Sensors:, A, snapshot, response

I dislike reintroducing the concept of ship size. That died with FT II and
there are no longer the clear breaks there was before (yipee!). The way to go
is to introduce a signature stat for a ship, calculated when the ship is
built. Something along of the lines of:
  + Fraction of mass
  +1 if merchant (or double?)
  - Stealth rating
Then in play this is modified by ECM and damage, maybe +1 per threshold
crossed. This could be added very easily to the SSD thus:

Sig. Hit boxes
  3   OOO
  4   OOO
  5   OOO

Having the signature on the SSD is the simplest way of doing it, so we could
have even quite a complicated means of calculation (I like square root of
mass) without affecting play.

I do like the no lock, no shot idea. Then could there be bearing only launch
of missiles?

> The way to go is to introduce a signature stat for a ship, calculated
[snip]

The problem I see with handling things this way is complexity. I f you go with
a Class system based solely on Mass, it's simple and intuitive. However,
unlike FT2, the ONLY thing it really represents is an arbitrary factor of
size.

Going to the approach you suggest, though more detailed, is vastly more
complex. I could not support a system in which the Signiature had to be
tracked with the ship's threshold level.

> At 08:06 AM 1/14/1999 -0800, Schoon wrote:
If the ship is damaged, then it has been tracked and we don't need to worry
about that issue anymore... The issue is when the enemy has a weapons lock and
can fire upon you.

Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!