Stargrunt II FAQ

Okay folks, I've posted the Unofficial Stargrunt II FAQ v0.5

http://stargrunt.virtualave.net/faq/index.html

Please everyone, have a read and suggest away. Also, if there is an answer in
the FAQ that you find to be yours and it's unattributed (which at this stage,
most are) please send me an email so I can credit accordingly.

Regards,

> Okay folks, I've posted the Unofficial Stargrunt II FAQ v0.5

Right, I'll fill in the long standing gap in the GZG Meta-FAQ.

One thing, you have a few instances of <font
face="Symbol">&#211;</font> in the code to produce copyright symbols.
Not a good idea as not everyone has the Symbol font installed (when I fist
visited the site I saw acute accented capital 'O's instead). Why not just use
the &copy; entity refereence instead?

> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Steve Pugh wrote:

> > Okay folks, I've posted the Unofficial Stargrunt II FAQ v0.5

even simpler, why not use the (c) combination that is universally recognised
on the internet as being the copyright symbol? i'm not sure whether all
browsers will handle © although i expect these days most
will (otoh, try finding a browser which will handle the greek-character
escapes like α).

tom

> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Steve Pugh wrote:

> Not a good idea as not everyone has the Symbol font installed (when I

> fist visited the site I saw acute accented capital 'O's instead). Why

> not just use the © entity refereence instead?

(c) is not legally recognized as equivalent to the copyright symbol.
© is recognized by version 3+ NN and IE browsers.

- Sam

Technically you don't need to put any copyright notice on a document.
Copyright is automatically implied on any original work for the author's
lifetime. A registered copyright is good for the author's life plus 50 years,
but even that doesn't require a copyright notice, although it's generally
easier to win a copyright infringement case if there is a copyright notice.

This is of course all according to US copyright laws. I won't even guess what
other countries require.

Bill

(c) is not legally recognized as equivalent to the copyright symbol.
© is recognized by version 3+ NN and IE browsers.

> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Samuel Reynolds wrote:

> >On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Steve Pugh wrote:
Why
> >> not just use the © entity refereence instead?

this is an interesting point. first of all, let's see the source. let me quote
the US Code Title 17, chapter 4, section 401, paragraphs a to c (d being
irrelevant):

<cite>

401. Notice of copyright: Visually perceptible copies

(a) General Provisions. - Whenever a work protected under this title is
published in the United States or elsewhere by authority of the copyright
owner, a notice of copyright as provided by this section may be placed on
publicly distributed copies from which the work can be visually perceived,
either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

(b) Form of Notice. - If a notice appears on the copies, it shall
consist of the following three elements:

(1) the symbol (AF) (the letter C in a circle), or the word
''Copyright'',
or the abbreviation ''Copr.''; and

(2) the year of first publication of the work; in the case of compilations, or
derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of
first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The
year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with
accompanying text matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards,
postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful articles; and

(3) the name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by
which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation
of the owner.

(c) Position of Notice. - The notice shall be affixed to the copies in
such manner and location as to give reasonable notice of the claim of
copyright. The Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation, as
examples, specific methods of affixation and positions of the notice on
various types of works that will satisfy this requirement, but these
specifications shall not be considered exhaustive.

</cite>

so as long as you put the word 'copyright' in there, the symbol doesn't
matter. i usually use the (c) anyway for visual effect, as in '(c) copyright
Tom Anderson 2000'. i'm not sure what the situation in other countries is, but
i'm sure it's similar.

> &copy; is recognized by version 3+ NN and IE browsers.

and by Opera, so i should imagine it's fine.

there's still an issue, though. the actual document you're downloading
does not contain a copyright symbol - it contains the string of
characters "&copy;", which is interpreted by certain software applications to
be a copyright symbol. now, you might argue that this doesn't count, or that
it does, or that it does only if you view it using a browser which can render
&copy; correctly. you might also argue that if &copy; is a valid copyright
sign, then so is (c). anyway, such issues are best left to proper lawyers,
imho: i'd probably advise that copyright for web pages is done with the word
'copyright' to satisfy the lawyers, and then some sort of symbol (&copy; or
(c)) to mark it visually.

just my 20 mE.

tom

> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000 09:48:43 -0600, bbrush@unlnotes.unl.edu wrote:

> Technically you don't need to put any copyright notice on a document.

