Archive through October 10, 2004
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
New Rules:
3-D SFB Proposals:
Archive through October 10, 2004
if it's that easy, the rest is standard 2-d firing arc/shield facing stuff.
John, yes, if you are willing to live with the fact that a 360 degree phaser that is described as being mounted on the top of the hull is able to shoot through the ship at things below it.
That can be dealt with by adding a top/bottom attribute.
That will create some blindspots that don't exist in the 2d game, but the alternative is to redesign everything and that that point Ken's proposal would be the way to go.
If I'm flying in 3-D, I should be able to roll the ship to get the weapons on the other side of the hull in arc without turning 'round.
Likewise, I should be able to exploit gaps in firing arcs (like coming at a Fed TC from "above" to avoid the 360 phasers)...and the Fed should be able to attempt to roll ship to get those mounts in arc as well.
Insofar as re-designing everything, I actually tried for the smallest impact change set to implement 3-D that would still actually be SFB.
If I get bored and stuck in an airport, I'll extrapolate out a 32 impulse movement grid for this, since using the AV:T thrust chart as an ersatz impulse grid results in individual ships moving more than 1 hex per impulse (Which is less of a problem than it seems...)
Dlang,
If 'mark the distance on a piece of paper and move that paper down to the ruler and read off the distance' then:
1. the concept will only work for ranges where you have a big enough piece of paper.
2. If you want to run a 3 map scenario, forget it.
3. True distance from point to point in regular SFB is hex based and is approximated by the hexes, not true measured distance (cartesian). By adding true measure distances only in the Z axis, you are in fact creating a bias. Disfavoring altitudinal movement because for each moved up or down at any angle other than 0 or 180 degrees, you are getting only a fraction of a hex range difference; where in normal hex movement off the hex row, you 4 times out of 6 get one full hex range (against a non moving target) difference with each move.
Lastly, KB posted some pdf's above. The display completely blank on my system. Is there some other item which describes the attack vectors?
Ken,
It is true that my simple 3D rules do not allow rolling maneuvers, true 3D weapons arcs, top and bottom shields, etc. But if you add any of the things discussed to make a better 3D you will have to adjust the BPV's, and besides, it will not longer really be SFB.
Just try my simple rules. It requires no special skills or tables. And no whoole cloth change to already established SFB rules. Only a mental understanding of 3D tactics.
Mark, IIRC the AV slant distance chart works to well beyond the range of your weapons (I think it works out to range 60 or so when weapons max out at about half that). go ahead and run a 10 map scenario, by the time you care about the exact range you will be able to calculate it.
yes this does give the vertical distance a little of a disadvantage as the horizontal 'distance' is roing to be slightly inflated unless it's directly along a hexgrain. but this slight error is the type of thing you have to deal with if you use a hex grid horizontaly and straight altitude verticaly.
for attack vector info take a look at www.adastragames.com they have several items available for download
Once upon a long, long time ago, I was playing around with the math required to calculate 3D movement, etc. Here's a fun little thing I discovered:
Let's assume that your ship can only rotate on one of its three axis (X, Y, Z) at a time, and can only move forward along the X-axis. (It's Warp Drive ... vector math doesn't apply.)
The X-axis runs thru the ship front-to-back, and allows the ship to roll.
The Y-axis runs thru the ship side-to-side and allows the ship to pitch up or down.
The Z-axis runs thru the ship top-to-bottom and allows the ship to yaw left or right.
Now, take a pen or some such to represent your ship. Holding it by the sides, thru the Y-axis, pitch the nose up about forty-five degrees. Next, hold it by the top and bottom, thru the Z-axis, and yaw the ship ninety degrees to the right.
It does NOT end up facing ninety right / forty-five up .... it ends up facing ninety right / zero up and rolled over forty-five degrees to the right.
Fun, isn't it.
3D is simple if you don't allow the ship to roll or pitch its nose up/down. I call this "Battle Blimps Over Titan". 
I haven't really read into Ken's or Mark's rules, but I presume they found a way around this. Or simply choose to ignore it.
