Jon T. I wish to say up front that I am having a bad week and
am overstressed. So please take this with a grain of salt
if I look to be going a bit too far.
Note: The following comments a based on a PARTIAL use of the FTIII design and
combat rules.
The results of the monthly club meeting follow: Two FT games were presented
one was FTII (By John Fox) and the second was FTIII (By Phil Pournelle)
John Fs game was an attack on a station protecting a system
with a supporting fleet. The attacking fleet consisted of
5 capitals, 6 fighters, and 17 supporting ships. The defending force consisted
of the station, 5 capitals, 9 fighters, and 14 supporting ships. The result
was basically a draw, the attacking fleet badly damaged the defending fleet
and had no weapons usable against a three screen station. The attacking fleet
(including me) withdrew The point of the above is that the entire game took
three and a half hours, start to finish, with more than fourty ships on the
board.
Phil P. presented an FTIII based game using the FTIII design
rules. The points on each side: 830 +/- 5. The attacking
force was 2 capitals, 2 cruisers, 2 destroyers. The defenders
had 1 capital, 3 cruisers, 4 destroyers. (As best I recall, I never saw the
defenders sheets.) The result was once again a draw (stratigic victory to the
defense). Not one ship was lost in combat in a game that lasted
almost three hours. (two attacking DDs were down to the last hit points.) The
point of the above is that the game while well run was rather dull. Notable
points: 1) Cruisers will carry two screens making them (defensively) the same
as capitals. 2) Spinal mount weapons reguardless of power are of no value if
they cannot be brought to bear on a target. (Sounds like the NSL is going to
lose big time to me.) The battleship (that I Used) had 4 'A' batteries in a
forward only (spinal) mount, these were used only once (during the initial
close to combat) at medium range with a thrust 4 ship. Never again
during the game did I use the spinal or throw more than 9 dice
at any time. (My secondaries were 3 'B' and 3 'C' batteries
with six arcs.) 3) The change to six sixty degree firing arcs and allowing
ships to fire out the rear arc does not really improve the game.
(It will make the conversion to a boardgame/hex move system easier.)
4) The SLM (salvo lunched missiles) look like a form of remote
sub-munitions pack. One must wonder why the SLM cannot be used
in a direct fire mode? (I personally dislike the guessing game
targetting concept.) 5) It sounds a if a number of the new weapons will
require at least one reroll to reach the final damage number. Is the added
complexity worth the effort, or is FT just going
down the Star Fleet Battles/GW road?
6) The 'A' batteries have nowhere near the distructive ability
that the point cost/mass values indicate. (A sledgehammer
solution to what was at most a marginal problem.)
Others may add thier comments to what I have written, comments from the other
side will have a different perspective (and correct errors I may have made).
Bye for now,
On Monday, February 09, 1998 4:37 AM, John Leary
[SMTP:realjtl@sj.bigger.net]
wrote:
> 3) The change to six sixty degree firing arcs and allowing ships
IIRC there was an epoll on this and the result was that we wanted to keep the
90d arcs. In the EFSB rules there are 60d arcs. 90d arcs are my 'favourite
thing'.
> Is the added complexity worth the effort, or is FT just going
'Just Say No' to added complexity. For the core rules they should be simple,
the complexity should be added for specific backgrounds as in
EFSB, as bolt-ons.
> 6) The 'A' batteries have nowhere near the distructive ability
Sounds ominous. Big gun, big hole, surely.
sincerely
[Yes, Jon, I know you get two copies of this :-/ ]
> John wrote:
> Note: The following comments a based on a PARTIAL use of the
[snip]
> Phil P. presented an FTIII based game using the FTIII design
This I find rather surprising. The few FTIII games I've had time to play
(with forces around 700-1000 Mass per side) have been finished in times
comparable to FTII ones (1-1.5 hours, depending on the styles of play) -
and with quite a few dead ships, too.
