RE: [FT] Starship! was [FT] arcs in vector

He has had this stuff at the local Cons for about 5 years (prototypes to

production), IIRC these are the same ones who put out Pirates!.  Though
I have 
seen many games of Pirates!, I have yet to see a game of Starship!

Michael Brown

-----Original Message-----
From:	Greg Wong
Sent:	Monday, September 04, 2000 9:44 PM
To:	gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
Subject:	[FT] Starship! was [FT] arcs in vector

While I was at ConQuest 2000 this past weekend, in the dealer's room,
there was a guy
from Flagship Games who was pushing a new set of space combat
rules called Starship!	It boasted a 3D movement system.
It appeared to me, however, that it wasn't a true 3D system in space.
The ships were mounted on telescoping car radio antennae.  Sure
this adds another dimension, but it resembled an
air combat game which is more like 2.5D.  If you had a truly 3D
system, you could have 3 ships moving off in 3 different orthogonal
directions.  I would think that would get unwieldy after a while.
Ships on opposite ends of a table might be 8 feet apart, but being
8 feet apart in the vertical direction would be a pain.

The part I found really funny was when he asked me what system I play.
I told him I played Full Thrust.  He said that's okay as long as
you stay in the universe they provide, but it doesn't let you create
your own races.  Obviously, he doesn't know Full Thrust, nor does
he know about the cross-over battles with Federation Cruisers,
Babylon 5 ships, and Battlestar Gallactica just to name a few.
I didn't want to waste my energy arguing with him, so I just asked
if he was selling any of the miniatures for Starship!  He said he
didn't bring any for sale, so I thanked him and moved on.

Now, maybe he has a great game.  I didn't check out the rules.
But he obviously hasn't played Full Thrust.  :)

--Greg

> > >Anyway, what makes you think FT'ers compehend in three
>dimensions?
> > >;->=
> >
> >
> > Hmmm, since I haven't read the rules, how do handle 'altitude'
>if not in
> > 3D?
>
>Ignore it and it goes away.
>
>This actually works reasonably well--since altitude is not
>significant in open space the way it is in atmosphere.  No
>difference between climbing, diving, and turning; no worries
>about running into the ground or your aircraft's ceiling; if your
>vessel loses power, you don't (usually) have to worry about
>crashing.
>
>There are some places where it causes problems but those are
>usually the operational scale.  On the tactical scale, the extra
>realism of 3D isn't worth the aggravation of setting to rods and
>adjustable-altitude trays, figuring out 3D movement, etc. YMMV,
>of course.