RE: FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: FTL & Core

"Of late again I have been (on a scenario by scenario basis) starting to
enforce a rule that if a ship has been reduced to its last hull row, it
must attempt to break off from the engagement, and not engage the enemy
unless shot at first in a given turn..."

Most NON-spaceship games do use that, of course, and call it a morale
check, dicing for the possibility to play forlorn hope. Perfectly
common, and Klingons will just stay til the last row, at least. ;->=

Point systems can color it further, but even half for a cripple, all for
destroy, to your opponent even if it's a cripple that's useless hulk,
doesn't seem to make THAT much difference. 'At least he's shooting it
instead of my Queen of Denial, er,  the Nile.'

Takes a skillful balance of the above AND scenario writing to get the
message across, methinks.

"As for folding the FTL system into the Core Systems, meh, I guess?
Personally I never use the Core Systems as written. I have always felt
they were too catastrophic to the ships when hit. Moving the FTL to the
Core Systems does nothing to change its game effect, or lack thereof, if
hit."

In my view, the FTL is not 10% waste; it's your ticket to the ball. If
you don't agree, that you have magic transports that drop the fleet in
place without jeopardy and cost, it's your game, not mine.

In hardened defense, I WILL have system defense boats. I accept defense
gets that as an advantage. Just have to put them EVERYWHERE needing
defense, and 10% savings start looking thin.

"As for the Core Systems themselves, I had long ago adopted others (when
I played them) that a friend of mine had come up with (and I had once
proposed for the FB/FT3 runs) that affect the ship, but are not so
imminently catastrophic to it (such as communications down, which meant
the ship so affected had to plot out one turn in advance). (I always
felt command bridge hits were silly, because seriously, what
self-respecting starship is *not* going to have an auxiliary or
secondary bridge?!?  :-D )."

Whereas I just say the term 'Bridge' is silly. Command and Control is
complex, but even modern ships with auxiliary/backups/redundants can
suffer catastrophic failure. I don't look behind the curtains any closer
than that, though, I've never even played Core Systems. ;->=

By the way, I’m feeling particularly lugubrious of late. Do tell me to
shut up when I’ve gone on too long.

Doug