Re: Cool FT Book (Warning - Starfire plug)

On Wed, 14 May 1997, Paul Calvi wrote:

> I've begun reading a good space opera with a FT style (actually shades
of
> StarFire). It's "In Death Ground" by David Weber and Steve White. I
think
> any FT fan would like it. Does anyone know if the other two, earlier,
books
> in the series are similar?

You mean "the previous and the following" rather than "the two earlier" 
books <g> While both Crusade and Insurrection were written (and 
published) long before IDG, Insurrection takes place some 60 years after

the end of ISW4. Yes, they're similar - both are set in Weber's 
"official" Starfire game background.

IDG is more than just shades of Starfire, actually - it was written as a

Starfire scenario module (which, due to its extreme size and printing 
costs, hasn't been published although it was reported as "finished" over

two years ago.) There is a Starfire scenario book covering the Crusade, 
and the Insurrection battles will be published in an electronic format 
(as will ISW4, in a month or so - we hope). IDG only covers the first 
half of the war, unfortunately - God knows what they've done with the 
second half :(

Currently the Starfire Design Studio is working on ISW4 - Weber and 
White wrote the original material, and then changed quite a few details 
when they wrote the book without telling us. OTOH, we've changed several

of the fancy tech items W&W invented, since they either wouldn't work,
or 
would work very poorly in a Starfire campaign game. Because of this, the

entire thing has to be looked over again <sigh>

> The book has a couple things that would be interesting additions to
FT. One
> of the races has "datalink" technology that allows a number of ships
in a
> certain range of each other to "merge" their shields and fire control.

Both sides have datalink, but the Allied datalink is twice as effective
- 
links 6 ships instead of 3. In Starfire (and IDG), you can't merge 
shields; but you can use your point defence to cover other ships in the 
same datagroup from missiles (much like ADAF works in FT now). Of
course, 
Starfire is _much_ more missile-heavy than FT. Starfire datalink is very

much like FT squadron fire in larger fleet engagements.

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
SDS member, among other things

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
 -Hen3ry