- Replayed Morrowind using OpenMW and the GoG version of Morrowind's data files. OpenMW is a straight upgrade on the original engine and worked beautifully. Looking at it now, the game suffers some pacing issues and the wilderness gameplay is pretty boring (hey, like my campaigns!), but by and large I still think it compared favorably to Skyrim outside of polish / graphics. The learning curve is steeper, but there's actually complexity there to master. I had fun.
- I also discovered that Kill Six Billion Demons was heavily influenced by Morrowind's Thirty-Six Lessons of Vivec, so that was neat and is probably part of what I like about K6BD.
- Got Starcraft 2 working in Wine, played through most of Wings of Liberty and the whole of the Heart of the Swarm campaign.
- Wings of Liberty was OK. There was sufficient freedom in choosing the order of missions that the plot (such as it was) got kinda incoherent in the middle of the campaign. I'm a little sad their portrayal of the strategic part of guerrilla warfare / revolt wasn't better, but this is forgivable because ultimately the campaign layer is a wrapper around a series of games of the RTS mode. In comparison to the SC1 campaigns, it felt like there was less use of heroic units, and less... emotionally-impactful events (worlds falling and being destroyed, betrayals and deaths of notable NPCs, things like that). Many of the missions felt pretty gamey / had silly gimmicks.
- Heart of the Swarm was disappointing. I did like that they reduced the freedom of mission choice, which allowed sort of coherent subplots to be carried out in close proximity / sequence. It was, however, shorter than WoL, some of the same gimmicks were repeated, Kerrigan was way over-powered, and at the end of the day it just didn't feel very... zerg. Also I dislike the supernatural direction of things, with this prophecy and resurrected xelnaga business - psionics is always annoying to me in science fiction, excusable in small doses, but this is just turning into fantasy. I have no intention to play the Protoss campaign.
- Did get me thinking about zerg / tyranids / bugs for Dirtside, though - worms for deep-striking, winged locust infantry, burrowed hidden units in attack/defense scenarios, there're just a lot of interesting thing they could do that mix things up. Then again, given how well my last conversion attempt of bugs to a Ground Zero game went... meh. On the upside, morale is much less important in Dirtside, so that might simplify things a little.
- Woke up absurdly well-rested this morning, "as if I'd stolen sleep from whatever supernatural entity is responsible for its allocation." Which would be an amusing adventure idea; characters cursed with nightmares, lucid-dreaming funhouse dungeon to kill or steal something to break the curse, and if you die you wake up (exhausted) and can try again the next night. Reminds me of the 3.0 Manual of the Planes' dream-planes.
- Apparently one of our summer interns plays 5e.
- Re-read Dune. Meh. For a book so thematically concerned with ecology, they sure do neglect to explain what the worms are eating to grow to 200 meters / how they sustain the sort of energy expenditures observed. It's a cool visual, but ultimately sort of dumb - swimming through sand is a lot harder than swimming through water. Did find it somewhat interesting that most chapters (at least early) were structured around a single conversation between two characters. Also interesting as an index for how much stuff I've forgotten over the last ten years (measured answer: most of it).
- I suppose one interesting, gameable note from Dune was that both of the mentioned mentats (Piter and Thufir) were also their respective lord's master of assassins. Interesting ties to Strategic Thief?
- Titles of draft posts from the last couple of months that I haven't actually finished or published:
- Hired Help in the Wilderness Game - reducing ACKS' logistics hassle by hiring NPCs to handle it for you
- Do You Really Need a Whole Class for That? - A call for simplicity against ACKS' emerging glut of classes
- Morrowind, 12 Years Later - more complete reflections on Morrowind
- Eight Cliches, Viking England Edition - Against the Wicked City had a post on combining multiple cliches into a single, higher-quality adventure, so I was gathering cliches for Arthurian / Viking-Age England
Showing posts with label Starcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Starcraft. Show all posts
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Morrowind, Starcraft, Drafts
Been a while. Currently procrastinating on writing binary patching tools for a big hacking competition coming up. Gaming-relevant things I've been up to in the last... oh dear, quarter I guess:
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Scarcity, Traveller, and Starcraft
Several things happened recently which reminded me of Traveller.
My father flies cargo around the Pacific, and it came up in conversation with him that much of what he carries is hazardous or generally "does not play well with other cargoes". Oxidizers, corrosives, fertilizer, livestock... and when you put these on a big container ship, there are more things for them to interact violently with if something goes wrong. So instead they travel alone in a cargo plane. Seems to me that this provides a potential out for one of the core problems of Traveller economics - why is anyone hiring this tramp freighter to move their goods when there are enormous shipping lines who have economies of scale? Because there are some things that are more hassle than they're worth to the big players. This is already supported, technically, but it's a shift from "hazardous cargoes exist" to "hazardous cargoes are the default." This also adds an extra layer of potential excitement to cargo operations, especially since cargo is on the table of "things that can be hit in space combat."
I also tested for a ham radio license, and all the finicky details of talking to satellites got me thinking about how we abstracted away communications (between, say, ship and ground) completely. Even outside of dealing with doppler shift and the ship only being in line of sight a fraction of the time, ground-to-ground communication might be complicated by alien atmospheres (in this case, it looks like Mars' ionosphere is sufficiently lower and thinner than Earth's that practical range for single-bounce ground-to-ground RF comms is about 600 miles instead of 2500+ miles you can get on Earth). This seems like the sort of thing the old Traveller nerds, with their planet-to-planet time tables based off of acceleration, would've enjoyed thinking about.
Finally, I read this post of Charles Stross'. His bit about economics got me thinking about post-scarcity, and I came to the conclusion that I'm extremely critical of the notion. Hanson articulates a reasonable critique here. So I was reminded of Niven and Traveller's belters (grungy, working-class subsistence futures) and also generally that populations expand to fill their carrying capacities - biological replicators.
Between radios, future-scarcity, jobs, and replicators, I got to thinking about Starcraft, in its grungy, space-Australia-western-full-of-ugly-assholes-but-oh-god-what-are-these-bugs-aiiieeee flavor that I enjoyed at the beginning of the first campaign (it is, of course, hardly great science fiction, but so be it). I realized that I had never actually caught up on the plot of Starcraft II, so I set about fixing that. In so doing, I found this little gem (just the next ~30s after the linked time). A hell of a Traveller campaign that would make: a posse of destitute space hicks - miners, drone operators, mechanics, welders, hydroponic farmers, meth cooks... probably two or three terms, one or two military or criminal and one civilian - living dirtside and working day jobs to afford ammunition, stimulants, and explosives to go zerg hunting in the desert on the weekends, and selling the body parts for mad science... or barbeque ("Infestation? Naw son, you just gotta cook it real good."). It's just another bug hunt until you wake up something you shouldn't've... and then the fun really starts ("Worlds will burn.").
