Re: FTIII: A Plea to End "Me Too" Firing.

On Tue, 27 May 1997, Joachim Heck - SunSoft wrote:

> typical definition I've heard of a "me too" problem is when you have
> simultaneous fire but no great effort is made to declare fire
> simultaneously (SFB is generally played this way).  Now one person
> says "I am firing this turn" and the other guy panics and says "me
> too" but really they should have both spoken at the same time and the
> second guy wouldn't have fired.  

Quite frankly, I don't see the "problem". I think reacting to an 
opponent's action is quite valid, especially since we're talking volleys

of fire anyway.

Just try a duel in the "official" system. It doesn't work.

>   I tend to agree.  The FT turn is too coarse-grained, and thrusts are
> too low, to allow for the kind of manouverability that would make up
> for the loss of the current firing system.  Although generally I
> prefer simultaneous damage, I the non-simultaneous system adds a lot
> to FT.

FWIW, I must disagree. The system is entirely too "gamey" for my tastes,
i.e. not rooted in any real reason and rewards tactics based purely on
game mechanics (such as keeping minimum cost ships in the far corner of
the board to gain first shot for numerical superiority). 

There's quite enough room for maneuver... if there's a problem, it's
with 
too cheap firing arcs and zero speed spinning.

Not that I think simultaneous fire (unless pre-written) is without its 
share of problems. The current system is probably better if you have
anal 
retentive players itching to work the edge of the system. It's clear,
it doesn't require pre-written orders and it doesn't require any 
interpretation. 

The way we play it,

a) Although not prewritten, we consider firing orders a matter of
honour. 
You make your plan and stick to it
b) We turn around the declaration of fire -- instead of declaring all 
fire for a ship, we declare all fire *against* a target. This way you
can 
under/overestimate the required firepower which isn't as likely to
happen 
with the current "oh it's not dead yet? well, then this ship shoots too"

method. This works because one ship splitting its fire against several 
targets actually happens very rarely.

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