OK chaps, its late on Friday evening and I've just had an idea, so I thought
I'd throw it out to you all now so that you can cogitate on it
(I
think I'm allowed to say that...).
There has been a lot of discussion about how fighters (and missiles) should
work in a "true vector" movement system of the kind we've been kicking around
for a while. The most "realistic" answer is to make them move as ships do,
with recorded velocities, vector markers etc., but for a long while I've been
trying to avoid doing this for fighters in order to avoid the additional
complexity. The following idea occurred to me while I was thinking about the
rationale behind fighter movement.
The suggested rule is this: Allow fighters to move "freely" as per normal FT
rules (whereabouts in the turn sequence you move them is not really relevant
to this), but with a much greater maximum move (maybe 36"?) provided they do
not change course. For every 1 point course change the group makes during its
move, deduct an amount (6"?) from its maximum move. Course changes could be
made all at one point, or spread over the move distance, at the player's
choice. In other words, it is actually very much like counting movement points
in a
hex-based game, and using up points to turn one or more hexsides. The
way the group is pointing at the end of the turn does not affect its combat
ability (assume all-round fire, with fighters spinning as necessary to
bear
guns), but it DOES give the heading/course for the start of the next
turn.
Now, as I see it, this actually simulates an "abstracted" vector movement
quite well; the amount by which the group can alter course depends on how
far (ie: how fast) it is moving - a group could make a radical course
change but not move very far, or else travel a long way without much (if any)
change of direction. I think this fits OK with the concept that the fighters
would have to
carefully use their limited fuel/power resources - they could either
stooge around at low speed, retaining the ability to manoeuvre easily, or
could
commit to a high-velocity vector in the hope that their target would be
in the right place when they arrived. One tweak that we might add is to say
that if a group ends up just a little too far away from a target to make an
attack, it could sacrifice one turn of "combat" endurance in order to make an
emergency manoeuvre (perhaps a bonus move of up to 6" in any direction?) to
bring it into attack position. Combat endurance might be upped from 3 to 4 (or
5, or more) turns if this was to be used; as in MT, one combat endurance turn
is expended for any turn in which the fighters engage in combat (offensive or
defensive); we'd probably remove the time limitation for return to carrier
after expending
all combat endurance - they can trundle back at whatever speed they
like, but won't be able to fight.
So, this is really just a bunch of random thoughts - the physicists and
mathematicians out there will probably shred it, but I'm more concerned about
whether anyone thinks it will work as a GAME MECHANIC rather than a
mathematical model!! Does it feel "right"?
Over to you...:)
I thought that it would be just as easy to give a fighter a Main Drive of 12.
A Rotation Thruster of 12. And a Thruster "push" of =ZERO= (or push of 1 for
fighter recovery). This allows fighter groups to choose any heading, apply
Thrust, and choose any facing. The figher turn sequence should be maintained.
Fighter movement could be done on the fly, anouncing the
Rotation and Thrust before moving the figure/counter. But the Fighter
Endurance should be lengthened under this system (12 maybe?). Fighters would
launch during Fighter Movement Phase and have an initial course and velocity
of the carrier.
Brian Bell pdga6560@csi.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pdga6560/fthome.html
Includes the Full Thrust Ship Registry Is your ship design here?
----------
> From: Ground Zero Games <jon@gzero.dungeon.com>
should
> work in a "true vector" movement system of the kind we've been kicking
we'd
> probably remove the time limitation for return to carrier after
> Ground Zero Games writes:
@:) OK chaps, its late on Friday evening and I've just had an idea, so @:) I
thought I'd throw it out to you all now so that you can cogitate @:) on it (I
think I'm allowed to say that...).
@:) [ fighter movement rule deleted]
I think this would work BUT I'm not convinced that keeping track of vector
movement information for fighters would be that bad, either. I would think
that a normal carrier fleet (with escort, of course) would carry as many
fighter squadrons as ships, more or less. So a
full-sized carrier should come in with five escorts or so. This means
you can generally expect fighters to double the vector paperwork of their
associated ships. I don't think that's too terrible, really (fighters already
add complexity and slow the game down, so that'll be nothing new).
Missiles offer the possibility of really bogging things down. But only if
there are a lot of them.
> Ground Zero Games wrote:
should
> work in a "true vector" movement system of the kind we've been kicking
IMHO:
I don't think it's that big a deal -- it's just like adding another
ship to the game. Also (and this is a big win in my book), you don't
have to memorize or teach two different systems of moving -- once you
know how to move a ship, you know how to move a fighter group. That's an
important part of Playability too.
I'm still not sure what to do with missiles, though.
GZG offered the ideas of essentially terrain costs to maneuver fighters for
FTIII Vector based system. It does have the advanatage in apearing simple.
However, My attempt to read them caused xome confustion. Additional confustion
arises as we will have to switch between movement methods for each type of
craft, this makes it harder to anticipate the interactions of the fighters
against our ships, and makes the fighters less maneuverable in that the set of
potential final fighter positions declines... Phil P.
> On Fri, 28 Mar 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:
> OK chaps, its late on Friday evening and I've just had an idea, so I
should
> work in a "true vector" movement system of the kind we've been kicking
Added complexity? Uh... no.
Since I don't have very many nifty fighter bases (I used to use Leviathan or
Starfire fighter squadron counters instead; now I have two fighter bases
too...), and it is a bit difficult to get a small D6 to stay on those counters
during combat, I usually record how many fighters each squadron has on a slip
of paper. This means I already have a piece of paper on which I can record the
squadron's current speed.
I, too, have given fighters an all-around fire arc (due to their
maneuvrability) and use the "facing" of the squadron counter/model to
indicate direction of travel - this means I don't have to use vector
counters for them. The _only_ additional book-keeping I need to do is
the current speed of the fighters, and that isn't very much. Since I don't
have to worry about two different movement mechanics, I'm happy.:)