From: Mikko Kurki-Suonio <maxxon@s...>
Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 00:18:45 +0300 (EEST)
Subject: Campaigns and stuff
I'm trying to cut this down to bare essentials. If you fell I've omitted something of great importance, feel free to pose the question again. > YMMV. It seems that your battles are about the same as mine; I don't Don't think so. I never really needed to do minor floats (I'd just fudge them). It's when someone decides doing a triple-digit speed pass is in his better interests, when someone doesn't want to fight but the other guy doesn't want to let him go... I mean I can live with floating the table once or twice during a battle, but when someone makes a tactic of getting off the table (and the rules encourage it) that's too much hassle for me. > According to FT2 p.21, 54mu is the range at which you can do *active* No max range AT ALL for bogey detection? Well, it's been two years or so. Cutting to the chase here, we seem to agree that entry parameters greatly affect the way the game plays. But, pray tell, why are there no rules for such then? Quick poll time: What do *you* (yes, you in the audience) use for entry parameters? I.e. initial speeds, facings and distance? Strategic bombing: Strangely, the history of futility you outline has not stopped people from trying it again. Victims of Hiroshima probably agree that their deaths had nothing to do with the end of the war, yes? Besides, when the other side's air defence is virtually nil, the distinction between strategic and tactical air blurs as far as we are concerned -- they both become "zero-risk" tactics. Allied air superiority towards the end HAD a profound effect on the war. > IMO the important word here is *hit*. If you - like the unsupported The cost of a body bag is a lot, lot more. Especially today. Sure, they'll gripe about money (it's natural, we always gripe about money), but it's just money. We waste money on a lot of stupid things anyway, and it's soon forgotten. But Johnny in a plastic bag is something else... Maybe daylight raids over Germany were a bad idea... but all the gripes about the expense I've seen have been about the expense in human lives, not cost of bombs dropped or planes lost. Supply: Interesting. Can you quote a case where a carrier returning to home base (e.g. mainland US) was not able to "fill up" due to lack of actual aircraft available (NOT lack of trained airmen). Sorry, references to Japanese shortages don't count. They *were* up the shit creek... So, you don't think the supply ship is a valid target? Hmmm... MD8 fast cargo... that's an interesting concept. (And a bloody real problem with the game, at least in cinematic -- there's just no way to catch a MD8 ship that doesn't want to fight, unless you catch it "pants down", for which there are no rules... kinda kills the glamour of manning a scout boat) Campaign costs: I'm not familiar with StarFire, but missiles no longer hold the range edge on everything else in FT. You could buy some, err, class-5+ beams, or take all that hassle with getting reloads if you want to base your tactics around superior range. But superlative reload costs also hurt subpacks and SRMs which are not "zero-risk bombardment" weapons. Okay, I can buy not free, but definitely not "as expensive as buying it all new". E.g. a SRM magazine cost probably includes the cost/mass for all the magazine infrastructure -- storage areas, ammo conveyors etc. AND I definitely advocate upkeep costs even for the "beams only" ships.