> Notable points:
If cruisers (up to Mass 40 or so) carry two screens, they'll either be rather
slow or seriously undergunned in my experience. 'course, if the designs were
well protected and undergunned, I'm not too surprised to read that the
casualties were low!
> 2) Spinal mount weapons reguardless of power are of no value if
If you have low thrust and use cinematic movement, I agree. Using vector
movement, or a ship with a thrust rating of 5 or better in the cinematic
movement system, I've had no bigger problems to bring my weapons to bear on
the targets. OTOH, I use single-arc weapons quite a lot (GW's Imperial
ships and RL lookalikes are very much broadside-armed, and GW's Eldar
have most of their weaponry concentrated in the forward arc); it may be that
I'm more used to them than you are.
> 3) The change to six sixty degree firing arcs and allowing ships
Agree to a point. I want several of my ships to have a "forward 180" arc
rather than the 270 or 90 degree forward arcs I can have in FTII (because the
turrets or weapon blisters don't look like 90 or 270, but they do look capable
of 180 degree arcs). OTOH, broadside arcs are easier to implement
in FTII than in the (current, non-finished) FTIII rules. The best (for
me)
would be to have 8 arcs instead, or to allow 90-degree arcs to be
"shifted" up to 45 degrees.
> 4) The SLM (salvo lunched missiles) look like a form of remote
It is much more of a toned down missile system than a remote SMP, though.
Again, try using the vector movement rules - that makes the salvo
missiles a LOT more powerful.
> 5) It sounds a if a number of the new weapons will require at
Hm... which ones?
There is a "roll an extra damage die if you roll a 6" rule which applies to
all weapons and increases the damage by 20%, but that's all I can think of.
AFAIK, the rule is optional, too.
> 6) The 'A' batteries have nowhere near the distructive ability
All-arc A batteries are pretty weak, yes. However, the B batteries have
been weakened in proportion - in my experience 2 B batteries are worth
about as much as 1 A with the same field of fire. Similarly, a (FTII)
three-arc weapon is pretty much worth the same as two single-arc ones
due to the higher flexibility of the turret. A and B batteries under the FTIII
system follow both these guidelines pretty closely. And no, I definitely don't
think the A battery superiority from FTII to be a "marginal problem"
- the A was the only worthwhile beam weapon, and that's it. The C has
not been reduced in power, though, making it very potent at short ranges. I'm
not sure if this is good or not; I'd prefer it to have 3 arcs at Mass 1
instead.
Of course - if you don't use _very_ powerful drives, you have quite a
bit more space to carry weapons in, so the higher weapon masses don't affect
you so badly! :-)
Later,
Excerpts from FT: 8-Feb-98 FTIII Rules Tryout by John
Leary@sj.bigger.net
> Note: The following comments a based on a PARTIAL use of the
[snip large FTII game]
> The point of the above is that the entire game took
Very interesting... Mark Kochte & I never had any trouble with blowing up
ships, so I am kinda curious as to what happened there. What size are you
talking about for 'cruisers', 'destroyers', etc? Since those are somewhat
subjective....
> Notable points:
...and they can do the same in FTII. Because of the minimum size of shields,
they lose the same proportion of offensive mass in FTIII if they take two
shields as they did in FTII. It just depends on whether you want more
defensive ships.
> 2) Spinal mount weapons reguardless of power are of no value if
I don't know that I can -- or should -- comment on this, since I didn't
see it, but I've used ships with FF arc weapons -- thrust 3 ships -- and
have generally gotten several shots off. As for the NSL, I'd say they'd have
to fight 'Legend of the Galactic Heroes' style: lines of cap ships with
overlapping forward arcs, supporting each other with secondaries (and smaller
ships).
> 3) The change to six sixty degree firing arcs and allowing ships
I don't think converstion to a hex map is what GZG was looking for.
^_^;; Anyway, I personally like the change, as it allows my broadsides
ships a lot more targets in their broadsides. ^_^
> 4) The SLM (salvo lunched missiles) look like a form of remote
Hmm... personal preference, again, I rather like it. ('Course, I also smashed
part of Kochte's line with the things, so....)
