Re: GenCon Review with a GZG Emphasis (part 3 of 4)

Mikko wrote:

> > Huh?  Three digit speeds. . .100 inches on an 8' table puts you 28 
> > inches off the other side.	
> 
> Forget the table. There is no table in space. The table is just a
> convenience for the *players*. 

Sure. Use vector movement and do a Galilean transformation of the speeds
instead - assuming that both fleets have matched vectors  reasonably.
I've reached speeds of 200+ in this way <shrug>
 
> > What's the point in that?  
> 
> There's no shooting during movement in FT. Two ships, 40" away, facing
> head on, with 40" speeds will not be able to shoot at each other
(assuming
> max cl-3 beams) even though the pass within a hair's breadth. There
are
a
> number of uses for this.
> 
> Well, let's try this for size: Your vanilla sensor range is 72", IIRC.

Worse still - 54".

> By
> hitting three-digit-speeds, you can be on top of a well-known enemy
(space
> stations, docked ships, ships in orbit etc.) without giving them any
time
> to react.

Yes. This is a valid strike tactic as long as you have unlimited thrust
(ie, no limits on reaction mass etc) used, or at least used as a threat,
in several military SF novels, eg Weber's Harrington series. The
Harrington battle - the defenders went out to meet the attackers in deep
space (at horrendous odds, too) rather than allow them to build up speed
for a high-speed missile strike against the orbital installations - is a
good example of fleets flying toward (and through) each other at high
speed as well - the entire battle lasted about two minutes, and most of
that time was spent on firing missiles (probably SMBs, which can hit in
the situation you described). 
 
> Of course it's a bit harder to do with a moving target, but the basic
> principle remains the same:

If your maximum ship-based sensor range is a puny 54 mu, it will be
rather difficult (not to say bloody impossible)  to pull this one off,
unless you manage to keep a scout ship close to (within sensor range of)
the enemies to guide the strike in... without having it destroyed. If
(as
I assume) planetary sensors have (much) longer ranges, the defenders
could do this kind of attacks against a mobile invader, but the opposite
would be bloody hard.

> The higher the pass speed, the less time he
> has to shoot at you while jockey for position. I could imagine a
> high-thrust, lots of class-1 beams ship built to do something like
this. 

Again a valid SF tactic - Poul Anderson's "Time Lag" (in an antology
called "Space Dreadnoughts") describes such a battle, for example. And
no, it wasn't fun at all for the slow fleet. The other side did whatever
they could to win the war...
 
No, it doesn't make a very fun game - but I don't find it "cheesy". Ask
your enemy to explain how he could determine the position of your fleet
with enough accuracy to do a high-speed run <g>

> > And what's that 
> > about free pre-measurement?  I assume that the distance between any
two 
> > points on the table (including points occupied by ships) is readily 
> > know.  I've even taken to marking the positions of capital ships as 
> > they will be if they continue on the same course and speed as they
were 
> > last turn.	Which makes nice aim points for SMLs, and is a mental
aid

> > to ship movement plotting.
> 
> Why leave it at that? You could mark *all* the possible locations of
*all*
> the ships. You could [long rant brutally snipped]. Why not
> use the same tactic to WIN?

But Mikko, why do you think John does mark the destination points of the
enemy heavies? This is basically what any ship's tactical computers do
anyway... so why shouldn't the admiral have the same advantage?

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry