Whew! I was about to say that was the boldest face lie I'ld ever heard - until you mentioned the Vodka. :)

For those who want the Town thread is open. It is its own time bubble from other things at the Camp. It is an optional thread. Those struggling with keeping up with the faster posters could skip/skim the town thread.

I assume there is some form of mass transit to and from the base during the day to and from the town, bus or something?

Actualy, its Sci Fi, we will give them a high speed monorail. (two tracks, one in each direction). Plus there are buses. Cadets on leave/pass take the monorail for free.

I'll just leave this here...http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/ranger.pdf


Another Goodie: http://www.shu.edu/offices/upload/FM-7-8.pdf
This message was last edited by the player at 02:13, Tue 04 Sept 2012.

Ok, Echo, I'm feeling lazy. What's in the PDF's?

They are field tactical and operationa manuals, way to much work for a game like this IMHO.

Well, the ranger hand book(the first one) Ch 4 and 6 are good. 4 is Movement, 6 is battle drills.

My character is not all gunho here she would likely in this case use a standard two by two formation two covering two others and just move between the sections of the map not fancy fire squad actions.

We are in boot not advanced tactics school what makes you think we would know most of that?

I have not taken a look at the manuals - and I'm not sure I'm going to (but I'm not absolutely ruling it out, either). I'm just not all that interested in proper military form or response IRL. It was a good suggestion Echo, and by all means continue making them.

What I suggested, and why, was to get the fastest possible search pattern initially to scout our immediate area. With the possible exception of the 09 Southern Boundary (the brown perimeter on my map - I don't want to call it a wall because it might not be one), being a rigidly enforced no exit/enter barrier, we cannot know anything else for certain. We cannot assume the other Boundaries are solid because we know that we're entering through one side - the Enemy might be as well. They could also be dropping in by airship. Again, we don't know.

That means the first thing we need is information about what we're going to encounter terrain-wise in an "abandoned battlefield" - which can cover anything.

Beyond that, anything goes and we have to respond to what we find accordingly. I just thought if we start spread out for maybe the first 2-3 rows, we might get a slight advantage having seen the terrain ahead of time and been able to judge how maze-like it might be, and what features are present.

We could be scouting a wide open barren desert terrain, a sparse ruined village perfect for guerrilla tactics, a series of trenches, a dense town-scape with lots of neutrals who can get caught in the crossfire, a literal rat's nest of tunnels, or a mixed 3D landscape of tunnels, ground features, and above-ground connections between buildings.

I will comply with whatever the squad and squad leader chooses to do though.

Reading the 300+ page pdfs suggested is not mandatory. Those interested can enjoy it.

Characters have a knowledge from their training that the GM can use to send tips or accounts for when die rolls are made.

There are some things that will show up at times from "real" military bits. We are though working with the ST setting as seen in books, movies and anime.

In the movies espically we see some pretty bad tactics. I connect that to the raider infantry 4 month boot camp. Mostly they keep in groups like a fire team or squad. Against bugs they use more massed fire.

PA guys in the movie are smarter about their tactics. With 10 guys in a squad all alone the tactical complexity goes down. That and they favour smarter, more initiative, more indepedent folks typical of PCs.

I have been thinking of a glossary for the game to include basic terms/tactics.

Quick add:

We are doing a military style game which means its handy to have military info but we are still a game. In the RPOL text format its not logistical possible to do alot of the things that would really happen, like make lots of drawings for tactics. In real life drawings in the dirt was very common. Here, ascii maps are cumbersome espically with those not familiar or without the time to do them.

I do appreciate Breaker's help with formats and ascii maps. I just don't expect everyone else to be at the same level with that.

In terms of military knowledge its not possible for us to really take everyone through a four month course on tactics. We have players of various backgrounds from serving military, military familiy members, military avid readers (like myself) to no known military background.

As we are moving in time to being a lonely deployed Power Armour squad if you can manage the tactics as shown in the Roughneck Anime you will be doing fine. Watching the shows can be helpful.

---

Tactics vary by enemy

Right now... we are not yet in the official Bug War.

Only a few bug types are known as per the Settings Arachnid post. Only the plasma bug is known to shoot and its not well suited to firing at nearby infantry. Most of the combat is with no-shooting warrior bug swarms. They have no guns but take alot of hits to bring down. Arachnid tactics focus on massing the guns by having teams/squads close together shooting at one target.

Skinnies conduct raids to capture people. They are shooters so cover and fire&move are used. They don't mass large numbers of troops so squads/platoons are put into action.

On Earth it has also been raiding/counter-raiding style action.


Large scale battalion/regiment/division fighting has not happened in decades.

When not sure NUKE EM'! ;)

Seriously that is why they lost a Big K they never fought like a massed army in how long in a D-Day sort of operation you must have absolute mastery of space and any major routes of support - other major bug planets. I'm no genius but they did not invade the continent until they were ready even with Stalin raging for the West to do it anyway.

With Nukes now being "common" place at the tactical level one does not want to mass troops. That just makes a target worth nuking.

I see the PA being more trained (you'll get those points later) like the special forces small teams like the SAS, Seals etc. Elite as in highly trained and superbly equiped. Small in manpower to be easier to get in/out of places. If they do need bigger firepower thats when the fire support comes in, possibly with nukes.

PS, calling in fire support is related to the Comms skill. Every person can attempt it. PA Suits have some aides in gettig info. The Comm tech with their equipment, Comms skill and SICON language are much better at doing it. Things like last minute adjustments to strafing aircraft benefit from the SICON language.

In case anyone is interested...