> 5) It sounds a if a number of the new weapons will require at
No comment here -- haven't used that many, except for the SLMs, and I
don't mind them -- but I do like the extra damage roll on a '6'. Much
faster killing of ships, especially those times when I got 2 or 3 rerolls....
<grin>
> 6) The 'A' batteries have nowhere near the distructive ability
Um, the A-batts we not a marginal problem; there was *no* reason, if you
were doing even mild min/maxxing of your ships, to take B-batts in FTII.
And you only take C-batts if they're allowed to fire for point
defence... and not always, then.
I'm not sure if I like 6 firearcs, however, I do like the modified 4 arc
system from B5P:EFSB, as it simplifies the firearcs & it encourages good
broadside armament (in all the games of FT I've played, I've come to the
conclusion that a good broadside is mandatory, esp. on slow ships). I should
argue that I'm in favor of not having weapons in the rear arc,
as it gives me somewhere to hide. :-)
'Neath Southern Skies
*********************
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
> -----Original Message-----
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998 19:49:24 +0100, "Oerjan Ohlson"
> <oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com> wrote:
> OTOH, broadside arcs are easier to implement
FT is a miniatures game. There is no real reason, other than simplicity, to
have fixed firing arcs. Why not allow for multiple configurations of firing
arcs, especially if the "no firing through the rear arc" rule is no longer
used?
On Sun, 08 Feb 1998 20:37:17 -0800, John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net>
wrote:
> The point of the above is that the game while well run was
I'd like to see your ship designs, actually. Or at least some samples. It's
possible that your ship designs caused the dull game. If the ships were all
very well protected but undergunned, this might cause a slow game. You might
find that the heavily defended ships versus faster, powerful, fragile ships
gives you a good game.
Of course, one thing we have to see is if heavily defended, slow ships are
unbalanced. I'm not saying this is the case, I'm only speculating. We have to
try out all possibilities. Steve Jackson Games once produced a book on game
design. The book mentioned that you have to try all types of tests, even dumb
ones. He only played one all GEV
scenario in _Ogre_ before first edition was released (the GEVs lost),
so it was only after the game came out that GEVs were seen to be "broken." The
same MIGHT be true here.
At any rate, I'd like to see the designs.
> Note: The following comments a based on a PARTIAL use of the
[...]
> Phil P. presented an FTIII based game using the FTIII design
None lost? Wow, did you guys have bad die rolls, or just play real
conservative? I haven't had games go anywhere near that
long w/out losing lots o'ships, be them FTII rules or FTIII test
rules. Ships die real fast in my games (okay, so they're usually mine;)
> The point of the above is that the game while well run was
Can happen in FTII, also. Is your concern that capitals are now weaker
defensively?
How are you differentiating cruisers from capitals? In the current FTIII
system, there is no differentiation per se between 'escorts', 'cruisers', and
'capitals' as there is in FTII.
> 2) Spinal mount weapons reguardless of power are of no value if
Can explain what it is you mean by 'spinal mount'? Are you talking
forward-arc only, or literally spinal mount where you have to line up
perfectly with your target? If the former, with a thrust 4 ship (a thrust 4
battleship, even!:), you should have reasonable opportunities to get
something back in arc (unless they're faster ;-). If the latter, that's
not an FTIII design. I don't usually find it much trouble bringing my
forward-arc guns to bear (except when going against Aaron's broadsides
fleet;)
> 3) The change to six sixty degree firing arcs and allowing ships
It actually allows for some things to make more sense (rear-firing), and
makes for some more interesting situations/maneuverings (the 6-arc bit).
I don't know anything about moving FT to a boardgame or hex system.
> 4) The SLM (salvo lunched missiles) look like a form of remote
SMBs (salvo missle batts). I've seen these things used to great effectiveness,
with not a lot of guessing involved. Once you know how to use them (bracket
your target(s), for example), they can become very devastating.
