Re: DS2 optional rules feedback

I wrote:
>>Riverine craft speeds and Engines
>>    DS2 gets really fuzzy here. No engine requirements are stated for
any
>riverine mobility types, and movements are subjective for the vehicle's
>design. essentially a civilian fishing boat (8"BMF) could cost the
same, or
>more, as a military landing craft (15"BMF). So a good rule is to
separate
>the three engine types, with the three movement factors (CFE: 8", HMT:
12",
>FGP: 15")

>>Who uses boats anyways right? In a campaign where we were amassing
>technology to design new vehicles with we had to drop a whole session
while
>everybody went home to re-design their boats for a banana republic
raid.

Andrew wrote:
>    Use RSW hovercraft if you're poor, or GRAV if you're rich. I would
only
>use boats if I were a very poor defender.

>    Large vessels like ships or brown water naval vessels are another
>matter. That size of vehicle isn't handled by DSII. They are almost
like
>floating platforms or fortresses that can move over water with multiple
>turrets.

The game I was talking about was a campaign idea that didn't really get
off
the ground. It involved actually massing rescources and technology, we
were
limited to certain types of vehicles, weapons, ect. until we had spent
enough points to acquire the knoledge to build it, captured vehicles
added
bonuses to that effort. That was with a group I was in just after high
school, and most of our campaign rules were written down on scraps of
paper
we had on hand. I have only recently been trying to piece them together,
sometimes literally, to come up with a long term campaigning system
(from
deep space interceptions and planetary system assaults in FT  to massed
ground actions in DS2 with infantry and covert ops in SG2 [to help with
the
research effort mostly]).
    Anyways we didn't start out with Grav, Slow GEV and Patrol boats was
all
we had to start with.
RSW air cushon rules are rather pointless because I could just have a
CFE +
Hydrofoil for the same effect regardless of craft size. In fact that's
the
argument that made the house rule necessary.

As to naval brown water ships (which the U.S. has very few if any, a
common
complaint from navy commanders forced to use deep ocean craft in the
persian
gulf),	and deep ocean craft: the former are taken care of with the
oversize
(Class 6 and 7) rules. The latter, I just use a modular tank design with
a
standard hull mobility. (8" move only as FGP's are required for modular
tanks anyways.) I haven't really experimented with being obnoxious and
adding more engines to make them go faster.

Andrew wrote:
>Sounds like you're doing some big battles. Currently, we have 15,000
points
>per side, for our DSII battles. What are your battles like?

Actually I haven't gotten to play as much DS2 as I'd like to recently. I
really can't remember the average force sizes of our engagements when I
was
trying to get that campaign put together. I have been trying to rebuild
my
armies as I lost my notebook with my designs and force compositions
about
three and a half years ago, and I haven't had that much time to dedicate
to
DS2

Jim Whitehead