Re: Thoughts on FB .....was Re: Bogey Classes FB

In message <3.0.1.32.19980524011914.00721b54@ozemail.com.au>
	  Tony Wilkinson <twilko@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

> >
> >-- 
> >Be seeing you,
> >Sam (who's STILL waiting for his copy of the Fleet Book to arrive).
> 
> Well I don't know what you yanks are complaining about, us Aussies
have
> got FB on this side of the puddle! :)

Yanks? Yanks?!? YANKS?!?! I think you'll find that 'pom' is a better
description... :)

> I know there has been a brief review of two of the Fleet Book on the
list
> already but here's a couple of things that struck me.
> 
> >Fleet Book has finally got rid of the (effective) 100 mass limit?
> >How big are the larger ships now?
> 
> Yes the old 100 Mass limit is gone under the new design rules.
Effectively
> there is no limit but the bigger your ship the more Mass you have to
have
> for drives which will bring some people back to earth a bit.

As long as they sale linearly with mass (says he of the big ship=fast
school of thinking)...

I did manage to browse the FB in my game shop today, and a question
that did come to mind was whether armour (spelt the British way, please
note) was balanced in relation to shields. From my quick reading,
two levels of shields costs 10% of ship mass, and halves damage from
beam weapons. A mass 100 ship with 30 damage points is effectively
getting +30 DPs.

10% of armour on  the same ship only gives you +10 DPs. Shields would
seem to be 3x as effective. Now I know shields don't protect against
everything (I presume armour does), but unless I've overlooked
something, my gut reaction is that armour isn't good enough.

> You also have to give mass over to the hull. You can make hulls
> with damage boxes equal to half the mass but that will cost you half
the
> mass of the ship. Overall I think the design system is good even if a
bit
> more difficult than FT.

I couldn't see any real difference between 'hull' and 'armour'. Both
take one mass and give one damage point. The only difference is that
use of armour delays threshold rolls.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I'll be able to give things a more
careful reading (and a few games) once I actually get a copy.

-- 
Be seeing you,	     http://www.bifrost.demon.co.uk/Gaming/Gaming.html
Sam.		     ----------------------- Roleplaying and Wargaming