Re: [GZG] Re: Initiative is it a game winner? And antipodian FT

["john tailby" <John_Tailby@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi David

> From suggestions other people have made it sounds like its been realised 
that one big ship has an advantage over several smaller ships.

Suppose you come up against a fleet of 3 mass 100 battle cruisers with 6 
mass 50 light cruisers. If both are using human technology they could easily 
have exactly the same NPV.

In the rules as printed the initiative is ship by ship so the battle 
cruisers have shot all their weapons before at least 2 of the light cruisers 
have shot. Given the battlecruisers will have twice the hull and twice the 
firepower of the light cruisers its likely that they will have the ability 
to withstand on cruiser Salvo and kill one cruiser each time they shoot.

We tried playing with simultaneous damage application so that damage from 
ship fire is accumulated and all threshold checks apply at the end of ship 
fire, then fighters attach and all damage is resolved and then there are 
theshold checks apply then missiles and similar ordnance attacks.

We felt this game much better game results but whatever works.

In regards to "initiative = who gets there with the mostest" In a high tech 
universe like BFG everything is run by computer so the computers can 
accurately calculate the instant the enemy ship will be in range. So why 
wouldn't all ships open fire as soon as the enemy is in range and with equal 
range weapons the firing would be simultaneous.

If you were going for a much lower tech ( with gangs of sewating slaves 
strugglinh to align the gun turret with a huge crank handle) or even a 
higher tech setting with mind linked psychers predicting the location of the 
enemy then I could buy ships having variable states of readiness.

> Anyway, would I be right in assuming you are involved in the Full Thrust
> Campaign I have heard was being run in Wellington?  Is it at a stage where
> you could share some of the details with us?  I'm in Auckland and have 
> been
> busily converting some of my gamer friends to FT with positive results.  I
> understand there is a FT group who play at the Auckland Wargames Club (I 
> saw
> a Savasku/NSL game going on one day when I popped in for the 
> bring-and-buy)
> but I haven't been able to get hold of any of them via the NZWDList (and
> given the garbage on that list at the moment, I'm not surprised).  I'd 
> like
> to hear more, either via here, or direct e-mail.
>
> Regards
>
> David
We have been playing full thrust campaigns quite extensively this year.
With this one we have gone with people having a home base and a 1500 point 
fleet. You then go out and investigate star systems and can capture them. 
Each colony is worth a random amount of points. To keep things a bit more 
interesting there are some NPC alien races that could be discovered and they 
are not always friendly. So they typically need a good kicking. This means 
if you need to do gunboat diplomacy you need to send a decent gunboat.

Strategic movement is on a map with planetary systems linked by hyperspace 
sections. Each hyperspace corridor has a size limit being the maximum size 
that a ship can go through. The largest space is 200 mass so only bases can 
be bigger. Strategic movement is by counters representing the size class of 
ship (Size = mass /4 rounded up) This gives everyone some info about the 
potential power of the opponents fleet. Although a 250 point mass 50 light 
cruiser looks just like a mass 6 scout on the strategic map (but not on the 
table).

Ships move on the map a number of squares equal to the thrust of the ship 
divided by 2 rounded up. Savasku ship only get to use half power to stop 
them having ludicrous speed.

We use our own races and ship designs.

The latest iteration is just about to enter its climatic phase (think season 
4 of B5)





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