Re: Other Solar Sys maps Re: Strategic Thrust using BR25

First, let me apologize for  answering this, as it running
rampantly OT.

Second, let me apologize if it appears that I had anything
but the highest respect for the game. I recall just sitting,
moving the planets in the spheres, 'listening to the music',
when I first picked up a copy.

The use of a movement 'stick' (in this case a marked strip
of paper) ignores that the ship is in the same orbital
mechanics as are the planets. And, I find orbital movement
VERY counter-intuitive. As my Astronomy 103 prof pointed out,
if you are in orbit, have a ship 'in front of you', how do
you get in front of it in the same orbit? Fire retros, drop
to a lower, faster orbit, then burn to get back in orbit
AHEAD of the other ship. Or, I suppose, you could burn a
lot of fuel pointing your ship slightly oblique to the
center of the gravity well, but then only a VERY small part
of your thrust would be moving 'forward' in the orbit. And,
these were only .1G ships.

Natch, the massive use of quotes is cuz directional notation
is very confusing in space.

Using the BFM map the way we've been discussing the BR one
would require mechanisms for moving between orbits, or
ignoring the larger paragraph previous.

Using the BR map as we've been discussing incredibly over
simplifies, but that's hard NOT to do.

The complaints for the ship/missle battle movement was that
it was TOO realistic. Two grids, imagined perpendicular,
with one chit per map representing any battle unit, meant
two chits plus 3 vector chits (x,y,z), in turn, meant the map
space could get real busy.

I've tried dowels with markings, 3-d grids made from closet
hanging shelves, stuff I don't want to mention, etc. I don't
think there's a good way to do 3-d, but I do salute noble
folk that have tried.

BFM still impresses me.

The_Beast