Newbish n00b questions, MkII

[RedRover]

that last one is Silent's I think

[stubby]

I've planned to have an engineer ever since the long-lost NanoFleet Battles rules. His trick would be simple: he gets a d8 to transfer points from one stat to another, but he had to pick which stats before he rolls the d8. On an unlucky crit he might disable the source system completely.

That sounds wonderfully simpler, w/o having to dick around w/ SND. How much for the Engineering specialty?

I don't know yet. Right now I'm thinking +2CP.

Are linked guns still a thing? (i.e. on big vehicles and such) If so, how would they work? One attack roll for both?

No, those were a holdover from when pilots and gunners could only fire one weapon at a time. Now that minifigures can fire as many weapons as they want (as long as it's all at the same target and stays within the Power limits), the linked gun rules were just extra rules overhead that didn't add anything interesting to the battle.

In Chapter 11, whats the difference between a Marksman and a Sniper?

My Marksmen are usually just Long-ranged weapon troops in a squad of size 1 Guns, and my Snipers tend to be heroes with the "It's not lime-ade" cliche.

Marksmen get a specialist d8 for ranged weapons. Any time they fire a single-shot ranged weapon (but not thrown or arc fire weapons), they can use the d8 to replace their Skill d6 with a d8, replace a Damage d6 with a d8, or add +1d8" Range to the attack.

Snipers have Stealth, and they get Automatic Hits on targets of any size at any distance if they fire a single-shot ranged weapon while Hidden. Damage penalties for distance still apply. Once they use a location for Sniping, they are revealed immediately, and that location can't be used for Stealth again for the rest of the battle.

[stubby]

Marksmen get a specialist d8 for ranged weapons. Any time they fire a single-shot ranged weapon (but not thrown or arc fire weapons), they can use the d8 to replace their Skill d6 with a d8, replace a Damage d6 with a d8, or add +1d8" Range to the attack.

Snipers have Stealth, and they get Automatic Hits on targets of any size at any distance if they fire a single-shot ranged weapon while Hidden. Damage penalties for distance still apply. Once they use a location for Sniping, they are revealed immediately, and that location can't be used for Stealth again for the rest of the battle.

How much CP are you thinking for each of those?

Marksmen are a simple +1CP. Their ability is mostly equivalent to a +1 bonus, except for the Range option which is a little better.

Snipers have Stealth (+2CP), and the Sniping is another +1 on top of that. That makes them a +3, which feels a little bit on the expensive side, but on the other hand any Stealth units are pretty fiddly and it's probably good to discourage people from getting too many. Nobody likes campers.

Also, are Snipers limited in the size of weapons they use, or can someone totally legitimately "snipe" with strategic-level artillery?

My original thought was that I was going to make Sniping available to hand-held weapons only (although you could still make a giant gundam or something for a 10" hand-held buster gun), but that seemed arbitrary. Currently I'm thinking that if you can Stealth the artillery, then you can go ahead and Snipe with it.

In related news, I still need to work out the rules for extending Stealth to cover large objects.

If a SuperNatural Unit doesn't have enough dice to move a large object directly, or if it doesn't fit into his Cliché, it can use Movement Dice to create inches of Thrust to push things around instead (9.3: Thrust Vectors). Thrust Effects are not Size Dependent and can be effective against even very large targets.

I assume those targets are still free to call on their PoPs to resist said shoving around if they don't want to be moved, correct?

At some point I need to lock this down once and for all. In actual play, I let minifigs use their POPs, but there's nothing about it in the rulebook yet. I guess it'd make sense even for inanimate objects though, right?

I think I was avoiding the POP business because knockback from explosions isn't resisted. In that case, though, the larger you are, the more concussion you're exposed to, so it doesn't change the final effect (I mean according to fudgey brikwars physix, not in real life; in real life your mass scales up by a cube function while your exposure scales up by a square function).

But for normal types of Thrust that only affect a single point, it'd be better to treat it as knockback from a collision rather than knockback from an explosion, and let everything resist with POP.

