Does anyone else out there treat firing as a simultaneous action (using
written fire declarations, or heaven forfend, the honor system) or do you
largely use the rules as I interpret them, each ship firing in
turn..... I've found that the game flow seems "right-er" with
simultaneous firing, as long as you don't have too many instances of
Ka-blam goes the Destroyer, but "Oh, I was going to shoot at your escort
over there, no really, I was". So far the group I play with are very
sportsman-like.
Opinions?
Gene
> At 04:18 PM 3/10/97 -0800, you wrote:
Since I normally play smaller games, we declare fire first then treat all fire
as simultaneous. SOme of games are getting too big for this so we are thinking
about using the rules in the book.
> you largely use the rules as I interpret them, each ship firing in
I'm lucky couse the people I play with I actually trust. We've known each
other long enough that the honor system works for us.
> Opinions ?
+++++++++++++++
+------------+ +----------------+
> At 04:18 PM 3/10/97 -0800, you wrote:
Well, our group STARTED playing simultaneous fire, because we mis-read
the rules. When we played them as written, we actually PREFERRED simultaneous
fire...
> On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, George,Eugene M wrote:
> Does anyone else out there treat firing as a simultaneous action
Following a recent e-mail exchange with Mark K, I am experimenting with
simultaneous fring, as it is obviously much easier to run a pbem on this basis
(which I am planning to do BTW). It does add a very different slant to the
game, and means that everyone gets to wreak some destruction....
A am also trying the idea of all ships rolling for initiative (just roll lots
of dice (1 for each ship)) and then having 6 bands of simultaneous fire, as
opposed to alternating... This is even more fun if the initative a ship has
for this turn is unknown to the opponant, but is impracticle on the table (ie.
pbem only). I also give some ships (mainly fighters and other small craft,
initiative bonus)
-Michael
> Does anyone else out there treat firing as a simultaneous action
*grin*
The few people I play with here feel simultaneous fire feel
more...'correct'.
I've always had a personal leaning towards simultaneous fire.
I also use simultaneous fire for my PBeM scenarios, and that works out fine.
Mk
> On Mon, 10 Mar 1997, George,Eugene M wrote:
> Does anyone else out there treat firing as a simultaneous action
The game is much faster with simultaneous firing. In a big, important game
that's part of a campaign, we're careful to declare all fire before
rolling the dice, but in an evening pick-up game we usually use the
honor system.
Snip
> A am also trying the idea of all ships rolling for initiative (just
The Guernsey Foundry skirmish rules published recently in Wargames
Illustrated had a card-based system that might work- In a Western
gunfight game, the deck had a card for each character, and one extra card for
each "grade" of character, from citizen to shootist. A character turning up a
"grade" card, who was of the appropriate grade, could save it as a spare
activation.
In FT, how about a card for each ship, and a number for each size class
(Escort, Cruiser, Capital). The deck would be shuffled each turn, and the
ships would fire in order of their cards being turned up. The generic grade
cards would permit activation of ships "out of sequence" and perhaps allow
"pushes" (eg I turn up "Esc.3", fire her weapons, then play my saved "Generic
Escort" and "Generic Cruiser" cards to activate my ships
"Esc.2"
and "Cru.2" before my opponent can reply). The deck could be stacked to favour
one side or the other (eg "Generic Escort (Affronter only)", or one class over
another (eg 3 "Generic escorts" but only 1 "Generic Capital"), and could
incorporate the sort of random event cards others have mentioned in this
thread.
Cheers,
> George,Eugene M wrote:
My group just had a long discussion on this very thing. I guess it depends on
whether you think of the damage as the cumulative effect of 100 small weapons
firings over the period of a turn, or one big blast per turn with the weapon.
If the latter, a serial method makes more sense, as it reflects who got the
shot off first. [A serial method
makes a lot more sense in some circumstances -- consider a "Gunfight
at the OK Corral" game: simultaneous combat would usually result in
everyone dead on both sides :-) ]
Now the fleet initiative system seems a little contrived, but I'll bring that
up in a separate post.
Yeah, oddly enough that's what happened with me too. My first few games
were played using simultaneous fire, but later, after re-reading, we
decided to try it 'by the rules' and found that simultaneous fire seemed to
work better.
On the other hand, as Eric pointed out, it may not work for really large
engagements. Up to now, the largest battle we've had to deal with has been oh,
around 8 or so ships on a side, 3 or 4 players. Usually less though, so I
haven't seen simultaneous fire become too unwieldy. I imagine that fire and
movement by squadrons would most likely take care of that.
Gene
> ----------
SNIP
> The game is much faster with simultaneous firing. In a big, important
Another notion from the past- I think it was the Fletcher Pratt (or was
it the Fred Jane?) Naval rules that had "firing arrows" placed next to each
ship pointing at their target, prior to resolving the effects of fire. With a
little preparation, an analagous indicators could be made for FT. Perhaps a
piece of transparent plastic with a couple of beam lines or missile launches
on it? A ship could lay 1 such indicator per Firecon.
cheers,
> Does anyone else out there treat firing as a simultaneous action (using
> Well, our group STARTED playing simultaneous fire, because we mis-read
Coming from a BattleTech(TM) background, I always assumed that damage was
simultaneous. This is especially since I could find nothing about initiative.
Could someone please quote the rules as stated? I could not
find them after re-reading the rule book.
*Thanks*
> Mark Kochte wrote:
This one factor I really like about FT - non-simultaneous fire. It adds
something to the tactical side of the game to plan your fire order carefully.
Also, I like the idea of ships possibly getting wiped out or damaged as such
to affect their fire or defense all in the same turn. This gives more
randomness to the game like real life.
> I also use simultaneous fire for my PBeM scenarios, and that works out
Yes, this is probably an easy method to perform combat, but if you wanted to
add some randomness similar to playing "live", you could still roll for each
ship individually or take all fire orders at once and process each according
to each ship's initiative roll with damage inflicted active immediately.
> At 04:43 PM 3/11/97 -0500, Mike wrote:
This
> gives more randomness to the game like real life.
I'd have to throw my vote in here with Mike. I like the tactical aspects of
the non-simultaneous fire. I've actually won games based on choosing the
fire order a bit better than my opponent, and I think it's an important part
of the game. That's my impression, anyway. I'm not sure if the results would
be radically different in a simultaneous fire game.
I like alternating fire - one or two ships at a time between opponents.
Whether or not it "feels" right, alternating fire adds another element to the
game. I have to stop think about which of my ships should fire first with
respect the threat. A destroyer may not have a chance to fire later.
Also, since I don't get to play the game very often with experienced gamers,
it's easier for me to control the flow of the game.
-Joe
> At 09:27 PM 3/10/97 -0600, you wrote: