Here is an alternate impulse chart.

(apologies for the super-wide post)

 
     32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1 
 1    1  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 2    2  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 3    3  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 4    4  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 5    5  4  4  4  4  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 6    6  5  5  5  5  4  4  4  4  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  3  2  2  2  2  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 7    7  6  6  6  6  5  5  5  5  4  4  4  4  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
 8    8  7  7  7  7  6  6  6  6  5  5  5  5  4  4  4  4  3  3  3  3  2  2  2  2  1  1  1  1  -  -  - 
 9    9  8  8  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
10   10  9  9  8  8  7  7  7  7  6  6  6  6  5  5  5  5  4  4  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
11   11 10 10  9  9  8  8  8  8  7  7  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
12   12 11 11 10 10  9  9  9  9  8  8  7  7  6  6  6  6  5  5  4  4  3  3  3  3  2  2  -  -  -  -  - 
13   13 12 12 11 11 10 10  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
14   14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10  9  9  8  8  7  7  7  7  6  6  5  5  4  4  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
15   15 14 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10  9  9  8  8  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
16   16 15 15 14 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10  9  9  8  8  7  7  6  6  5  5  4  4  3  3  2  2  1  1  - 
17   17 16  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
18   18 17 16 15 15 14 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10 10  9  9  8  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
19   19 18 17 16 16 15 15 14 14 13  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
20   20 19 18 17 17 16 16 15 15 14 13 12 12 11 11 10 10  9  8  7  7  6  6  5  5  4  -  -  -  -  -  - 
21   21 20 19 18 18 17  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
22   22 21 20 19 19 18 17 16 16 15 14 13 13 12 12 11 11 10  9  8  8  7  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
23   23 22 21 20 20 19 18 17 17 16 15 14 14 13  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
24   24 23 22 21 21 20 19 18 18 17 16 15 15 14 13 12 12 11 10  9  9  8  7  6  6  5  4  3  3  2  -  - 
25   25 24 23 22  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
26   26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 19 18 17 16 16 15 14 13 13 12 11 10  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
27   27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 20 19 18 17  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
28   28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 14 13 12 11 10  9  8  7  7  6  5  4  -  -  -  - 
29   29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
30   30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 15 14 13 12 11 10  9  8  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
31   31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
32   32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1 

 
 
impulse   1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 
speed    32 16 24  8 28 12 20  4 30 14 22  6 26 10 18  2 31 15 23  7 27 11 19  3 29 13 21  5 25  9 17  1 

By Tos Crawford (Tos) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 04:10 pm: Edit

Cute. Doomed, but cute.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 04:33 pm: Edit

I wouldn't allow it in tournament play but it could go into stellar shadows. Or just be left here on the web site without being deleted.

By Clell Flint (Clell) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 07:00 pm: Edit

I like it. I'm pretty sure I could get most people to use it in casual games.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 07:19 pm: Edit

A lot of nifty speed-change tricks go out of the window. In particular, it stops the trick of changing speed by 1 to get 2 moves in a row. This will hurt fighters.

It also has odd effects on drones. Recall that it's easier to outmaneuver a drone if you move on the same impulses. That will happen more now, esp for slower (8 & 12) drones. Conversely, you'll have more R2-R0 jumps, so it may be a wash.

Other than that, cool.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 09:55 pm: Edit

It would be much easier to read if you used the board's tablenb command (or even the table command) to make sure it all lines up regardless of the font.

From a first look at it, I'd guess it makes going faster an even bigger advantage, especially early in the turn.

The interaction with speed changes and turn modes is going to be odd. I can go speed 13 for 15 impulses and then change to speed 3 and still get to move 3 more hexes (and turn 3 more times--assuming an F or better turn mode).

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Monday, October 28, 2002 - 11:59 pm: Edit

The lack of equilateral balance is what sinks the chart.

With all of speed 3's movements jammed in the second half of the chart, it's movement is relly skewed.

Speed 3 only moves once more than speed-6 in the latter half of the turn and is the same as speed-4.

What would benefit the chart a lot would be some movement balance. Sure there would be a few rare cases of a slow-speed overtaking a faster speed, but they'd be rare rather than reasonably common.

That'd be good enough.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 12:59 am: Edit

I was thinking that you might copy the Official chart for the speeds under ten. Might that fix some of the problems? I guess it would ruin the Pocket version.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 05:40 am: Edit

Actually, i think this could be considerbly improved by changing around the points where the really slow units move. I'd suggest an ateration to some of the impulses in the pocket version something like as follows:-

Impulse 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32

was 8 4 6 2 7 3 5 1
new 4 7 2 5 8 1 6 3

now, 1 moves on impulse 24 (why not?)
2 moves on 12,24
3 moves on 12,24,32
4 moves on 4,12,24,32
5 moves on 4,12,16,24,32
6 moves on 4,12,16,24,28,32
7 moves on 4,12,16,20,24,28,32
8 moves every 4 impulses

This is still not perfect, but it's quite close to evening up movement during the turn. There would be some clever ideas with turn modes, but not so much manipulation of the speed chart as there is currently.

beyond speed 8, there really is no problem - the moves are close enough together that when you do miss your pulse, you get a move soon after.

If you *must* have everyone moving impulse 32, then you can still improve along these lines by fiddling the slow movement, but inevitably, there is a longer gap before slow movement occurs at the beginning of the turn. However, I do note that the published speed chart has that anyway.

