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I have a friend, locally (yeah, I know, who'd a thought, huh?) who is
interested in trying *Full Thrust*.
Oh, sure, I can pull out my books and just play it as written (across several
different books, *grumble, grumble*). But, assuming I want to go
one step further and try to fix the fighter/PDS imbalance, what would
you recommend?
I have an old version of the FT3 proposal done by some of the guys on the
list. (Is it *really* almost a decade old!) It looks interesting, as it always
did, but it has stuff that, frankly, I'm not sure I want to dig into, at least
not in a Word doc with multiple font colours. Things like dogfights, or
furballs, or whatever it was called. They look a little "clunky".
If I remember correctly, the primary "fix" was a two-phased approach
where
ship-to-ship weapons could fire at fighters with a reduced capacity, and
PDS could fire at ships with a reduced capacity.
Could someone summarize those aspects of the rules?
Are they sufficient to add to regular FT 2.5 on their own, or is it not worth
adding them without adding **insert other rules fixes here**.
Are there mass/point adjustments necessary beyond just the rules change?
If
so, does that just result in a point/mass change death spiral so
thorough that we'd just be better off building FB sized fleets with no more
than 6 fighters per fleet until the publication of FT3 or the apocalypse,
whichever comes first?
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You want the simple fix?
Take out fighters and make people pick torpedo bombers or interceptors.
________________________________
From: Allan Goodall <awgoodall@gmail.com>
To: gzg@firedrake.org
Sent: Friday, 3 February 2012 6:12 PM
Subject: [FT] Reopening the fighter balance can of worms
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I have a friend, locally (yeah, I know, who'd a thought, huh?) who is
interested in trying *Full Thrust*.
Oh, sure, I can pull out my books and just play it as written (across several
different books, *grumble, grumble*). But, assuming I want to go
one step further and try to fix the fighter/PDS imbalance, what would
you recommend?
I have an old version of the FT3 proposal done by some of the guys on the
list. (Is it *really* almost a decade old!) It looks interesting, as it always
did, but it has stuff that, frankly, I'm not sure I want to dig into, at least
not in a Word doc with multiple font colours. Things like dogfights, or
furballs, or whatever it was called. They look a little "clunky".
If I remember correctly, the primary "fix" was a two-phased approach
where
ship-to-ship weapons could fire at fighters with a reduced capacity, and
PDS could fire at ships with a reduced capacity.
Could someone summarize those aspects of the rules?
Are they sufficient to add to regular FT 2.5 on their own, or is it not worth
adding them without adding **insert other rules fixes here**.
Are there mass/point adjustments necessary beyond just the rules change?
If
so, does that just result in a point/mass change death spiral so
thorough that we'd just be better off building FB sized fleets with no more
than 6 fighters per fleet until the publication of FT3 or the apocalypse,
whichever comes first?
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> I have a friend, locally (yeah, I know, who'd a thought, huh?) who is
This is my cue to plug Full Thrust: Cross Dimensions from
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/rules/
which I think is the best introduction for a new player. Or if you want
classic FT 2.5 without anything changed, just all the rules combined into one
book, grab the Full Thrust: Remixed PDF instead.
> But, assuming I want to go
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/rules/newPointDefence.
pdf
is my new mechanism for handling point defence in Full Thrust. The goal is to
change the rules without needing new mass or point costs or obsoleting the
Fleet Book 1 ships.
I'm happy with how they work for fighters, not just for the soap bubble 'swarm
of death' massed fighter attacks but also the other extreme of a few fighters
against heavy point defence. I think all the current human ships will work,
both Fleet Book or custom, without changing mass or points; but maybe
specialised fighter types will need to go up or down a point or so.
Still working on how to get salvo missiles working with the new mechanism. Got
the basic idea worked out, but doing a lot of number crunching and testing to
balance stuff.
cheers,
Reminds me a bit of my suggestion that swarms be broken up into waves, and a
PDS could fire once each wave.
Part of your rational is about the same; I stated it as fighter 'traffic
control' difficulties rise exponentially with numbers. Personally, I think
you have to bite the bullet and re-write how fighters move and attack,
but mostly I just don't play with 'em.
Perilous topic, and you're a brave fellow for assaulting it. ;->=
The_Beast
From: Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au>
To: gzg@firedrake.org
Date: 02/03/2012 04:16 AM
Subject: Re: [FT] Reopening the fighter balance can of worms
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> I have a friend, locally (yeah, I know, who'd a thought, huh?) who is
This is my cue to plug Full Thrust: Cross Dimensions from
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/rules/
which I think is the best introduction for a new player. Or if you want
classic FT 2.5 without anything changed, just all the rules combined into one
book, grab the Full Thrust: Remixed PDF instead.
> But, assuming I want to go
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~laranzu/fullthrust/rules/newPointDefence.
pdf
is my new mechanism for handling point defence in Full Thrust. The goal is to
change the rules without needing new mass or point costs or obsoleting the
Fleet Book 1 ships.