> 5) It sounds a if a number of the new weapons will require at
The reroll bit applies to all weapons, and only under certain circumstances,
and doesn't make anything any more complicated, really. I find it a fun
addition to the game - makes ships blow up faster! (well, I like it
unless Aaron's rolling against my ships, then I don't like it so much;). The
reroll rule (for those who don't know) is basically the same as that in the
Earth-
Force Sourcebook. Go nuts.
> 6) The 'A' batteries have nowhere near the distructive ability
In FTII the problem was actually pretty significant. A-batts were
lightyears more efficient than any of the other batteries offered, unless you
were using
the C-batts in anti-fighter/missile mode. They've been balanced out now
to come in line better with the rest of the battery series. Just got to
rethink the design your ships. If you try applying the old FTII theories of
ship design to FTIII ships, you might find them to be weaker overall (I do, at
any rate).
My $0.02 worth.:)
Mk
Excerpts from FT: 10-Feb-98 Re: FTIII Rules Tryout by Allan
Goodall@sympatico.
> >OTOH, broadside arcs are easier to implement
> >"shifted" up to 45 degrees.
Hafta disagree with you, Oerjan. It's easy enough to take 2-arc
batteries as your broadsides... though you can't do that with B-batts,
which is mildly disappointing.
> =46T is a miniatures game. There is no real reason, other than
IMO, because the math could get pretty horrendous. How would you
correlate 60 and 90 degree arcs? Or the EFSB front/rear 60, sides 120?
(Though that's essentially 60 degree arcs....) I suppose you could make *30*
degree arcs as a base, but then keeping track of what's facing where would
become a bit of a hassle. You could center an arc around a 'time' (i.e., arc
12 is 15 degrees to either side of dead ahead), but you'd lose the simplicity
of the symbols on the ship status sheet....
> John Leary wrote:
> Jon T.
It's ok, how many of us HASN'T had a bad week now and then...8)
> Note: The following comments a based on a PARTIAL use of the
> Others may add thier comments to what I have written, comments
> from the other side will have a different perspective (and correct
Got a question. The two scenarios sound interesting. How did the
battles play out? Were the players pulling their punches (ie, no aggressive
actions) or was it a case of bad die rolls?
In my own games (regardless of system), my friend and I, rarely played more
than 5 turns....We were usually very distructive. 8D
(No offence...every battle goes differently..)
> Got a question. The two scenarios sound interesting. How did the
...Snip...(JTL)
> Donald Hosford
Donald, Since I am certain I have offended any number of people since I have
started sending things on the list, I an certain no offence
is intended. Be certain that none is taken!
I will ask John F. to send a copy of the station game when it is revised.
(However, John F. is on the list and may see this
message prior to my seeing him.) The station game was a really
good fight, (I'll leave the details to Johns transmission), everyone was doing
thier best, the dice were neutral and only the
station had three acreens. Speaking as one of the attackers,
we were able to destroy the majority of the defending ships, the three
remaining capital (1XBB, 2XBC) were damaged, and I do
not believe capable of surviving a second assault. During the
reorginization phase we realized that we did not have the proper
equipment for the station assault (no pulse-torps, sub-packs or
missiles), all of our ships were beam only. So, we left!
Phil P.s scenario found us on the attack again, against ships that could (and
did) out turn our 2 capitals, the ships were taking one to three points a turn
and we decided to withdraw because it was getting late and we could not bring
any of the main
weapons on our capitals to bear. So, We left! (catch it on the
instant replay!!!)
Bye for now,
> Allan Goodall wrote:
A Suggestion: Allow the spinal mount weapon arc to equal the area covered
during the ships movement. The fixed end of the arc is directly
down the ships current heading and the floating end being the number of
degrees turned during movement.
"Ensign, fire as the guns bear on the target."
