Re: [FT] Scaling up for RPG play

One source for how characters can be involved in combat is the Earth
Force
sourcebook for the Babylon 5 rpg.  The ship to ship combat system is
pretty much the same and the book had rules for how the characters could
take actions to affect the range of weapons, getting extra thrust from
the
engines, etc.

Randy Wolfmeyer
Dept. of Physics
Washington University

On Tue, 21 May 2002, Tomb wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I want to pick some brains (yes, that means you!) regarding a
half-baked
> idea I might have. I'm starting a MegaTraveller(ish) campaign where
the
> party of adventurers will eventually procure a small merchant ship. I
> want to be able to accomodate some combat in space (light stuff) and I
> have a number of options: Basic Traveller Starship Combat, Brilliant
> Lances, MayDay, High Gaurd, etc. and I have this other game called
Full
> Thrust that I'd like to think might be even better than any of the
> above.
>
> Only, the ships are only 100-5000 tons displacement (mostly in the
> 100-800 ton range). And of course you want the player's abilities to
> have some chance to have an impact on events (this kinda sounds like
FMT
> (Full Metal Thrust) that Roger Burton West and I have started tossing
> around). So I kinda want to toss this out to the brainstorming
populace.
>
>
> So, can full thrust be successfully scaled up (ie small ships made big
> and thus making the ship survive more than one hit from a B3)?
>
> In the other games, important aspects are:
> -- sensor acquisition of targets
> -- electronic warfare
> -- manned gunnery
> -- evasive manouvers
> -- operation of defensive weapons like sandcasters
>
> Weapons tend to include:
> - beam lasers
> - pulse lasers
> - particle accelerators
> - fusion guns
> - missiles (nuke and non-nuke)
> - sandcasters
> - black globes (force screens)
> - nuclear dampers (only good against nuclear weapons, but boy are they
> required for that)
>
> Perhaps FT, using its D6 mechanics and relatively brittle ships just
> doesn't have what it takes to be a good engine for a space RPG combat
> extension.
>
> Now, our conjectural Full Metal Thrust adapts the FMA engine to run on
> top of FT feasible designs and systems. This seems like something with
> the "right stuff" since it already includes a concept of user skills
> (quality dice) in the equation.
>
> Anyone have any insight on any of this? Anyone tried an FMA'd FT or
> tried FT combat for an RPG group for ship fighting? Any real-world
> results to report? :)
>
> Tomb
>
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