Correct.

> This is of course all according to US copyright laws. I won't even

It's pretty much the same through most of the civilized world. The US
copyright law used to be different, but it changed when the US adopted the
Berne Convention, which Canada, Australia, and Britain (essentially the
members on this list) belong to.

Erkle!! A victim of WYSIWYG editors..:)

I'll fix that up right away:)

> One thing, you have a few instances of <font

---

> even simpler, why not use the (c) combination that is universally

Because (c) is not the recognised symbol for Copyright and has no standing
legally.

Regards,

> Technically you don't need to put any copyright notice on a document.

This is true, however there's no harm in reminding everyone and making sure.
:)

Great idea compiling a SGII FAQ! Here is something to include in the FAQ in
view of recent discussion:

Can a command unit use both its actions to reactivate a subordinate unit twice
in the same round?

One command unit may use one action to reactivate a single subordinate unit,
or both its actions to reactivate two DIFFERENT subordinate units. Each
subordinate unit may only be reactivated once by its immediate command unit
per turn, UNLESS the command unit is itself reactivated by a
higher-level command unit. (Jon Tuffley, 24 February)

The question about whether GMS can fire at infantry, though, does not make
things any clearer for poor, stupid, me. I have read and reread p.40 without
really getting anywhere! (Sorry if I cover old ground for the list,
but...)
Am I to suppose that means that a GMS firing should roll Quality die and
Guidance die against Range? What Range die? Ordinary Heavy weapons have a
range band of 12" (for a size one target, as a squad is said to be), but a GMS
does not normally have a Range band. Should we treat the GMS/L or H as
having
12" Range band if mounted, while letting the GMS/P do with the ordinary
range band of the squad?

> On Tue, 29 Feb 2000 22:37:43 +0100, Henrix <henrix@pp.sbbs.se> wrote:

> The question about whether GMS can fire at infantry, though, does not

GMS is anti-vehicle. You roll Quality die and Sensor die for the
attacker versus the ECM die of the defending vehicle.

The implication in the "heavy weapon versus infantry" section on page 40 seems
to indicate that you can't fire a GMS against dispersed infantry targets. I
think on the list people have suggested that you let GMS/P fire at Power
Armour targets.

I also have a quick question of the FAQ. It's answer about how many support
weapons can fire in an action got me thinking. There seem to be the following
situations:

1) You have small arms AND support weapons. You can fire all of them in one
        action (except GMS/P, but ignore that for now).
2) You have ONLY support weapons. 1/action.
Thus, by putting 1 rifleman into your PA squad, you can suddenly fire MANY
more weapons in a single action. I'm not sure how this works?
3) You have support weapons and close-range weapons (eg pistol). In THIS
case, you can fire everything in 1 action, but only if you're at close range?
This seems to break things completely. Given that you can fire one OR MORE
support weapons AS LONG as you're also firing "standard" weapons, it doesn't
seem reasonable that you can only fire one at a time otherwise (if they're all
being fired at the same target, of course).

Just my view....

> Allan Goodall wrote:

> GMS is anti-vehicle. You roll Quality die and Sensor die for the

Well, my intention was to point out that it isn't clearly stated in the
proposed FAQ. If you cannot use GMS versus infantry, fine, just say "No." We
have had some vague discussion here inour group whether you could or not,
basically agreeing that you cannot, but what if you really need _all_
the
firepower you have (and the GMS/P troopers do not carry AR ;-).... I saw
the question in the FAQ and thought the solution was at hand, but, alas, that
was not the case.

> On Tue, 29 Feb 2000 21:37:46 -0400, Brian Quirt <baqrt@mta.ca> wrote:

> 1) You have small arms AND support weapons. You can fire all of them in

Right.

> 2) You have ONLY support weapons. 1/action.

This isn't clear. And, in fact, about a year ago I got a big discussion on
this. I have a scenario where there are 4 plasma guns per squad of Power
Armour. I let them fire any number of support weapons with one action.

This got us into a discussion on the list where some people said, "Well, don't
put more than one support weapon in a squad." This was countered with, "That's
not even HISTORICALLY accurate."

