Hello All:
Well, I figure that it's time to de-lurk... I finally have a
break in my schedule where I can deal with all things wargaming.
I'm thinking of scratch building my own fleet of Honor Harrington ships. I
don't think I'll have much trouble with the main hull. Those elongated plastic
beads should do the trick. However I need some suggestions on:
Hull detail: From the pictures in the new HH novel, there thankfully doesn't
seem to be that much hull detail on the ships. I do need some ideas on how to
score on the few hull panels I did notice and the gun ports.
Impeller nodes: This is the one that has me scratching my head. I originally
thought of using erasers. However I quickly dismissed it on the grounds that
it didn't seem all that sturdy. That, and they tend to come in only one size.
Any suggestions?
Oh... while I'm here. Don't expect any updates for the UFTWWWP for a
little while. I'm going to move the whole kit-n-kaboodle to
www.homegame.org in a few months. The whole process should be finished no
later than June.
I was also planning on some scratch build RMN ships. I looked at scupty and
carved wax as a basis for the masters. That way I could carve in the hull
details. Of course it helps to have a wife with an art degree. Fore the bridge
sections I was thinking of using bits from 20th century wet navy ship mini's.
The I would make a mold of the whole thing using RTV rubber. You could then
pull resin copies or wax copies and do lost wax casting in white metal.
> Hull detail: From the pictures in the new HH novel, there
.01" Plastic (from Evergreen, Plastruct or some other supplier) cames in a
variety of widths, and makes excellent hullplating.
> Impeller nodes: This is the one that has me scratching my head.
I
> originally thought of using erasers. However I quickly dismissed it
You could start with brass rod and use very small beads I suppose. I haven't
seen the pictures out of the new book, so I'm guessing.
I'm hoping to do some scratch-build/casting of HH ships before Easter,
as I'm running a scenario at Conquest.
For the alpha nodes, split plastic beads could work, depending on the size
scale you're working at.
Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
[mkw] Admiral Peter Rollins; Task Force Zulu
[pirates] Prince Rupert Raspberry; Base Commander
> -----Original Message-----
Fore
> the bridge sections I was thinking of using bits from 20th century wet
Actually I was talking to my friend who is setting up his own business,
yesterday. He's David Dunn of DLD productions, that just released the Space
Station 2000. He is working up other products as we speak. So I wondered out
load what it would take to get a licenses to do the Honor Harrington stuff. I
looked inside the cover of the latest book and David Weber owns all the
rights, not Bean. So my friends and my thought would be to contact Mr.Weber
about a license, if there was enough interest. So I ask you, is there enough
interest?
> Robertson, Brendan wrote:
I do not know anything about the appearence of the ships, but many craft shops
have 'acrilic rhinestones' that vary from 2 to 10 mm and have
facets. These may be overpainted for sensors/turrets.
Bye for now,
> Scott B. Jaqua wrote:
> So I ask you, is there enough interest?
Do you REALLY have to ask? At GenCon last year two of the players of a my B5
game, a husband and wife, were wearing Honor Harrington shirts (BTW, if anyone
knows where you can find these shirts, please let me know.). All the other
players mentioned that they were fans of the series. I think that they would
line up to get a hold of a Manticore fleet.
I don't think it would actually be that hard to get Weber's OK. He's worked
with the game industry before with Starfire and I think he might be quite
receptive to having the ships of Honor Harrington brought into miniature form.
In a message dated 2/27/2000 10:27:29 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> siefert@milwpc.com writes:
> << Scott B. Jaqua wrote:
> So I ask you, is there enough interest?
I'd agree with Mark:
> Do you REALLY have to ask?<
:::grin::: Heck yes.
and by the way, Mark said:
> At GenCon last year two of the players of a my B5 game, a husband and
Mark, repeat above, do you HAVE to ask?
:::grin:::
> I don't think it would actually be that hard to get Weber's OK. He's
One word of warning though. His experiance with Starfire was NOT a good one.
(If you ever meet him at a con, there are certian names to avoid mentioning:o)
So it will depend on the approach. I think your right though, he would
probably love to see mini's made for the fleets.
