Re: Troop Capacity

On 21 Jun 98 at 21:47, Ground Zero Games wrote:

> >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)

Agreed on the speed issue, but at a back of the envelope scale of 1 
inch is 1000 miles (I dunno where I got that from) 20 miles of 
noticeable atmosphere is possibly insignificant, or possibly not, 
depending on how short a range fighter weapons are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Slattery	     richard@mgkc.demon.co.uk
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any
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