Re: [GZG] Re: Jon's question on rotate/thrust/rotate

[Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx>]

David Billinghurst wrote:

> The problem in Human/alien fights is not the rotating thing, but how the
> opposing drive systems handle rapid changes in direction.

But it isn't really a "human vs alien" problem. It is a problem with the 
balance between weapon fire arcs and engine power; it only becomes a 
"human/alien" problem if you use the "official" Fleet Book fleets because 
the FB2 Kra'Vak are so heavily geared towards narrow fire arcs and powerful 
engines while just about all of the other Fleet Book fleets use weaker 
engines and wider fire arcs.

The rotating thing is what determines how easy it is to keep the enemy in 
your preferred fire arc, and as such it is *hugely* important for the 
balance between weapon arcs and engine power. If a single thrust point can 
only rotate your ship a little bit (eg. in Cinematic as long as the ships 
keep moving, or EFSB Vector), it is valuable to have powerful engines or 
wide fire arcs because both of those options increase your ability to keep 
the enemy in your fire arcs. If OTOH a single thrust point is sufficient to 
turn the ship to any direction (Cinematic if the ship has speed zero, 
FB1/FB2 Vector), then a single-arc weapon becomes very nearly as effective 
as the much more expensive all-arc version of the same weapon and powerful 
engines are only marginally more useful than weak ones.

Note that this is true in both Cinematic and Vector. For example, the main 
advantage of Advanced engines in Cinematic is not that they allow the ships 
to change direction of *movement* easily, but that they allow the ships to 
easily change the direction their *weapons* are pointing. It is also the 
reason why the "sit-and-spin" manoeuver (where the ship comes to a full 
stop so it can rotate to any facing for a single thrust point) is so common 
in Cinematic gaming groups. Of course, in Cinematic the ship's facing 
happens to be identical to its direction of movement which makes it harder 
to tell these two different effects apart - but that doesn't change the 
fact that we are looking at two different effects.

This - the weapon arc vs engine power balance in Vector - is the main issue 
the limited-rotation Vector proposal is intended to solve.

The ability to change speed and direction of movement is also somewhat 
important since it determines the ship's ability to control/influence the 
range to its targets - but a low-thrust ship  can carry enough long-range 
weapons that they don't need to worry very much about controlling the range 
- if the enemy wants to fight, he'll pretty much have to get into the 
low-thrust/long-range ship's weapon range anyway. As long as the low-thrust 
ship can keep its weapons pointing towards its faster opponent, it'll most 
likely outgun him regardless of the range. (Yes, of course there are 
exceptions to this - thrust-8 ships with B5s or larger beams, for example - 
but they aren't very common.)

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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