Re: [FT] Sensor range question (and Evasion)

On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Izenberg, Noam wrote:

> Various Listers opined:
>
> >> Apropos which, has anyone thought of using extra thrust to "evade"?
> 
> My take is that an evasive maneuver is both more contingent and more
> violent:
>
> Evasive Maneuvers - Reaction to fire. Can be declared by a target ship
after
> an attacking ship declares weapon fire against target ship, or on
activation
> of a ship that is being attacked by one or more fighter groups.

it would be tricky to use - you'd have to balance dodging this shot
coming
in now against one that might come later in the turn. could be fun.

> Evading ship
> must leave one half its original thrust unused in the movement phase.

i'm not so sure about this. if i build a battleship with thrust 2 and
one
with thrust 6, are you really saying that they both need half thrust to
evade? that means that a non-thrusting Th2 ship gets two evades where a
half-thrusting Th6 ship gets one, even though the Th6 ship has more
thrust
unused.

i suggest that evasion attempts be limited by thrust points; you might
want to allow one evasion per thrust point allocated, or maybe per two
allocated. after all, it takes 1 Th to turn 1 heading in the movement
phase, so why not make it 2 Th to do it in the fire phase, when more
extreme maneuvers are required? that would be my preference, certainly.

orders might look like: P2 +2 E2 -> turn port 2, accelerate 2, evade 2
for
a total of 6 thrust. these orders would allow a ship to make one evasion
attempt during the fire phase.

> When
> EM is executed, evading ship turns one point port or starboard
(direction
> declared when EM is declared), and its engines take threshold check at
the
> current threshold level. Incoming beam/torp fire (including from
fighters)
> gets -1 mod (Natural 6 on a beam does 1 point but still gets a
reroll).
> Incoming Salvo missiles are reduced by 1d6/2 (round down).

sounds more or less ok to me. alternatively, you could give the ship
some
sort of saving throw, eg roll a die and if you get a 6, you've dodged
the
incoming fire. it might be better to roll for each incoming thing, but
that could get slow fast. this is all a bit GWish, though.

> EM can be declared if a ship is not trying to evade fire when the ship
is
> activated. An initialtive roll determines whether EM takes place
before or
> after the ship fires.

this is in the fighter-avoiding case, i take it.

> The real reason I made it up this way is so that I could shout
"Evasive
> Starboard!" at the game table and have it mean something.

you can anyway: it means "i am having fun now" :-).

Tom