Re: EF Sourcebook FT questions

>Stuart Murray wrote:
>
>> >AFAIK we've never seen one open a
>> >jump point of its own in the show, they use either fixed gates or
>> come thru
>> >points opened by Omegas or other big stuff. Of course, given B5's
>> track
>> >record on this sort of stuff we'll probably see one make it's own
>> jump
>> >point next week, just to stuff the rules up.... :)
>> >
>> >Jon.
>>
>> In B5 Wars the Hyperions do have jump engines.
>>
>
>Its funny bringing in AOGs B5W does open a new can of worms.AOG have
>constantly quoted that they get their material directly from WB as do
>CEE,
>Yet when I now compare EFSB material and those of B5W there are big
>inconsistancies.
>Yes, I know the the FT variant rules in EFSB group weapons, but how do
>you explain the lack of rear firing weapons on the B5W Vorchan
Cruisers,
>the lack of rear firing heavy lasers on the EFSB Hyperion, 12 fighters
>on the EFSB Hyperion, only 6 on the B5W version.
>I'm not criticising either game but I will certainly take a pinch of
>salt with either company when they quote 'official sources'.
>
>Regards..........................

This raises interesting questions about exactly what "approval" from JMS
and WB actually represents. Certainly on the EFSB, WB/JMS didn't supply
any
info on ship stats - Zeke and myself worked them out as logically as we
could from what we watched on screen (plus the few bits of
mostly-conflicting dialogue..), and I guess the guys at AOG did the same
for B5W. To take one case mentioned, has a Hyperion ever been seen to
fire
a rear-arc Beam focus in the show? I think not - the only time I've ever
seen one fire a beam weapon at all was one shot (forward) at the
Alexander
in Severed Dreams. Of course, bear in mind that the rules were done from
the material available to us up to about the middle of this year, so we
had
no access to the latter half of season 4.
Given that B5W, TBP/EFSB and the B5 Security Manual (the latter not
game-related, but having lots of ship stuff in it) are all supposedly
"official" and "approved", yet all contain different information, I
suspect
that JMS really does little except glance at the overall tone of any
given
publication; I may be wrong, but if so why weren't some changes
requested
by WB to keep all the data in line?

Please also keep in mind that things like ship stats need to be balanced
towards the needs of the GAME as well as being as faithful as possible
to
the source; this is the tightrope that all designers of media tie-in
games
must walk, otherwise every game would end with "the good guys turn up
and
destroy the enemy with a single shot", just like most of the TV shows
do..... :)

Jon (GZG)