Re: FTIII: A Plea to End "Me Too" Firing.

>	 I've been following this thread for a while now, and as
iniative
>and fire has always been a debated issue amongst our group, we decided
to
>put it to the test.
>
>We played several games, using differant methods of firing.
>
>1) Firing as per FT2 - The fleet of the largest numbers, wone on 2/3
>occasions here.  It managed to retain it's numerical superiority
>throughout the game (well it's these cowardly ESU guys), and on a
number
>of occasions, their first fire made a world of differance, with NAC
ships
>going down, before they could unload their deadly payload.
>
>2) Firing simultaneously.  All damage takes effect at the END of the
>round.  A different story here.  NAC ship triumph on 3/3 occasions
thanks
>largely to a heavier array of beam weapons. 
>
>3) Firing alternately, but dicing for who fires first.  End result 3/5
(to
>ESU).	By far the most satisfying way to play.  The greater numbers of
the
>ESU fleet still gave them an advantage, in that they were free to fire
at
>the end of the turn without fear of retaliation.  Their numbers were
soon
>wittled nown to size, by cruiser fire however, and all of these games
>proved close, with little of the surviving fleet limping home each
time.
>
>4) We also tried a system where everyone was give a number of counters
(in
>this case playing cards) equal to the number of ships/groups in their
>fleet.  Following movement these cards were placed next to each ship.
>Then a D6 was rolled and the highest roll then reviels his "ace" who
>fires.  The opponant then fires his "ace".  Back to the first player
who
>fires his "king" etc...  Result NAC 1/1 (ran out of time).  We liked
this
>system a lot and will play again.  It maintains the importance of the
>order in which ships fire, but eliminates retalitory fire, as you don't
>know which order your enemy will fire in.  
>	 There were a number of situations where many ships paired off
in
>one game turn.  If these ships were all assigned the same order by both
>players, then one player will score an outstanding success. However if
you
>feel unlucky and like you may loose the dice roll, it is possible to
skip
>"acing" your most important coflict and garuentee(sp?) a situation
>elsewhere.
><My favourite here, but takes a little longer to play>
>
>-Entropy

Interesting results!
Having been working on this (regarding the changes upcoming for FTIII)
for
a while now, our conclusions so far are:

1) the old FTII system of first fire to largest fleet WILL be dropped.

2) We will not be using simultaneous fire, as a lot of the tactics (and
fun) of FT comes from the firing decisions (as echoed by many posters to
this thread in the last few weeks); this does not mean, however, that
individual players should not be free to substitute simultaneous fire if
a)
they prefer it, or b) it fits a particular game setup better (eg: a
one-on-one ship duel).

3) This will be the "official" system (probably...) - alternate fire,
starting by highest die roll. Simple and quick, and we find it works
best
in most cases.

4) this one is interesting - having already decided that FTIII may well
include a counter sheet (similar to the DS/SG ones), we could make a set
of
numbered chits that could be allocated to each ship after moving, either
to
players' choice or even at random (draw chits face down and allocate to
ships without looking at them!). This may be an amusing option,
especially
for smaller games....
Reactions anyone? [duck]  :)

Jon (GZG)