By Daniel G. Knipfer (Dgknipfer) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 08:59 am: Edit

Why? It creates as many problems (more, in my opinion) as it solves.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 09:23 am: Edit

I'm still not entirely clear on what it solves myself. The current impulse chart is pretty straight-forward, and the propotional movement it yields is one of the great basic strengths of SFB. If I didn't want that, I'd go play Battletech or something

By Richard K. Glover (Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 10:08 am: Edit

Alex;

What is solves is the possibility of a speed 21 ship getting rear-ended by a speed 20 drone launched a hex behind it on the 'right' impulse.

F°
DANGER DANGER Computer store ahead...hide wallet.

By John Trauger (Vorlonagent) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 11:37 am: Edit

When speed 3 moves entirely during the second half of the turn, there's a problem.

By Richard K. Glover (Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 11:47 am: Edit

Move the impulse 24 speed 3 movement to impulse 8.


I don't think there are any other speeds that are so annoying as speed 3 on this chart.

By David Slatter (Davidas) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 12:28 pm: Edit

How often do ppl go speed 3 anyway?

By Ethan Dawe (Wild_Guesser) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 12:32 pm: Edit

David: People go speed 3 when speed 1 is too slow and 4 is too fast or uses too much power :-)

By Richard K. Glover (Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 12:44 pm: Edit

Crippled shuttles go speed 3 all the time.


F°
Since I've used up my sick leave, I'm calling in dead.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 01:11 pm: Edit

Times to use speed Three:

Suiside Shuttle timing (which mostly goes out the window with this chart).

Wild Weasle protected Movement.

Tractor Pseudo Speeds.

Movement through Asteroids or terrain.

Base Rotation.

Crippled Shuttles.(Edit: Oh ya Richard said that already.)

Warp Tacs.

I think theres a few more but I would have to double check the rules and I haven't the time just now.

By Dave Morse (Dcm) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 04:41 pm: Edit

Since I'm a newb, I don't understand many of the observations LK is making. Why would anyone launch a SS at speed 3 when you could go with speed 6?

For base rotation, I do understand you, LK. Its abhorrent to have a BATS on the klingon frontier with its #1 and #4 shield facing the enemy 50% of the time, instead of 34%. I could see a special rules patch that would make them rotate on impulese 11, 22, and 32. Their hooks into the impulse chart could be removed. That way each of their faces spends about the same amount of time exposed to each direction.

I thought warp tacs were gained as if travelling at speed 4. If they're gained at speed 3, they could be patched ala base rotation.

As RKG observed, speed 3 is the worst speed. Even then, the difference between the optional and offical impulse chart is only 5 impulses, and both have a early turn movement "dry spell" of at least 10 impulses. Going speed 3 loses you the initiative on any impulse chart...

Ships travelling under a weasel wanting a hex of movement early in the turn should plot a 4/2 split. It costs 3 movement points, and lets them move on impulses 8, 16, and 32.

By Ethan Dawe (Wild_Guesser) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 05:06 pm: Edit

Dave Morse said: "I don't understand many of the observations LK is making. Why would anyone launch a SS at speed 3 when you could go with speed 6?"

Looking at the official Impulse chart you can see that there are impulses when Speed 3 will move that differ from Speed 6. If your oponent was 1 hex away and speed 3 moved on the next impulse and not speed 6, you would want to launch SS at speed 3 so that it would hit sooner.

By Dave Morse (Dcm) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 05:20 pm: Edit

Ah, thanks for explaining that. Although there actually are not any impulses where speed 3 moves but speed 6 does not. But I see what you mean, in these wierd situations, speed 4 or speed 5 suicide shuttles would be temporarily "faster" than a speed 6 shuttle.

I guess there are twisted souls out there who actually like this. For me its like scraping fingernails on a chalkboard. One man's feature is another man's bug. :P

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 08:59 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

Suiside Shuttle timing

---

By David Kass (Dkass) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 09:05 pm: Edit

A SS might be launched at speed 3 to maybe avoid exploding a mine...

Note that speed 5 has much the same problem as speed 3 (4 of the 5 moves are impulse 16 and later). And it is used regularly for SS's.

I suspect that speed 3 (and 5 and 7) will become more common in the new chart since a ship can play games with its turn mode...

By Dave Morse (Dcm) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 09:31 pm: Edit

Here's a version of the table suitable for printing. I worked hard on it only to find out that mozilla doesn't fully implement the html 4.01 spec wrt tables. :P
impulse.html

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 - 09:37 pm: Edit

Personnally I don't see the big deal.

You're running away from a ship which launches speed 8 drones, and you are going at Speed 10 and you are being followed at R1 by a drone user.

He launches On Imp 9 and you are struck on Imp 10 without, any way, of out manouvering it even though you are going faster.


Okay SO WHAT!?!

Is the game a wash-out because letting a seeking weapon user ( even SS users ) into R1 becomes an easy hit for slow drones?...you still have Phasers and Tractors.

What about other effects?
To Get to R1 of you the other ship must be travelling at least at speed 10.
If a little of the momentum of the launch vessel were to be put into the drone or shuttle...then logically, it could hit targets that are moving faster than it if it hit in the first few impulses.

And what's such the big deal about spending a few points of Reserve Warp, to JUMP UP to speed 12 where you'll move every impulse the speed 8 drones and speed 6 SS do?


.


Now here's an idea.
What about letting vessels take up an impromptu point of movement in some way, for one impulse, that lets you move on that impulse for some penalty.

Let's see...
C_.___You can choose to move before a seeking weapon (and out-side of the regular impulse chart) if it is at R1 of you by picking one Impulse later in the turn on which you will not move and accepting a Turn Mode of one category higher for the rest of the turn ( and extending for at least 16 impulses after the optional movement change).
The impromtu move can only be made once in a turn.


Now wouldn't that solve the problem without
introducing a new chart!?!