From: Michael Blair <amfortas@h...>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 02:00:06 PST
Subject: Grab Bag of Ideas & Comments. Mostly EFSB
I am catching up on a lot of mail over Christmas so please accept my apologies
for late suggestions and a varied selection of topics.
Reloading Missiles I like the idea in abstract, with a new (FTIII?) missile
system, but not
with the current missiles. I think SJGs Ogre game does it best with both
missile launchers and missile magazines. Any hit on a missile magazine is
going to be spectacular. Even if the warheads don't cook off (almost certain
if they are nukes) the missile fuel is going to make a real bang. An ideal
candidate for the Catastrophic Damage rules, something like lose next line of
hit boxes... My campaign rules do have a rule for it, basically if you fire or
are hit by anything the missile will probably blow up. As you can gather it
was a long winded way of saying do not do this in combat. I have just
converted these into HTML format, the URL is:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/ft-0043.html
Or there are bits and pieces of rules at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/ft-003.html
EFSB Notes and Queries Vector Movement Probably as good as Mayday's way of
doing it (ie. as good as it gets).
12-Sided counters/bases.
So simple but so good, it will make movement much easier. Now for an
easy way of cutting out 12-sided polygons from plasticard...
Catastrophic Damage. I love this idea, it makes small ships even more brittle
(never a bad thing IMHO). For ships with uneven numbers of damage boxes should
the extra boxes be at the top, so the damage increases in severity?
Hit Boxes I like the way these are done, With weaker ships (merchants) having
narrower rows of hit boxes so they are more vulnerable to damage checks.
Fighters Fighter Screen. Wonderful. This is what the things are for. In FT
they would be also be useful as a missile screen (?). Fighter Combat table.
Nice idea, the added complexity is more than offset by the gain in
versatility. Each fighter type (interceptor, torpedo...) can have its own
place on the table. See the end of this missive for the table;
Ship Weapons Fire Arcs. Good. Broadsides are back in fashion.
Heavy Beam Weapons I would be very surprised NOT to see these in FTIII. Huge,
heavy and deadly, they are what AA Megabatteries should have been. I always
liked the spinal mounts in Traveller but I was never completely
happy with the Nova Cannon or Wave Guns, These beam weapons go a long way to
filling that niche. I presume that screens do not stop them?
If you end up using technology levels then recharge rates for the beam power
stores are a prime candidate. Using different die die also fits very well
here:
Relative Recharge Example TL Rate
1 d3+1 d4 Earthforce
2 d6 3 d8 4 d10 5 1d×2 Minbari
I also rather like the 4 classes of 'cannon' (pulse batteries in EFSB,
ordinary beam batteries in FT). In WW II terms (very roughly): C 1 Light 4"
Destroyers. Dual purpose. B 2 Medium 8" Cruisers, secondaries on capitals.
Maybe still dual purpose? A 3 Heavy 12" Capital ship weapons.
4 Extremely Heavy 16"+ Dreadnought weapons.
So we might have an old battleship armed with A/lvl-3 batteries and a
new super-dreadnought armed with a similar number of the new lvl-4
batteries.
Yes I know I am sticking to the 'classic' WW I - II naval paradigm, but
don't we all want to see long lines of grey ships hammering away at each
other? This explains my dislike of fighters (aircraft), missiles (torpedoes)
and cloaks (submarines), they are a distraction from the gun action. Mind you
the Japanese naval command in WW II thought along similar lines
and look where it got them. Maybe the 1890s are a better model with few
distractions from the gun and much more variety of design.
Archimedes 1889 Whoops! As you no doubt guessed that should have been 1989.
Too much Space 1889 and too many Babbage Engines my dear chap.
FT Font At Last! Ha. ha, ha, ha... Brian Bell has made me very happy. I have
not had such good news since the last time a Kennedy died:). It would be
interesting to see the EFSB ship symbols added to the
font...
Someone was asking about this: The Nova is a official B5 ship, they can be
seen occasionally in the series. The picture in the EFSB exaggerates the size
of its guns (but not by much).
(Possible B5 spoiler warning) 5 4 3 2 1
EF ships, late period Omegas at least, have some sort of shipboard security
troops as seen at the end of season four. The penultimate series of season 4
mentions a new Warlock class of destroyer, presumably these are the silly
looking (spiky) Shadow technology Omegas?
Late News The magazine Computer Games Strategy Plus (or whatever it is called
now)
mentioned a B5 multimedia CD available nowish and a starship combat game
due around the end of the year. Start saving those pennies now people, this
could be the computer game we have been waiting for.
Fighter Combat Table
Fighter/Fighter Combat
Attacker
Defender Normal Fast Heavy
Interceptors Attack Long-Range Torpedo
Normal 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 3, 4, 5,
6 6 4, 5, 6 6
Fast 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 3, 4, 5,
6 6 4, 5, 6 6
Heavy 5, 6 5, 6 5, 6 4, 5, 6 6 5, 6 6 Interceptors 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4,
5, 6 6 4, 5, 6 6 Attack 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 3, 4, 5,
6 6 4, 5, 6 6
Long-Range 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 3, 4, 5,
6 6 4, 5, 6 6
Torpedo 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 3, 4, 5,
6 6 4, 5, 6 6
Anti-Ship
Unscreened 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 -
3, 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6 4, 5, 6*
Level 1 Screens 5, 6 5, 6 5, 6 -
4, 5, 6 5, 6 4, 5, 6*
Level 2 Screens 5, 6 5, 6 5, 6 -
4, 5, 6 5, 6 4, 5, 6*
Level 3 Screens 6 6 6 -
5, 6 6 4, 5, 6*
All 6s all bold (If you have the EFSB you know what this means, if you don't
go and buy it) except those in the Attack and Torpedo columns for
fighter/fighter combat. In anti-ship All sixes are bold on the
unscreened and level 1 screens rows only. No sixes are bold for Torpedo
fighters, the * indicates their special nature. (At least that is my
interpretation of More Thrust but I have been wrong before). Hmmn, I like this
table, I think I may start using it. I will do up a copy and post it on my web
page at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/ft-003.html