Re: Troop Capacity

>On 20 Jun 98 at 21:40, John Atkinson wrote:
>
>> A goodly time?  What version of Full Thrust do you play, man?  PDSs
>> have a 6" range, which is identical to the attack range of a
>> fighter.  And they can (now that fleet book is out) move 24" in a
>> turn.  During a turn a PDS can take down a max of two fighters (and
>> has a 50% chance of killing NONE).  Now, you can translate inch to
>> whatever you like--meters to kalicams to parsecs--but the rules
>> don't change.  You wanna build some uberPDS, that's fine with me,
>> but don't take that assumption into a discussion of Full Thrust
>> without saying something like "In my universe, PDSs have a 6' range"
>> or whatever.
>
>Good point. For some reason I'd mentally blocked that PDS's have the
>same range. Probably something to do with them being land based and
>not required to be so low powered/compact/nor on a moving platform,
>but I guess offsetting that they have to fire through atmosphere, it
>may as well equal out.

I don't want to get overly involved in this thread 'cos there is so much
else to do right now, but I'd just point out that 6" is not necessarily
the
"weapons range" of a fighter - it is the distance from its target ship
within which it has be in order to be MOVED IN TO the attack; I'd have
to
check the books to be certain, but I think we have mentioned at least
once
in FT or MT that fighters that wish to attack a ship should be moved
much
closer to the ship model after the ships have moved, in the same way
that
dogfighting groups are placed base-to-base. The stated 6" is an
arbitrary
distance within which the fighters can actually reach attack
position/range
within that combat phase, if that makes sense [:/]. Though we don't
explicitly state fighter weapon range, it is assumed to be pretty much
point-blank compared to shipboard weaponry (no PSB, I just invoke ADL -
Author's Dramatic Licence).
Another thing that you should consider is that aerospace fighters will
almost certainly fly differently (and probably MUCH slower) in
atmosphere
than in space.....

Jon (GZG)
>
>Hmm OK, at one PDS per fighter group attacking, that translates to
>about 20-25% casualties, not good, but not excessive either.
>Overload the defenses with many fighters and you do a lot better,
>find out the planet has way more PDS's than you thought, and you are
>in trouble.
>
>I prefer Rels by the way ;)
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Richard Slattery	      richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk
>Actions lie louder tha words.
>     Carolyn Wells
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~