Fair points.

Now we can always introduce wandwavium to make it work, but we shouldn't do so to the extent of demolishing realistic fun. I suppose a guiding principle in this case would be adding a touch of Newton to a non-Newtonian world.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Sunday, November 01, 2009 - 07:21 pm: Edit

Oh, HELL no.

No way are you putting real science in my insane proposal, now.

Go play Attack Vector and get it out of your system.

By Jonathan Jordan (Arcturusv) on Sunday, November 01, 2009 - 07:28 pm: Edit

I'm with ya Mike. Why muck up my Sci-fi ship killing fun. I like my "There's no way that current physics could make this happen but it sure is fun" stuff.

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Sunday, November 01, 2009 - 07:36 pm: Edit

I will say the notion of slower reaction time for faster moving ships because of time dilation is intriguing- even if I did bring it up myself. But I think it would yield a game unlike any we've seen before...
regards
Stacy

By Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Sunday, November 01, 2009 - 08:13 pm: Edit

Oh you crazy speculative science people... nobody's talking about doing this in 3D.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Monday, November 02, 2009 - 10:34 am: Edit

Brodie: The game that became Attack Vector started out as a proposal to put vector movement into SFB as an optional rule. In 2-D.

Mike's played (and is a fan of) Attack Vector.

If you want to mix and match 'Newtonian' and 'non-Newtonian' movement in the same game (and put an SFB spin on them...), check out Squadron Strike, which is also 3-D.

A lot of SFB playing folks tried it at Co5N and liked it a lot.

By Marcus J. Giegerich (Marcusg) on Monday, November 02, 2009 - 10:40 am: Edit

Squadron Strike movement is actually pretty cool and it's not as difficult to understand as I thought it would be. Aside from the difficulty in slowing your ship down, the movement rules feel far more realistic than SFB movement.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Monday, November 02, 2009 - 04:11 pm: Edit

How does GDW's Mayday (Traveller)compare to current vetor systems?

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Monday, November 02, 2009 - 10:52 pm: Edit

Shawn: They're fairly similar. Modern vector movement systems cover both displacement (d=1/2*a*t^2) and velocity (v=a*t). A few also track fuel.

Your vector is represented by your ship marker and a drift marker showing where your ship will be if you do nothing; your thrust may displace the marker if you thrust in a straight line, without pivoting. Your thrust will adjust your drift marker after movement for accumulated velocity change.

AV:T does vectors with segmented movement, where one turn is 8 segments long, and has thrust accumulate over time with segmented movement.

AV:T's thrust model also covers fuel tracking, total delta v and acceleration limits rising as your fuel tanks get emptier...but AV:T's thrust model can also be described as being a half lap past the bend marked 'obsessive'. *grin*

Squadron Strike uses a full turn simultaneous pre-plot for thrust, and is geared around playing *fast* in every aspect that can be sped up. Non-Newtonian movement is built to be 'on the map' compatible with vector movement. (Squadron Strike movement modes are named after the number of Newton's Laws being obeyed.)

Attack Vector is more like SFB; the segmented movement puts the decision making firmly in the camp of "Do I fire? What do I give up by firing now, versus holding my shot for later?"

FYI, there's a Traveller variant of Full Thrust out there, called Power Projection: Fleets which is 2-D, vector movement, and built off of a nice, clean game engine.

By Sean O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 12:46 am: Edit

Starmada Admiral Edition/Klingon Armada have an inertial movement system... you can download a free rules summary/demo from a link in the KA threads.

Basically, each ship plots its move each turn, based on its thrust rating (generated by engines). But your speed (the number of hexes you move) is based on the speed you moved last turn. So if my D7 has a thrust rating of 6, and I moved speed 6 (6 hexes) last turn, I could move 6 hexes this turn (costing me zero thrust), move zero hexes (costing 6 thrust) or up to 12 hexes (costing 6 thrust). Or any other number between 0 and 12 hexes, of course.

Facing changes are factored in too. Doing one 60-degree turn during your move is free, but more turns during your movement, the more thrust it will cost. Turning tightly at high speed may be impossible, so ships will tend to keep their speed down to reasonable levels to preserve maneuverability.

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 08:50 pm: Edit

I have yet another vector system for SFB, but it's rather untested. I may polish it up and post it this weekend.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 08:59 pm: Edit

I remember in Traveller they used sandcasters to stop lasers, would that work to stop lasers in the sublight game? Would sand stop or degrade a phaser?

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 - 09:03 pm: Edit

Anything that dissipates a light beam would dissipate a laser. And a cloud of solid particles would do that.
regards
Stacy

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 08:13 pm: Edit

Shawn: Sandcasters are part of Traveller canon, so they're never going away there.

That said, when you run the actual physics on them, they're less useful than using a comparable amount of mass on your ship as armor.

Imagine that you have a spray paint can. You can shoot spray paint into the beam path with it, but it will dissipate very quickly...and, you somehow have to spray the paint into the path between when the beam is fired and when it hits you.

(Alternatively, you put a cloud of paint between you and the enemy and treat it as fog - until it dissipates. Of course, as soon as you apply thrust, the cloud of paint no longer matches your vector and you lose protection...)

Aerosol anti-laser defenses need a suspension medium to make sense.

Jim: Not sure Mike wants a vector movement engine for this, and I'm not at all sure it's appropriate for the SFU to have one.

Sean: Starmada's default movement engine, with momentum, still isn't a true vector engine. It is, however, a pretty good match for how you see spaceships moving on television in anything other than Babylon 5.

