Re: coupla Full Thrust questions

At 09:18 AM 10/28/96 EST, Andywrote:
>
>* If a ship passes two thresholds in one shot, do you do
>the system checks twice?  I assume so, since they'd be getting
>off easier if not.

Yes, do them twice. 

>* 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.

It depends. In my play-by-email game, the sides were about 70" apart.
This
is about what we normally do in our board games (opposite sides of a 6'
long
table). However, at GenCon we played a large game where both sides set
up on
the long sides of the board and were thus only about 4' apart. Depends
on
what you want. The further away, the longer the game, the faster the
ships
will move, and the less effective fighters will be. Closer together,
fighters are nastier, the speeds are slower, and the combat starts
sooner. 

>* 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?

We play with a "gentleman's" rule similar to baseball's "ties go to the
runner" rule. Disputes of any question go towards the defender. Note,
that
this works for our group but doesn't work for all (the game dissolves
into
endless bickering). Do one of the following: 1) roll a die, high score
"wins"; 2) give the ruling to the player who is the defender, and then
the
next ruling will go in the other player's favour, and just switch back
and
forth. As long as you set up your "dispute mechanism" before the game
begins, you shouldn't have a problem.

>* Do you measure before declaring fire?  I agree with not measuring
>for many miniatures games, but you'd think that the distances
>here are measured pretty accurately.  So I'm inclined to allow
>measuring.  What about checking the fire arc of your ship before
>declaring targets?  What about checking the enemy's fire arc (to
>know whether it can shoot at you)?

We assume that these ships have good range finding gear and allow arc
checks
and range measurement before a ship fires.

>* How much do you know about your enemy's ships?  How big they
>are, what they carry, current condition of systems and how many
>boxes filled in?

This is in the rulebook. In my play-by-email game, you know the ship's
name
and name of the class; that's it though in our first games we allowed
you to
know mass as well. In the More Thrust book, advanced sensors allow you
to
know mass, systems, current damage, thrust, etc. I would allow the other
side to see all ship designs before the game begins if I designed the
ships
myself (it's not fair any other way).

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca 
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage