For Hugh and Martin:
The rationalization as the endpoint of the turn as a resolution point for fire
with the claim it represents the longer continous process of fire is
interesting. It has problems. In Martin's model, it's just 'where you happen
to choose to resolve discretely the continous fire actually occuring. In
Hugh's, similarly, but with the assumption you are firing into the next turn
(effectively).
This breaks down when:
1) At one point of this or the next turn (depending on your assumptions) you
were out of range or arc. In this sort of situation, your fire should be less
effective for a round if it really is continous fire.
2) You die. That particularly affects Hugh's assumption because if you blow up
during a fire resolution after firing, and the assumption is you were firing
half way into next turn, some of your damage output for the round was too
great because you are no longer there to complete the firing!
I have worked myself around to seeing that having multiple contributing points
during the term whose aggregate determines your fire for that turn would be
better. However, Details, meet Mr.Devil. Mr.Devil, meet Details.
John T:
The problem won't be figuring out where you are at the midpoint, but where you
are pointed. As you say, FT makes instantaneous rotations. One could get
around this by assuming thrust is not turn long, but if you're going to assume
turn long fire, assuming short thrust bursts
seems somehow unbalanced. So yes, mid-turn bearing is a bit of a bear.
And realistically, rotation probably should be very much faster than turn
length, and that includes corkscrewing or rolling as well.
> At 4:27 PM -0500 15/1/10, Tom B wrote:
Yeah, but that's not a new problem and as you point out later on, happens in
any system where you change facing
during a segment/impulse/turn.
> 2) You die. That particularly affects Hugh's assumption because if you
No it doesn't, because you may not die until the middle
of the next turn - enemy fire is staggered as well.
Removing the model at the end of this turn is just to save writing and
plotting movement for a ship that will never shoot or need to be shot at.
There's still the "I died before I could shoot" issue which isn't realistic if
weapons fire represents the combined effects of several minutes fire. This can
be avoided altogether by resolving thresholds at the end of the turn (as in
Starmada) or handwaved by saying that the first shot actually made a combat
kill and all the fire after that was just "Are they dead? Keep firing until
they absolutely, positively, are!"
> Maybe the only real solution to this problem overall is going with
I have a copy. It's... interesting. I've never been able to persuade someone
to play it with me, and the rule authors (well, Ken Burnside) are adamant that
it's unfair to judge the game just by reading it and that it becomes much
easier when actually played.
cheers,
On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> I have a copy. It's ... interesting. I've never been
Been there, done that, and Mr.burnside is correct. I managed to get a couple
of rocket rallies organized (running one lap of a closed
I will also agree to the need to try before buying; I've a copy of the
original AV:T that I've read, and tried putting out, to no avail.
At Last GenCon, Mr Burnside was running a demo with I think
dumbed-down-but-still-3D rules. I was slotted in after the demo was
already started, but got to call 'first blood' after performing something akin
to an immelman. When asked 'how did you do that', I demonstrated the maneuver
on my sheet, to which everyone, including the author, seemed to think I was
actually getting it down.
I had fun the first time I played FT, have had fun every too few game since,
even when watching the slowly expanding cloud that was my ESU SDN. In spite my
success on the table, I can not imagine investing enough time to regularize
myself to the AV:T system, even in it's current 'cleaned up' SITS incarnation,
to get to 'fun'.
However, I have to admit it remains a theortical possibility.
The_Beast
Richard Bell wrote on 01/16/2010 02:10:08 AM:
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au>
wrote:
> >
Thanks for this post--- I've been thinking about trying AV:T for a
while and hadn't seen a real side-by-side comparison. I'm not
interested in six-decimal-place accuracy, but the fundamental issues
of space are important (ie: vector movement, reaction drive physics,
etc).
I'm still wondering if 3d really adds anything to the tactical feel of the
game.
Rob
> On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 05:27:57PM -0500, Robert Mayberry wrote:
> I'm still wondering if 3d really adds anything to the tactical feel of
I played quite a bit of Star Strike back in the day (Iron Crown's spaceship
combat game, precursor to Silent Death) and, apart from making
ship design more complicated, I really don't think that adding 3D _in
the absence of gravity_ is worth doing. The major difference is that if
you want to stop the enemy coming through "this bit of space" you need more
ships in order to prevent him from slipping between your units, but that's not
a tactical thing as such.
