Re: Babylon 5 Wars (LONG)

On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Christopher Weuve wrote:

> 2) To change a ship's course 30 degrees to either the left or the
right, a 

I understand your point, but the basic fact is that you just can't make 
30 degree turns under the rules. Hexes have nothing to do with it.
In Full Thrust, you just can't make turns under 30 degrees, period.
Imagine the frustration, if the game included more "direct ahead only"
weapons.

Incidentally, this is not really related to the Newtonian nature of 
movement, or the lack of it.

A number of games suffer from the same problem, FASA's RL:Interceptor
and Aerotech spring to mind first. They have "almost Newtonian" optional

movement, but you still can't go across hex grain.

> 1) GDW's Triplanetary: Feels tactical, even though turns are one-day
and the 

And long out of print :-(

> 3) Bone Game's Laplace, Newton and Lagrange (LNL for shortfreeware on
the 
> net):  Uses thrust markers next to ship to keep track of thrust;

URL?
 
> 4) GDW's Battle Rider: Uses a 12-point facing system (like FT) 

ICE's Star Strike(?) uses a similar system. And a number of tactical
airwar games. There's no reason you couldn't graft it onto B5W by
adding 30 degree turns and rules how ships plow across the grain.
Judging weapon arcs would probably be the hardest change.
IMHO, it just looks ugly and you should dump the hexes at this point...
but it works if you really want it.

I'm guessing here, but in B5W slipping does not change your heading?
I.e. it was never ment to be a permanent course change, but a little
fudge maneuver to let you change hex rows without turning twice --
a little something to compensate for the lack of smaller turns.

> thruster."  Heck, anyone who is old enough to have played Asteroids 
> understands vector movement. <g>  

Yup, but it's completely different thing to able to plot it and get
where
you want -- even in Asteroids, where you can make realtime corrections.
Players don't have the navigational computers the ships surely do. And 
you don't want to stop the game every time someone wants to calculate it

manually.

Thus, it is IMHO acceptable to simplify the movement. After all, we're
playing a game, not doing physics homework.

> I think to get the spirit of B5, though, you need vector movement.  

Sure, but it's going to alienate a lot of players if it's the only
option.

> I seem to recall saying that they planned one, and I certainly hope it

> happens.  If there isn't one, though, I think that makes the situation
even 
> worse. 

I wouldn't hold my hopes too high for a design system. Let's face it: 
They wouldn't have paid for the license if they didn't expect a number
of 
people to buy it just because it's a B5 game. Design systems undercut
the 
need for Official Data Books(tm), official miniatures(tm), official 
scatter dice(tm) and whatnot. 

This getting into the realm of speculation, but if SFB people's opinion
is that they'll sue you for copyright infringement if you publish your
own 
SSD's (judging from a post a little while back in rec.games.board) and
some of the same people are involved in B5W, what kind of attitude can 
you expect?

I must add that such a case would be very shaky at best -- but that 
doesn't mean it wouldn't cost a fortune in lawyers to get a ruling.

> This isn't solely for legal reasons (although I will 
> note that a food critic was sucessfully sued by a restaurant about
which he 
> gave a bad review), 

Another reason not to live over there :-)

> work to make them usable. Besides, maybe if enough people buy the game
and say 
> "I liked everything except the sucky movement system", they'll get a
chance to 
> fix it in the second edition.  

I think your best bet is to push the vector system as an optional rule.

--
maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio) 	  | A pig who doesn't
fly
+358 50 5596411 GSM +358 0 80926 78/FAX 81/Voice  | is just an ordinary
pig.
Snail: Maininkitie 8A8 02320 ESPOO FINLAND	  |	     - Porco
Rosso
Http://www.swob.dna.fi/~maxxon/ 		  |