> campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil writes:
@:) > It's probably hard to find now but you should be able to get it @:) >
cheaply if you do find it.
@:)
@:) Hard to find? I haven't seen a copy since Florida, (over a year @:) ago)
and the shop I saw it in, said "..since it's a (quote)
@:) classic (un-quote) game, and no longer in print. We couldn't part
@:) with it for less than 35 dollers" (Ten more than I paid for my @:)
original, when it was brand new!) So I'm still looking, maybe I'll @:) get
lucky in Utah.
! Mine cost me $10 in 1989. I wasn't even interested much in gaming at the
time, and I only bought it because it was cheap and had such a neat map. I got
mine at Toys R Us in their clearance section.
@:) I aalwaays considered the "Fighters" in the game to be more like @:) an
Escort ship, (Frigate or Destroyer. Face it, ain't no "one man @:) fighter"
going to cross interplanetary distances by it's
@:) lonesome:)
I bet there's more info on this in the Buck Rogers RPG, which was part of the
same license as the Battle for the XXVth Century game we're talking about.
There were some video games as well, which seemed to assume that the minumum
rocketship size was maybe
corvette-like. It was a rocket with room for something like 20-30
people, IIRC.
@:) and the "Battler" to be a Capital class ship.
Weren't there three types of ship? Fighters, Cruisers and Battlers? Well, I
don't know but we used the Battlers to represent capital ships and had some
other way of distinguishing between escorts and cruisers. The game is out of
my closet at the moment so I can check when I get home.
> Joachim Heck - SunSoft <jheck@East.Sun.COM> wrote:
> snip about campaign<
> Anyway, I think it's a great idea, and the map is very useful for
Hard to find? I haven't seen a copy since Florida, (over a year ago) and the
shop I saw it in, said "..since it's a (quote) classic
(un-quote) game, and no longer in print. We couldn't part with it for
less than 35 dollers" (Ten more than I paid for my original, when it was brand
new!) So I'm still looking, maybe I'll get lucky in Utah. I aalwaays
considered the "Fighters" in the game to be more like an Escort ship, (Frigate
or Destroyer. Face it, ain't no "one man fighter" going to cross
interplanetary distances by it's lonesome:) and the "Battler" to be a Capital
class ship. Heck if I find a copy, there's a fleet or three in there, once I
paint em. (Anybody else notice that there were a couple of extra ship type
models in the photo on the back that were no in the game? Or was mine just
missing something?) As for the map, anyone out there ever play the PBM
version? They gave out copies of the map for each turn. It would be a start,
personally I'd like to include some of the outer Solar System also.
Joachim: What was the turn time? (A "month" terran, I believe in the
oriiginal, was yours the same?)
Randy Randy Campbell
For Something Out of This World
Check Out: http://www.millennial.org
First, allow me the pleasure of reveling in returning to the list. Been way
too long.
The first few seemed timed too well to be coincidence; I'm trying to work up a
campaign using the map myself! Of course, I can't refrain from some comments!
Here I go interjecting myself in a thread I haven't had a chance to follow;
hope I don't cover anything already done.
;->=
jheck@East.Sun.COM on 09/24/97 02:42:14 PM
Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
cc: (bcc: Doug Evans/CSN/UNEBR)
Subject: Buck Rogers and FT
> campbelr@pop3.kunsan.af.mil writes:
@:) > It's probably hard to find now but you should be able to get it @:) >
cheaply if you do find it.
@:)
@:) Hard to find? I haven't seen a copy since Florida, (over a year @:) ago)
and the shop I saw it in, said "..since it's a (quote)
@:) classic (un-quote) game, and no longer in print. We couldn't part
@:) with it for less than 35 dollers" (Ten more than I paid for my @:)
original, when it was brand new!) So I'm still looking, maybe I'll @:) get
lucky in Utah.
- ! Mine cost me $10 in 1989. I wasn't even interested much in
-gaming at the time, and I only bought it because it was cheap and had
-such a neat map. I got mine at Toys R Us in their clearance section.
My first copy cost me $7 at a local K-Mart. The memory of piles of the
boxes and me only getting one copy has me shaking my head to this day; I'm
pretty certain it was well before '89, but don't know for certain.
