Re: Traveller + SG2/DS2/?

Hi folks,

I'm joining this discussion very late in the game after not reading my
list 
traffic for a week and catching up, etc etc.

I'm not sure if this point has been addressed yet (since I've not
finished 
all the messages and don't want to forget about answering this one),
but:

Allan wrote:

>Now, this may not be possible. An attacking tank will have to be wary
of 
>hidden unit markers, but a defending tank (based on the rules as
written) 
>will have a pretty good idea of what he is facing. That gives the
player 
>much greater freedom of movement than a real tanker would have. The
player 
>knows he can move his tank from one side of the board to another with 
>impunity, but in real life a tank driver may not know that. I
originally 
>thought of allowing vehicles to have free movement, that is they could 
>move anywhere on the board, much like the aerospace vehicles can do now
in 
>the game. I'm not sure that's acceptable. My latest idea is one that
I've 
>been thinking about for a while: give vehicles the ability to do combat

>moves. It may be too drastic to have them roll 2D12 for combat
movement. 
>I'm still thinking about this. I think playtesting will shake out what 
>might work best.

This is how the vehicle movement rules in SGII work already.

p23 "Vehicles have the same two movement options as infantry, that is 
Normal movement to a fixed distance, or Combat movement according to a
die 
roll."

I've always played it this way, and find that vehicles move *more than
fast 
enough*.  Any faster and they'll be unbalancing, without adding a whole 
boatload of *other* rules to compensate.

Jon addresses this point specifically later in the Vehicle Movement
section 
on page 23.

FWIW, this discussion puts me in Allan's "the rules are ok the way they 
are" camp.  I agree that using vehicles more extensively and keeping the

game "balanced" (perhaps I should say "enjoyably playable") would
require 
quite a bit of modification/addition to the rules, for many of the
reasons 
Allan (and TomB) point out (though I take issue with the whole "they're
too 
slow" thing - I don't agree on this one).  However, I also agree with
what 
Jon says on page 31 in the introduction to the Vehicles section - mostly

they're "totally unsuited to the kind of battle we are trying to
simulate 
in SGII."

That isn't to say adding rules is a bad thing - just that in the end it 
seems to be making a 25mm scale sort-of-Dirtside, more than anything
else...

-Adrian

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
www.stargrunt.ca