Re: FT: Damage Track Sliding Scale Suggestion

cwang @ dpg.devry.edu (Chun-Kai Wang) wrote:

> >>  From: Alun Thomas <alun.thomas@cbis.com>
> >>  How about changing the damage track, so that it forms a triangle,
with 
each
> >>  row being 2 or 3 boxes shorter than the one above it?

> My only concern about this damage sliding system is for big ships....
> If you have a big ship, you will have quit ungodly number of box on
the
> first 
> row, and it may be hard to keep in current diagram.

Ok, here's a quick analysis of how quickly the first damage track
grows under both the existing system and my suggestion.

[ By the way, I've just moved house, and my copy of FT is in a box
somewhere, so I've had to go from memory for the current system.
 Please feel free to correct me.]

Current system: Escorts
>From 1 to 9 hits (1-18 mass), with 2 damage tracks.
The tracks build up as follows:

 01 03 05 07 09
 02 04 06 08

Current system: Cruisers
>From 10 to 18 hits (19-36 mass) with 3 damage tracks.
The tracks build up as follows:

 01 04 07 10 13 16
 02 05 08 11 14 17
 03 06 09 12 15 18

Current system: Capitol ships
>From 19 to 50 hits (37-100 mass) with 4 damage tracks.
The tracks build up as follows:

 01 05 09 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49
 02 06 10 14 18 22 26 30 34 38 42 46 50
 03 07 11 15 19 23 27 31 35 39 43 47
 04 08 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48

Proposed system: All ships
(Ilustrated for 1 to 50 hits, with variable no of damage tracks)
The tracks build up as follows:

 01 02 03 05 07 10 13 17 21 26 31 37 43 50
 04 06 08 11 14 18 22 27 32 38 44
 09 12 15 19 23 28 33 39 45
 16 20 24 29 34 40 46
 25 30 35 41 47
 36 42 48
 49

Here's a quick graph of number of hits (hor axis) against
length of the first damage track (vert axis).
(look at this in a fixed width font if possible)

15
14
13					    nnnnnnbb
12				      nnnnnn  oooo
11				nnnnnn	  oooo
10			   nnnnn      oooo
 9		      nnnnn	  oooo
 8		  nnnn	      oooo
 7	      nnnn	  oooo
 6	   nnn	 ooo  oooo
 5	nnb   ooo   oo
 4    nnoo ooo
 3  nnoo
 2 noo
 1bo
  ....5....1....1....2....2....3....3....4....4....5
	   0	5    0	  5    0    5	 0    5    0

o = old
n = new
b = both

This shows that the proposed system gives first tracks that are
generally longer
than the current system up to 50 hits, but shorter beyond 50 hits (this
would 
seem to
penalise superships more than the current system does)

At most the new system's first tracks are 3 boxes longer than the old
system's.
Against this you have to consider that most of the subsequent lines will
be
shorter than in the current system.

Alun.