This also starts to get into some more typical OSR territory; it could turn into a rather dungeon-crawly (tunnels), resource-managementy (cash and consumables), and probably high-body-count way to play (might want to find a way to accelerate character generation...). Taken from that perspective, starship deckplans start to look rather dungeonesque too, after you have some transport, vacc suits, and a reputation as crazy bastards who will go into infested holes for fun and money (enjoy your zero-G melee...). Maybe Stars Without Number would do it better, since it supports mechanical advancement and building capital ships as a PC activity.
NPC palette:
My father flies cargo around the Pacific, and it came up in conversation with him that much of what he carries is hazardous or generally "does not play well with other cargoes". Oxidizers, corrosives, fertilizer, livestock... and when you put these on a big container ship, there are more things for them to interact violently with if something goes wrong. So instead they travel alone in a cargo plane. Seems to me that this provides a potential out for one of the core problems of Traveller economics - why is anyone hiring this tramp freighter to move their goods when there are enormous shipping lines who have economies of scale? Because there are some things that are more hassle than they're worth to the big players. This is already supported, technically, but it's a shift from "hazardous cargoes exist" to "hazardous cargoes are the default." This also adds an extra layer of potential excitement to cargo operations, especially since cargo is on the table of "things that can be hit in space combat."
I also tested for a ham radio license, and all the finicky details of talking to satellites got me thinking about how we abstracted away communications (between, say, ship and ground) completely. Even outside of dealing with doppler shift and the ship only being in line of sight a fraction of the time, ground-to-ground communication might be complicated by alien atmospheres (in this case, it looks like Mars' ionosphere is sufficiently lower and thinner than Earth's that practical range for single-bounce ground-to-ground RF comms is about 600 miles instead of 2500+ miles you can get on Earth). This seems like the sort of thing the old Traveller nerds, with their planet-to-planet time tables based off of acceleration, would've enjoyed thinking about.
Finally, I read this post of Charles Stross'. His bit about economics got me thinking about post-scarcity, and I came to the conclusion that I'm extremely critical of the notion. Hanson articulates a reasonable critique here. So I was reminded of Niven and Traveller's belters (grungy, working-class subsistence futures) and also generally that populations expand to fill their carrying capacities - biological replicators.
Between radios, future-scarcity, jobs, and replicators, I got to thinking about Starcraft, in its grungy, space-Australia-western-full-of-ugly-assholes-but-oh-god-what-are-these-bugs-aiiieeee flavor that I enjoyed at the beginning of the first campaign (it is, of course, hardly great science fiction, but so be it). I realized that I had never actually caught up on the plot of Starcraft II, so I set about fixing that. In so doing, I found this little gem (just the next ~30s after the linked time). A hell of a Traveller campaign that would make: a posse of destitute space hicks - miners, drone operators, mechanics, welders, hydroponic farmers, meth cooks... probably two or three terms, one or two military or criminal and one civilian - living dirtside and working day jobs to afford ammunition, stimulants, and explosives to go zerg hunting in the desert on the weekends, and selling the body parts for mad science... or barbeque ("Infestation? Naw son, you just gotta cook it real good."). It's just another bug hunt until you wake up something you shouldn't've... and then the fun really starts ("Worlds will burn.").
This also starts to get into some more typical OSR territory; it could turn into a rather dungeon-crawly (tunnels), resource-managementy (cash and consumables), and probably high-body-count way to play (might want to find a way to accelerate character generation...). Taken from that perspective, starship deckplans start to look rather dungeonesque too, after you have some transport, vacc suits, and a reputation as crazy bastards who will go into infested holes for fun and money (enjoy your zero-G melee...). Maybe Stars Without Number would do it better, since it supports mechanical advancement and building capital ships as a PC activity.
NPC palette:
- Patrons:
- Scientist wants samples (or to radio-tag some live specimens, or to test some attractant / repellent, or...)
- Tourist on zerg-hunting safari seeks guides
- Company-town mine foreman needs a mine cleared of bugs, willing to look the other way if you use weapons normally forbidden by town charter as long as you don't do too much collateral damage
- Crashlanded bush pilot or starship crew in infested zone needs rescued (practically traditional at this point)
- Crime boss needs something retrieved from infested zone or something transported through it, can hook you up with good (illegal) gear
- Prospectors / colonists seek protection and guides while looking for site to mine or settle
- Separatists looking for a few good men to help liberate the armory of the local military base
- Rivals:
- Other posses of zerg-hunting rurals
- Confederate marshal concerned about heavily-armed civilians
- Confederate troops using hunting area as a training ground
- Enemies:
- The bugs
- Old buddy that you left behind back in your criminal days
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Starcraft Stargrunt: Playtest Report
Got together this afternoon for two games of 'grunt with Glisson, Matt, and Jared. Glisson brought the paper rulebook this time, which was immensely helpful; I should probably print and bind my own copy from the pdf if I intend to play on a regular basis. Glisson also brought a bag of green army men and a bag full of the original counters for the game, which were likewise wonderfully convenient; being able to mark the LD, quality, and morale status of a squad all on the board with the squad was a great improvement over tracking those things on a whiteboard, nevermind other things like In-Position and Suppression which were really problematic last time.
The first game we played was a straightforward battle between two forces of two platoons each of non-Starcraft units. The game kind of dragged on, with units in cover remaining in cover and kind of poking at each other ineffectually, and with units who ran out of cover being mercilessly gunned down. We did have a few rounds of close assault in some woods, and likewise managed to deny the enemy the hill on the south side of the map, but in general, it was a very entrenched kind of warfare. On the plus side, we didn't see the kind of squad-wiping fire that we got in the previous game, but it was pretty slow and static, centered around defensive positions, nonetheless.
Not so the game with Starcraft Terran vs. Zerg.
There are several reasons that I believe this game went differently. The first and most obvious was the availability of off-map artillery support to both sides. This meant that sitting in a single defensive position the entire game was a recipe for attracting high explosives. Second, the Zerg were compelled to close to melee by their morale rules. The Terran player exploited this to great effect by putting a squad of firebats in the front, and managed to annihilate 8 zerglings with only two casualties. Third, the general lack of support firepower meant that sitting and hammering at range was very difficult; the only unit with a SAW or SAW-equivalent on the map was the goliath. Since ranged combat was relatively hard, we saw a lot more close combat, which required movement. Fourth and finally, the availability of higher-mobility units, namely the overlord, goliath, and zerglings, encouraged players to make use of that mobility.
The game ran somewhat like this - a Terran force was set up on a hill on one side of the map, with the Zerg behind a hill on the other side, and a ruined town in the middle of the map (complete with hostile but terribly-ineffective villagers). Zerg objective was to capture the Terran supply depot on their hill, while Terran's was to survive / prevent this outcome. Both sides rapidly ran for the town, taking cover in the buildings, but quickly abandoning and hopping between buildings as the shells started to fall. The goliath was primarily concerned with firing missiles at the overlord and suppressing two squads of zerglings, but the overlord's EW capabilities really put the nix on the missiles. The firebats engaged and destroyed two squads of zerglings before being stomped into the ground by the hydras in melee, and the marines suppressed some zerglings before coming under murderous deviated artillery fire that they really shouldn't've survived - about 12 rolls between all three shells, impact d8, armor d8 should've been almost a complete wipe. They took one casualty; Jared had some simply stupendous luck there. However, that casualty was their squad leader, and when they were then close assaulted by zerglings, they broke and routed and fled off the map. We finished with the hydras going up against the goliath and the last zergling squad being carried by the overlord towards the depot to assault Jared's command squad, who were holed up in the vicinity; they had been driven out of the depot proper by a dummy artillery marker. We called it about then; it looked like the hydras would probably disable the goliath, and we ran the close combat out between the command squad and the zerglings; the zerglings took 50% casualties, and the marines were wiped.
