FTIII, was Re: Hello from GZG

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> FTIII will
> happen at sometime, but not until a lot of consultation has been done
> regarding what (if anything) we change and what we leave alone.

...does anyone have the result of the poll we made a month or two ago?

Two details stand out: the A battery, and the break points between hull 
classes.

The A battery imbalance is easily fixed by changing its mass to 4, as
has 
been suggested several times on this list.

The break points between hull classes is somewhat different. Adam 
Delafield and Brian Bell came up with a new system to allocate damage 
boxes to rows. I don't know if you saw it, so here it is again.

Unfortunately I don't remember what Adam called the new ship classes, so
I 
replace his names with my designations: 

Class name:  Mass range: #rows of boxes: Max #boxes/row:
Scout	       1 -  8		1		4	  
Escort	       9 - 20		2		5
Cruiser       22 - 36		3		6
Battlecruiser 37 - 56		4		7
Battleship    57 - 80		5		8
Dreadnought   81 -108		6		9

... etc. For each new class, the number of rows of damage boxes is 
increased by 1, and the maximum number of boxes per row also goes up.

The damage boxes are placed as follows:

First, you fill up all boxes as per the next LOWER ship class. Then you
start filling out the last row with boxes, 'til it is as long as the
upper
boxes. If you still have boxes left, you fill in the final box in each 
row, starting from the top. 

Brian drew a diagram of it:

 1  2  3  4  9 16 25
 5  6  7  8 10 17 26
11 12 13 14 15 18 27
19 20 21 22 23 24 28

...etc. As per MT's Superships, all treshold checks after the third are 
made at 4+.

While this system is more complicated than the FTII one, it avoids the 
'CL is more brittle than DD" problem, as well as the "large capitals are

invulnerable" one. Each ship in a class is about as brittle as every 
other ship in that class.

Adam also suggested changed engine costs for some of the classes 
(notably the class I call "battlecruiser", which was to be half-way 
between Cruisers and Capitals, and the "scout" class which was to pay 
less than today's Escorts) and higher numbers of FireCons (or, more 
accurately, Damage Control Parties - to counter the higher number of 
treshold checks).

There are, of course, other details - Kra'Vak efficiency, for example - 
but the above are the weakest points in the basic rules.

High regards,

Oerjan Ohlson

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
 -Hen3ry