I didn't like the "back and forth" of firing described in FT so my fledgling
group has been playing that all fire is simultaneous. This way each player
fires all of their ships then the next player fires all their ships including
ones that might have been damaged otherwise incapacitated that turn.
This past Friday while discussing "stuff" over a game of FT I came up with the
following idea(s) for firing initiative in FT:
Firing Initiative: Fire control systems will be available at different levels,
probably just
levels 0-3. Lvl 0 FCs will be standard cost and mass. Level 1s will be
double cost of a level 0, levels twos triple cost, etc while the mass remains
the same. Higher level FC systems represent better/faster computers
being used to calculate firing solutions, NOT more accurate fire. I'm not
prepared to tinker with the probabilities of a hit. *grin* The mass remaining
the same makes sense to me as the size of computers (at least nowadays)
doesn't change that drastically as the computers get exponentially faster,
sometimes getting smaller.
Each player rolls a die and keeps that number for his entire fleet (or a die
could be rolled per ship to player's preference) as their initiative score.
Each FC system's rating will be added to that roll in order to determine the
order in which that FC system will be able to fire. The highest combined
score (Init roll + FC Level) fires first and proceeds in descending
order
until all firing is resolved. If players opt to roll per-ship, the
which die is used can be decided based on the size of the game. Large games
ought to use a die with more sides to allow greater variation and fewer
duplicate
scores.
In the event of two ships having the same FC score then they must roll dice to
determine which ship(s) fire first out of the ships that tied.
Firing results is immediate so if you lose a system before you fire that turn
then you miss out on using it at all.
Chances are, something like this has been suggested by someone else. If so,
I'd like to read (and possibly steal) their ideas, so please provide me with a
link! *grin*
> Flakmagnet wrote:
> Each player rolls a die and keeps that number for his entire fleet (or
This is very similar to Silent Death's initiative system. In games with large
numbers of ships, the initiative tracking becomes... impressive
:-/
Regards,
> This is very similar to Silent Death's initiative system. In
One thing I've seen from my RPG days is everyone has an index card for their
character, with appropriate modifiers on it, one of which being an initiative
modifier.
When initiative is rolled, the initiative value is written on the card, then
the cards are sorted. Ties are figured out and then combat just goes down the
list of cards. Seemed to speed up our combats quite a bit.
This worked well with groups 10-15 large (8 players, 5-7 or more
opponents run by the GM.) Might be beneficial for larger FT games.
> Each player rolls a die and keeps that number for his entire fleet (or
For small battles this is okay; for large battles, you may want to make a ship
list and determine everyone's initiative in advance for the whole battle, then
just read down the list each turn. Or determine initiative by squadron rather
than by individual ship.
If you're doing simultaneous damage, instead of using an X in the hull boxes
as tehy're destroyed, use the turn number so you can see what thresholds you
need to check. For instance, if you're in turn 3 and your hull track is
marked: 11222 22333 33333 3ooo* then when you finish Turn 3 and check the
thresholds, you can easily see that this ship took two thresholds this turn.
> On Tuesday 07 October 2003 2:20 pm, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
The
> > highest combined score (Init roll + FC Level) fires first and
If by impressive you meant "onerous" I can see how it would become so. *grin*
In large games, we'll probably fall back to simultaneous fire for expedience.
> On Tuesday 07 October 2003 2:59 pm, Hudak, Michael wrote:
I like that, it's a simple, mechanical way to keep track of it all without
requiring repeated (and annoying) polling by the GM of the players for whose
next.
> This worked well with groups 10-15 large (8 players, 5-7 or more
Thanks Mike!
> On 7 Oct 2003 at 15:18, FlakMagnet72 wrote:
> In large games, we'll probably fall back to simultaneous fire for
Personally I dislike changing the FT fire initiative system. There is precious
little tactical challenge in the game as it is. The initiative system is the
one part of the game that gives me a sense of tension. Remove it and you
remove a large part of what makes FT interesting.
> On Tuesday 07 October 2003 3:07 pm, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
> For small battles this is okay; for large battles, you may want to
That's a decent suggestion. Smaller ships that tend to get organized into
squadrons probably ought to be done that way anyway. Thanks.
> If you're doing simultaneous damage, instead of using an X in the hull
That's a durned good idea too. Between the cards idea Mike suggested and your
turn-tracking notes this will probably work out to involve very little
additional book-keeping.
Thanks again!
G'day,
> Firing Initiative:
Could also have a stack of numbered cards at this point (shuffled each turn)
and just pull from those to see the order for tied ships, migth be faster and
gets away from needing larger dice and potentially more tied rolls.
Alternatively do away with the dice rolling altogether and have four
stacks of cards (one each for FC level 0 - 3), in the level 3 stack have
low number cards only, in the level 2 stack have a few low numbered cards but
stack it mostly with middle of the range numbers, level 1 stack a few low and
middle of the range and mostly high numbers and for
the level 0 stack have a few low/middle/high but mostly top of the range
numbered cards. Then shuffle each turn and pull a card from the appropriate
stack, the number on the card is the initiative number. This system would be
even simpler if you dropped the idea of different grades of FC and all just
pulled from a single stack (I think someone else here already does that).
Cheers