Re: The Vector Dilemma

At 07:35 AM 11/9/98 -0800, Schoon wrote:
>I've got a problem with the vector movement system, which was somewhat
>addressed in the B5 Wireframe system: both a thrust 2 SDN and a thrust
8
>corvette can bring their guns to bear with an equal chance of success.
>Granted that the corvette can do a bit extra in the maneuver
department,
>but estimation of enemy position can take precedence over good
maneuvering.

One house rule we've tried is that each rotation and each main drive
burn
reduce the ship's available thruster points.

For example, your thrust-2 SDN would have one point of thrusters, so it
would only be able to "turn" or "burn".  A thrust-4 cruiser could thrust
then turn or turn then thrust.	A thrust-6 destroyer can turn, thrust
and
turn again.

This makes the big ships pretty ponderous, but not ridiculously so.

My biggest problem with it is that it doesn't really represent the
acceleration over time question into account; if you do a full burn from
your main drive, that should be it for the turn, you wouldn't have time
to
do anything else.  Conversely, if you perform all these maneuvers you
should not still be able to get in your full main drive burn.

At 08:52 PM 11/9/98 +0100, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
>Before the FB playtests, I experimented with a flat cost of 2 thrust
>points per point course change.

How about a flat 2 thrust points per course change (any heading)?

It's a more elegant way of doing essentially what I've described above
and
also takes the time factor into account as well.  If you spend 1/nth
(where
n = thrust rating/2) of a turn rotating, then that's 1/nth of a turn
less
for your main drive to be running.

Jeff