FT in centimeter scale?

Am looking to try playing FT in cm scale--what pitfalls do I need to
watch out for when using centimeters??

Thanks,

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 05:34:56PM -0600, Mark & Staci Drake
distributed foul capitalist propaganda:

> Am looking to try playing FT in cm scale--what pitfalls do I need to

I've been playing FT in cm scale, since I don't have an inch ruler handy. The
positional errors become much more important. We ended up
using a 1" = 2 cm scale, because division/multiplication by 3 is more
cumbersome.

> Mark

Hi,

This is my first post to the list, and hi to all...

I've played FT in a cm scale most of the time, and we've used 1"=1cm. This've
worked pretty well. But we haven't tried in inches, so I can't really compare
with anything.

Are there any reason why one shouldn't play like this?

Thomas
http://www.bedog.net/ft/

> Leszek Karlik wrote:

Many list folk use CM scale play, and love it. I personally think it's a
little inappropriate on 'normal' tables as many limited range items,
particularly weopens, and cinematic manuvering, change in effect at the high
velocities possible, though I've a feeling many FB adjustments balance this
out.

Certainly, many on the list play CM on larger-than-thought-normal tables
and wouldn't change.

Some difficulty getting close enough to engage, and the lessening of the
fearsome quality of some 'uber' weopens are things to watch for, along with a
diminished quality of 'claustraphobe' some dislike in a space game.

The_Beast

> I've played FT in a cm scale most of the time, and we've used
<snip>
> Are there any reason why one shouldn't play like this?

I've tried 1mu = 2cm, and I suspect there were a few instances where players
forgot to multiply by two on movement now and again. I've also tried 1mu =
1cm, and not had any difficulty. I think a bigger space (in terms of mu
available) tends to be more benefit for
high-acceleration ships--if you'd prefer to favor broad, sweeping
maneuvers instead of tight formations, you'll robably like it.

I've just managed to lose a battle with the Cancon organisers regarding a demo
game of Full Thrust. I realy wanted a 6ft x 8ft table, but they insist that
6ft x 4ft is enough.

So no Full Thrust demo at Cancon 2005, unfortunately.

Um, a "dum" question but why can't you still do at least some sort of Demo
even if only on a 6x4 table? This year is my first back to Cancon for quite a
while and I'd like to see a FT on the go at least!?

Cheers, Owen

> -----Original Message-----

> --- Owen Glover <oglover@bigpond.com> wrote:

> Um, a "dum" question but why can't you still do at
Just a guess, but he probably wants maneuver to be a factor, and when your
typical weapons shoot 2.5 to 3 feet, a 6x4 table really reduces the value of
maneuvering.

> --- Owen Glover <oglover@bigpond.com> wrote:

> Just a guess, but he probably wants maneuver to be a

Ok, use 1 cm = 1 MU, and don't take ships with anything longer ranged than a
B2. That'll give plenty of room for maneuver. And, if you're using smaller
ships, each player can command a squadron. FT really shines for large actions,
so it'll be a *good* demo.

Why not "reacquisition" the other table once you are there?

Mike

[quoted original message omitted]

From: "Katrina Brown" <mwbrown@sonic.net>
> Why not "reacquisition" the other table once you are there?

You're saying he should go to a wargames con planning to defeat opposing
forces and capture their territory?

> Laserlight wrote:

> From: "Katrina Brown" <mwbrown@sonic.net>
Now why didn't I think of that?

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 09:04:58PM -0500, Laserlight distributed foul
capitalist propaganda:

[...]
> I've tried 1mu = 2cm, and I suspect there were a few instances where

Hm, I think one of the reasons we had trouble was that we use vector movement
exclusively. With vectors, differences of a millimeter or two in vector length
quickly accumulate and my tight formations usually started to drift apart.

> Laserlight wrote:

Ummm, maybe a dumb question, but all measurements scale, right? So this would
mean you would need less room to play an engagement. Or you have relatively
more space to go faster, make wider turns etc.

The only problem with cm's vs. inches is that measurement errors might be
relatively larger, which might have an impact in certain nitpicky situations.