If you would like some tips on using ASCII Art / Maps, I'm willing to discuss it privately. Just so we don't distract everyone else. ;)

(And, for the record, I'm a lousy ASCII Artist! You would have to see what others have done to understand that fully.)

I get that I will likely use nukes from time to time in the game, those mines are so cute.

>:)

Ayup, "Kiss the TOAD"

Power suits include radiation protection so the PA infantry are freer to use and be near the tactical nukes.

Judging by the movies the nukes aren't as radioactive as our modern day ones. Movie #1 raider infantry where close by.

Radiation removal will be better in our medicine too.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:02, Tue 04 Sept 2012.

You can't really compare an invasion of a planet with Normandy. There were battle lines in WW two, you knew where the enemy would be, and where you were safe. There couldn't really be fronts on klendathu, as the entire planet was hostile. You could liken the MI to the airborne of dday, except if we had just dropped them without trying for the beach head as well all the airborne would have eventually died.

In my opinion it's closer(but still not the same) as Iraq part two. Its a lot to type on a phone, but being in a hostile land, not knowing where the enemy was... This analogy still fails because we had bases, and some iraqis helped us.


Also I apologize for trying to bring real world tactics in... And I've learned my lesson. Those tatics are apropriate in real world because one round can take someone down... Suppressive fire keeps heads down because rounds kill. It's different in a heroic game( which is the point of this game) and one round probably wont kill a pc... So you don't have to be so restrained in your movements... Like I said, lesson learned.

Well, it could be set for the guns to provide sufficient bonus for an unarmored soldier to be taken from a fight on a max VS min roll.

8(from the die), (assuming stats and skills are comperable), +(gun mod) it only needs to be a 2 to take someone out in one shot assuming they're unarmored.  Since the rolls are for 'combat as a whole' guns(weapons in general) shouldn't give quite so much a bonus as impressive armors (though a few case by case might, such as sniper rifles).

Echo its cool I'm getting into this game to much. I sent a bunch of ideas two likely introduced it seems, let the GM do that, well he seemed to like them.

I was more aiming that it is the typing and 1/day post rates that make full on real world tactical implementation in a phrase: impracticable

A part of simulation/game design is the amount of processing that goes on. In an online computer game like the Battlefield series it takes into account the running, crawling, type of gun, range etc to determine results with the CPU doing alot of math. In tabletop it is easy to handsketch maps and plans and move miniatures (or coins or pencil&erase) to deal with movement.

ASCII maps have much less number crunching. I am having doubts of even doing regular map updates due to the time it will take me to "crunch" up a map.

Storytelling style, what I normally use, has you guys giving verbal intents and die rolls. Then I end up writing something back. The descriptions are all text like "tent on the left, barrel on the right".

For instance consider the example of your squad sweeping a room in real tactical style of each person swinging into certaian zone. In a computer game its 5 seconds and the CPU does the math. On a table top might take 15 minutes to play out. On text based if we did it in the same detail it could take a week to go through a room. Storytelling style lets us do that in one cycle (a day).

It is also expected of the GM that in general characters are using their skills. Unless someone is deliberatly posting as exposing themselves it is assumed you are using tactical skills to fight in a "real manner".

---

In terms of lethality:
Guns can kill a peron. Bug bites can kill a person.
Yes you are well trained people and a bit heroic.
Soldiers wear armour again because it does help.
More important is that most of the time you will be in power armour.

Modern day "raider" type armour of chest plates and helmets have major reductions on injuries. You still might die off. However it is good enough that real room storming tactics now tell the torso armoured soldier to face onto the threat to put the armour into position. Before hand it was to get thin to minimize your target area.

Warrior bug bites on unarmoured limbs lead to amputations. Hits on the head and torso are short term survivable. That matches to Movie #1 raiders screaming while in the jaws of a warrior. If your squad gets you out right away you can live. IF they are fleeing from a mass of bugs not so much.

Power armour is of course of more advanced, expensive and effective material. The cost is what keeps the PA forces at fraction of the Mobile Infantry as a whole. In the anime in the Pluto campaign Higgins at one point is in a bug mouth for like 10 seconds and "ok" after rescue. Suit would have needed some repairs back at base.

---

Taps is correct that the skill is "gun combat" which involves doing smart things like getting cover, using your armour, suppression fire and all the rest.

Likewise as Taps suggests weapon vs armour will matter. A Morita vs unarmoured will need a small margin to kill. A Morita vs Raider armour will hurt but need a bit of range. A Morita vs a Power Armour is an even slower hurting process.

Tactics likewise can lead to modifiers to the battle like using fire&move properly.

It will certainly help in the posts to reference using real tactics. Like "using fire and move we advance toward the suspected enemy position" vs "we all run up at once"

Rounds aren't a fix time as it is more TV style action. The intent and if-option should cover 20-30 seconds of action.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:59, Tue 04 Sept 2012.

For the squad on squad and the on leave threads (actually pretty much all game threads) you do have access to the basic training skills.

It was easier for me to do the time jump to "near complete" then to fuss over how to fraction skill points where you mostly get +1

For reference please fill out the service commitment and a spot for the Operation Medusa Volunteer/Turned Down/Undeclared

(Just before attributes)

Boomer you already had it but I had to add your description back in again. Please save the sheet with your description.

Shadow, still need a description for you.

You can read the other PCs description. Its not long, just a short thing for some impression of you.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:53, Wed 05 Sept 2012.

Thank you GM you erased the only copy I had of my character sheet and I don't remember everything I had. :/

eh?

Sorry I was doing alot of updates. I do have a local save of you.