Re: Other Solar Sys maps Re: Strategic Thrust using BR25

<You've seen BattleFleet Mars, then? ;->= However, they used a measure
stick 
for
actual movement, and given the already mentioned vastly different
distances
between
inner, iron planets and outer, gas ones, not terribly realistic.>

I think it was surprisingly realistic.

Battle Fleet Mars by SPI - a great game in a lot of ways - in fact TWO
great 
games! The strategic game had the orbits of the solar system out to
Saturn 
(Ibelieve) the justification for using big circles was that at that
scale you 
would need a microscope to detect the ddifference between the circle and
the 
parabola. Each turn the planets moved one notch along the orbital track
and 
each orbital track had different size increments so planetary postions 
remained pretty accurate.

The really nifty neato map though was the tactical ship to ship maneuer
map 
which was a cartesian coordinate system where each ship and missile had
TWO 
markers one on the X, Y map and the other on the X, Z map allowing you
to 
expend thrust points in a true three dimensional manner. A table gave
you the 
tru 3D range between any two targets on the board. I have always been 
surprised that no one has offered gamers that movement system again. It
would 
require double miniatures; but it would have some advantages: 1) It
would get 
us away from having space battles look just like WW II naval miniatures.
2) 
It would get our tactical thinking out of the WW II naval miniatures
rut.

Thanks for bringing up that great old game, I'll try using the system
for 
some SFB games and see how it might work.