Garth L. Getgen
Garth,
My rules do not allow roll at all since it would drastically change BPVs of any ships with primarily left/right weapons. And my rules have one overriding concept: If it affects BPV, dont do it.
Mark: The rulers I use go out to 90 ticks. Barring a phaser-IV, nobody's going to bother measuring for ranges greater than about 30 hexes, which is easy.
You are quite correct about the difference in fidelity on horizontal versus vertical distances due to the hex grain. I've had this discussion a few times; most of the "3-D hex grain" solutions (similar or more refined than the one you provide) bug me on a visualization level.
A better algorithmic approximation for the pythagorean theorem is greater + smaller/3, rounded down. The drawback is that most people can divide by 2 more easily than they can divide by three. On the other hand, most people can use the ruler trick and get the range and "know" it's right, which for folks who aren't comfortable with math, is a good thing.
I will admit that I came to 3-D SFB from the perspective of having done a playable and accurate 3-D game, so my baseline is "How do we use the 3-D system I already have with SFB, while making the minimum changes to SFB to make it work with the true 3-D system."
This is a markedly different starting point from yours. I'm trying to take two systems that are known to work and merge them, rather than try to extend one system to approximate facets of the other.
For more info on what I've got, go to:
http://www.adastragames.com/downloads.html
and browse through the flyers. The SFB firing arcs for Klingon D7 and Fed CA aren't listed there, but if the other stuff pulls up, I can send it to you.
They have been backsaved for Acrobat 5. They're also fairly large files.
Ken,
Thanks. It looks like there is quite a bit here so I'll check into it this weekend (I have not enought time to check today).
I would, however, like to point out that range 35 is a very important range for guidance of seeking weapons and lock-ons. This range can be exceeded (though rarely) on a normal 2D map, but is much more easily on a 3D map of 42x30x30 hexes; which from corner to corner is about 59 hexes.
Mark, seeking weapons in AV are handled in an incredibly different way. I don't know if Ken was planning to keep the AV balistics options (I think he was, but there are enough differences that it's hard to say)
David Lang
Ken,
I looked briefly at the Klingon/Federation diagrams and discovered a seeming inconsistancy. This is hard for me to explain because I dont yet know the terminology, but I'll try.
The top view shows the 60 degree, 6-section ring splitting the outer 30 degree, 12-section ring directly in the middle of the left and right sections directly 90 degrees to the left or right. However, on the left and right views, you shoe the top 6-section ring as 3 sections with 2 additional sliver sections, but they do not line up right. For it to be the same spherical sectioning as the top view, the left and right views should show only two 60 degree sections with their respective border directly above the center of the next ring down.
Am I missing something?
there are two basic firing arc diagrams.
the polar diagrams that show the top-down view (the star indicates the top of the ship, the anchor shows the bottom of the ship) with one space in the center surrounded by 6 spaces surrounded by 12 spaces surrounded by 12 spaces (the equator of a sphere)
the side views have a marker in the center to show how the diagram is centered (triangle for the nose <less-then and greater-then for the left and right wings and a half circle to show the tail) the firing arcs level with the ship are the 6 spaces in the center, the 6 spaces above and below that are the firing arcs centered verticaly on the 30 degree angle, the 6 spaces above and below that are centered on the 60 degree angle and the one space obove and blow that are the arcs centered straight up and down.
the game manual has a picture of a sphere sliced up to show how it all works that makes all of this VERY clear, but I hope this helps.
David,
Actually no, it doesn't help. From the top view with the star in the center, I see the left and right icons to the left and right. When you look at this diagram, the 6 spaces has one space centered directly forward, and one centered directly aft. This means that there are no arcs in the 6 space ring that center directly port and directly starbord. However, on the side views, it shows a space in the 6 space ring that IS directly centered on port or starboard. These cannot be the same arcs in spherical coordinates. The side view shows boundaries on the 6-section ring at 0, 60 and 120 degrees from dead center, where the top view shows boundaries at 30 and 90 degrees from dead center.
Mark - what's confusing you is insufficient info, and some rounding errors on the grids. I see what you're talking about, and the short answer is:
In any ambiguous case, go in favor of the attacker. This is a meta rule for the entire game.
