Card Draws

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 10:18:36 -0500
From: "David Reeves" <davidar@nortelnetworks.com>
Subject: re: Card Draws and Fleet Admirals

thomas,

the only idea we have at the moment is to separate the cards (both
sides
combined) into piles according to crew quality.

** I suspect I dislike this option. Though it is interesting. It might
be worth toying with.

this seems to meet the design goal of better quality ships react
faster, but
the admiral also may influence the course of events when he feels the
situation
is critical.  since this idea is fairly new to us, we have not
playtested it
too much (2 times).

** How much of reaction in FT is crew? I think a lot is computer.
Humans decide strategy, set up contingency responses, computers
implement them. That's just my opinion. I don't forsee gunners firing
class-3s over open sights at ships thousands of kms away. Hence I'm
not sure this isn't an overkill effect.

i would like to hear your ideas on solving the crew quality part of
this
equation.  maybe you already have a better solution.

** I have my own theories on crew quality which will be webified and
list published soon.
Where I think crew's factor in is:
1) Gunnery - they have better engagement and anti-evasion progs
developed. I assume these need constant retailoring and that the crew
quality has something to do here. Defensively, the opposite factor may
play in - good crew have better evasion routines.
2) Damage Control - fixing and rerouting is a manual task and knowing
what shortcuts work is experience.
3) Being able to overthrust without damage - pushing the limits of the
ship.
4) Communications.
5) EW and Sensors.
6) Morale... very important.

That's my guess for now. I will put out my actual suggestions sometime
in the next week or two.

======================
Brian's (I think) post
======================

Limited Use:
I would suggest providing a limited number of Admiral's Priviledge to
the
game. Perhaps give each Admiral a set number of tokens for Admiral's
Priviledge (sorting through the deck to find a particular ship and
fire it).
Once the number of tokens is used up, the ships must be fired in the
order
drawn. You can also provide for the quality of the Admirals by giving
a
better Admiral more Admiral's Priviledge tokens.

** My idea was opposing admirals had a rating (1-5) and that was how
many times a turn. Opposing admirals could either both draw (at the
players discretion) or cancel and let the greater admiral take his
normal number of exchanges modified down by the opposing admirals
rating. This is the simplest.

Crew Quality:
If you have multiple decks or a specialized deck (such as Uno), you
can add
crew quality to the mix by adding multiple of the same card to the
deck for
higher quality ships.

** I like this one much better. It isn't a cut and dried "good fires
first" but it allows excellent chances for better firing position for
good crews.

 Green crewed get 1 card, Regular crewed ships get 2
cards, and Veteral crewed ships get 3 cards.

** Like SG2, I run five quality levels of crew. But for these
purposes, I'd say ...

Untrained/Poorly Trained: always shoot last. when they are drawn from
the normal deck, they are set aside face down in the order they occur.
They do not fire at that time. When the firing deck is done, then flip
this deck over and fire these ships in the order they were drawn.
These rarely appear.
Green: 1 card.
Regular: 1 card.
Veteran: 2 cards. Fire when the first one comes up, ignore the second.
Elite: 2 cards.

 This increases the chances of
drawing a higher quality crew early in the game. When a Regular or
Veteran
crewed ship's card is drawn, the player may fire the ship or wait
until the
card is drawn again.

** The waiting idea is fine, though it seems pretty unlikely... except
in odd situations.

Thomas Barclay