Re: [GZG] So many questions

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http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lG'day James,

On 5/24/07, James Austin <james@queenstown.co.nz> wrote:
>
> Well, I've spent the last couple of days reading some of the archives
for
> this list, as well as reading through all the rules for FT and DS in
detail,
> and now I've got a few questions for everybody if thats ok.

Fire away! (but of course Brendan already answered most of them :-) ).

 But first up, I didn't mention last time about me. I'm a computer
science
> student in Dunedin, New Zealand. I'm also a recently commissioned
> Territorial Force officer in the NZ army. Like I said, I'm new to
tabletop
> gaming in general.
>  I said I had questions. In no particular order:
>  I havn't seen any reference to missiles (ie single shot missiles as
> decribed in More Thrust) in any of the canon ship designs in either of
the
> fleet books. Only salvo missiles. In the desription of Salvo missiles
in
> FB1, it doesn't seem to be saying that the intention was to replace
the old
> style missiles, and yet they seem to have done so. Am I missing
something?

You're not missing anything yet. The heavy missiles as outlined in MT
are of
the 2nd edition Full Thrust rules, whereas the Fleetbooks are of
edition 2.5(meant to be a bridge between the 2nd ed rules and the
to-be-published 3rd
edition rules; these are slowly being worked on as I type ;-) ). I
*think*
the current publicly available beta test rules for the heavy missiles
can be
found at the bottom of this page here:
http://mysite.verizon.net/laserlight/ft/if.htm

The heavy missile rules are currently being worked over in the playtest
group to try and get them to fit into the FT3 rules. They may or may not
fully resemble what is in the beta test rules right now.

 In Fullthrust, are hangar bays and fighter bays effectively the same
thing,
> or or they distinct? ie if a ship were to carry interface craft and
fighters
> would it need seperate bays? Perhaps each fighter wing needs it own
bay? Or
> maybe a ship just needs a certain amount of mass dedicated to space
for bays
> and its all just one big hangar? I'm sorry but I cant quite wrap my
head
> around bays in general. Anyone care to clear things up for me?

I think Brendan did this okay. Anything more I would add would be
redundant.

 One thing that I found unclear for Dirtside II was the rules for
infantry
> firing upon vehicles. Do they still need to test for effective fire as
> described in the rules for infantry firefights? (It is a different
situation
> when you're firing a missile at a tank 3.6km away than when you're
enaging
> infantry at say 500m.) I'm guessing that IAVR shots are affected by
checks
> for effective fire.
>  On that topic, do manpad LAD and mortars need to make effectiveness
> checks as well?

Wow, I've been looking at the playtest DS3 rules for so long, I've
forgotten
how much of DS2 works! Let me look this one up (but if Oerjan pipes in
and
contradicts *any*thing I say, go with his thoughts - of course, he's
nowhere
near a computer at the moment, so it may not be until next week before
he
chimes in ;-) ).

But yes, you need to still test for effective fire if you want your
infantry
unit to fire on a vehicle.

Man-packed mortars I would treat as 'standard' artillery. I could be
wrong
in how to handle that, though; I've actually never played with
man-packed
mortars (or LADs).

 Well I think thats all the queries I have about the rules for now.
However,
> I've still a couple more questions.
>  I've only read the rules for Dirtside and Full Thrust (ie the
> downloadable rules books) but can anyone suggest to me whether
Stargrunt or
> Dirtside would be better as ground combat rules to interface with Full
> Thrust? This is the type of situation that most interests me right
now:
> Multi battle scenarios involving invasions of planets, including the
naval
> (space) battle to breach system defences followed by planetary
invasions.

As Brendan mentioned, you can do crossovers, but you need to decide on
scale
for each if you want direct crossovers. Either SGII or DSII will work
with
FT for crossover games. I know people who have run FT games at local
conventions with a boarding action SGII game immediately following the
FT
game (or happening concurrent to the FT game; requires two gamemasters
to
work really closely and well together, as events in one game might have
effects in the other).

Some years ago a few guys (Los, Magic, Kr'rt) who are infrequently here
(again, due to Work and Life) did a campaign game that involved FT, DSII
and
SGII. They wrote up the "Rot Hafen" saga as a result of their gaming.
The
original story webpages are gone, but others have salvaged them and
reposted
(I grabbed my copy and put it into a word doc). If you want, you can
read it
here:
http://www.cygnusx1.info/scifi/rothafen1.html

It's a pretty good story.

 Before you jump on to suggest I should start small, well I will
obviously
> have to do so to start with. But I do also intend to write game
software
> with the purpose of from speeding the game (by doing calculations on a
> nearby laptop say), to possibly computerising the whole thing.

Full Thrust has been more or less recreated (more or less ;-) ) into
FTJava,
an online  PBEM game. You can play 'live' from here:
http://home.nycap.rr.com/davisje/ftjava/index.html
I used to play a fair bit, but then Life and Work took over my time to
the
point I haven't had any time to even look at the latest updates they've
made. :-(

Finally, I've had no luck finding any locals who are into this, so if
anyone
> on this list is in or knows of anyone in my area who plays any GZG
games I'd
> like to get in touch.

Try here:
http://www.bcpl.net/~indy/full-thrust/location.html
I maintain this webpage of players, but I cannot guarantee that the
information is up-to-date if the people who originally furnished me
their
data have moved/changed emails w/out letting me know, or have dropped
out of
gaming altogether. The data is only as good as the input I receive.

Hope this is of some help!

Mk