Squadron Strike has movement modes 0 through 2. They're named after the number of Newton's Laws being obeyed.

Mode 0 is 'ships move like infantry', or, well, SFB movement: There is no such thing as momentum, your ship stops dead when the engines are turned off.

Mode 1 is 'ships move like speedboats' - they have momentum, can accumulate it from turn to turn, and lose speed by turning.

Mode 2 is 'vector movement' a'la Newton. Think the old arcade game Asteroids: To slow down, you swivel your ship around and apply thrust in the opposite direction.

Mode 3 is 'vector movement with fuel tracking' and is a different game entirely - Attack Vector. Ships in AV:T that burn enough fuel can have their thrust ratings increase because the ship has gotten enough lighter.

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, November 05, 2009 - 11:17 pm: Edit

My thought was that maybe they would be usefull in sub-light battles, but when ship got faster in the y-era sand would be a useless defense. I was just trying to add nother defense besides everybody just having armor.

By Brodie Nyboer (Radiocyborg) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 03:50 pm: Edit

Some thoughts came to mind:

• "Screens" (as opposed to "Shields") that only block/mitigate certain energy weapons (or proximity effects)
• Front and Rear armor (minimized down to single armor in "mod era")
• "Protected decks/areas"
• EW, but maybe with some twists that reflect a different era
• Stealth (but the Roms should be better at it)
• Decoys (which could be a variation on Wild Weasel, or maybe something else)

By Xander Fulton (Dderidex) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 03:51 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

Attack Vector. Ships in AV:T that burn enough fuel can have their thrust ratings increase because the ship has gotten enough lighter.

---

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 04:06 pm: Edit

Xander: The game I'd use for SFU licensing is Squadron Strike, which still keeps the 3-D aspects down, but greatly streamlines the record keeping.

The 3-D adds a certain amount of overhead, to firing decisions (there are steps you have to go through to figure out if something's in arc that are roughly comparable to using the Expanded Klingon Wing Phaser Arcs in SFB.

If you're not used to vector movement, the movement engine is frustrating because you can't drive your ship like a wet navy vessel.

Once those have been assimilated, they tend to fade into the background. Until you assimilate them, it's a bit bewildering.

I'd use Squadron Strike because it's simpler - no segmented movement, everything is simultaneous and pre-plotted. Turns zip in SS.

I ran a lot of demos of SFU-ships converted to SS at Council of Five Nations, and got a pretty good response out of it.

Marcus Geigerich's experiences can be found here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/451592

There's a thread in this topic area that discusses an AV:T 'Mod Q'.

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 04:20 pm: Edit

Xander: The game I'd use for SFU licensing is Squadron Strike, which still keeps the 3-D aspects down, but greatly streamlines the record keeping.

The 3-D adds a certain amount of overhead, to firing decisions (there are steps you have to go through to figure out if something's in arc that are roughly comparable to using the Expanded Klingon Wing Phaser Arcs in SFB.

If you're not used to vector movement, the movement engine is frustrating because you can't drive your ship like a wet navy vessel.

Once those have been assimilated, they tend to fade into the background. Until you assimilate them, it's a bit bewildering.

I'd use Squadron Strike because it's simpler - no segmented movement, everything is simultaneous and pre-plotted. Turns zip in SS.

I ran a lot of demos of SFU-ships converted to SS at Council of Five Nations, and got a pretty good response out of it.

Marcus Geigerich's experiences can be found here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/451592

There's a thread in this topic area that discusses an AV:T 'Mod Q'. You actually started it.

http://www.starfleetgames.com/discus/messages/12031/10487.html?1212119170

By Ken Burnside (Ken_Burnside) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 04:27 pm: Edit

OK, that's the second time I've had a post I've edited show up twice. Sigh.

By Phil Shanton (Mxslade) on Friday, November 06, 2009 - 08:29 pm: Edit

Ken Burnside wrote: "I ran a lot of demos of SFU-ships converted to SS at Council of Five Nations, and got a pretty good response out of it".

Yeah it was pretty cool to put a couple of photons into the Klingons soft under bellies or to crack them open like a crab from on high.

The Gorns were pretty scary in SS though.

Still I like the idea of using the original version of Starfire with Module Q, that's how we played it in the 80's.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Brodie:

In my Insane Proposal, lasers in Pulse Mode and Particle Beams are unable to damage shields.

This is important when everybody gets the Y50 Shield Refit (and for the Paravians, who ALWAYS had shields and never used armor. Yes, this makes the birds NASTY in Sublight...)

I will say this again: my Insane Proposal uses the sames movement rules as regular SFB (with minor changes). No vectors. Handwavium abounds, along with starkly inconceivable energies that makes Newtonian physicists go mad. Mad, I tell you.

On a side note, I know some fellows that use Full Thrust to 'simulate' Mod Q. Works for them....

By Stacy Brian Bartley (Bartley) on Thursday, November 12, 2009 - 11:15 pm: Edit

Mike
Isaac Newton says he's MAD at you!
regards
Stacy

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - 10:31 pm: Edit

I swear to Ghu, the Nuclear Torpedo Rules are coming. Promise.

That is all.

By Mike Strain (Evilmike) on Monday, August 02, 2010 - 09:11 pm: Edit

Jean, please delete this thread.

To all who actually enjoyed this thread, sorry.

Don't feel like wasting my time on stuff that doesn't matter anymore.

Thank you.