Randy
> ShldWulf@aol.com wrote:
> I don't think it would actually be that hard to get Weber's OK. He's
Sounds similar to Starfire's experience with him, unfortunately. What he did
with the Starfire background was wonderful and the novels have brought us a
whole bunch of new players, but unfortunately he didn't
stop there - he wrote rules too :-(
> (If you ever meet him at a con, there are certian names to avoid
Ours, or those of TFG people?
I tried to send this last night, but there seems to have been a mail server
glitch. Â If it doesn't go through this time I'll chalk it up to fate.
Â
> At 12:05 AM 2/28/00 +0000, you wrote:
> [quoted text omitted]
> Actually I was talking to my friend who is setting up his own business,
> yesterday. He's David Dunn of DLD productions, that just released the
> Space Station 2000. He is working up other products as we speak. So I
> wondered out load what it would take to get a licenses to do the Honor
> Harrington stuff. I looked inside the cover of the latest book and
> Weber owns all the rights, not Bean. So my friends and my thought would
> be to contact Mr. Weber about a license, if there was enough interest.
> So I ask you, is there enough interest?
I hesitate to even bring this up, but.. here goes.
I have talked to Mr.Weber (hereafter referred to as David), about a mini's
game based on the HH universe, and I have to say he was pretty particular
about what such a game would have to involve. Â I won't go into specifics
about it, but suffice to say no game currently out could even come close to
the detail he considered necessary. Â I don't know how receptive he would be
to just licensing the miniatures concept he would be. Â My gut tells me he
would not want to do it without an attached game to drive sales.
From my conversations with David, I get the impression (this is totally my own
impression), that the HH universe is kind of his favorite child and he's
pretty protective of it.
If you can get the license for the ships, then I would say there would be an
overwhelming demand for them, but I'm not sure that, that would be sufficient
ammunition to convince him to do it. Â Money isn't really much of a motivation
for him at this point.
Good luck
Bill
> bbrush@unlnotes.unl.edu wrote:
...which, for a 3k post, seems a little, well, short :-/ Did anyone
else get this post OK, and if so what did it say?
Hi all,
Someone's sending HTML messages to the list - can people check their
program setting, please?
some of us can't read HTML directly, and they're always massive great emails,
too.
Thanks,
> bbrush@unlnotes.unl.edu wrote:
> I have talked to Mr Weber (hereafter referred to as David),
> If you can get the license for the ships, then I would say
The first thing to do is to ask him if a gameless set of miniatures is
acceptable. If it is, there's no problem.
Secondly, if it isn't, then we have to ask what type of system would he
require?
3-D or not 3-D, that is the question. We don't want something of
SFB-style complexity (though he might). If we go 3-D, then we have the
problem of how do we make the models "fly" at the right Z-co-ordinate.
Not an insuperable problem, but not trivial either. Measuring vertical angles
is also a pain, and there'll be a lot of that (sidewall or topwall? Or down
the throat?). It also limits the Z to no more than a 2 metre length, just by
the physical distance people can slide the models up and down. But this may
still be the way to go, as the whole HH fleet naval tactics are based on walls
rather than lines.
Remember also that if we're using models, the system should be
appropriate for single-ship and small fleet actions, not neccessarily
battles involving hundreds of ships of the wall on each side: this would
require many thousands of dollars worth of minis to play, and a NASA Vehicle
Assembly Building in 3D, or a ballroom in 2D. For this scale of action, a
computer system is essential, or at worst, a boardgame.
Getting back to miniatures...
If we don't go for 3-D, then there should only be a commensurate amount
of detail in the simulation - no point in spending great amounts of time
and pages modelling events with a 0.5% significance in excruciating detail
when we've made a massive simplification equal to a 40% significance at the
start. But he may not see it that way, of course.
One system that comes to mind as a 2-D simulation is to use vector Full
Thrust as the base, but with ships having screens/armour/whatever on one
side (port or starboard) and weaponry on the other. In other words,
collapse the 3 dimensions into 2, but with the top/bottom mapped to
left, the sides to right. A roll to turn the sidewalls away from the enemy
becomes not a 90 degree axial roll but a 180 degree one. The
In a message dated 2/28/2000 01:14:54 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> oerjan.ohlson@telia.com writes:
<< Ours, or those of TFG people? >>
A certain manager of the StarFire game line from the old TFG days:o)
So far he never had a problem with the FT folks:o)
Randy
> Alan E and
Very true.