Overall, we came away with one primary concern and two secondary concerns:
1) Hydras as powered armor are brutally overpowered in melee. Matt and Jared agreed that they should not have been able to just stomp through the firebats like they did. Solution: downgrade to normal armor (d8). I'm still not convinced they shouldn't be considered armed with a close-combat weapon, but that's probably pretty acceptable. Also considering upgrading their weapons to d12 impact to keep things on par with marines, but I think d10 impact and a CC weapon is probably a reasonable place to be. Hence, Hydra 2.0 looks like normal infantry with d8 armor, 6" move, FP2, Impact d10, and a close-combat weapon for a 1-die shift in melee.
2) Goliath vs. overlord balance, and by extension electronic warfare. The EW system was very dissatisfying, in that it ended up creating these ridiculous EW 'stacks' of Jared trying to counter Matt's counter to Jared's counter to Matt's jamming of the guided missile, which was annoying. Then, had the missile actually hit (which it never did), it would have either totally obliterated the overlord or bounced off harmlessly, neither of which is a terribly satisfying outcome (in that squads, when hit, will likely survive to some degree. Vehicles just go "Boom" or keep running fine). There were also complaints regarding the infinite range and infinite movement of the GMS and the overlord; not sure what to do about these. On the one hand, reducing speed / range is certainly an option. On the other hand, it kind of sacrifices realism and breaks strongly from the SG standard of "VTOLs come in, drop off troops wherever, get out in two turns. You need that infinite range to be able to even get a crack at 'em."
3) Zerg morale and suppression issues. Zerglings, when suppressed and running on low morale, are a special flavor of hosed - even if they break the suppression, they have to keep running straight into the guns that suppressed them, whereupon they get suppressed again and eventually casualties add up and they just die off (whereas a normal squad might get a chance to break suppression and then fire back, suppressing their suppressors, or if morale got bad enough, it might break and run away from the suppressing squad, and then get far enough away to avoid being suppressed). Matt proposed a rule similar to one by the Warbard for Xenomorphs, a similarly all-melee army, that each activation, a Zerg squad of a low-enough morale that it can't be in cover gets a free attempt to break suppression. This seems fairly reasonable, but plays into the second concern that Jared had about Zerg morale, namely that as a Terran player, it was dissatisfying to watch the Zerg get bonuses for failing morale rolls. On the one hand, yeah, they get bonuses to morale checks to enter close assault... but on the other, they also have to close the range and try to get in close, even if it's a really terrible idea (one zergling vs. a squad of firebats for example). I guess the thing was that while Jared was dissatisfied with the morale situation, he also used it to great advantage by provoking a squad of zerglings to engage (and be toasted by) his firebats, and was never really negatively affected by the changes, except possibly when his marines were assaulted by a squad of steady zerglings. Since steady doesn't impede actions and grants a bonus to attacking in close assault for Zerg, it was actually strictly better than Confident for Matt (except in that it was close to Shaken, Broken, and so forth). Not sure it's really a problem, but it was a concern which might need addressed.
But, other than those issues, the game went really well. It was agreed by all sides that unit balance felt pretty right except on the hydras and in the overlord vs. goliath pairing, and the artillery kept the game moving quickly. While artillery and close assault both involved a lot of rolling, neither side was bored during the process; with artillery scatter, it's always a "oh god oh god is it going to land on me?" type tension, and melee has many hand-to-hand opposed rolls. It seemed to me that Jared and Matt became significantly more excited during close assault than during shooting; not really sure why that was the case, but hey, I'll take it. I suspect that only having two players (I was reffing / advising, basically) improved gameplay because subsystems involving many rolls weren't horribly dull for the remaining players. I do think we played CC wrong, in the handling of stunned units - we should've counted them as casualties for morale / withdrawing resolution, but didn't. Likewise, I suspect there's something buggy in the way we played artillery, but I'll try to hunt it down later today maybe.
The first game we played was a straightforward battle between two forces of two platoons each of non-Starcraft units. The game kind of dragged on, with units in cover remaining in cover and kind of poking at each other ineffectually, and with units who ran out of cover being mercilessly gunned down. We did have a few rounds of close assault in some woods, and likewise managed to deny the enemy the hill on the south side of the map, but in general, it was a very entrenched kind of warfare. On the plus side, we didn't see the kind of squad-wiping fire that we got in the previous game, but it was pretty slow and static, centered around defensive positions, nonetheless.
Not so the game with Starcraft Terran vs. Zerg.
There are several reasons that I believe this game went differently. The first and most obvious was the availability of off-map artillery support to both sides. This meant that sitting in a single defensive position the entire game was a recipe for attracting high explosives. Second, the Zerg were compelled to close to melee by their morale rules. The Terran player exploited this to great effect by putting a squad of firebats in the front, and managed to annihilate 8 zerglings with only two casualties. Third, the general lack of support firepower meant that sitting and hammering at range was very difficult; the only unit with a SAW or SAW-equivalent on the map was the goliath. Since ranged combat was relatively hard, we saw a lot more close combat, which required movement. Fourth and finally, the availability of higher-mobility units, namely the overlord, goliath, and zerglings, encouraged players to make use of that mobility.
The game ran somewhat like this - a Terran force was set up on a hill on one side of the map, with the Zerg behind a hill on the other side, and a ruined town in the middle of the map (complete with hostile but terribly-ineffective villagers). Zerg objective was to capture the Terran supply depot on their hill, while Terran's was to survive / prevent this outcome. Both sides rapidly ran for the town, taking cover in the buildings, but quickly abandoning and hopping between buildings as the shells started to fall. The goliath was primarily concerned with firing missiles at the overlord and suppressing two squads of zerglings, but the overlord's EW capabilities really put the nix on the missiles. The firebats engaged and destroyed two squads of zerglings before being stomped into the ground by the hydras in melee, and the marines suppressed some zerglings before coming under murderous deviated artillery fire that they really shouldn't've survived - about 12 rolls between all three shells, impact d8, armor d8 should've been almost a complete wipe. They took one casualty; Jared had some simply stupendous luck there. However, that casualty was their squad leader, and when they were then close assaulted by zerglings, they broke and routed and fled off the map. We finished with the hydras going up against the goliath and the last zergling squad being carried by the overlord towards the depot to assault Jared's command squad, who were holed up in the vicinity; they had been driven out of the depot proper by a dummy artillery marker. We called it about then; it looked like the hydras would probably disable the goliath, and we ran the close combat out between the command squad and the zerglings; the zerglings took 50% casualties, and the marines were wiped.
