Subject: RE: Sensors

From: Thomas Barclay <kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca>

>> Does a diceless sensor system have no appeal whatsoever?

> Well, I can only speak for myself, but I'm not 
> crazy about it. I understand the logic for it, but 
> by the same token I've seen in real life that 
> sensor data acquisition, processing of data, and 
> reading and interpretation of the output are 
> black arts. 

The risk here is forcing a space combat game folloe known realities of
Earthbound combat in order not to offend those sensibilities.

> There is no range at which things are 
> instantly detectable or not detectable. 

There's also no absolute range limit for a beam weapon to hit. If we
wanted
to be hyper accurate, you should roll some exponential
falloffprobability
beyaond 36" for Class 3 beams. You dont in FT because of the granularity
of
the game. Same sauce for sensors.

> This has 
> always been a big flaw in diceless systems (and 
> even many diced ones!). Detection chances are 
> probably probabalistic in nature and at some 
> point you enter a radius at which you _can_ 
> physically be detected but where it is very very 
> unlikely and then as you move closer the 
> likelihood escalates. But it won't be a hard 
> boundary. 

Exactly the same with wepon fire, but we abstract that out. I think that
that knd of fiddling belongs _more_ to weapon fire than sensors. I
likely
won't play with sensor rules if it's going to at 50+% more time to a
given
turn. Show be a diced system that is tuly simple and fast. - Beth's
system
proposed a couple posts later souds like a good start. 

But I'll still push diceless. I've seen no comelling argument yet to say
that we need to add another round of rolling anything. Fixed ranges with
variations add quite enough of the flavor for me. I _don't_ want a
submarine
or sniper game.

...

> Similarly, in FT, there is no stealth or subterfuge 
> or cunning. No hide and seek of sub warfare 
> (or even carrier warfare!). 

You want that, you need to retool the cloaking rules, not the sensor
rules.
Or, as you say later expand the scope of the game and play hide-and seek
on
the strategic level. 

Later:
> 2) sensors should be part of hull (thus you 
> aren't modifying the cost of every ship based 
> on its firecon count)

That's another reason never to make small ships. You don't even need
scouts
.

> 3) tying them to firecons makes a DN more like 
> a scout than a scout

And tying them to mass is better than that? How much better a scout is a
mass 150 DN vs. a mass 8 souct with Mass-based sensing?