[FT] Piquet in Space (was Core Systems)

G'day guys,

The Piquet system uses cards to decide when actions occur rather than
assuming that everything alternates or is simultaneous. Add to this that
you roll dice to see how many actions get to occur and Lady Luck starts
to
loom large (that's the fun part) ;)
I'd say that "Erratic Thrust" would be pretty much like the way its
handled
for the aircraft supplement so you'd probably end up with something like
(and this is going to be a slightly simplified explanation):

Impetus (# actions): determined by rolling dice - each side rolls a die
(D20 in existing Piquet) and the result is how many impetus (actions)
that
side/person gets for that phase (turn in FT), during the phase (starting
with the higher roller) you turn cards (cost one impetus per card) until
you perform an action (costing an impetus) specified on the latest card
and
then the other guy gets to start using his impetus and so on until you
both
run out - you can also store some of the impetus for use as 'opportunity
chips' (for emergency manuevers/ opportunity fire etc).This is the
method
used in a couple of the supplements, though it is slightly different to
the
'standard' Piquet Impetus of roll dice and the difference in the rolls
is
the impetus the higher roller gets (loser gets zip). Then when the cards
run out or the two sides roll the same amount the 'turn' (Piquet turn
that
is) has ended and the cards are reshuffled and you start. [I hope all
that
didn't just confuse the heck out of you all.]

Potential (very basic) Deck:

Deploy Fighters
Reload Fighters

Move Fighters (this would be a simultaneous card - so when either side
turned it up both sides would get to do the action)
Change Course (plot/write out new movement orders - if got another move
card before changed orders then just use the existing/old set - cost one
impetus for all ships in command** otherwise one impetus per ship out of
command)
Reform (all ships out of command which can rejoin their command do so)
Move Ships (once again a simultaneous card)
Target Acquistion/Reload (firing is an action you can do without getting
a
card for it first, i.e. you get to fire at will, but you can't fire
again
until you've turned up one of these)
Deploy Missile
Move Missile (I probably wouldn't have a dedicated missile/fighter
attack
card, rather just assume that if can get to base to base then attacking
etc)
Damage Control
Boarding Action (like Melee in historical deck)

**Ships who can't keep up with the orders plotted for the commander's
ship
and those that have lost communications (via bridge hit etc)  would fall
out of command.

Potential Optional Cards

Fuel Check (for those who want fuel to be important)
Ammo Check (for those who want ordinance to be important)
Mechanical Check (for those who want to include the quality of
manufacture
- if you fly hear to hard (fast) and she's poor quality or very damaged
etc
then something is going to give...)
Space Debris (bit like weather in space I guess)
Officer Check (this is standard in the basic deck usually, but as FT
doesn't have morale I thought it would be better as optional here)
Ace Crews Change Course (really good crews could change course here too
-
in case you wanted to incorporate morale into movement ability etc, to
capture well howned fleet vs green etc)
Turkey Crews Change Course (really bad crews could ONLY change course on
this card, not the basic card)
Ace Target Acquistion (get to acquire target on this card too)
Turkey Target Acquisition (only acquire target on this card)
Sensor Scan
SNAFU (wasted impetus really as you're crew sist round and twiddles its
thumbs, another good way of differentiating between the top navies and
lesser natiosn as the lesser ones would get more of these)

OK that's a potential set off the top of my head so I've probably over
looked something (and I've skipped over a few other details on purpose),
but you should get the idea. You'd end up with something that didn't
necessarily have the strict move-fire etc of FT, but had a lot more 'fog
of
war' [though I'm not sure about the viability of fog in space ;) ]. It'd
probably need a few good hard shakes to work the finer details out, but
I
think it'd keep the simplicity and elegance of both game sets. Anyway
just
some thoughts.

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART 
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax (03) 6232 5199 International +61 3 6232 5199

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au