fog
templates that function to obstruct attacks as normal but do not count as obstacles (so no locking them, triggering obstacle-relevant abilities, or rolling for damage or losing actions/attacks because of them).
Asteroids
and
Debris
Fields
make no sense in the atmosphere, so you can ban those (and you could also add a rule that Loose Cargo Chute debris tokens are discarded at the end of the round). That said, X-Wing without truly meaningful terrain is pretty tactically bankrupt, but with ships unable to flip around so easily it makes up some of the difference.
I've come up with, but not tested, some simple rules for atmospheric flight. Be warned that because the system was not designed for this, their implementation is unavoidably clunky.
When you reveal your dial, you may declare 'climb' or 'dive'. If you climb, reduce the speed of your maneuver by one (even if the new maneuver is not on your dial). 1-speed maneuvers become 0 stops (with no change in facing. This is considered a vertical stall). If you dive, increase the speed of your maneuver by one (even if the new maneuver is not on your dial). If there is no template for your diving maneuver, perform a 1 forward at the end of your chosen maneuver instead (if your chosen maneuver is a Tallon roll, perform the 1 forward before rotating your ship). If you dive on a K-turn or S-loop (not a Tallon roll), reduce the speed of your maneuver by one instead.
From a design standpoint, this tends to reward high-Initiative pilots, though it does extend the reach of low-Initiative blockers as well. From a flavour standpoint, this acknowledges the effects of gravity, but not of atmospheric resistance as already discussed in the thread.
An alternative could be to stick a 1-forward template on the end of your template on a dive, not perform an additional 1 forward. If that's still too much discretionary movement, you could turn the template sideways, as for barrel rolls. You could also require the declaration to be made on setting dials to avoid the added reactive ability, but that takes away from the hidden-information aspect of the game (and using paper gets really clunky).
Note that altitude is not tracked ; this is a representative, not a simulationist, game mechanic.
On 10/18/2018 at 3:22 PM, SomeDudeWhoMostlyLurks said:Simple physics here.... Ships which fly in atmosphere have to deal with aerodynamic effects even if they don't use bernoulli's principle to generate lift. Some of those ships are shaped in such a way that they can slice through atmosphere with relatively little interference. (RELATIVELY being the operative word here.) Other are nightmares. NONE of these ships would be good candidates for taking a trans-Atlantic flight.
The more a ship is shaped like an actual airplane, the more likely it is to be functional in atmo. The more it has big, flat, sail-like panels that are likely to be perpendicular to any plane of movement, the more likely you are to get spanked by the wind.
So yeah, ships with solar panels, strike foils, or other "wings" that are parallel to the horizon, and can "slice" through the air (X, Z, A, Fang, Gunboat, Striker, Reaper, Misthunter), will do better than blocky ships, and blocky ships (if they don't present a large face to the wind anyway: B, Y, YT-1300) will do better than ships with awkward protrusions (most ties) or wide faces (Firespray).
And even the TIEs, will do fine, as long as they fly STRAIGHT FORWARD. The minute they start any turning maneuver, those big flat sails get perpendicular to the wind and the results could be disastrous. I suspect there would be a distinct hierarchy of suck even with the TIE subcategory, with the Interceptors and Aggressors coming out OK, and the basic TIE/LN - TIE/Fo shape just being the absolute worst possible thing you could put in the air.
There is a ship that would fly well in atmosphere...
❤️
On 10/18/2018 at 6:14 AM, JJ48 said:Maybe not in the movies. In the X-Wing books, the difference was used a few times.
Which books are we talking about, the ones that Disney threw away?
For atmosphere I don't really see a need in changing any mechanics. You could have shuttles land and as for obstacles asteroids will be hills and debris clouds can be just clouds and other stuff. I think the real difference would be in ground based defenses. You could throw some large bases out there and call them ground turrets. Deploying troops could be a single small cardboard base that moves in the system phase by flipping once and that is it.