This is not a perfect polar coordinate system -- it's a polar coordinate system munged to 30 degree solid angles and quaternions. There are rounding errors in there in the name of simplicity and ease of play.
An example:
Your ship's nose is facing A/B (the hex corner between A and B). Your port side marker is facing F. You're level with the map (so, technically, A/B(+++) is your orientation).
Now, there is a spine two windows "above" your nose, and there's a window two windows above your portside marker.
If you shoot a bearing to a target, and it shows up on a spine, the attacker chooses which of the two windows the target is visible through. In the case of a lone 60 degree window (say one 2 above the nose) facing a hex spine, the attacker still gets to fire, due to this rule.
For incoming fire, we count shield boundaries by "Is it 1 or 0 away from the nose, port, starboard....etc" firing arcs. So any damage coming in one window away from top or bottom is on the #3 or #5 shield respectively. Any damage coming in one window away from the nose is on the #1, and so on.
Ken,
Thats exactly what I am talking about. On the top down view, there is one window centered directly to the left in the outer ring. Centered directly above that is a single window. Centered directly above that is a window boundary not a single window. This window boundary directly above the center of the L window does not exist on the side view. So the top view shows the 6 windows boundaries in positions 30 degrees rotated from the side view. There is not a one to one correlation.
Lets say you have a weapon that can ONLY fire in the forward-half high-angle windows. 3 windows total (180 degrees) on the 6 window ring when viewed from the top view. This is impossible to show on the side view without reducing the arc to 120 degrees or expanding it to 240 degrees because the boundaries are not the same.
Mark, but you wouldn't need to show it on the side view, if you have it on the front view you will be able to tell what happens.
as your ship is turning, pitching, and rolling it will be ambiguous in a few points and that's where Ken's 'resolve in favor of the attacker' rule comes into play.
Ken get someone to make an animation explaining how the 3D thing works instead of just relying on the poster you had made. Visual people will find it easier to understand.
Mark: You are indeed correct (and we more or less treat it as the 4 window arc in those cases). The alternative is to do 12 windows of 15 degrees by 30 degrees, which is even uglier when mapped to other problems.
The logic behind the "round in favor of the attacker" is this:
1) It's easier to play out. Fewer special cases and rules consistency is good.
2) In a modeling sense, we're assuming that the ship has rolled/pitched/skedaddled at a finer resolution than 30 degrees to just get that weapon into arc on the edge.
In practice, it's seldom a problem. The only really weird case is when you're facing 30 degrees off and have a belly or top mount, when every single arc is offset by 30 degrees.
Les: An animation is on the wish list. It is covered in more detail in the rulebook, and people who actually play the game from the rules seem to grasp it just fine.
Ken: It seems to me that the problem is easily solved by using the diagram you have now as the front view, and using a diagram where the 6 windows ring is adjusted for the correct perspective for the side view. This removes all ambiguities, and creates a one to one correlation between the three views. This seems to be the solution, unless there are some other formulas in the game which have been specifically constructed to use the off-angle windows for side facing weapons.
Mark: For the most part, weapons tend to bear (and overlap) through the 0 degree windows on the ship. Top and bottom are reserved for radiator surfaces...and while the AVID windows are rigid, firing arc windows are...stretchy.
Beyond that, this discussion should really shift back to 3-D SFB -- rules questions and discussions of how they work for AV:T (which is where the 3-D solution comes from) should be done on my BBS (http://www.adastragames.com/discus.html), so that I can find the answers when it comes time to sort out errata.
Ken: I understand. As for 3D SFBAVID hybrid, in my opinion, the firing arcs should always be as rigidly defined as the normal SFB rules.
Mark: With the exception of the "wiggle factor" in the 60 degree eings, the arcs are defined with comparable (or greater) rigidity with this system.
So what is the news on this? Will I have a chance to take a look at the 3-D Fed TCA and Klink D7TC?
Anyhow, I always imagined the Fed's 360 phaser as one bank tied to multiple phaser turrets, that way it could bypass the ship's hull and shoot the other guy.
Just my 0.02 cents.
Merlin