On 3/3/07, Roger Books <roger.books@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'll disagree on it adding much to the game. I like SITS/AV:T vector
movement better than FT as long as I'm only running a ship or
two. For fleets FT wins hands down.
Roger
Once you discard the third dimension (which I would do for playing Full Thrust), it gets even easier to use, and the one element it does add is a straightforward method to implement turning points (each vessel in the line begins its turn at the same point in space, so they remain in a line before, during, and after the maneuvereuver). Maneuvering a line-ahead formation is not a situation that FT's movement mechanic allows for, as written. Changing the formation of a group from line-ahead to line-abreast, doing the reverse, or changing the direction of a line-abreast formation while maintaining a line-abreast formation is equally difficult in either system of vector movement, in that anything you have not tinkered with to the point that you have a card that shows the before formation and vector, the after formation and vector, and all the orders for each element to go from one to the other, will cause your opponent to grumble about the length of time it requires for you to write your orders. At least the ability of AV:T's movement system to allow burns to happen at many points during the turn will make these canned maneuvers easier to plan.
FT only wins hands down for fleet engagements if your fleets are large numbers of single ships, instead of a small number of formations [For what it is worth, I should mention that I have only ever managed to play FT twice, once in vector and once with cinematic movement. I just have alot of time to think about the sorts of things that might be interesting to try-- is there anything worse than an armchair gamer?]. Formations speed things up because there is one set of orders for the whole formation.