Re: [FT] PBEM Firing Orders

On Mon, 25 Jan 1999, Jerry Han wrote:
> -MWS- wrote:
> >  do you have all of the players write all of their
> > firing orders and then apply the results simultaneously?
> 
> I prefer
> simultaneous fire, even in real-life games.

<creaking of bones as old-timer stirs>

totally! just like it was in ft1! if i remember that right. i recall
being
really horrified when ft2 introduced alternating fire, and we just kept
on
using the old rules.

mind you, we misunderstood the movement rules and ended up doing a
N-point
turn at speed V as N 1-point turns separated by N movement bounds of V/N

units. it worked quite well, once you were used to it.

anyway, simultaneous fire rocks. ships fire, then damage effects are
applied at turn-end. when a ship takes a hit, put a diagonal slash
through
a damage box. at the end of the turn, put another, perpendicular slash
to
turn the slash into a cross (like spares and strikes in bowling). write
a
big 'T' if you have to take a threshold check and cross it out when
done.

another step would be to pre-plot firing. that would be tough, but if
you
allowed reaction fire (unplotted, after movement) as well, with some
relative disadvantage (say, pre-plotted fire gets +1 to all rolls, or
gets
to fire twice), it might work. this is how harpoon did it, and it makes
a
lot of sense. mind you, i worked on adding pre-plotting to ds2 for a
while. now *that* would be cool. and bloody hard.

>  I've never liked the
> 'initiative' system of resolving fire because, on the scale that
> I think most starship games operate on, a split-second reaction
difference (or
> even a several second reaction difference) doesn't change how the
> damage is done in any significant way.  

exactly - especially if you fight at ranges of several lightseconds,
when
some of your fire is going to be in flight (eg missiles) before you even
get hit.

i'd cite peter f hamilton at this point; read the first chapter of 'the 
reality dysfunction' for a battle which lasts about 20 seconds but takes
up several pages. quite a lot of ships get turned into debris clouds.

Tom