> Roger Burton West wrote:
> FT acceleration (in cinematic or in vector) is not realistic. When you
After thinking about how complex this would be for a minute...
Actually, because of a nifty coincidence with the basic FT rules, this is very
... very, very, very... easy in FT Cinematic Movement. Try
this:
FT Cinematic movement divides a ships movement into two steps divided by
a midpoint turn. Great opportunity! Each turn, compute the first half of the
ship's movement based upon its previous turn's ending speed, and compute the
second half of the ships movement based on the new ending speed.
Example:
Ship AA ends the 3rd game turn with a speed of 10 MU. On the 4th game turn, it
applies 2 Thrust to acceleration. When the ship is moved, the first leg of
movement (after even turns) is based on a V of 10, so AA is
moved 5 MU. After midpoint (odd) turns, the second leg of movement is
based on a V of 12 (10 +2), so AA moves another 6 MU. Total travel = 11
MU and ending V = 12.
If AA applies thrust to deceleration instead of acceleration, the same
sequence is applied. The first leg is still 5 MU, and the second leg is
based on a V of 8 (10-2) so AA is moved 4 MU. Total travel = 9 MU and
ending V = 8.
None of this interferes with any maneuvering by the ship. Turns still
have full effect, even S-turns. So, if AA has, for example, T4, then
it has the options to turn P, PP, S, SS, PS or SP as normal.
> This problem is common to all space combat games I've played. Some of
This way would require no additional bookkeeping, just a moment's pause to
remember to compute the first and second legs of movement separately.
(This is probably the biggest problem, as this might be forgotten in the
excitement of the moment, gamers being creatures of habit and all)
As for vector movement... I left my 10' cattle prod outside:)
J
> FT Cinematic movement divides a ships movement into two steps divided
In a sense, doesn't this make the ship slightly more nimble? Goes further to
the side than if you applied the extra half to the first half of the move?
*shakes his head at his own confusing verbage*
Also, of course, halves of halfs makes more sense with high mu movement; it's
a bite when the rounding factor is a significant part of your
'speed'.
Please don't find these relatively small quibbles other than observations on
an idea I wish I had other players to work it out with...
Time to corrupt the youngsters!
The_Beast
Don't worry mate, we're thoroughly corrupt already...
Regards,
Matt (a not so young youngster...gulp...closer to 30 than 25...scarry) Tope
[quoted original message omitted]
> Roger Burton West wrote:
> is very . . . very, very, very . . . easy in FT Cinematic Movement.
Try
> this:
< cut some stuff >
Dropping out of Lurk for a moment,
I'm not sure how to say this and be polite, but you're solving a slightly
different problem.
The problem isn't that you aren't moving the ship enough during a turn, it's
that the ship doesn't have enough velocity at the end of it's move.
To put another way, if you thrust such that you move 1 inch more during your
turn, at the END of the turn your velocity has increased by 2 inches per turn
(in the direction of the thrust).
I suspect the two ways to solve it:
o Cinematic: Just increase your velocity by +1 for each thrust spent
during that turn. Still use the original thrust for movement during that turn.
(So, if you thrust 2 during your turn, you'd use a thrust 2 to calculate where
you end up, but would add 4 to your thrust when recording your thrust at the
end of the turn).
o Vector: When moving a ship, drop a drift marker. After moving the ship, take
the drift marker through the opposite maneuvers the ship went through (if the
ship thrusted 2 and pushed starboard 1, you move the drift marker back 2 and
port 1). Then calculate velocity and direction from the new position of the
drift marker.
Sorry if I'm being too pendantic, :-)
Duh!
Jared,
I'm brain dead. Your way does work (ie it does the same thing, only
at 1/2 the speed).
Teach me to post first thing in the morning! :-)
Daryl
> > Roger Burton West wrote:
Try
> > this:
> On Mon, Sep 01, 2003 at 09:30:21AM -0600, Daryl Lonnon wrote:
You could also do it that way, but that involves doubling the effective thrust
levels (and therefore messing about with scales again).
Jared's solution is a valid one; it doesn't do anything about turning, of
course, but turning in cinematic bears a minimal relation to physical reality
anyway.
In vector, what I've done is to add a drift marker. Leave drift-1
in place where the ship would end up without acceleration; move drift-2
in accordance with the ship's manoeuvres; put the ship half-way between
them, and use the vector from (ship's original position) to (drift-2) to
calculate velocity for the next turn.
Naturally, this cuts the size of the manoeuvre envelope (for purposes of
missile avoidance and such like) even further, and missile/PB attack
ranges should probably be dropped further when this is in use.
> Doug Evans wrote:
> FT Cinematic movement divides a ships movement into two steps divided
Actually, it makes the ship less nimble, as the effect of the
accel/decel is delayed by half a game turn.
> Also, of course, halves of halfs makes more sense with high mu
OK, try a T2 ship from a dead stop (Vs = 0). Write orders of "+2". 1st
leg of movement is based upon V0 = 0 MU movement. 2nd leg of movement
is based on V: 0 + 2 = 2, so movement is 1 MU. At the end of the turn,
total movement was 1 MU and ending Ve = 2.
