Re: [OFFICIAL] Re: National Characteristics? AND EFSB question f

> Oooo, the dreaded O-word! Shock of creeping evil empire-ism! ;->= Ok,
so it
> was appropriately used, and it was officially wishy-washy (subject to
> change at any minute). Feels weird in our laid-back atmosphere.

Coming from the world of *Official* RPG playing.... I really hate 
that word. Gary Gygax had a little quote (afterward, buried at the 
back) of the original DMG that basically said something like 
(paraphrase) all rules are guidelines and the ref is free to do what 
he thinks will be the best for everyone and the most fun. Of course, 
then TSR went on to totally forget about that....but that's another 
Empire story....

Some people may wonder about all our 'additions' for SG2, DS2, FT2, 
etc. and say 'but I like the base game!' or 'but I don't want more 
rules...'. To them I'd say "Good for you! Play with what you like!". 
The important part their being 'YOU'. 

The great thing about these game systems from GZG are that they are 
generic and seem flexible. I guess Jon probably means "Official" in 
the sense that stuff came from him and from soon to be released 
products. Not in any Draconian "thou must do thusly" sense. The 
flexible nature of the product (like BTRCs 3G generic gun design 
system) makes the 'fun' configurable to the player group - that is to 
say, if you like detailed rules, you can play with everything under 
the sun plus house rules, and model whatever behaviours you want! If 
you don't, you don't have to. And you can play in any setting you 
want, or with any interpretation. And that atmosphere is I'm sure 
what Jon and the GZG crew always intended. 

> As far as moving fighters 'before or after big ships', of course it's
> effectively 'at the same time as or after' since the orders are
already
> written for the big ships. To my way of thinking, agility and 'moving
> inside a decision loop' are NOT equivalent phrases, as, for the
concept of
> the decision loop to be more than moot, you have to be able to decide
your
> action  yourself inside that space, and you are giving pilots PERFECT
info.
> I see agility as covered by FT II psuedo-vector system(anybody coin a
> better phrase?) for ships while fighters get to move anywhere. I
almost
> wish they had some vectoring themselves, but accept the way things
are.

Set movement rates for any ship class are kind of interesting (read: 
questionable). Until you start hitting relativistic effects, you 
shouldn't have a 'speed limit' and you should have to accelerate and 
decelerate like any other spaceborne object.  Now fighters could 
arguably accelerate or decelerate a large amount, and have tactical 
flexibility because of their agility, BUT they have their speed 
capped. (At least in EFSB, and I get the impression the same is true 
in FT). If you removed that cap, you'd have to let fighters 
accelerate and declerate like ships (although at higher rates 
obviously). And even a fighter group should have some vector for 
velocity too (with high thrust, and ridiculous manoevreability they 
can easily alter this) - If they'd been going full military power in 
a direction for several round, their built up vee ought to be enough 
that they can't just whip around 'at their whim'. Having said all 
this, if fighters used a vectored movement, then you could let them 
move first, but they'd still be constrained by their previous actions 
(although not nearly as much as larger ships). 

> P.S. I post to newsgroups from a mainframe, so it's automatically 80
> character lines. Do I need to insert Cr's when I post to the list from
my
> new mailer? It's hard to tell with proportional fonts, but I'd try if
> requested...

Looks fine to me Beastie, but I'm using Pegasus in WInNT and I 
suspect it truncates your lines at its whim, so what you do or don't 
do is mostly not relevant....

TB 
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay
Software Specialist
Police Communications Systems
Software Kinetics Ltd.
66 Iber Road, Stittsville
Ontario, Canada, K2S 1E7
Reception: (613) 831-0888
PBX: (613) 831-2018
My Extension: 2034
Fax: (613) 831-8255
Our Web Page: http://www.sofkin.ca
**************************************************/