Re: Thoughts on FT

In message <Pine.LNX.3.91.970408091508.17458A-100000@swob.dna.fi> Mikko
Kurki-Suonio writes:
> On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, David Brewer wrote:
> > I dislike the tendency to view ship (or tank) construction as 
> > plonking together so many lego bricks. Isn't it plausible that the 
> > exact same set of system specs instantiated in a ship might have a 
> > varying number of DP depending on which yard (meaning also 
> > architect, contractor, nation, culture, race, whatever) it comes 
> > from, and in which year? Not to mention the dozens of little tedious

> > RL factors that are of no consequence to a tactical game?
> 
> Sure. But IMHO, it should be optional flavor.

If a sci-fi game doesn't have flavour, it doesn't have much at all.

> > Perhaps armour fell out of favour with the military-industrial
> > complex. Screen manufacturers paid bigger bribes, or were cheaper,
> > or required the mining of rare minerals that the ruling class had
> > a monopoly in...
> 
> I'd buy that for one nation, but all of them? 

Well, they slavishly follow each other in every design decision...
explaining the lack of flavour in ship design.

> > I don't think it would be to time-consuming to have each RG-1 roll
> > seperately it's attack and damage.
> 
> Well, I do. I really like the single-roll beam resolution. It's a
nice, 
> simple and clean design. All this "to-hit then damage" stuff clutters
up 
> the basic design.

That's a fair comment. Serves you right for playing with Kra'Vak
rules, though. At least by levelling down to all RG-1's there's a
speed-up. Roll handful of dice to-hit, pick up those dice that hit
and re-roll for damage. It saves distinguishing between Class 3's,
2's and 1's.

> How about this: Roll to-hit once per battery. Roll damage multiplier
once 
> for all batteries.

Possible... many small attacks still get a more consistent damage,
though.

> Or better yet, scrap the damage multiplier. RGs inflict just the base 
> damage. Yeah, I like that.

...but how does armour work in this system? The benefit of armour 
is tied into the damage roll. 

You're going to have to either reduce the number of dice thrown at
long ranges (too much like beams?), or shift range bands to account
for armour (armour make you harder to hit... very D&D), or 
something similarly clumsy, like make a table of tables to cross-
reference range, armour and die-roll. Unless you abolish armour, 
which would solve the armour-mass "problem" and the screen-armour 
combo "problem".

> Next: Scatterguns vs. Submunitions packs.

OK, I'll start this one of...

Can anybody tell me why scatterguns are just so much better than 
submunitions packs?

-- 
David Brewer