A 1" creation can use a 2" shield if that's all it uses, right?

Yes, but keep in mind that it's two-handed. Each hand has a 1" limit, individually.

[StarshipH]

Corollary to the 2" Shield held by a minifig, and your response of each hand gets 1": Is that to say each hand on a roughly humanoid creation (Armored Core/JuggerBunny/Titan/Bayounix Blastafarian) can wield objects of up to Size"?

[stubby]

I was under the impression you could already Stealth anything by simply buying stealth for it, just like you can buy most minifig abilities into larger creations (it would still need a mind/operator to make the ability function, I assume).

I'm not worried about buying it, that's the easy part. I'm worried about how it would work once you had it. A minifig gets +1 cover and can hide if he has one body part showing; how does that translate to an aircraft carrier? Do enemies get a bonus for trying to detect a 10" stealth tank as opposed to a 5" one? What happens if a sniper uses his sniping ability from inside a stealth bomber? Etc.

But for normal types of Thrust that only affect a single point, it'd be better to treat it as knockback from a collision rather than knockback from an explosion, and let everything resist with POP.

Well yeah, I mean if I toss a grenade at 6" tank, or push it with a bit of Psykik SN, it shouldn't get jostled as much as a fig.

A grenade only has 2" knockback. If I let people start resisting explosion knockback with POP, then even a minifig's POP is enough to cancel it out completely. But I like the ability to knock 6" tanks around with grenades.

I guess that, when I've made the exception and let minifigs resist SN movement, it was in situations where the minifigs could actually actively resist - they were being pushed along the ground, and so they could dig their heels in. If they were being lifted up into the air and had nothing to grab onto, I don't think I'd have let them try to resist.

So as a general rule, I'm going to say that objects don't get to resist Thrust except in special cases. But a Thrust applied to a large object is a lot more likely to just rotate it one way or the other rather than move the entire object. A lot of the time it just lifts one side of a large object up a little bit and then drops it back down in the exact same spot.

A 1" creation can use a 2" shield if that's all it uses, right?

Yes, but keep in mind that it's two-handed. Each hand has a 1" limit, individually.

Yeah, but minifigs can wield 2H weapons... 2-handed. Also, not all creations have hands... It could be mounted directly onto a special-made shield-swivel assembly coming directly off the body.

Yeah, sorry, I got caught up thinking about how it would work for minifigs. Obviously any other creation can use shields up to their usual Power limit.

Corollary to the 2" Shield held by a minifig, and your response of each hand gets 1": Is that to say each hand on a roughly humanoid creation (Armored Core/JuggerBunny/Titan/Bayounix Blastafarian) can wield objects of up to Size"?

Hand-Held Weapons for larger creations are covered in 8.1: Weapon Size.

[StarshipH]

I'm probably just being an Anorak here, but whats the point of not purchasing hover flight? If a size 3 Assault Dropship can carry the same amount of weapons as a size 3 biplane, but the dropship can equip armor, I'd pick the dropship every time. What if non-hover move was 1+SL CP instead of 2+SL CP? This gives an actual reason to use biplanes over rotorpacking elephants, seeing as the cost was why the Sopwith Elephant wasn't considered seriously by the Brits.

Also, is there any limit to the amount of thrust a creation can muster? I've been purchasing an inch or two of hover move in order to rotate my fighter jets laterally, then filling the rest of the necessary speed with thrust. It allows me to equip armor, retain my speed (half speed doesn't affect thrust, right?) and still simulate the limited maneuverability of a fighter jet as compared to a helicopter.

[StarshipH]

Voin, I know they cost the same. Not to be disrespectful, I thought my hypothetical was quite clear. I apologize for using such an advanced linguistic concept. Please forgive me, English isn't my first language either, so I feel your struggle. I was merely suggesting that forward flight be made cheaper, as it is less versatile than hover flight.