Bye for now,
> Allan Goodall wrote:
...Snip...(JTL)
The same MIGHT be true here.
> At any rate, I'd like to see the designs.
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998 21:49:33 -0500 (EST), Aaron P Teske
> <Mithramuse+@CMU.EDU> wrote:
> IMO, because the math could get pretty horrendous. How would you
I'm not sure why you'd need to correlate firing arcs. I suppose that hip
building requires calculations based on arcs. A cost per firing arc type might
be justified. For instance X cost for a firing arc of 30 degrees or less, Y
cost for a firing arc of 60 degrees, etc. I don't think the math would be a
problem.
> Or the EFSB front/rear 60, sides 120?
Again, I'm not sure what you mean by correlating the firing arcs. Simply use a
protractor. For that matter, you could make up custom
firing arc displays to put on top of/under the model. Simple light
card stock or photocopy transparencies should work fine. The cardboard
counters for the EFSB have the firing arcs printed on them.
Jon could also make this simply an optional rule for people who have a need
for weird firing arcs on their ships.
> You could center an arc around a
That is true, about the symbols.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Feb 1998 19:49:24 +0100, "Oerjan Ohlson"
> On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Allan Goodall wrote:
> Of course, one thing we have to see is if heavily defended, slow ships
I agree. In my experience, the first serious(* optimization people do is max
out the defence, then take a bare minimum of mobility and max out guns
with the remaining points. This works with the typical min-max tactic of
"sit back and shoot" or even "full stop and spin away" and people have a
natural tendency to avoid damage.
The next optimization is the "horde" strategy -- a large horde of the
cheapest ships possible, carrying little defenses and one weapon, often
one-shot. Include suicide tactics like ramming, FTL, plus little idocies
like blocking enemy movement through stacking rules (not a problem, I hope, in
FTII, just a general note).
Over-optimized designs are typically "Johnny One-notes". That's ok, as
long as you're sure they don't get to pick the music every time(**. Some
ship types (e.g. carriers) are supposed to be optimized for one task only. But
when they get to dictate the type of engagement, you get the possibly
realistic/historical but immensily boring games akin to US carriers
hunting down Japanese surface ships.
Balanced fleets are often, well, balanced. It's the unbalanced ones one needs
to watch out for.
*) That is, after any glaringly obvious points like only A-batts in
FTII, getting all fractionals just slightly above the rounding point etc. **)
A distinctive problem with Thr8 missile raiders. Barring scenario limitations,
anything they can't kill they can run away from with absolute certainty.
Disclaimer: Not being among the select few tight-lipped playtesters of
FTIII, I don't know if they've already fixed some of these.
Excerpts from FT: 10-Feb-98 Re: FTIII Rules Tryout by Allan
Goodall@sympatico.
> >IMO, because the math could get pretty horrendous. How would you
Call me tired. I meant, as you basically surmised, "how would you
equate, points-wise, 60 and 90 degree firing arcs."
> I suppose that
The trouble is, you either get into fractional mass, or increase the mass of
the ships and batteries tremendously. While that probably doesn't sound like
much to you (or, for that matter, to me) we're both familiar with the game...
I've heard of people getting scared off from the game by just the *FTII* ship
construction rules! I don't think they'd deal too well with fractions of
mass....
> >Or the EFSB front/rear 60, sides 120?=20
Still talking about points cost. ^_^;;
> Simply use a protractor. For that matter, you could make up custom
Actually, as I said below, I find it easiest to slap down the 'clock' that
comes with FTII (well, a photocopy) with '12' fixed ahead, and figure the arcs
from the numbers. But your method works too.
> Jon could also make this simply an optional rule for people who have a
<grin> I like it, but again, it can't provide any more advantage than
the main system. (Well, points-wise, at least... you get what you pay
for, and all that.)
> > You could center an arc around a
Are the FTIII playtest rules being discussed available somewhere. I seem to
have missed them if they were posted to the list and would love to take a look
at them.
