> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> > You inflicted that abomination on yourself _again_? The book's OK
I hate to reopen this old scab but I have some interesting observations. I've
seen the movie erroneously titled Starship Troopers a number of times with a
number of people. I've noticed that average Joe's and Janes who aren't
particulary into SF like it a lot better than those that are.
I do love the effects and I think it has an outstanding soundtrack even if
there is no way to turn down the inane dialogue. Plus I think if you cut and
paste the whole scene where the platoon moves through the valley, enters the
base, then gets swarmed by the bug attack into a seperate reel then you have
an excellent stand alone short film.
Hi Jon,
As there is a delay with the release of FB2, and the thousands of loyal fans
who were going to trek to Salute just for this hallowed item, can we have a
preview like you did with the FB1 background material? C'mon, be a guru and
let fly some wisdom;]
Hopeful 'Able Spacehand Funk' Retired
All those in support say aye!
AYE!!!
Jim Clem
Full Thrust Site http://www.geocities.com/area51/stargate/2891/ncs.html
On Fri, 5 Mar 1999 04:41:11 -0000 "Denny Graver" <cyberdruss@clara.net>
writes:
> Hi Jon,
Ok, watch the 'me too's. ;->=
That said, I am in the me-too camp, but please explain to me my faux
paux concerning Bugs Don't Surf. I'm still confused by your response to my
earlier bringing it up. I honestly thought BDS was the working title for FBII.
The_Beast
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999 devans@uneb.edu wrote:
> That said, I am in the me-too camp, but please explain to me my faux
i was under the impression BDS was the KV/SV supplement for DS2 ...
Tom
Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty:
DS2 and SG2 if my understanding was correct. We SG2ers don't like to be lumped
in with those unruly DIrtsiders.... (grin). It definitely makes sense (given
commonalities in vehicles and units in both systems) to do the supplement for
both, esp given that you have KV 25mm ground troops so nicely produced!
Mind you, like all things in the Tuffleyverse, they come out at the best speed
our exalted leader can produce them.... so I'm hoping to see BDS this year
sometime.
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999 devans@uneb.edu wrote:
/************************************************
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty:
oh, what difference does it make... you're all just ortillery fodder
anyway :-).
"Leave it, Rico! Mobile Infantry and Fleet don't mix..." to misquote a film i
saw *again* this wednesday...
> It definitely
well, we know that in the Tuffleyverse, Newtonian mechanics does not apply
(specifically, rather than acceleration is rate of change of velocity,
acceleration is half the rate of change of velocity); perhaps familiar
Einsteinian concepts of space-time causality and event flow are
similarly different?
Tom
Fleet Book 2 Bugs Don't Surf
I don't mind what snippets we get, as long as we get 'em;]
Before the Fleet Book was released, JT was kind enough to post backgound
stuff like the essay/article on Jump preparation that appears in the
back of FB1.
If a) he's similarly disposed to do the same for either publication b) he's
done it yet c) we get new backgound fluff to pad out the Tuffleyverse
I'll be happy. Especially the fiction which often accompanies the rules.
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Thomas Anderson wrote:
> > be lumped in with those unruly DIrtsiders.... (grin).
Ha. Wait until the ground pounders take your spaceports away, then see how you
feel.
Can't wait for BDS...how about some 15mm Kra'vak figures to _really_
make my day?
> "Leave it, Rico! Mobile Infantry and Fleet don't mix ..."
You inflicted that abomination on yourself _again_? The book's OK but
that movie...someone should feed the director and scriptwriters to the
Bugs..."Aliens" is still _the_ SF combat film...
Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca) -DS2/SG2/FR!/HOTT-
- http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9774/games.html -
-SciFi & Fantasy Wargaming House Rules, Photos, GWAutobasher, & more-
> > It definitely
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Brian Burger wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Thomas Anderson wrote:
funny, i would have said exactly the opposite, but this is now getting far too
OT. this is one of the points in SF over which people differ more and
at greater volume than any other :-).it's all a matter of taste, i
suppose.
