In looking for ways to make critical hits part of the game and not something that is routinely ignored because it is too "time-consuming," I have revised the way criticals are calculated. Typically, if a ship takes anything above 50 % damage in a turn, players simply declare the ship "sunk." But in a campaign, it is important to know what happened to that ship. And we have always felt the number of criticals too rapidly became excessive. I decided that critical hits above the hit line ratio of 1.0 (50% damage) will be done differently. The table below demonstrates the geometric increase in numbers of critical hits (assuming a previously undamaged ship):
| Percent Damage | Critical Hi Line | Expected # of Citicals |
|---|---|---|
| 33% | 0.5 | 3.5 |
| 50% | 1.0 | 8.5 |
| 67% | 2.0 | 18.5 |
| 75% | 3.0 | 28.5 |
| 80% | 4.0 | 38.5 |
| 84% | 5.0 | 48.5 |
As is obvious, the number of crits is going up very quickly as a function of damage percentage. In the attached revised critical hit table, I use the original CaS table up to and including hit ratio 1.0. For hit ratio 1.0 to 2.0 the criticals increase for every 0.2 increments, NOT every 0.1. Above hit ratio 2.0, the crit increase parameter is 0.25, above 3.0 the increase is every 0.3. I do not do any more calculations above line 5.0 - no ship can take two turns of that kind of pounding, anyway. This yields:
| Percent Damage | Critical Hi Line | Expected # of Citicals |
|---|---|---|
| 33% | 0.5 | 3.5 |
| 50% | 1.0 | 8.5 |
| 67% | 2.0 | 13.5 |
| 75% | 3.0 | 17.5 |
| 80% | 4.0 | 20.5 |
| 84% | 5.0 | 23.3 |
As you can see, there is a straight line progression of criticals along the middle third of damage to a ship, i.e., from 33% to 67%. Then an upward geometric progression continues. It is usual that 20+, or even less, crits guarantees destruction of a ship, especially one that has sustained 84% damage, but I have seen cases where it has not. And that is more than enough reason to continue rolling them, especially where every ship sunk counts. I welcome any feedback on these ideas.
BT
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