Re: Buck Rogers and FT

Doug_Evans/CSN/UNEBR@UNebMail.UNeb.EDU said:

> First, allow me the pleasure of reveling in returning to the list.
Been way
> too long.

Welcome back! I know what it's like, (or will :) as in about 3 months 
I'll have to drop off, due to changing assignments.
as for:

>I can't refrain from some comments!
and:
>hope I don't cover anything already done.

the more the merrier! and comments away!

> One thing that bothered me about the map was that the ship/fleet
movement
> was between nodes with no other considerations.

I'll inject here, that as I see it there are only two types of 
interplanetary movment.
Mapped and Un-mapped.
They are really based on how you interpret regular movment and 
if you have to worry about fuel or not.

If your ships are capable of continus thrust, (Hmmm, Full Thrust. :) 
then all you need to know is the distance, (Astonomical Units, Miles, 
Kilometers, etc) and the thrust, (I use 1=1g) and you figure the time 
it takes to get to the target. You can literaly get almost anywhere 
in the Solar System in about a month at 1g. So most of the time this 
would be un-mappped as all ships, (warships anyway) are expected to
mostly proceed from point to point. So with a table of maximum 
distance from the sun for each planet, figure the average distance 
between and figure thrust. Poof!! your fleet arrives then. Let battle 
begin.

If, however,  you have to worry about fuel, even a little, it makes 
sense to use orbital mechanics to your advantage. A map and orbit 
lines such as  BR, comes into play. You now have a choice of routes 
to take and opertunities to attack. And you can sneak up on your 
target. I'd had an idea that one "node" per turn would be the 
averaged transfer speed. I was thinking of giving my warships a 
maximum of "4" transfer burns. In other words a ship could burn to 
leave Earth orbit, burn to stop at Mars, fight a battle, burn out of 
Mars orbit, and burn to a stop at Earth. This flight time would be 
"normal" transfer. Takeing a shorter orbit would cost more burns, as 
takeing a longer would save some. Of course this brings in the 
complication of "bunker" rules, (fuel/endurance) but again I think it 
widens the tactical/stratigic options. How long you could fight a 
battle before you got into your transfer fuel, is still something I'm 
working on.
As for sneaking up on your target,  it's hard to spot a small object
in empty space,  especialy when the object takes pains NOT to 
be found. ECM, stealth tactics, and camoflauge combine to make
approaching ships and fleets harder to spot. Long orbits will have
(possibly anyway) have the advantage of surprise as without active
drives or electronics ships will tend to resemble holes in space.

I'm thinking that planets should get "sensor" roles based on the 
table in MT. How's this for result types:

1-3 No contact
4    Possible contact, no bearing, except inside of planets orbit, or 
outside. Not enough info to intercept.
5.   Probable contact.	Bearing within 60deg. arc. Can send a 
fleet/ship with sensors in that direction to get a better bearing.
6    Contact. Able to determine number of ships, no mass. Bearing 
within @ 30deg. arc.
7    Contact. As above, but can read individual ship mass' and 
bearing on the clock mark of the arc.
8+ Contact, and you can probably read the ships names on the hulls
(The arcs I'm thinking of is: Take the FT course guide, face the "6" 
towards the sun with the planet in the middle.	60deg would be the 
dotted lines, 30deg the area between, say 11 and 12, the bearing mark 
would be, say 11O'clock exactly. or the neareast one to the incoming 
orbit path. Make any sense?)
  :)

>I've decided each line 'tween orbits will be one-way. Gets complicated
to explain,
>but I think it more appropriately mirrors orbital mechanics(not that
I'm doing that well
> remembering high school physics). Moving between orbits, you'd boost
to get
> to the next, retro to drop to the lower, but tend to maintain the same
> direction. The details of when movement of ships and movement of
planets
> happen is still sketchy in me head, though.

Sounds	reasonable so far. See it I got this straight:
Ship leaving for Mars from Earth. The ship spirals out on one of the 
lines leavin in the direction Earth is traveling. A ship from Mars to 
Earth would move along one of the lines dropping behind Mars as it 
moves ahead? or is this backwards as you should I guess speed up as 
you move "lower" Solar Orbit.
(Now I've confuse myself :)
I'm haveing a tough time remembering what the display looked like. I 
don't think it's be a copyright violation if someone scanned an 
illustration in and sent it to me. :) If IRC, there was one or two in 
the rule book.
I'd think that it would make sense to allow the ships to move first, 
then planets. With the preveso that if the ship is within one "node" 
of a planet before movement, (ie: a ship enters the orbit node of 
Earth  prior to the planets move,  or the one it's presently in 
before Earth moves) it's considered in Far Orbit.

Speaking of Far Orbit, what would you think of the possiblities of 
ship(s) hiding there? 

> If that was WAY more than you could possibly want to know, please mail
me
> direct. Obviously, I do tend to go on...
> 
> The_Beast

Looking at the above, me thinks I may go further than you! :)
As you can tell, I'm getting into this idea a bit. If folks don't 
want this on the list perhaps we could carry it on in pivate E-mail.
But I am hoping to drag a few more folks into the conversation!  :)

Randy
Randy Campbell

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