Re: FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: Movement system(s)? was: Re: [FT] Quiet in here, isn't it.

I'm in the vector camp - I believe its mostly the FB2 variant. I
actually
have a harder time making sense of the cinematic movement - but its
probably because I'm a physics teacher and vectors are something I talk
about nearly every day.

I generally get a game in once or twice a year, but I tend to buy ships
at
a faster rate than I can play them. I also tend to try and run too big
of
games because I want to use ALL my ships for a particular nationality.
Vector does tend to bog down a bit depending on how much time I have to
spend teaching the vector movement system. I do find that people pick it
up
after a couple of rounds. I just like it because I'm more of a hard
science
fiction fan, and I use it to run combats in my own roleplaying setting.

House Rules: I've got a set of house rules that I've been using for most
of
the last 10 years or so. I'll list them out:
1) Fighters follow vector movement - I never liked that fighters could
be
outrun by ships that built up to a high velocity. I don't make fighters
pre-plot movement, and they don't have facing so they can apply their
thrust in any direction. I generally give fighters a thrust of 12, but
they
rarely use that much due to the next house rule. I like fighters using
vector because it takes more skill to set up multiple attack runs so
fighters can't just dominate the battle. I also incorporated a few rules
ideas from the fighter beta rules from many years ago. The biggest one
is
that fighters can be attacked by beam weapons (but see house rule #2).

2) Evasion: Fighters and ships can spend thrust on evasive maneuvers
instead of changing course. Each point of evasion is equivalent to a
level
of shielding against beams (or -1 to the to-hit roll for pulse
torpedoes)
up to a maximum of 3 evasion points (so that only 6's hit on beams).
Evasion works better for fighters and smaller ships: each point of
evasion
costs thrust points equivalent to the mass of the ship / 25 (with a
minimum
cost of 2 thrust points). I find this house rule to be a great way to
make
small ships last longer in a big battle - they coast into the middle of
the
battle and use most of their thrust on evasion and make themselves much
less desirable targets because they're hard to hit. This does add a lot
of
tactical decision making - once they get in close they sometimes need
the
thrust to maneuver to line up better targets, but it puts them at more
risk. Fighters also usually use 6 points of thrust to get 3 evasion
points,
making it very difficult for a ships main beams to hit them (PDS ignore
evasion).

3) I've started dabbling with some changes to Salvo Missiles: instead of
rolling to see how many missiles are on target, I just use 6-distance
from
target. This way a close hit is rewarded with more missiles on target.
Even
though I use vector and its easier to predict future locations, the
penalty
for missing with half the missiles if you miss by more than 3" tends to
allow PDS's to handle the attack.

So...that turned out longer than I meant to. I'm just thrilled that
you're
thinking about an update. I've tried a couple of other systems, but
nothing
seems to hold my imagination like Full Thrust.

Randy Wolfmeyer

On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 11:59 PM, Zoe Brain <aebrain@webone.com.au>
wrote:

> On 21-Oct-15 9:28 AM, Bobby wrote:
>
>> I'm still the fuddy duddy I suppose, because I still play cinematic
>> movement. I ran a couple of games at a small local con a while back
and was
>> able to get stragglers involved in the game in no time at all. But
that's
>> not the main reason that I like cinematic movement. It helps me focus
on
>> the game more than vector movement.
>>
>
> Agreed. I went to the extent of manufacturing large quantities of
> handwavium to explain why the local gravitational gradient allows
cinematic
> movement within the ecliptic plane (and nowhere else). While it's
possible
> to use conventional Newtonian thrust - vector movement - anywhere, the
> thrust drive (related to the FTL drive) which gives greater
maneuverability
> can only be used in the ecliptic. This "channels" incoming attackers
into
> one plane, making defence possible.
>
> If you go vector, you really need to go 3D.
>
>