[StarshipH]

Exactly... There seems no point in purchasing a SL2 flyer 10" of forward flight for 20 cp when 2" of flight and 8" of thrust does the same thing but better for only 4+4 = 8cp.

[RedRover]

tbh, I do not use CP.

[stubby]

I'm thinking like a Star Destroyer getting Force Pushed... On the one hand, even if it's just sitting out there in space, chillin', it's got inertia.

Yeah, but push a Star Destroyer two inches and nobody's even likely to notice.

But I'm assuming "traditional" spaceships (i.e. "w/ engines in the back") would still be using Forward Maneuvering to swing around broadsides, rather than just turning on a dime, especially in the more "space opera", rather than "hard sci-fi" settings?

I'm not sure about that. X-Wings and Millennium Falcons and USS Enterprises can all hover and turn in place when necessary, they just can't do it very quickly.

I'm probably just being an Anorak here, but whats the point of not purchasing hover flight?

None, really. It's just for theme. There used to be a cost break for forward-only aeronautical flight, but I took it out; maybe I should put it back in. Something like (1CP + Structure Level) per 1" Hover Flight Move, (2CP + Structure Level) per 2" Aerodynamic Flight Move.

Also, is there any limit to the amount of thrust a creation can muster? I've been purchasing an inch or two of hover move in order to rotate my fighter jets laterally, then filling the rest of the necessary speed with thrust. It allows me to equip armor, retain my speed (half speed doesn't affect thrust, right?) and still simulate the limited maneuverability of a fighter jet as compared to a helicopter.

I really should put that in, shouldn't I? Right now there's no thrust limit, but it'd be cool if there was. Just like the old X-Wing games, where Thrust used up Power inches so that you had to balance between acceleration and firepower and shields.

Another shield question: Shields 2" and up provide passive cover like minifig Heavy Shields, right? I mean, they are literally big-ass barriers.

Yes. Really all Shields could provide passive cover, it's just that regular minifig Shields are too small to make a Target Size difference except in really unusual circumstances.

Exactly... There seems no point in purchasing a SL2 flyer 10" of forward flight for 20 cp when 2" of flight and 8" of thrust does the same thing but better for only 4+4 = 8cp.

The same thing, but not as maneuverable. Even limited to the forward-only version, flight movement is still more precise than shoving thruster points with your fingers, most of the time.

I'm looking over the Thrust rules again now, I forgot how much I chopped out! They used to be much longer. I guess I removed Thrusters? That was a mistake; normally every ability in BrikWars has to be connected to a specific building piece.

Bringing Thrusters back would resolve a lot of questions, I think. Normally if your vehicle is using Thrust, it has to have Thrusters (or propellers or sails etc) and when you're applying Thrust, you can only Give the Finger at the point of the Thruster. Tacking some Power requirements back onto the Thrusters would also serve as a good limit for preventing people from just giving their ships infinite thrust.

• Device: Thruster
  Cost: (Size x2) CP
  Power Requirement: (Vehicle SL) Power
  Effect: (Size x4)" Thrust
  Examples: jets, propellers, sails, rockets

[StarshipH]

None, really. It's just for theme. There used to be a cost break for forward-only aeronautical flight, but I took it out; maybe I should put it back in. Something like (1CP + Structure Level) per 1" Hover Flight Move, (2CP + Structure Level) per 2" Aerodynamic Flight Move.

This sounds good, even though my fliers suffer... I just hate the idea of being punished for theme. Everything else in Brikwars rewards people for sticking to theme and being stupendously awesome while keeping your thematic flair.

[StarshipH]

Can creations buy body armor? Size CP +2 armor -1" move?

[StarshipH]

You mean like... worn armor, rather than the Armor Plating described in chapter 8?

Exactly like that, the same thing minifigs get... to add a little extra survivability to my Ti-84 terminators.

[StarshipH]

Real men use both... 2" SL1 with body armor and armor plating makes them a b!tch to put down, as terminators should be.

[RedRover]

Not with some armor piercing rounds