I'm thinking of the following DD, CL, and CH designs for FT:CanAm II to be
held at GZGECC:
DD Mass 30, NPV 97 MD 8, FTL
Hull 9 (3/2/2/2)
1 FCS 1B1 1 B3 1 arc (FP)
CL Mass 50 NPV 164 MD6, FTL
Hull 18 (5/5/4/4)
2 FCS
5 B2 (all AP/FP/F)
CH Mass 88 NPV 293 MD4, FTL
Hull 35 (8/8/8/7)
3 FCS 3 B1
2 B2 (all AP/FP/F)
4 B3 (all FP)
Each player will take 2 squadrons, each squadron being 4 DD or 2 CL
or 1 CH. There will be no teams--it's every man for himself and may
the best win (and claim all the honor and glory for his country, whatever it
may be). I've deliberately limited the number of arcs because I want to
emphasize maneuver; and I've deliberately left off PDS, armor, etc. Comment,
suggestion, playtest results? I'd be particularly interested to see how new
players feel about battles using only these ships.
On or about Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 10:53:08PM -0500, Laserlight typed:
> I'm thinking of the following DD, CL, and CH designs for FT:CanAm II
All the numbers look good, but I don't like asymmetric ships. The CL in
particular looks as if it would be fairly boring to play; a bit more variety
in weapons wouldn't go amiss there.
> I've deliberately limited the number of arcs because I want to
Well, PDS would be pointless given that there's nothing to defend against... I
assume you've restricted yourself to beams so that the rules people need to
know are kept to a minimum? I think I might be
tempted to drop in a pulse-torp ship as one of the options...
> Laserlight wrote:
If this is the CanAm game I think it's a little over simplistic. For
introductory games sure, but I think for this kind of level it would be better
for a more open design system.
As for an "every man for himself" setup the smart side will team up and then
go after each other at the end when they've eliminated the badguys.
The ships are a little basic. Half the fun the the multitude of weapons that
you might encounter. For the offset fire arcs it makes for sides to set up
along table edges so that when they turn into the enemy they'll have their
arcs set to them. I think the offset weapons should be put on Forward arc. Let
them manuever to get the shot.
> If this is the CanAm game I think it's a little over simplistic. For
a) last year we had an semi-open design system and one team got
crushed because, as one of the crushees but it, "we brought a knife to a
gunfight".
b) I know they're simple but I'm trying to emphasize maneuver--we had
similarly simple ships in a game Noam ran and it was the best FT game I've
played. I'm also trying to playtest the ships I'm thinking to include in
FTLite.
> As for an "every man for himself" setup the smart side will team up
it's a GM function to inject a little friendly backstabbing. Eg the GM assigns
you a player to be a target. You don't know whose target you are...
> Laserlight wrote:
I read the report last year. Poor judgement on the Canadian side. In games
with construction rules like that you have to assume that the opposition will
take the max amount of fighters they can.
> b) I know they're simple but I'm trying to emphasize maneuver--we had
I'd still get rid of the offset fire arcs.. that'll just confuse people.
> > As for an "every man for himself" setup the smart side will team up
Ah, you didn't put that in the original post.:) If you're setting up secret
targets what are the deterants for not shooting at someone who isn't your
target? If it's last man standing on a team wins I'd still try and take out as
many of the enemy as possible to help my comrads.
> > it's a GM function to inject a little friendly backstabbing. Eg
> Laserlight wrote:
Canada vs America. I thought that was the whole point of CanAm.
> Jaime Tiampo wrote:
It's an artifact of the name of the event that occurred this year in March. It
would be confusing to the players too, unless they knew when they signed up
for the 2002 event.
> > Laserlight wrote:
If a Canadian wins, then the glory goes to Canada. However, there was
some difficulty last year in getting enough Canadian FTers--in fact we
didn't get any FTers. Fortunately three Maple Leaf gropos volunteered to
defend the honor of their country. However, I don't want to bet on getting the
same number of Canadians as Americans, which is why I'm planning to set it up
to run by individuals. And if Johnny Reb wants to defend the honor of the
Confederacy against the Yankees, that's fine by me too.