"I still have some simulationist in me and am thinking about the differences between them."
If you mean simulationist as in "I want to have the rules enforce a vision of reality" then stop right now or go and play Traveller/Star Wars/Space Opera. HeroQuest ends in tears or GM paralysis if you try that.
If you mean "I want the outcome to seem realistic to the participants" then you that's cool, you can do it.
He asked before that:
"How does combat between very large and small things work..."
The answer to that is the same way everything else works in the game. You have a contest between whatever's on either side. As a player and GM you've got several (but different) methods of getting the vision of reality you want.
Fr players you can help frame the contest by stating your intent and choose the ability you use to resolve it. For GMs you can choose the type and the difficulty of the contest and frame the scene by negotiating with the players what happens when the contest's resolved.
So if a player character is commanding the Millennium Falcon it could go something like...
Player: "We're running for it, using the ship's 'Did the Kessel run in a measurement of distance, not time'"
GM: "So you just want to get out of there, not firing back, just legging it?"
Player: "Yep"
GM thinks: "It's not that dramatic, make it a simple contest. They're a lot more agile and the Star Destroyer is trying to disable them and not destroy them so..."
GM: "Okay, simple contest, relatively easy, if they hit you they'll damage your drives."
At this point roll the dice. If the player gets any level of success they get the hell out of dodge and get a lingering benefit of something like "Evaded Star Destroyers." If they fail then their drives are clunked, lingering penalty for anything to do with manoeuvring the ship and GM has the door open to destroy the ship, board it, send it flowers, whatever.
There are other ways of handling this though, depending on what's happening in the rest of the game. A different interpretation from the GM could easily be:
Player: "We're running for it, using the ship's 'Did the Kessel run in a measurement of distance, not time'"
GM: "So you just want to get out of there, not firing back, just legging it?"
Player: "Yep"
GM thinks: "I really don't want them farting around here, it's more interesting where they want to go, okay..."
GM: It's fairly easy to evade them, but if you fail then you'll get away but you'll take some sort of damage. How's that?"
Player: "I can live with that!"
Dice are rolled again. Any level of success and they get away without damage, getting an appropriate lingering benefit. On a failure they get away with some form of damage, perhaps "horrible clunking rattling sound (hurt)" or more extremely "Life support knackered (dying)."
This is completely different from:
Player: "We'll turn and fight, bet they're not expecting that."
GM: "Er, no. What ability are you using?"
Player: "'Daredevil pilot'"
GM thinks: "Jesus, what a bunch of muppets. Oh well, they don't stand a chance, it's sodding huge with no real vulnerabilities. It's like an armed herring taking on a gun nut Blue Whale. But I'll make it an extended contest - it may be their last and I want to give them an out when they eff-you-see-kay it up."
GM: "If you're sure then - it's really, really hard. Can I repeat how hard it is?"
Player: "Go for it!"
GM: "If they win this you're completely at their mercy, if not a rarefied cloud of vapour expanding into the vacuum or space. You really happy with that?"
Player: "We'll cope!"
And so on, but at least the players can change abilities after the first round and perhaps change the difficulty with clever choices or disengage with damage and run for it. With hero points and a few assists they might even come out alive.
Phew, sorry for the mouthful.
TLDR version is:-
Cheers,
Ash
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