What the %$#*& IS agility anyway?

> Let me summarize how I see things:
>
> 1.  The MOST acceleration you can get is 6-g.  Period.
> 		(Rules)

What acceleration did the Apollo rockets achieve?

...

> 4.  Agility is a figure you use (somehow) to determine who has
> 		"initiative" in a space combat (I think?) or you use to
> 		deterrmine how easy it is for your ship to make `sudden'
> 		changes in speed or direction. (Rules I think)

The first of those is probably from "High Guard", in which Agility also acts
to hinder incoming fire from meson guns and particle accelerators. (The roll
to hit gets the target's Agility subtracted from it.)

> 5.  Agility is a number between 1 and 6, inclusive.  (Rules)

Between 0 and 6.  A ship might not have a manoeuvre drive, e.g. X-boats.

> One of the following two is (I believe) the proper way to interpret
> the rules.  Which one?

"High Guard" calculates a ship's agility by dividing its available power by its
tonnage.  "Available" means power which isn't needed for weapons, computers,
etc.  Which means that some ships can have 0 agility, even if they have working
manoeuvre drives.  A type S scout ship with a pair of lasers is one example.

There is also "emergency agility".  To work this out, divide the ship's power
by its mass.  Forget weapons, computers, etc. - this is an emergency, we want
to _move_!  However, the emergency agility may not exceed the ship's manoeuvre
rating.

That's the quick'n'dirty way.  Assuming the ship doesn't have a big enough
power supply to drive all weapons, computers and manoeuvre drives at once,
I allow calculations to be made on how much power is given to weapons, how
much to manoeuvre, etc.  The agility is then calculated as usual.  Allocating
power like this gives the engineer PC something to do.

> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Technical comment - related but not directly to the above...
>
> The effect of either of the above scenarios is the same.
> Space battles become `running battles' or set-piece battles.  Even
> at the maximum short-term 12-g limit of the second method, you could
> not actually maneuver fast enough to escape the guns behind you;
> those guns can rotate much more slowly and still track.

This is something I never liked.  All weapons are in turrets.  A ship ought
to be able to have fixed weapons.  Either the same weapons, but taking much
less space; or bigger weapons in the same space.  In particular, a fighter
ought to be able to take a big missile on a fixed mount, instead of those
small 50kg things in its turret.  That way, it might be able to do some harm
to a decent sized ship.

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]

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Adrian Hurt writes:
> This is something I never liked.  All weapons are in turrets.  A ship ought
> to be able to have fixed weapons.  Either the same weapons, but taking much
> less space; or bigger weapons in the same space.  In particular, a fighter
> ought to be able to take a big missile on a fixed mount, instead of those
> small 50kg things in its turret.  That way, it might be able to do some harm
> to a decent sized ship.

Sure you can, It is mentioned in the Solomani Alien Module that they often
use fixed mounts. I would think that a fixed mount would take the same
power, but require less room (maybe as low as 1/3), meigh appropriately less
and perhaps be 25% cheaper.
The limits as detailed in the module was that any craft may only have as many
hardpoints occupied by fixed mounts as it has computernumber.
They also gave each weapon a -2 to hit. (Mayday system)
Looking at the way spinal mounts is treated in MegaT a fixed mount would
have to be pointed at the target in order to be fired.
(And they would be practically useless for defensive fire)

An other method is to intstall a big bomb-bay (just cargo with a hatch in the
floor). This would have room for about one 1000kg bomb per 0.75 kl or something.
Just fly over the target and open the hatch...
Even a little ship could take a B52 sized cargo.
For really effective ground-attack, put laserguidance kits on the bombs...

- -bertil-
- --
Bertil K K Jonell @ Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
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All opinions and material above is the responsibility of the originator.
Submissions: [email removed], or [email removed]
Administrator: [email removed] (James Perkins)
The TML is made possible by facilities provided by Tektronix, Inc.