Re: Of Sensors and Needles - Some Questions and Suggestions

On Sat, 22 Nov 1997 09:39:55 -0800, John Leary <realjtl@sj.bigger.net>
wrote:

>     If operating in the defensive mode certain assumptions can be made
>with no great danger of being wrong.
>1) The ship got here, it must have an FTL drive.

I can live with this.

>2) The ship is moving, it must have thrust(of some value).
>3) The ship has been built by the Universal Shipbuilding Company (Ltd)
>   and has FCS based upon its mass/class.   (JTL)

By "FCS" you mean fire control systems? What do you do with ships that
buy extra fire cons?

>...  One can suspect that at a range of 9 the ship can be observed on
>some form of visual sensor.   The director/detector program may operate
>on these visual signals to target the selected system.   The 'To Hit'
>may not be for firing in this case but may be looked at as a 
>detection roll for the sensors.  

Hmm, this is an interesting idea. Make the 1d6 roll and if it hits let
the firing player choose the system.  This could work, particularly in
face-to-face games. It might be a pain for e-mail games, though I
suppose needle firing players could make a list of different systems
to fire at in order of priority. For example, "Fire at 1) Fire Cons,
or 2) A Beams, or 3) B Beams, or..." etc. 

I'll have to think about this but it seems like an easy to use idea.

>...  Traditionally the 'Bogey' is simply an unidentified contact,
>nothing more.	 Continued tracking gets speed and direction.  
>In FT/MT active sweeps allow the die roll for information.  
>My current usage for sensors is:
>Standard sensors, plus 0 to die roll, Range 60"
>Enhanced		1		    120" 
>Superior		2		    240"
>Area ECM	  minus 1
>Ship ECM	  minus 2  

This has some merit, as I find the sensors are a bit too short in
range. However I'd prefer to stick to the rules as written for my PBEM
program.

"Unlike serial killer profiling, writing is a lonely and
depressing profession." - Jose Chung, Millenium