_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lA question to those
of you using Kra'vak.
How well do they perform in Vector movement?
My reading of the rules, in particular the FB 2 mods to Vector Movement, would
indicate that they would be slightly more handy than Hu'man ships, not having
to point the ship to use Main Drives to change course, but
the narrow firing arcs for the K-Guns would necessitate using points out
of the manoeuver pool to keep tweeking the heading to bring guns to bare.
Would this be an accurate read?
David
> My reading of the rules, in particular the FB 2 mods to
KV have an easy time keeping putting targets in their F arc, but they have a
hard time staying out of opponents' F arc.
I'd say that KV (and otehr high-maneuverability designs) are
less powerful in vector than they are in cinematic.
To fix that, it has been proposed for FT3 that a maneuver point in vector will
only let you turn you 60 degrees
instead of unlimited amounts--so if your target is behind
you, you'd have to use 3 points to turn to face instead of the 1pt you'd use
with the current system. If you try that, please give us an After Action
Report.
> Laserlight wrote:
> >My reading of the rules, in particular the FB 2 mods to
To put it in a different way: in FB2 Vector a single thrust point is enough
to rotate your ship into any facing you want, so even a thrust-2 ESU
superdreadnought has as easy a time keeping targets in its (F) arc as a
thrust-6A Kra'Vak cruiser - and the ESU ship pays proportionally far
less
for its thrust-2 main drive than the KV ship does.
Against the *Fleet Book 1* ships (which are designed for Cinematic movement)
Kra'Vak do OK in FB2 Vector, because while the KV waste a lot of points on
their *main drives* (which don't buy them any real advantage in Vector) the
FB1 human ships waste a lot of points on *wide fire arcs* (which also aren't
very useful in Vector).
OTOH, human-tech ships which are specifically designed for Vector
movement
tend to slaughter Kra'Vak pretty badly :-/
> To fix that, it has been proposed for FT3 that a maneuver
Amen to that!
> laserlight wrote:
> To fix that, it has been proposed for FT3 that a maneuver
I don't like that idea. At any sort of velocities which it is reasonble to
assume FT ships are moving, it should be much easier to turn a ship on its own
axis than to alter its vector.
A current example: The orientation thruters on the Space Shuttle are smaller
that either the main engines or the orbital manuevering engines.
I've been considering house-ruleing in the other dircetion - turning
does not use thrust points, it just has to be plotted, and assuming that
orientation is handled by a seperate system of small thrusters. So far I
have not had the chance to try that however. 1 thrust lets you turn whatever
way you want seems like a pretty good compromize so far.
I don't know what the effect on play balance of any of these systems is;
I am thinking more from the physics of the issue. I would hate to see a change
made for the sake of play balance which I would think is a big step away from
realism (SF realism at least) when it could also be handled by ship design or
points values.
To add to laserlight's house-rule, I might suggest that an additional
icon be added to represent the small thrusters. If you lose that to a critical
hit, then you lose all your maneuver thrusters. Alternatively, you could say
that when you main drive takes its first hit, you lose maneuvering thrusters.
Also, I would say that if you lose your main drive all together, you can't
rotate.
--Greg
> On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, David Stokes wrote:
> laserlight wrote:
> A current example: The orientation thruters on the Space Shuttle are
Sorry that a cinematic devotee pipes in, but the example is pretty much moot
in my estimation. I realize that some rationalizations have it that the
rotational time is insignificant in the turn, but I always thought the numbers
used were pretty arbitrary.
In fact, since vector has a ship's 'final' orientation in each turn, I would
put it to you that the rotational time IS significant, and therefore, the
'lost' movement points have nothing to do with the size of any of your
thrusters, but the lessened slice of time devoted to your main thrusters
pointed in one direction.
However, it is silly, and I will have nothing to do with it.
The_Beast
> Doug Evans wrote:
> the 'lost' movement points have nothing to do with the size of any of
I could see that, and I haven't thought of it that way before. I don't know if
that is how I want to play it, but it makes some sense.
I play both cinematic and vector in different contexts. (Actually, right
now I don't play at all. Is there anybody in Scotland up for a game?)
Actually, cinematic does a good job simulating "movie physics" and I happily
use for Star Wars, etc. I may have to try out Attack Vector: Tactical or other
such systems for when I want a dose of the hard stuff.
> I don't like that idea. At any sort of velocities which it is
You might be confusing velocity, speed and acceleration and comparing apples
and oranges. In physics velocity is not a synonym for speed, and acceleration
is not a synonym for going faster. Velocity and acceleration are *both*
vectors and imply both size and direction. Speeding up, slowing down, changing
course *and* rotating a spaceship all involve velocity changes, and all
involve accelerating the mass
of the ship. At non-relativistic velocities the ship's ability to do
this is not affected by the speed at which it happens to be moving when it
starts to accelerate.
