Call for Players: New FT Game Starting in August/September

Hi, gang. I've been working on an idea for a PBEM FT game for later this
year and I'm wondering if any of you are interested. 

The game is set in a universe I call "The Age of Iridium". I got the
idea
from the "Hornblower" thread a couple of months back. The ships and
background are loosely based on the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 in the
pre-dreadnought era (the Age of Iron). It will be a fairly large
engagement
with each player controlling 2 - 3 capital ships, or 3 - 5 cruisers, or
4 -
6 destroyers. The "Imperial Tsarist" fleet will be attempting to break a
blockade by the "Nipponese" fleet. If everyone enjoys the battle, a
second
game can be played based on the Tsarists linking up with their blockaded
fleet, with a Nipponese fleet in the middle.

As in Ludo's PBEM game, there will be jump points. However, jump points
in
my game are formed only in the corona of binary star systems. Ships jump
out
of a system by diving for the jump point within the star, while they
maintain their entry velocity on the other side of the jump point. This
is
good, since a portion of the battlefield will contain the star's corona,
doing an automatic 1 point of damage to each ship within the corona at
the
end of a turn. Most of the battlefield will be outside of the star,
though
there will also be a hotter zone on the board edge that does 2 points of
damage per turn. This should make for an interesting tactical
environment.

I'm trying out one optional rule: ships WILL be able to fire in the rear
arc. I agree with the design team of FT as to the reasons for preventing
fire into a rear arc (mostly, that it increases the tactics needed for
the
game). This is necessary in a game that allows players free-reign when
designing ships. To make a rear arc playable, I've designed the ships
along
the lines of pre-dreadnoughts, with forward and rear turrets and
secondary
batteries that have at most two firing arcs (and often only one). This
should make for a unique FT tactical excercise that will mirror
pre-dreadnought combat. I intend to publish my "Age of Iridium" design
rules
on this list after they've been tested in the game.

The ships are built around weapons from the main FT rules, but I'll be
using
some of the More Thrust optional rules (mostly damage control and
striking
the colours). I was just going to stick with basic sensor rules, unless
I
hear requests to use the more advanced MT sensor rules. 

Anyway, I'm wondering if any of you are interested in playing. I can
accomodate anything from 4 to 12 players. So far I have 4 berths
confirmed,
with another berth probable and a 6th berth possible. I thought I'd
extend
the invitation to the FT mailing list in general. 

I'm planning to start the game sometime between August 19 and September
9.
This is lots of advance notice, as I want to code a database system for
maintaining and running the game. Also, we're just entering prime
vacation
time. The universe background and ships will be sent out a week or two
ahead
of time.

This should be an interesting battle, and it's likely to be a bit
different
from any other FT game you've played.

Allan

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca
"The secret rules of engagement are hard to endorse,
 When the appearance of conflict meets the appearance of force."
     - The Tragically Hip