> Um, a "dum" question but why can't you still do at least some sort of

I think Alan is just disappointed that he won't be able to run the truly
grandiose Full Thrust demo he had planned for this year. (I've been handling
some admin hassles for
him as assistant demo organiser / minion, so know a bit
about it.)

Are you planning to turn up only briefly, only one day, or the full weekend?
We definitely want to run some FT demos. Bring your fleet and you can beat up
your choice of Alans Oceanic Union or my Babylon 5 Shadows.

> Katrina Brown wrote:

A quote from the organisers:

> Pinching tables will NOT be allowed as we have already hit the 350

True,

We don't need the bigger tables to play, although we tend to play
battles with 2000-3000 points, so we really need fair sized tables
anyway. And like I said, our experience is that 1mu=1cm does work, but mainly
because we've no grounds for comparison, ie we don't know any better.

Thomas
http://www.bedog.net/ft/

> Frits Kuijlman wrote:

> Hugh Fisher wrote:

More like "Hugh's been doing all the work, while Alan has been acting in, um,
er, a Supervisory capacity, yes, that's it". that would be the truth, anyway.

It wasn't a "grandiose" scenario, just all-the-KV-in-the-Universe coming

in in waves, and as newbie players turn up and/or indicate they want to
play, yet another pitiful NAC/ESU/FSE/NSL/UN/OU/Whatever squadron gets
fed into the fire.

You just can't do this in 6ft x 4ft. Even in cm scale, as the terrain would
get too big.

> Are you planning to turn up only briefly, only one day, or

I think 2 straight days of Epic:Armageddon will be too much too. It would be
good to get in a little FT, even if it's a demo (social game with pauses for
audience explanation) rather than a participation game.

I wish just 1/100 of the expertise in running Participation games that
there is in, say, SELWYG would be present at Cancon. I did well one year

running OGRE with miniatures - especially with the under-15 crowd - but
in the UK they really know how to do it properly.

I still think 6ft x 4ft is too small for decent manouvering. It gives the OU a
huge advantage. I'm not saying they can't lose, just that I've never lost on a
table that size, or even come close. Maybe if we play
with cm scale - which is why I left the subject line untouched (there's
method to my madness).

Sounds like the organizers are not experienced miniatures gamers. US cons
typically have 6x6 or 8x8 tables for planning purposes. Scheduling usually
allows movement of tables to accommodate scenario requirements.

6x4 sounds a lot like Warhammer games, and not much else.

Mike

[quoted original message omitted]

> Alan Brain wrote:

> Um, a "dum" question but why can't you still do at least some sort of

[...]

> It wasn't a "grandiose" scenario, just all-the-KV-in-the-Universe

> play, yet another pitiful NAC/ESU/FSE/NSL/UN/OU/Whatever squadron gets

> fed into the fire.

Out of curiousity, what terrain?

If you were fielding all those ships at the same time you might get
difficulties physically fitting them all on the table, but since you're
sending them in in waves losses should keep the crowding to tolerable levels.

> I still think 6ft x 4ft is too small for decent manouvering.

In inches, sure - 72mu x 48mu is quite cramped. However, in cm scale it
turns into 180mu x 120mu - which allows a lot *more* manoeuvring than
the
96mu x 72mu (8ft x 4ft) you were hoping for... :-)

Later,

> Mark Drake wrote:

> Am looking to try playing FT in cm scale--what pitfalls do I need to

* Distance between ships. With normal hex bases two ships in
base-to-base
contact are now roughly 3mu apart instead of roughly 1mu, so if you used to
fly in tight ADFC phalanxes they may turn out to be somewhat less tight
:-/

* Acceleration is different. If your ships are moving as long absolute
on-table distances as they use to do in inch scale, their speed in
mu/turn
is now 2.5 times higher - which means that it'll take you 2.5 times
longer to slow them down.

* Don't trust your eye-ball estimates of weapon ranges etc. - what used
to
be close range (12") is suddenly the farthest P-torp range band (30cm).
This also affects missiles and plasma bolts.

All in all

***
> Doug wrote:

> I personally think it's a little inappropriate on 'normal' tables as

> high velocities possible,

Inappropriate? The effect of the changes you mention is to bring the
short-ranged, high-powered weapons back *in line* with the longer-ranged

weapons - the short-ranged ones are overpowered when there's little or
no scope for manoeuvring outside their range...

