First of all, thanks for the tip about the range of canon during WW2. This is making the need for me to adapt/rehaul the current rule even more clear. In this particular instance, it's going to be two frigates and cruisers (or like) ship trying to best each other, so I don't have to make it "scale" for large aircraf carrier and missile. (o
So, anyway, yes, increasing the distance in the range table is probably a key to it, but we also need to increase the combat duration. I mean, let's assume the Pirate Boat starts at Spotter range, do one Chase/Breakaway action, makes 3 net hits, it is now at Medium Range within..... 3s.
I hope people on the boat have their hat screwed on - because, man, wind is going to blow !
So during the infiltration phase, when the Pirate boat tries to dodge radar and get closer, I'm thinking having using the Chase rule with a different Range table and lenghtier combat turn. I'm no expert but I would say something like 5 to 10 minutes by combat turn (just to make it easy, technically the speed of boats should be used, converted into km/s, and then do a lot of math, but fuck it).
So now, the question is out is the range of a ship sensor. As mentioned previoulsy, Cyberpirate mentioned that above 35km (or 50km, not sure exactly), the curve of the planet makes it litteraly impossible for the target ship to spot the pirate ship.
Did I get that right ? If so, the infiltration phase would start when the boats are at 50km apart from each other. To make nice and simple, I would therefore have the following range table:
Close | 5 to 10km |
Short | 10 to 15km |
Medium | 16 to 30km |
Long | 31 to 45km |
Extreme | 46 to sensor limit (~50km) |
(Starting point of 5Km is based on
how far one can see at sea level)
So each turn, the Pirate boat will do a Chase action, to reduce the distance from its target, along with the infiltration test. The minute it fails the later, things will escalate, but maybe the target will send warnings, or call'em, so maybe the Pirate boat will have an extra turn to try to get closer, before it falls back to regular rounds.
Most likely, if the pirate boat is "too far away" (Medium Range or above, according to the table I just proposed) the chance of an actual boarding are slim.
Do you see this would be "close enough" to reality ? (and fair enough in terms of game) ?Notes:
(1) For the record, i'm not trying to make my life complicated, but I'm trying to adapt the rule framework to make it a bit less abstract, and allow my players to decide and influence their action based on realism rather than game mechanics (because my players does not know well the mechanism of SR5 and will based their action on what seems probable rather than pool of dice...)
(2) Take a look at The Last Ship TV Show, if it is remotely accurate, battleship are not so obsolete