Professionalism and Quality in FT terms (long)

G'day all,

	I have been thinking about Beth's quality survey and how it
might be used
in FT games. These a rough ideas (do I have any other kind) and there is
still much to be worked out particularly with regards to costings.

CREW QUALITY: 
	The difference in crew quality I think is most likely going to
show itself
in damage control. A good crew will be able to keep their ship in a
fight
longer than a poor crew.

Example.
	Grade 1 crews need 3 repair teams to be able to do a repair roll
and even
though 3 teams are involved the repair is only sucessful on a 6.
	Grade 2 crews need 2 teams to attempt a repair succeding on a 6.
A third
team may join them needing a 5 or 6 to be sucessful
	Grade 3 crews test as per the rules.
	Grade 4 crews test each repair team were 2 normal teams ie
needing 5 or 6
to be sucessful. A second team may join in the repair but may not
improve
the roll needed above 4, 5 or 6 for success.
	Grade 5 crews are gods and each team needs a 4, 5 or 6 for
success. Repair
teams may not pair up.
	All repair teams regardless of grade may only attempt to repair
one ship
system per turn.
	Crews are costed as follows; Grade 1 (-3 pts), Grade 2 (-1 pt),
Grade 3 (0
pts), Grade 4 (+1 pt), Grade 5 (+3 pts); for each Damage control party
on
the ship. The total points cost is added to the ship cost.
	(Grade 1 crews become a discount to their owners (which is just
as well)
whilst top crews begin to cost. Also a top crew will still die but they
will be able to inflict considerably more damage before they do. Average
crews are unaffected.)

	I don't like the idea of improving the "to hit" chances of a
fleet because
of the difficulty in fairly costing such abilities. It might be ok to
use
the above points values (-3,-1,0,+1,+3) and multiply them by the Mass of
the ship  given over to weapons (excluding shields, engines, senors,
etc)
and giving the following abilities;

	Grade 1: 4's miss and 6's do 1 point of damage for beams, SM's
and PT's do
-1 pt of damage.
	Grade 2: 6's do 1 pt, SM and PT as normal
	Grade 3: as normal
	Grade 4: 5's do 2 pts damage, SM and PT as normal
	Grade 5: 3's do 1 pt, 5's do 2 pts, SM and PT do +1 damage

Fighter qaulity:
	Assume all groups begin as turkeys at half cost.
	Grade 1 crews may not upgrade any fighter group
	Grade 2 crews may upgrade half fighter groups to average at
double cost
(this is the normal cost given in the rules)
	Grade 3 may upgrade all fighter groups to average
	Grade 4 may upgrade all groups to average and half the groups to
ace at 3
times cost (150% of costs in rules)
	Grade 5 may upgrade all crews to average or Ace. 

PROFESSIONALISM:
	Really I think this is going to show most in morale.

Fleet Morale:
	I really do think that Mission Motivation (like in SG) needs to
be
considered. You might get a table like this showing the casulaties a
fleet
will accept before breaking off

Level	Grade		1	2	3	4	5

Low			15%	20%	25%	30%	35%	

Medium			40%	45%	50%	55%	60%

High			60%	65%	70%	75%	80%

Ship Morale:
	Ships would test for striking the colours when they lose a or
core system.
Ships strike on the following roll;

	Grade 1:- 3,4,5,6
	Grade 2:- 4,5,6
	Grade 3:- 5,6
	Grade 4:- 6
	Grade 5:- 6 but only if life support is down.

Fighter Morale: 
	Fighter groups test for morale with the following modifiers;
		
	Grade 1: -2 (even a full group needs a 4 to attack)
	Grade 2: -1
	Grade 3: 0 (as per the normal rules)
	Grade 4: +1
	Grade 5: +2

LEADERSHIP:
	Compare the ratings of the commanding officers of each fleet.
The player
with the highest rated commander subtracts the opponents leader value
from
the value of their commander. This difference is the number of offensive
chits the player with the higher value leader gets. The offensive chits
can
be used to;

		1) move a ship twice (but not fire)
		2) Fire a single ship twice (but not move)
		3) conduct an extra round of repair rolls on a single
ship
		4) seize the initiative

When each chit is used is put to one side and cannot be used again.
	You could add up the values of all the ship captains in ech
fleet and
compare the results but this is likely to give you a large number of
chits
to use. You might set the number of chits per game at say 10 with each
player getting a number equal the value of his commander, extras being
discarded. When the chits are used they are not put to one side but are
handed over to the opposing player who can then use them as if they were
his/her own.

RELIABILITY:
	This is really only going to be used in campaign games if at
all. Probably
the easiest way is to multiply the reliability value by 20% this giving
a
percentage chance out of 100% that the ship will be operational (could
also
be applied to fighter groups) each turn. If the ship fails the roll then
it
must return to port for one turn and test again at the start of the new
turn. Fighter groups would remain on station and simply be unavliable
for
battle.
	If you use this then the cost of start up ships/fighters should
be
discounted by the same amount ie a nation that has 60% reliability will
purchase the ships it begins with at 60% of the calculated cost. All
ships
built during the campaign will be at full value.

	Now that I have bored you all throughly I will go off and think
of
something else (oh no). I hope some of the ideas might be useful.

Wilko.