Re: B5 Ship Combat

>Oerjan Ohlson wrote:>		At least some Drazi ships do similar
>manoeuvres, and EarthForce
>>heavies  seem to do so as well from time to time - though at a much
slower
>>rate,  making it harder to see.
>
>To which Jared replied:
>> This is blatantly not true.		In the 1st season episode "A
Voice
>>in the Wilderness, Part 2", the heavy cruiser Hyperion does not rotate
to
>>bring her main (fixed forward) armament to bear, rather she fires all
of
>>her turreted secondary weapons in a port broadside.
>[ munch more examples ]
>
>Jared is right about the Earthforce ships. There is only one
>case I can think of where an EA ship does any kind of tactical
>manouvering, the Hyperion in "A Voice in the Wilderness" does
>make an offscreen "come about" and seems to approach the enemy
>ship head on.
>
>In defence of EA, J Michael Straczynski has said online that
>he envisioned the battles taking place at long ranges, but for
>dramatic purposes only the battle between the Narns and Shadows
>in "The Long, Twilight Struggle" really shows the distances.

I think the "for dramatic purposes" bit really hits the nail on the
head,
and should remind us all of something very important that many gamers
(and
game-writers!) often forget once they get into dissecting the episodes
of a
TV show. Effectively EVERYTHING seen on-screen is for dramatic purposes,
and there is probably (even in a series like B5, let alone any of the
Trek
incarnations) very little thought given at any stage to the "realism"
aspect. If the narrative demands that ship A will fire a big red beam
and
conveniently knock out ship B's drives while not harming any of it's
crew,
then that's exactly what will happen. It really doesn't seem to matter
to
the writers or directors that last week that same big red beam
vapourised a
ship in one shot, or that next week it'll perhaps have no effect at all.

This makes life very hard for gamers and game-writers; we're trying to
find
logic and consistency where there probably was none thought of in the
first
place. Yes, we can argue that we're trying to depict what is seen on the
screen, but the problem is that what's seen on the screen in seldom in
any
way consistent or logical. Talking about timescale and distance in TV
space
battles is probably the most meaningless of all - what we see is
whatever
looks best for that particular scene or special effect, and "reality"
will
always give way to the needs of the visual impact.

Probably the best we can hope for on the tabletop is something that
comes
near the general feel of the battles we see on the screen - which will
seldom match any given specific scene or effect.

OK, I'll get back in the box now....  ;-)

Jon (GZG)
>
>Plus the EA ships are described in the B5 Wars book as having
>all the agility of cast-iron bathtubs, and compared to White
>Stars, Minbari, or Shadows, they are. So they probably *are*
>turning in the B5 scenes, it just isn't detectable by human
>eyes in the limited time available :-)
>
>(I've tried designing some Earthforce ships for FT. The Nova
>got Thrust-2 only because they do seem able to do a 180
>without first coming to a stop, and the Omega Thrust-3 as
>supposedly being faster.)
>
>	Hugh