Later,

> Katrina Brown wrote:

I may be misremembering, but iirc most of the game tables at ECC are 6x4.
And not a Warhammer game in sight. ;-)

Mk

***
> I personally think it's a little inappropriate on 'normal' tables as

Inappropriate? The effect of the changes you mention is to bring the
short-ranged, high-powered weapons back *in line* with the longer-ranged
weapons - the short-ranged ones are overpowered when there's little or
no scope for manoeuvring outside their range...
***

Which is still a change from the way FT is presented in examples in the book.
(*shrug*)

But it doesn't address cinematic manuvering, which becomes more obviously
'cinematic' the larger-to-MU the area you play, and therefore still
feels yet more inaccurate to me. Recall the arguments of long ago about
'multi-thousand' MU velocities and how FT manuvering was worthless
because it broke down at that level, and you'll recall I don't want to talk
about it anymore.

Not sure that 'in line' doesn't have a blandness to it, but I accept that this
is more philosophic than metric, especially with FT's claim at total
generic-ality, and some persons' strict interpretation of point values.
So, I will keep the 'personally' and drop the 'inappropriate' for you to
replace anyway you wish.

The_Beast

> I may be misremembering, but iirc most of the game tables at ECC are

I think they're 36x72 but you get four of them for a 72 x 144 layout. Mike
Hudak had four sheets of 48x96 styrofoam terrain for Pod Racing last year
and we had to conquer and annex three tables (we're sure those DS2-ers
didn' need them <g>) to support the full width and most of the length of the
teerain boards.

> and not a Warhammer game in sight

I'm thinking FMAS IV next month will be "Ewetopia" (if I survive this year),
but maybe "FMAS V: Warsheep"?

> On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 01:48:49PM -0500, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

> I'm thinking FMAS IV next month will be "Ewetopia" (if I survive this

I think the situation calls for censorsheep before more of this gets rammed
down our throats.

R

> "laserlight@quixnet.net" wrote:

Which illustrates that today, my 'iirc' isn't doing so well. ;-)

Mk

> --- Mark & Staci Drake <markandstaci@charter.net> wrote:

> Am looking to try playing FT in cm scale--what pitfalls do I need to

We played for many years at 1MU=1", but 2 years ago tried 1MU=1/2",
which should be close to what you are asking about. We now use both, depending
on what type of game we are looking for: 1" for starting
speeds under 15, 1/2" for starting speeds over 20.

1) As others have mentioned, the 6MU radius of ADFC is very noticable, also
for a variety of other systems, such as fighter attacks, SMs, PBs, etc. is a
large affect. The 3MU reduced range for placed systems in vector will also
jump out at you (that's a guess as we play cinematic)

2) It is possible that a squadron of capital ships can NOT physically be
placed so that they are less than 6cm apart. Some others on the list have
their ships based on differing height stands to allow for the
close maneuvering of the smaller scale.  If you do not want to re-base
all of your ships, then you should probably either stick to smaller
miniatures, such as AOGs Fleet Action scale B5 and Turning Point, or if you
are using GZGs minis (or any others with similar sized capitals), use the
smaller ships from the range and "rescale" them (ie use a "cruiser" mini and
call it a BB, use a "destroyer" mini and call it a cruiser, etc.)

3) With the high speeds possible, fighters can be left behind easily on a
scrolling table (max move 36MU, 48 for fast fighters if you use FB
rules).  We often get fleet speeds of 50+ with 1MU=1/2".  Similarly,
this changes the effectivenes of SMs and PBs.

4) The "feel" of the game also changes. With 1MU=1", it feels like a
historical pre-missile naval battle or the kind of thing that you are
used to from sci-fi on film and TV.  However, with the high speeds of
the smaller scale we often get squadrons scissorng back and forth across the
table like a high speed jet dogfight. Remember that with high speeds a ship
may be able to pass completely across another ship's
fire envelope during a single turn's movement (eg out-of-range to port
to out-of-range to starboard), especially if they are closing by even
one course facing. You can also do this on purpose, ie turn towards your
opponent with the intention of combined closing speed taking you out of range
before the firing phase.