On newsgroup auctions, it tends to get at least $20-25US, which is what
I'll be putting my unpunched copy at minimum when I get around to selling it
someday. I've been very lucky to find other copies in thrift stores.
;->=
One thing that bothered me about the map was that the ship/fleet
movement was between nodes with no other considerations. I've decided each
line
'tween orbits will be one-way. Gets complicated to explain, but I think
it more appropriately mirrors orbital mechanics(not that I'm doing that well
remembering high school physics). Moving between orbits, you'd boost to get to
the next, retro to drop to the lower, but tend to maintain the same direction.
The details of when movement of ships and movement of planets happen is still
sketchy in me head, though. @:) I aalwaays considered the "Fighters" in the
game to be more like @:) an Escort ship, (Frigate or Destroyer. Face it, ain't
no "one man @:) fighter" going to cross interplanetary distances by it's
@:) lonesome:)
- I bet there's more info on this in the Buck Rogers RPG, which was
-part of the same license as the Battle for the XXVth Century game
-we're talking about. There were some video games as well, which
-seemed to assume that the minumum rocketship size was maybe
-corvette-like. It was a rocket with room for something like 20-30
-people, IIRC.
Well, as far as the ship models go, the RPG you need to look at was
T$R's
Star Frontiers. However, the game's(BR's) combat was rather vague, everybody
fighting everybody without much difference between ships and groppos.
Personally, I think the fighters, at least in my copies, look more like
corporate jets. Span the solar system in a LearJet... However, I don't recall
this one from Star Frontiers...
@:) and the "Battler" to be a Capital class ship.
- Weren't there three types of ship? Fighters, Cruisers and Battlers?
-Well, I don't know but we used the Battlers to represent capital ships
-and had some other way of distinguishing between escorts and
-cruisers. The game is out of my closet at the moment so I can check
-when I get home.
Fighters, battlers, transports. The battlers, to my dim recollection, were
rather like Star Frontier's Sather's smallest ship. I have some lead minis
from that game, and all the Sather's ships were of bigger ships.
> From the previous post:
@(Anybody else notice that there were a couple of extra ship type models in
the @photo on the back that were no in the game? Or was mine just missing
@something?)
I think you'd find that there were DIFFERENT ships in the pic on the back of
the box; box art often precedes finalization on production detail. I was
disappointed that those long ones weren't in the game in place of the ugly,
squat transports. In Star Frontiers, those were privateers. There ARE some
lead figs of those. @:) Heck if I find a copy, there's a fleet or three in
there, once I @:) paint em.
- There are six (small) fleets if you don't paint them. One each for
-Buck, Wilma, Queen whatever, Doc Huer, The Bad Guy and Black Barney,
-space pirate (no he's not a dinosaur).
Ardala(Princess in the TV show), Doc Huer(NOT the sweet guy from the show),
Killer Kane. In T$R's BR comic books, Black Barney was a super-gennie
with limited life like the androids in Blade Runner. I never did look that
closely at the RPG.
Do remember that those lil plastic ships were probably molded with a silicon
resist, the stuff that lets the pieces slip out of the mold, should
you decide to paint them. Clean 'em with strong detergent/degreaser. In
the US, I hear Pine Sol's excellent.
And I WOULD paint 'em. Those pastel colors, particularly the green, are sick!
@:) Joachim: What was the turn time? (A "month" terran, I believe in @:) the
oriiginal, was yours the same?)
- I've been looking for our rules, to refresh my memory and see
-whether we ever specified it. I think we were assuming a month or
-so. It was all deliberately left pretty vague, though.
-joachim
If that was WAY more than you could possibly want to know, please mail me
direct. Obviously, I do tend to go on...
The_Beast
I got my hands on a copy of our rules and I've placed them on the web. If
anyone wants to see them, they are at:
http://sidehack.gweep.net/~joachim/fullthrust/BuckRogers/Rules.html
There's some interesting stuff in there that I'd forgotten. We used the
campaign to try out a fairly large number of rules modifications, some of
which worked and some of which didn't. Some discussion follows.