It's fun to try sometimes, but not something I find worth the trouble for
normal games.
(For an air combat game it's much more important, but not essential even
there: Crimson Skies manages without an altitude system at alll, and is still
fun to play.)
R
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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lPlaying games
of Aeronautica Imperialis (GWs 40k flying game) recently, that has an
abstracted altitude system. All the altitude really does is track what
relative hight the two planes are at and whether you can shoot at them or not.
Generally if you are in a dogfight you need to the the same altitude or nearly
so and a significant change in altitude is equivalent to leaving the table.
I am not sure that adding a 3rd dimension would add much to the game other
than to make it more complex.
I saw some interviews with fighter pilots a few months ago, and several seemed
to describe altititude not so much as a difference in relative position as it
is a difference in relative potential energy.
Do AI or other games reflect this?
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 6:14 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:
> Playing games of Aeronautica Imperialis (GWs 40k flying game)
recently, that
> has an abstracted altitude system. All the altitude really does is
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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lAI goes so way
to reflect altitudes impact on energy state. If you want to slow down you can
knock points off speed and then climb which will further reduce your speed.
Diving will quicky take you up to max speed. So you can trade altitude for
speed and vice versa.
Some planes have lower thrust so struggle to gain speed and climb others have
the ability to climb and increase speed because of their thrust (power to
weight ration).
A lot of AI missions we play involve a ground attack element so are at quite
low altitude. The game we played on Saturday one of the fighter groups started
too high and stayed up too high, this allowed their bombers to get bounced
before they could get down and support and when they did come down they came
down in a power dive and some of them got picked off by fighters that had
climed up and turned into their dive.
The game is very like WW2 or Vietnam type missions in feel.
Really, do have a look first, and preferably in a demo by fan boys. Rather a
turn or burn thing, of the kind of YMMV greatly.
It does a fair job of keeping the math under the bonnet, so to say, but I
can't tell how deep the math is, come to that.
I hate playing devil's advocate, and I REALLY don't care for this system, but
if I a) could have really felt the 3D I was using, b) didn't think the
'drawing the course changes through the boxes' felt fiddly, I might give it a
lukewarm recommendation.
Strange thing is, I am almost surprised I had to state the above. Ken Burnside
has a way of showing up in any web conversation about the game, to the point
of being a bit annoying. When one of my store partners goes into a rant about
the game not being worth the chocolate used to bribe into play, I stand
quietly for a moment, almost expecting him to pop through the door.
The_Beast
Robert Mayberryu wrote on 01/17/2010 04:27:57 PM:
> Thanks for this post--- I've been thinking about trying AV:T for a
wrote:
> > I will also agree to the need to try before buying; I've a copy of
LOL the chocolates in the tutorial I thought were really clever. I laughed out
loud when I read them. Three cheers for operant conditioning!
Actually, I appreciate Ken maintaining such a strong online presence (much as
I appreciate Jon staying so close to his customers). And, if you have a rules
question, you could do a lot worse than to look in a mirror and say "Ken
Burnside" three times.:)
One thing that will keep me coming back to FT, though, is its
simplicity and playability. I would love to see a reaction-drive tweak
for FT that is compatible with AV:T / THS physics, and I've been
kicking around a generalized weapons system that would eliminate some of the
"win the battle in drydock" effects, but I'd hate to kill the simple elegance
of the rules.
Rob
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 7:13 PM, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
Rather
> a turn or burn thing, of the kind of YMMV greatly.
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Sun, Jan 17,
2010 at 5:27 PM, Robert Mayberry <robert.mayberry@gmail.com>wrote:
> Thanks for this post--- I've been thinking about trying AV:T for a
Makes ship designs different, offers more complexity to the rules, and REALLY
DAMNED WELL DEMONSTRATES how bloody difficult it is to create a minefield in
space (something utterly lost in 2D games)
Mk
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Gzg-l@mail.csua.berkeley.edu
http://mail.csua.berkeley.edu:8080/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Sun, Jan 17,
> 2010 at 7:39 PM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> Makes ship designs different, offers more complexity to the rules, and
There's an episode of Futurama that does that, and it doesn't require outlay
of money or mental gymnastics. *G*
--
Allan Goodall http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com awgoodall@gmail.com