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

>
>-- 
>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! :)
	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. The biggest
ship in the book has a Mass of 280 but on the whole 2 FBMass points
equals
1 FTMass point. The small ships don't seem to vary greatly from their
capabilities and size in FT, when you do see variation it is in the
larger
ships from about a traditional heavy cruiser up (about 64-66 FB Mass
points). 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. Grab Schoon's Excel design sheet!
	The revised Mass points have meant some other changes. Less of
your mass
is turned into damage boxes, usually 'bout 30%. Most of the smaller
ships
seem to have about the same amount of damage as before but some of the
big
ships really get a bonus, particularly the NSL which favours heavier
hulls
and armour. The thing about the damage boxes now though is that in FB
all
ships have 4 rows where at all possible and you still take threshold
rolls
at the end of each row. To me it seems that escorts will die just as
quick
as before but now their weapons will die even quicker. Damage to escorts
will effect their systems in a major way.
	Also with the new design system Jon has changed the fire arcs
from 4 in
number to 6. I remember last year getting into an debate/arguement with
another list member (I don't remember who) about having 6 fire arcs. I
know
that myself and someone else out there didn't like the idea and I only
remember one person who did. Anyway my first impression was that this
was a
bad move making things more complicated. I now of the opion that it will
be
worth trying as the design system makes heavy use of the 3 arc idea. I
don't know how you'll go using FB 6 arc system to introduce the game to
new
players (particularlly the kids brain washed by the Evil Empire which is
about half my club). Personally I'd stick to the FT 4 arc system for
participation and perhaps demo games. Once I've played a couple of times
with the 6 arcs I let you know what I think.
	The SML. This looks interesting. Salvos are of 6 missiles they
have a
range of 24" and are fired before ship movement. They may attack any
target
that ends it's move within 6" of the salvo. The defender then allocates
his
defences (how many PDS to use) then the attacker rolls a d6 to see how
many
missiles are on target. The defenders shots are then resolved against
these
missiles only. Now if you roll a 6 on the PDS shots you destroy 2
missiles
and get a reroll. This reroll also works against fighters and it seems
to
me that a few of the big ships are carring PDS than the same sort of
ships
in the FT and MT books were. Also ADFs work differently, they now allow
a
ship with the system to use its PDS to defender another ship within 6".
Thats usually (if escort crusier) another 3 shots at your salvo/fighter
group. So the SML looks to be a bit variable in terms of what it will
do,
but if you can place 2 or 3 salvos to attack the same target serious
damage
is possible.
	Finally many of the changes look decidedly familiar from either
this list
or from some of the websites (which may well mean that it was seen here
first anyway).
	I must point out that I haven't played using the FB rules as yet
(none of
my mates have it yet) so I don't know how exactly it will work. I think
most people (I know I am) will be interested to hear from anyone that
has
actually played using the FB rules. If you're out there, let us know.

	Tony.
	twilko@ozemail.com.au