Grab Bag of Ideas & Comments. Mostly EFSB

I am catching up on a lot of mail over Christmas so please accept my 
apologies for late suggestions and a varied selection of topics.

Reloading Missiles
I like the idea in abstract, with a new (FTIII?) missile system, but not

with the current missiles.
I think SJGs Ogre game does it best with both missile launchers and 
missile magazines.
Any hit on a missile magazine is going to be spectacular. Even if the 
warheads don't cook off (almost certain if they are nukes) the missile 
fuel is going to make a real bang. An ideal candidate for the 
Catastrophic Damage rules, something like lose next line of hit boxes...
My campaign rules do have a rule for it, basically if you fire or are 
hit by anything the missile will probably blow up. As you can gather it 
was a long winded way of saying do not do this in combat.
I have just converted these into HTML format, the URL is:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/ft-0043.html
Or there are bits and pieces of rules at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/ft-003.html

EFSB Notes and Queries
Vector Movement
Probably as good as Mayday's way of doing it (ie. as good as it gets).

12-Sided counters/bases.
So simple but so good, it will make movement much easier. Now for an 
easy way of cutting out 12-sided polygons from plasticard...

Catastrophic Damage.
I love this idea, it makes small ships even more brittle (never a bad 
thing IMHO).
For ships with uneven numbers of damage boxes should the extra boxes be 
at the top, so the damage increases in severity?

Hit Boxes
I like the way these are done, With weaker ships (merchants) having 
narrower rows of hit boxes so they are more vulnerable to damage checks.

Fighters
Fighter Screen. Wonderful. This is what the things are for. In FT they 
would be also be useful as a missile screen (?).
Fighter Combat table. Nice idea, the added complexity is more than 
offset by the gain in versatility. Each fighter type (interceptor, 
torpedo...) can have its own place on the table. See the end of this 
missive for the table;

Ship Weapons
Fire Arcs. Good. Broadsides are back in fashion.

Heavy Beam Weapons
I would be very surprised NOT to see these in FTIII. Huge, heavy and 
deadly, they are what AA Megabatteries should have been.
I always liked the spinal mounts in Traveller but I was never completely

happy with the Nova Cannon or Wave Guns, These beam weapons go a long 
way to filling that niche.
I presume that screens do not stop them?

If you end up using technology levels then recharge rates for the beam 
power stores are a prime candidate. Using different die die also fits 
very well here:

Relative	Recharge	Example
TL	Rate
1	d3+1	d4	Earthforce
2		d6
3		d8
4		d10
5	1d×2		Minbari

I also rather like the 4 classes of 'cannon' (pulse batteries in EFSB, 
ordinary beam batteries in FT).
In WW II terms (very roughly):
C	1	Light	4"		Destroyers. Dual purpose.
B	2	Medium	8"		Cruisers, secondaries on
capitals. Maybe still dual 
purpose?
A	3	Heavy  12"		Capital ship weapons.
	4	Extremely Heavy 16"+	Dreadnought weapons.

So we might have an old battleship armed with A/lvl-3 batteries and a 
new super-dreadnought armed with a similar number of the new lvl-4 
batteries.
Yes I know I am sticking to the 'classic' WW I - II naval paradigm, but 
don't we all want to see long lines of grey ships hammering away at each

other?
This explains my dislike of fighters (aircraft), missiles (torpedoes) 
and cloaks (submarines), they are a distraction from the gun action. 
Mind you the Japanese naval command in WW II thought along similar lines

and look where it got them.
Maybe the 1890s are a better model with few distractions from the gun 
and much more variety of design.

Archimedes 1889
Whoops!
As you no doubt guessed that should have been 1989. Too much Space 1889 
and too many Babbage Engines my dear chap.

FT Font
At Last! Ha. ha, ha, ha...
Brian Bell has made me very happy. I have not had such good news since 
the last time a Kennedy died :).
It would be interesting to see the EFSB ship symbols added to the 
font...

Someone was asking about this:
The Nova is a official B5 ship, they can be seen occasionally in the 
series. The picture in the EFSB exaggerates the size of its guns (but 
not by much).

(Possible B5 spoiler warning)
5
4
3
2
1

EF ships, late period Omegas at least, have some sort of shipboard 
security troops as seen at the end of season four.
The penultimate series of season 4 mentions a new Warlock class of 
destroyer, presumably these are the silly looking (spiky) Shadow 
technology Omegas?

Late News
The magazine Computer Games Strategy Plus (or whatever it is called now)

mentioned a B5 multimedia CD available nowish and a starship combat game

due around the end of the year. Start saving those pennies now people, 
this could be the computer game we have been waiting for.

Fighter Combat Table
Fighter/Fighter Combat
	Attacker
Defender	Normal		Fast		Heavy	       
Interceptors	Attack		Long-Range	Torpedo
Normal		4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	3, 4, 5,
6      6	       4, 5, 6	       6
Fast		4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	3, 4, 5,
6      6	       4, 5, 6	       6
Heavy		5, 6		5, 6		5, 6		 4, 5, 6
       6	       5, 6	       6
Interceptors	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6
6	4, 5, 6 	6
Attack		4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	3, 4, 5,
6      6	       4, 5, 6	       6
Long-Range	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	3, 4, 5,
6      6	       4, 5, 6 6
Torpedo 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	3, 4, 5,
6      6	       4, 5, 6	       6
Anti-Ship
Unscreened	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	4, 5, 6 	-	
       3, 4, 5, 6      4, 5, 6	       4, 5, 6*
Level 1 Screens 5, 6		5, 6		5, 6		-	
       4, 5, 6	       5, 6	       4, 5, 6*
Level 2 Screens 5, 6		5, 6		5, 6		-	
       4, 5, 6	       5, 6	       4, 5, 6*
Level 3 Screens 6		6		6		-	
       5, 6	       6	       4, 5, 6*

All 6s all bold (If you have the EFSB you know what this means, if you 
don't go and buy it) except those in the Attack and Torpedo columns for 
fighter/fighter combat. In anti-ship All sixes are bold on the 
unscreened and level 1 screens rows only. No sixes are bold for Torpedo 
fighters, the * indicates their special nature.
 (At least that is my interpretation of More Thrust but I have been 
wrong before).
Hmmn, I like this table, I think I may start using it.
I will do up a copy and post it on my web page at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/ft-003.html

		 Michael R. Blair
************************URL************************
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1070/index.html
************************URL************************

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com