Hi. I played my first game over the weekend--the sample
scenario with the three frigates and two light cruisers. We had fun, though we
hope giving orders and making movements gets easier. I like the reasons some
people choose to play in centimeters, so we used those for measurement.
* If a ship passes two thresholds in one shot, do you do the system checks
twice? I assume so, since they'd be getting off easier if not.
* About how far apart do you usually start? The scenario said which ships were
involved, and how fast they were going, but not how far apart to start.
* I need to mark a spot on each ship for measurement purposes. A couple of
times we weren't exactly sure whether a ship was in range or not, or it made a
difference between 3 dice and 6. Does anyone grant something in between (4 or
5) if it is really close?
* Do you measure before declaring fire? I agree with not measuring for many
miniatures games, but you'd think that the distances here are measured pretty
accurately. So I'm inclined to allow measuring. What about checking the fire
arc of your ship before declaring targets? What about checking the enemy's
fire arc (to know whether it can shoot at you)?
* How much do you know about your enemy's ships? How big they are, what they
carry, current condition of systems and how many boxes filled in?
thanks,
> On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Andy Skinner wrote:
> Hi. I played my first game over the weekend--the sample
Yes, you do.
> * About how far apart do you usually start? The scenario said
Usually, I start with one fleet entering from one edge of the table and
the other from another edge; with the gaming table I use that means 80 -
120 measuring units apart.
> * I need to mark a spot on each ship for measurement purposes.
All my ships are mounted on 'flying bases'; which makes measurements
fairly easy - measure from the 'stem' of the base. If so close as to be
disputable, I rule that it is out of range.
> * Do you measure before declaring fire? I agree with not measuring
Well... your Weapons Officer should devote his entire attention to which
enemy ships are in range and arc of your weapons! Of course you may
measure beforehand - otherwise the WO should be court-martialled <g>
> * How much do you know about your enemy's ships? How big they
I use models of a size roughly corresponding to the 'real' size of the ship.
Nova Cannon and Waveguns are usually pretty obvious too <g>
In More Thrust, there are scanner rules allowing you to get more detailed info
about enemy ships. If you don't use them (or something similar), you only know
what you've observed during the battle (or, in a campaign, in
previous encounters with the same ship - I think you'd be able to
identify a design you've seen before, but I'm not sure.)
Later,
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> * I need to mark a spot on each ship for measurement purposes.
> disputable, I rule that it is out of range.
Base stems work best for determining ranges, but if you do not have the minis
mounted on bases just use the center of the ship from eyeballing it. I'd
refrain from marking the minis for just doing this when visual determination
is not that difficult.
> * Do you measure before declaring fire? I agree with not measuring
We never measure in advance. Only after declaring fire and only if the said
ship is currently firing. We consider measuring in advance cheating and if
someone is caught doing this, it is considered a misfire. One of the reasons
for not using hex grids for this gaming environment was the unknown factors
when targeting.
> * How much do you know about your enemy's ships? How big they
In basic games we do not share information between sides regarding what
systems are damaged, but you can usually guess if they took damage simply by
watching a player mark their ship forms during threshold rolls and noting what
actions the particular ship takes in future turns.
Some actions to watch for: *Ship moves out of the main line of battle or
retreats. *Ship is not firing as many weapons as in previous turns when
targets exist. *Ship does not change course when it is obvious it needs to,
such as to prevent flying off table edge or align itself with a target. *When
firing beam weapons, opposing player no longer has shields available or the
shield number has been reduced since last hit for a screened ship. *Player
does not have a good Poker face and frowns or shouts expletives when rolling
for thresholds.
As Oerjan Ohlson noted it is helpful to use ships in scale with each other for
quick visual cues regarding their function and capability. If using the
advanced sensor rules you can determine more(or less) data about a ship
status.
> Andy Skinner writes:
@:)
@:) Hi. I played my first game over the weekend--the sample scenario
@:) with the three frigates and two light cruisers. We had fun, @:) though we
hope giving orders and making movements gets easier. I @:) like the reasons
some people choose to play in centimeters, so we @:) used those for
measurement.
@:)
@:) * If a ship passes two thresholds in one shot, do you do @:) the system
checks twice?
Yes.
@:) * About how far apart do you usually start? The scenario said @:) which
ships were involved, and how fast they were going, but not @:) how far apart
to start.
We usually have an argument just before the game begins. Well, we always have
an argument just before the game begins but this issue causes frequent
discussion. It depends on how fast you expect to be going and what kinds of
ranges you want to have to work with. The greater the distance, the more fair
it is for everyone but also the more time you'll spend just flying around. If
you shorten the distance, you can get right into the action but players who
try to use
long-range tactics may be at a disadvantage. We commonly start
battles at ranges as close as 36" for small ships that don't have A batteries.
