Re: FTFB Turn Arcs

>On Fri, 27 Nov 1998, Laserlight wrote:
>> > "Realistically", a change of facing for a starship takes on the
order of
>> > one minute to execute.
[BIG SNIP]
>in short, you have two choices: (a) rethink your assumptions on size
and
>maneuverability (b) ignore physics in favour of playability. i find the
>second option very attractive myself.
>
>>  If it is below the grain of the
>> gamescale, that's okay, but I'm curious to see why.
>
>herein lies the rub; if the ft2 turn is indeed 15 minutes, then any
ship
>is going to be able to execute a 720 without too much difficulty. maybe
we
>should give up any limitations on turning? it would make things a
little
>simpler and more hard-sf.
>
>Tom

Tom's interesting answer (most snipped above for brevity) has pretty
well
summed up why we made the FB different from the EFSB in the turning
rules.
Without going into the math (most of which I've forgotten since school
anyway) we figured that given drives/thrusters of a similar power
relative
to the mass of the ship (which is what the Thrust rating in FT is, after
all - Thrust-2 drives on a Mass 100 ship are ten times as big/powerful
as
Thrust-2 drives on a Mass 10 ship) then any ship will be able to rotate
and/or push at	the same rate.

If you prefer to use the EFSB model (which was specifically designed to
make the EA ships very slow and ponderous, to reflect what has (mostly)
been seen on TV, odd CGI effects quirks notwithstanding), then feel free
to
do so; like all rules in FT, it is there to be modified if you wish. For
the FB, we decided that it limited the agility of some ships a bit TOO
much, but if you disagree then that is fine. Of course, you could always
mix the two to reflect different levels of drive tech and allow for
obsolescent ships....

Jon (GZG)