hyperspace (was: cloaking device rules)

John Dattalo writes, about cloaking devices:

@:) The idea that we came up with was that a ship that is cloaked can
@:) act just like any other ship except that none of its ships system
@:) except for thrusters are operational.

  This reminds me of the system my group is about to start using for
FTL entry and exit.  We always found FTL entry and, especially, exit
to be a little clunky as written.  In particular, we had problems with
"FTL kamikazes" or at least the threat thereof, and we had one
hilarious episode when a damaged cruiser, whose fleet had just finished
delivering a crushing victory, piffled the entire fleet due to a
slight miscalculation in pre-FTL manouvering (oh, are we using inches
today?).  Anyway, while that was all great fun, we got sick of
perfectly good ships getting demolished (for a very interesting look
at this phenomenon, look into C.J. Cheryh's (sp) _Pride_of_Chanur_ and
subsequent books) and we started looking into alternative FTL
techniques.

  As a hard-core X-Wing and TIE Fighter veteran, I favored the "FTL
makes you go real fast" method, and we have decided to adopt this.  I
should point out that we are also going to use a "maximum speed" for
ships, above which they cannot manouver, which will be 5*thrust.  The
way the FTL works is this:

  Ordering FTL: Any ship with an operational FTL drive may choose to
engage FTL during the movement phase.  FTL engagement must be written
into the ship's orders.  Manouvering orders may also be written, but
these will only be effectual if the ship moves at less than its
maximum speed.

  Effects of FTL: A ship moving under FTL moves at double the speed of
the previous turn.  While FTL is engaged, none of the ship's systems
are functional except the main engines, which may be used to manouver
the ship under the restrictions given above.

  Disengaging FTL: When the FTL system is disengaged (or destroyed),
the ship begins decellerating.	Each turn, it moves at half the speed
of the previous turn, until it has reached the velocity at which it
was moving before FTL was engaged.  Thrust may be applied during this
period to manouver the ship under the restrictions above.

  Entering the board under FTL: A ship entering the board under FTL
chooses an initial speed between 1 and five times its thrust.  It
enters the board at (initial speed)*(any power of 2) with FTL
disengaged, and it immediately begins decellerating as described
above.

  Leaving the board under FTL: There is no specific rule that defines
when a ship attempting to flee under FTL has left the board - this is
left up to the players.  One advantage to this system is that it can
be used to rapidly move ships (carriers, for example) around the
outskirts of the board.  Because of this, players may consider
allowing small off-board movements as long as the re-entry location of
the ship can be correctly determined.  In general, our "minimum" rule
is that when the ship leaves the property line of the building in
which the game is being played, it is out of the combat.

  
  So there's our plan.	We have only done a very little work with this
so far (one FTL entry which worked out pretty well) but we think it
should be a good system.  We argued (and I argued against) the initial
speed thing, so you might consider having ships decellerate to some
multiple of their thrust and be normally operable there.  Also it's
not clear whether we want systems to remain inoperable until after the
ship decellerates to normal speed - this would make FTL entry much
more dangerous but I have a hard time justifying it without static
warp bubbles and whatnot, which I don't like.  I like an FTL that just
makes you go REAL fast.

  Please comment and feel free to unleash the pdaf on my idea and
shoot it down.

-joachim