Full Steam

Hello:
        All this talk about an Victorian Sci-Fi FT rules, has got me a
thinkin'. Would anyone like to join me in an attempt to create some new
background rules?

Later,

> Hello:

Count me in.

Actually, I've thought about going the other way. Space 1889 has elegant if
simple rules for altitude. . .Many people want FT to be 3-D. . .ergo:
Full Steam

What do you think -

For firing at a target 1 height different would be an additional 6 measurement
units to range.

Changing altitude requires one thrust point, hmmm, maybe two.

Still half-formed thoughts, but I think it might be cool.

Nick Caldwell cncald@aol.com

P.S. - I started _my_ rules for FMA Fantasy over two months ago. What
took y'all so long?:)

In a message dated 96-12-16 22:24:20 EST, you write:

<< >On that note, has anyone tried a Space 1889 conversion for FT?
> --Binhan Lin

I've thought about it. The problem is that FT doesn't have altitude while
Space 1889 requires it. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to graft an altitude
system onto FT, but is it worthwhile? Wouldn't it be easier to play Sky
Galleons of Mars? The one thing I like about Sky Galleons is the way it
handles crew losses from different parts of the ship. >>

I'm not saying that the idea doesn't have merit, nor am I saying that it
wouldn't be fun, however...

Victorian sci-fi (such as GDW's Space 1889) has a much smaller market
than
the general sci-fi market to which FT currently caters. FT has the
advantage that it can also be easily adapted to almost any background with
spaceships, and thus can "cash in" on the mass popularity of Satr Wars,
Star Trek, or B5 by simply having a conversion sheet available at - say
-
your friendly local website.

Space 1889 floundered do to poor sales (though it might be argued that some
support issues were involved as well) because the market was too small.

By all means, make Full Steam available as all the other current
conversions have been - via the web. I would strongly advise against
printing it.

I'm not trying to criticise anyone here; I just wanted to point out the
economic realities of such a venture.

> I'm not saying that the idea doesn't have merit, nor am I saying that

That is why I'm talking about a little low-budget A5 rulebook - the sort
of thing where we can economically print just a few hundred copies for the fun
of it!

> On Fri, 8 May 1998, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> That is why I'm talking about a little low-budget A5 rulebook - the

If it's just for fun, how about an electronic publication? If someone
wants it on paper, print-on-demand for a small fee. Others can download
it free or for a small fee (there are a number of places that specialize in
peddling electronic documents for a small commission -- at least one of
them specializes in gaming stuff).

> That is why I'm talking about a little low-budget A5 rulebook - the

Ummm - forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is an A5 rulebook (I'm
guessing it has to do with the sheet size).

> Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

I have to agree. If we make Full Steam electronically available, then it gives
just about everyone a chance to get a copy. If we just make a few rule
booklets, we'll eventually run out of copies. Players will demand more, and
then we have to print more at a cost. The cost of electronic publication is
just the cost of running the web site and the price of writing it and laying
it out. The customer pays for the game
with a modest download fee (say $5-$10 American), some printer paper and
toner. The next question is, what kind of rules format do we want. I assume
we all would like to see Full Steam to use FT 2.5-FT 3.0 rules?  Also,
do we want to include a modest background, or do we want it to be completely
generic? I think that someone, should set up a mailing list so that we can
discuss this without cluttering the main mailing list. I'd do it myself, but
UWM doesn't allow mailing lists for recreational purposes.

> On Fri, 08 May 1998 11:02:11 -0600, "Mark A. Siefert." writes:

Generating mailing lists is easy for me. If there is serious need for this,
I'll make one. But I thought Jon was talking about doing this? Wouldn't a fan
done one preclude him from doing one?

> That is why I'm talking about a little low-budget A5 rulebook - the

Yup. All our current rules are on A4 (297 x 210 mm); A5 is half that
size -
210 x 148 mm (ie: an A4 sheet folded in half). Open one of our books to a
double-page spread, and that is A3. Each "A" number is the previous one
folded in half on the short axis.

> On Fri, 8 May 1998, Ground Zero Games wrote:

Always a possibility, but I am still and old-fashioned gamer and like a
nice little printed booklet.....

