Diceless Full Thrust (was: more Graser observations)

[Charles Taylor <nerik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <003501c40cb6$6fbaa2a0$6101a8c0@aoldsl.net>
          <bail9672@bellsouth.net> wrote:


[snip]

> 
> Hmm, is diceless Full Thrust feasible?   :D :D :D :D
> 
> Glen

I have actually considered this, but it does make some fairly
significant changes to the mechanics.

Initiative can simply be the largest fleet goes first, in the
event of a tie, the smallest points total goes first, it that
is tied...

Beam-dice weapons can be simply made diceless by having each
beam dice automatically result in one hit, this does, however, increase
beam effectiveness by 25%. So increase cost to 4× MASS.

However, screens then have to be totally re-designed - say each level
of screens reduces the overall damage of a salvo by 25% (for
screen-blocked weapons only, of course).

Salvo missiles - each salvo is 4 missiles on target, each doing 3
damage.

Other weapons are harder to make diceless (I never found a satisfactory
way of doing most of them).

Unfortunately, we then have to find a way of making thresholds
dice-less! One option is the Silent Death approach; distribute the
ships systems among its hull boxes, when the box is destroyed, so is
the system.
For simplicity, get rid of damage control entirely.

As you can see, the result is a somewhat different game :)

Charles