Various Listers opined:
> Apropos which, has anyone thought of using extra thrust to "evade"?
> that's a bit too complicated. why not +1 mu at 0-12, +2 mu at 12-24, +3
My take is that an evasive maneuver is both more contingent and more violent:
Evasive Maneuvers - Reaction to fire. Can be declared by a target ship
after an attacking ship declares weapon fire against target ship, or on
activation of a ship that is being attacked by one or more fighter groups.
Evading ship must leave one half its original thrust unused in the movement
phase. When EM is executed, evading ship turns one point port or starboard
(direction declared when EM is declared), and its engines take threshold check
at the
current threshold level. Incoming beam/torp fire (including from
fighters)
gets -1 mod (Natural 6 on a beam does 1 point but still gets a reroll).
Incoming Salvo missiles are reduced by 1d6/2 (round down). If Evading
ship's weapons have not fired yet, its weapons receive the same modifiers.
Weapon modifier is good only against the 1 ship or groups of fighters being
evaded. A ship with no allocated thrust may EM twice.
EM can be declared if a ship is not trying to evade fire when the ship is
activated. An initialtive roll determines whether EM takes place before or
after the ship fires.
The real reason I made it up this way is so that I could shout "Evasive
Starboard!" at the game table and have it mean something.
As for sensor ranges, I wish there was something a little more standardized. I
like Schoon's system from a while back, but still would like something
simpler - probably something that didn't require die rolls.
Maybe something like this:
Simple Simon Sensors There should be a difference between sensor traces and
more detailed info,
so I like the Fultons' extreme ranges (basic info out to 600-700"). This
would get you rough numbers of ships (+/- some percentage) and a
guestimate
of total mass (+/- some percentage).
In combat: Range bands
1) 0-12: Players must show SSD's to each other whenever asked.
2) 12-36: Players can see opponents SSD's when those ships fire or are
fired upon. Threshold level of all ships in range is known.
A ship may scan one opposing ship for each firecon it has -
can see the SSD
3) 36-72: Ship mass/silhouette is known.
Crippled/Uncrippled status of all ships in range is known
(crippled = ship is on last damage row). A Ship may scan one opposing ship for
each 2 Firecons it has.
(Ships with one firecon roll a die - 1-3=fail, 4-6=success)
- Ships with weapons that can fire to 48" exapand range bands 2 and 3 by
12". Same pattern with longer range weapons.
- Enhanced sensors increase all bands by 50%. Special sensors double all
bands.
- ECM reduces all bands by 1/3, or some such.
- Fighters rely mainly on allied ship sensors, but their own can operate
at
with range bands 1/3 that of ships.
I'm looking for ways add the richness of the sensor system to FT without a
new round of die rolls or a bunch of rule-figuring.
Later,
> On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Izenberg, Noam wrote:
> Various Listers opined:
it would be tricky to use - you'd have to balance dodging this shot
coming in now against one that might come later in the turn. could be fun.
> Evading ship
i'm not so sure about this. if i build a battleship with thrust 2 and one with
thrust 6, are you really saying that they both need half thrust to
evade? that means that a non-thrusting Th2 ship gets two evades where a
half-thrusting Th6 ship gets one, even though the Th6 ship has more
thrust unused.
i suggest that evasion attempts be limited by thrust points; you might want to
allow one evasion per thrust point allocated, or maybe per two allocated.
after all, it takes 1 Th to turn 1 heading in the movement phase, so why not
make it 2 Th to do it in the fire phase, when more extreme maneuvers are
required? that would be my preference, certainly.
orders might look like: P2 +2 E2 -> turn port 2, accelerate 2, evade 2
for a total of 6 thrust. these orders would allow a ship to make one evasion
attempt during the fire phase.
> When
sounds more or less ok to me. alternatively, you could give the ship some sort
of saving throw, eg roll a die and if you get a 6, you've dodged the incoming
fire. it might be better to roll for each incoming thing, but that could get
slow fast. this is all a bit GWish, though.
> EM can be declared if a ship is not trying to evade fire when the ship
this is in the fighter-avoiding case, i take it.
> The real reason I made it up this way is so that I could shout
you can anyway: it means "i am having fun now" :-).
Tom
> My take is that an evasive maneuver is both more contingent and more
I don't know about you, but I don't call my enemy's ship ahead of time and say
"Look here, old chap, I'm going to be shooting at you right after my
gunners finish tea, frightfully sorry and all that." Speed-of-light
weapons
mean you need to be dodging _before_ you know someone is shooting.
> Evasive Maneuvers - Reaction to fire. Can be declared by a target
> I don't know about you, but I don't call my enemy's ship ahead of time
PSB on that is easy. It assumes that enemy weapon lock on the target ship
gives a fractional warning to the target - like "tone" in a modern
dogfight
(at least in the movies _with_ modern dogfights...).
As for the move cost for evasion, I agree that 1/2 movement is
arbitrary.
Cost should be 2 - 3 Thrust - Probably 2 for 1 EM, 3 for a second during
the
same turn (or 2 with a one-level-worse threshold roll because of the
increased stress on the engines). Ships with 1 thrust can EM once, but
threshold at one level worse because they're making their engines work far
beyond specs.
EM is really mainly to avoid that killing stroke... when by some quirk or
miscalculation you're staring down the point balnk front arc of a
Dreadnought. Then it doesn't really matter who _else_ might be shooting
at you. You want to avoid those 20 Beam dice and 2 Torps pretty badly.
> My take is that an evasive maneuver is both more contingent and more
Yes, but in some cases there may be PSB reasons to get at least SOME
warning that you are about to be fired on - "They're opening gunports,
Sir...", "Massive energy spike from enemy vessel - they're charging
their weapons..." "We're being painted by a targetting sensor..."
I'm not saying any or all will necessarily apply to the GZG-verse, but
you
can usually think up an excuse for most things.... :-)