Re: Large mass adjustments, was Re: [FT] F***ters

----- Original Message -----
From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: Large mass adjustments, was Re: [FT] F***ters

> Stiltman wrote:
> >What I would much prefer would be some form of system where any given
hit
> >you put on a ship has a certain chance to take down a system as
"collateral"
> >damage, and find a way to make the probability about the same across
any
> >size of ship. The trick would be to find the exact probability of a
system
> >loss that would allow a larger ship with more systems to lose those
systems
> >at the same proportion as a smaller ship with fewer systems, without
unduly
> >complicating either the ship design process or the damage assessment
phases
> >of the game.

> Apart from the "any given hit" bit, you have just described the
current
> threshold system - as long as each "hit" takes out one full hull row
on
the
> ship it does everything you're asking for <g>

Yeah.  That's the main change I'm proposing from the current system. 
The
current system does not have a linear probability that a hit will
destroy a
system -- the probability is in inverse proportion to the size of the
ship
struck, after a fashion.  That's the whole root of the problem. 
Something
_like_ this, to cure the non-linear proability, would fix the issue
altogether without needing to add any coefficients to the value of
ships.

> Unfortunately the "any given hit" bit complicates matters enourmously.
> While it isn't particularly difficult to figure out the probabilities
you
> *want*, it is rather difficult to create a game mechanic which *gives*
them
> at all - and attempts to do it without adding large numbers of die
rolls
to
> the resolution of every single hit scored has so far proved total
failures
> :-( (It gets even more difficult if you're restricted to using D6s, of
> course, since you need at least two dice to create any probability
less
> than 16.66%...)

> >If that could be done, though, that would be a far superior solution
to
any
> >sort of exponential coefficient on hull mass values.

> Amen to that! That's a pretty massive "if" you're asking for, though
:-(

The way I described it before is rather yucky, yes.  However, here's a
thought.

You and I are both at least somewhat familiar with Starfire rules, so
for
everyone else's benefit I'll give a brief description of how they do it
in
that game:  every ship's "hull box row" (or equivalent) has the ship's
entire list of systems interspersed throughout the diagram, such that as
you
do damage to a ship, it loses systems throughout the damage cycle,
regardless of the ship size.

Perhaps what we ought to do for Full Thrust is, when we're putting
together
the hull boxes, we should intersperse the ships' systems evenly between
them.  Yes, the player should get to decide which ones go first, in the
same
way as they do in Starfire.  And yes, perhaps this means we should do
away
with the threshold check altogether -- if you lose a given hull box, you
lose all the systems that are marked off in it.  This both allows big
ships
and small ships to have a similar rate of system loss over their damage
cycle, as well as adding another dimension to ship design -- the ability
to
prioritize engineering so that some systems are going to be better
protected
than others.  How you'd fit the core systems into this is a good
question,
but I think it's a good start -- it allows a linear rate of system loss
across all ship sizes, and it's something that can be set up on pen and
paper relatively easily.  For that matter, it would actually be somewhat
simpler than the threshold system in-game, at the expense of requiring
slightly greater set-up time for complete one-off custom-design games. 
(In
other words, I'm making life harder for people like me while it stays
about
the same for people who just play the ships in the book.)

As far as the seperate fighter issue goes... I'll see what the playtest
list
has come up with.  Something like allowing PDS to fire as though they
were
interceptors and giving scatterguns a -1 roll against heavy fighters
(minimum 1 fighter destroyed) would fix most of the issues I see with it
though.

E
(aka Stilt Man)