The feeling was that If you could fire 2 support weapons along with rifles,
you could fire them without rifles. However, the support weapons are resolved
independently. In my scenario, the plasma guns (used to take out vehicles and
infantry) could each fire with one action, but they all fired independently.
Each rolled a Quality die and a Firepower die, that's all.

Again, some vagueness. I have playtested this and it works, though. It works
because the support weapons in question are plasma guns, and because the
scenario makes use of this. It could be easily overpowering if players were
allowed to create squads without limitations. But SG2 is a scenario based
game, and I don't think that a properly balanced scenario should be prevented
from doing this.

In a message dated 2/29/00 9:23:13 PM Central Standard Time,
> henrix@pp.sbbs.se writes:

<< > GMS is anti-vehicle. You roll Quality die and Sensor die for the
attacker
> versus the ECM die of the defending vehicle.

Well, my intention was to point out that it isn't clearly stated in the

proposed FAQ. If you cannot use GMS versus infantry, fine, just say "No." We
have had some vague discussion here inour group whether you could or not,
 basically agreeing that you cannot, but what if you really need _all_
the
 firepower you have (and the GMS/P troopers do not carry AR ;-).... I
saw the question in the FAQ and thought the solution was at hand, but, alas,
that was not the case.
> [quoted text omitted]
Well, as a matter of common sense, GMS/P could have alternate warheads,
for example, they could have two AT, and one HE, per load... but they would to
be reffed correctly...and as far as firing at PA, while a little overkill, if
they have a decent signature, i don't see why not, as a matter of fact that
could be a good idea for a "stealth suit" which has a low enough signature
that GMS's won't acquire it...

John

> Well, my intention was to point out that it isn't clearly stated in the

Hi Henrix,

You'll find that I've updated the FAQ to reflect Allan's much better answer
:)

Stargrunt II FAQ: http://stargrunt.virtualave.net/faq/index.html

Hi Jeremy,

I emptied my cache and refreshed and the page still looks the same :-(

> -----Original Message-----

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but i thought that scenario with all Plasma
Armed PA was a one off kind of port from Traveller? This was an ambush
scenario wan't it?

The idea from the rules was that support weapons could fire in support of
Squad Rifle fire but that they really only contributed to Firepower; for
example you don't use teh Impact of the support weapon in resolving
casualties, only the squad rifles Impact.

A squad that is all Support weapons is extremely unusual anyway and as Allan
mentions somewhere buried in the post, should probably be best dealt with in
the specific scenario guidelines.

Mike Sarno has pointed out that SGII is a "complete" set of rules and we are
really suggesting content that should be considered for SGIII since there are
not likely to be any amendments forthcoming. Actually i find this refreshing;
the GZG rules are the only set I've played where there aren't
ammendments popping out every few months/weeks! (WRG 7th and DBM are
prime examples).

Cheers,

Owen

> -----Original Message-----

SNIPPED

> >2) You have ONLY support weapons. 1/action.
SNIPPED AGAIN

> The feeling was that If you could fire 2 support weapons

Yeah, this is one of those ones we've chewed around. As with all our
worrisome ones we finally put it to rest with rationlisation :-)

The GMS is, of course, primarily an Anti Vehicle weapon. Hence it would
normally be employed against Vehicles! But as with any weapon it CAN be
employed in any way the imaginative human operator can come up with! A GMS CAN
be fired at a squad of infantry but surely you wouldn't waste one of your
three shots if there are enemy vehicles around which best deserve your
missile? Or consider a target that is patently outside your small arms range
but you really need to hit NOW! Maybe to slow them down for another squad to
pull clear? Or maybe the enemy infantry are in a building/hardened
bunker?

In some cases it is REASONABLE to fire teh GMS this way....so we do? Just
that, stop and ask yourself the simple question "Why would I do this?" If you
can honestly say that if you were 25mm tall and on the table there that you
would, then fine!

My apologies if this sort of encourages teh GMS discussion
AGAIN.......ad
nauseum

Cheers,

Owen

> -----Original Message-----

> I emptied my cache and refreshed and the page still looks the same :-(

Hehehe. Sorry Owen. I didn't expect people to get there so quickly. If you've
looked at it again recently, you'll find it's the newer version.

Comments appreciated.:)

Nobody expects the..........

Really looks OK!

> -----Original Message-----