Ramming

Hello Folks, In general, ramming would not have been included in a game if it
wasn't expected at some point in time for the rule to become useful. On the
other hand, I would like to ask the designers of Full Thrust to shelve their
rules for Full Thrust 3, and concentrate on something a tad more
useful - namely campaign rules.
Ramming, to my way of thinking is justified under one of two major situations,
and to my way of thinking, is another modified form of scuttling the ship. The
first reason is when the crew of a ship has little chance of escaping their
enemy, and capture looks likely. However, it is unlikely that a captain who
wants his crew to be picked up by the enemy's forces after the destruction of
his ship will chose ramming as a means of destroying his ship (something about
an outraged enemy perhaps?). The second reason is when the situation is
desperate, and by ramming, you bring about a better end battle situation than
had you not rammed. This
could be the defense of a home planet system, it could be the rear-guard
action where it is imperative that you delay the enemy as long as possible,
etc... On the other hand, I cannot picture a first officer relaying the
command "ram" to lower sections on the ship, or the helms man ramming when the
ship in question has hardly suffered damage, and is capable of withdrawing
from combat. In addition, it takes more time to fabricate larger ships than it
does for smaller ships, so the loss of a capital ship is bad news indeed! On a
similar vein, ships that are being swamped, and have multiple enemy
ships within 6 inches, run the risk of being jump traumatized - ie the
swamped ship committing potential suicide by jumping while in the mass zone
(ie 6") of other ships.

In conclusion, committing suicide in a game should be held to realistic
levels, not at some whim of the commanding officer of the ship. Short of
refusing to play with the person who uses ramming capriciously, there should
be guidelines towards when a ship would consider ramming or jumping to their
death.

What I hope to see sometime soon, are rules that relate towards a campaign
game that allow for battle damage repair times, construction times, and so
forth. I would also like to see some concepts as to what a mass means versus
what a "volume" means. Based upon Full Thrust II, I gather that each "Mass"
unit holds something like 250 cubic yards. By inference, I gather that the
jump drive takes up 25% of a ship's mass and volume. So what takes up the
other amount of volume? How many people are involved in crewing the ship?

These are all peripheral questions that do not directly relate to the game
Full Thrust, but would be useful in campaign games...

> On Wed, 4 Dec 1996, Hal Carmer wrote:

> In conclusion, committing suicide in a game should be held to

Considering how hard it is to achieve a ram, I doubt if any extra
penalties are needed... The same goes for FT jumps - you have one turn
of warning while the other ship charges its jump engines, so you have one turn
of getting away from the jumping ship. Of course, the opposite
applies too - if you see that wounded super-dreadnought preparing to
jump, would you try to get a corvette or two close to the point of
departure...?

> So what takes up the other amount of volume?

Normal-space drives, power plants, crew quarters, shuttle bays, comm.
sections, cargo space (even warships need some place to put spare
parts!), bridges, scanners, fire-control centers... and so on.

> How many people are involved in crewing the ship?

Does it matter? Divide the crew into 'personnel points' and refrain from

defining just how many people there are in each pp...

Specifying crew sizes reduces the genericity (...strange word...) of FT.

I'm very much against that.

> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

...closets, Food Chef, indoor plumbing, basketball court, etc.;);)

> How many people are involved in crewing the ship?

Using crew might be interesting for those running an RPG with FT as the space
going element.

Does anyone allow fighters to ram. If so do would you count each fighter as 1
hull box for damage purposes?

Also do you try to roll a 6 for each individual fighter in the group to see
which could ram??

> On Fri, 31 Jan 1997, Darryl Hills wrote:

> Does anyone allow fighters to ram.

I only allow rams when there is only one fighter left in a group, and even
then I hav the player roll a die to see whether the fighter pilot
makes his mind up about it. For damage, a fighter is counted as a mass-1
ship (a lot, I know, but it makes for such nice heroic effects in the
game..).