> someone should feed the director and scriptwriters to the
agreed. very much agreed. however, SST has spaceships in. even if they are
done embarrasingly badly (they're all one class! they don't have planetary
bombardment capabilities! they don't have point defence! they don't have
sensors worth anything! they fly about 300 metres apart! HELLO?!?!).
Tom
In a message dated 99-03-06 11:12:30 EST, you write:
<< do love the effects and I think it has an outstanding soundtrack even if
there is no way to turn down the inane dialogue. Plus I think if you cut and
paste the whole scene where the platoon moves through the valley, enters the
base, then gets swarmed by the bug attack into a seperate reel then you have
an excellent stand alone short film. >>
I agree. The attack on the base reminded me of Rorke's Drift from the 1879
Zulu War. But one thing I couldn't understand was the almost complete lack of
crew served weapons (except the heavy machine guns at the base and the nucular
tiped RPG) AFV's with the M.I.. Tactics seemed to consist of standing still
out in the open and blazing away at close range on full auto.
> Fleet Book 2
The reason you got the FB1 taster stuff was mainly that the essays and
background bits had been written quite a long while back, before the proper
writing of the book was even started. For FB2 we're doing everything basically
from scratch (with some adaptations from MT), but I might put a few little
bits up here and there as they are ready......
Hurrah!!!
---
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ds2/
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/sg2/
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
> >Fleet Book 2
I didn't send, but something I thought about sending (as I was driving home
from John's place--anyone else ever drive 190 miles (one way) for one
game? And care to admit it?) which should get an Official Response (tm):
Vector Movement Modification Proposal: Main Drive thrust and Thruster Pushes
must be executed together; they may not be separated by a Facing Change.
This is to avoid events such as: a Thrust 6 ship uses a Main Drive 6 burn in
direction 12; rotates to heading 3; and uses its two remaining Thruster points
to Push to port; its total movement in direction 12 has therefore been 8
instead of 6. Next turn it could perform the same steps in reverse order, to
end facing direction 12 again.
> I didn't send, but something I thought about sending (as I was driving
Hmmm, an interesting thought, and one that I can see the rationale behind...
what does anyone else think?
> Jon T. wrote:
> >Vector Movement Modification Proposal:
> > burn in direction 12; rotates to heading 3; and uses its two
Mikko for one would be overjoyed to see it <g>
It is simple and reasonably realistic. It can be made more realistic, but
then it's not simple any more :-/
I'd drop the restriction on using only one rotation, though (IIRC, using
the "common" FT2 scale it'd take a Thrust-2 ship approx. 1 minute to do
a
180-degree facing change - assuming the hull structure is up to it, of
course, since the shear stresses would be fairly big <g> - and that
leaves quite a lot of time in a 15- or 20-minute turn <g>).
Later,
> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> >Vector Movement Modification Proposal:
it sounds logical to me - there appears to be a loophole here, and this
seems an effective way of closing it. i don't think we lose all that much
because of it, do we?
Tom
> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Jon T. wrote:
they
> > >may not be separated by a Facing Change.
the trouble is, a ship's turning ability is not proportional to its linear
acceleration ability; longer (ie bigger) ships turn more slowly. i think a
ship twice as long turns one quarter as fast (ie, takes 4 times longer) but
don't quote me on that. thus, a linear scale between angular and linear
acceleration is somewhat incorrect. still, as has been noted, this is a game.
> I'd drop the restriction on using only one rotation, though (IIRC,
well, the mechanics as they stand suggest that ships apply thrust in one big
push at the start of the turn; this is why, when you apply thrust to go, say,
from speed 6 to speed 10, you move 10 units over the turn, not
8.
now, 1 Mu = 1000 km, 1 Tu = 1000 s (= 16'40") gives 1 Th = 1 m/s2, or,
say, 10 m/s2 applied for 100 s at the start of the turn. thus ships will
be built with accelerations on the order of a few gravities in mind. however,
thrust (when the engine is at the back) produces compressive stress, whereas
spinning produces shear and tension stress. building hulls from concrete is
thus probably a bad idea.