Overall, we came away with one primary concern and two secondary concerns:
1) Hydras as powered armor are brutally overpowered in melee. Matt and Jared agreed that they should not have been able to just stomp through the firebats like they did. Solution: downgrade to normal armor (d8). I'm still not convinced they shouldn't be considered armed with a close-combat weapon, but that's probably pretty acceptable. Also considering upgrading their weapons to d12 impact to keep things on par with marines, but I think d10 impact and a CC weapon is probably a reasonable place to be. Hence, Hydra 2.0 looks like normal infantry with d8 armor, 6" move, FP2, Impact d10, and a close-combat weapon for a 1-die shift in melee.
2) Goliath vs. overlord balance, and by extension electronic warfare. The EW system was very dissatisfying, in that it ended up creating these ridiculous EW 'stacks' of Jared trying to counter Matt's counter to Jared's counter to Matt's jamming of the guided missile, which was annoying. Then, had the missile actually hit (which it never did), it would have either totally obliterated the overlord or bounced off harmlessly, neither of which is a terribly satisfying outcome (in that squads, when hit, will likely survive to some degree. Vehicles just go "Boom" or keep running fine). There were also complaints regarding the infinite range and infinite movement of the GMS and the overlord; not sure what to do about these. On the one hand, reducing speed / range is certainly an option. On the other hand, it kind of sacrifices realism and breaks strongly from the SG standard of "VTOLs come in, drop off troops wherever, get out in two turns. You need that infinite range to be able to even get a crack at 'em."
3) Zerg morale and suppression issues. Zerglings, when suppressed and running on low morale, are a special flavor of hosed - even if they break the suppression, they have to keep running straight into the guns that suppressed them, whereupon they get suppressed again and eventually casualties add up and they just die off (whereas a normal squad might get a chance to break suppression and then fire back, suppressing their suppressors, or if morale got bad enough, it might break and run away from the suppressing squad, and then get far enough away to avoid being suppressed). Matt proposed a rule similar to one by the Warbard for Xenomorphs, a similarly all-melee army, that each activation, a Zerg squad of a low-enough morale that it can't be in cover gets a free attempt to break suppression. This seems fairly reasonable, but plays into the second concern that Jared had about Zerg morale, namely that as a Terran player, it was dissatisfying to watch the Zerg get bonuses for failing morale rolls. On the one hand, yeah, they get bonuses to morale checks to enter close assault... but on the other, they also have to close the range and try to get in close, even if it's a really terrible idea (one zergling vs. a squad of firebats for example). I guess the thing was that while Jared was dissatisfied with the morale situation, he also used it to great advantage by provoking a squad of zerglings to engage (and be toasted by) his firebats, and was never really negatively affected by the changes, except possibly when his marines were assaulted by a squad of steady zerglings. Since steady doesn't impede actions and grants a bonus to attacking in close assault for Zerg, it was actually strictly better than Confident for Matt (except in that it was close to Shaken, Broken, and so forth). Not sure it's really a problem, but it was a concern which might need addressed.
But, other than those issues, the game went really well. It was agreed by all sides that unit balance felt pretty right except on the hydras and in the overlord vs. goliath pairing, and the artillery kept the game moving quickly. While artillery and close assault both involved a lot of rolling, neither side was bored during the process; with artillery scatter, it's always a "oh god oh god is it going to land on me?" type tension, and melee has many hand-to-hand opposed rolls. It seemed to me that Jared and Matt became significantly more excited during close assault than during shooting; not really sure why that was the case, but hey, I'll take it. I suspect that only having two players (I was reffing / advising, basically) improved gameplay because subsystems involving many rolls weren't horribly dull for the remaining players. I do think we played CC wrong, in the handling of stunned units - we should've counted them as casualties for morale / withdrawing resolution, but didn't. Likewise, I suspect there's something buggy in the way we played artillery, but I'll try to hunt it down later today maybe.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Starcraft Stargrunt, Part 2: Zerg
So last time, I talked about converting Terran to Stargrunt. This time it's Zerg, and it's going to have to break from canon a little more to make it work within the system.
Morale and leadership are the hardest part of alien species in SGII, because we humans don't really have a particularly large dataset of real examples to draw from. So this is where we have to make some assumptions.
Proposition 1: Zerg battle-units are bred for killing. They're hungry. Their instincts tell them to go forth and devour, even without any mental urging from the hive mind.
Proposition 2: The Overmind exerts its influence over the swarm through overlords, giant flying psychic transport whale-bugs (kind of).
Proposition 3: Zerg units of the same genotype do vary to some degree in maturity / quality. Ex: Devouring Ones vs. adrenal zerglings vs. zerglings. All the same breed, more or less, but of varying quality.
These propositions suggest or imply the following:
Morale is really the only complicated thing there. Below I propose a modification of the Warbard's rules for Kra'Vak morale.
At Confident and Steady, or Calm and Irked, a Zerg squad may take any action normally available to it.
At Shaken, or Mad, a Zerg squad cannot enter cover or retreat from the enemy unless it passes a Reaction test.
At Broken, or Angry, a Zerg squad must spend one of its actions per round advancing towards the nearest enemy unit, and may not go in-position. If fired upon, they automatically become Routed.
At Routed, or Furious, a Zerg squad must spend both of its actions per round either advancing towards or close-assaulting the nearest enemy unit. If they attempt to rally and fail (or are passed an action by a unit up the chain of command, use it to try to rally, and fail), they fall to Berserk.
At Berserk, the squad must spend both of its actions per round either moving towards or close assaulting the nearest other unit, with no regard for side.
When making reaction rolls to initiate a close assault, Zerg units invert the normal modifiers; they take -0 at Confident, -1 at Steady, -3 at Shaken, and automatically make the reaction test at any lower morale level. They do not modify the morale test for defending against close assault; it's an unexpected and scary situation, for the hunter to become the hunted. Note, though, that even if you drive the Zerg from a hilltop when they fail their morale save to hold their ground, they might charge right back at you next turn...
Now I know what some of you are saying... "But the Zerg want to be in close assault! This just makes them do what they were going to do anyways!" As Heavy would say, "Maybe, maybe... but I have yet to meet Zergling that can outrun Bullet." Put your marines on the other side of difficult terrain before enraging the Zerg. Put firebats between your marines and the Zerg before enraging the Zerg. Minefields are wonderful things. If the zerglings want to remain in cover, make 'em mad and make them come to you. Those hydras want to sit at range? Make 'em mad and then they can't. I think it may be workable.
