Re: [GZG] Dancing the Pre-Measure Monkey

>WRT movement and FT, since movement is supposed to be all 
>simultaneous, pre-measuring to make sure you are "just in" or "just 
>out" of an arc or range band is a little over the top, imo, as you 
>don't know where the opponent is going to end up.
>
>WRT firing and FT, I think pre-measuring should be acceptable (and 
>what I was meaning in the original post, though I didn't specify :) 
>). Some have mentioned setting up rangeband sticks or "waving the 
>tape measure around" set at a certain distance. For the granularity 
>of FT, that seems perfectly reasonable. Measuring from and to each 
>and every ship on the board is a little over the top imo.

I'm in favour of pre-measuring for FT. Space ships will have
the technology - heck, warships had rangefinders a hundred
years ago. It won't always work perfectly - that's why we
roll dice to hit.

One exception: like most people I can get irritated with
people who measure everything in sight and suffer from
paralysis by analysis. But measuring isn't the only thing
that can slow the game down: other people spend ages on
deciding how to distribute fire. And it could equally go
the other way: if I'm being forced to guess by eye, I'm
going to spend longer doing so than if I could whip out a
tape measure.

More important to me is that I regard FT as a game about
being a starship commander, or squadron commander. As such,
measuring distances simply isn't part of the role. Captain
Kirk orders Sulu to open fire at 5,000 km range. He doesn't
push Sulu out of his seat and take over the firing controls
himself. If I want to play a game about estimating table
top distances and angles by eye, snooker or billiards will
do just fine.

	cheers,
	Hugh
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