Re: [GZG] Re: Jon's question on rotate/thrust/rotate

David Billinghurst wrote:

>The problem in Human/alien fights is not the rotating thing, but how
the
>opposing drive systems handle rapid changes in direction.

But it isn't really a "human vs alien" problem. It is a problem with the

balance between weapon fire arcs and engine power; it only becomes a 
"human/alien" problem if you use the "official" Fleet Book fleets
because 
the FB2 Kra'Vak are so heavily geared towards narrow fire arcs and
powerful 
engines while just about all of the other Fleet Book fleets use weaker 
engines and wider fire arcs.

The rotating thing is what determines how easy it is to keep the enemy
in 
your preferred fire arc, and as such it is *hugely* important for the 
balance between weapon arcs and engine power. If a single thrust point
can 
only rotate your ship a little bit (eg. in Cinematic as long as the
ships 
keep moving, or EFSB Vector), it is valuable to have powerful engines or

wide fire arcs because both of those options increase your ability to
keep 
the enemy in your fire arcs. If OTOH a single thrust point is sufficient
to 
turn the ship to any direction (Cinematic if the ship has speed zero, 
FB1/FB2 Vector), then a single-arc weapon becomes very nearly as
effective 
as the much more expensive all-arc version of the same weapon and
powerful 
engines are only marginally more useful than weak ones.

Note that this is true in both Cinematic and Vector. For example, the
main 
advantage of Advanced engines in Cinematic is not that they allow the
ships 
to change direction of *movement* easily, but that they allow the ships
to 
easily change the direction their *weapons* are pointing. It is also the

reason why the "sit-and-spin" manoeuver (where the ship comes to a full 
stop so it can rotate to any facing for a single thrust point) is so
common 
in Cinematic gaming groups. Of course, in Cinematic the ship's facing 
happens to be identical to its direction of movement which makes it
harder 
to tell these two different effects apart - but that doesn't change the 
fact that we are looking at two different effects.

This - the weapon arc vs engine power balance in Vector - is the main
issue 
the limited-rotation Vector proposal is intended to solve.

The ability to change speed and direction of movement is also somewhat 
important since it determines the ship's ability to control/influence
the 
range to its targets - but a low-thrust ship  can carry enough
long-range 
weapons that they don't need to worry very much about controlling the
range 
- if the enemy wants to fight, he'll pretty much have to get into the 
low-thrust/long-range ship's weapon range anyway. As long as the
low-thrust 
ship can keep its weapons pointing towards its faster opponent, it'll
most 
likely outgun him regardless of the range. (Yes, of course there are 
exceptions to this - thrust-8 ships with B5s or larger beams, for
example - 
but they aren't very common.)

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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