I'm happy with how they work for fighters, not just for the soap bubble 'swarm
of death' massed fighter attacks but also the other extreme of a few fighters
against heavy point defence. I think all the current human ships will work,
both Fleet Book or custom, without changing mass or points; but maybe
specialised fighter types will need to go up or down a point or so.
Still working on how to get salvo missiles working with the new mechanism. Got
the basic idea worked out, but doing a lot of number crunching and testing to
balance stuff.
cheers,
Hugh Fisher
> On 2/2/2012 11:12 PM, Allan Goodall wrote:
I think you are referring to the Beta Fighter Rules which can be found here:
http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/200403/msg00286.html
I don' think any point changes are involved. I like them and have used
them since they were originally posted including fighter heavy convention
games and they work for me.
> On Fri, Feb 03, 2012 at 07:42:05AM -0600, Star Ranger wrote:
> I think you are referring to the Beta Fighter Rules which can be found
That's certainly the approach I take. Points balance works a lot better if you
use CPV rather than NPV (i.e. adjusted for hull size), but that's true of
FT2.5 anyway.
R
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On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 7:42 AM, Star Ranger <dean@star-ranger.com>
wrote:
> I think you are referring to the Beta Fighter Rules which can be found
That would be it!
Merci, monsieur!
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On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 8:00 AM, Roger Burton West <roger@firedrake.org>wrote:
> That's certainly the approach I take. Points balance works a lot
I plan to use CPV instead of NPV.
Which brings up another question. I seem to remember there was another weapon
system that had a point imbalance problem, but I can't remember which one it
was. I think it was scatterguns? Or was it submunition packs?
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Hi Allan - good to hear you have someone near you who wants to get
into FT - now of course you may be planning to do this already, but
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> On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 4:51 AM, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Hi Allan - good to hear you have someone near you who wants to get
I will probably use a set of fleets we used one year for the FT tournament at
GenCon. I intend to start Mark off with the vector rules.
I don't see us having a problem, as we both managed to lean how to play
"Grant Takes Command" (part of Avalon Hill/Multi-Man Publishing's Great
Campaigns of the American Civil War series) without too much trouble.
:-)
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Hi everyone,
I meant to post this ages ago, but I've been wanting to finish it up and
playtest it more before throwing it out to the list. With my current schedule,
I don't think I'm going to get free time to develop it more anytime soon.
http://db.tt/0cW5L7ba (link to the pdf file in my dropbox account)
Anyways, this is just a list of house rules I've been dabbling with. It's got
elements of the beta fighter rules, with a couple of other changes I've
dabbled with over the years, a lot of them things I've seen on the list. Some
of its just clarifications on some points for my players. The two big changes
are:
1) Fighters use vector movement, but with a lot of thrust.
2) Evasion - both fighters and smaller ships can divert their thrust
into
dodging incoming fire - basically acts like a level of shields
I haven't played them enough to see how they might affect the points
balance - but the few times I've played with them the points seem to
balance pretty well using CPV. Making the fighter use vector movement
seems to make them a bit more manageable - it takes a lot more
coordination
to put a big multi-fighter assault together from multiple carriers. If
I
remember though, fighter vs. fighter was kind of tricky - I hadn't
worked out all of the kinks there. There are a couple of other questions in
there that I'm trying to work out.
Just thought I should post it since the topic has come up. I would appreciate
comments or critiques.
Randy Wolfmeyer
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Allan Goodall <awgoodall@gmail.com> wrote:
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:-)
> --
Randy Wolfmeyer wrote on 02/07/2012 09:11:21 PM:
> 1) Fighters use vector movement, but with a lot of thrust.
Sorry, are these meant to play with the vector rules, or add into cinematic as
well?
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Allan Goodall wrote:
:-)
Do let us know how this goes; we've heard from plenty of folk whose experience
is that vector is easier to teach than cinematic. Except to
me. ;->=
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The house rules I've written are for vector - although I was thinking
about it and you could probably port it over to cinematic by having fighters
follow the same movement system as ships there too. Just give them lots of
thrust so that they are significantly more agile than ships, but still
following the same basic rules. One of the advantages is that it makes it
more difficult to organize massive fighter swarms on a single target -
not impossible, you just have to know what you're doing and have the skill to
pull it off - which is what we should be rewarding in game play.
Bringing
lots of fighters won't make an automatic win against a non-fighter fleet
if you can't coordinate your attacks. And that coordination is going to depend
on how your enemy lays out his fleet, which makes more tactical
decisions - i.e. a better game.
Another advantage is that if the fighters have velocity carry through from
turn to turn - they can't just hop from one target to another or stick
to one target as easily. If they make a fast burn to get a target fast,
they'll get a flyby attack, and probably take a turn or two to line up another
attack, either on the same target or another.
The evasion rules could probably work in both cinematic and vector without any
changes.
Randy Wolfmeyer
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
> Randy Wolfmeyer wrote on 02/07/2012 09:11:21 PM: