On Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:52:59 -0500 (EST), Roger Books
<books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
> On 4-Apr-02 at 09:25, John Crimmins (johncrim@voicenet.com) wrote:
"Heresey"? Man, where did I learn to spell?
> > It seems that DSII is missing this factor; it's very easy to see
Dunno, actually. That's one of things that I was hoping to learn from this
thread.
> Replace your long gun with a SLAM system and things will be different.
But if your tank is modelled with a long gun, you can't really call it a SLAM
without confusing folks. That said, I see what you mean about weapon systems.
> > Solution? Beats me. I'd like to see something like the FT building
I'm talking Pocket Box days here, not the latter days of eighty billion weapon
systems, 32 different engine choice, and 16 different classes of Fuzzy Dice to
hang from your mirror. And even Pocket Box CW is more complexity than I want
for DSII. Something on the level of Full Thrust, or even easier, would be
ideal.
You know, I wonder if it's worth trying to adapt FT to microarmor....
On Thu, 04 Apr 2002 11:37:13 -0500, Indy <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote :
> I dunno. I mean, I do see your point, there isn't the same vast
You
> can limit this by not giving all your tanks fusion plants for engines.
Well, yeah. Frankly, I try *not* to build the ideal vehicle -- if that
kind of thing was what I wanted, I wouldn't have purchased a whole bunch of
wheeled minis at ECC. Everyone's got flaws. Sometimes I don't buy the armor up
to the maximum level, maybe I'll put an undersized weapon in that turret, or
I'll pick slow tracked instead of fast. Perfect is, like you say, boring. I'd
rather have a force with character any day of the week.
What I was getting at, though, is that when I *want* to design that Platonicly
ideal tank for a given scenario, it's always the same. There's a good bit of
variety at the low end of the scale, but not so much at the high end.
This may well be realistic -- it's not my area of expertise, by any
means -- but I'd like
more possibilites for "flavoring" the high-tech guys.
As I said a few minutes ago, though, getting rid of a lot of the restrictions
will allow me to do this.
> > Solution? Beats me.
Certainly not! Not anything that I know of, at least.
> Now, this isn't an ideal solution. But it's an option. The ESU force
Problem #2: I'm not desiging with any consistent background. I tend to have a
vague idea of background for a given scenario, but I don't have any
particular future history in mind -- all I'm sure of is that I'm not
using anyone *else's*, since none of them allow me to do exactly what I'm
aiming for. Time to change that, perhaps....
> --- John Crimmins <johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:
> Well, yeah. Frankly, I try *not* to build the ideal
Wheeled units are ideal for some applications.:)
> What I was getting at, though, is that when I *want*
Yeah. But most of the top-line modern MBTs are pretty
close in capability. I mean, Brit Challengers and US M1A1s vary mostly in fuel
efficiency of engine and a fairly marginal difference in top speed. The only
reason the Russians do anything different is because they don't have such good
composite armor and have to rely on reactive instead. Oh, and their fire
control
is less advanced so they have to use through-the-tube
ATGMs to get kills at 4k+. I mean, most of NATO uses
the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore, and the Russians use a 125mm smoothbore.
From a DSII standpoint, there ain't much difference.
> of
All claw hammers look alike.
This is because if you're driving nails, the ideal form is pretty simple. It
would be more "flavoring" or "colorful" to use a 37lb device shaped roughly
like a waffle iron with holes to grab it with prehensile tentacles, but it
wouldn't make sense.
Things look the way they look because the laws of physics and the principles
of engineering derived from the laws of physics don't change much.
Pretty much everything someone has suggested as things that they "can't do"
that they wish they could has
been tried (multi-turreted tanks with an assortment of
weapons, huge guns on little tanks, open-topped
vehicles, etc) historically and found to not be terribly effective, in many
cases reducing combat effectiveness.
Once Upon A Time, I played Heavy Gear. I didn't like the idea of Gears, and I
didn't much like the vehicles
presented, so I used the open-ended design system to
make my own. Fast, well-armored tanks with 1 big gun
and an array of secondary machine guns. Kicked much ass, but all the
roleplayers decryed them as "munchkin" or "unfair."
Life ain't fair. Combat is considerably less fair than the rest of life. Not
all ideas are equal, and bad designs and bad tactics will not ever equal good
designs and good tactics. A ruleset that doesn't
penalize bad ideas is a ruleset that is pointless--you
may as well play chess.
As for "Flavor Text" you're free to do this as well. Jon provided flavor text
from which are derived the names used in the rules (HKP, MDC, et al). Life is
good for those of us who like that brand of SF.
If you prefer to run magic-using Dwarves From Deep
Space, then you might call your DFFGs "Lighting Blast Generators" and your
MDCs "Magic Blasters" or whatever. No one cares. It's your damn scenario or
background, go ahead.
The reason (presumably) that the rules list HKP, MDC, et al instead of
"Generic Weapon 1, GW2, GW3" et al is just for the purposes of keeping them
straight.
On Thu, 4 Apr 2002 09:50:50 -0800 (PST), John Atkinson
<johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Well, yeah. Frankly, I try *not* to build the ideal
I had no choice -- I think that minis are just wonderful. Lots of
molding problems, through -- several wheels were screwed up, and I had
to replace the "tank killer" and AA turrets entirely. But the *real* problem
is that now I feel the need to create some kind of swampy terrain for my
table. Maybe a sickly green felt with patches of turf....
> All claw hammers look alike.
Very true -- I've contented myself with painting my hammers in a variety
of different ways. But <WARNING! WARNING! STRAINED ANALOGY ALERT! WARNING!>,
having seen what a pneumatic nailgun can do, I find myself wondering what my
grandchildren's hammers will look like.
Self-propelled,
perhaps, using a powerful magnetic field to drive the nails. Or maybe the
hammers will be very tiny, yet still capable of driving a nail into concrete
with a single blow! <CAPTAIN! THE METAPHOR BUFFERS, THEY CANNA' HANDLE NO
MORE!> And then there's whole "nanohammer" concept... <CATASTROPHIC FAILURE,
CAPTAIN! WE'RE GONNA TO HAVE TO USE SIMILES UNTIL WE CAN REBOOT THE SYSTEM, YE
PRAT.>.
Of course, you can only go so far before in tech levels before you get to a
point that's just about ungameable. Combat Drones, from Iain Bank's "Culture"
for example -- carrying thousands of tiny antimatter nanomissiles --
would be hell on a gaming table. Or even Starship Trooper's PA: Bounce and
nuke makes for a good book, but it's a lousy miniatures game. Expecially if
you're the guy who gets nuked.
> Pretty much everything someone has suggested as things
I think that many people aren't really concerned with historical
effectiveness, and some it is of questionable relevance in any case. Who needs
extra gunners if you have a dedicated AI slaved to each weapon system? And
didn't David Drake make a good case for open-topped vehicles with his
Combat Cars?
PSB -- or P*F*B, if preferred -- can be used to justify a heck of a lot.
It all depends on the tolerance of the individual players, and I think that
the feeling of some folks is that they disagree with some of the assumptions
that baseline DSII makes.
> Once Upon A Time, I played Heavy Gear. I didn't like
Again, quite true -- but history is full of bad design choices, and I
strongly suspect that the future will continue this trend. Keeping things on a
level where
-- at least on the gaming table -- Mr. Efficiency can play against Mr.
Tanks-Built-By-The-Lowest-Bidder and both players can still have
fun...that's key, from where I stand. If that means that Mr.Efficiency is
outnumber 10 to 1, so be it.
And, maybe I'm alone in this, but when it comes to gaming I find that enjoy a
glorious defeat more than an easy victory. Usually learn a lot more that way,
too.
> As for "Flavor Text" you're free to do this as well.
No, no: the Space Dwarves use the PDPS -- Pixie Dust Projection System.
Shrinks the enemy tank to the size of a paperweight. But it's the Pinnochio
brigade, armed with their armor-piercing noses and books of transcribed
campaign promises, that you've really got to watch out for.
> The reason (presumably) that the rules list HKP, MDC,
Frankly, I've been thinking of changing weapon names just to make them more
"casual player" friendly. Most of the current names don't have that instant
recognition factor that, say, "Plasma Cannon" might. Whether this is for good
or ill is in the eye of the beholder, but right now my priority lies in
drawing in as many players as I can.
Hey, did anyone ever attempt to assign a point value to the Hammer Slammer's
"Powerguns" that Mr.Tuffley posted about so long ago?
> --- John Crimmins <johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:
> I think that many people aren't really concerned
> gunners if you have a dedicated AI slaved to each
No, David Drake was writing about Vietnam, therefor he
had to include ACAV M-113s which were open-topped,
therefor he wrote in a PSB that made them effective. If artillery could not be
shot out of the sky by every single machine gun in the Regiment, they would
make less sense.
> And, maybe I'm alone in this, but when it comes to
Hey, I am not going to to TRY to loose. I'd going to design to win.
> Hey, did anyone ever attempt to assign a point value
Umm, I don't think so. There's no way to point out weapons that have the range
of an HEL, killing power of a DFFG, oh and can substitute for PDS and ADS
systems as well.
On Thu, 4 Apr 2002 12:17:28 -0800 (PST), John Atkinson
<johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- John Crimmins <johncrim@voicenet.com> wrote:
Which is kind of my point -- you can use PSB to justify all kinds of
weird design choices. Ogre, for example, has lots of open-topped APCs,
and they use a totally different justification for it.
(Personally, I've been converting those same vehicles into mortar
carriers and AA vehicles; don't much like the open-topped look.)
It really depends on what assumptions the players want to make.
> > And, maybe I'm alone in this, but when it comes to
I go for the fun; winning isn't necessarily fun for me. Satisfying, perhaps,
but not always fun. Best game I ever played, I was wiped out to the last man.
And again, I'm designing both forces for my games. Unless I want them
to be identical, some sub-optimal choices are going to be made somewhere
along the line.
> > Hey, did anyone ever attempt to assign a point value
Could they function as AA? I know that they could in the books, but in Jon's
rules; I think that he left that bit as an exercise for the student. I'd leave
that capability out, frankly, unless I was actually running a Slammers
scenario (which, having seen the Salute site, I am far too intimidated to
attempt). I'll have to look up the post when I get home, assign some
outrageous cost to the system. Another design choice for those who prefer
running the Shadow ships in FT....