Re: FT Thrust question...

   Hello all,

	   Has anyone out there noticed that the small ships in fleet 
   engagements tend to get blown up too easily.  Our group has.  Maybe
it's
   just the tactics we're using but it seems to me that our small ships 
   get blown to bits in the first few turns.

	   We are going to try and tweak the FT rules a bit to see if we
   can improve the survivability of small ships in our games.  For any
ship
   whose present thrust rating is 8, all other ships target it with
direct
   fire weapons at -2 to hit.  Ships with a 6 thrust rating are -1 to
hit.
   6's rolled are automatic hits (criticals).  This gives ships with
poor
   odds at hitting at least some chance at hitting the target.	A ship
whose
   engine has been damaged will no longer get the to-hit defense bonus
   (ie. it's in a s**t load of trouble).

I have had a similar idea, but unfortunately I have not had the
opportunity to playtest it.  Basically the idea was this:

1] Any ship can pay 2 thrust points and use "erratic maneuvers" for
the turn.  The intention to use erratic maneuvers is written in the
movement plot and its affects last all turn.

2] Any ship using erratic maneuvers has Armour +1

3] If a ship using erratic maneuvers fires an A-bat or a rail gun the
target gets the advantage of Armour +1 for that attack.

This has 3 effects

	Small ships (which generally have higher thrust) are made more
	surviviable

	There's a reason to use B bats.

	The Krava'k(sp) become less nasty.

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John W.F. McClain		  Lockheed Martin Information Systems
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