> >Always a possibility, but I am still and old-fashioned gamer and like

> Then do the best of both worlds and post it as a PDF-- Electronic

Hmmmm. BTRC has their starship combat game 'Slag!' availible in both printed
and electronic forms. The printed version is inexpensive at US$8 and the pdf
 version is only US$5 (http://www.hyperbooks.com/slag.html)

The kicker is that the pdf version gives you lots of extras (extra maps, 26
paged of reference material, 10 page strategy guide, extra examples and

more). I bought the printed version at a local game store but still might get
the pdf version just for all the extras. I would think double dipping like
this would happen somewhat regularly and that can't hurt the company's bottom
line.

> Matthew Seidl wrote:

> Generating mailing lists is easy for me. If there is serious need for

I didn't say anything about a fan created set of rules. I was merely thinking
of a place where we could talk about the rules and what we would want to see
in them.

> At 09:53 PM 5/8/98 +0000, you wrote:

Then do the best of both worlds and post it as a PDF-- Electronic format
for the wired folks, perfectly printable for the dead tree fans.

Take care,

> On Fri, 08 May 98 16:28:07 -0600, dean.gundberg@bcbsnd.com wrote:

> Hmmmm. BTRC has their starship combat game 'Slag!' availible in both

BTRC do all there stuff in both formats, if I'm not mistaken. I picked up the
second edition of Guns! Guns! Guns! in PDF format. I was able to buy it from
Terry Austin's Hyperbooks. I sent an e-mail with credit info, he sent me
a
return e-mail, I downloaded the book that night and printed it off at
work the next day. They also sell it in book form, but the PDF version came
with some Excel spreadsheets to do all the calculations.

I like the idea of having both formats. The A5 format would be great for cons
and as a small set through distributors. However, the PDF version is almost
pure profit for the writer.

Oh, and as a Space 1889/Sky Galleons of Mars fan who dabbles in the
Russo-Japanese war, I think this is a great idea. Any chance of a
miniatures line? The market is small because there aren't a lot of Victorian
SF models around.

Jon: Your right it would be fun. I'll take one:)

Randy

> On Fri, 08 May 1998 16:52:00 -0600, "Mark A. Siefert." writes:

Well, if people what this, its easy to generate. Why don't people interested
in this sub list send me email directly, and if there is enough interest (like
> 10 people or so), I'll gen a list monday.

I'd be interested. Sounds like something kind of fun.
        Kent McClure

> ----------

> At 23:18 12/05/98 +0100, you wrote:

Please, if you are going to do this again, at least reduce the file size by
sending it in a zip file.

Also there is a password required for the strategic rules. So it is of little
use at the moment.

In fact if anyone is really stuck for space to distribute files, I have a
spare web site on the tripod free homepages service where I can put up to 5 mb
of stuff. Maybe this could serve as a solution to file distribution.

Dear All

As there seems to be an upserge in interest I will do what I said I would not.
Here are my rules for WWII naval combat based on FT and Binan set.

Included are short campaign rules and a ship description sheet. All in word
format sorry.

These rules were tested in a campaign run of Hunt the Bismarck, they worked OK
but are far from perfect.

Please don't send large binaries to the mailing list! Post a URL!

On Tue, 12 May 1998 20:50:50 -0400, Robert Crawford <crawford@iac.net>
wrote:

> Please don't send large binaries to the mailing list!

I'll add that there are a lot of people on this list who don't have
up-to-date
virus checkers who won't open a Word document for fear of invoking a macro
virus. There are many others who simply can't open Word files (believe it or
not). Finally, some of us just don't like getting large e-mail messages
without some sort of warning.

Then there are the people, probably a majority, who aren't even interested in
this.

I realize Neil meant well. However this large message (over 800K) was spawned
to over 300 people. That's the equivalent of the servers sending 240 MB of
data all at once. I guess Neil didn't realize just how much of a load he was
putitng on the server.

For future reference, the best way to handle this is to post a short message
to the mailing list. Ask for interested parties to e-mail you if they
want the file. You can then find out if they can handle Word, or if text would
be
better, and if you can compress the file with WinZIP, PKZIP, Stuff-It,
etc.

I don't know about anyone else....but when I try to open the Wet Thrust Rules
I get a request for a password. Hmmmm.........good way to keep the CIA out. I
mean they've got to be watching something. They're not watching southern Asia.

