RE: [FT] Simultaneous Fire

--- Dean Gundberg <Dean.Gundberg@noridian.com> wrote:
...
> In my mind, I picture the ships firing throughout
> the turn, some earlier and
> some later, while others fire constantly.

If that's the case, it seems to be modelled poorly.

>...  I like
> the initiative based fire rules as a quick way of
> representing the liquid
> flow of battle and position without adding the extra
> time and complexity of
> phased movement and firing.
> 

One thing we agree on is that we want a system
that plays quickly and smoothly without added
complication. Perhaps we'll have to be satisfied
with this level of agreement.

> ...To me it's pretty broken for someone to
> > be able to wait to see if his battleship destroys
> > the enemy cruiser before he decides whether to
> fire
> > any of his other ships at it.
> 
> But in the flow of battle wouldn't that happen? 
> Since some ships will be in
> a better position first, I'd hope they would fire
> when at optimum range and
> then the ships following would fire...

A ship might CHOOSE to wait, but that's not what
is happening here. A player would clearly like 
to fire everything first if he could arrange it.
There's no tactical choice of firing later (as
in SFB's phased movement for example). And no I'm
not advocating phased movement.

> > Part of the fun is
> > not allocating enough to destroy that cruiser or
> > inadvertently allocating massive overkill.
> 
> I do understand this, I just personally find the
> decisions in initiative
> based firing more interesting and tactically complex
...

To each his own.

...Most space games I've played have
> > simultaneous fire (tank games too) and I guess
> I've
> > gotten used to it. This sudden asynchronous fire
> > feels very wrong to me.
> 
> True, but look back on how those systems do
> movement.  Most that I can think
> of off hand have phased movement and fire or have
> initiative based movement.
> FT is different in that initiate is in the fire
> phase instead of movement.
> 

Only SFB. What other phased movement games are
you thinking of?

...
> My suggestion is to introduce some thing new
> (possibly something you found
> on the net that has been tested instead of a
> homebrew item at first) but let
> the other players get to play the new stuff against
> you using vanilla FT
> ships.  ...

It's just not practical for this group. Perhaps
the next group I play with will be receptive, or
perhaps things will change at some point in the 
future, but I don't think it will fly. I have
brought up things I've seen on the net only to
be accused of trying to change the game. The
group dynamics seem pretty delicate as they are
with this group.

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