Well Chris (Weuve) maybe your constant questions about hexless based movement
for B5 Wars did work. We'll have to see what the rules are like but Roberts
response (attached) indicates that the rules will be in the
Narn-Centauri War Supplement.
Score one for Chris and everyone else who asked for a none hex based movement
system for B5 Wars.
Jim Bell To answer your questions...
The Narn DN still will not be able to take on a Minbari Warcuirser. It isn't
significantly larger (450 meters for a J'Quan and 512 for a DN).
There is another scale for mid-class ships. If we do them to scale with
the fighters they will be as small as the fighters but if we do them to scale
with the fighters they will be as big as the cap ships. They will
be roughly 2 to 2 1/2 inches long.
And now with some additional answers...
Pivoting...
The restrictions we place on capital ships while in a pivoted state was
a play-balance issue, not a reality issue. At one point we played with
the idea of allowing ships to turn while in a pivoted state and found (through
playtests at local stores) that it was highly abused and allowed for much
greater maneuverability than these large ships should have. All playtesters
which tested this system agreed and requested that the rules be reinstated
back to their former system. There was also a number of additional rules which
we were going to have to create to prevent ships from effectively changing
their direction by 120 degrees simply by pivoting 120 degrees and then
turning. This is something that yes, a ship could do in reality but did not
match with what we see in the show, thus we would not allow it. It also
blurred the line between an agile ship and a normal ship.
On the issue of the ships which can not pivot we actually only have one ship
in mind for this restriction and that is the EA Explorer class vessel. It is
structurally very fragile compared to other ship and must be handled with
great care when maneuvering it. The restriction is just our way of showing
it's fragility in maneuvering within the mechanics of the game.
On the issue of sideslips...
I see what you are talking about at this point. However, I think you
miss the whole point of allowing sideslips in a hex-based game. It is
simply a way to give players an additional option during movement since the
hexes restrict what a ship can do during a turn. You can find the same basic
principals in any number of other hex based games. This was
not intended as another way to turn a vessel. When the table-top rules
come out side-slips will not even be allowed as the restrictions of the
hexes goes away and side-slips are not needed. (You can achieve the
same effect by pivoting your ship in a table-top game.) Side-slips
should never been seen as a turn because they are not a turn in any way, shape
or form.
-------
In September when the first supplement is release there will be a full
set of table-top rules (hexless). These rules allow for extremely
minute course corrections,(more so than FT as you must change your course by
30 degrees). This means that many of the restrictions felt on
a hex-map are lifted and players have a great amount of freedom when
maneuvering their ships. I personally prefer a hexless system as I don't like
the restrictions which must be dealt with on a hex grid, yet at the same time
I understand why they are there.
As for the vector movement rules...
The decision we came to was arrived at from several view points...
1)An overwhelming majority of our playtesters (remember, we had over 180
playtesters on this project) preferred a non-vector system.
2)We tested several vector systems and while some of them were fine when you
are dealing with only one or two ship, all of them became much too clunky and
cumbersom when you have 15 capital ships plus their fighters on the board. Can
you imagine keeping track of vectors on two hundred plus ships?(We had a
playtest game with this many ships, it took us around eight hours to play to a
conclusion, a vectored system would have taken much longer).
This was not an abritrary decision. We thought long and hard about this issue
as there were a number of people who requested it, but not a majority by far.
I should note that the CE combat system is a
vector-based system and from a designers point it seems to have been
done very well. However, from a players point of view it was lacking in some
elements and not very exciting. This was a common problem we found
in all of the vector based systems which we read and/or tested and seems
to be inherent to that style of system. (Note: this is a personal opinion,not
one of the company's).
Robert
> On Wed, Jul 30, 1997 at 9:53:55 PM, Jim Bell wrote:
> Well Chris (Weuve) maybe your constant questions about hexless based
Except that's not what I said! <grin> Although I'm a big fan of hexless
gaming (I play naval minis all the time, in addition to SF), the point I was
basically trying to get at was that you should try to minimize the distortions
caused by the hex grid, rather than simply say oh well, there's a hex grid so
we have to move down hex rows...
I am VERY pleased to hear that there will be minis rules from AoG -- I
look
forward to comparing them to CE _Earthforce Sourcebook_.
Now, regarding Mr.Glass' comments:
> Pivoting...
A couple of points come to mind: 1) Was this in the context of a vector
system, or was it in the context of the current movement system, which already
gives much greater turning ability than it should? It wouldn't surprise me to
learn that a pivoting system grafted
onto the current system would cause such problems -- which is more of an
indictment of the current movement system than the idea of pivoting.
2) Was this with the previous high-thrust ships, or the released
low-thrust
ships? The release version adds two concepts that the playtest ships did not
have: an Acceleration/Deceleration Cost, which determines how many
thrust
points are needed for each hex/turn change in speed, and an engine which
converts surplus energy into thrust points. This has the effect of greatly
decreasing delta vee changes possible for ships -- 7 thrust points used
to
produce up to a 7 hex/turn difference in speed, now (for an Omega) it
produces
2.3 hex/turn.
