FTL Kamikaze (was:Re: cm scale)

>On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, People who actually *do* things with their lives -
next
>time, on      Geraldo! wrote:
>
>> >Btw: Has anyone seen someone try out the "FTL-out suicide bombers" 
>> >strategy? I.e. take Mass 2, Thr8, FTL ships, start at max speeds
>> >towards enemy. Order FTL out. Watch the enemy suffer. Mega-lame, but
I 
>> >think it could work in a competition.
>> 
> I played a game where micro carriers were allowed.  24 mass 12 micro
>carriers all carrying Attack fighters.  Half unloaded at the beginning
of
>the game then accelerated towards the enemy fleet and FTL'd when they
got
>close, then the first wave of attack fighters swept through, then the
>second wave of carriers launched and accelerated, FTL'd then the last
wave
>of attack fighters, then the carriers that didn't ahve an FTL target
the
>first time had swung around and made another pass.  The carriers won
with
>5 carriers left and 12 squadrons of fighters still viable.  Definitely
a
>cheese thing to do.  Culdn't do much about it unless you specifically
bann
>this tactic since the opponent a) still had viable FTL ships on the
board
>b) the fighters had a place to rearm and recover the pilots.
>
>But I feel that such cheese tactics should not be allowed to become a
>regular part of the game.
>
>--Binhan

Agreed. When we wrote FT, we made the mistake of not anticipating the
hordes of munchkin players.....
A suggested (simple) fix, that will in all probability be adopted in
FTIII,
is to leave the FTL proximity damage rules as they are , except for
removing the bit about damage to other ships - so that a ship engaging
FTL
too close to something else will still damage/destroy ITSELF, but not
harm
any other vessels.
IMHO this still preserves the feel of the intention of the rule (that
you
can't safely FTL if you are close to another object) but instantly
removes
any benefit of FTL Kamikaze tactics.

Jon (GZG)