However, being insufficiently informed in no way disqualifies me from making a
comment or two:)
As for firing arcs, I've always thought that a system that used the same
twelve points as used for turning would be neat and easy to implement. A
battery could swing through say 11-1 or such. I've used these notations
in a couple of house rules, etc and it always seemed really easy since you are
thinking in those terms anyway...
I have a spinal mount beam weapon available in my house rules. The mount can
be of variable mass up to a certain percentage of the ships total and the
damage dice are calculated based on the weapons mass for each range. I set it
up to give slightly more dice than an equivalent mass of AA batts, but the
weapon only fires into the 11-1 arc and your target must be in that
arc both before and after ships move. This system has been used by several
players in our group mostly as a long range support ship which moves slowly
behind the main fleet advance. The targeting requirement above makes it very
difficult to use as a close fighting weapon...
Later
Brian
> *) That is, after any glaringly obvious points like only A-batts in
Just to play devil's avocate, there are cases where the Thr8 missile raiders
make perfect sense. While most Full Thrust games are one off
battles, one could play a campaign where the cost of repairing/replacing
ships is significant. Wouldn't it make sense to use cheaper missiles to do
damage to the enemy, and run away to avoid damage to yourself? The only
problem is that it makes for boring battles. Of the opponents challange is to
come up with a counter startegy.
Enjoy,
> On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Tom Granvold wrote:
> Just to play devil's avocate, there are cases where the Thr8
Exactly. What makes sense and what makes a good game (for BOTH players) are
not necessarily the same thing.
> Of the opponents
The problem is, in vanilla FTII there isn't one. I'll offer an analogy: You
have Yamato and all the rest of the Japanese WWII surface fleet except
carriers. I have the entire US carrier fleet (WWII or modern -- doesn't
really matter).
What's your counterstrategy?
There isn't one. You die, it's just a matter of time. Just to score a single
hit on my ships you'd need incredible blind luck. Even an extremely
accident-prone lumberjack can count the number of carriers sunk by
surface vessels with his fingers.
The problem is heightened with the Thr8 missile boats -- the only things
they don't have a 100% defense against are AA batteries and surprise. The
former is very expensive (more so if you want to pack enough of them to
kill a ship with one turn's worth of fire -- as you would need to) and
the latter can only be achieved somewhat reliably with cloakers (and as they
are optional, I won't go into *their* logical campaign effects, played as
written).
> Aaron wrote:
> Excerpts from FT: 10-Feb-98 Re: FTIII Rules Tryout by Allan
> > >me) would be to have 8 arcs instead, or to allow 90-degree arcs to
Nor can you do it with C batteries <g> But yes, the B was the one I was
thinking of. Many of my designs use broadside-mounted B batteries, so it
is
a source of irritation for me - and I never said broadside arcs were
_impossible_ in FTIII, just that FTII made them easier to implement <g>
> > FT is a miniatures game. There is no real reason, other than
You lose that with 60-degree arcs already... I draw an extra arc around
the turret, marking the field of fire. It seems to work <shrug>
Later,
It's like I've always said - you can get more with a kind word and a 2x4
> than with just a kind word wrote:
XXXSection 1XXXX
> None lost? Wow, did you guys have bad die rolls, or just play
XXXXsection 2XXXX
> Can happen in FTII, also. Is your concern that capitals are now weaker
XXXXSection 3XXXX
> How are you differentiating cruisers from capitals? In the current
XXXXSection 4XXXX If the latter, that's
> not an FTIII design. I don't usually find it much trouble bringing my
XXXXSection 5XXXX
> It actually allows for some things to make more sense (rear-firing),
XXXXSection 6XXXX
> In FTII the problem was actually pretty significant. A-batts were
Mk,
Section 1) Yes, none destroyed. John F. started out with a rather
poor first couple of shots, but picked up his average later on.
Section 2) While I had not considered that at first, it may have
been lurking in the back of the mind.