Oh yeah, burrowing and regeneration. Burrowing's easiest - it operates similarly to In-Position. A Zerg ground unit may choose to Burrow as an action. While burrowed, it cannot move or fire any weapons, but it gains a 1-die shift to its range die and its armor die, as if in soft cover. These die shifts stack with bonuses from actual cover. For purposes of spotting hidden burrowed units, a burrowed unit applies a two-die shift to its range roll; see Hidden Units, page 26. A reaction test is required to Burrow successfully; the difficulty of this test is at +0 in reasonably-soft ground (most terrain, but definitely mud and swamp), but at +2 in areas which are more difficult to burrow into, such as concrete or through the root webs of trees (so in woods, inside buildings, on roads, and similar). Moving out of Burrow operates exactly the same way as moving out of In-Position. A unit may not be both Burrowed and In-Position simultaneously; they're mutually-exclusive states.
Regeneration's slightly tougher. On the scales involved in a typical SG2 game, regeneration is completely ridiculous, so I intend to ignore it. If, however, you wanted to apply a +1 bonus to casualty resolution rules in some circumstances to model regeneration and make up for the Zerg's lack of medics, go for it. Alternatively, you could resolve all Zerg casualties immediately, rather than requiring a Reorganize action, but at no bonus. Also, just for shits, the Zerg take the same penalties for leaving behind injured squadmates as injured humans do; those are their pack-brothers, of one mind and one flesh!
And so, without further ado, on to stats!
Zerglings are light / scout infantry (speed 8") with light armor (d6 armor value) and a close combat weapon (+1 die shift in close combat). Simple, but dangerous in numbers and in close. Note also that they're technically inferior to Firebats of the same quality in close assault, because flamers give a two-die shift.
Hydralisks are slow light powered armor units (speed 6", armor d10) armed with a biological equivalent of an advanced assault right (FP2, Imp d10). Powered armor makes sense here, because they're twice the size of a man, and while they don't have specialized close-combat weapons (arguably...), they have raw mass and brute strength, as modeled by PA's melee doubling. Compared to Terran marines, hydras under this conversion are tougher (d10 armor vs d8 for marines) and meaner in melee, but slightly less punchy at range (Imp d10 as opposed to Imp d12 for the Terran gauss rifle), and use twice as much transport space. So the trouble with hydra deployment and use is that, on the one hand, they're pretty strong in melee, and tough enough to probably get there, but on the other hand, they're also all the ranged fire support your zerglings get. Choose wisely.
Overlords are Size 3 vehicles with Armor 2, carrying capacity 8, and command capabilities. Additionally, they carry an enhanced EW suite (3 EW counters per turn, d8 on EW rolls) and Basic ECM (1d6 on rolls against guided missiles and similar). Movement is where things get really tricky. On the one hand, they're probably best modeled as VTOLs like dropships. On the other hand, they're also slow as anything in SC, which causes problems with SG's aeospace rules, namely that an air unit can move to anywhere on the table as a move action. I'm kind of OK with that for overlords as a concession to reality - air transports should probably be reasonably fast, and they're still countered by guided missiles, which have "Anywhere on the table" range as well. The real question is "Why is the overlord hanging out on the table at all?" There's an essential conflict in its two roles of 'dropship' and 'command unit'. I think a compromise position is this - feel free the move the overlord off-table, but you can't activate off-table units, which means you can't use its command capabilities to transfer actions. So you can protect it, but you lose a hefty chunk of the benefit of having one if you do.
Most of the other Zerg units are just too damn big to have in SG... Guardians are artillery support firing medium-caliber shells (4" blasts). Mutalisks might qualify as gunships, but I never did understand how they actually flew... I'm writing them off just like I wrote off wraiths for Terran. Devourers and Scourges, as with Valkyries, just contribute to the Air Defense Environment. Lurkers are an interesting problem... I'm kind of thinking that unburrowed, they're mid-sized vehicles with no weapons, but when burrowed, they radiate a large minefield that doesn't attack friendlies. Call 'em Size 3, Armor 2, walking propulsion with a speed of 8", and they radiate a 6" radius Mixed AP/AV minefield when burrowed. Great for holding a position, and vehicle armor means that you might actually be able to get up near an enemy unit and then burrow. Rather scary, really.
So that leaves us with Queens, Defilers, Ultralisks, and Infested Terrans to deal with. Infested are probably easiest; they're Independent Figures (per page 27) with d8 armor, 6" speed, and the ability to detonate the equivalent of a Command-Detonated Mine (page 56) centered on his own position at any time, after which he is destroyed. To model the effectiveness of Infested against armored targets like buildings and bunkers, we may want to let them apply 1d10 doubled against the armor of buildings and vehicles within the blast.
So we're down to Queens, Defilers, and Ultralisks. Spellcasters and the superheavy tank. The spellcasters I think could be modeled as variant off-board artillery; Dark Swarm, for example, might be a variant artillery shell type that creates a zone of soft cover in a radius about where it lands, Ensnare creates an area of difficult terrain, and Plague could do something interesting like inflict a penalty on casualty resolution rolls for units that were caught in it (or go with the simple solution of "It's a general-purpose artillery barrage, screw the flavor text."). Battlefield control via unusual artillery, basically. So that pulls those guys mostly off the table... Parasite and Spawn Broodling are odd, in that they're single-target... maybe light artillery? Or just leave 'em out... It also just hit me that I left out Science Vessels last post. Off-board EW capabilities with Enhanced sensors, and whatever Plague ends up doing, Irradiate should end up doing something fairly similar.
And the ultralisk. These should pretty much never be on the table, unless it's like the only unit the Zerg have. You want to play the tank game, you're welcome to... but use Dirtside and keep it out of Stargrunt.
So there are the Zerg... thoughts?
(Proposed modifications following playtesting are here; this version is preserved in its original state for reference purposes)
Morale and leadership are the hardest part of alien species in SGII, because we humans don't really have a particularly large dataset of real examples to draw from. So this is where we have to make some assumptions.
Proposition 1: Zerg battle-units are bred for killing. They're hungry. Their instincts tell them to go forth and devour, even without any mental urging from the hive mind.
Proposition 2: The Overmind exerts its influence over the swarm through overlords, giant flying psychic transport whale-bugs (kind of).
Proposition 3: Zerg units of the same genotype do vary to some degree in maturity / quality. Ex: Devouring Ones vs. adrenal zerglings vs. zerglings. All the same breed, more or less, but of varying quality.
These propositions suggest or imply the following:
- A zerg squad's leadership value is a measure of how strong its link to the hive mind is (receptivity, if you will). Note that there is no single 'squad leader' element; leadership measures the reception each individual in the squad gets. As a result, you never lose the squad leader (but you also never get leadership upgrades by replacing poor leaders).
- If a zerg force has a command squad, it's an overlord (which basically operates as a tank-sized VTOL vehicle with EW, transport, and command capabilities).
- Zerg units do have unit qualities just like human units, but based on the quality of their genetics. Hunter-Killers are elite, upgraded grooved-spine hydras are veteran, bog-standard hydras are regular, and perhaps 'rush-job' hydras are green; the Overmind sacrificed quality for rapid growth, resulting in a wide variety of negative mutations which impede performance.
- As a zerg squad's morale deteriorates, they become less cautious and prone to close-assaulting the enemy against orders. When they would be broken, they may turn against their own kind.
