RE: Space Tactics
From: Noah Doyle <nvdoyle@m...>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 23:44:37 -0500
Subject: RE: Space Tactics
A few thoughts:
As a ship captain, I would have one serious worry about a
high-speed pass
attack - collision. At those kind of velocities, you'd be a nice
glowing
ball of plasma if you hit anything substantial. Granted, the chances
are
low, but still there. On the political side, If one of my ships going
Really Fast has a manuvering problem, and smacks into the planet,
somebody
is going to be very upset.
As far as midturn fire goes, I don't see a solution that doesn't
compromise playability. I would be comfortable with a fudge: at high
(relative) speeds, your ability to attack effectively is limited. This
assumes that each fire attempt (excluding missiles) is actually several
fires over the turn period. As relative velocity increases, these fires
become less and less effective, until they are nearly ineffective. This
doesn't work that well against non-manuvering targets, so a special rule
*may* need to be implemented here. As for manuvering targets, if you
get a
good close approach shot - i.e., you calc'd it right and at speed 200
you
are right on top of him during the fire phase, you did it right.got
lucky.
Any other result - longer ranges up to out of range - your fire
effectiveness was decreased by about that amount. It's kind of a
kludge,
but it seems to work. It also requires that damage in FT NEVER be
directional - I like that, personally. Bad memories of Star Fleet
Lawyers.
Has anybody else tried experimenting with really big beam
batteries/railguns? I use them to represent Traveller/Leviathan style
spinal mounts. One arc only, usually fore or aft. They seem to be
pretty
effective. Long-range harassment with the beam, and massive damage from
the railgun. They also get expensive real fast.
Noah