Re: FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: FTL

On 2 Nov 2015, at 15:37, Douglas Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:

> Haven’t been keeping up this weekend; had several ‘those kind of
‘ days.
>  
> Did want to suggest a good STARTING point is David Manley’s article
for Ragnarok 21. Remember, this was written in the days of four fire
arcs.
>  
> <a href="http://www.sfsfw.org/a/21/light.php">Tripping the Light
Fantastic </a>

Thanks Doug, useful to re-read that, I hadn't looked at it since it was
first published in the Rag!

>  
> In the end, I tend to think MOST FTL is either a jump drive or jump
gates, /w ‘Chrome’.

In terms of game effects, you're probably right there!
A long time ago (and I have no idea who originally came up with it) I
recall a very simple way of doing a version of "Warp Drive" in FT - once
the drive is engaged, the ship may not turn or manoeuvre at all, but it
DOUBLES its velocity each turn until it exits the table (so unless it
starts off going very slowly indeed, it will usually be off the table in
a couple of moves). The ship cannot fire while it is accelerating into
warp, but for "fun" game effect it may still be fired AT and take
damage….

>  
> Doug
>  
> PS I’d REALLY like to discuss ‘there is a consensus that this is
just "not done" for the same reasons you don't bomb settled worlds into
big glass marbles….’ someday, but there’s new rules to be hashed!

Well, my comment was specifically about Cherryh's Merchanter
universe…. the big stations are simply too valuable to destroy (at
least in wars between the human factions)…… most of the
wars/disputes are more about who "owns" the stations and can trade with
them, rather than trying to wipe out the enemy population. Of course,
throw genocidal aliens (or indeed extremist human factions) into the mix
and all bets are off - in fact Cherryh's model of human settlement would
be horribly vulnerable to any REAL enemy threat, and is thus quite
difficult to game….

Jon (GZG)

>  
> From: Gzg [mailto:gzg-bounces@firedrake.org] On Behalf Of Jon Tuffley
> Sent: Monday, November 2, 2015 6:38 AM
> To: Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com>; gzg@firedrake.org
> Subject: Re: FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: FTL
>  
> Interesting discussion so far, please keep the comments coming!  :-)
>  
> Some did mention C. J. Cherryh's Merchanter books, which has a "travel
through" Hyperspace model with a jump limit far out on the system
fringes, but when incoming ships drop out of hyper they are still doing
a significant fraction of c in realspace and there is mention of them
"pulsing" their jump drives (presumably "in reverse") while inbound in
order to bleed off velocity…. none of this is really explained, which
in some ways is one of the things I like about the series - the general
lack of technobabble/PSB, things just "are" and the characters use them
in their everyday lives without the need to pseudo-explain everything.
Cherry's universe is a bit of a special case of course, since there are
very few planetary colonies - in most systems the human presence is only
on the huge space stations, thus all inbound and outbound traffic is 
basically headed to and from one point in the system - of course this
would make the stations terribly vulnerable to hypervelocity bombardment
from the edge of a system, and indeed there are passing mentions to a
few stations being "blown" in the wars, but overall there is a consensus
that this is just "not done" for the same reasons you don't bomb settled
worlds into big glass marbles….
>  
> One of my current personal favourites (largely because it feels quite
"game-able") from recent publications is the Jump Universe series by
Mike Moscoe (starting with "The Price of Peace") - Moscoe wrote the Kris
Longknife series under the pseudonym of Mike Shephard, the books I'm
referring to form a set of prequels to the Longknife books, set a
generation earlier (and, IMHO, are actually better).
> Moscoe's "Jump Universe" has FTL via a series of Jump Points providing
instantaneous transit to another jump point, systems having varying
numbers of points of varying degrees of "stability" - the most stable
ones are the only type used by commercial shipping, while the less
stable points (in that they tend to wander around a bit, and are thus
harder to locate and more difficult to traverse safely) are used only by
the military, explorers and in emergency situations. Each point may be
connected to just one other in another system, or it may actually lead
to several options according to exactly how the ship enters the point
(exact angle and velocity, plus other entirely PSB factors like the spin
on the ship…). It doesn't appear that ships need any special drives to
transit a jump point - anything can be sent through provided it enters
the point on the right vector.
> This setup makes for quite an interesting situation, obviously the
most stable and commonly-used jump points in a system will be defended
in a war situation, but there is always the possibility that the
attackers might pop through a less stable (or even previously
undetected) point elsewhere in the system….
>  
> Jon (GZG)
>  
>  
> On 2 Nov 2015, at 09:34, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Where I played, we did. It was a blast and made formation flying a
pain
>  
>  
> 
> On Monday, November 2, 2015 2:02 AM, Randy Wolfmeyer
<rwwolfme@gmail.com> wrote:
>  
> 
> I'm a little behind - but I wanted to comment on the use of "arrival
out of FTL" rules: I've done a number of my convention games with
something along those lines. I can't remember if what I use is similar
to the original rules, or if I've houseruled it completely - but I
usually make each ship plot an arrival jump point before the game, and
then on the first three turns the players make a roll per ship to see if
they arrive on that turn (usually it's a 1 to arrive on the first turn,
1-2 for the second turn, and so forth - by the 6th turn everyone is on
the table). When they arrive, they roll a D12 for direction and a D6-1
for distance and displace their arrival from the plotted jump point.
>  
> It's worked pretty well to mix things up - you make plans for your
fleet, but you're at the mercy of the dice as to where and when each
ship will actually arrive. For new players its also kind of nice because
the first couple of rounds they're getting the hang of things with just
a couple of ships and as more ships arrive things get more complex. It
just sucks when your SDN doesn't arrive until late into the fight.
>  
> On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 5:39 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Roger and Hugh, you both make very valid points here, and I'd be
interested in everyone else's opinions on it too.
> 
> It is entirely true that FTL has no game effect in the majority of
situations - I don't know how many players have ever used the "arrival
out of FTL" rules in a game….anyone here? The only other real effect
that you get in game terms by having FTL drives as a separate ship
system is that loss of them will strand the damaged ship in-system by
making escape to FTL impossible, but again that is quite a minor factor
and more of use in campaign terms than a one-off game.
> 
> As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought
through at all, how about doing away with the FTL drive as a "paid for"
system and making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command
(Bridge), Life Support and Power Core icons?
> 
> Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other
ideas on the matter…….
> 
> Jon (GZG)
>  
>  
> 
>