Morale is really the only complicated thing there. Below I propose a modification of the Warbard's rules for Kra'Vak morale.
At Confident and Steady, or Calm and Irked, a Zerg squad may take any action normally available to it.
At Shaken, or Mad, a Zerg squad cannot enter cover or retreat from the enemy unless it passes a Reaction test.
At Broken, or Angry, a Zerg squad must spend one of its actions per round advancing towards the nearest enemy unit, and may not go in-position. If fired upon, they automatically become Routed.
At Routed, or Furious, a Zerg squad must spend both of its actions per round either advancing towards or close-assaulting the nearest enemy unit. If they attempt to rally and fail (or are passed an action by a unit up the chain of command, use it to try to rally, and fail), they fall to Berserk.
At Berserk, the squad must spend both of its actions per round either moving towards or close assaulting the nearest other unit, with no regard for side.
When making reaction rolls to initiate a close assault, Zerg units invert the normal modifiers; they take -0 at Confident, -1 at Steady, -3 at Shaken, and automatically make the reaction test at any lower morale level. They do not modify the morale test for defending against close assault; it's an unexpected and scary situation, for the hunter to become the hunted. Note, though, that even if you drive the Zerg from a hilltop when they fail their morale save to hold their ground, they might charge right back at you next turn...
Now I know what some of you are saying... "But the Zerg want to be in close assault! This just makes them do what they were going to do anyways!" As Heavy would say, "Maybe, maybe... but I have yet to meet Zergling that can outrun Bullet." Put your marines on the other side of difficult terrain before enraging the Zerg. Put firebats between your marines and the Zerg before enraging the Zerg. Minefields are wonderful things. If the zerglings want to remain in cover, make 'em mad and make them come to you. Those hydras want to sit at range? Make 'em mad and then they can't. I think it may be workable.
Oh yeah, burrowing and regeneration. Burrowing's easiest - it operates similarly to In-Position. A Zerg ground unit may choose to Burrow as an action. While burrowed, it cannot move or fire any weapons, but it gains a 1-die shift to its range die and its armor die, as if in soft cover. These die shifts stack with bonuses from actual cover. For purposes of spotting hidden burrowed units, a burrowed unit applies a two-die shift to its range roll; see Hidden Units, page 26. A reaction test is required to Burrow successfully; the difficulty of this test is at +0 in reasonably-soft ground (most terrain, but definitely mud and swamp), but at +2 in areas which are more difficult to burrow into, such as concrete or through the root webs of trees (so in woods, inside buildings, on roads, and similar). Moving out of Burrow operates exactly the same way as moving out of In-Position. A unit may not be both Burrowed and In-Position simultaneously; they're mutually-exclusive states.
Regeneration's slightly tougher. On the scales involved in a typical SG2 game, regeneration is completely ridiculous, so I intend to ignore it. If, however, you wanted to apply a +1 bonus to casualty resolution rules in some circumstances to model regeneration and make up for the Zerg's lack of medics, go for it. Alternatively, you could resolve all Zerg casualties immediately, rather than requiring a Reorganize action, but at no bonus. Also, just for shits, the Zerg take the same penalties for leaving behind injured squadmates as injured humans do; those are their pack-brothers, of one mind and one flesh!
And so, without further ado, on to stats!
Zerglings are light / scout infantry (speed 8") with light armor (d6 armor value) and a close combat weapon (+1 die shift in close combat). Simple, but dangerous in numbers and in close. Note also that they're technically inferior to Firebats of the same quality in close assault, because flamers give a two-die shift.
Hydralisks are slow light powered armor units (speed 6", armor d10) armed with a biological equivalent of an advanced assault right (FP2, Imp d10). Powered armor makes sense here, because they're twice the size of a man, and while they don't have specialized close-combat weapons (arguably...), they have raw mass and brute strength, as modeled by PA's melee doubling. Compared to Terran marines, hydras under this conversion are tougher (d10 armor vs d8 for marines) and meaner in melee, but slightly less punchy at range (Imp d10 as opposed to Imp d12 for the Terran gauss rifle), and use twice as much transport space. So the trouble with hydra deployment and use is that, on the one hand, they're pretty strong in melee, and tough enough to probably get there, but on the other hand, they're also all the ranged fire support your zerglings get. Choose wisely.
Overlords are Size 3 vehicles with Armor 2, carrying capacity 8, and command capabilities. Additionally, they carry an enhanced EW suite (3 EW counters per turn, d8 on EW rolls) and Basic ECM (1d6 on rolls against guided missiles and similar). Movement is where things get really tricky. On the one hand, they're probably best modeled as VTOLs like dropships. On the other hand, they're also slow as anything in SC, which causes problems with SG's aeospace rules, namely that an air unit can move to anywhere on the table as a move action. I'm kind of OK with that for overlords as a concession to reality - air transports should probably be reasonably fast, and they're still countered by guided missiles, which have "Anywhere on the table" range as well. The real question is "Why is the overlord hanging out on the table at all?" There's an essential conflict in its two roles of 'dropship' and 'command unit'. I think a compromise position is this - feel free the move the overlord off-table, but you can't activate off-table units, which means you can't use its command capabilities to transfer actions. So you can protect it, but you lose a hefty chunk of the benefit of having one if you do.
Most of the other Zerg units are just too damn big to have in SG... Guardians are artillery support firing medium-caliber shells (4" blasts). Mutalisks might qualify as gunships, but I never did understand how they actually flew... I'm writing them off just like I wrote off wraiths for Terran. Devourers and Scourges, as with Valkyries, just contribute to the Air Defense Environment. Lurkers are an interesting problem... I'm kind of thinking that unburrowed, they're mid-sized vehicles with no weapons, but when burrowed, they radiate a large minefield that doesn't attack friendlies. Call 'em Size 3, Armor 2, walking propulsion with a speed of 8", and they radiate a 6" radius Mixed AP/AV minefield when burrowed. Great for holding a position, and vehicle armor means that you might actually be able to get up near an enemy unit and then burrow. Rather scary, really.
So that leaves us with Queens, Defilers, Ultralisks, and Infested Terrans to deal with. Infested are probably easiest; they're Independent Figures (per page 27) with d8 armor, 6" speed, and the ability to detonate the equivalent of a Command-Detonated Mine (page 56) centered on his own position at any time, after which he is destroyed. To model the effectiveness of Infested against armored targets like buildings and bunkers, we may want to let them apply 1d10 doubled against the armor of buildings and vehicles within the blast.
So we're down to Queens, Defilers, and Ultralisks. Spellcasters and the superheavy tank. The spellcasters I think could be modeled as variant off-board artillery; Dark Swarm, for example, might be a variant artillery shell type that creates a zone of soft cover in a radius about where it lands, Ensnare creates an area of difficult terrain, and Plague could do something interesting like inflict a penalty on casualty resolution rolls for units that were caught in it (or go with the simple solution of "It's a general-purpose artillery barrage, screw the flavor text."). Battlefield control via unusual artillery, basically. So that pulls those guys mostly off the table... Parasite and Spawn Broodling are odd, in that they're single-target... maybe light artillery? Or just leave 'em out... It also just hit me that I left out Science Vessels last post. Off-board EW capabilities with Enhanced sensors, and whatever Plague ends up doing, Irradiate should end up doing something fairly similar.
