Re: [SG] firing weapons on the move

On 21-Jul-02 at 17:20, Thomas Barclay (kaladorn@magma.ca) wrote:
> Allan, I'm gonna take a moment and play Devil's 
> Advocate. 
> 
> You (and laserlight) cite several reasons for 
> penalizing a vehicle firing on the move:
> 
> 1) spotting
> 2) unmodelled terrain obstruction
> 3) partial turn visibility from shooter to target
> 4) game balance / trade off
> 
> Let me approach these indivdually:
> 
> 1) spotting
> If spotting is subsumed in fire combat, then yes, 
> I'd have to agree that this was a somewhat 
> reasonable penalty. However, I myself perfer to 
> maintain discrete spotting mechanics as it 
> works a bit better (people don't shoot at things 
> they haven't spotted, nor do they randomly 
> lose track of units they knew about). But if you 
> subsume spotting in the shooting rolls, I'll 
> concede this.
> 
> 2) unmodelled terrain
> You suggest that unmodelled terrain may cut 
> target visibility. Why do we never have this 
> problem when our units stop otherwise? Since 
> we don't, I don't particularly think it is fair to 
> impose it. My feeling is if it isn't significant 
> enough to appear on the board, it isn't 
> significant enough to have in-game impact. I 
> think if you used this theory to justify an upshift 
> while moving, you'd be using a double 
> standard. The "insignificant" terrain would only 
> have significance to moving units, but not to 
> others.... that seems wrong to me. 

That tree that you have to move 2 feet to the side for while
stopped has a tendancy to leap in front of your round while
moving.  Ever try to take a picture of a sunset from a moving
car?  The only tree in 80 miles will chose that moment to
jump in front of the camera.