RE: Vector Movement and SML's

Both issues came up early in our Imperium campaign.  At first we used
standard FB rules and ship designs (FSE for the Vilani Imperium and NSL
for
the Terran Confederation).  Later we designed our own (which have been
updated, BTW) at:

<http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jwlyon/FT/imperium/v3shipsan.htm >

and in zip format at:

Originals (with bluelines)
<http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jwlyon/FT/imperium/V3ships.zip>

Printer ready
<http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jwlyon/FT/imperium/V3print.zip>

Some of the house rules we adopted:

1.  We dumped thruster pushes entirely and adopted something similar to
the
"X thrust to rotate (any amount, costing one) and then thrust X-1"
solution.  Actually, ours works out to "...then thrust X-2."

In effect, an MD:2 can "turn or burn", an MD:4 ship can "turn and burn"
or
"burn and turn" and an MD:6 ship can "turn, burn and turn" or "burn,
turn
and burn."

For the most part this seems to work fairly well.

Scale BTW is:
 1"	 = ~1000km
 1 turn  = ~7.5 mins
 1"/turn = ~1.0 G of thrust

Another alternative I'd been considering is to just record two pieces of
info about a ship's move in vector; the amount of thrust and direction
of a
course change and the final facing at the end of the turn.  Everything
else
seems to be just window dressing to arrive at that result.  Anyone else
have a thought on this?  Arguments for or against?  Something I've
forgetten?

2.  We ditched firing arcs for SLM launchers in favor of placing the
salvo
marker withing 24" (or 36" for ERs) of the projected vector point
instead
of the ship itself.  In effect, this imparts the ship's vector at time
of
launch to the missile salvo.  We felt this more accurately reflected the
realities of vector movement and eliminated the problem of ships moving
at
high speeds overrunning their own missiles.

3.  We modified the targeting rules for SLMs so that if a ship dedicates
an
active firecon to "terminal guidance" for each missile salvo, then it
may
choose which target within 3" the salvo will attack.  Salvos without the
guidance of an active firecon will target the nearest ship by default.

4.  We designed our own ships to better reflect the vessels in Imperium.
One of the first things we did was make ADFC standard on most ship
classes.
 Since defending ships can "screen" each other in Imperium and limit the
attackers ability to concentrate on a single target, we felt this was
appropriate.

Taken together, these house rules seem to work fairly well together. 
Salvo
missiles are powerful, but balanced and the vector movement changes have
been well received.  If anyone else would like to try them and give me
some
feedback, I'd appreciate it.

Jeff