A house rule suggestion to make ship speed more different.

[IKerensky]

Hello,

just a simple suggestion, mildly bordering on madness. Use a permanent marker to separate in the energy scale the reactor/impulse and warp (drawing a box around them by example).

Now you can only use energy from warp and 1 point from impulse to pay for Basic Speed, Acceleration, Deceleration and HET. If using energy token just use 2 colors : one for warp+ 1 pts of impulse the other for the rest of the energy.

It probably wont effect much at game start but it will slowly impact as Warp Engine are damaged. And it make targetting engine a bit more important in pursuit scenarios. And the Monitor and Auxiliarry Cruiser would get more decent speed.

Comments ?

Eventually Photons Arming could be restricted in the same way.

[IKerensky]

Of course I suppose this kind of proposal has already been suggested since the game is out... but for me it is a brand new game

[Kang]

Madness indeed; that was what FC was developed to counter

[IKerensky]

Yep, but that is what it lack the more for a lot of scenario to become interesting...

There is no real point at having pursuit or survival scenario when everyone have the same speed. And it will help a bit the drones and plasma.

Anyway that is just a house rule

[Kang]

Of course. Thanks for clarifying that!

[Blammo]

I was wondering about something similar to this yesterday except I was wondering why everything that produces power wasn't just called 'Power' instead of warp, impulse, or reactor. In SFB it would have been an important distinction, but in FC not so.

I then was thinking it could have been broken down to "Engine" and "Reactor". Engines could produce power that can be used for movement or other purposes (weapons, tractors, etc) and reactors, which cannot be used for movement, but can be used for everything else.

However, differentiating types of power would complicate things when you start loosing available energy and the player has to look at how many movement sources of power they have versus non-movement. Which is where the whole thing boils down to the power-is-power rule. This makes energy allocation is easier and a ship with nothing but reactor available can still move around. Maybe not perfect, but it is simple and makes sure the game keeps moving.

[IKerensky]

Trouble is that some ships, like WYN Auxiliarries or Monitors or Freighter that are supposed to be slow but still have power to fight are among the faster and nimbler ships around while they should have been the slowest... because they have a few warp box but an unhealthy amount of reactor ones.

I am unsure that it is really harder to compute speed when drawing from an identified pool than a generic one, and as you say it would even be more clear why there is difference at from the start.

In fact by "boxing" by type the avaliable energy on the SSD it will be even easier to track energy at turn start by blacking away both on the energy scale and the engine/impulse/reactor/battery boxes.

Anyway, I will try a few run to see how it feel.

[Kang]

Perhaps the monitors and Auxiliaries should be given a max speed, like freighters have..... but they really *are* restricted by total power!

[terryoc]

I was wondering about something similar to this yesterday except I was wondering why everything that produces power wasn't just called 'Power' instead of warp, impulse, or reactor. In SFB it would have been an important distinction, but in FC not so.

Probably to make the DAC work right.

Yes, it does have odd effects on some ships. IIRC the tournament version of the WYN Auxiliary is not slow, at least. It can't turn to save its life, but it is at least as fast as other ships (in a straight line). The FC version can turn pretty well because it simply goes 24+1 and uses decelerations to satisfy its turn mode more quickly. Still can't HET safely though IIRC.

I think separating the power types is another fiddly thing at the beginning of the turn to think about; something FC wanted to get away from (no tax form at the beginning of the turn). It won't make much difference if your ship is undamaged but when it's crippled it will make a difference.

[Bolo_MK_XL]

The proposal make a big difference with anything using Photons --

[mjwest]

Perhaps the monitors and Auxiliaries should be given a max speed, like freighters have..... but they really *are* restricted by total power!

Monitors do have a maximum speed! They are limited to a maximum base speed of 8. Auxiliaries (e.g. armed freighters) don't have a maximum speed because they have enough warp to go that fast.

[mike_espo]

Not bad. Was wondering that myself. Don't seem right that ships with large reactors should be as fast as ships with more engines and impulse power. I always make sure that I have enough engine power to select the base speed that would be allowed. More realistic.

Remember the old SFB Kzinti Strike Cruiser? it only had 27 warp boxes, so its max speed was 28.

[Nerroth]

The same would be true for the Middle Years Strike Cruiser in B2.

That kind of SFB-esque speed cap would have more of an effect on certain Middle Years and Omega ships, though it might make those which were shifted to MC 3/4 from 2/3 slower than they are in the other game. (But then, smaller ships which went from 1/3 to 1/4 would be relatively faster.)

Not sure about bringing over the "require warp power to arm" rule for photons, with no AWRs in FC... a problem for things like bases.

[Kang]

Monitors do have a maximum speed! They are limited to a maximum base speed of 8. Auxiliaries (e.g. armed freighters) don't have a maximum speed because they have enough warp to go that fast.

Duh. Of course

[Mike]

Don't want to speak for anyone else, but this has been discussed before and the answer given then was that FC is supposed to be an easier, simpler game system than SFB. That goes for power, too. Along with the simple bit of wisdom, "Speed is life," another one is "Power is power."