Re: FT3 DEVELOPMENT QUESTION: FTL

I think the issue with the FTL system is that it is more intertwined
into
campaign play than one-off play. One-off play does not encourage any use
of
FTL unless dictated by the scenario. By far the vast majority of the
players I've met/seen/played fight their ships Klingon style: "to the
last
hull box, and beyond! Raaaaaaahh!!!!!", in whatever starship rules set
they
are using (FT, SFB, SMITE, X-Wing, Starmada, Attack Vector, etc).
Further
muddying the waters, to my knowledge, most of these games don't even
encourage the option of fleeing the battlefield, reinforcing the Klingon
Mentality of starship combat. And finally when there is an FTL system on
a
ship, most people see it as a 'free' critical hit, especially if they
are
not planning on leaving the battle any time soon ("Whew! Only lost FTL,
nothing important."). Which makes the FTL drive, something that is
supposed
to propel ships between the *stars*, a pretty damned fragile system. 
:-D

I think the real question may be how do we change player perceptions
about
starship combat and break them from the Klingon paradigm?

Of late again I have been (on a scenario by scenario basis) starting to
enforce a rule that if a ship has been reduced to it's last hull row, it
must attempt to break off from the engagement, and not engage the enemy
unless shot at first in a given turn. I also worked up a scenario where
a
fleet of freighters is attempting to flee from a mining station and have
to
get to the jump limit before the marauding enemy force closes to strip
them
from the sky. This gave the freighter player some incentive to not lose
the
FTL drives on (at least) those ships. This rule was not meant to replace
the 'strike the colors' optional rule. Though one player actually
voluntarily used that in a game I played earlier this week when he found
his ship 1 hull box from the last row, half his internal systems down
(bad,
bad threshold check rolls!), surrounded by four enemy ships, and the
rest
of his task force on the far end of the width of the table, unable to
help
(or get around to helping for at least two more turns). As we were
calling
the came over at that point, he announced that his ship was
surrendering. A
move I don't often see in players (again, because of that Klingon
fighting
style mentality).

As for folding the FTL system into the Core Systems, meh, I guess?
Personally I never use the Core Systems as written. I have always felt
they
were too catastrophic to the ships when hit. Moving the FTL to the Core
Systems does nothing to change it's game effect, or lack thereof, if
hit.
As for the Core Systems themselves, I had long ago adopted others (when
I
played them) that a friend of mine had come up with (and I had once
proposed for the FB/FT3 runs) that affect the ship, but are not so
imminently catastrophic to it (such as communications down, which meant
the
ship so affected had to plot out one turn in advance). (I always felt
command bridge hits were silly, because seriously, what self-respecting
starship is *not* going to have an auxiliary or secondary bridge?!?  :-D
).

Mk

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 6:39 AM, Jon Tuffley <jon@gzg.com> wrote:

>
> On 29 Oct 2015, at 09:54, Roger Bell_West <roger@firedrake.org> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 02:03:06PM +1100, Hugh Fisher wrote:
> >> I can imagine the presence or absence of FTL making a difference in
> >> campaigns, but for the typical tabletop battle it's just everyone
> losing 10%
> >> of their mass.
> >
> > While I deplore the stand-up "keep fighting until one side is
> > eliminated" battle, I have to admit that it's what a lot of people
> > like to play. In that case FTL effectively just makes the ship
> > construction system slightly more complex without game effect.
> >
> > While I like the battleship/battlerider question, it's rarely come
up
> > in actual play.
> >
> > R
> >
>
> Roger and Hugh, you both make very valid points here, and I'd be
> interested in everyone else's opinions on it too.
>
> It is entirely true that FTL has no game effect in the majority of
> situations - I don't know how many players have ever used the "arrival
out
> of FTL" rules in a game….anyone here? The only other real effect
that you
> get in game terms by having FTL drives as a separate ship system is
that
> loss of them will strand the damaged ship in-system by making escape
to FTL
> impossible, but again that is quite a minor factor and more of use in
> campaign terms than a one-off game.
>
> As a completely off-the-cuff suggestion, that I haven't thought
through at
> all, how about doing away with the FTL drive as a "paid for" system
and
> making it into a fourth Core System alongside the Command (Bridge),
Life
> Support and Power Core icons?
>
> Feel free to discuss the ramifications of this, or indeed any other
ideas
> on the matter…….
>
> Jon (GZG)
>