Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneuvers

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Cy83r
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Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneuvers

Post by Cy83r »

Before we get to the meat of the problem, a little introduction is in order. I've been a long-time fan of Outsider and have watched it go from intriguing prologue to the salivating brain-tease it is now. I'm into a lot of things, one of these is wargaming, aka little models with spreadsheets, rulers, and dice, so you might be able to understand when, upon rereading Arioch's articles on ballistic hyperspace, it reminded me of a little game called Full Thrust (Fleet Battles in Deep Space) and inspired me to figure out how to play a campaign with Outsider-like FTL because I like crunchy rules.

Anyways, I've figured out a basic d10/d5 plus modifier mechanic that seems to represent the 5ly limit on survivable jumps quite well while, at the same time, modeling all of the distortions from jumping off-center with a polar coordinate 'dart board' (really just a half-circle of pie slices). Though I have yet to write exactly how jump scatter works, but it's mostly all still in my head and I know where I want it to go.

Now, to the problem, the rules should work wonderfully easy, all things considered (what with orbital mechanics being involved and super simplified), in a 2D environment, however, when I try and translate orbits into a three-dimensional model, thus getting full use out of the whole 'dart board' effect of OSFTL, I cannot seem to find a system of mapping the depth of a solar system with a basic two-pole coordinate system where everything is rotating rings of boxes instead of lengthily calculated Newtonian vectors and all that jazz. The problem herein lies in simulating height and the fact that the orbital disk of two stars are not necessarily in line with each other or an approaching vessel without 'pinching' the orbits at the 'poles' (ref. longitudinal circles decrease in size the further they are from the equator). I cannot find an easy way of providing for orbital zones traveling off-center from the standard plane of orbit.

I think I'm going to have to more or less abandon the idea of a simple 3D solar map, but then, in any case where such a map where to be used, the players may most likely be hanging their systems in a modeling program, which could more easily track such complicated vectors...

Your thoughts?

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Arioch
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by Arioch »

Starfire: New Empires has an efficient way of describing systems -- each planet's orbit is described by just two numbers, a distance and an offset. Basically you've got a 2D plane that represents the ecliptic, with the primary star at the center, and there is a reference line pointing away from the star. A planet described as having an orbit of 8/13~ is placed 8 Light Minutes from the star along this reference line, and then displaced in orbit 13 LM along it orbital path. The offset represents a delta from the reference line at a certain specified date, so you can actually displace each planet according to the current date, if you want to be that accurate -- orbital speed is a function of distance from the primary. All that you need to make the system three dimensional is add a Z value, and maybe a negative offset for retrograde orbit.

To orient each solar system relative to the other stars, you can just take this reference line and give it a random heading, pitch, and roll value. Figuring out whether two systems have ecliptics in the same plane will be a mathematical exercise, but I don't think there's any way around that.

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Cy83r
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by Cy83r »

Ah, wow, that just about broke my brain, and I enjoy this kind of thing. :lol:

But yeah, having written more of it out, the flat/2d version of the rules seem like they should work just fine for a tabletop game, though there's still that problem with being able "wall off" areas of space with a line of mines/ships/stations... oh well, at least they'll have to be deployed in-game rather than as something set up beforehand.

One question though, Arioch, I'm not entirely sure if the Loroi vessels are running cinematic-style 'fly-through-space' drives (where things happen faster) or the more realistic 'asteroid-style' high-efficiency reaction drive (in which a simple charge can take several dozens of minutes to execute, react, and regroup from). As it is, the pacing of both the images and the dialogue support either type of mobility.

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Arioch
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by Arioch »

Sorry for not replying earlier; this slipped through the cracks somehow.

Outsider does use "Newtonian" physics, internally. Acceleration is built up over time and must be canceled out by acceleration in the opposite direction. However, the way the comic panels are drawn won't always make this explicit, because it's confusing to most readers who will expect that if they see a panel of a ship with a drive plume, they will most often assume it's moving in the direction the ship is pointed. So, the priority in depicting engine plumes and drive trails is first to make sure it is visually clear to the reader what is happening (which is also why ships are being shown as unrealistically close together). For example, in the early pages the Bellarmine captain states he's reducing velocity, but we don't see the Bell turn around and fire a braking burn; I think that would have just confused most readers. Unless I took 3 or 4 panels to carefully illustrate what was happening, which didn't seem like a relevant detail at the time.

ThatsNoMoon
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by ThatsNoMoon »

Arioch wrote:For example, in the early pages the Bellarmine captain states he's reducing velocity, but we don't see the Bell turn around and fire a braking burn; I think that would have just confused most readers. Unless I took 3 or 4 panels to carefully illustrate what was happening, which didn't seem like a relevant detail at the time.
I just assume it has limited forward thrusters so it could keep its facing while applying a negative acceleration. The ship's clearly designed with a forward bias after all, and I doubt the aft section is brimming with detailed sensor suites.

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Cy83r
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by Cy83r »

Arioch wrote:Sorry for not replying earlier; this slipped through the cracks somehow.

Outsider does use "Newtonian" physics, internally. Acceleration is built up over time and must be canceled out by acceleration in the opposite direction. However, the way the comic panels are drawn won't always make this explicit, because it's confusing to most readers who will expect that if they see a panel of a ship with a drive plume, they will most often assume it's moving in the direction the ship is pointed. So, the priority in depicting engine plumes and drive trails is first to make sure it is visually clear to the reader what is happening (which is also why ships are being shown as unrealistically close together). For example, in the early pages the Bellarmine captain states he's reducing velocity, but we don't see the Bell turn around and fire a braking burn; I think that would have just confused most readers. Unless I took 3 or 4 panels to carefully illustrate what was happening, which didn't seem like a relevant detail at the time.
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Eihort
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by Eihort »

/necro

Ever consider using Squadron Strike by Ad Astra games? Although I don't know if it takes fighting in-system gravity into account as I only have the Honor Harrington version of the rules.

Figures it would take a war gaming thread to get me to register for the forums. >_>

CptWinters
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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by CptWinters »

Attack Vector: Tactical does have some rules for fighting within planetary gravity wells, but in all honesty, I never considered them to be particularly worth the effort. However, they are there should one desire to use them.

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Re: Outsider Wargaming - Polar Projections and Orbital Maneu

Post by Arioch »

I have both Attack Vector and Squadron Strike, both of which use essentially the same movement system. I did use a modification of the Attack Vector system for the prototype sim that I set up a few years ago.

This system does allow you to take all forms of acceleration (including gravity) into account, but at the speeds and accelerations of Outsider combat, the gravity of planets doesn't make that much of a difference (<1G for an Earth-sized planet, <2.5G for a Jupiter-sized one). A star can have more of an effect (10-25G if you get close enough), but things get hot.

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