I agree that any game system that uses or is set in the B5 universe should use
Newtonian Physics to keep the flavor, just as Star Wars would
require the Rebellion to have Hyper-Space capable fighters.
The discussion on Newtonian Mechanics has been good and I look forward to
playing them with someone. Right now I am of the opinion that in order to do
it correctly and maintain playability some alterations will have to be made.
1. Fighters move like ships and have an acceleration rate of 16 and infinite
maneuverability. Fighters are moved after ships are plotted and before ship
movement. 2. Missiles and Mines are not used. Mines may be used by defenive
forces only and must be on the table before the game starts. I don't want to
wave my hands over the momentum issues. Mines are activated if a ship passes
within activation range during its movement. To determine this, use a ruler
from the point of origin to the final position, this is the flight path. Since
you need to do this to determine the new vector, it doesn't interfere. I know
that this is not completely accurate, since conducting a corpen (changing
momentum at right angles by thrusting continuously towards the center of a
curve) would cause a curved motion, we want to maintain playability... 3.
Looking at the rules GZG suggested here, I recommend that the maneuverability
a ship be equal to its current thrust rating. For each point of
maneuverability devoted to turning the ship, causes it to rotate one clock
facing. Two points of maneuverability devoted to sidesteps or brakes cause one
inch of alteration. This means a capital ship with a thrust rating of 2 can
turn around in three turns, a Destroyer with 6 in one. In the future we'll
have to see if we can use mines and missiles as well as Sand, etc. for a
completely Newtonian system, but I don't want to burn out on it...
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
Are you referring to momentum conservation for moving fighters as ships?
If
so, then I agree as the 12" range seems too limiting for fighters. The smaller
massed objects would tend to have greater
acceleration/deceleration
ability over larger mass bodies, but lack the duration due to limited fuel
stores.
> 2. Missiles and Mines are not used.
Nah, there too much fun!:) Just apply the mechanics as for any other
space-borne object. I would just move them as per vectors without
advanced plotting. This would probably produce more slowly flying missiles as
players will try not to overrun an opponent.
> 3. Looking at the rules GZG suggested here, I recommend that the
This might work well, as I have used the current vector movement rules from
Folks, just a note, be /sure/ your lines word-wrap at between 68 and 72
characters long; the ugliness of unwrapped lines is almost disgusting to
long-time neters and causes your email to display poorly in most email
readers.
> Alexander Williams writes:
@:) Folks, just a note, be /sure/ your lines word-wrap at between 68
@:) and 72 characters long; the ugliness of unwrapped lines is almost
@:) disgusting to long-time neters and causes your email to display
@:) poorly in most email readers.
It also causes some of us (the grumpier ones) to delete your messages without
even reading them.
It should be pointed out that some people have mail programs that
automatically "wrap" by guaranteeing that words fit into the window -
unfortunately these programs (our own Sun mail tools are an example)
don't actually wrap the text by inserting newlines - the result is a
one-line mail message that is completely unreadable by anyone without
a similar mail tool.
> Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:
I wasn't going to mention that that is, infact, my innate reaction.:)
> It should be pointed out that some people have mail programs that
Funny thing; Netscape does the auto-wrap properly. If the Sun mailtools
don't, you might look and see if you can replace the default editor with
something like Pico or Emacs which /does/ handle wrapping properly.
Remember, its not just common curtesy, its common curtesy that ensures that
others bother to read what you invested so much time in writing.
:)
> Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
I have no problem living with the mines that bring themselves to a stop, but
I'd really be interested in seeing how "Real Thrust" missiles work. You could
give them a
thrust of 12-18 but only allow up to two points of "rotation thrust"
(through whatever mechanism you're using). To most closely match
the current non-vector game, you'd want to allow missiles to apply
negative thrust to slow down (which should be easy to handle, just do the
"thrust" part of the movement in the opposite direction of facing). And like
the standard game, to make up for the granularity of the turns you'd allow
them to attack anyone in all but rear arc within a certain radius after
movement. I don't think you need
to pro-rate things for missiles any more than you do for two ships
on a flyby -- it's up to the missile controller to put the weapon
in a position where it's likely to get a good attack.
If anyone gets around to playtesting it, please let us know how it goes.
> Daryl wrote:
> I'd really be interested in seeing how "Real Thrust" missiles work.
This got me thinking of having a pool of trust points a missile can use. It
would take some more paperwork than before but the missiles could be
played as high speed short range or slower speed long range, as they are in
the Honor Harrington universe.
For example off the top of my head, each missile has a pool of 30 thrust
points it can use in its lifetime. Each turn at least 5 but up to 15 points
can be used for acceleration and up to 2 points used for maneuvering. Thus the
missile can increase speed up to 30 in 2 turns and then it will not be able to
maneuver and will soon zoom off of the play
area. Or it could use only 5 points for acceleration each turn and will still
be able to maneuver at the target 5 turns later.
Some type of sliding scale could be used so slow acceleration uses fewer
thrust points per point of acceleration than fast acceleration.
This would slow things down if numerous missiles are in use but I think it is
an interesting variant in a "Real Thrust" universe.
> In message <97Mar21.171100cst.26508@gateway.bcbsnd.com> Dean wrote:
> This would slow things down if numerous missiles are in use but I
Just use a single missile counter to represent a 'swarm' of missiles, all on
the same vector. Or you could stick with multiple counters, spread over an
area, but move them all as one unit.
Daryl discussed allowing missiles with a thrust rating of 12 to 16 and only
two clock facings of turn ability and being able to attack any target except
one in its rear arc. The problem with this aproach is two fold. First, if
fighters have the ability to turn to match any facing and a small craft (Mass
2 to 4) could have a very high maneuverability (easily 180) for very little
cost, then missiles could as well. His suggestion that they have the ability
to "brake" just lends more credence to this. Additionally, there are a lot of
people who keep aplying fighter limitations to missiles. The rules say that
missiles may attack any target within their range regardless of arc... Phil P.
Robert C. Hendricks rhendricks@novell.com
> <dgundberg@SMTPGate.bcbsnd.com> 03/21/97 03:03PM >>>
> I'd really be interested in seeing how "Real Thrust" missiles work.
> This got me thinking of having a pool of trust points a missile can
> For example off the top of my head, each missile has a pool of 30
I think this is an excellent idea and plan to play test it as soon as
possible.
> Some type of sliding scale could be used so slow acceleration uses
> This would slow things down if numerous missiles are in use but I
> Dean Gundberg