3) Sounds more like the problem was that the pivot cost wasn't high enough,
rather than the concept of pivoting was flawed.
> All playtesters which tested this system agreed and requested that the
> additional rules which we were going to have to create to prevent
> ship and a normal ship.
Sounds like the problem was with the SYSTEM and not the theory -- if you
allow ships to pay a cost and change course based on where they are AT THAT
MOMENT, as opposed to changing the final destination hex of the path they will
travel from the beginning of the movement phase, you will have distortions
like that.
> On the issue of the ships which can not pivot we actually only have
Not a problem -- I assumed (and still do) that the ship can't pivot *in
the scale of the turn*, rather than they can't pivot at all.
> On the issue of sideslips...
> simply a way to give players an additional option during movement
> same basic principals in any number of other hex based games. This
Whether it was intended that way or not, that's the effect it has. I don't
know about other people, but what I find turns one of the 26 tactical space
games I own into a game I will actually play more than once are elegant rules
which hold together under reasonable conditions of play. It is hardly
unreasonable to expect a player to want to turn 30 degrees (or stop the pivot
at something other than a 180 degree increment), and hence players are going
to want to do it and use what mechnism they see presented. Saying "other games
are unrealistic and limited, too" does nothing to give me a reason to play
this game over the many other games I own.
> When the table-top rules come out side-slips will not even be allowed
Webster's defines "turn" as: "To be deflected; to take a different direction
or tendency; to be directed otherwise; to be differently applied; to be
transferred; as, to turn from the road."
[http://work.ucsd.edu:5141/cgi-bin/http_webster?turn]
If at the end of the maneuver I am moving along a different direction than at
the end of the maneuver, it certainly functions as a turn.
> In September when the first supplement is release there will be a full
> set of table-top rules (hexless). These rules allow for extremely
I am very pleased to hear this. The most egregious of the flaws in the
movement system come from the interaction of the movement system on the hexmap
-- removing the hexes is certainly a good first step towards fixing the
system.
> As for the vector movement rules...
What sort of option were they presented with? From the descriptions above, it
sounds like a lot of test rules didn't pan out -- did they reject these
test
rules, or did they reject the _idea_ of a vector movement system? I ask
at least in part because both Mr.Glass and Mr.Graw have both commented that a
vector movement system was a frequent request.
> 2)We tested several vector systems and while some of them were fine
> clunky and cumbersom when you have 15 capital ships plus their
> plus ships? (We had a playtest game with this many ships, it took us
Aside from the question of whether the game system should be optimized for
battles much larger than the vast majority of players will ever experience, I
can't help but remember that the system involves a sheet of paper for each
ship (except fighters, which are 6 to a sheet) and predetermination of
acceleration and deceleration for each ship. This means, for the
200-ship
scenario mentioned above, 83-200 pieces of paper, and 83-200
acceleration/
deceleration announcements to be made each turn. Given that you must announce
the accel/decel before movement, that is in effect preplotted. I would
suggest that preplotting the vector and then moving simultaneously is no more
work and probably LESS paperwork and effort -- perhaps *much* less --
than the current system. [The playtest version, which had two movement phases
per turn, was much worse. AoG should be commending for streamlining the
process.]
The effort threshold was passed when the ship sheet was created. The user has
to check the sheet each turn to determine mark of thrust and check thruster
ratings. If find the prospect of keeping track of the vectors for 200 ships no
more daunting with a vector movement system than the system that came out of
the box.
> This was not an abritrary decision. We thought long and hard about
> all of the vector based systems which we read and/or tested and seems
Since the CE system is not out yet -- it's coming out in the _Earthforce
Sourcebook_ -- I can't comment on what it will and won't have.
Regarding the other vector movement systems, what was it that made them
unexciting? The movement systems they used, or the combat system they used? I
can certainly understand the argument that some of these systems involve
combat systems that are not as detailed, but that is hardly an indictment of
the movement system itself.
Oh well, I don't expect to convince either Mr. Glass or Mr. Graw -- that
was not and is not the purpose of my responses. I merely want everyone to
understand why I reject Mr.Glass' assertions that "a true vector movement
system as a system like this is simply too complex for the average gamer" and
"the movement system is as realistic as you can get in a simple system".
Both
_Mayday_ and _Triplanetary_ have movement systems that are about a page
long (including illustrations), as opposed to the AoG system. Admittedly,
neither
has a detailed combat system which uses facing -- adding such a system
to take use with the AoG system is about another page. This brings the total
to two pages, and results in a movement system which is simpler and more
realistic than the AoG system, at a quarter of the length.
Once again, AoG's efforts are to be commended. Everyone should buy the game.
If you like it as is, then play it as is. If you don't like the movement
system, then don't play with it -- devise your own, adapt something from
something else (_Full Thrust_ is an obvious source of inspiration, as
are the
_Renegade Legion_ games, which are not vector movement but, IIRC, at
least make an effort at getting pivoting right), or download VMS when it's
ready (the prose currently sucks, but I hope to have a new version up by
Monday).
Buy the game, compare the options, and judge for yourself.