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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Sorry this is so behind the times, I’ve been having email
troubles…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Mines in space would not, I think, function quite like naval
mines or land mines. It could be done, but might be impractical except
for a T2 or higher system with relatively rich resources.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Space is big, yeah? So any minefield that would be useful
to defenders would have to be big, too, including umpteen million mines.
Which means the system has to have the tech not only to build them, but also to
exploit the resources of the system thoroughly enough to get all the raw
materials needed. Said materials have to exist in the first place, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>If you’ve got the tech and the stuff, then you can mine
space. But you don’t try to mine all of space, because that would
be a waste of energy and resources. What you do is plot the most likely
orbits that would connect your planet (or whatever defensive position) with the
slipknots or other probable points of attack. These points of attack are
going to be finite, perhaps even few, because an attacker won’t have
infinite fuel/remass and therefore can’t come at you from just
anywhere. They’d be limited to a few corridors of attack, coming in
from the slipknot, or in from other planets in the system where they might
stash/buy/skim fuel, remass, and other consumables.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>So you would have volumes of mines set along predicted
orbits. The mines would have to navigate to keep up with the fact that
the planet they’re protecting is moving, and that which they’re
protecting against is also possibly moving.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Minefields wouldn’t be dense. Chances are, your
navigator could plot a simple curved orbit “straight” through the
middle without even seeing (with the naked eye) anything. Filling millions
of cubic kilometers with mines so thick passing ships would hit them would be
very resource intensive. Therefore, it’s unlikely that you’d
have mines which went off on impact. They’d all be proximity
mines. Sort of.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>The mines likely have passive sensors and targeting computers,
so that ships passing within range could be attacked, regardless of whether or
not they even come close to hitting anything. Mines would target drive
emissions, radio transmissions, radiant heat, and especially RADAR/LIDAR or
whatever navigation/targeting scanners your game uses. Sweeping the
minefield with your *DAR paints you as a target. They’re
probably mobile, too, and might swarm a target.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>You’d have four kinds of mines, I think: Shooters,
Boomers, Squealers, and Zappers. Any minefield would probably be a mix of
them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Shooters are basically small missile platforms. They lock
on target and fire whatever they have, be it guided mininukes or KK weapons or
whatever. Probably, they’d wait until your ship was already in the
minefield, or close enough to several shooters to set up an effective
crossfire.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Boomers explode. Now, there being no shockwaves in space
(sorry, Mr. Lucas), all the damage to an invading ship would come from shrapnel
or radiation. For this reason, boomers are probably mobile, using cold
gas jets to alter their orbits to get as close to the target as possible before
going off. They might also be shaped charges, set up so that most of the
blast is focused on the enemy, limiting incidental damage to the rest of the
minefield. You’d see “hot” boomers, which deal damage
in heat and ionizing radiation, and “cold” boomers, which deal out
shrapnel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Squealers are electronic warfare platforms. They might
also serve as targeting benchmarks for other mines, helping their targeting
computers to triangulate enemy positions by noticing which squealers go off in
overlapping patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Zappers are bomb-pumped lasers. A mininuke goes off
inside, and lenses focus the energy generated into a truly wicked laser.
These would likely be directional, too, and might wait to set up crossfire like
the shooters do.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>It’s also likely that most all mines have IFF keys, so
that the forces who placed the field would be ignored by the minefield. I
can see a session structured around the players trying to buy or steal the IFF
transponder they need to sneak through the minefield…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>All that said, let me offer a minority opinion as to how to
realize a minefield mechanically.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>I wouldn’t stat it out as a ship. Spaceship combat
in Diaspora is all about, tactically, intercept orbits. The abstracted
map isn’t so much about raw speed or distance as it is about the
difficulty of plotting an intercept with your target, for your ship or your
guns. And while spaceships aren’t exactly ducking and weaving and
dog-fighting, mines would be even less maneuverable. So…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>I would treat a minefield as a challenge to the navigation
skills of the player flying the ship. Negative shifts create stress
damage to the ship, targeted against specific tracks depending on the kind of
mines encountered.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>So a minefield might be a 5 or 6 or higher difficulty, if
it’s the only defense the players have to deal with. Negative
shifts are allocated among the applicable tracks by the players, and of course
they can take consequences instead. Other skills might be used to assist
the navigation roll: Beam and Missile skills to clear a path, EW skills to jam
the mine’s targeting arrays, and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>To combine a minefield with ship-to-ship combat, just use the minefield
as an aspect on the encounter. It would be very handy for the defenders
to be able to compel the attackers. And if the defenders are using an IFF
system (a ship aspect?), that’s two Fate points spent on one roll, in
different scopes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Yours,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Lon Sarver<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
diaspora-bounces@phreeow.net [mailto:diaspora-bounces@phreeow.net] <b>On Behalf
Of </b>Sam Friedman<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, February 09, 2010 10:38 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> diaspora@phreeow.net<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Diaspora] Designing a Mine Field for Spaceship Combat<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I have this story in my head of a paranoid system, or what's
left of it, leaving behind a vast swath of a mine field. Think looking up
from Earth and seeing the faint band of the Milky Way... that's the mine field.<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>How could I go about representing that in spaceship combat?
If I want a scene whose purpose is to illustrate the rough time the
characters have navigating their ship through this minefield to get to whatever
their goal happens to be, how do I represent this stationary mine field without
letting the V-Shift of the characters' spaceship allow an easy escape?
Also, how might I represent the mines detonating on impact (or
proximity)?<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Here's what I thought. I'd love suggestions. I
haven't had a chance to playtest this, so it could be over/under-balanced.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><u>Standard Explodey Minefield</u></b><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>[We represent the minefield as a T2 spaceship. 17
Build Points]<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>V-Shift: 2 (2 bp) - trying to represent the fact that the
mine field is labyrinthine, and difficult to work through. It doesn't
move, necessarily, but it's not easy to just plow through.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Beam: 0<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Torpedo: 4 (6 bp) - trying to represent the self-detonating
nature of the minefield. Also ties to the sink-stunt "Self
Detonate"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>EW: 0<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Trade: 0<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><u>Stress Tracks:</u><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Hull: 7 (4 bp) (there's so much to shoot at, it hardly makes
a difference)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Data: 3<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Heat: 3<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><u>Stunts:</u><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Automaton (sink stunt): these are machines, not people. (1
bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>High Capacity Magazine (1 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Automated Defenses (no beam or missile defense to represent
that shooting a mine is an impact and it'll go "boom")<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>- Firewall (1 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Self Detonate (sink stunt): they explode on impact, or when
in close proximity (2 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><u>Aspects:</u><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Huge<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"This thing goes on forever!"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Don't get too close!"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>A relic from a bygone war<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"We could just plow right through"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>All this got me thinking about other sorts of mine fields a
crew might encounter.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><u>Special Laser-Shooting Minefield</u></b><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>V-Shift: 2 (2 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Beam: 4 (6 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Torpedo: 0<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>EW: 0<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Trade: 0<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><u>Stress Tracks</u>:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Hull: 6 (3 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Data: 3<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Heat: 6 (3 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><u>Stunts:</u><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Automaton (sink stunt) (1 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Automated Defenses<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>- Vector Randomizer (1 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>- Firewall (1 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>- Point Defense (1 bp)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><u>Aspects</u>:<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>Huge<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A thousand floating turrets"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>A relic from a bygone war<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There's so much to shoot at!"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>"This thing goes on forever!"<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
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