Vectored Thrust (a fairly long post)

Hi,

I've been thinking about fighters for a while now as I bought  
a Micro-machines Starfury, Narn Fighter and Minbari runabout.  I wanted
to 
play simple one-off games using these without buying Silent Death so I 
thought hey why not adapt FT to a fighter game.  Big problem !, or at 
least it was until the rules for true vector movement were posted here. 

I've had a tinker with things since and sort of hacked together a
fighter 
game from FT.  The rules have been play-tested minimally since this
pesky 
PhD thesis keeps getting in the way.  So far I've tried one on one dog 
fights and a few ships per side and the rules seem to work OK for this, 
the games only really go 'pear shaped' when small ships such as Frigates

are used.  Enough waffle here is :

VECTORED THRUST 

A space combat game for small fighter actions based on Full Thrust

MOVEMENT

Orders are written as per FT
Ships are moved using the true vector movement system as published on 
this list.
A ship that applies NO thrust is considered staitionary, it may rotate
to 
any facing.

THRUST CAPABILITIES

Fighters: 6
Ships: As FT

Caveats To Movement Rules:

A fighter may NOT apply main drive thrust in addition to maneuvering 
thrusters.  The total thrust applied may only total half of thrust, e.g.

a normal fighter movement orders may read MD1 RP2, which would mean an 
increase in 'speed' of 1 followed by rotation 2 points to port.

SYSTEMS

A fighter has:
1. Pilot(s) (multiple crew count as 1 system)
2. Fire con
3. Weapons (each weapon counts separately)
4. Drive (generally non-FTL)

DAMAGE

A fighter has 5 boxes
A Scout has 5 boxes
A Corvette has 7 boxes
A Frigate has 10 boxes
A Destroyer has 15 boxes
(what you want more !)

A fighter may be represented by (this may not turn out well)

-------^-------
|      P      |
|  |	   |  |
|  C	   C  |
|	      |
|    ooooo    |
|	      |
|      6      |
---------------

(please excuse the bad ascii art)

WEAPONS

Weapons are the standard beams, this is simplified to:

Low Tech: C bats only
Mid Tech: B or C bats
High Tech: A, B, or C bats

This depends on the Genre the player wishes to represent.
A point to consider is since there are no points described, this game is

for playability only, it is feasible for both players to field A bat 
armed fighters.  IMO, it is more fun to maneuver a C bat armed fighter 
into the rear of an enemy and shred them from 'up close and personal'.

INFLICTING DMAGE

Exactly as FT.

C, B, A bats normal range/damage  EXCEPT, 

Fighters are more fragile than ships, they do not have multiple
redundant 
systems and repair crews.  ANY damagge inflicted on a fighter (even 1 
point) causes a threshold roll with the following dice modifications:

Damage from

C bat: 1 D6
B bat: 2 D6
A bat: 3 D6

Threshold rolls that hit the pilot kill automatically (either that or
the 
sensible pilot ejects), the fighter is out of the game.  As FT when all 
the damage boxes are ticked (if you actually get that far) the fighter
is 
destroyed.  Drive damge is as FT.

Ships do not test for threshold rolls until the first row of boxes are 
ticked.

ADDITINAL FIGHTER ABILITIES

Up to two abilities can be combined, I use these to represent specific 
Genres (e.g. B5), or the specific abilities from MT.

AGILE: the fighter may use all of it's thrust to maneuver
HEAVY: As MT
FAST: thrust = 8
TORPEDO: fighter is equiped with a single pulse torp.
INTERCEPTOR: add +1 to a SINGLE die roll in attack.  Against ships -1 on

a SINGLE die roll. In attack the fighter player chooses, in defense the 
opponent choses which die roll.
ATTACK: -1 on a SINGLE die roll against fighters. +1 on a SINGLE die
roll 
against ships.

SHIPS

They don't really have much of a place in a fighter game but I threw
them 
in for specific scenarios (attack on convoys etc.).

PDAF are 'auto' C bats that will attack the nearest enemy fighter 
regardless of whether the fighter is attacking or not.	If two fighters 
are equidistant from the ship roll for each PDAF to determin which is 
shot at.

Ships maneuver using true vector thrust, they can use main drive thrust 
in combination with thrusters.

EXAMPLES

These are off the to of my head so appologies to B5 fans

STARFURY

Thrust = 6
Weapons = 4 C bats, forward arc only
Abilities = Heavy, Agile

NARN FIGHTER

Thrust = 8
Weapons = 2 C bats, forward arc only
Abilities = Fast (hence 8 thrust)

UNIDENTIFIED MINBARI SMALL SHIP (was a Flyer until I chopped it up)

Thrust = 8
Wepons = 2 B bats, forward arc only
Abilities = Fast

and for fun, NOT !

VORLON FIGHTER

Thrust = 8
Weapons = 2 A bats, forward arc, extra Fire Con
Abilities = Fast, Agile
( the micro machines vorlon ship looks sort of like the fighter).

OK so that's it, try them and see

I am claiming NO intellectual propertiy rights to this material, almost 
all of this material has been the work of others, I have meerly put it 
together in an alternative manner.  If by some strange quirk someone out

there likes this stuff then please feel free to use it as you wish.  If 
this stimulates someone to come up with a better system then could I
have 
a copy please cos I'm too lazy to write another myself :)

Happy thrusting !

Stuart
b.s.murray@ncl.ac.uk