[OFFICIAL] new ideas!

  Here are my few and probably mostly redundant comments on the
proposed modifications to the FTII ruleset.  I have read several
replies and am attempting to reply to some of those also.

Ground Zero Games writes:

@:) 1) We intend to do away with the artificial distinctions between
@:) Escorts, Cruisers and Capitals, and have a single "sliding scale"
@:) of ship designs from smallest to largest;

  I think this is only sensible.  I, for one, would have LOVED to have
used, at some point, a mass 19 ship.  But I never did because I am not
stupid and I knew that ship would be slaughtered by any mass 18 ship.

@:) 2) Under the new system ... you will have to use mass for drives
@:) and other bits....	The thrust rating will depend on the % of the
@:) ship that you devote to the drives....

  I like this idea quite a bit.  The only _possible_ problem (mind you
I'm not certain that it is a problem) is the diminishing returns
situation that has already been mentioned by others.  There may be a
handy but probably overcomplicated way of reducing this problem by
using a progressive thrust cost scale.	Thrust 2 would cost 5%*mass*2
or 10%*mass.  But perhaps thrust 4 would cost not 20%*mass but
22%*mass.  And so on, increasing as the thrust increases.  What's the
difference, you ask?  The difference is that small ships, with small
masses, can now use rounding error to their benefit and not pay for
these increases whereas large ships will pretty much always have to
pay.  Again, this is tricky and might be a pain to work out, although
you could probably just print a table for those of us without
electronic calculators and have done with it.

@:) 4) Rear-arc fire MAY be allowed

  One of the nicest things about FT is its adaptability to settings
that are often quite different from the one described in the
rulebook.  A rule disallowing fire into the rear arc doesn't fit well
with the generally flexible nature of the game.  My vote: allow fire
in the rear arc but don't publish any ships that have it.  The
offending rule is removed but the FT universe remains the same.

@:) 5) Fighter movement...

  I think moving fighters faster will help.  Maybe it will be enough.
I still like the idea of them moving like small ships.	*DAF should
function more effectively, though, especially if fighters are going to
get more dangerous.

@:) 6) Instead of four equal 90 degree fire arcs, we may change to
@:) fore/aft arcs of 60 degrees each and side arcs of 120 degrees....

  The four firing arcs are pretty easy to work with if you're using
counters (some of us can't or won't afford miniatures).  The 60/120
thing sounds good at first but I think the arguments against it are
sound (the submunition arc problem in particular.  If you can figure
out a way to allow weapons to be mounted in 90-degree arcs offset to
any position, you should do that.  I think it would be fantastic to
have three batteries arrayed around the fore/port corner of a ship,
one port, one forward and the third just in between, from 315 to 45
degrees.  You could also do some fancy stuff, then, with a 60-degree
exclusion area in the rear or the 60-degree front arc, which I think
would help prevent the all-weapons-bear-forward syndrome.

-joachim