Tom
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> the trouble is, a ship's turning ability is not proportional to its
But for larger ships, you've purchased larger engines already - 1 Thust
Point for a Mass 10 ship Does not equal 1 Thrust Point for a Mass 100 ship.
Since engines purchaced of for any size ship are proportional to the size of
the ship, wouldn't they be able to pivot the ship equally?
Chan
> At 1:20 AM -0800 3/7/99, Ground Zero Games wrote:
That looks like rules-lawyering to me. I vote that it gets banned asap.
> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Channing Faunce wrote:
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
i'm afraid not. it's really easiest to explain this with algebra (well,
it's easiest for me :-), but i'll put it in English v1.0.4 for now ...
the amount of turning force you get from a given engine is proportional to the
thrust of the engine and the distance from the axis of turning, ie the length
of the ship.
the angular acceleration is proportional to the amount of turning force
applied and inversely proportional to the mass of the ship and the square of
the length of the ship.
thus, the angular acceleration is proportional to the thrust divided by the
mass and length.
the linear acceleration of a ship is proportional to the thrust of the engine
divided by the mass of the ship.
thus, the angular acceleration is proportional to the linear acceleration
divided by the length of the ship.
this is a *very* rough and ready approximation, but you get my point -
even once you've factored out mass, if your ship is bigger, it turns more
slowly. also, i think the time taken for a turn is inversely proportional to
the square of the angular acceleration, so if your ship is twice as long, it
turns four times slower. bummer.
i hope this clarifies things.
Tom
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> > It is simple and reasonably realistic. It can be made more
Unless my brain is off-line (my books are at work, so I can't
double-check :-( ):
For a ship with the same Mass and the same thrusters but longer, the improved
torque should pretty much cancel the increased (Hm. Angular inertia? Usually
denoted "J" in the formulas <g> Don't remember the
English term for it :-( ), so the turn-around time shouldn't be that
different.
If the ship is twice as heavy but with the same thrusters, it would of
course turn slower - but in this case we're comparing ships with
different thrust ratings, since FB thrusters are proportional to the Mass of
the ship.
Later,
> > the trouble is, a ship's turning ability is not proportional to its
(snip algebra)
All very interesting, while being totally irrelevant to the Loophole Plug I
suggested.
The rules currently written allow a Thrust 4 or higher ship to use Main Drive,
Rotate, Thruster Push, to get an total vector change of more than the Main
Drive rating. IMHO, it doesn't make sense to allow this. Requiring Main Drive
and Thruster Push to be executed together, without an intervening Rotation, is
a simple way to fix this. Anyone DISagree?
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
> > This is to avoid events such as: a Thrust 6 ship uses a Main Drive
I agree. I always thought that Pushes were too powerful. I would be in favor
of limiting Pushes to 1". The thrusters are designed for attitude adjustment
or docking maneuvers, Anything more than 1" seems that it would be beyond the
capabilities of the thrusters.
---
> PERRYG1@aol.com writes:
> But one thing I couldn't understand was the almost complete lack of
The politics in both the book and film stress the morally-
improving (and citizenship-confirming) need for the individual to
make their contribution to society through (life-threatening)
military action.
To represent this cinematically, it doesn't make much sense to
have crew-served weapons or AFV's... what sort of *individual*
contribution would that be?
> At 04:31 PM 3/7/99 +0000, you wrote:
they may
> >not be separated by a Facing Change.
That depends entirely on how rapidly your squadron is approaching the edge of
the map....
^_^;
I haven't done that recently, but I did pull something similar one time
when Mark & I had a playtest game -- this was when you had more maneuver
points (vector movement, mind!), but could only change facing by 1 point per
maneuver point.
> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
that's what i thought the first time i looked at it; it turns out moment of
inertia scales with the *square* of length, so it doesn't cancel.
> (Hm. Angular
angular inertia is what it should be called; it's usually called moment of
inertia, just to keep you on your toes. afaik, the usual abbreviation is I,
but this varies from person to person.
