Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

6 posts ยท Aug 18 1999 to Aug 19 1999

From: Jerry Han <jhan@w...>

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 14:27:45 -0400

Subject: Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

> Ground Zero Games wrote:

That's the part that makes me wonder; I'm writing from Canada, and I'm 25,
which should put me in the metric crowd. I grew up learning metric in school,
and it should be second nature (and it is for distances and temperatures, and
a bunch of other things.)

But it seems anything creative: e.g. building a wall, baking a cake, playing
with minatures, writing an essay, I flip into imperial measurements. I've
never even tried playing FT in centimeters. I don't think it would work very
well; my largest starship (my attempt to assemble a 'Berserker'),
would be over 10-15cm long, or the range of a C-bat.

Ah, well.

J.

From: Tom McCarthy <tmcarth@f...>

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 14:48:18 -0400

Subject: Re: Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

I've played in both inches and centimetres and prefer to play in inches. It's
only a preference and others will prefer centimetres, but I find that small
scale gives high speeds which leads to brief battle passes and short exchanges
of fire.

Also, the miniatures can get awfully close together in inches or centimetres.
In centimetres, moving two ships so they'll physically fit can make a big
difference to the game (say 4 or 5 cms; a lot against salvo missiles or pulse
torpedoes, potentially significant against beams). In particular, GW and AOG
miniatures are almost too big for inches scale, as are the very largest and
broadest GZG miniatures (FSE fleet carrier, NAC superdreadnought, etc.).

From: Nyrath the nearly wise <nyrath@c...>

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 20:06:33 -0400

Subject: Re: Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

> Jerry Han wrote:

From: Brian Bell <bkb@b...>

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 20:28:39 -0400

Subject: RE: Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

You could always use 25mm per tactical unit.

---
Brian Bell bkb@beol.net <mailto:bkb@beol.net>
http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/
---

[quoted original message omitted]

From: Tim Jones <Tim.Jones@S...>

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 07:44:36 +0100

Subject: RE: Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

The built in flexibility of FT allows you to easily switch between the two,
depending on the circumstances (big minis, small space).

From: Thomas Anderson <thomas.anderson@u...>

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:33:37 +0100 (BST)

Subject: Re: Inches versus CM (was Re: Vector Movement)

> On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Tom McCarthy wrote:

> I've played in both inches and centimetres and prefer to play in

whereas i've played both and prefer cm!

> It's only a preference and others will prefer centimetres, but I find

in favour of metric, i'd say that it gives a bigger table, which gives more
room for maneuver: it's actually possible to be well out of range of
a 3-battery on a norma table, which changes things quite a lot.

people do tend to go faster, and so combat can tend to consist of many short
engagements rather than one long one, but it depends strongly on the players.
i find that my ships travel at speends of about 2 to 3 times their thrust
regardless of scale (this is largely deliberate).

> Also, the miniatures can get awfully close together in inches or
In
> particular, GW and AOG miniatures are almost too big for inches scale,

i admit that i do have fairly small minis - my largest ship is a NAC BC,
which is perfectly alright in metric.

tom