Re: Space Operas

> Starfire has a lot of neat ideas, many of which could be glommed into
FT.  I
> especially like the expanding time/distance scales as fleets of ships
moved
> closer together, which allowed you to conduct real fighter operations,
etc.
>  However, once you got the ships onto the map, the game was a snoozer.
 The
> missile systems were the only thing worth having and the only maneuver
was
> holding the optimum missile ranges.  At least that's the way it seemed
to me.
> 
> Later
> 
> Brian

I have to agree.  Strange but I was just reading the campaign book 
for Crusade before I read these messages.  It makes it all sound very 
exciting with huge fleet battles ranging across an entire system at 
times.	Sadly though any attempt to play these battles usually ends 
up falling by the wayside.  Once you get above 5 ships a side it 
loses its appeal.  Just like SFB you have to keep track of turn modes 
dependent on speed, something I have never liked very much if you 
want to have a decent sized battle in a reasonable amount of time.  
Usually what happens in larger battles is most of the ships get 
stacked into one hex (20-30) and essentially work as one supership.  
Once you get in range of each other it becomes a number crunching
excercise. 
Movement usually takes up all the time and since you could only move 
a maximum of 6 hexes a turn with no turns it just becomes irritating. 
The campaigns if they could be adapted to FT would be excellent I 
suspect.  There is a very useful piece of software on Matt Seidls FTP 
site called Starfire Assistant that could be of use to anyone running 
a space combat campaign game.  The campaign rules for Starfire aren't 
all that bad if you cut out a lot of the pointless number crunching.
If I might suggest, who else would be interested in trying to convert 
it for use by FT? 

NG. 
------------------------
Niall Gilsenan
DIT,Cathal Brugha St
Dublin, Ireland.