Modified Pulse Torpedo rules: I don't remember these having much of an effect
but the idea was to make pulse torps more useful.
Modified battery rules: The theory here was to prevent the typical
"close to point-blank range and shoot" tactics that had characterized
our games until now. We didn't allow A batteries to fire within six inches,
and that, with the crippled ships rules, helped to lessen the carnage
somewhat. We also made C batteries more dangerous, which convinced most of us
to buy them (for the first time).
Modified PDAF rules: We didn't like missiles. Better PDAF made them somewhat
less dangerous, but it also helped to prevent all of us from buying only
fighters, because we had very limited funds.
Alternate firing sequence: We allowed ships to fire halfway through their
movement. This got us around some silly situations where a ship turns its bow
directly past an enemy but can't shoot because of timing problems. It also
slowed the game down somewhat.
Atmospheric operations: These did have an effect on the game, and it was nice
to see the rules working. On a few occaisions, ships survived combat in the
atmosphere only to die immediately afterwards because their engines could no
longer hold them up. Cool.
FTL: I like the way we handled FTL. We didn't have a lot of ships with FTL
drives, though, due to the severe cost restrictions we placed on our fleets.
Near the end of the game they started to appear and were mostly used as
blocade running vessels, capable of attacking the soft underbelly of a heavily
defended planet by zipping past the defenders in orbit at FTL speeds.
Repair/Replenishment: We devised a simple system for this and I
think it worked pretty well. We probably didn't have enough ability to repair
larger fleets.
Reinforcements: Again, I think this rule worked well. Players could spend
victory points (100 necessary to win the game) to get reinforcements, at a
cost of 1 victory point per 50 reinforcement points (ship construction cost
units). I think this balanced out very well and it allowed us to quickly start
bringing in ships, since holding one territory netted you 50 points worth of
ships per turn.
Doug_Evans/CSN/UNEBR@UNebMail.UNeb.EDU said:
> First, allow me the pleasure of reveling in returning to the list.
Been way
> too long.
Welcome back! I know what it's like, (or will:) as in about 3 months I'll have
to drop off, due to changing assignments. as for:
> I can't refrain from some comments!
and:
> hope I don't cover anything already done.
the more the merrier! and comments away!
> One thing that bothered me about the map was that the ship/fleet
I'll inject here, that as I see it there are only two types of interplanetary
movment.
Mapped and Un-mapped.
They are really based on how you interpret regular movment and if you have to
worry about fuel or not.
If your ships are capable of continus thrust, (Hmmm, Full Thrust.:) then all
you need to know is the distance, (Astonomical Units, Miles, Kilometers, etc)
and the thrust, (I use 1=1g) and you figure the time it takes to get to the
target. You can literaly get almost anywhere in the Solar System in about a
month at 1g. So most of the time this
would be un-mappped as all ships, (warships anyway) are expected to
mostly proceed from point to point. So with a table of maximum distance from
the sun for each planet, figure the average distance between and figure
thrust. Poof!! your fleet arrives then. Let battle begin.
If, however, you have to worry about fuel, even a little, it makes sense to
use orbital mechanics to your advantage. A map and orbit lines such as BR,
comes into play. You now have a choice of routes to take and opertunities to
attack. And you can sneak up on your target. I'd had an idea that one "node"
per turn would be the averaged transfer speed. I was thinking of giving my
warships a maximum of "4" transfer burns. In other words a ship could burn to
leave Earth orbit, burn to stop at Mars, fight a battle, burn out of Mars
orbit, and burn to a stop at Earth. This flight time would be "normal"
transfer. Takeing a shorter orbit would cost more burns, as takeing a longer
would save some. Of course this brings in the
complication of "bunker" rules, (fuel/endurance) but again I think it
widens the tactical/stratigic options. How long you could fight a
battle before you got into your transfer fuel, is still something I'm working
on. As for sneaking up on your target, it's hard to spot a small object in
empty space, especialy when the object takes pains NOT to be found. ECM,
stealth tactics, and camoflauge combine to make approaching ships and fleets
harder to spot. Long orbits will have (possibly anyway) have the advantage of
surprise as without active drives or electronics ships will tend to resemble
holes in space.
