Talk:Sphere RPG System Mechanics

Systemized

Wounding

Weapons attack with their Impact value, which is their physical ability to inflict damage. If the weapon exceeds the defender's summed resistance threshold it inflicts a wound. Higher thresholds may result in more severe effects, such as instant death (literally or functionally for combat purposes).

Entities with Stamina also need to roll the Shock value of the weapon against their Shock Resistance - Success means that the individual continues to fight. Failure means that they slide into unconsciousness or combat ineffectiveness as their body goes into shock. Characters in this state are incapacitated for combat, though hardly dead - they may still be conscious of their surroundings and even if not, modern battlefield medicine can keep almost anyone alive so long as their brain remains intact.

Being in a fight is not a static experience though; with adrenaline released into the bloodstream, humans can perform physical tasks better, react more quickly and resist pain. As a result, every point of Adrenaline a character has provides the following bonuses, to a maximum of double the base value or a minimum of half the base value:

+2 Shock Resistance

+1 to any perception or physical actions that involve major movement (running, spotting enemies, etc)

-2 to any any actions that require concentration or fine motion (hacking a control cortex, running a bypass, etc)

Events that modify a character's Adrenaline are as follows:

Gunfire (first time): +1

Getting hit (first time): +1

Taking a wound (first time): +2

Taking additional wounds: +1/per

Calming exercises: -1

Lull in fighting: -1 to -3

If a character ever has Wounds higher than their Shock Resistance, they automatically pass out.

Electronic Warfare

Electronic Warfare (EW) is a vital part of any military conflict in the 22nd century. Sensors, guided weapons and electromagnetic defenses all provide critical advantages to those who use them. Electronic warfare can be used to shape a battlefield or open an enemy up for crippling attacks.

Guided Weapons

Guided weapons use some sort of onboard or offboard sensor to engage a target. The advantage of guided weapons is they are highly accurate and merely hiding behind a convenient trench or hillock provides no defense. As guided weapons are typically missiles or bombs, they also tend to be powerful but available in limited numbers. This combination makes them quite deadly.

Unfortunately for the children of the guided missile revolution, electronic defenses have kept pace. ECM can shut guided weapons down with near-perfect results; consequently the struggle between guidance systems and electronic defenses is a continuing one with new frequencies, clever tricks and raw radiated power all moving back and forth as one side attempts to match or defeat the other. This occurs in the weapon test labs and with data gathered by ELINT ships

On the battlefield an attacker who does not have a clear and undefended electronic hole (aquiring one such could be an adventure in itself) must rely on 'pinging' the enemy's electronic defenses in an attempt to temporarily nullify them. This is an all or nothing prospect; either the ECM works or it does not. See ECM for how this works.

A weapon that is fired through a successful ping has a Guided bonus, this may range from a couple extra dice for guided direct-fire shells to substantial for weapons that are otherwise intrinsically inaccurate (bombs, etc) - some weapons are designed to only be used in connection with a ping, such as infantry backpack micromissiles.

ECM

Conventional self-defense ECM has two important stats:

Jamming Strength is more or less a measure of how much energy the ECM system outputs - sheer power can defeat any clever trickery. This is how many successes the pinger must acquire in order to have a successful ping.

Spectrum is how wide-band the ECM system is - narrow band emitters can be more powerful for a given size and power draw, but are easier to work around. Spectrum is the base target number for the skill check to conduct a ping.

A sensor/targeting system likewise has several stats that affect how well it performs:

Sensor Strength is a measure of how energy the sensor system outputs - more powerful emitters result in clearer pictures at longer ranges, everything else being equal. This is how many bonus dice a sensor system has on rolls including detection and pinging. Some will have +xD [Y] - in this case the [Y] is automatic successes. These are eliminated first before any dice are.

Fidelity is how accurate a sensor system is at gleaning returns from garbage. It is a modifier to any skill checks involving the sensor system.

Falloff is a property of all sensor systems - while passive sensors can easily detect that something is out there (and may get far more), defenders using electronic defenses or stealth measures generally require the use of active sensors. Falloff represents the effects of range on sensor strength. For every full Falloff interval, a cumulative -1 is applied to the Sensor Strength.

Infowarfare

'Hollywood Hacking' does not exist in the world of Sphere. Network security and physical network disconnects provides excellent tools to keep unwanted intruders out and the vast majority of 'hacking' relies primarily on social engineering to acquire passwords, encryption data or other ways to access networks 'legitimately'. This goes doubly so for on-the-fly attempts to penetrate cyberwarfare defenses and unless one already has some form of pre-existing access that can be exploited at a crucial moment, defenses are pretty much perfect. Thus ironically high-tech espionage and disruption often relies on surprisingly low-tech footwork.

Of course all the network defenses in the world don't help if someone uses '12345678' as the password for the ship's onboard router or fails to secure their wireless connection. While military assets in 2195 are paranoid in their network defenses, civilian assets are often pretty lax when dealing with the prospect of electronic subversion.

Unsystemized

Ranges

All (space) weapons have Falloff, which is the number of space units per each cumulative -1 dice penalty on the to-hit roll. This is rounded off, so a weapon with a Falloff of 4 suffers no penalty at ranges 0-3, -1 at 4-7, etc.

Missiles have a defined maximum range as opposed to falloff.

Barrage Fire

Barrage fire is the coordination of weapon fire not necessarily to achieve maximum lethality but to achieve minimal probability of escape; primarily used at long range the firer uses their weapons in a pattern that offers the best likelyhood of achieving a hit. It it also commonly used in anti-air fire to box in agile attack craft.

Every weapon used in a barrage past the first adds +1D to the accuracy of the barrage weapon, but as a barrage is treated a single attack it will never get more than one hit unless the weapon being used has the Burst ability, in which case it operates as normal.

Barrages fire at the lowest initiative of any involved weapon, if they involve multiple initiative values.

Combined Barrages are possible, so long as all the weapons in question would be able to reach the target's range without being penalized to 0 accuracy natively. The target of a Combined Barrage may opt before any dice are rolled to take the hit and fly through one of the other weapons in the barrage to avoid the (presumably) more powerful other weapons.

Roll piloting versus Gunnery to determine if the maneuver succeeds or not.