We have a polite difference of opinion in our FT group about what kind of
information should be freely shared during a game of Full Thrust, so I thought
I'd ask what the rest of you think, or how you guys play it:
After a game has started (meaning ship designs are finalized, etc) do you guys
and gals keep your SSDs secret from the other players or do you let them see
them?
If someone asks, is a player obligated to tell another player his ship's
velocity?
During the PDS allocation phase, is the player with the fighters obligated to
accurately disclose what TYPES of fighters are contained in each group?
This last ?? isn't so much about in-game secrets:
I thought there was something about torpedo fighters being generally banned
from the Tuffleyverse canon by Jon T. himself, but I haven't been able to find
anything about that in the archives... am I mistaken completely?
TIA
> We have a polite difference of opinion in our FT group about what kind
> thought I'd ask what the rest of you think, or how you guys play it:
I'd say you'd only give them the amount of hull damage a craft has and
that's it. How would I know, as an opposing ship captain, if that ship
1,000,000 bogo-pseudo-au away has a downed beam 2?
The only way I'd know is if the other ship failed to shoot with it.
As to fighters I'm under the impression that the bridge crew/systems
would have a pretty good guess as to the type of fighter based on its current
track.
Same with ship velocity...that is just known to the opposing fleets.
> At 2:51 PM -0500 2/7/05, Flak Magnet (Tim) wrote:
SSDs no. If we're using some form of Sensor rules, sure, according to the
chart and rolls. We do allow one to get an idea of damage, X number of rolls.
> If someone asks, is a player obligated to tell another player his
It should be clear and obvious. In RL, it'd be shown based on the plot that
would show the ship.
> During the PDS allocation phase, is the player with the fighters
I'd put it at a simple query (think of it as close up sensors...hard to
conceal that stuff when the signal strength is that strong). What's that and
that?
> After a game has started (meaning ship designs are finalized, etc) do
I assume their Naval Intel has a pretty good idea what the ship will do, so we
share SSDs.
> If someone asks, is a player obligated to tell another player his
Yes, always.
> During the PDS allocation phase, is the player with the fighters
I'd say you're likely to have different targeting radar for different model
fighter/weapon combos, so I'd say "yes", but I wouldn't argue too much
if the general feeling was "no".
> At 4:33 PM -0500 2/7/05, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
do you
> guys and gals keep your SSDs secret from the other players or do you
Ahh, yes, SSDs should be seen prior to battle start, or at least a generic
SSD. Some ships should be able to deviate.
> On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 04:39:10PM -0500, Ryan Gill wrote:
> Ahh, yes, SSDs should be seen prior to battle start, or at least a
I've played with fully-open and fully-concealed SSDs (in the latter
case we only grudgingly revealed screen levels). I can't say I thought it made
a huge difference to the game, and usually play open these days.
Since there's no official rule on how this aspect of the game is to be played,
I'd say that as long as people can agree in advance on what's to be done there
shouldn't be a problem.
R
In general we play that SSD's are available before the game - you should
know what a "Tribune" Class cruiser is capable of, but once the game starts,
damage is now known, so SSD's of the player are not open knowledge. Blank
SSD's of the appropiate class may be shared.
Velocity is open information, otherwise you have everyone sitting around
watching everyone else move, and then measuring and recording the move. Why
bother since the moving player has already done all that work?
We usually don't disclose types of fighters in a group until they fire, then
they are marked specifically. The thought being that the fighters
are stealthed/ECM'd enough that individual identification would be
difficult at standard engagement ranges. Perhaps this opens the can of worms
for Advanced PDF's that allow picking out individual targets?
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> "Flak Magnet (Tim)" wrote:
Generally play open SSD, but the few times that I've played closed
SSD we allowed knowledge of whather screens were up/down, and whether
firecontrols were active or not (PSBing that not all FireCons are 100% passive
systems, that there are active elements to it; otherwise
how do you handle the "they're locking weapons!" bits? ;-).
> If someone asks, is a player obligated to tell another player his
Yes. That should be readily obvious from simply observing the ship's movement.
> During the PDS allocation phase, is the player with the fighters
We've always done so. Presumed it was generally known which type of
fighter is which (much as you might know an F-18 from an A-10), unless
it was a true "first encounter". That's the only time we have done 'hidden'
fighter types.
> This last ?? isn't so much about in-game secrets:
I don't remember this, but my memory isn't always infalli...er, what were we
talking about again?
Mk
of late we've been playing that SSDs are scarfed after the dice start to roll;
we assume that if it is important enough to the other side they'll keep some
kind of a tally to guesstimate the situation on the opposing ships.
as for fighters, it has long been a tactic of planners to have planes of one
type fly a profile meant for another class of craft simply to spoof the
opposing forces. As such, fighter types are only appatrent once the fighters
attack.
YMMV
> --- Dances With Rocks <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote:
> "Flak Magnet (Tim)" wrote:
> Indy wrote:
> >I thought there was something about torpedo fighters being generally
AFAIK the only systems that Jon has banned from the Tuffleyverse canon are
Cloaking systems and Reflex fields, and I'm not at all sure that he'll
stick to the banning of Cloaking systems in the future :-/
Later,
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:52:04 +0100, Oerjan Ohlson
> <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
I've goosed with the cloaking systems rules for a couple of fights, mainly
featuring the Venusians from Jovian Chronicles (they actually do deploy that
kind of system) and they are funky. You might want to take a look at the
mechanics though, they have this wonderful spot where the ship that's cloaked
can flub up on it's cloaking gear and make himself visible (but not actually
realizing so).
The reflex field.... I can agree with that one <grin>
Generally in my games around home with my ex-wife and once
brother-in-law....
[quoted original message omitted]