[FT] Agility

How many of you vac heads would like to see a ship's Turn ability be uncoupled
from its Thrust rating? For example, perhaps you could build:
Freighter: Thrust  4 / Turn 1
Courier: Thrust 7 / Turn 2
Destroyer: Thrust 4 / Turn 5 (note that Turn is greater than Thrust on
this one)

And if you like the idea, what house rules would you suggest?

From: "Laserlight"

> How many of you vac heads would like to see a ship's Turn ability be

I quite like the fact that thrust and turn are coupled, so you have to
trade-off between one or the other. If you wanted to represent a range
of manoeuvre ability, how about changing the amount of thrust you must use for
a particular manoeuvre:

Human military drives (standard)  : 1 thrust = 1 turn point (max 1/2
thrust can be used for turning)
Human civilian drives : 2 thrust = 1 turn point (max 1/2 thrust can be
used for turning)
Human freighter drives (standard)  : 3 thrust = 1 turn point (max 1/2
thrust can be used for turning)

Kra'Vak advanced drives: 1 thrust = 1 turn point (all thrust can be used for
turning) Kra'Vak 'super advanced' drives 1 thrust = 2 turn points (all thrust
can be used for turning)

And so on...

Steve Scothern

> How many of you vac heads would like to see a ship's Turn ability be

In spite of the term cinematic, and the advent of 'vector', my limited work
with air tables gave me the feeling that the FTII relation of
thrust/turn
is an admittedly simplistic, yet useful, modeling of rocket mechanics over
very limited ranges. The effects of different classes/types of naval
ships you cite occurs because of movement through a medium, of course.

However, for those who find cinematic totally illogical, and that it's
actually tactical 'warp' movement, the medium can be warp/gravitic
space, and decoupling might be in order.

Definitely an alternative to me, and not terribly interesting.

The_Beast

This would provide a quasi-vector feel in
cinematic. the problem arises when written orders resolve, as the sensors
would 'see' a change in heading and a higher thrust ship could not react to a
lower ship movement. Answer: Throw out written movement, resolve in thrust
order; lowest to highest. The suggestion for the turn ability is to
allow any/all thrust to be used for turning but
not for acceleration. (I.E. remove the half thrust limit) More than likely
ships would be built with lower than current thrust and wider weapons arcs
or more weapons.   Alternately, one could go for
higher thrust, a positional advantage, with fewer weapons but larger arcs.

Bye for now, John L.

> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

Our house rule, posted previously in the VV discussion:

We use the following with Cinematic movement. The basic idea can easily be
adapted to Vector.

SEMI-CINEMATIC DRIVE
This was designed to simulate ships depicted with large main engines in the
rear which are shown to move cinmaticly, such as SW, B5 Narn and Centuari, BSG
(original), etc. PSB is that there is a "gravitic" array on the front and
sides of the ship's bow that allows it to conserve its momentum when making
turns, thus turning cinematicly.

This system allows ships built with the standard construction rules to be used
with no change (such as MASS or NPV) other than to the engine icons. It allows
a wider range of damage scenarios ("main engines at 75%, Captain!"), as well
as some interesting things like not being able to turn right
*cough*Bismark*cough*.:)

MAIN DRIVE MD thrust is bought at a rate of 5% TMF per 2 MD points and 2 PV
per
MASS.  Each 2 points is represented by a standard drive-2 icon on the
SSD (so a thrust-4 ship has two MD-2 icons).  MD thrust can only be
used to accelerate the ship. It may not be used for deceleration or turns.

MANEUVER ARRAY Maneuvering thrust is bought at a rate of 5% TMF per Maneuver
point and
2 PV per MASS.  A maneuver point can be used to make a 1-point course
change or to decelerate by 1mu. It may not be used for acceleration. The
system is assumed to be able to use the entire Maneuver capability in any
direction represented by the arrays: Port, Starboard, Forward (Deceleration).

The Maneuver System is represented by a group of 4 symbols. First is a simple
box containing a number (the maneuver rating), representing the
gravity/warp/whatever generator deep inside the ship.  Around the box
are three isosoles triangles pointing to the right, left, and forward, with
the base of each triangle connected to the box by a line like that connecting
a SML to its magazine. These represent the arrays on the surface of the ship.

THRESHOLD CHECKS When a ship takes a threshold check, roll seperately for each
MD icon. For each icon that fails a threshold check, roll one die.
1-3 = 1 thrust point is damaged
4-5 = 2 thrust points damaged
6 = 2 thrust points damaged and roll again for the same icon. If an icon takes
more than 2 points damaged at a given time, then for each additional point
damaged 1 point is not repairable during the course of the game. e.g. an icon
has 1 point damaged and fails a second threshhold for 2 points damaged (total
3), now one point is damaged and unrepairable, while the second is damaged but
repairable.

When taking Threshold checks, roll for the maneuvering arrays before the
maneuvering generator. If an array fails, then the ship's ability to maneuver
is reduced. The forward array is required to decelerate, the left array to
make starboard turns, and the right array to make port turns.

After checking for the arrays, if none failed the check, then the main system
takes its check as if it were a Core System. If any of the Arrays failed their
check, then then main system takes its check as a normal system. If the Main
Manuvering system fails its check, roll a die.
1-3 = 1 maneuver point is damaged
4-5 = 2 maneuver points damaged
6 = 2 maneuver points damaged and roll again

J

> At 8:19 PM -0400 3/5/05, Laserlight wrote:

I think it's a good idea, mostly for ships which are fast in straight lines
but can't turn. I wouldn't expect any ships to have a turn rating higher than
main thrust.

> And if you like the idea, what house rules would you suggest?

Nothing as detailed as JL Hilal but...

Standard drive: each 5% mass buys 1 level, which can be used for 1 MU of
acceleration, and 1 MU of deacceleration OR turning 1 course facing. Points
value still mass x 2.

The division between deacceleration and turning must be specified at ship
design time: the default is half rounded down for turning, rest on
deacceleration. In any
turn the combined accelerations/turns/deaccelerations
cannot exceed the total level of the drive.

(We'd probably need a rule "a ship must have at least 1 level of
deacceleration" to keep munchkins at bay.)

The existing ships would all accelerate and turn as they do now, but would
have only half the "braking power" to slow down. I'm used to spaceships having
the big nozzles all facing backwards anyway, so I wouldn't mind the loss of
existing capability.

A typical Drive-4 ship has Thrust 4 / Turn 2 / Brake 2.
In your examples, the courier would have standard Thrust
7 / Turn 2 / Brake 5. The destroyer isn't possible, the
nearest would be Thrust 4 / Turn 3 / Brake 1.

Advanced drive: as per current Savasku and Kravak, each 5% costs mass x 3.
Division between deacceleration and turning can be changed at any time rather
than being fixed. All the current ships with advanced drives would work
exactly as they do now. Your example destroyer can
almost be built, with drive Thrust 4 / Turn 4 / Brake 4.

And the consumer/inferior drive: each level costs mass x 1,
needs 2 levels to accelerate or deaccelerate by 1 MU, or
to turn 1 course facing. Plus a special rule for thrust-1
inferior drives: write an order to change velocity or course by 1, move ship
unchanged on this turn, on the following turn the change takes effect. No
additional order may be written until the previoius one has taken effect, ie
you can only change every second turn at best.

cheers,