[GZG] [FT] Point Blank / Passing Fire

I can give some details of this rule suggestion, as I've done a some
playtesting with it and I think it works very well for modest size games. If
many ships are going to be zipping by one another in a great melee, things can
bog down significantly. I'd love to see what others think about how it plays.

The "Point Blank" rule: **This rule requires real sportsmanship on behalf of
opposing players, otherwise it will be a source of angst, acrimony, and
gnashing of teeth and should not be used.**

If players see that two ships will pass or have passed within ~6MU (~6MU is
**approximate** and is exactly the kind of measurement that
should _not_ be anally stickled with) of each other in the movement
phase, they may declare "Point Blank" for those ships. The Point
Blank Fire phase happens JUST BEFORE normal ship activation/
initiative. Point blank ships may fire weapons at each other using the
following guidelines

The Point Blank Fire phase consists of 4 parts: Fire all weapons bearing while
converging (simultaneous) Assess converging damage Fire all weapons bearing
while diverging (simultaneous) Assess Diverging damage.

Which arcs bear during “converging” and “diverging” is depends on how
ships are passing each other. A Head-on pass is when, for example,
ships A and B begin in each other’s Forward arcs and end in each other’s
Aft arcs. Thus, converging fire is both ships firing all Forward 180 weapons
simultaneously, and diverging fire is both ships firing (surviving) Aft
weapons simultaneously.

An Overtake is when ship A begins with its forward arcs facing B’s Aft arcs,
and ends with A’s Aft arcs facing B’s Forward arcs. Thus,

converging fire is A’s Forward arcs and B’s aft arcs; and diverging

fire is A’s Aft arcs, and B’s Forward arcs.

Cases where ship A “T-bones” ship B by crossing from port to
starboard side or vice versa can still be broken down to a variation
of Head-on or Chase as long as sportsman rules apply (a variation
would be to have the T-bonesd ship able to fire all port side weapons
during converging and all starboard weapons during diverging).

Ships engaging in passing fire are considered "activated" already when going
through normal initiative. A ship opting not to fire point blank may be
activated as normal. Yes, this means that an SDN going point blank with a
Destroyer needs to decide whether to spend its activation dealing with the
destroyer head on, or waiting until normal activation to potentially use
multiple fire controls against multiple targets.

If several ships go point blank of each other in close proximity, a
"Firefight" is declared, and all ships within it follow the PB Fire phase at
the same time. A Firefight with 3 or more ships should
probably have the PB phase simplified to “all ships fire FH/assess/AH/

asses” regardless of head-on/chase/T-bone passes.

Passing fire would add a huge Cinematic feel for FT, opens new
tactical options (and closes some less realistic mechanics-based
ones), and provide something that no other tabletop game (that I know of) ha
been able to do without segmented movement.

Issues: Point Blank on two ships: If, for example ship X goes Point blank to
Ship A at the start of a movement, and then to ship B at the end of movement
(but both encounters are far enough apart that they do not cause a Firefight),
then X must choose if he wants to use Point Plank resolution on either A or B
(or neither and wait for normal activation in the turn order).

Game speed/number of ships.
This rule has worked well with small numbers of ships (4-5 on a side
max). It can be fiddly, though. If two ships end turn one facing each other at
1 MU, both in F arc, then you'll probably get the ships firing on each other
almost instantly twice in a row (at the end of
turn X, and at the start of turn X+1), unless you also place a
minimum (1/2 turn?) cycle time on weapons, which gets dicey if you
fire 75% of the way through turn X and try to eyeball 25% of the way
through turn X+1)

On Jun 29, 2006, at 10:37 AM, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
wrote:

> While there seems to be no easy or