Re: Fighters/DLD/Welcome Back

At 12:43 PM -0400 5/6/02, Tomb wrote:
>Yes, I am to lazy to type three e-mails...
>
>1) Fighters
>
>Curious question: Of those who don't really think fighters are
>unbalanced, I'd ask: 1) how often do you play, 2) do you attend
>conventions and play FT or tournaments, and 3) how many different
people
>do you tend to game with? and 4) do you usually play with mixed-tech
>designs, standard custom designs, or FB designs? and 5) is your play in
>the context of a campaign or strict one-off battle where each side
>brings X NPV?

I was playing like gang busters a while back at the War Room with a 
few friends. We'd try to make custom scenarios that made more sense 
than 2 groups of ships lined up from opposite sides of the table. My 
current project level has reduced that ability. Perhaps this fall 
when the armored vehicles aren't being worked on as much and I've got 
more things in the house taken care of.

What little convention time I've had has been predominantly spent 
running or running in Dirtside games.

My preference is for scenarios with an umpire who comes up with the 
scenario and victory conditions. Best one I ran had three sides each 
with different victory conditions (side a with a convoy, escape from 
the pursuing force by getting more V than they can carry parity in 
thrust was the key here, a bandit group that was out to disable and 
capture cargo ships and a small savasku force who's objective was to 
prevent any clear victory).

My designs are slight custom designs. Take a Furious, remove the 
major weapons fit (leave the Class 1s) 2 ADFCs and PDS. Its a real 
escort cruiser like the Atlanta Class, similar things were done to 
Majestics. Take a Ticonderoga, up the mass with larger drives drop 
some class 2s and you've got a BC that actually goes as fast as the 
fast cruisers and can out run the BB's and BDNs like a BC should. I 
don't run soap bubble carriers and I don't have 500 Mass ships. I 
also will refuse to engage if things look bad for my side after a 
turn or three. I also prefer "scrolly boards" because you don't play 
space battles in a 400,000km by 400,000km by 400,000km cube.

I don't do mixed tech. I don't play many house rules except for combo 
fighters (LR-Heavy Interceptors, Heavy-Attack Fighters, Heavy-Torpedo 
Fighters, [no heavy-interceptor-torpedo fighters btw])

>
>And I'll conclude by offering this one thought: If you're already
>playing with custom designs and house rules and mixed-tech and campaign
>rules, then you are already far beyond current state-of-rules. So any
>changes should worry you very little, given you'll take what you like,
>change what you don't, and make up anything you think you need to fill
>in the blankss. A lot of new gamers (and some more experienced ones
with
>time constraints) want a low complexity game with no campaign, with
>standard designs, and out-of-the-book rules. Considering this crowd is

If you want a simple game without complexity then this isn't the game 
you are looking for *waves hand*. You want www.game$work$hop.com. I 
hear their games defenestrate all logic and rational as well as 
complexity. Move along *waves hand*.

I say the same thing about Dirtside when people say its too 
complicated with engineers, minefields, artillery (that doesn't 
deviate, gosh its too powerful) and airdefense.

The thing that gets me is that there is a decided Rock Scissars Paper 
aspect to the game just like there is in real life battles minus the 
lack of any cohesive fleet activity (meaning scouting by fighters, 
Pickets and other craft). People want to keep the game in the form of 
just a task group vs a task group in a vacum. Presumably you've sent 
your ships against a given set of ships for a reason. Where they just 
blips you ran headlong into, or did you actually scout them out to 
see what they were?

If your opponent has 4 rocks and a pair of scissors, you hope to find 
that out before you show up with 6 pairs of scissors don't you? 
Presumably in a con tournament the folks running the tournament 
actually think about how the games are matched or do they just throw 
a player down with a player? A Con should at least have a limit on 
the number of rocks scissors and paper's that each player is carrying 
in their Task Group no?

>2) DLD - Second Chris' call for a good mortar carrier. I think tracked
>would be the most likely chassis, but wheeled or hover would be okay
>(obviously the hover would ground on jacks or landing struts to fire).
>This is another sadly missing item, just like a good mobile howitzer or
>ADA system. The mortars and ADA are more likely to show up on an SG
>board than the howitzers, so both would be very useful products.

If there aren't Mortar Carriers in SG. The easiest way one make one 
is modify the APC with a roof hatch or build a turret with a large 
Hi-elevation turret that would represent a breach loading Mortar 
carrier.

Or you could build a jeep with a cargo area in the back where the 
mortar gets stowed when the team isn't running a fire mission.

-- 
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
- Ryan Montieth Gill			     '01 Honda Insight -
- rmgill@mindspring.com 			    '85 CB700S -
- ryan.gill@turner.com			 '76 Chevy Monte Carlo -
- www.mindspring.com/~rmgill		       '72 Honda CB750 -
-				      '60 Daimler FV701H Mk2/3 -
-				   '42 Daimler Scout Car Mk II -
-	      I speak not for CNN, nor they for me	       -
----------------------------------------------------------------
-    Smart ID cards in the US, Smart ID cards in Hong Kong,    -
-		      what is the difference?		       - 
----------------------------------------------------------------
-  C&R-FFL  /  Protect your electronic rights!	  \ EFF-ACLU   -
- SAF & NRA/  Join the EFF!  http://www.eff.org/   \ DoD #0780 -