5) because of the increased pace of maneuvering, fire arcs become much more
important. In our games were severely limit the number and total
Mass of 6-arc weapons that a ship can mount.

6) At higher speeds, the two step fixed turning causes much more
pronounced discrete end-position ship loci.  It may be impossible for
you to maneuver your ship into significant areas of your maneuver envelope.

7)  P-torps, K-guns, SMs, P-bolts, and pulsars all have a uniform fixed
maximum range. Humans and Svasku have weapons that the player can
choose to give longer ranges.  If you switch over to cm or 1/2" MUs,
you will find that home-built ships will shift towards having fewer but
bigger beams (or just get bigger) and svasku-style bio-ships will
become more "powerful". Several of the others on this list have put forward
that given sufficient space (cm MUs, scrolling table), a small
ship with T8 and a single 3-arc B5 can chop up anything, of any size
with smaller B's or less T.

Some house rules that we use to fix some of these: A) We use a different
movement system for fighters than the FB

B) Cause turns greater than 2 to be evenly distributed over the
movement, eg a P3 order would happen in 3 1-point turns at the
begining, 1/3 and 2/3 point of movement.

C) Use a sliding scale for turns, eg turns at V20 or less cost 1
Thrust (normal), turns at V20-40 cost 1.5 or 2 thrust, etc.

D)  We use a home-grown set of rules for SMs which is a blend of Sms
and MTMs, the missiles' speed is influenced by the firing ship's V, and
with a different To-Hit mechanism.

J

> Doug wrote:

> I personally think it's a little inappropriate on 'normal' tables as

I have never denied that there is a change; only that it would be
"inappropriate". Like it or not, FT's longer-ranged weapon pay through
the
nose for their ability to fire at longer ranges - so if your table is
too small to actually allow them to fire at longer ranges, they pay for
something they don't get and thus automatically become overpriced.

> But it doesn't address cinematic manuvering, which becomes

True. But Mikko left the list long ago <g>

> Not sure that 'in line' doesn't have a blandness to it,

"In line" has nothing whatsoever to do with "blandness".

"In line" only means that the short-ranged weapons won't outgun the
longer-ranged ones by moving in to point-blank range, since the table is

large enough that the longer-ranged weapons are actually able to use
their farther range bands more than just very occasionally.

"Bland" OTOH means that the game plays the same no matter what designs you
use - ie., basically that you have to use the same tactics no matter
what
your ships are armed with. Since longer-ranged weapons need to use quite

different tactics than short-ranged ones need in order to be effective,
and since larger tables gives them much more scope for actually using these
different tactics than small tables do, my experience is that you get *less*
blandness (ie., *more* variation in both designs and tactics) on

larger tables than you get on smaller tables.

Later,

> On Friday 21 January 2005 16:42, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> "Bland" OTOH means that the game plays the same no matter what designs
on
> larger tables than you get on smaller tables.

We once played a game where we practically had the wargaming club hall to
ourselves, so we used the floor. Four (largish) fleets, two fleets a side, on
an area about 6m x 6m.

We ended up with pretty much two distinct battles going on, with some fighter
support between fleets if I recall correctly. Then one fleet was destroyed,
and the victor started moving in to support their ally. It was quite
interesting, and definitely the sort of battle I'd like to try again.

Lots of FT battles end up as two fleets advancing towards each other until one
is destroyed. Ships can manoeuvre, but the fleets are generally constrained
from doing so.

It would be nice to have some long range weapons other than fighters. Even
missiles only have a range of about 54".

> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

> Out of curiousity, what terrain?

One "Class M" Planet, plus a number of GeoSync satellites with good

Hugh Fisher ran the FT demo - and did it rather well. I think he cycled
8 newbie players through, and a good time was had by all.

Of course the last battle, I found out how nasty Grasers are when your
opponent rolls an inordinate number of 6's. by "inordinate" I mean "50% of the
rolls". It was a short game.

--
Alan & Carmel Brain
http://aebrain.blogspot.com
mailto:aebrain@webone.com.au