I have to be honest and say I have more knowledge in the design rules than I do of resolving actions in any game. Thank you for going over the rules and trying to explain what happened. Since the likelihood of failure, if I'm following the explanation, is relatively small and we managed to get killed my character must have been at the controls. I've mentioned that my dice rolling is very lousy, anyone want me to roll dice? ;-).
From: "Postmark" <xxxxxx@btinternet.com>
To: "TML" <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2016 12:39:30 PM
Subject: Re: GM discretion; wasRe: [TML]Tracking spaceships inJump TU, was: Instantcity
Hello Phil Pugliese,
The tender that was my last at sea duty station did a refueling evolution and a resupply. The refueling evolution required both ships to steam relatively close to each other maintaining speed, course, and separation while taking on the fuel. The resupply consisted of having the Navy's version of the Chinook helicopter fly between the supply ship and tender. In both cases they are routine evolutions, however they are still hazardous considering that the lines used to pass the fuel hoses could break and the released tension sending the ends flying.
Tying up and pulling away for a pier is routine again because the lines could fail is hazardous.
In-flight refueling is routine to many military pilots but again is also hazardous when things go wrong.
My guess is the Referee judged skimming to be similar to in-flight refueling and applied the appropriate numbers. I was trying and apparently did not succeed in doing was to show that any game action, including a miss-jump, can end a game.
That's not the problem with the scenario as stated, the problem is that, with a target number of 7+, even a DM +4 will give a 1 in 36 chance of losing the ship with all hands at if the USN had one ship sink every time a fleet undertook refuelling at sea, then they'd soon stop. Even loosing one sailor per fleet each time would probably end the practice in peacetime.
You only seemed to have a DM of 2, in practice I'd expect the DM for lost with all hands to be at least +5, in fact the DM for minor damage no less than +3.
Now there might be circumstances where corners were cut and the DM reduced but you description seems to have a DM of -2, which is suicide.
Phil Kitching
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