Flynn,
Here's how we do it. We play only canon races/nations, and pretty
much limit things to the FB1 and FB2 ships and some variants, with a few new
designs to fill in gaps as we perceive them. Players are never permitted to
design their own ships. All the ships are organized into
squadrons/groups/flotillas. Certain organizations are indicated as
available for a given operation (i.e. a scenario). The players can then pick
their task forces from those organizations. We generally follow the WWII
paradigm that "squadrons" are administrative and support organizations, not
combat organizations, but that they effectively define the force pool for a
given operation (scenario, campaign, whatever). Task Forces are the actual
combat organization. There is of course some overlap, and each of the major
powers has a distinctive organizational structure. If you're interested, let
me know, and I'll post them.
In our group we have a 1:1:1 ratio for ships (1 cap, 1 cruiser, 1 escort).
Basically for each ship of a certain class you must purchase a ship of the
next lower class. This helps build semi-realistic fleets instead of,
say, buying three battleships and one frigate to round out the points.
Makes for a fun game. Makes you think about if you should focus on the big
guys in the fleet or the little guys. Spend to much time on the big guys and
the little guys will shred you....
In a recent three-way (2000 point) scenario I had a Konstantine, a
Petrograd, two Tibets, a Volga, and two Warsaws. I didn't fare all that well
as I've never played fighters before and either my fighter load was off or I
mishandled them (probably the latter). The Konstantine took a ton of
hits before going down -- level two screens are your friends. :)
In the ESU fleet I'm toying with now I have a Komorov, a Petrograd, two
Tibets, three Volgas and two Warsaws. Havn't tried this fleet yet but I'm
looking forward to it.
Damo
I ususally use 1:2:3 (Cap:Cru:Esc) division of points and each category must
have at least 25% of the mass as well. I usually limit the number of fighter
groups a side can bring to no more than the number of ships. This reduces the
soapbubble carrier tactic. I also require that all ships must be FTL
capible, thier transport be on the board, or pay 115% for the non-FTL
ships.
If you want to use predefined groups, you can find quite a few at Indy's
Unofficial GZG Fleet Roster Page
(http://www.bcpl.net/~indy/full-thrust/fleet-rosters.html).
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Brian Bell bbell1@insight.rr.com ICQ: 12848051 AIM: Rlyehable YIM: Rlyehable
The Full Thrust Ship Registry:
http://www.ftsr.org
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