Re: [FT] Evasion

Schoon said:
>My thoughts on Evasion and Evasive Maneuvers are thus:

>I take it as a given (read: without need for rules representation) that
all
>ships are doing their utmost to evade as soon as they have an enemy on
>sensors. For one ship's evasion routine, the other ship has a
prediction
>.routine... ad nauseum

True enough.

>My next point varies slightly depending on what you think the FT scale
is,
>but given that beam weapons travel at - or near - the speed of light,
the
>odds of moving a large vessel enough to make a difference are not good.

In one sense though, this ignores the granularity (may favorite
voabulary word I've gotten from FT)
of the FT combat. The FT turn simplifies in 15-20 minute blocks a combat
that is happening
continuously, over hundreds to thousands of km. Sensors and beam weapons
may travel at lightspeed,
but turrets/emmitters can't track instantaneously, depending on your
PSB. This leaves room, IMHO,
for heroic efforts (with accompanying cost and risk) to be appied to
avoid weapon fire. Given the
game scale, if you can move your ship a tenth of an arcsecond away from
where the weapon is
currently pointed, it misses. That makes hitting the automated dodge and
track routines you talk
about in the first paragraph  a hard enough thing to begin with. Add to
that the additional kick
given by redlining your engines to pull a surprize move, and you have
evasive maneuvers on a game
scale.

>Even "small" FT ships mass many tonnes, and even given the larger
>accellerations and compensators, they don't really jink well. Current
day
>destroyers "evade" in a sense, but a turn left or right doesn't even
phase
>a cruise missile. Too much bulk and inertia.

Again, I think it's a granularity issue. Volley for volley, you are
right, so SFB style erratic
maneuvers don't jive with me. But over the 20 minute game turn, my
definition of evasion is for
escaping a single killing blow (ST:TWoK Kirk: "Evasive Starboard!" For
all the good it did them).

>A smaller ship's greatest strength is its ability to change velocity
and
>direction to keep it out of the arcs of the big guns. Once those
behemoths
>get the bearing - lights out. Because they have a greater capacity for
>delta-v, they can also go faster without worrying about overflying an
>engagement - which limits their exposure to the pounding of the big
boys
>until they get within a range where they can return the favor.

That's why I see evasive maneuvers as a single shot attempt against a
single ship's attack, which
runs the evading ship a real chance of damaging itself in the process.

Noam