FT Novels (not directly FT Related)

> I've given some thought to the Honor Harrington series and a Full

I've been thinking on this line too. My feelings are to mold FT to resemble
the Harrington universe, but not so much to make FT a complex game. My
thoughts are....

Movement be done in vectors. Basically, if you have a starting speed of 8
units, and you want to turn 3 units and accelerate 6 units, what you would do
is this: Move your ship 8 units in the direction it was going. Turn your ship
3 clicks. Accel 6 units. From your starting point, measure to your ending
point to derive new velocity (in this case 10 units), and the direction of the
ship's movement would fall on this line. Notice that your ship is NOT facing
the same way as it is now moving. For simplicity sake, round new velocity to
the nearest unit, and vector to the closest heading.

Ships' gravity wall defences.... I'd say that all escorts have level one
shields, all cruisers level two, and all caps. level three. When doing
threshold checks, loss of a shield means a sidewall collapses (and in bigger
ships, partial sidewall collapse); loss of a engine thrust spells disaster.
The first hit to engines means that particular ship is hit at say, 3 or
better. If the engine is hit again, automatic hit; goes to DSII idea of
lasers: if you can see it, you can hit it.

ECM: replaces PDAF and ADAF. Basically, shoots at incoming missiles and acts
just like *DAF against fighters.

Missiles: obviously needs to be rethought. I am thinking along the lines of
making them less massive in FT so that ships can carry more. How many volleys
are usually shot off in the books, four, five? Maybe have a damage modifier to
reflect ship size instead; escorts to 1D6 damage, cruisers 2D6,
caps 3-4D6.  What do you think?

Ship Rolling: Now this is a tricky one. Best I could think of is treat the
ships' movement rate as being used to flip. Again, to make things simple,
have it where the ship is either right-side up, or inverted; no
sideways. Yes, I know this is a key defence to missiles in the book, but I'm
saying the shield levels should account for this. Besides, as I recall, the
missiles could still arc up and come down at a ship even if it was on its
side. The benefit of flipping would be in bringing undamaged guns and missile
tubes to bear.

Fighters: Obviously gone, as are carriers. Maybe use them as pinnaces, but
pinnaces were never used in battle.

Well, what do you think? I wanted someone to bounce this off for a while
anyway; I like the Harrington universe, but wasn't sure if these rules
modifiers would make it seem like Honor's world.

Just picked up the new Honor Harrington novel by David Weber (In Enemy Hands).
I've seen comments on other sf authors, any ideas on rules conversion to the
depictions of ship combat in this series?

> ChanFaunce@aol.com wrote:

I've given some thought to the Honor Harrington series and a Full
Thrust rules conversion.  Some of the complexities of the Manitcore-
Haven universe would have to be modeled using a Newtonian movement system as
opposed to the Full Thrust movement system.

Max. ship acceleration is about 500G. Energy weapon ranges are about 100,000
km. Missile weapon ranges are about 1,000,000 km.

I've experimented with varying time and distance scales, assuming that a 500G
full acceleration would be about 5" of vector change per turn.

Other rules would have to handle rolling a ship to present the wedge walls. A
method of handling the varying ECM capabilities could be done with a similar
system of opposed die rolls as in DS II.

A method of missile ammo would have to be used for record keeping.

One thing I've noticed... Ships don't last long at energy range.

ChanFaunce@aol.com said;

> Just picked up the new Honor Harrington novel by David Weber (In Enemy
I haven't so please no deatails!:) (My wife's going to buy and send me a copy,
but dern it, I got HER hooked on the damn series!)

> I've seen comments on other sf authors, any ideas on rules conversion
Shouldn't be too dificult, Armement only through the broadsides, (except for a
few in the chase and bow positions). Shields only on the sides, none for or
aft, ships must state when they are, "presenting thier wedges" to incoming
fire. Missiles built using the Pulse Torpedo rules also I'd guess. Anyone
else? (Just a start mind you:) Randy