Sunday, June 5, 2016

Ship Turn Management

Fun, fun, fun.

Answering suggestions on this post about turning ships, I have created an excel generator.  It can be downloaded from the wiki.

Basically, it does what was proposed.  We take a random number of total rounds needed to adjust the ship's attitude to the wind (turning it) and separate the die from the base number.  For example, d12+12.  We then assume the ship will need at least 12 rounds before it has any chance of making the turn; then, each round after that, we make a random roll, based on the d12 roll we were originally going to add to 12.

Only, I made the generator so that the yare and the crew quality can be chosen and the table works out the remaining calculation automatically:



I've then set it up for at least two ships, the Wastrel and the Markwor.  More ships can be added by copying the columns.  It's a bit tricky, because the index function has to be updated - copy and paste alone won't work - this video will help acquaint the reader with the match and index functions.

In the example, the Wastrel has a yare of B and an average crew.  Its minimum rounds to turn before adding a random die is 4; it is guaranteed to finish its turn in 6 rounds - and the way I've highlighted the table shows that it has already tried three times without success (highlighted orange).  The Markwor is a big slow vessel that's going to have trouble on account of its crew: it has tried once to make a turn.  Still, as suggested, we have the chance of the Markwor making that critical turn and the Wastrel failing.

For those who insist on using paper, the tables can always be printed up and then the turns crossed off as attempted.

I trust this works for the gentle reader.

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