> Secondly, if it isn't, then we have to ask what type of system would
> Getting back to miniatures...
Well I wasn't going to get into this, but I'll go ahead and give you what I
have for design criteria.
1. 3-d movement
2. Accurate modeling of Newtonian physical movement 3. Accurate distance scale
Problems these criteria create:
Physically representing 3 dimensions on a tabletop
Projecting a cone for both open aspects of the wedges. (Cone projection is not
an easy bit of math)
A ship is around a km long (or so), but the wedge is much larger, usually
around 300 times the size of the actual ship. And engagement ranges are in the
millions of km. This gives you an incredible scale problem. Even if you (and
he) accept ships hundreds (perhaps thousands) of times larger than they should
be, they are still going to be tiny compared to the ranges.
Time scale. When egagement times are measured in hours, you have to have some
time compression in the game, but that very time compression could work
against you when you start working out the movement.
Speaking of movement, you also have the acceleration/deceleration
calculations, which while easy enough, do not make for a necessarily easy
game.
Anyone that's done any game design can tell you these are not trivial
problems.
JMO, but I did not consider this to be a workable game for the table top. The
calculations involved could not be easily handled without computer simulation.
David even told me that he didn't see how someone could
accurately model 3-D Newtonian physics in such a way that it made a good
game.
Now then, I'm not telling you this to discourage you. I just figure the more
intelligence you get on the opponent before you start, the better. If you can
get the license I'll most likely be lining up for the mini's myself.
As an aside, after talking with many designers, and doing some studying, I've
decided that one of the designers I talked with extensively was right. Good
books do not generally make good games, and good games do not generally make
good books. I love the HH series, and I've read them all at least twice
(except Ashes of Victory, which I've only read once), but I don't know that it
would necessarily make a good game.
All this is of course JMO, and it's probably worth what you paid for it.
Bill
> On 29-Feb-00 at 10:54, Rand (rand@binary.net) wrote:
> JMO, but I did not consider this to be a workable game for the table
There is an easy way to do away with 3-D. Limit the game to two
combatatants. 3-D is no longer an issue, heck, you can even add
a planet in and achieve the same affect. It sounds like what Mr.Weber wants is
a Star Fleet Battles level of granularity, not an FT level.
ShldWulf@aol.com wrote in reply to my question:
> << Ours, or those of TFG people? >>
Sorry, wrong "Ours".
I'm not primarily FT folk; I'm Starfire Design Studio - the people who
bought the rights to the Starfire game system from TFG, and were led to
believe (by TFG) that those rights extended somewhat more than they actually
did. Both Weber and we were rather upset when this was discovered, but
fortunately it was eventually hashed out relatively satisfactory for both us
and him.
Regards,
Rand said, presumably in studied tones:
> 1. 3-d movement
Nice if you can figure out an elegant way to do it. No one has that I'm aware
of. This actually presents two problems: 1) implementing the physical
representation of changes in Z axis (each ship gets a rod with a sliding
platform?); and 2) carrying out the calculations for 3D movement and ranges.
If you can
solve 1, then 2 is a lot easier--just physically measure it. If
you use a flat board with an elevation marker, then you have to do the math
every time you want to see where you really are.
> 2. Accurate modeling of Newtonian physical movement
Not difficult if you keep in mind the difference between "instant
acceleration" as in FT and "sustained acceleration" as in Real Life. "Next
turn you have your previous vector plus TWICE what you moved this turn".
> 3. Accurate distance scale
For what? Miniatures very rarely have the ground scale match the figure scale,
and I see no obvious reason why they should here.
> Projecting a cone for both open aspects of the wedges. (Cone
Cake, if you stick to 2D. If incoming fire passes through the F or A aspect,
you don't get shields. Otherwise you do. You can tweak it a bit, but that's
the basic solution.
> As an aside, after talking with many designers, and doing some
Right--but I think the idea is not quite to reproduce the books,
but rather to reproduce the universe in which the books are set.
