Re: (OT) Rules "inspiration" (was [OT] Bring and Battle

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Now mind you, I've seen new jet HUD/AI/Combat Electronics packages in 
> which all threats were displayed, highlighted, categorized based on 
> presumed type, flagged, distances and current velocity and change of 
> velocity vectors displayed..... I can see this technology propagating 
> to armoured vehicles. Instead of sitting in a tank, I may be sitting 
> (although still in the tank) inside of a 360 virtual reality system 
> which maps and categorizes threats, gives me range, hit probs, 
> manoevre speeds, acceleration, deceleration, and maybe some other 
> threat warnings.  

Possibly, but as long as it is you, the human, doing the decision
making,
*you* have to digest all that data. They still haven't invented that
"pause" button that let's you contemplate the possibilities at your
leisure. I think that even with the best sensors, a real human in a real
life-threatening situation will either make a snap decision based on gut
instinct and maybe a handful of data -- or freeze and die.

Ofcourse, if you have systems this good, one begins to wonder why put in
a human pilot at all...

Also, as I noted earlier, real life weapons (with the exception of wire
guided ones) don't have a strict maximum range, the kind of "wall of
air"
thing almost every game has. You *could* write rules to simulate 
this, but I find it easier to keep the players guessing the exact range.

Instead of "That's 3000m. I'm not quite sure whether the 100mm is
effective to that range." you have "The 100mm's effective to 30", but
that
just might be 30.5" away..." IMHO the net effect is the same.

(Actually, Ogre minis simulates this in a way -- but it still doesn't
allow pre-measuring except as an optional rule)

> Reasonable. But if you have a group of infantry firing rifles at you 
> 300m out or a HEL/5 armed tank targeting you from 500m, I'd think it 
> would be productive to engage the HEL tank.  

That's not a very good example, because the natural snap decision choice
is to get the tank. The "gamesy" choice I oppose would be to pre-measure
and find out that the tank is 2mm out of range (or just in unfavorable
range band) or 1 degree out of arc and then blow the PBI's away just in
case they might have IAVRs or something -- or simply because you have
nothing better to shoot at, the game doesn't count ammo nor penalize for
switching targets. 

Add in the fun twist that you can't even break your systems (SD:F) when
firing at infantry... yes, I think it's silly but that's the way the
rules
read -- NO special chit is valid when firing at infantry.

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