I'm thinking that planets should get "sensor" roles based on the table in MT.
How's this for result types:
1-3 No contact
4 Possible contact, no bearing, except inside of planets orbit, or
outside. Not enough info to intercept.
5. Probable contact. Bearing within 60deg. arc. Can send a
fleet/ship with sensors in that direction to get a better bearing.
6 Contact. Able to determine number of ships, no mass. Bearing
within @ 30deg. arc.
7 Contact. As above, but can read individual ship mass' and
bearing on the clock mark of the arc.
8+ Contact, and you can probably read the ships names on the hulls
(The arcs I'm thinking of is: Take the FT course guide, face the "6" towards
the sun with the planet in the middle. 60deg would be the dotted lines, 30deg
the area between, say 11 and 12, the bearing mark would be, say 11O'clock
exactly. or the neareast one to the incoming orbit path. Make any sense?)
:)
> I've decided each line 'tween orbits will be one-way. Gets complicated
Sounds reasonable so far. See it I got this straight: Ship leaving for Mars
from Earth. The ship spirals out on one of the lines leavin in the direction
Earth is traveling. A ship from Mars to Earth would move along one of the
lines dropping behind Mars as it moves ahead? or is this backwards as you
should I guess speed up as you move "lower" Solar Orbit. (Now I've confuse
myself:) I'm haveing a tough time remembering what the display looked like. I
don't think it's be a copyright violation if someone scanned an illustration
in and sent it to me.:) If IRC, there was one or two in the rule book. I'd
think that it would make sense to allow the ships to move first, then planets.
With the preveso that if the ship is within one "node" of a planet before
movement, (ie: a ship enters the orbit node of Earth prior to the planets
move, or the one it's presently in before Earth moves) it's considered in Far
Orbit.
Speaking of Far Orbit, what would you think of the possiblities of ship(s)
hiding there?
> If that was WAY more than you could possibly want to know, please mail
Looking at the above, me thinks I may go further than you!:) As you can tell,
I'm getting into this idea a bit. If folks don't
want this on the list perhaps we could carry it on in pivate E-mail.
But I am hoping to drag a few more folks into the conversation!:)
Randy Randy Campbell
For Something Out of This World
Check Out: http://www.millennial.org
Status: RO
Firstly, let me retract all that bragging about how I was going to be
fabulously wealthy selling off my BR board game. Only one bid for $15 so far.
Greed IS a terrible burden.
Still, I'm going on with my using another copy for a campaign game system map.
I'm using the lines as one way connections between orbits, and a further
option of either retarding one space(actually staying in the same place after
normal orbital movement) and getting one ahead.
Lines going outward at an angle are boosting to next orbit, lines almost
perpendicular to orbits are 'dropping inward'. I suspect there won't be any
real difference, but the appearence will match my vision of boosting from an
inner, faster orbit, and the tendency to 'move' ahead, while retro'ing will
cause you to fall to that faster orbit, therefore, you fall behind.
Please note that I'm suggesting that the boost/retro thrust is relative
small compared to the orbital velocity; those saying 'all you have to do is
draw a line from here to there' suggest that orbital velocity is negligible.
The moving ahead or behind in orbit suggests a partial boost followed by a
partial retro; the opposite, vice versa.
In my system, you'd be hard put to be able to actually 'reverse' your orbit in
a managable time. Course, there's always the suggestion of boosting far enough
out to be in relative free fall, push over in the other direction(hmm... that
doesn't sound right. *shrug*) or leaving the ecliptic. For the later, I assume
that the solar system disk is relatively clear of Oort Cloud, but not outside
the plane. This is weak, but will have to do.
Assuming for the moment ANYBODY understood that mish-mash, I'd be
grateful
for any refinements/fine tuning suggestions. I'm still scratching head
over exact order of movement, how to handle several incoming fleets(in the
case
of one incoming and one in-node, the in-node has the option to meet or
attempt evasion; in the case of evasion, the incoming fleet has the option of
pursuit, or move to what ever goals might be at that node), and daily ideas
that I forget all too often to write down.
Thanks!
The_Beast