> Agreed that this is non-trivial math.
You mean, "if someone shoots through the cone and hits the ship", I'd think?
Just hitting the cone would be a little worrying to the recipient but not
fatal.
> Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:
My thought is to put each spaceship inside a clear plastic sphere, which would
have the edges of various sidewalls, etc. drawn on the sphere. Then shine a
laser pointer from the firing ship to the target ship. Where the laser lights
up the sphere is where the shot hits.
Also, to see if a particular broadside can hit a target just shine the laser
from the target back to the attacker, then if it the laser shines inside the
area for a broadside then that broadside is able to fire on that target.
Enjoy,
> Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:
Now all we need is a way to raise and lower the cup to various heights off the
table.
Enjoy,
The club I play at has a group of WW1 fighter planes (1/144 scale)
mounted on radio antennae to provide height, the plane has a small round knob
( the head of a pin) on the bottom, the antenna has a clip on the end,
creating a ball and socket joint. The antenna has 8 (or 9) segments, so the
height is quantified. The base is hexagonal to correspond to the hexes printed
on the LARGE canvas map on which the dogfights take place. I have watched
several times and it works very well at this scale. The rig might not work as
well for FT unless you can source smaller versions. Hope this helps.
Well, I'm sure then being SDS, you've probably heard all his problems with
certain folk at TFG:o) I got an "eye" full back when we were corresponding
regularly. (Very
pre-SDS
:o)
Randy
> At 04:11 PM 3/1/00 -0800, Tom G. wrote:
[snicker-snack]
> Now all we need is a way to raise and lower the cup to various
As has been suggested... the telescoping poles were used by Moon Dragon. Oddly
enough, Keith Watt (who used Moon Dragon ships for his Solar Thrust scenario)
was talking about this during the game (dunno if you remember,
Jon -- you may have been off snapping pics of Grey Day). He'd used the
sphere-in-cup arrangement, but didn't like it because you could not get
the ships physically close to each other. That, and the bases had to be large,
and could easily overlap and/or tip over... I would *hate* to try this
on a fleet scale, especially if it's something like... Third yeltsin, I
b'lieve, where you have a *lot* of ships clustered about as tight as you can
get them.
One thing I was thinking about the scale... instead of trying to model the
impeller wedge around the ship, just say that the physical size of the mini on
the map is the size of the impeller wedge, and that the ship itself is much
smaller. It's not like that will throw the scale off by much, and this means
that it's easy to tell when two impeller wedges will interact
> Aaron Teske wrote:
The only problem I can see with that is that the shape of the wedge isn't
really related to the shape of the ship.
Here is what a Superdreadnought's wedge looks like:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~captruss/Wedge.html
That's from the home page of Russ Isler, the artist who did the illustrtions
in the last two books. He hasn't updated his site in a while, but did put a
nice pretty rendering of the Nike on the cover page:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~captruss/RMN.html
Tom
I saw an airplane game called Mustangs and Messerschmitts played using a pole
and ring clamp arrangement. Move the base for movement, slid the clamp up or
down for altitude, rotate the clamp for pitch and yaw. As to wedges, keep it
simple, use a cube. Top and bottom of the cube are protected sides are not.
Andy
http://www.welcome.to/Messerschmitt262.net
Special interest group offers a wealth of illustrative and textual information
detailing the legendary Me262 fighting machine. Browse the links.
[quoted original message omitted]
***
I saw an airplane game called Mustangs and Messerschmitts played using a pole
and ring clamp arrangement. Move the base for movement, slid the clamp up or
down for altitude, rotate the clamp for pitch and yaw. As to wedges, keep it
simple, use a cube. Top and bottom of the cube are protected sides are not.
***
I think this was Russo's baby; McEwan has a similar game. I seem to recall
hearing about some bad feelings about this. They may have worked together,
then had a falling out. Again, relatively ancient history. Zocchi either had
something similar, or was distributing one.
I know that the 'base' in some of these games is fiendishly clever, with a
steering wheel in front that is marked for distance moved, and a tiller
attached to indicate degrees of turning.
Dealing with the rules of how you gained or lost energy gave me a headache in
the first ten seconds; something you don't have to consider in a space game.
The_Beast