From: Brian Bell <bkb@b...>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 10:40:15 -0400
Subject: FT FAQ (long)
Frequently Asked Questions I am new to Full Thrust. Please forgive me if these questions have already been addressed. Please comment! (Question, my Answer, Reasoning) Construction. Q. Do you round up or down for damage points and equipment on ships with an Odd Mass? A. Down. R. This makes the Even ton ships (and therefore the Stamdard Hull ships) more cost effective. If this is too unfair, the next best would be to round the damage points UP and the weapons/equipment tons DOWN. This is a fair compromise. Rounding both damage and equipment up would give no reason to design even ton ships. Fighters/Carriers. Q. How far can Fighters move when launched? A. Half thier maximum movement. R. Agian I feel this is a fair compromise. Strict intrepretation of the rules using the MT fighter turn, would mean the fighters get NO movement (fighters move before ships). Full movement breaks the spirit of the MT fighter turn. Q. What class ships can carry Fighters? A. Only Capital Class (or Supership Class) ships can carry Fighters. R. I feel that this is the inteneded meaning of "Fighter Carriers and some of the larger Capital Ship classes." If this offends your sensabilities, a good compromise would be to allow cruisers to carry fighters, but only launch them once (does not effect individual battles much (even using the endurance rule), but strongly effects campaigns). Q. Will Fighters or Missiles cause Missiles or Mines to attack? A. No. Fighter groups will not cause automated weapons (such as missiles or mines) to attack/explode. R. Mines attack as a "B" beam which cannot attack fighters. Q. What diferentiates a Carrier from a standard Capital ship? A. For a ship to be classified a carrier, it must carry more tons in Fighters than other offensive weaponry. R. No justification. Just a good, easy to use, rule of thumb. Screens & Cloaking Fields. Q. Can Screens, Reflex Field, and/or Cloaking Field be mounted on the same ship? A. Yes. Screens, a Cloaking Field, and/or Reflex Screens may be mounted on a single ship. However only one of these may be active on any given turn. R. Having screens under a reflex field is just too powerful. Q. Can a ship travel using FTL drive when cloaked? A. No. Ships may not enter or leave FTL with the Cloaking Field engaged. R. Give the poor SOB a chance! Besides finding your exact galctic position and the ending point of the jump while cloaked (blind) in virtually impossible. Q. For how many turns must a cloaked ship write movement orders when it engages the Cloaking Field? A. A cloaked ship writes movement orders for all the turns it will be cloaked.When a ship cloaks, it does so at the begining of the movement phase of the turn (and removed from the table. [I suggest placing a marker, so movement may be checked by the judge or opposing players]). R. This simulates the fact that the ship captian cannot see the flow of battle and react. Q. When a ship De-Cloaks, when is it placed on the table? A. The de-cloaking ship is placed on the table after all fire and before the next turn's movement orders are written. R. This gives all ships a chance to react. Q. Does a Cloaked ship need to show itself if it decides to remain cloaked? A. A cloaked ship that decides to extend his cloaked time must be placed on the table at the end of the inital cloaked period. Movements are written and the ship is removed from the table agian. R. Why would a good captian double guess himself on when to de-cloak? Q. Can a cloaked ship attack another ship? A. No. But you may launch fighters or missiles. However, you must write firing orders when you write movement orders. R. Just makes sense. Fighter may have to make a Fighter Group Morale roll to launch blind. :-) Wave Gun & Spinal Mount Nova Cannon. Q. Can a wave gun be mounted on Cruisers? A. Wave Guns may be mounted on 20+ ton FTL ships or 14+ ton Non-FTL ships. R. This is the minimum ton ship to carry a 10 ton weapon. Q. Do Wave Guns and Nova Cannons effect Fighters or Missiles? A. Wave Guns & Nova Cannons completly destroy fighter groups that cross the damage cone. R. Both are area effect weapons. Each fighter in the fighter group would take damage equal to the roll. Since each individual fighter has only one damage point and the damage roll is a minimum of 2, each individual fighter is automaticaly destroyed. Missiles are similarly destroyed. Q. Do Wave Guns & Nova Cannons effect Cloaked Ships? A. Wave Guns & Nova Cannons do effect cloaked ships. Wave guns & Nova Cannons are area effect weapons and effect all ships in the zone of effect. R. Cloaks are not shields. Q. If a single ship be damaged by the Wave Gun or Nova Cannon twice if the template covers it twice? A. Wave Gun: No. As the name implies, the damage is caused by a wave. This wave Travels in a straight line. The ship takes damage from the template with the most dice damage. Nova Cannon: Yes. The Nova Cannon has a spherical area of effect. If a ship would be touched by 2 damage templates it is damaged by each template. (Example: a ship with damaged engines is exactly 12". The ship is damaged by the 2" diamater template. The ship cannot turn due to damage, and cannot "outrace" the 4" diamater template. It then takes damage from the 2nd template. It still cannot turn or change speed. It then takes damage from the 3rd template. It is rare that this will happen. But possible. PDAF/"C" Beams in AF role. Q. Can a ship using "C" Beams in an AF role fire them on fighters within 6" that are not attacking it? A. It may not fire its "C" Beams used in an AF role on a fighter group that is not attacking them.