And the ultralisk. These should pretty much never be on the table, unless it's like the only unit the Zerg have. You want to play the tank game, you're welcome to... but use Dirtside and keep it out of Stargrunt.
So there are the Zerg... thoughts?
(Proposed modifications following playtesting are here; this version is preserved in its original state for reference purposes)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Starcraft Stargrunt, Part 1: Terran
As I mentioned a couple weeks ago with the initial Stargrunt playtest report, I really want to convert the units of Starcraft to the SG2 rules. Caveat the first: I only ever played SC1. Hence, SC1 material.
Terran's pretty simple and probably not terribly controversial.
Marines are standard grunts with gauss assault rifles (FP2, Imp 1d12) in d8 heavy non-powered, but environmentally sealed, armor. Move of 6", leadership and experience as for standard humans.
Firebats are effectively marines with flamethrowers; this gains them two die shifts in Close Combat and the Terror quality. Firebat armor is also fire-resistant (handy!); if using the optional Fire rules from page 58, firebats need not test to survive near fire markers (though they can still be killed in close combat by a unit with a flamer; think TF2 pyros).
Medics in SC can't shoot... this is no good in SG. I suggest giving medics a PDW or similar weapon to defend their wounded charges (FP3, Imp 1d8, can fire in close band only). In addition, medics grant a +1 to die rolls to stabilize casualties, per page 60. Armor is kind of tricky; d8 is the heaviest non-powered armor gets, there are no rules for giant shields, and having mixed armor values within a squad complicates fire resolution. I'm for giving them d8 armor and trading the defense of the shield for the offense of a weapon. Not like the shield ever did them any good anyways... If you're really concerned with being canon, go with d10 non-powered armor and no weapons, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Ghosts probably fall under the (hideously overpowered) Sniper rules on page 28 using conventional sniper rifles (FP 1d10, Imp 1d10). Their cloaking is also, conveniently, modeled by the sniper's hidden unit rules. Special ammunition is not within the scope of this post. As with all instances of the snipers rules, I recommend not using ghosts.
Stimpacks can probably be modeled by increasing FP on Marines from 2 to 3, and increasing Marine, Firebat, and Medic movement from 6" to 8". They require a reaction test to use, and, at the end of their effective duration (possibly 2 turns? One action to stim, three actions of effectiveness), casualtying about 1 in 4 of the subjects, with a possible reduction to 1 in 6 with a medic in attendance.
So that about covers infantry. Bunkers fall under the Buildings rules of page 57; probably Armor 5, with doors of Armor 2. They're pretty small, since they can only hold 4 people... Probably size 3 as far as vehicle / building stats go. Sensor scans are off-table support (page 45) that generate EW counters (page 53); the difficulty of calling in a sensor scan, and the quality of the scan, will vary by scenario. Likewise, siege tanks are off-table artillery (page 47), of large caliber (so 6" burst radius), and firing general-purpose shells (Imp 1d8 against both infantry and point targets). Battlecruisers are just orbital fire support; massive shells for 10" burst, but general purpose (d8/d8) and a longer delay on arrival because they're in orbit, and the difficulty to call them in is higher. Wraiths fall under air support, and are kind of an edge case that I'm not looking to develop presently. Don't even think about calling in nukes; to paraphrase an SPI wargame from the 80s that I once read, "To simulate the use of nuclear weapons, dowse the playing surface liberally with lighter fluid and ignite."
Dropships, however, are actually an interesting topic; SC dropships are what SG would classify as small VTOL transports. Their 8-man capacity could easily fit into a size 2 vehicle chassis, along with armor 2 and basic (1d6) ECM, and you'd still have 2 capacity points left over. Me, I'd use those two points to put a pair of door-mounted Gauss SAWs on it a la various American transport helicopters in Vietnam, but if we're really sticking to canon, we can hold off on those. Lord knows your marines need the fire support, though...
Goliaths are tricky. I've got two possible implementations in mind. The first treats them as Size 1 Vehicles with Armor 1, Speed 6", a pair of SAWs, a dedicated AA (page 49) Guided Missile/L launcher, and 1 leftover capacity point (maybe extra ammo for the missiles?). Note that this makes them kind of scary in terms of raw firepower (see below). Note also that, as in SC, the only thing they have going for them in melee is armor (and unlike in SC, vehicle armor only applies to the front; it's reduced on the sides, top, and rear. Yes, vehicles have facing.)... except that there are also no rules for engaging vehicles in melee in SG. We may have to hack those in, treating Goliaths as powered armor for purposes of odds calculations (they're big and intimidating, and Size 1 vehicles are the same size as PA), but not for melee resolution (they're kinda squishy once you knock 'em over, crack 'em open, and eat the softlings inside). Firing by Goliaths is resolved as follows: in a single action of firing, you can fire one or both SAWs at a single target, or you can fire the GMS at a single target. When firing both SAWs at a single target, you roll your quality die and 2 FP dice, one for each SAW (per errata / clarifications on multiple support weapons in a single squad). If you use both of your actions for firing, you can fire both SAWs at a target and the GMS at something, or one SAW at each of two different targets, or two SAWs separately against the same target (to suppress rather than kill), or one SAW and the GMS (though since there's no penalty for firing both SAWs, there's really no reason to only fire one). It's fairly straightforward, really, but the SAWs give it dakka on par with a squad of marines, and the GMS makes it much better at cracking tanks and other vehicles than marines would be. This makes sense, but is not strictly consistent with the numbers from SC. They'd be great for fire support if you don't want to put SAWs on your dropships, and take up 2 marines' worth of carrying capacity...
The second, simpler, implementation is as heavy slow powered armored infantry (speed 6", 1d12 armor) armed with a Gauss SAW and Multiple Rocket Launcher packs (page 31). Note that ML packs are also pretty darn scary by RAW, since they have unlimited ammo, and are excellent against infantry. They are, however, not so good against vehicles, and therefore don't fit the canon. Further, this version of the Goliath, while simpler, kicks ass in melee; another breaking away. Therefore, the vehicle conversion is probably empirically a 'better' conversion.
Vultures I don't really care about. If somebody really really wants 'em, maybe I'll stat 'em up. Expect size 1 vehicles with high speed and crap armor. The real problem is weapons; grenade machine guns are really quite scary in SG (they're like SAWs, but with an extra anti-vehicle / anti-building function), and single-shot grenade launchers are not considered. There's no good middle ground. So I'm holding off on vultures for a while yet.
And that's all for Terrans, unless I'm forgetting something important... oh, right. Don't bring SCVs. Problem solved. If you really want them for like a scenario objective, treat them as marines without guns, and probably Green experience. Also Valkyries should not be atmosphere-capable if they're anything resembling a 'space frigate'. Another problem solved. If you really want 'em, make them off-map anti-aircraft artillery and increase the air defense environment score (page 49) of one side to account for their actions.
