FT III Wishlist
1. ELECTRONIC WARFARE Better use of electronic warfare, ECM and sensors. Maybe
I'm just pining for GDWs Star Cruiser, but this should be really important,
you can't shoot what you can't see. I have seen some nice ideas on this posted
here.
2. SIX FIRING ARCS The diagrams are really easy to do, draw two concentric
circles, write the Battery letter in the middle (A, B...) and draw six lines
from the centre out to outer circle, This leaves the six sectors, shade in any
you CANNOT fire into. The inner circle and letter should be on top. By hand it
is a bit of a bitch but on a decent vector graphics program it is easy (I like
Draw Plus, c. 1991, for the Archimedes, I have yet to see any PC package that
comes close and it is free!).
3. SHIP STRENGTH
In warships (WW I/II vintage) there were roughly four different ship
strengths: Merchants Hah! Light Weak and cheap (escorts, small cruisers,
Fisher's freak BCs) Medium Cruisers and Battle Cruisers Heavy Battleships
These were a measure of armour and strength as well as compartmentalisation
and damage control. A small ship could be heavily built (monitors) or a large
one lightly built (Courageous). I am not sure how this could be handled in the
game but I think it is an important concept.
4. ENDURANCE A ship could trade endurance and range for protection or weapons.
In FT non-starships go some way to display this but I would like to
see the ability to vary a starships range, I believe the fleet train and
support should be an important part of campaign games.
5. SHIP COSTS I agree that balance in scenarios should not be based on price
but for campaigns I could not work without costs. So DON'T KILL DESIGN COSTS.
6. ARMOUR Armour stops damage penetrating, it does not stop hits. A (bad)
suggestion: Armour adds hit boxes at the end of each row of hit boxes, use a
different shape (round). For each row after the first there is one less armour
box, so a ship with 3 levels of armour has 3 might look like this:
[][][][][][] OOO
[][][][][][] OO
[][][][][][] O
[][][][][][]
The armour does slowly degrade. Each time the ship is hit no damage penetrates
unless it exceeds the AV, eg. with lvl. 2 armour a hit must do three or more
damage to penetrate at all. Armour should be very expensive and heavy, I liked
the NSL variant armour idea where it reduces acceleration (author forgotten
but you can get there from the Unofficial Hame Page). Three should probably be
the maximum armour level, small ships should not be capable of carrying
significant armour without making great sacrifices
(monitors...).
I like the idea of sensors and weapon mounts being scraped off the hull but I
am not sure how to model this. Armour should affect all damage except needle
and EMP hits, maybe other weapons could be given this 'soft' damage
capability. Maybe some weapons should be armour piercing, reducing the
effective AV or ignoring it (eg. torpedoes).
Thank you for listening.
By the way, the code for super dreadnaughts should probably be DNS, not SDN.
the latter does not seem to fit the naming scheme, and I'll be damned if I'll
change now just to suit the rest of the world! Then of course I'm from Ulster
(Northern Ireland) and being thran (bloody minded) is one thing we are all
good at here.
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Just a few thoughts (for what it's worth).
> 1. ELECTRONIC WARFARE
Yes, definately but perhaps as optional rules. My ideas on this have already
been put here but some more thought needs to be given on how to use senors to
find the enemy in the first place whwich is probably more in line with
campaign rules.
> 2. SIX FIRING ARCS
Why 6 fire arcs?
> 3. SHIP STRENGTH
I thought that that's what we had in FT? What is missing is submarines? OK
cloaking can cover it but I wouldlike to see the possibility of a ship (any
ship) being able to "lie doggo", "play possum" until it chose to fire which
brings us back to senors.
> 4. ENDURANCE
For a campaign, yes. But lets leave that to those who run the campaigns. For
one off games it may be included in part of the senario but lets not clutter
the rules up too much. FT is great because it is simple, adaptable and FUN.
> 5. SHIP COSTS
Keep costs.
> 6. ARMOUR
Armour sometimes prevents damage. More often it greatly reduces the damage
done as splinter damage, warped bulkheads/pipes/etc and fires still
occur no matter how well armoured a ship is. Adding additional damage boxes is
probably the easiest way to handle armour. The number of boxes added will
depend on the armour level (say 2 extra boxes for each level) and will also
effect the overall mass, say each level adds 5 mass to the ship. This won't
affect the big boys too much but it'll make armoured escorts way expensive if
they want to keep their thrust up. Another idea might be to allow partial
armouring. For an extra 20
points say, a ship can armour a number of systems (escorts-1,
crusiers-2,
capitals-3). The armoured systemm adds no extra mass but allows that
system to ignore it's first threshold roll. For example a crusier has armoured
Fire Controls. On it's first threshold roll the FC does not test. On the
second threshold the FC fails on a 6 because it is that systems first
threshold roll. How many of us have lost our torpedo destroyers simply because
the FC went down???
