Re: Babylon 5 Wars (LONG)

On Sat, Mar 15, 1997 at 8:37:14 PM, Paul Calvi wrote:

> As far as the minis go I thought the game had two scales, one for 
> tactical fighter combat and one for cap ship combat,; thus the
different 
> figure scales. Is this true? 

I think there is going to be a strategic movement system and a tactical
system 
-- we didn't see the strategic stuff, so it was hard to tell.  The rules
we 
tested had a set of fighter rules using individual fighters, then a
suggestion 
that fighters actually be flown in groups.  This didn't really work in
the 
first playtest round, as the damage system was such that you ended up
with a 
lot of fighters with _different_ things wrong with them (hence, they
could no 
longer fly as a group), and effectively mission-killed anyway.	The
second 
round playtest rules were a _lot_ deadlier for fighters, which mostly
solved 
the problem.

On Sun, Mar 16, 1997 at 5:54:49 AM, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

> On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Christopher Weuve wrote: 
> > 2) To change a ship's course 30 degrees to either the left or the 
> > right, a 
>  
> I understand your point, but the basic fact is that you just can't 
> make 30 degree turns under the rules. Hexes have nothing to do with
it. 
> In Full Thrust, you just can't make turns under 30 degrees, period. 
> Imagine the frustration, if the game included more "direct ahead only"

> weapons. 

True, but FT's 12-point system (i.e., 30 degree turns are the limit)
gives you 
a much finer gradation than the 6 point system (i.e., 60 degree turns
are the 
limit) of B5W.	I need to double-check the FT rules (it's been a while),
but 
IIRC the only real reason for limiting the turns to clock-facing
increments 
seemed to be to guarantee that people didn't fudge their facing.  If I
am 
remebering this correctly, then FT could be modified to different size
turns 
without doing more than tweaking the movement system; trying to do the
same 
with AoG's system, in most cases, will cause it to explode into little
pieces 
of goo.

> Incidentally, this is not really related to the Newtonian nature of 
> movement, or the lack of it. 

Granted -- I was somewhat rushed while writing my previous comments, and
did 
not do a good job of making the distinction between "the movement system
is 
really broken" and "the movement system is non-Newtonian", both of which
are 
true wrt B5W.  Only the latter is true wrt FT.

> A number of games suffer from the same problem, FASA's RL:Interceptor
and 
> Aerotech spring to mind first. They have "almost Newtonian" optional 
> movement, but you still can't go across hex grain. 

Excatly.  One of the other points I made to AoG was that I already have
30+ 
tactical space combat games, and I didn't really see anything that made
theirs 
stand out from any of the RL stuff.  Incidently, I think the RL stuff
would be 
better with a vector movement system, also.  (FASA should know better. 
They 
got a lot of thing right or mostly right with RL, which makes this even
more 
irritating.)

> > 1) GDW's Triplanetary: Feels tactical, even though turns are one-day

> > and the 
>  
> And long out of print :-( 

Steve Jackson Games has the rights to it now -- hoepfully we will see a
new 
version of it come out soon.  (http://www.io.com/sjgames/triplan/)


> > 3) Bone Game's Laplace, Newton and Lagrange (LNL for shortfreeware
on 
> > the net):  Uses thrust markers next to ship to keep track of thrust;

>  
> URL? 

http://www.bonegames.com/games/lnl/default.html

> > 4) GDW's Battle Rider: Uses a 12-point facing system (like FT) 
>  
> ICE's Star Strike(?) uses a similar system. And a number of tactical 
> airwar games. There's no reason you couldn't graft it onto B5W by 
> adding 30 degree turns and rules how ships plow across the grain. 
> Judging weapon arcs would probably be the hardest change. 
> IMHO, it just looks ugly and you should dump the hexes at this
point... 
> but it works if you really want it. 

It could be grafted on, but that means that the rotation rules would
have to 
be changed as well.  i would argue, though, that if the system weren't
so 
badly broke, we wouldn't have to come up with a separate graft fo
everything 
it doesn't do correctly.  The entire procedure reminds me of  Ptolemaic 
astronomers, who came up with ever more elaborate wheels-within-wheels
models 
to explain how the Sun really moves around the Earth.

> I'm guessing here, but in B5W slipping does not change your heading? 
> I.e. it was never ment to be a permanent course change, but a little 
> fudge maneuver to let you change hex rows without turning twice -- a 
> little something to compensate for the lack of smaller turns. 

No heading change, so your anaylsis is probably correct.  It's a very
poor 
mechanism to compensate for a lack of smaller turns.

> > thruster."	Heck, anyone who is old enough to have played Asteroids 
> > understands vector movement. <g>  
>  
> Yup, but it's completely different thing to able to plot it and get
where 
> you want -- even in Asteroids, where you can make realtime
corrections. 
> Players don't have the navigational computers the ships surely do. And

> you don't want to stop the game every time someone wants to calculate
it 
> manually. 
>
> Thus, it is IMHO acceptable to simplify the movement. After all, we're

> playing a game, not doing physics homework. 

But you don't need to do physics homework.  Triplanetary, for example,
has the 
shortest movement rules I have ever seen in a tactical space game. 
LNL's and 
MayDay's are about the same length, and so are Battle Rider's.	[Keep in
mind 
with Battle Rider it isn't the *movement* system that makes it
complicated, 
but the initiative and combat systems.	With Brilliant Lances, the
movement 
system is complicated, but that's because (1) it is at a much higher
level of 
detail, and (2) they movement system they chose was actually more
complicated 
than it needed to be.]

You don't need a navigational computer for Triplanetary -- you need the 
ability to count and the ability to draw a (mostly) straight line.  For
LNL or 
MayDay you don't even need to be able to draw.	Overall the complexity
level 
is *far* below something like B5W, SFB, or even the Renegade Legion
stuff -- 
and the rules cover ever single maneuver possible.

 
> > I think to get the spirit of B5, though, you need vector movement.	
>  
> Sure, but it's going to alienate a lot of players if it's the only 
> option. 

AoG said the same thing, and I will admit I don't understand why it is
more 
alienating to present a simple movement system that allows you to
recreate 
maneuvers seen in the show, than a more complicated system which does
not.  
Tthis is like saying that it would be alienating if, in Dirtside II,
they 
didn't allow magic.

The kicker was when AoG said, in effect, that they didn't need to
actually try 
a vector movement system to know that it would be too complicated.  Huh?
 Then 
why playtest the game at all, if they're so damn smart that they can
tell if 
something works or not without even trying it?

And what about all the people who are alienated with the idiotic space
games 
out there?  Most of the gamers I know who won't play tactical space
games 
won't do so because of the movement system.

> I think your best bet is to push the vector system as an optional
rule. 

I don't expect them to change the system at all.  AoG has already
declared the 
system perfect, so there isn't any reason for them to change it. 

Oh well -- perhaps Tuffley's B5 rules will save the day.  I sure hope
so.

-- Chris Weuve	 [My opinions, not my employer's.]
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