3D Spaceship Combat - Reply

Tom Granvold replied to my ramblings by saying:

>> I've seen a couple of recent games using 3D movement which have
different
approaches to firing arcs. One is Moondragon which more or less limits
firing
arcs by using turret-mounted guns. The firing arc is then a cone with
the point at
the ship, and extending out from the spaceship in the direction the
spaceship is
moving. So if the spaceship is travelling straight "up" then the firing
arc would
also be pointed "up". Templates are used to determine if the target is
in the
firing arc. <<

This is really the air game approach, using fixed guns. It works, and
works well,
for what it's trying to simulate, but real turrets with, say, 150
degrees traverse in
the (ship's) horizontal plane, a max elevation of 140 degrees and max
depression of 10 degrees (which is a rough guess at the firing arc of
something
like the side phasers on the original ST Enterprise), are more of a
problem --
how do you determine, in a reasonable time, if the Klingon coming up
behind
you is in arc?

The Astromechia system sounds interesting. I presume that weapons can
have
multiple arcs (like, say, Forward/Port/Up/Down?) -- is this right? How
do they
--_do_ they? -- handle relative attitude?

Phil
------------------------------------------------------------
"If you let a smile be your umbrella... you'll get wet teeth!"
   -- a forgotten comedian, quoted by me: Phil Atcliffe
				      (p-atclif@uwe.ac.uk)