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Deep_Impact
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Space Combat?

Fri 31 May 2019, 08:16

Does the Alien RPG contains a space combat chapter just like Coriolis?

I can't remember seeing, hearing or reading about fights between ships in the Alien universe. I guess this has two main reasons:

1. Ships are to valuable to be blasted into bits.

2. Most conflicts are groundbased (Marines!!!) or on political / company stage.
 
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Deep_Impact
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Re: Space Combat?

Fri 31 May 2019, 09:46

I found some information in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual.

Yes, they mention "rail guns, mines, several missile types, particle beam weapons and defensive lasers", but also that space combat is rare due to spaces size, ships speeds and detection possibilities.

Most important: In space there is nothing worth fighting for. The weaponary seems in the best case to suppress further support for the ground forces.
 
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Valyar
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Re: Space Combat?

Fri 31 May 2019, 10:22

I think there won't be any space combat in the final game. Coriolis has quite different spirit and feeling, there such details rules make sense. Here, at least for me, the focus is on the unknown and the horror locked with you inside the hull of the spaceship. Maybe there will be some rules how to navigate and steer the course of the hauler, but that's all.
 
Byrax
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Re: Space Combat?

Fri 31 May 2019, 11:19

But surely there must be some rules for dropship combat.
 
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Deep_Impact
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Re: Space Combat?

Fri 31 May 2019, 11:32

But surely there must be some rules for dropship combat.
"Must"? I would handle bombardment just with the skills "piloting" and/or "ranged combat". Vehicles were pretty rule-light in Coriolis, mostly higher movement rate and HPs, about a page I think. But we will see.
 
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Re: Space Combat?

Sat 01 Jun 2019, 17:51

There was also a mention in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual on giant metallic webs set in space so that any spaceship entering the zone at high speed would be destroyed due to the collision - as you know, kinetic energy depends on mass and speed (squared), so having an impact with a slow moving heavy object get brings similar destruction to hitting (or being hit by) light objects at high speed.

I only remember seeing one space combat in the AvP videogame, and it was reminded me of a fight between a conventional and a stealth plane: one got killed before even realizing the other ship was there.
 
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blaster219
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Re: Space Combat?

Sun 02 Jun 2019, 11:47

Yeah the technical manual painted a pretty unpretty picture of non-space opera space combat. Orbital webs that shred starships, beam weapons taking place across massive distances so far you need to take "windage" and hope the target hasn't changed vector since your sensor readings pinged off it, and a setting where "stealth" is almost non existent as pretty hard for a ship to hard itself in the void.

That's all from memory of course. I can't find my copy of it at the moment.
 
Attackmack
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Re: Space Combat?

Sun 02 Jun 2019, 13:22

Space Combat is difficult to implement in a hard(ish) scifi setting. Ships in Alien doesnt maneuver on a whim and afaik there is no energy shields or force fields.
That makes it incredible easy and simple to destroy a ship, and nearly impossible to ever defend.
 
Attackmack
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Re: Space Combat?

Sun 02 Jun 2019, 13:25

There was also a mention in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual on giant metallic webs set in space so that any spaceship entering the zone at high speed would be destroyed due to the collision - as you know, kinetic energy depends on mass and speed (squared), so having an impact with a slow moving heavy object get brings similar destruction to hitting (or being hit by) light objects at high speed.

I only remember seeing one space combat in the AvP videogame, and it was reminded me of a fight between a conventional and a stealth plane: one got killed before even realizing the other ship was there.
The web-thingie sounds much like a weapon I heard about from...."Stars without numbers" I think it was...

The weapon is basically a "sand blaster". You accellerate towards your enemy at a high relative speed and just spew out a cloud of sand towards the enemy ship. The sandcloud will completely shred the ship when it hits due to the highspeed, making each grain of sand explode with an insane force as it hits. Something like that :)
 
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Re: Space Combat?

Tue 04 Jun 2019, 20:12

Yeah the technical manual painted a pretty unpretty picture of non-space opera space combat. Orbital webs that shred starships, beam weapons taking place across massive distances so far you need to take "windage" and hope the target hasn't changed vector since your sensor readings pinged off it, and a setting where "stealth" is almost non existent as pretty hard for a ship to hard itself in the void.

That's all from memory of course. I can't find my copy of it at the moment.
Well, in fact, the stealth ship was a Yautja one.

I would only consider space combat in very specific scenarios (like dropships trying to dodge attacks from ships in orbit while plunging the atmosphere at incredible speeds, or a spaceship trying to destroy incoming nukes), but not ship to ship combat. That seems to be incredibly unusual.

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