Vehicle Combat is something I have never really done and therefore not familiar with when it comes to HARP Sci Fi so I am in need of making sure my algorithm for it sounds like it should work.
Here is how I start.
1) All vehicles and characters need to be set up. A vehicle and character can be added after combat is started however if we are doing vehicle combat I am assuming at least one or two vehicles with a crew.
2) Vehicle combat starts and the initiatives are to be rolled. I am assuming that I am rolling character initiatives and not vehicle initiatives. I am also assuming that vehicle initiatives could be added to the initiatives of the crew? What about individual system initiatives for good to excellent equipment? For example +5 initiative for weapons targeting because the ship got upgraded. +5 for EW due to an upgrade and so on?
Also what about actions? The examples have the pilots flying, the gunnery guys firing, the engineering guys... doing what they do? In the end I created my own action table for these actions that are vehicle related. Perhaps I missed this in the book. The way things work in AutoHARP for combat is that everything is associated to an Action object. All information is stored in this action object including the critical that was associated to that action. Multiple actions in a single round are still resolved as if they are single action maneuvers.
3) I assume I go to the first character who wins initiative. They do what they do for the first part of Vehicle combat: fly defensively, fly offensively. Electronic warfare rolls, shield upgrades roll, generic maneuver roll to up the ships DB or OB, etc. I run through each character per initiative. Each roll is a maneuver roll which I apply the bonus result to either the ship's DB or OB for the next part.
The problem I see here is that not everyone needs to go this part. The pilot's and engineers can go. Once they go I am assuming their actions are done.
4) Part 2, the actions of the other characters that haven't done anything yet, like gunnery or other engineers that still have a maneuver roll they could do. Gunnery characters fire and the OB is applied to the attack and the defending ship has their DB against the attack. Once all gunners have gone this leaves the rest.
One problem could be individual people doing things on a ship like a boarding party, or someone firing out the window if they are in a car. I'm assuming these guys are just the gunnery and the driver is the pilot. I do see any reason to make this something unique. However a boarding party would be. This is like having regular combat and vehicle combat going on at the same time. These particular persons are not really a part of any vehicle combat, this is just regular combat and handled like regular combat in a sci fi setting.
5) Apply all criticals to ship and ship's systems.
6) New Round
The biggest question I have now is the initiative bonuses. Does it sound right to add the ship initiative bonus to the crew initiatives? Does it sound cool to have separate initiative bonuses for each system and therefore the character may have an initiative bonus if they are running that new system? If I have all characters loaded into combat separated by vehicles, each character is going to do one thing, unless they split their action. For example a pilot in a fighter jet has to pilot and fire. Therefore I say these are two actions, where the player needs to split. However the split happens at the action itself, 40% 60% or 50/50. Not through any weapon OB bonus like attack vs parry.
I'm assuming my algorithm above is therefore correct for applying an application to run vehicle combat in a basic way. Advancements can come in time.
Thank you!
