Hey all,

This has probably come up before, but my "Search Forum"-fu is terrible. After our first space combat battle my Arch Militant player asked if we could house rule the distance guns can fire to be more like EVE-Online and have a Distance-accuracy Falloff; much like actual guns have.

What he's proposing:
Half-distance: +10
Regular Distance: +0
2 Times Distance: -10
2.5 Times Distance: -20 with the Void Shields being doubled
3 Times Distance: -30 with Void Shields being tripled
3.5 Times Distance: -40 with Void Shields being quadrupled
Etc.

Mars Pattern Macrocannon:
3 or less squares: +10
6 or more squares: +0
12 or more: -10
18 or more: -20 with Void Shields being doubled
24 or more: -30 with Void Shields being tripled
30 or more: -40 with Void Shields being quadrupled
Etc.

Is this doable or does this give more power than it should? Should the minuses be greater? What do you think of the Void Shield increase mechanic?
I'm fine with the rules the way they are but I thought I'd put his proposition up to the community to see what you guys thought. And again, if this has been posted before -- my bad.

-Mike C

Apart from the void shield increase, the only problem I see is that it does increase the calculations you need to do, which will be a problem for some groups. Play with it for a while, see how well it works for your group.

As for the void shield count increase, that is just asking for trouble when you shoot a target with weapons of different ranges.

This does just seem to be adding a layer of complexity.

As per the range, the weapons can only fire out to twice their range band. When you take into account the huge distances that this are covers, extending the viable ranges as far as you are talking about seems rather crazy.

Aye, seems a bit too far to me, especially since the game hasn't been tested with such ranges in mind, which means you are more than likely to run into problems.

I'd personally leave the range mechanics as it is, especially since VUs are abstract, so they can be as far as you want them to be (so they don't have to be single squares, if you are using a map, they could be 2 squares, or whatever you want).

Please note that some of what you wrote matches the existing rules as written. Per the RT rulebook, firing weapons at half range or less you get a +10 to hit. At more than range but up to double range, you can still shoot but at a -10 to hit.

This works reasonably well in practice, though it does mean that Sunsears are the weapon of choice for my players. Gotta love that extra range.

Cheers,

- V.