Well that's my two bob's worth.
> By the way, the code for super dreadnaughts should probably be DNS, not
Well that's the Irish for ya.
> On Mon, 26 May 1997, Tony Wilkinson wrote:
I like four. Maybe a tighter "fixed forward" arc for some weapons (but NOT the
"straight ahead only"), but four is fine most of the time. Straight angles are
easy to eyeball.
> matter how well armoured a ship is. Adding additional damage boxes is
Agreed.
> Another idea might be to allow partial armouring. For an extra
That actually follows real warship armoring better than any "overall" armor
score. Though I would give it mass. Say:
Internal armor: 20 pts/ 1 mass
Internal armor can cover any number of components. When any of the covered
components fail a threshold check (or are hit with a needle attack), lose the
armor instead. Only one armor section can cover each system. Armor does not
help against EMP attacks.
Why "any number of systems"? Because the more stuff you put in it, the more
likely it is to trade the armor for something less important, like a single
PDAF. You *can* use it to soak the first failed threshold, but the payoff is
probably better if you limit the armor to the components you really can't
afford to lose.
The number of armor sections needs to be limited, or Screen-3 ships
cover their generators with a ton of armor and stay nearly invulnerable for
much longer.
> At 09:49 AM 27-05-97 +0300, Mikko Kurki-Sunio wrote:
> Another idea might be to allow partial armouring. For an
I wasn't really thinking about mass, but I do like your idea. My idea
originally came from the armouring schemes of battleships, particularly
British ones, from the period between the wars when the Naval Treaty was still
mostly in force. The mass should prevent the use of too much armour even on
behemoths if each system had to purchase an armour section, it which case the
cost might be better at 5 or 10 points. It might be just simpler to say that
armour near a screen retards it's preformance dropping them one level, or
killing them completely. I really couldn't see the point for 6 fire arcs which
is why I questioned it. 4 is much easier. One idea for forward fixed weapons
might be that they use an arc between 11 and 1 on the course gauge. Its not
that much narrower than the normal fire arc but it can make a big difference
for the long range weapons. Thoughts anyone?
Here is my wish for FT III, - rules for operations around a planet!
Following the basic(simple) rules for fighting around a planet:
Planetary Bodies:
Put a 14 circle on the board ( Earth class planet), use string to mark off
28 circle ( 14 space around planet) around planet ( represents noticable
Gravity Field.)
1. Any craft that crosses into space between planet and string must do two
things. A. Add thrust of 1 towards plant at end of turn.
B. Turn Line-of Flight one hour towards planet (if this results
in facing
the planet directly, 1/2 the arc.) It should be noted that under a
Newtonian system this step is unneccessary.
2. Any ship over speed of 6 within 1 of planet takes d6 damage from
atmosphere.
3. Space stations circle planet at any distance from planet but move anywhere
from 6 to 0.5 per turn depending on whether GM picks a fast turn or short
turn, & the height of orbit ( the lower or closer to the planet the faster the
satellite moves!) For example Low Earth Orbit (100 miles) is 90 minutes, while
Geosynchronic (22,400 miles) is 24 hours.
4. Fighters (or missles) may come up from planet at any point, but first move
is always to a point 2 off planet ( this is for getting off 1G field and
going though atmosphere.)
Planet Diameters ( using a uniform estimates of diameter): Mercury 5 Venus
13 Earth 14 Mars 7 Jupiter 148 Saturn 125 Uranus 54 Neptune 53 Pluto 6
Luna 3
NOTE: Large Astronomical Bodies (LABs) (using inverse square laws) would have
a gravity gradient. That is to say a three gradient field around a Jupiter
sized object would be a 1:2:4=7. a 42 space(6x7) would be divided up
into three spaces starting from surface; 6 at 4X, 12 at 2X, 24 at 1X.
For real fun try a black hole -> 14" circle at
1:2:4:8:16:32:64:128:whoops!
This is meant to be an introductory set of rules, and they certainly need to
be polished up. But I think they might be fun!
> In message <970527133149_-128961095@emout17.mail.aol.com> you wrote:
> Here is my wish for FT III, - rules for operations around a planet!
I've used something very similar.
See http://www.bifrost.demon.co.uk/Gaming/FullThrust/Planets.html