Re: Conformal Movement

At 09:35 17/07/98 -0900, you wrote:
>This is kind of the idea I had in mind when I thought about a
FleetControl
>(or Flag) system (in combination with FireCon and Flight Control - but
no,
>I'm not trying to reopen that discussion.)
>
>Anyway - the presence of a FleetCon allows the ship to link with other
>ships (thinking 2 per flagcon?) in a more tightly controlled squadron -
>sharing targeting and defensive nets.	The squadron must maintain a
tight
>cohesion - maybe 3-4 MU, which could be done with the conformal
movement as
>you said.  Benefits are that ships in the squadron can attack a target
at
>the range of the closest squadron member - (so those leading escorts
>fine-tune the firing of the trailing heavies).  I'm at a loss as to how
to
>share defensive capabilities effectively.  What I'm looking for is
>essentially a shared PDS system.  For example, the small escorting
ships
>with no ADAF (or ADFC) can use their PDAF or PDS in the area defense
mode,
>but only in protection of other ships linked into the squadron.
>

	This sounds an arwful lot like "data link" out of Starfire. It
came in
IIRC 3 varities depending on your tech level. Roughly basic, enhanced
and
superior. For my campaign I came up with something similar with the
basic
system allowing 2 ships to work together, enhanced - 4 and superior 7
ships. I had mass as 2 for FTII but a cost of 30 pts. PDAFs could
protect
any ship linked to the firing ship, all ships fire at once on the same
targets at the shortest range, within 6" of each other (or line with
each
2" from the first like in Stargrunt) and that all ships in the group had
to
be indentical.
	The other idea I had was that you could buy a master/slave
datalink
system. The master was mass 5, 40 pts the slave systems 1 mass and 15
points. The master/slave system worked the same but the only the master
ship could be different from the others and the ability was lost from
the
group with the loss of the master system. 
	Make them subject to threshold checks and I was going to use D
inside a
diamond as the symbol.

>Lastly - I've said before I think FT needs some sort of morale rules -
I
>still think so.  The presence of FleetCon (Flag) should have a positive
>effect on Morale - likewise, watching your flag go up in flames should
>incur a negative penalty - I'm still mulling this one over.
>
>Hopefully I explained that better than the last time.	Comments?
>
>Jared

	If you are worried about morale rules it might be worth looking
at
Schoon's Crew and Quality rules which were posted 12th May. I think the
idea of a Fleet Admiral is more the sort of thing your'e looking for
rather
than use Fleetcon.

	Tony.
	twilko@ozemail.com.au