FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: FTL & Core

"Of late again I have been (on a scenario by scenario basis) starting to
enforce a rule that if a ship has been reduced to its last hull row, it must
attempt to break off from the engagement, and not engage the enemy unless shot
at first in a given turn..."

Most NON-spaceship games do use that, of course, and call it a morale
check, dicing for the possibility to play forlorn hope. Perfectly
common, and Klingons will just stay til the last row, at least. ;->=

Point systems can color it further, but even half for a cripple, all for
destroy, to your opponent even if it's a cripple that's useless hulk, doesn't
seem to make THAT much difference. 'At least he's shooting it instead of my
Queen of Denial, er, the Nile.'

Takes a skillful balance of the above AND scenario writing to get the message
across, methinks.

"As for folding the FTL system into the Core Systems, meh, I guess? Personally
I never use the Core Systems as written. I have always felt they were too
catastrophic to the ships when hit. Moving the FTL to the Core Systems does
nothing to change its game effect, or lack thereof, if
hit."

In my view, the FTL is not 10% waste; it's your ticket to the ball. If you
don't agree, that you have magic transports that drop the fleet in place
without jeopardy and cost, it's your game, not mine.

In hardened defense, I WILL have system defense boats. I accept defense gets
that as an advantage. Just have to put them EVERYWHERE needing defense, and
10% savings start looking thin.

"As for the Core Systems themselves, I had long ago adopted others (when I
played them) that a friend of mine had come up with (and I had once
proposed for the FB/FT3 runs) that affect the ship, but are not so
imminently catastrophic to it (such as communications down, which meant the
ship so affected had to plot out one turn in advance). (I always felt command
bridge hits were silly, because seriously, what
self-respecting starship is *not* going to have an auxiliary or
secondary bridge?!?  :-D )."

Whereas I just say the term 'Bridge' is silly. Command and Control is
complex, but even modern ships with auxiliary/backups/redundants can
suffer catastrophic failure. I don't look behind the curtains any closer
than that, though, I've never even played Core Systems. ;->=

By the way, I’m feeling particularly lugubrious of late. Do tell me to shut
up when I’ve gone on too long.

In message <5536FFEF-1BB6-4103-A9E3-4982F017D84E@gzg.com>
> Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:

> Roger and Hugh, you both make very valid points here, and I'd be

> It is entirely true that FTL has no game effect in the majority of

> As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought

> Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other

> Jon (GZG)

I had a number of thoughts on FTL & Core system today;

1) Get rid of the core systems as they are now, but if a ship looses all main
drives & FTL systems it loses its power systems until at least one is
repaired. If the ship loses all fire control systems, then its bridge is
considered knocked out until at least one FC is repaired.

1a) as above, but loosing all the indicated systems (drives or FCs) means that
a core system threshold for the indicated system (power or bridge) must also
be made.

I'm not sure how to do life support with either of the above schemes.

2) Core systems exist as in FB1 (but maybe the effects of loosing them could
be adjusted), but backups can be purchased as additional systems (with
appropriate costs).

Another idea would to be to incorporate a 'morale' check system as
core - something like the 'strike the colours' rules, but maybe the
ship can try and escape if possible.