Re: Directional screens (armor dropped)

>Jared wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Looking at the directional screens:
>>Your ship _might_ have better defensive ability in some directions
than in
>>others, thus maneuvering defensively becomes a concern (or as I
prefer, an
>>'Option')  This is a defensively analogous to the fact that your ship
>>already has offensive abilities that vary with direction (i.e. fire
arcs).
>>The modifications to vanilla rules shielding is minimal, and
absolutely no
>>ship design is invalidated.  All-round screens are still perfectly
valid.
>>In fact the only change to design them is to draw a couple of arcs
around
>>the screen icon to show which arcs it covers.
>
>Using the vector system, this creates a problem. With a Main Drive
rating
>of 4 you can rotate to thrust and then rotate back to a defensive
posture,
>and the odds of not having your strongest screens/armor facing the
enemy
>are extremely low.

Assuming he does nothing, or does what you want him to, yes.  this IMHO
is not a
bad thing - For one, it encourages people to plan their movement - but
the
relative weakness of FT screens as opposed to SFB means that this is not
the
all-powerful defensive measure it can be in SFB - so I think after a few
games
you will have a sense of when it would be most crucial.  It may make
ships a bit
more survivable in a 1-on-1 scenario, but when you start to move to
multiple
ships, you gain a new dimension of play.  Instead of just maneuvering a
group of
ships to bring their own weapons to bear, you now can maneuver to best
take
advantage of your opponent's weaknesses.  Part of what tactics are all
about.

>>Effect on Play: opens new defensive abilities, as well as offensive
>>abilities as you can attempt to attack through weakened or destroyed
>>screens.  Note that since many weapons ignore screens, and screens
>>generally still allow damage through to the ship, this will not be the
kind
>>of make-or-break effect as in SFB, but still could help a skillful
player
>>increase his odds of scoring more damage. Also, I can have increased
>>defense for part of my ship at the cost of reduced defense elsewhere. 
This
>>may be good for me on the attack, but where this most quickly turns
against
>>me is in larger fleet battles where flanking becomes a more viable
option.
>
>Once again, getting to those weakened screens/armor is easier said than
>done using the vector system. Even using cinematic movement, it's
usually
>not too hard to figure which arcs are likely to be hit.

Well, that's the down-side to trying to make a more 'realistic' movement
system
while not allowing a more realistic firing option (some sort of mid-move
firing).  The tactics of penetrating weakened screens may not lend
themselves to
single-ship duels - so be it.  however, multiple ship closing from
various
directions would be very capable of exploiting enemy weakness.	(If I
can't hit
your down screen, I'll drive you towards someone who can)

>>Impact to complexity: Effectively _none_ - You can measure incoming
arcs as
>>easily as fire arcs.	You can see at a glance exactly what shields are
>>operational, so level of defense is clear-cut.
>
>Almost true. I agree that one more arc estimation is not that bad.
However,
>you're not including the time it will take to allocate shields, the
>increased time to figure the best defensive posture with arced
>shields/armor.

OK - two separate points.

1) Time to allocate shields: This is done before the game, if you reuse
designs
it is done before your game group ever gets together.  It stays that way
for the
entire game.  They are _not_ dynamically reconfigurable (Sorry if I did
not make
this clear - This was my intention all along)

2) Time to plan move/defensive posture: OK this one is valid.  There
will
intially be a slight increase in planning.  however, I think this would
be
mitigated by several factors.

First - once you are familiar and comfortable with your own flavor of
movement
(cinematic/vector) you have a pretty good idea of ship abilities, just
like you
said.  With a quick look you can dismiss those situations in which it is
unlikely you can get the penetrating shot, and you can focus on those
that do
look likely.

Second - Figuring out what defensive posture you should take - this is
tied to
your initial ship design and your present situation, but again, FT
shields
generally mitigate damage, they do not stop it, and with FT damage
system,
taking a couple of hits on your DN is just not as big a deal as SFB,
unless you
are near threshold.  Then you focus on it.  It is not the overwhelming
change in
play that it is in SFB

>It also invites specific fleet design abuses, such as high thrust ships
>with "one sided" defenses, ships designed with a specific formation in
>mind, etc. This, much more than any superficial SFB resemblance, is
what
>disturbs me.

So purpose built ships are uniformly evil?  Take high-thrust ships with
one-sided defenses, then moan when your opponent surrounds you with
fighters and
pounds through your rear.  Successful FT fleets depend on a certain
degree of
balance.  Taking slow, lumbering, heavily armored ships against a
primarily
beam-armed opponent may be workable, against a SML equipped fleet you
are asking
to trouble - No single tactic is uniformly successful.

Cheese-meisters may try some silliness at first - Lord knows they have
with
every other system ever invented, but things settle down as you both
learn what
works and what doesn't.

As far as specific formations are concerned - that's true, but nothing
like what
you see in SFB. Take the worst offender, the ISC.  Specifically designed
to
exploit almost every major loophole and perversion in the combat system.
 PPD
formulated to use the idiotic 'mizia' damage-table defect.

Yet if you look at enough FT games you will see a few ideas similar to
the
echelon concepts---Multiple waves - smallest in front where the enemy
has to
deal with them because of the large damage they can do if ignored, while
heavies
in back where they can continue to hurt you with the bigger guns.  How
many
people do you know who attack with their SDN and CA's in front while
their DD's
& FF's hold up the rear?  probably not many - as that is generally not
as
effective as the other way round where the tin-cans can get out their
attacks at
closer ranges before disintegrating.

If I design a fleet that works best in a certain configuration, that
means it
works less well in others.  So break it up.  Outflank me, force me to
react to
you, instead of following my plans.  More flexiblity means more options
- a good
thing IMO.

>Schoon

Thanks for the comments and concerns...