Americans always try to do the right thing -- after they've tried
everything else.
- - - Winston Churchill

> As there seems to be an upserge in interest I will do what I said I

I don't know about anyone else, Neil, and please don't take this personally,
but it took a while for your message to download. Posting Word files (in fact,
most files) to a mailing list is generally considered taboo, especially as
Word files can contain macro viruses. I'm not saying yours do, but some can.
Also, some people pay by the download (I don't) and may get very upset at
having to wait so long for one message that they may not have any interest in.

I'm not saying DON'T post these things, please!! What I would suggest is
perhaps put them on the web, either on a page of your own or by sending to one
of the other FT pages, and then post a URL pointer to the mailing list. Saves
everyone a lot of time and heartache.

I'm not flaming you, though I believe you will probably be receiving some very
soon. These are just my suggestions to you, for next time!

JS
----

Sorry guys the files were password protected, yes I know dummy, will send
another set. Also forgot the pics in the Ship sheets made it a big attachment.

> On Wed, 13 May 1998, Neil wrote:

Wouldn't it be faster, cheaper and simpler to send the password?

I didn't ask for your rules for wet thrust. If I wanted to download your
files, I would have asked for your web page address.

> At 11:18 PM 5/12/98 +0100, Neil Morgan wrote:

On 6/30/06, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
> <gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:

> Do you still buy the drive system for your speed (ie: mass/points) ?

I tried to send this Friday but the server problem caused the e-mail to
bounce.

Full Steam doesn't have a build system (at least not yet). Or, rather,
your "build" system is Conway's All The World's Ships 1860 - 1905. I
have rules for converting real world statistics into ship statistics, but I
didn't intend to have a point build system. With some help, I'd like to go
back and retrofit a point system to the ships, though that's kind of dodgy
considering there are rules to take into account crew ability.

Conway's says that the Fuji (Japanese pre-dread) has a top speed of 18
knots. Based on a formula I use for converting real world knots to inches per
turn, this gives the Fuji a speed of 7 MU per turn.

Now, the Fuji, like all big ships, has 5 rows of hull boxes. I can't remember
how many, exactly, but it would look something like this (with the an "X"
representing a box):

XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX

Yes, the two lower hull boxes are equal, and have less than the three hull
boxes above them.

Now, with all hull boxes intact, the Fuji has a speed of 7. When it loses one
set of hull boxes, the speed is 5.5 MU. Lose another row, it drops to 4 MU.
Another row gets it down to 3, and when it has only one row left, it is
dropped to 1.5 MU. The hull box section of the ship sheet looks like this
(this is vaguely ASCII art, so a monospaced font is best for seeing it):

XXXXXX 7 XXXXXX 5.5 XXXXXX 4 XXXXX 3 XXXXX 1.5

You mark hull boxes off the top row. When the first row is lost, you cross out
the 7, indicating that the ship's speed is now 5.5. If a second hull row is
crossed out, you cross out the 5.5 and the ship's speed is now 4. The ship's
top speed will be 1.5 MU per turn when it has one hull row left.

This is assuming that you didn't roll a Boiler Damage critical hit on any of
your threshold checks, which could drive the speed down to zero. You simply
cross off the next speed rating. When the last speed rating is crossed off,
the ship has dropped to 0 speed. Damage Control can repair critical damage.
There's another critical hit, Steam Line, that has a similar result.

There's also a Rudder Damage critical that can have the ship turning in
circles. Oh, and I can't remember if I added it or not, but I had a rule about
a threshold check on a gun resulting in a possible magazine explosion. That
can take out a ship very quickly.

This is very similar to how Harpoon 4 denotes damage and speed reduction. MD

> Now, with all hull boxes intact, the Fuji has a speed of 7. When it

tis 2006-07-04 klockan 22:51 -0500 skrev Mark & Staci Drake:
> This is very similar to how Harpoon 4 denotes damage and speed

http://www.frontierlaser.ca/images/MetalSaw.jpg

Happy holidays!

/M

Well, shoot, I forgot to change the subject header.

I am repeating the message below, deliberately, so that anyone ignoring the
Armour thread but paying attention to the Full Steam thread will see it.

> On 7/6/06, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote: