FTIII: "me too" cards & order of battle

In BattleTech we've used the following very successfully in
who-goes-when for
combat:

1] Use standard decks of playing cards.

2] Depending on how many ships on each side... each side gets either a whole
deck to work with or at least full suits of cards.

3]      A team captain deals-out the cards to the players, one card per
ship. This is the Ship's ID. Write it down on the ship's log.

4] Compare fleet sizes and figure out a ratio between fleets. If they are
even, then each fleet takes turns firing one ship. If twice as many, then for
each ship on one side two fire on the other side, etc.

5] Now, Order of Combat:

At the beginning of the Combat Phase each captain shuffles their deck of
cards. Then, as each fleet has a turn, turn up the top card of your deck. That
Ship must stand, fire, whatever. Ships out of range of anyone are still in the
deck. Destroyed ships are taken out of the deck. Ships whose firecons, weapons
systems, etc are no longer functioning... I don't know.

Again, this works with BattleTech... perhaps some variation can be worked out
with FT?

One problem I can see with this is then my mosquitoes [escorts
tf-8
and 3 needlers] might not get the chance to fire first, knock-out screen
generators and then followed up by the A-Battery ships further back!

Any thots?

Donald Hosford wrote:-

> One problem I can see with this is then my mosquitoes [escorts

I think you answered it yourself, randomizing the firing sequence removes
the tactical importance of who fires when, is that what you desire? -
probably not.

Sincerely

> On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, John M. Huber wrote:

<much sniping>

> 5] Now, Order of Combat:

As many people have pointed out, one of the important tacticle elements of FT
is the order in which you fire your ships. This random deal negates the choice
of what ships NEED to fire first, be it to get a shot off before their dust,
drop the shields on X etc.

This is largely how I came to the conclusion that if counters were to be used
to determine order of fire, then players should be able to place them.

-Entropy

> I think you answered it yourself, randomizing the firing sequence

While it can really smash carefully laid-out plans [frustrating].  It
does add
an element of chaos/fog-of-war that makes it more fun.  Especially if
you've got someone breathing down your neck and someone takes him out first!
[relief,
a few good laughs].

It also seems to help provide an order and structure to play and speeds things
up. But again, this was with BattleTech. I have not tried it out with FT.