coupla Full Thrust questions

Andy Skinner writes:
@:) 
@:) Hi.  I played my first game over the weekend--the sample scenario
@:) with the three frigates and two light cruisers.  We had fun,
@:) though we hope giving orders and making movements gets easier.  I
@:) like the reasons some people choose to play in centimeters, so we
@:) used those for measurement.
@:) 
@:) * If a ship passes two thresholds in one shot, do you do
@:) the system checks twice?

  Yes.

@:) * About how far apart do you usually start?  The scenario said
@:) which ships were involved, and how fast they were going, but not
@:) how far apart to start.

  We usually have an argument just before the game begins.  Well, we
always have an argument just before the game begins but this issue
causes frequent discussion.  It depends on how fast you expect to be
going and what kinds of ranges you want to have to work with.  The
greater the distance, the more fair it is for everyone but also the
more time you'll spend just flying around.  If you shorten the
distance, you can get right into the action but players who try to use
long-range tactics may be at a disadvantage.  We commonly start
battles at ranges as close as 36" for small ships that don't have A
batteries.  Large fleet actions tend to be more spread out, but often
still less than 60" due to limitations on floor space.
  It's probably best to come up with a consistent and largish range
and stick with it, so your tactics cannot be inferred from your
requests for unusual setups.  I was quite surprised that no one
predicted my use of AA megabatteries in one campaign after I demanded
we switch to centimeters so the opening range could be greater than
70.

@:) * I need to mark a spot on each ship for measurement purposes.  A
@:) couple of times we weren't exactly sure whether a ship was in
@:) range or not, or it made a difference between 3 dice and 6.  Does
@:) anyone grant something in between (4 or 5) if it is really close?

  No.  We use counters and measure from center to center.  In our
experiments with miniatures (not terribly successful, by the way, and
in part because of the measuring problems you mention) we attempted to
measure from the center of the base of the miniature.  With our small
SFB counters on our rather fuzzy rug, we generally move our ships
somewhat sloppily and then measure the real positions of the counters
- if your finger twitched or you put your counter down on a hairball
and that means you take six dice instead of three, so be it.  It could
just as easily have gone the other way.

@:) * Do you measure before declaring fire?

  Yes, quite a bit.  Since there's no opportunity fire in FT, you
might as well spend some time figuring out what's going on.

@:) * How much do you know about your enemy's ships?

  We have a system loosely based on the one discussed in More Thrust.
At one range (range>54"?) you know only the class of the ship (escort,
cruiser or capital), at the next (range>36") you know mass and thrust
and close-up (range<36") you know how many rows of damage have been
taken.	We also give a rough estimate of systems destroyed during a
threshold roll to simulate big or little explosions coming out of
what's left of the hull.  Probably the rules in More Thrust are
better, but these do the trick for us and they keep us from knowing
everything about each other's ships, even after we reverse engineer
them from their numbers.  You can't tell the difference between a C
battery and a PDAF, for example, until the weapon is fired, but you
may be able to calculate that the ship has enough undisclosed space
remaining to contain one or the other.

-joachim