Section 3) I did not define the ships for the FTIII game, just used
them as presented. The DE was mass 16, the cruiser was in the mass 40 area,
and the BB was mass 72 (more of less).
Section 4) Since the 4 'A's used up 16 mass for the forward arc
only it would be an interesting experiment to try a game with the
'A's replaced with 16 'C's (5 Ea in the 9-11 and 1-3, and 6 Ea in
the 11-1 area). (Changing the thrust to five would also have
worked wonders, Phil mentioned that he had used the national
characteristics in the design, I think we were ESU W/average
thrust.)
Section 5) The 'where shall I put it' portion of the SMB
seemed to be rather prolonged, and not really worth the effort. Since the same
person had the missles and the SMB it was like watching an instant replay of
something not very interesting the first time 'round.
Section 6) I think the best thing to do with the great 'A'
debate is just agree to disagree.
New thought: The new concept in fleet design for FTIII with the
rear fire arc is: place the heavy arc limited weapons to the rear and allow
the enemy to close after starting to thrust away from his location. (Star
Fleet Battles comes to FT.)
Bye for now,
> Jerry 'Ghoti' Han wrote:
Jerry, Eight minus on a scale of one to ten isn't that bad. So if you don't
like the jokes stop giving them grades.
(Smirk)
Bye for now,
If you've ever played Battlespace (FASA) this is exactly the tactics which are
used by all capital ships, due to maneuverability constraints (it uses a hex
based newtonian movement).
'Neath Southern Skies
*********************
http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
> -----Original Message-----
> John wrote:
> New thought: The new concept in fleet design for FTIII with the
Simple solution to this one: Don't allow rear fire on the turns you use your
main engines (ie, use thrust in the cinematic movement system). You'll be
overtaken fairly fast...
As for the A debate: when a weapon has longer maximum range, equal or better
firepower per Mass at all ranges and lower points cost than its
competitors - as the FTII A had compared to the B and C batteries -
no-one
in their right minds should use any other beams in a DIY fight as long as they
could fit the A... For scenarios and "historical" ships of various
backgrounds the B and C worked fine, of course - but they certainly
weren't the weapons of choice.
Of course, there are people who like to fight with inferior (ie,
over-priced) weapons at nominally equal force levels ;-)
Later,
> Are the FTIII playtest rules being discussed available somewhere. I
No, Brian, afraid they're not available yet outside a small group of testers,
all of whom received a confidentiality request NOT to discuss them outside
their immediate play groups until they were more finalised and developed; as
inevitably happens, someone ignored this......
> However, being insufficiently informed in no way disqualifies me from
Fair enough - everyone else is... ;)
> As for firing arcs, I've always thought that a system that used the
A
> battery could swing through say 11-1 or such. I've used these
Bringing the fire arcs more in line with the course points is one of the
main reasons for the shift to 6 arcs; 11-1 o'clock is actually the new
"Fore" arc under the 6-arc system, as each arc covers two "hour"
segments of the course gauge. Despite a few fears mentioned in posts to this
topic,
we have no intention of changing to a hex-grid movement system, although
a
by-product of the rules changes will actually make this easier for those
who DO want to do it; we just recognise that MOST (not all, agreed) players
use either hexagonal or clockface (eg GeoHex) bases for their ship minis, and
bringing the fire arcs into line with the course clockface seems to simplify
things a lot.
> [quoted text omitted]
> Later
Excerpts from FT: 10-Feb-98 Re: FTIII Rules Tryout by John
Leary@sj.bigger.net
> Section 5) The 'where shall I put it' portion of the SMB
Ah... you see, that's almost more of a personality quirk than a function of
the SMBs. I just took the counters, looked at (roughly) where Kochte's ships
were the turn before, estimated the difference, and threw
the things down. Took all of maybe 10-20 seconds (IIRC) to place six
SMBs. Now, if you get someone who's more anal (no offense to your opponent)
about that sort of thing... it can take a lot longer.