One of the complaints about FT is that the Fist of Doom is a pretty good
tactic. Whatever is in front of you gets hammered; and while you do make a
great target for missiles, you can also have all your ships in your ADFC net.
There are tactics to make the FoD uncomfortable, but they mainly rely on
getting into the FoD's rear arcs and a) that's sometimes easier said than
done, and b) it doesn't apply in universes where rear arcs aren't a weakness.
Another approach might be to simulate the target ship's ability to dodge.
Use Noam's "Stealth" mechanism at a -2 level if all fire is coming at
you
from one arc; at -1 if all fire is coming through two arcs; and at
normal range bands if fire is coming from 3 or more arcs.
The idea is that if someone is shooting at you from the X axis, you can dodge
effectively anywhere in the YZ plane; if two someones are shooting from X and
Y, you're still able to dodge in the Z direction; if people are shooting at
you from XY and Z, then any doodging you do against X's fire isn't going to
help you against Y and Z.
For those who usually sleep through the FT posts, the Stealth mechanism is
that the standard range band is 6mu; against Stealth -1 it's 5mu;
against
Stealth -2 it's 4 mu. So a ship at 22mu is in the (6,12,18,24) 4th RB
for standard fire (PTorp hits on a 5 or 6), in the (5 10 15 20 25) fifth if
the
target is at -1 (PTorp hits on a 6), and in the (4 8 12 16 20 24) sixth
if
firing at a target at -2 (outside Ptorp range).
> Laserlight wrote:
This is a neat idea.
It also reduces the effectiveness of long range fire (which usually
comes from a single arc), and thus super-big guns, and increases the
importance of close combat and maneuver.
OTOH, using the Stealth mechanic for this makes it harder to use it for
Stealth also. What happens to a Stalth 2 ship that takes all fire from
F? Is it Stealth 4 now? :-)
---
Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but
rather when there is nothing more to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
> On Thu, May 19, 2005 at 10:51:43AM -0400, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
> Another approach might be to simulate the target ship's ability to
Hmm.
So I have HMS Getthebastards and HMS Unnecessaryviolence shooting from your FP
arc, and HMS Popcorn shooting from your AS arc. Getthebastards
fires first at the -1 level; you return fire and demolish Popcorn
before it can fire. Is the -1 changed to a -2 retroactively? What about
Unnecessaryviolence's fire?
R
> On Thu, May 19, 2005 at 10:51:43AM -0400, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
> Another approach might be to simulate the target ship's ability to
Roger mused: So I have HMS Getthebastards and HMS Unnecessaryviolence shooting
from your FP arc, and HMS Popcorn shooting from your AS arc.
Getthebastards fires first at the -1 level; you return fire and demolish
Popcorn before it can fire. Is the -1 changed to a -2 retroactively?
What about Unnecessaryviolence's fire?
Ahem. You forgot to read the part that says "Using a house rule which requires
all firing to be preplanned before any is executed, or when using simultaneous
fire..." I don't understand how you missed it, it was the text in the white 2
point font....
I said:
> >Another approach might be to simulate the target ship's ability to
RBW quibbled:
> So I have HMS Getthebastards and HMS Unnecessaryviolence shooting
Getthebastards
> fires first at the -1 level; you return fire and demolish Popcorn
Another way to do this is to plot your Stealth/Dodge after movement
but before any firing takes place. In that case, I might order -2
against the FP arc, and not worry about fire from AS
or, decree that all damage is simultaneous.
i realize it isn';t canon, but it works wonders for us.
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> I said:
Jeff "My dice hate me!" Fearnow Gaming to keep War out of RealTime!
"'DESTROY THE WITNESSES!!. Chaffing aside, I have no answer: I Excrete Sour
Cream!" www.wigu.com, 29 Jan 2003
XT350/DOD#1890
AND don't forget: Serenity releases 30 September! Trailer at apple.com!!!
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity
From: Inire
> or, decree that all damage is simultaneous.
That won't suffice unless you preplot firing, as otherwise you don't know
which arcs you're defending against. It's easier, I think, to preplot your
evasion.