[FT] new guy's campaign game

> On Monday, October 28, 2002 3:09 PM, Samir [SMTP:skp@chisp.net] wrote:
what
> would the merits or flaws of my ideas be?

I would discuss with all the other players first, in detail, how jump gate
assaults will work. Nothing will kill your campaign faster that annihilating
their entire offensive fleet on the first campaign turn. Especially if you
wrote the campaign rules. Babylon5 jumpgate combat is not a good indication of
what will happen assaulting a FT jumpgate when they don't know what's waiting.

Recommendations: Attacking ships can shoot beam weapons on the first turn
through the
jumpgate, but cannot launch missiles/fighters until the second turn.
Defending ships cannot attack on the first turn of the game due to surprise
(or: can only attack with beam weapons if they roll 4+ to represent
hitting red alert). No crew can stand at red alert indefinately. They can
launch
missiles/fighters on the second turn.  Up to 1/2 the available fighter
groups can already be in space as a standing CAP.

This will force the defender to stand off from the jumpgate and give you a
good fight. The defender still has the advantages, but it's not overwhelming.

If you're allowed free fire with missiles on the first turn, the attacker will
lose nearly every time when they're not aware of the missile storm waiting as
they can't maneouver and probably don't have enough PDS to stop them. This
will at the least provoke a restart to the campaign.

Don't bother with standard FB needlebeams unless there are a lot of them, or
you're lucky. To disable an average cruiser, you need to take out 5 sytems (3
firecons & 2 drive hits), which requires about 30 needle beam die on average.
They're not really a combat weapon; usually only pirates would bother when
attacking merchantmen. Include "Striking the Colours (MT)" and "Overkill (MT)"
as part of the campaign rules instead.