PBeM TCS

Steve Higginbotham writes:

>>I'd much prefer FFW for a couple of reasons.
>>
>>*   I think there'd be more people interested if there isn't a need for
>>a High Guard background.  And the more the merrier.  With fairly simple
>>combat
>>and build rules anybody could pick it up quickly.  Doing turns would
>>also be much much simpler.
>>
>>*   It's possible for TCS to bog down if all the players aren't really
>>dedicated.  The need for daily turns for combat is really a necessity
>>if you want the campaign game to progress at a decent rate.  With FFW
>>you should able able to play a complete campaign turn in a single PBM
>>turn (including all combat).
>>
>>*       I'm more interested in the "strategic" aspect and not the nitty
>>gritty of "tactical" High Guard combat.  General fleet movements,
>>co-ordination, capturing planets, not really knowing whats going
>>on..... I really want to play just for the feel of the "fog of war" or
>>blind system of play.  The simplest system we can place on top of that
>>and maintain a Traveller universe the better.

>I would prefer MT ship design.  I don't like the idea of being locked
>into GDW's picture of future warfare.  I'd like to try my own ideas
>out.  As t the strategic level, TCS is slightly more complex than FFW,
>but slightly more realistic, too.  The referee helps out a lot.

MT design is too complex.  Trying to reduce a MT design to something where
the ref could handle large combats would be a major pain.  If the players
discovered that the ref was ignoring avionics totally, they would no longer
include them.  MT combat is much too tactical to convert for an e-mail
medium.  Ideally, combat should be resolved in a single turn for each
player.  In reality, the players would submit move turns and the ref would
send back some details about the enemy fleet encountered (e.g. 4 large, 10
medium, 20 small and about 200 fighters).  The players would then submit combat
turns and the fights would be resolved.

My current ideas for combat involve a line of battle (list the ships in some
order) and a tactic selection (e.g. Retreat, ship on ship, suicide fighter
screen, ... [ any suggestions ]).  The player's tactics are compared and
damage / destruction is assigned to each side.  The player can also specify
a retreat threshold and upon taking that many casualties the player's fleet
attempts to retreat from the enguagement.

The combat will no long be HG or MT but it should be workable.  The ship
designs could still be HG (I wouldn't use MT) or even book 2.  I'd also
split the ships into 4 classes (Battleship/cruiser/destroyer/fighter).  The
split would probably be by volume not weaponary.  Also, if the TL is kept down,
you only have to worry about lasers/missiles/sand casters.  PA spinal mounts
can be treated specially targeting a single ship and rolling to damage/destroy
it.  Meson spinals (if they are available) would roll to destroy.  Fusion/plasma
weapons could be converted into extra beam batteries.


Any comments/suggestions?


>>Jim Baranski:
>>>Would it be more fun in an unknown setting where you had to explore
>>>and make contact?

>I can live with this, as I have played games like that.  More work for
>the referee, but life is like that.

Turning into a variation of empire!  I don't object to exploration and contact
but initially at least it might be better to have a relatively small cluster
of systems at low TL.  I think starting each player with a few systems which
has recently discovered jump drives might be workable.  The player would know
some general information about the neighbouring systems but not all the
specific details.  Of course, all sides would think that all the others are
child murdering commie scum ;-}






        						Pauli

Paul Dale                       | [email removed]
Department of Computer Science  | [phone removed]
University of Queensland        |
Australia, 4072                 | The virus has infected my signature,
                                |     copy it to yours too.