3 hours ago, Marinealver said:Which books are we talking about, the ones that Disney threw away?
For atmosphere I don't really see a need in changing any mechanics. You could have shuttles land and as for obstacles asteroids will be hills and debris clouds can be just clouds and other stuff. I think the real difference would be in ground based defenses. You could throw some large bases out there and call them ground turrets. Deploying troops could be a single small cardboard base that moves in the system phase by flipping once and that is it.
Yes, the X-Wing books are no longer canon, but what relevance does that have to the topic?
The OP asked specifically about whether anyone had ideas for atmospheric combat, so just playing it exactly the same probably isn't what he's looking for. And while the ground ideas sound cool, it's not necessarily the same thing as atmospheric rules. Think of combat on Bespin, for instance. A fight could be completely atmospheric without ground forces ever entering into it.
On 10/18/2018 at 11:22 AM, SomeDudeWhoMostlyLurks said:Interceptors
Ever see how a sound barrier shock wave forms? Apply that to the Interceptor's panels. They would rip apart from the 4 overlapping shock waves right in front of the cockpit.
7 hours ago, JJ48 said:Yes, the X-Wing books are no longer canon, but what relevance does that have to the topic?
The OP asked specifically about whether anyone had ideas for atmospheric combat, so just playing it exactly the same probably isn't what he's looking for. And while the ground ideas sound cool, it's not necessarily the same thing as atmospheric rules. Think of combat on Bespin, for instance. A fight could be completely atmospheric without ground forces ever entering into it.
Well in Empire Strikes Back we did witness the Falcon hover even though the YT-1300 doesn't have a stop in its dial (oh I forgot about inertial dampeners). Yeah Bespin combat would remind me more of like the old Star Trek Klingon/Bridge Comander when you take a fight into the atmosphere of a gas giant. As for atmosphere only just make all obstacles debris clouds and treat them as clouds. Maybe remove the stress penalty. I mean Star Wars ships already fly like planes in atmosphere. It is the spectacle not accuracy and to be fair X-wing is better at simulating the spectacle. Other than terrain I don't see any change to ships in terms of movement and dice.
I wasnt reallysure what I was looking for. Mainly just putting it out there to see what folks thought of it. What people thought would be good or cool or ideas of which ships would be better or worse. I realize that points would have to be totally revamped to match and other things. curiosity.
On 10/18/2018 at 1:22 PM, SomeDudeWhoMostlyLurks said:Simple physics here.... Ships which fly in atmosphere have to deal with aerodynamic effects even if they don't use bernoulli's principle to generate lift. Some of those ships are shaped in such a way that they can slice through atmosphere with relatively little interference. (RELATIVELY being the operative word here.) Other are nightmares. NONE of these ships would be good candidates for taking a trans-Atlantic flight.
The more a ship is shaped like an actual airplane, the more likely it is to be functional in atmo. The more it has big, flat, sail-like panels that are likely to be perpendicular to any plane of movement, the more likely you are to get spanked by the wind.
So yeah, ships with solar panels, strike foils, or other "wings" that are parallel to the horizon, and can "slice" through the air (X, Z, A, Fang, Gunboat, Striker, Reaper, Misthunter), will do better than blocky ships, and blocky ships (if they don't present a large face to the wind anyway: B, Y, YT-1300) will do better than ships with awkward protrusions (most ties) or wide faces (Firespray).
And even the TIEs, will do fine, as long as they fly STRAIGHT FORWARD. The minute they start any turning maneuver, those big flat sails get perpendicular to the wind and the results could be disastrous. I suspect there would be a distinct hierarchy of suck even with the TIE subcategory, with the Interceptors and Aggressors coming out OK, and the basic TIE/LN - TIE/Fo shape just being the absolute worst possible thing you could put in the air.
Oh hey left field didn't see you there, just brought in some guy flexing knowledge everybody here knows already.