Can anyone offer advice on how to do fighter extra movement in a PBeM game?
The problem we are encountering is in a face to face game fighters alternate
movement and breaking off gets free shots so...
If I move first I can move my interceptor to be in contact with your standard
fighter squadron. If you then move that squadron I get to wipe out 80% of it
with no return shots, obviously I have just locked that squadron in place.
How do you simulate the alternating fighter movements in PBeM?
> How do you simulate the alternating fighter movements in PBeM?
Very poorly.
1) Move screening fighters.
2) Move fighter groups with target co-ordinates.
3) Move fighter groups with target ships. 4) Move fighter groups with target
groups. 5) Make secondary moves of groups that are free or who specifically
say they'll leave dogfights.
Good luck.
> owner-gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU at internet 02/11/00 10:16AM >>>
> Very poorly.
In FTFB1, you cannot use the extra endurance burn to leave a dogfight. I
believe you can only decline a dogfight on the initial fighter movement phase.
This helps if you wish to attack a ship for example versus a dogfight, except
the opponent gets a free parting shot at you. Of course, you can modify this
to work as you like.
Mike
Yes, I too had this situation in my PBeM.
I rotated the turn sequence to: 1. Write Orders (Fire and Movement for Ships,
Fighters, and Missiles including any proposed secondary Fighter movement) 2.
Secondary Fighter Movement
3. Fighter vs Fighter/Fighter vs Missile Combat
4. PDS
5. Fighter/Missile vs Ship Combat
6. Ship vs Ship Combat 7. Repair 8. Movement (Ship and Fighter according to
orders in phase 1). 9. Game Turn Report
I also allowed Fighters that were within 6" of a ship to perform a 'Shadow
Movement'. This is the opposite of Screening a ship. Attacking Fighters copied
the course and speed of the ship they were attacking. For regular games this
is prohibited (FTFB1 p.6), but for PBeM it worked great because fighters that
wanted to intercept them would know EXACTLY where they would be the next turn
if they continued to shadow the ship (i.e. the same clockface and distance
from the shadowed ship)..
I allowed fighters to screen other fighters.
I also made fighter to fighter combat a dogfight if one player's fighters
listed another player's fighters as the target (unless the targeted player's
fighters had indicated that they would use secondary movement to avoid the
first fighters).
I used Jon Davis' excellent spreadsheet for the game. I HIGHLY recommend this
to anyone who is going to run a PBeM. I also took his Vector calculator and
reverse engineered it to create a spreadsheet to help with missile and fighter
movement (if you know where you are and know that you want to get to X,Y, it
will give you course and distance). This allowed me to use Jon Davis'
spreadsheet to keep track of fighter groups and have FTMAP still provide
course information for them. If any one would like this, please
let me know at the E-mail address below.
We've decided to deal with fighter movement in the following manner.
Fighters and ships move as per normal. After movement intercepts occur, any
fighter group may declare an intercept if within 6 MU or may burn an endurance
and declare an intercept if within 12.
Non-intercepted fighters may move their 6/12 inches, this one is
plotted with ftmap.
fighters that did not move may now declare intercepts which are
done before moving fighters do combat. 6/12 rules same as before.
Sound reasonable?
The one weakness would be multiple intercepts, but we'll just do a furball for
that.
Seems complicated for a PBeM game.
This would mean that you have 4 reports per turn. 1. After Fighter and Ship
movement.
2. After Intercepts and non-intercepted 2nd movement.
3. After Interception by fighters that did not move. 4. Damage Report.
Step 3 still leaves you with the "what if the target I am trying to intercept
moves out of range" problem.
I would suggest 4 types of movement for fighters: 1. Screen Ship (moves with
ship) must be within 6tu. 2. Shadow Ship (moves with ship) must be within 6tu.
3. Move to X,Y coordinates (or move Xtu on course Y). 4. Intercept target. If
using initiative, the fighters must win initiative to intercept. If the target
wins initiative, and moves out of range, it is safe. The fighters end their
movement at max movement on a course that is on a direct line from the
fighter's starting point and ends at the target's ending point. Intercepting
fighters may declare if they are willing to spend endurance to reach the
target when orders are written. All movement orders would be written at the
same time ship movement is written.
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Brian Bell bkb@beol.net
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