Re: Conformal Movement

At 09:35 17/07/98 -0900, you wrote:
>This is kind of the idea I had in mind when I thought about a
FleetControl
>>(or Flag) system (in combination with FireCon and Flight Control - but
no,
>>I'm not trying to reopen that discussion.)
>>
>>Anyway - the presence of a FleetCon allows the ship to link with other
>>ships (thinking 2 per flagcon?) in a more tightly controlled squadron
-
>>sharing targeting and defensive nets.  The squadron must maintain a
tight
>>cohesion - maybe 3-4 MU, which could be done with the conformal
movement
as
>>you said.  Benefits are that ships in the squadron can attack a target
at
>>the range of the closest squadron member - (so those leading escorts
>>fine-tune the firing of the trailing heavies).  I'm at a loss as to
how
to
>>share defensive capabilities effectively.  What I'm looking for is
>>essentially a shared PDS system.  For example, the small escorting
ships
>>with no ADAF (or ADFC) can use their PDAF or PDS in the area defense
mode,
>>but only in protection of other ships linked into the squadron.
>>
>
>    This sounds an arwful lot like "data link" out of Starfire. It came
in
>IIRC 3 varities depending on your tech level. Roughly basic, enhanced
and
>superior. For my campaign I came up with something similar with the
basic
>system allowing 2 ships to work together, enhanced - 4 and superior 7
>ships. I had mass as 2 for FTII but a cost of 30 pts. PDAFs could
protect
>any ship linked to the firing ship, all ships fire at once on the same
>targets at the shortest range, within 6" of each other (or line with
each
>2" from the first like in Stargrunt) and that all ships in the group
had
to
>be indentical.
>    The other idea I had was that you could buy a master/slave datalink
>system. The master was mass 5, 40 pts the slave systems 1 mass and 15
>points. The master/slave system worked the same but the only the master
>ship could be different from the others and the ability was lost from
the
>group with the loss of the master system.
>    Make them subject to threshold checks and I was going to use D
inside
a
>diamond as the symbol.
>
Sadly I never had an opportunity to play Starfire.  I got too turned off
TFG when Star Fleet Battles when wildly out of control and produced 300
pages of contradictory rules that necessitated the 40 pages of eratta
and
addenda to provide you with a game that, while it did drive you to
bankruptcy in buying new rules, at least had the virtue? of slower play,
combined with spiffy-new computer generated SSD's.  I have heard good
things about starfire though, alas I cannot afford to try it out, and I
so
rarely have time to play games I doubt it will ever be an option for me.

That said - for the FleetCon, they would most certainly be subject to
threshold checks, just as normal firecon are.  And to use a Web-analogy,
my
idea was to be server-based - any web client could connect and take
advantage of the system without the need for special plug-ins, so in FT,
plain vanilla ship designs could participate in the system with no
special
design constraints, but perhaps requiring one Firecon to the link.  Now
maybe replacing this single firecon with a smaller dedicated slave
device?
That might mork, but I would want that an option, not a necessity.

>>Lastly - I've said before I think FT needs some sort of morale rules -
I
>>still think so.  The presence of FleetCon (Flag) should have a
positive
>>effect on Morale - likewise, watching your flag go up in flames should
>>incur a negative penalty - I'm still mulling this one over.
>>
>>Hopefully I explained that better than the last time.  Comments?
>>
>>Jared
>
>    If you are worried about morale rules it might be worth looking at
>Schoon's Crew and Quality rules which were posted 12th May. I think the
>idea of a Fleet Admiral is more the sort of thing your'e looking for
rather
>than use Fleetcon.
>
>    Tony.
>    twilko@ozemail.com.au

I have looked at them on several occasions, and there is some good
information there I will probably cannibalize at some point.  However,
as
Schoon points out in the same post:
"As FT does not currently have anything that resembles the Reaction or
Confidence tests from DSII / SGII, there are two ways of dealing with a
captain's leadership. The first is to use the levels as arbitrary
designations that have effects on certain rolls or circumstances. The
second is to add Reaction rolls to your FT game. This second option is a
little more than I want to bite off for a crew quality offering, so
we'll
deal with the first only at the moment."

I think that some kind of reaction/confidence tests are important - to
really get the feel of subordinates balking at their orders, or
hesitating
at a crucial moment.  FleetCon may not exactly do what I want, but I
think
that fleet admiral doesn't either.  I want to be careful to not get into
the "my super character is better than yours" scenario - but create a
valid
and reasonable framework for formation actions.

I don't think that it is specifically the admiral that gives all the
benefit to a task group, but a large portion comes from additional
coordinating resources, CIC, etc.  Thats what I want.