Re: Rules for BFG/FT Conversion.

[Snippity-Snap]
>
>The original Spacefleet used varying 'winds'; I know the solar wind 
varies
>as to strength, but have trouble imagining varying direction unless 
eddies
>introduced by large (planetary) bodies. Over the battle field, smaller 
than
>a system, or perhaps outside a system, the wind was one direction 
across
>the board. From Napoleon sail games, I like varying wind, but suggest 
they
>should only vary slightly from a predominate direction (towards the 
sun).

No, I can't see the Solar Wind changing direction either.  If it does, 
you've probably got more important things than a battle to worry about 
("Hey!	Who turned out the sun?")  You might want to give the Eldar, 
whose ships are supposed to be nice and fast, the option of choosing 
what direction they enter from after the direction of the wind has been 
determined.  Or you might not...it'd be moot in most campaigns, anyway. 

Letting the intensity vary from turn to turn might be cool, though--it 
would never drop below one, or change by more than one or two points in 
a turn.  Unless the star just went nova; and again, you've got bigger 
problems in that case.

>I hope we can not bring up the discussion about 'how do you tack in a 
solar
>wind?'. *shudder*

Not me.  I'm a librarian, not a physicist.

>***
>I'm not sure how to make it less lethal to the rammer--half damage if
>the ship has a prow ram, perhaps?  I don't have the rules in front of
>me, and I'm not sure how they work as is.
>***
>
>I'd see the prow as a form of directional armor; perhaps renewable 
between
>turns. The amount of damage the prow can absorb would vary with the 
size of
>ship. It could even be defined as by size for a design system.

Renewable seems iffy, unless we are talking about some kind of force 
screen.  Who would they have repairing it, anyway?  The Squats did all	
of that work, and no one has seen them in years!  Anyway, you could go 
with a percentage system--small rams absorb 25% of the damage, medium 
rams absorb 33%, and heavy ones absorb 50%.  Nasty, but I would think 
that ships big enough to carry the heavy ram wouldn't be fast enough to 
hit much of anything.

>Again, though, let's not talk about the difficulties imagining ships
>actually tiny dots on our tabletops, lumbering, trying to get close 
enough
>to do a ram.

Piffle.  Look at the ranges at which combat took place in B5!  Not many 
people complained about *that*!  Ramming may be a bit silly, but the 
"Fun Factor" outweighs that, in my opinion.

>Someone complained about Star Trek as science fiction, and I knew just 
what
>they meant. However, ST is lazy 'hard sci-fi' (sic), with an utopian
>agenda; GW is fantasy sci-fi.

I'd just like some consistency from ST.  That, and an absence of 
joysticks on the bridge.  If it were up to me, I'd build a ship that was

one big holodeck.  Need more engineers?  Coming right up, sir.	Need 
security on Deck 5?  Materialize a couple dozen Klingons to deal with 
it.  How can we deal with this terrible plague?  Clear out Cargo Bay 
Four and load it up with holographic doctors!

>As for the background, especially the older stuff, of course you love 
it.
>They DID steal from the best. ;->=

I have always liked the GW background.	Heavy on the atmosphere, light 
on the logic, but it leaves a lot of room for creativity.  Or, at least,

it did.  Remember the Jokaero?	Remember the days of the deodorant stick

APC?  That was a golden age...simultaneously encouraging gamers to 
scratchbuild AND use deodorant!  They should try something similar 
today.	Soon. 

It helped that they tended to get VERY good writers when they started 
producing fiction.  Ian Watson is a first class author, as is Kim 
Stanley Newman (who wrote under the name of Jack Yeovil).

*sigh*	I miss those days.  And the box of 30 Imperial Guard for $30.00.

John Crimmins
john1x@hotmail.com

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