Re: Fiddling with units

 ---- Noam wrote: 
> a turn was, say _five_
> minutes.

the renowned but highly tricky naval combat 'simulation' (it's only a
game if it's fun :-) Harpoon uses turns which are (if i remember right)
about 30 *seconds* long; it has a 15-minute turn for when the ships are
out of engagement range, but when the shooting starts it goes to a
really short scale since this is the timescale for modern naval combat -
you might only have a couple of minutes to detect, lock on to and engage
(with three layers of weapons) an incoming missile; i always assumed
that space combat would be even quicker.

for instance: my thrust 4 battleship, turning with thrust 2, takes 3
turns to turn 180 degrees (vanilla movement - FT 2nd edn, cinematic, no
frills). on a 15-minute scale, this is 45 minutes! i know supertankers
take three miles to stop etc, but this is ridiculous!

ok, so maybe a game based on a 15-minute turn would work (we don't need
Harpoon's pathological obsession with detail, although we still do have
missiles meandering about for multiple turns), but it would have totally
different maneuver rules ("ok, turn 7 - my superdreadnought turns 120
degrees to port ...").

however: fighters. with a 30-second turn, we are talking about a carrier
launching 2 groups = 12 spacecraft in 30 seconds, which is 2.5 seconds
per launch; whilst realists amongst us may balk at this, just think B5,
battlestar galactica, etc - they get their fighters out in no time.

hope this isn't too wrong,
Tom

#include <stddisclaimer.h> etc