Seems you used the reply feature of your mailer, which (on purpose)
sends the message to me alone. Watch your To: line on your next post.
Don't worry, everyone does this at least once, and I don't mind
forwarding it.
James
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>From: Timothy Little [email removed]
Message-Id: [email removed]
Subject: 2300AD Ship Combat
To: [email removed]
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 93 11:36:34 EST
In-Reply-To: [email removed]; from "TML Admin" at Sep 2, 93 8:30 pm
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> In message 5946, Muir Macpherson [email removed] writes:
>
>>I think the biggest problem is that beam
>>weapons have such a short range. Considering that most military ships can
>>move 7 hexes in a turn this turns space combat into a "knife fight." It
>>also means that you can detect a hostile ship long before you can fire
>>on it.
>
> This may make for a strange game, but at least it's logically consistent
> with StutterWarp physics.
>
> Imagine tryig to hit a target from more than one Hex away, when that target
> is travelling FTL using stutterwarp. *long* before the light from your laser
> arrives in the same general vicinity, he'll have moved to a different
> location.
Not quite - the 2300AD combat rules seem to assume that the combats will be
played out inside a star system (where the stutterwarp speed drops below
light). The drive numbers work out to 20 Mm/s for each warp efficiency.
You would need a very light ship indeed to get to lightspeed (300 Mm/s).
I think they just wimped out because they didn't want to handle the
special considerations of active FTL combat. Just like they didn't want
to handle inertia, rotation or 3D. Oh well - it's their game, and if they
want to keep it simplified, that's their business.
> Missiles work by getting as close as they can to the target vehicle; they
> then *spray space* with as many laser beams as the missile can generate.
Not according to my reading of the rules - more seriously, you couldn't get
enough power. If you want an X in 10 chance of hitting something on the
order of 10s of metres across in a space 600,000,000 metres across, you'd
need a *lot* of lasers. A few MW just *isn't* enough.
> If the missile is lucky, *one* of those beams will actually intersect with
> the target, causing damage. That's what a to-hit roll is actually
> calculating; you're checking to see if one (out of many) laser beams
> actually passes through the target's current location.
I think it represents exactly what it seems like - the chance that your
targetting systems correctly predicted the exact path of the target and
hit it with a single shot. For beam weapons of such low power as found in
2300AD, it's better to put all the energy of a 1 minute turn into a single
shot, than to spray the target with negligible flashes.
[...]
> StutterWarping ships don't change their real-space vector in any way; they
> simply "teleport" a short distance away, at a rapid cycle rate, giving
> effective FTL travel. StutterWarp ships don't "accelerate" or "decellerate";
> they simply start and stop moving. StutterWarp movement doesn't have
> momentum or inertia; StutterWarp ships can move instantly and stop on a dime.
Yes, one of the best things about them, in my opinion. I just wish I had
more information on the restrictions (like why you can't have 2 drives,
only one of which is active at any given time, and more about discharging
and maximum range, and ...).
> (This is why Traveller players objected so strongly to their introduction
> into the TNE universe, btw).
>
> As for changing facings: This is where things start to get nebulous...
You don't say, ... :-)
> First of all, we beleive that this is currently done using real-space
> thrusters. So, it should still be possible to do "180's in space"; you just
> can't do them instantaneously.
If this is the case, why can't turning be done simultaneously with movement?
As it is, rotation takes away movement points. The only reason I can see
is that rotation is impossible while the stutterwarp drive is running.
This seems unlikely, for exactly the reason that stutterwarp doesn't change
real-space vectors.
> Secondly, since StutterWarp doesn't change real-space vectors, we believe
> that you should be able to warp in one direction while your ship is pointing
> in a completly different direction. Of course, you can restrict this by
> claiming that the StutterWarp field is aligned with the ships hull, so that
> you can only travel "forward". We're still arguing that one... :-)
Why can't the stutterwarp drive be mounted largely inside a freely-rotating
sphere? Then you rotate the sphere to warp in a different direction. This
should be faster than using gas thrusters (or whatever) to turn the whole
ship.
> We've played lots of Star Cruiser combat. The 2300 physics do lead to some
> common tactics; they just aren't like anything you've ever seen before... :-)
You should try working out tactics for stutterwarp in interstellar space.
*Real* FTL. :-)
(Talk about chasing shadows)
- - --
Tim Little
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