Large fleet actions tend to be more spread out, but often still less than 60"
due to limitations on floor space. It's probably best to come up with a
consistent and largish range and stick with it, so your tactics cannot be
inferred from your requests for unusual setups. I was quite surprised that no
one predicted my use of AA megabatteries in one campaign after I demanded we
switch to centimeters so the opening range could be greater than 70.
@:) * I need to mark a spot on each ship for measurement purposes. A @:)
couple of times we weren't exactly sure whether a ship was in @:) range or
not, or it made a difference between 3 dice and 6. Does @:) anyone grant
something in between (4 or 5) if it is really close?
No. We use counters and measure from center to center. In our experiments with
miniatures (not terribly successful, by the way, and in part because of the
measuring problems you mention) we attempted to measure from the center of the
base of the miniature. With our small SFB counters on our rather fuzzy rug, we
generally move our ships somewhat sloppily and then measure the real positions
of the counters
- if your finger twitched or you put your counter down on a hairball
and that means you take six dice instead of three, so be it. It could just as
easily have gone the other way.
@:) * Do you measure before declaring fire?
Yes, quite a bit. Since there's no opportunity fire in FT, you might as well
spend some time figuring out what's going on.
@:) * How much do you know about your enemy's ships?
We have a system loosely based on the one discussed in More Thrust. At one
range (range>54"?) you know only the class of the ship (escort, cruiser or
capital), at the next (range>36") you know mass and thrust
and close-up (range<36") you know how many rows of damage have been
taken. We also give a rough estimate of systems destroyed during a threshold
roll to simulate big or little explosions coming out of what's left of the
hull. Probably the rules in More Thrust are better, but these do the trick for
us and they keep us from knowing everything about each other's ships, even
after we reverse engineer them from their numbers. You can't tell the
difference between a C battery and a PDAF, for example, until the weapon is
fired, but you may be able to calculate that the ship has enough undisclosed
space remaining to contain one or the other.
> * Do you measure before declaring fire? I agree with not measuring
I can understand this for most miniatures systems, but for starships I would
think that your individual targetting computers can pretty easily determine
ranges to enemy ships and such (otherwise it'd be hell navigating ("Tactical,
just how close or far *is* that asteroid, anyway??"). And if you're doing
genre-specific games, you should be able to measure in advance (since
they can always tell how far away the enemy is, anyway;). So I would argue
that
you *can* pre-measure distances in FT (or any starship minis game, for
that matter).
My $0.02, for what it's worth
Mk
Mark wrote,
> I can understand this for most miniatures systems, but for starships I
About $0.02, I'd say. ;-)
I agree with Mark. When we play ancients or fantasy miniatures, we don't
allow pre-measuring, but in sci-fi games we measure EVERYTHING.
(Remember the motto: "Measure twice, shoot once.")
But for those who don't want to allow pre-measuring, here's a PSB
rationalization: say that your time & distance scale is REALLY huge, with 1"
equal to a couple thousand kilometers, so that there is a slight delay in
speed-of-light targetting systems, and ships are moving at not-quite
relativistic speeds. Thus, by the time your computer has registered the
target's location, the target has moved. This would explain why it's so hard
to hit with speed-of-light weapons; targetting includes a certain amount
of guesswork. Donaldson did a little with this in his "Gap" series, although
it was portratyed as a very rare exception to the way ships normally fight.
Just another idea...
At 09:18 AM 10/28/96 EST, Andywrote:
> * If a ship passes two thresholds in one shot, do you do
Yes, do them twice.
> * About how far apart do you usually start? The scenario said
It depends. In my play-by-email game, the sides were about 70" apart.
This is about what we normally do in our board games (opposite sides of a 6'
long table). However, at GenCon we played a large game where both sides set up
on the long sides of the board and were thus only about 4' apart. Depends on
what you want. The further away, the longer the game, the faster the ships
will move, and the less effective fighters will be. Closer together, fighters
are nastier, the speeds are slower, and the combat starts sooner.
> * I need to mark a spot on each ship for measurement purposes.
We play with a "gentleman's" rule similar to baseball's "ties go to the
runner" rule. Disputes of any question go towards the defender. Note, that
this works for our group but doesn't work for all (the game dissolves into
endless bickering). Do one of the following: 1) roll a die, high score "wins";
2) give the ruling to the player who is the defender, and then the next ruling
will go in the other player's favour, and just switch back and forth. As long
as you set up your "dispute mechanism" before the game begins, you shouldn't
have a problem.
> * Do you measure before declaring fire? I agree with not measuring
We assume that these ships have good range finding gear and allow arc checks
and range measurement before a ship fires.
> * How much do you know about your enemy's ships? How big they
This is in the rulebook. In my play-by-email game, you know the ship's
name and name of the class; that's it though in our first games we allowed you
to know mass as well. In the More Thrust book, advanced sensors allow you to
know mass, systems, current damage, thrust, etc. I would allow the other side
to see all ship designs before the game begins if I designed the ships myself
(it's not fair any other way).