Realistic movement thoughts

I saw somewhere that Jon plans to incorporate the 'Realistic movement 
rules' in the new FT edition. Good!

Some thoughts:

First, on course changes. Inspired by Adam D., I allow ships to use
their 
manouvering thrust to change facing - I've played with 2 clock facings 
change per manouvering thrust points, where escorts have a manouvering 
thrust rating of 3, cruisers 2 and capitals (usually) 1. This makes the 
smaller ships nimbler than big ones - and I think they need it.

Second, the rules Jon and Mike put on Mark's Page only cover starships.
However, I think the same rules should apply to missiles, fighters and
Nova
Cannon rounds (...of course, NC rounds don't accelerate...) IMO -
otherwise the perennial (for me, at least) problem of high speed escorts
vs speed 12 (or 18) fighters takes the fighters out of play. 

What I've played with is:

* Fighters and missiles start with the movement vector of their 
  mothership on the turn they're launched. They have no 'manouvering
thrust'
  as such (ie, no side-slips) but can change their facing in any way
they 
  like. Missiles and most fighters have a main thrust of 12, while Fast 
  fighters have a main thrust of 18. This can be a bit powerful, but
coupled
  with the fighter endurance rules it makes it bloody easy to over-shoot
or
  even disappear off the table completely...
  I've also tinkered with 'launch tubes' (as an integral component of
the
  missile/fighter bay, so no extra mass expended) which would give the 
  launched item an initial vector of 6 mu in the direction of the
launcher 
  (in addition to the vector of the mothership, of course). The launcher

  could then face forward or to the sides. I don't know if it is good,
but
  they fit the launch scenes in B5 (and missile descriptions in Weber's 
  books) fairly well.

* Nova Cannon rounds cannot, of course, accelerate; but their launcher 
  gives them an initial vector of 12 mu in the direction of the launcher

  (ie, the facing of the ship!) in addition to the vector of the 
  launching ship itself. A high-speed ship which fires a Nova Cannon 
  perpendicular to its vector can be pretty scary... (but sinceI use cm 
  as mu, I I have problems hitting anything with NC or WG rounds
anyway!)

Finally... Mike, you said something about Jon wanting to go to a purely 
mass-based design system. Any ideas of how to represent engines in such
a 
system (without _really_ screwing battlecruisers or light cruisers)? 
(...I don't know if it's very realistic, but I like the idea of 
high-thrust escorts and slow capitals...)

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Father, what is wrong?"
"My shoes are too tight. But it does not matter, because
 I have forgotten how to dance."
- Londo Mollari