Re: [GZG] FT:XD changes, part 1

>From: Hugh Fisher <laranzu@ozemail.com.au>

>* Turns in cinematic: half drive rounded UP or DOWN?
>In FT 2, it was rounded up so a ship with drive 3 could turn 2 
>points. In 2.5, it was rounded down so drive 3 could only turn 1. In 
>FT Lite, it's back to rounding up which I copied for FT:XD. So, do 
>you play round down or up?

Always have played round-down (with thrust 1 being the sole exception). 
I've never been a fan of going the other way, it's just way too easy of
a min-max to take the extra thrust point and get the extra
maneuverability.

>* Point defence
>In FT:XD I allowed ships with ADFCs to fire at fighter groups 
>loitering nearby and not actually attacking. In 1.1 I'm planning to 
>take this out. Will anyone notice?

I don't know.  On some level it does actually kind of bother me that
fighters can just loiter indefinitely once they've achieved control over
enemy fighters.  Particularly if you've got a situation where you've got
only bombers left, the carriers should at least have a vague prayer of
being able to shoot down the fighters so that their bombers won't get
slaughtered as soon as they launch.

>Scatterguns in FT:XD roll 3 PDS dice instead of 1D6 casualties as in 
>FB 2.5. (This gives a wider range of results and in particular allows 
>them to miss completely.) For 1.1 I'm planning to increase this to 
>4D6, as 3D6 reduce the average effect too much for a one-shot weapon.

I was the one who suggested it, although I also like d6 with a natural 1
being a clean miss too... but 4 PDS dice scales better against heavy
fighters.

>I'm also thinking about restoring point defence fire (both PDS and 
>scatterguns) against ships, but I'd like to see screens and armour 
>having some effect. It could be 5,6 = 1 hit against unprotected (no 
>re-rolls), 6 = 1 hit against screen or armour. Or 6 = 1 hit only if 
>the target currently has neither screens nor armour. Or just go back 
>to the original 6 = 1 hit?

6 for 1 hit is better, IMO.  If they've got screens, maybe require a
re-roll to get a beam die to hit.

>* Multi-stage missiles
>Doubling the mass for one extra stage seems right, but keeping on 
>doubling makes it really difficult to carry lots of long range 
>missiles Honor Harrington style. So I'm planning to make the first 
>extra stage double the mass, each extra stage beyond that just 
>doubles the points cost.

I'm better with just leaving it at one extra stage as a hard limit.  I'm
not a big fan of ultra-long range weapons and prefer keeping a few hard
limits on them.

>* Fighters
>Planning to drop the rule about fighters only moving half distance on 
>the launch turn. It's an unnecessary complication.

Is this in XD or is it in 2.5?

>Planning to add that fighters with a higher move can break off from 
>dogfights without opponents getting a free shot. This is mostly to 
>provide a reason for using the fast fighter type.

Obviously I suppose this one, but I also like having an actual cost
effect for fast and slow fighters with compounding advantages for faster
ones against slower ones.  But yeah, at the very least I think that fast
fighters should have a reason for being in there.

>* Ship fire phase: before or after fighters/missiles?

Should be after.

>* Graser-2 mass reduced to 8

>This one is tricky. I think the graser-2 is slightly overpriced at 
>mass 9. (Regardless of whether grasers re-roll or not - that's 
>another discussion.) But I've tried to keep FT:XD "compatible" with 
>FT 2.5 so people can mix and match as they please. Changing the G2 
>mass means actual changes to SSDs, not just "we don't play that rule."

Larger grasers might be a little oversized, yeah.

E
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