> On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, People who actually *do* things with their lives -
Agreed. When we wrote FT, we made the mistake of not anticipating the hordes
of munchkin players..... A suggested (simple) fix, that will in all
probability be adopted in FTIII, is to leave the FTL proximity damage rules as
they are, except for
removing the bit about damage to other ships - so that a ship engaging
FTL
too close to something else will still damage/destroy ITSELF, but not
harm any other vessels. IMHO this still preserves the feel of the intention of
the rule (that you can't safely FTL if you are close to another object) but
instantly removes any benefit of FTL Kamikaze tactics.
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
> Agreed. When we wrote FT, we made the mistake of not anticipating the
No one in my play group has resorted to the "cheese" tactics of FTL Kamakaze
(thankfully).
One of my first campaign gaming experiences with FT (Lafayette sector in the
FT rulebook) had a desparately damaged NAC Fleet Carrier trying to escape to
FTL and managed to jump in the midst of the ESU invaders. A failed jump would
doom the invasion and hearts raced as the die roll was made. He jumped safely
and caused no damage, but there was a significant amount of tension in the
roll. And isn't that why we play?
I will not miss the rule. Thanks for removing it.
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
Definitely a
> >cheese thing to do. Culdn't do much about it unless you specifically
TWIMC, It might also be useful to consider the FTL jump to be stratigic
movement that takes the ships 'off board'.
(NOTE: If a ship can jump every other turn to relocate on the board, then why
buy thrust greater than one?)
How about a required surrender for the fighters if they no longer have any
chance of being picked up by a friendly ship?
Just some thoughts,
On Sat, 22 Nov 1997 12:42:27 -0500, Jonathan Davis <davis@albany.net>
wrote:
> I will not miss the rule. Thanks for removing it.
Me neither. At GenCon I was asked if the games I ran allowed FTL jumps to
destroy ships. We used a modified version of the rule that is essentially what
Jon proposes (you can blow up yourself but no one else). The consensus was
that this was fine. Some people used it as a tactic, but I never bothered too
much with it.
I extrapolated jump technology and couldn't figure out why navies hadn't
invented "fire boats": cheap, small ships with a badly tuned jump engine,
maybe a couple of shields, and high thrust. Run them into the middle of a
fleet. Either you take out a bunch of enemy ships, or you break up their
formation. It seemed like the obvious next step in jump tech, followed by some
sort of Jump Bomb.
"Unlike serial killer profiling, writing is a lonely and
depressing profession." - Jose Chung, Millenium