Tom
> On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, David Brewer wrote:
> PERRYG1@aol.com writes:
a much more effective contribution :-). seriously, though, i would have
thought the close teamwork you have to learn in the armed forces would be
quite an improving education. still, that's a rather anti-heinlein
perspective on things. plus, how do you explain the fleet? that's rather
cooperative, and yet that guarantees citizenship too.
Tom
Subject line discipline
this is now a interleaved thread on rotational physics
and why STT rools/sucks and nothing really to do with FB2
preview which is why I'm following it.
> The rules currently written allow a Thrust 4 or higher ship to use Main
Requiring
> Main Drive and Thruster Push to be executed together, without an
A nice simple fix that eliminates the one problem, at a small loss of
flexibility. This came up once before with a post about a 'flip-turn' -
MD 8 burn straight forward, rotate 90 degrees, thruster push 3, for a total
movement
of 11 - obviously outside the envelope. The following is a re-post of my
reply:
--------------
The problem with these maneuvers 'outside the envelope' is an incorrect
assumption of what valid orders are. While the rules allow silly constructions
like this, common sense does not. I will try to point out how common sense in
orders will alleviate this difficulty.
If we assume you have a main drive of 8, with thrusters of 4, this would seem
to imply that my applying the full power on your main drive over the course of
the turn will change your velocity by 8 in the direction of your facing,
right? And that burning your thrusters over the full course of the turn could
push you perpendicular to your facing a maximum of 4. (again, keeping with the
magical handwaving to erase the fact that it's really only half that, but at
least staying with the same inconsistency everyone else
is.)
*Concurrent Maneuvers* Orders can be written in any sequence. That's fine and
dandy. However, it is not reasonable to assume that a MD8, TP3,PS3 will change
my vector by 11 in the direction of my initial facing. Why? Because the MD8
burn takes the entire length of the turn! Even if you assume that rotations
occur quickly and will 'give' them to me for free at the end (or even
beginning) of my
movement, the PS3 requires another 3/4 turn to execute. Now of course
everyone is screaming at me that things happen concurrently, not sequenced all
at once, but they would HAVE to be sequenced to achieve the above result.
*Vectors over time* I contend that since the MD burn is applied over the
course of movement, you will need to break the vectors down further. and apply
them in smaller increments. Move MD4, PS1.5 execute the turn, move the
remaining MD4, PS1.5. now look at where you are at. They are NOT the same
location. In
the 'massively broken' hack we began with the velocity is +11 in the
direction of original facing. In the second the velocity +6 (6.04
actually) in a direction about 30 degrees to port from the original facing.
To make it more accurate (for a continuous burn, smooth rotation over the
course of the turn) - Divide both the MD and Pushes by the points of
facing
change+1, and perform the maneuver in those discreet steps, turning one
facing between each movement. So for the above, we have 4 segments of MD
1, and 4 segments of PS 3/4. Applying these as described gives a
velocity change of right near 7 in a direction of 30 deg to port from original
facing. Note that what we have done is a simple matter of 'Successive
approximations'. Sure calculus would be more 'correct', but why bother
-
you are moving minis on the table anyway - turn and move. The point is
that it is the assumptions of what are valid orders that are causing some of
these abuses.
*Sequenced Maneuvers* OK, with that said, you say that you WANT to do
sequenced maneuvers? Fine with me. But remember that the sequence cannot be
any longer in 'time' that one turn. I propose adding a single character to the
normal order
writing conventions - "/". This separates sequenced movement.
Continuing
with the above example, you want to burn MD4/TP1/PS3+MD4, you can't.
Sorry.
But you could do MD4/TP1/PS2+MD4. Do you see why? The first step in
the sequence is MD4, that takes half the turn. The next is TP1, which I am
counting here as instantaneous (partly to ease explanation, but that is
how it is being used), finally the last step is PS3+MD4 (first example,
and the PS3 takes 3/4 turn to execute - BZZZZ, sorry, but your time has
expired) or PS2+MD4 (second example, and it fits within the remaining
1/2
turn).