PT, Blue Shift

[GamerDude]

using weapons that could fire to the rear to shoot at a tailing enemy fighter - and was solidly told I was basically an idiot for considering it.

I hope you don't think that was what I was saying - I was trying to explain why, though it makes perfect sense in terms of technology, it is not always useful to translate that into a game...

Well.. first a piece of humble pie... I *thought* I had read everything on "page 2" of the thread turns out I missed some, and it wasn't those posts that were making me feel the way I did.

I don't want to discourage the "dogfight", but saw adding a logical "discouragement" to the tailing fighter. I'm talking a total of no more than a -1 (very rare situations a -2) to attack because the tailing fighter is having to deal with counter measures. What we came up with doesn't really damage the tailing fighter just harass him.

Think of it as space-appropriate countermeasures that add a little "flack" to a in the situation of one fighter tailing another. Just something else the tailing fighter has to deal with... maybe it is just the gun shooting all those pellets that serve as a screen against targeting and sensors, or something that makes the tailing pilot a little more cautious as he bears down on his hapless victim.

We completely get that the game is supposed to be like StarWars for feel etc. If I want a very detailed game that deals with Newtonian physics and varying relative 'altitudes' I'd still be playing SITS.
All we were/are trying to make the dogfights a little more 'interesting' for both the target and the tailing fighter.

Hopefully I'm making more sense.

 

[AdrianH]

My thoughts on Newtonian / B5 / BSG movement:

I've seen vector movement done in two games, both related to Traveller. You have a marker which shows the ship's velocity, placed where it will be if it continues on its current course and speed. When the ship turns and moves, you measure from that marker to get the change in velocity. The ship's new velocity is measured from its starting point to this new measured point; the ship and velocity marker are then moved to reflect the new position and velocity. It works well enough for a ship which only makes one move and one turn in a game round, but would get very messy if a fighter is performing all sorts of manoeuvres in one round. That's probably the game reason why Star Wars style movement will be used.

For fluff, try this. A fighter which cuts its thrust so it can drift along while pivoting to face another direction is going in a straight line at constant speed, which is generally not a good idea. Thus although B5's Starfuries can do this, they're more often seen going forwards. However, it may be worthwhile if you're not under immediate attack and can pivot to fire at a target of opportunity.

Back to the game, then: perhaps allow a special action to drift and pivot. The fighter can turn to face whichever direction you like, but it won't be taking any evasive action so any attacks made against it get a bonus. Perhaps also reduce the fighter's speed next round as it's cancelling out some of its forward momentum by spinning round and accelerating in another direction.

As for Star Wars, there was a fighter game called Star Warriors which depicted fighter combat. You could choose out of a list of manoeuvres, one of which was "half loop". For Star Wars movement that's exactly what it was, but the game effect would be the same as a drift and pivot - the fighter flips round to face the other way. Not only did it make the fighter easier to hit, it also imposed a penalty on the fighter's own attack, perhaps because if you're pulling that tight a turn then it's harder to line up your own shot.

 

[GamerDude]

While I love playing Space combat games with true/Newtonian physics at the core (was a Physics/chem/Math geek in HS) I also see how it can slow down a game. The math, angles etc. I mean in the USA we rank *what* in math world wide? (found it at http://ateacheronteaching.blogspot.com/2011/12/u-s-education-by-numbers.html :"for fifteen-year-olds the U. S. is 17th in science knowledge and 25th for math, out of 65 nations.") Trust me if it doesn't involve a game controller or stellar thumb skills in texting the U.S. is a disaster.

A game that puts the math and thinking required for Newtonian Physics front and center? Not going to do very well. (Even if you let them use a calculator). I'm not even going to get into the fact what attention span many people had after growing up with cable TV, MTV, game consoles etc being destroyed by Facebook and Twitter.

To me, with the game as written supposed to be basically "jet combat fighters fighting in outerspace" (not a bad thing) doing things against that model could overly complicate things.

*COULD* I'm not sure if it would.

 

[Greg Smith]

Having played Power Projection, which has a relatively easy way of figuring out Newtonian motion, I will say that most players spend more time working out how to move their ships than fighting the enemy. Or after the first game, learn that not turning is the easiest thing to do.

Keeping the movement simple allow players to concentrate on combat and tactics and play the game.

 

[rcbecker1]

Matt are you wanting us to put our play test results in here or should we still email them to you?


Had fun teaching the rules and dicussing the differences in ships abilities, weapon abilities and the possabilities of options vs ship types. Next week we will go at each other seeing the results of these choices.
Ray

 

[MongooseMatt]

Please email them to me.

 

[rcbecker1]

Hey Matt are you doing an update for the test rules so we can move on or are you waiting?

 

[MongooseMatt]

I'm waiting

 

[rcbecker1]

I'm waiting

Ok I know how busy you are.
Ray

 

[Mr Evil]

you know for rear firing weapons in theory even in a high tek world they would not be focused more like a shotgun approach at short range, or how about, ejecting fuel cells set to detonate to give the enemy the reason for windscreen wipers