[ft] CowleyCon '99

well, this event went down a storm. the Cranmer Street auditorium was
packed out with a capacity crowd of two (me + rob paul - hey, rob's
house isn't so big).

a game of FT2 saw rob's noble scots beat my dastardly english, but then we
were playing with cinematic rules, so this is to be expected :-). a
trial game of FT2.5 saw the NAC take another heroic defeat at the hands of the
NSL; vector movement was found to be great fun, SMLs were found to be pretty
scary (especially in small battles), and the NSL were found to be far too
slow.

the teske field made a brief appearance on two subsequent turns: a single NAC
fighter group wiped out two of NSL fighters with a number of rerolls coming up
6. the kochte field was sadly absent, as the scots pulse torpedoes eviscerated
an escort cruiser and battered a battlecruiser.

one question did come up, concerning FTL. FTL drives are used as follows:
orders are written specifying drive warmup. the ship continues on its existing
course that turn, and cannot use any offensive weapons. the following turn,
the orders specify jumping, and the ship moves half its existing course and
then vanishes. now, what happens if, in the firing phase of the first turn,
after warmup but before jump, the ship takes a threshold check and loses the
ftl drive? this didn't actually happen but is was close.

Tom

> orders are written specifying drive warmup. the ship continues on its

I would say that you can't jump, or worse the ship fooms as the FTL goes
critical after being hit with all that potential energy bottled up.

> On Mon, 10 May 1999, Tim Jones wrote:

> >orders are written specifying drive warmup. the ship continues on its

i thought something similar - maybe take a threshold check at the next
level, and if it fails, the drive blows; roll on the ftl misjump table, as if
a ship had jumped in range of another. thus, any ships nearby might get
walloped.

Tom