[FT] Sensors, FTL and other stuff (long)

In upcoming fleet battle (between Human and Kra'Vak, and Sa'Vasku vs
Kra'Vak) forces I'm running as a PBEM, one of the things I want to
create is
a fog of war by using full sensor rules.

The scenario - exact details are secret as the protaganists are
currently
debating on fleet compositions :) - is an excuse for me to cluck over a
fleet battle between the Human Fleet Book forces and the Unofficial
Kra'Vak
Fleet Book stuff developed by Tim Jones, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker and Dean
Gundberg on the Full Thrust Mailing list.

However, it caused me to look at FTL entry a little closer,as the fleets
involved will be jumping into the area of the battle from different
starting
locations .

The current Full Thrust rules for FTL entry or exit do not account for
timing errors - I picked these up from re-reading the relevant sections
of
FT and FB again, thus the rules I _think_ I will be using are presented
here
for general perusal  and comment ;]

FTL Entry
Roll 1d6 for Each ship, adding one for each of the following

Entering FTL during combat.
Damaged Engines* see mishap table
Command Bridge Hit.
Power Core Hit.

1 - 4  Jump OK

5  The ship completes a full movement then Jumps. Adjust re-entry point
by
half current velocity.

6  The ship completes a full movement, but successfully jumps next turn
(no
need to  roll again). Adjust re-entry point by current velocity.

7  FTL fails to engage, the ship completes a full movement, roll again
next
turn.

8  FTL fails to engage, roll again next turn. The ship completes a full
movement. Roll on the mishap table.

9  FTL fails to engage, roll again next turn. The ship completes a full
movement. Roll on the mishap table adding the same modifiers to the
roll.

10 Ship explodes

Mishap Table

1-3 No Effect.
  4 Ship takes 1d6 'Beam' type damage Entry point** scatter +1 ***
  5 Ship takes 2d6 'Beam' type damage Entry point scatter +2 ***
  6 Ship takes 1d6 damage. Entry point scatter +3 ***
  7 Ship takes 1d6 damage. Entry point scatter +2d6 ***
  8 Ship takes 2d6 damage. Entry point scatter +3d6 ***
  9 Ship Exits 3d6 damage. Entry point scatter +4d6 ***
 10 Ship Exits 3d6 damage. Entry point scatter +5d6 ***

* Thrust Drives can take two hits before becoming unuseable. Similar
deal
here,	   but FTL drives can still jump if they've taken one hit. If
you
want to risk it, you can.

** Add to the _first_ scatter dice on reentry. +1 means roll 1d6+1 for
distance. +1d6 mean roll 1d6+1d6 - this can be further modified if the
_first_ dice is a 6. Roll a second dice and multiply the by the
_scatter_
distance !

*** Ships Engines count as damaged until repaired by DCPs.

Assuming the ship is OK and all is routine, the worst you can expect in
non
combat situations is a slight deviation in arrival time or accuracy  or
both.  Nothing too damaging. Fleets travel widely dispersed.

Re-entry as per normal + optional rules gives a possible scatter of 36".
Add a 6" danger space to that and you have a 42"

Therefore to jump in relative safety, ships would travel at least 42"
apart
(ships always scatter on re-entry).

Normal sensor rules allow detection (scanning attempts possible)at up to
54"
for military sensors, and 36" for Civilian.

I'll be using a further doubling of those ranges to allow for long range
sensors - you know its there, but you can only guess what it is until
within
normal sensor range.   Powered down ships halve detection range.

Also when making scanning attempts you get one Sensor point per fire
control
active at the start of the turn. A sensor point may be used to scan a
ship
within range as normal, or to cancel out your ship automatically being
highlighted when you scan another ship.

This also made me wonder about secret ship to ship communications:
For example ,ship A signaling info to ship B which is 200 MU away.

They are out of sensor range, but would probably know enough about where
the
other ship is meant to be to either fire some sort of tight beam signal
to
the area the ship is in, or broadcast in coded bursts which .  I would
expect this could be picked up by sensors looking for just such
transmissions.
Given the future tech, could an enemy ship intercept a communication
from
the enemy?

As I see it encryption would make these coms unreadable and therefore
unusable by the enemy, unless they had the appropriate codes, knew the
language etc. Anyone know the real world capabilities in these areas ?

Any thoughts on how different races use/ or are affected by FTL ? I'd
like
to see similar treatment/info in FB2 that FB1 has for humans. The only
rule
I can ever see differentiating between races was IIRC Geoffrey Stewart's
Excellent Pre EFSB B5 conversions.

I also noticed couldn't see SSD's for: in MT or UOKVFB

FT407A Ko'Tek Strike Cruiser
FT414  Do'San Light Cruiser
FT415  Sha'Ken Light Transport

I noticed a 3 letter name (prefix ?) here for this class which I assume
isn't a warship. Given the warlike KV nature, would this suggest that
merchant vessel names have 3 letters ? Not of great import, I know, but
there might be a budding KV linguist out there.. (Hi Stephen ;))

FT416  To'Rok Survey/Explorer ship

Has anyone done these ?  I could extrapolate, But I have enough to do!
:)
That's all for now folks :)

P.s.  A note to players - The KV so far appear to be separatists
confident
in their individual prowess at choosing fleets, whereas the Humans are
united in their desire to build effective fleets and are communicating. 
Is
this a War-Family thing I wonder?

Also a reminder that the closing date for fleet entries is Friday 12th
March
1800 GMT
I am still undecided as whether to split the players into 2  games or
not.
We shall see.

Thanks for listening.