The mass of a spaceship must be accelerated, whether to change the overall
velocity of the ship, or to spin the ship round its axis. In rotation this is
complicated by the fact that the ship's Moment Of Inertia (MOI is the
rotational analogue of mass in linear motion) is affected not only by the
total mass, but also by the distribution of that mass round the rotational
axis. Roughly speaking, a long
cylindrical spaceship, or worse yet a dumbbell-shaped one, would
require more force to rotate it round an axis normal to its long axis than a
short stubby one of the same mass. FT doesn't model this (thankfully), though
Attack Vector does.
Assuming a spaceship using today's physics, the time required to, for example,
rotate 180 degrees from one steady heading to another would be determined by
the MOI of the ship and the rotational acceleration imparted by the
manoeuvring system, just as the ship's ability to accelerate in a straight
line would be determined by its mass and the
thrust of its main propulsion system. Present-day spacecraft like the
Space Shuttle have lower thrust manoeuvring thrusters than their propulsion
rockets, not so much because it is somehow "easier" to accelerate the mass of
the vehicle in rotation than in a straight line, as because much lower
accelerations are required. My physics is *way* too rusty to crunch the
numbers, so I'll leave that exercise for younger minds...:)
However the Thrust Rating in FT clearly does not simply represent thrust, so
much as ability to accelerate in one turn. After all it is possible to design
a battlecruiser or a frigate with Thrust 6. Each would be able to change its
velocity by the same number of MUs per turn, but the greater mass of the
battlecruiser would presumably require more thrust to do it. The difficult
part is deciding on the equivalency of a Thrust Points (TPs) used for linear
or rotational acceleration.
I think the question is whether an FT player feels it is reasonable for a
20,000 tonne, high MOI behemoth like a Von Tegetthoff SD (Thrust 2 from FB1)
to be able to do a 180 to port followed by a 180 to starboard (two TPs) in one
turn of game time. Or to put it another way, is it reasonable for for the SD
to start from a steady heading, and spin to any new steady heading, in the
same time (half a turn) it would take the same ship to change its overall
velocity by one MU?
> I don't know what the effect on play balance of any of these
My extended blather above is intended to show why I don't think "realistic
physics" is decisive either way. The effect of the existing vector movement
rules is that the Von Tegetthoff can rotate from one heading to any other in
half a game turn. If the rule were changed to one TP per 60 degree segment,
the effect would be that the lumbering, armoured monster would need 1.5 game
turns to do it. There isn't really any way to say that one is more realistic
than the
other, since one could argue the time/thruster power/hull strength/
acceleration compensator PSB to suit.
Though I have not tried the proposed costing 60 degree rotates at one maneuver
point each. I think it may be a good idea. This past ECC, I was in a vector
game of 3 BBs vs. 2 BBs and a couple of CLs. Though a good game (thanks to my
opponent on an excellently played win), it felt to me more like a fighter
dogfight than big guns slugging it out. It was all
tight maneuvering with no ship traveling outside a speed range of 8-12
MUs and all ships having firing resolutions in their Fore arcs at short range
every turn. I know that if I could not have been able to rotate my big ships
around as fast as that, I would have had to put more thought into my movement
orders. I am sure that the battle would have been far different, more sweeping
turns and driving back toward the target. The 6 TP DDs and CLs can still do
the "dogfighting" if they want, but the 2 TP SDNs should take a couple or
three turns to do an 180.
-jerry
> laserlight wrote:
> My reading of the rules, in particular the FB 2 mods to
> To add to laserlight's house-rule
NOT my house rule--a proposed rule for FT3.
I do like the idea of a separate icon for maneuver drives, but that's a whole
nother kettle of piscoids.
> David Billinghurst wrote:
> >>Or do most big actions take place at low velocity (by big action I'm
while
> >"fast" doesn't start until somehwere around 40+ and "too fast" is
My old table was 120x80 mu; my current one is 240x120 mu.
> I'm clued in on the floating table
I was talking about *Cinematic* speeds above, not Vector. Vector is generally
slower than Cinematic; I merely used the above speed examples to show the
dangers with using vague terms like "slow" and "fast". What I was trying to
say is that Vector is generally played at lower speeds than
Cinematic, but it is quite easy to find Vector-using gaming groups who
fly
faster than some Cinematic-using gaming groups.
Sorry for the confusion :-/
> Back to the Kra'Vak
That the Tuffleyverse (and all the Fleet Book designs) is written for
Cinematic movement, not Vector?
Happy New Year,