Ex. #2:
A T4 ship, also from a dead stop (Vs = 0). Write orders of "P,+3". No
turn at beginning of movement. 1st leg of movement is Vs = 0, so 0 MU
movement. Then 1 turn to port. Then second leg of movement is V: 0 + 3
= 3, so movement is 1.5 MU. Total movement of 1.5 MU and Ve = 3.
J
> Daryl Lonnon wrote:
> Duh!
No problem. I started from the premise that 1 thrust results in an
acceleration of 1 (i.e. change in Velocity), while you were starting from 1
thrust results in a movement of 1.
J
First, Full Thrust is a FLEET GAME. That means that some things have to be
simplified. There was a day I was capable of calculating the position of ships
based on simple physics. I don't feel like doing that anymore. The simple
vector system may not be totally realistic, but is far more realistic than the
cinematic system.
Of course, since the "game" simulates a space opera rather than anything NASA
would be interested in does it really matter?
Simple is better! B5 has more real physics than Star Trek. BUT, Star Trek has
more TV shows, more movies, and more followers.
What FT doesn't natively do very well is simulate technology levels very well.
A Vorlon Corvette could toast an Omega fairly easilly. Mimbari ships trounce
human kind pretty handilly as well. Not represented well at all.
One weakness is the fighter system. We may adapt the Sea Power III system for
this. Fast, effective, strictly 6 sided, and pretty fair. Simply a matrix of
all fighter types with all other fighter types. Crossindex the
fighter types and see something like R\Y. (Thing red = 1, Yellow =
2,
and Blue = 1, 2, and 3) Assuming that the Delvian Grimefighter is on the left
and the Skaren Deathfighter on the top, this means that each side rolls one
die for each dog in the fight. The Delvians rated red kill on each 1 rolled.
The Skarens for each 1 or 2 rolled. That way it is easy to build technological
differences into fighter combat easilly.
Personally, it's the simplicity of a class 1, 2, 3, and so forth
laser/phaser/photonic cannon or so forth that made me dump Fleet Action
for Full Thrust. Simply better for fleet actions. I have no problem with a
Vorlon packing a Class 5 Laser in the same space as a Mimbari Class 3, or
Human Class 2, or Merchant Class 1, depending on technology level.
Does anyone remember the old Traveler, stuff that postulated that a Level 2
computer is twice as big as a Level 1? Pretty silly as it turned out.
This is of course it simply isn't about point balanced battles like
DBM/DBA.
> Mike Hillsgrove wrote:
> One weakness is the fighter system. We may adapt the Sea Power III
Do you mean the fighters relative to other fighter or relative to ships?
I feel that there is a problem with the way fighters work into the ship design
system. This problem is based on the combination that the ships
in the GZG-verse are realy small compared to ships seen in most popular
SF and the game works best with capital ships of less than TMF 400. Since
fighters are the smallest item in the game, they put a scaler on everything
else. In backgrounds where the capital ships are much larger
than fighters (like B5, SW, BSG or BFG), the size of a fighter group forces
the size of the ship to be enlarged by quite a bit (it's really difficult to
get 12 TIE groups on an ISD).
Anyone else?
J
On Wednesday, September 03, 2003 11:09 AM, Jared Hilal
> [SMTP:jlhilal@yahoo.com] wrote:
> difficult to get 12 TIE groups on an ISD).
As FT is abstract anyway, I usually abstract out the fighters to fit the
capital ship scale. In SW, 12 fighters = 1 FT squadron; which gives 6
squadrons on an ISD (1
interceptor, 3 TIE/In, 2 Bomber)
Brendan 'Neath Southern Skies
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> Of course, since the "game" simulates a space opera rather than
Yes, because some of the players want a realistic game.
> Simple is better! B5 has more real physics than Star Trek. BUT,
Not to mention a 30+ year head start.
> I feel that there is a problem with the way fighters work into the
Just say "A six-strength fighter group consists of 10 [or 20, or 30,
whatever] actual fighters"
> On 2 Sep 2003 at 20:08, Jared Hilal wrote:
> In backgrounds where the capital ships are much larger
The Fleet Books give tonnage stats for the ships, but the FT rules are quite
clear about being generic as far as ship size is concerned. So, it's not
necessary for a Star Wars ship to be, oh, 800 TMF (I pulled the number out of
thin air) because Lucas says the tonnage is X and a GZG 400 TMF capital ship
is 0.5 X. Instead, you could make your SW ships 400 TMF, assume one TIE
fighter in FT terms represents 2 "real" TIE fighters, and keep everything
scaled.
I've played around a little bit with my own background universe and I tend to
create capital ships in the same sizes as cruisers in FT. Why? Because FT is
too slow to play games with a dozen capital ships on a side in a reasonable
amount of time.
I do admit that there is a limit to scaling downward. Once you get low enough
you have a hard time placing enough weapon systems on the hull to represent
all of the weapon mounts, and you have a hard time differentiating ships
within the same
size class.--