Re: Rant Warning below Re: UNSC beta and FB3

[agoodall@xxxxxxx]

Glenn wrote:

> I think all of you know that the 'space navy' aspect is one of the
> assumptions I personally question as 'best' much less 'most likely'
> possible future but then I was 'tainted' while in the USAF in my mid to
> late 20's.  

Geez, Glenn. Is that the best you can do for a _rant_? I mean, it was polite and well thought out! Where's the swearing? Where's the venom? Where's the off-the-cuff remark?

Seriously, though, I agree with you to a large degree. There isn't much realism in the whole space navy concept. There are far more likely scenarios for interstellar conflict than the navy metaphor.

The problem is that the "space navy" concept has been around since... well, a long time. 1950s for certain, I'm almost certain it was in play in the 1940s, and probably goes back further than that. It hasn't much changed, either. I haven't read any of the Honor Harrington stuff (for the most part they came out after my disasterous trip to World Con in '94, which turned me off most literary sci-fi), but it was still very much a part of the sci-fi I have read. It's a hard metaphor to break, and it's the one most fans want to see in a spaceship game.

For what it's worth, it doesn't _really_ play out like WW1 or WW2 combat. Try adapting FT to WW1 or WW2 (I've been doing it for the Russo-Japanese War) and you find that you have to do a lot of tinkering to make the game system work. This is even more of the case when you use vector movement. 

FT, though, is artificial. It always astounds me when people start arguing about ship systems based on "realism" (and I've been guilty of it myself) considering the artificial nature of FT. It's two dimensional, not three. It assumes certain things about faster-than-light travel which are theoretical at best. You can't do full vector movement with missiles and fighters because it unbalances the game. You can't just drop hyper-fast rocks on people because that would unbalance the game, and make it not much fun to play. I don't know how interstellar combat would work, but it's not going to work like FT!

That having been said, it's a fun game. I personally wish you could play larger battles with it, but I'm not sure it's practical given the size of the ships (I'd like to see FT fleets in a scale similar to Hallmark's 1/6000 scale ships, with a game system to support it!).

--
Allan Goodall              agoodall@att.net
http://www.hyperbear.com   agoodall@hyperbear.com