Re: Full Thrust 3 rules

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> Michael wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> >
> >A friend of mine also really hates how effective 1 structure point
> >ships can be.  In campaign games that is basically all he builds.
> >He says that until some mechanic comes into play which reduces
> >their effectiveness, why do any differently?
> >
> >The problem isn't just not having enough firecons to hit all the
> >swarmers, part of the problem is how much wasted damage you will
> >have versus the swarming ships.  If the average damage one
> >does to a swarm ship is 3 points, that is equivalent to fighting
> >a fleet of larger ships which only take 1/3 the damage.
> >
> >In campaigns, swarms dominate until the advent of effective area
> >effect weaponry.  Once you have enough Wave Guns and Nova Cannon
> >to cover the maneuver envelope of the enemy swarm you can kill
> >them before they close.  A fleet of 10 Nova Gun ships spaced
> >4" apart covers 40" of front at 48", or well out of range of
> >the swarm.  Of course, such a fleet will cost 2500 points or
> >so and is really only cost effective versus swarms which are
> >substantially bigger than 2500 points...
> >
> >When you were considering fleets which were limited to beam
> >weapons the larger ship classes at least had the advantage
> >of having 3 shields, reducing the damage a ship would take
> >by 75%.  Of course, between the added cost of shields, the
> >mass lost for weapons, and the fact that larger ships
> >maneuvered like drunk cows reduced this advantage considerably.
> >
> >At any rate, after brainstorming a bit we came up with some
> >mechanics which would reduce the dominance of the swarm a bit.
> >1)  All ships now require maintenance each production turn or so.
> >For Escorts the maintenance is 5 points, Cruisers 10, Capitals
> >15, etc...  Or in FT3, for mass 1-4, um, 3 points, 5-16 6 points,
> >17-64 9 points etc...
> 
> An interesting suggestion, but this re-introduces artificial
break-points......

	As a possible alternative, a friend of mine suggested doing this
instead: reworking the MT missile with 4 different size/damage classes.
Their explosions are also now area-effect, with the area increasing with
the size class of the missile.	It seems to be a good way to catch the
swarming hordes, but I have yet to see it in game play. Just a
suggestion.
If I ever get my hands on a copy of the FB, I plan on adapting them to
it.

Theron Hatfield