Expect Zerg in the next couple days. I don't really intend to do Protoss for a number of reasons; they just don't interest me that much, I'd have to bend a ton of core-ish rules (Shields? Psychic powers? Wut?), and their psychology is trickier than Zerg. But the Swarm is coming to eat your marines...
Terran's pretty simple and probably not terribly controversial.
Marines are standard grunts with gauss assault rifles (FP2, Imp 1d12) in d8 heavy non-powered, but environmentally sealed, armor. Move of 6", leadership and experience as for standard humans.
Firebats are effectively marines with flamethrowers; this gains them two die shifts in Close Combat and the Terror quality. Firebat armor is also fire-resistant (handy!); if using the optional Fire rules from page 58, firebats need not test to survive near fire markers (though they can still be killed in close combat by a unit with a flamer; think TF2 pyros).
Medics in SC can't shoot... this is no good in SG. I suggest giving medics a PDW or similar weapon to defend their wounded charges (FP3, Imp 1d8, can fire in close band only). In addition, medics grant a +1 to die rolls to stabilize casualties, per page 60. Armor is kind of tricky; d8 is the heaviest non-powered armor gets, there are no rules for giant shields, and having mixed armor values within a squad complicates fire resolution. I'm for giving them d8 armor and trading the defense of the shield for the offense of a weapon. Not like the shield ever did them any good anyways... If you're really concerned with being canon, go with d10 non-powered armor and no weapons, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Ghosts probably fall under the (hideously overpowered) Sniper rules on page 28 using conventional sniper rifles (FP 1d10, Imp 1d10). Their cloaking is also, conveniently, modeled by the sniper's hidden unit rules. Special ammunition is not within the scope of this post. As with all instances of the snipers rules, I recommend not using ghosts.
Stimpacks can probably be modeled by increasing FP on Marines from 2 to 3, and increasing Marine, Firebat, and Medic movement from 6" to 8". They require a reaction test to use, and, at the end of their effective duration (possibly 2 turns? One action to stim, three actions of effectiveness), casualtying about 1 in 4 of the subjects, with a possible reduction to 1 in 6 with a medic in attendance.
So that about covers infantry. Bunkers fall under the Buildings rules of page 57; probably Armor 5, with doors of Armor 2. They're pretty small, since they can only hold 4 people... Probably size 3 as far as vehicle / building stats go. Sensor scans are off-table support (page 45) that generate EW counters (page 53); the difficulty of calling in a sensor scan, and the quality of the scan, will vary by scenario. Likewise, siege tanks are off-table artillery (page 47), of large caliber (so 6" burst radius), and firing general-purpose shells (Imp 1d8 against both infantry and point targets). Battlecruisers are just orbital fire support; massive shells for 10" burst, but general purpose (d8/d8) and a longer delay on arrival because they're in orbit, and the difficulty to call them in is higher. Wraiths fall under air support, and are kind of an edge case that I'm not looking to develop presently. Don't even think about calling in nukes; to paraphrase an SPI wargame from the 80s that I once read, "To simulate the use of nuclear weapons, dowse the playing surface liberally with lighter fluid and ignite."
Dropships, however, are actually an interesting topic; SC dropships are what SG would classify as small VTOL transports. Their 8-man capacity could easily fit into a size 2 vehicle chassis, along with armor 2 and basic (1d6) ECM, and you'd still have 2 capacity points left over. Me, I'd use those two points to put a pair of door-mounted Gauss SAWs on it a la various American transport helicopters in Vietnam, but if we're really sticking to canon, we can hold off on those. Lord knows your marines need the fire support, though...
Goliaths are tricky. I've got two possible implementations in mind. The first treats them as Size 1 Vehicles with Armor 1, Speed 6", a pair of SAWs, a dedicated AA (page 49) Guided Missile/L launcher, and 1 leftover capacity point (maybe extra ammo for the missiles?). Note that this makes them kind of scary in terms of raw firepower (see below). Note also that, as in SC, the only thing they have going for them in melee is armor (and unlike in SC, vehicle armor only applies to the front; it's reduced on the sides, top, and rear. Yes, vehicles have facing.)... except that there are also no rules for engaging vehicles in melee in SG. We may have to hack those in, treating Goliaths as powered armor for purposes of odds calculations (they're big and intimidating, and Size 1 vehicles are the same size as PA), but not for melee resolution (they're kinda squishy once you knock 'em over, crack 'em open, and eat the softlings inside). Firing by Goliaths is resolved as follows: in a single action of firing, you can fire one or both SAWs at a single target, or you can fire the GMS at a single target. When firing both SAWs at a single target, you roll your quality die and 2 FP dice, one for each SAW (per errata / clarifications on multiple support weapons in a single squad). If you use both of your actions for firing, you can fire both SAWs at a target and the GMS at something, or one SAW at each of two different targets, or two SAWs separately against the same target (to suppress rather than kill), or one SAW and the GMS (though since there's no penalty for firing both SAWs, there's really no reason to only fire one). It's fairly straightforward, really, but the SAWs give it dakka on par with a squad of marines, and the GMS makes it much better at cracking tanks and other vehicles than marines would be. This makes sense, but is not strictly consistent with the numbers from SC. They'd be great for fire support if you don't want to put SAWs on your dropships, and take up 2 marines' worth of carrying capacity...
The second, simpler, implementation is as heavy slow powered armored infantry (speed 6", 1d12 armor) armed with a Gauss SAW and Multiple Rocket Launcher packs (page 31). Note that ML packs are also pretty darn scary by RAW, since they have unlimited ammo, and are excellent against infantry. They are, however, not so good against vehicles, and therefore don't fit the canon. Further, this version of the Goliath, while simpler, kicks ass in melee; another breaking away. Therefore, the vehicle conversion is probably empirically a 'better' conversion.
Vultures I don't really care about. If somebody really really wants 'em, maybe I'll stat 'em up. Expect size 1 vehicles with high speed and crap armor. The real problem is weapons; grenade machine guns are really quite scary in SG (they're like SAWs, but with an extra anti-vehicle / anti-building function), and single-shot grenade launchers are not considered. There's no good middle ground. So I'm holding off on vultures for a while yet.
And that's all for Terrans, unless I'm forgetting something important... oh, right. Don't bring SCVs. Problem solved. If you really want them for like a scenario objective, treat them as marines without guns, and probably Green experience. Also Valkyries should not be atmosphere-capable if they're anything resembling a 'space frigate'. Another problem solved. If you really want 'em, make them off-map anti-aircraft artillery and increase the air defense environment score (page 49) of one side to account for their actions.
Expect Zerg in the next couple days. I don't really intend to do Protoss for a number of reasons; they just don't interest me that much, I'd have to bend a ton of core-ish rules (Shields? Psychic powers? Wut?), and their psychology is trickier than Zerg. But the Swarm is coming to eat your marines...
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