Federation Commander

In fact, writing that answer made me send an email to Steve asking that he expand (3B) (and link it to (3C6)) for the RRB.

The real issue is that, to anyone who has played wargames before, the issue of "firing arc" is fairly self evident. And the linkage between shields and firing arcs is hard and "obvious", but not directly stated. The problem is that what is "obvious" to someone who has experience with the concepts of a firing arc is not necessarily obvious to everyone.

This may be too late to include at this point, but I did ask. Hopefully, Steve will be able to sneak that in.

Couple of questions for MWest:

As per my earlier post, what happens if the facing of the ships change afterwards (e.g a HET). Is the shield/facing still based on the facing/position just before entering the hex, effectively meaning that the subequent turn has no affect on the situation. I'd interpret it as move the ships with their current facing to where they were (ie totaly disregard the facing at the point of movement), reading your example I'm not sure whether you are saying that it is the facing of the ship as it enters the hex rather than the current facing.

Ships entering the hex at the 'same time', as per your example. By 'same time' do we mean same impulse or do we take into account the exact order of movement. From your example it sounds like same impulse as ships always move in some order but you still say they enter at the same time. I'm sure that when we've done this we have gone on move order- so if a speed 16 ship enters a hex then a speed 24 hex enters the hex in the same impulse it is the position of the ships as the speed 24 ship enters the hex, not before the speed 16 ship enters the hex.

storeylf wrote:As per my earlier post, what happens if the facing of the ships change afterwards (e.g a HET). Is the shield/facing still based on the facing/position just before entering the hex, effectively meaning that the subequent turn has no affect on the situation. I'd interpret it as move the ships with their current facing to where they were (ie totaly disregard the facing at the point of movement), reading your example I'm not sure whether you are saying that it is the facing of the ship as it enters the hex rather than the current facing.

That one is a little trickier, but is addressed in that other topic Kang referenced.

Basically, you relative positions are always maintained. So, if, in the simple example, Ship B does an HET within the hex to directly face Ship A, it is rotated 60 degrees. Now Ship B has its #1 shield facing Ship A (instead of its #6). But, their relative positions have not changed. Therefore, Ship A's #1 shield is still facing Ship B.

So, a ship's facing can change as it does HETs (or TACs or "turns in place" using decelerations). However, their relative positions never change until the ships stop being in the same hex.

And, no, this isn't completely addressed in the rules. The problem is it would take several paragraphs to go through all of this.

Ships entering the hex at the 'same time', as per your example. By 'same time' do we mean same impulse or do we take into account the exact order of movement. From your example it sounds like same impulse as ships always move in some order but you still say they enter at the same time. I'm sure that when we've done this we have gone on move order- so if a speed 16 ship enters a hex then a speed 24 hex enters the hex in the same impulse it is the position of the ships as the speed 24 ship enters the hex, not before the speed 16 ship enters the hex.

It means by sub-pulse, not impulse. But, order of movement does matter. So, if, in my last example above, Ship B was moving at a lower base speed than Ship A, or if they were moving the same base speed, but Ship B had the worse turn mode, then only ship A would be moved back. In that case, the final ship facing would match the first two examples.

I should have made that clear and I didn't. Sorry about that.

You could be right Mjwest, I guess I was just taught that way. Incidently, I see no reason why a 23rd century Starship couldn't fire anything at a range of less than 10,000 KM, and see no mechanical issue.

USS Enterprise wrote:You could be right Mjwest, I guess I was just taught that way. Incidently, I see no reason why a 23rd century Starship couldn't fire anything at a range of less than 10,000 KM, and see no mechanical issue.

There is no mechanical issue apart from the seriously inconvenient problem of parts of the hull getting in the way. Assuming the crew don't want to fire through their own ship to hit the target, of course

Seriously, though, this is what determines the fire arcs - it's the placement of the weapons on the hull - that, and that some weapons require more rigid mounts than others because of the firing shock. And it matters little what the range is for the purposes of whether a target can be hit from a certain weapon's position, be it 10,000 or 100,000km away. To take an extreme example, the tail guns of a Lancaster or B-17 are never going to hit a target that's right in front of the aircraft, no matter what the range.

USS Enterprise wrote:You could be right Mjwest, I guess I was just taught that way.

Enterprise, could this perhaps be a throwback in your mind to the close-in maneuvering rules in Star Fleet Battles? Because, in that game, when a fighter is close-in maneuvering in the same hex as its target, any weapons on the ship can shoot at it - firing arcs are ignored. Perhaps this is where the idea came from? Or perhaps the friend who taught you the game was thinking of that....

So, if the Klingon cruiser K'Tinga is only 5,000 kilometers away from the Federation command cruiser, Kongo; but sitting 4,000 kilometers above the Kongo... then the Kongo can fire every wepon it has atthe K'tinga... even the phaser emitters located on the bottom of the secondary hull?

OK, that example was all in good fun since elvation doesn't come into play in Fed Comm; nut I must take exception to your last comment. I can still see why (even in the 23rd centure) some weapons located on the off-sides of a 3D solid object might have their fire arcs blocked by the object itself.

I've never played SFB and the person who taught me the game hasn't played it in years.

Personally, its kinda annoying at Range 0 trying to figure out the shield hit and it sometimes is hard to figureout the firing arc. At the end of the day, its just easier to say 0 hits all, even if it isn't logical.

Sure, you can adopt that as a house rule. But if you ever play a) in tournaments, or b) against players from another group, then you may well have to learn the 'correct' way of doing things.

For myself, I like to place duplicate counters on a 'giant' hex I have, to help me visualise the relative positions. The giant hex came from a spare piece of floor covering, btw

Dunno if that helps you - I hope it does - but to me visualisation is key. Once I can see it, I understand it.

Which I see no issue with Kang.

Or, instead of a giant hex, a small smattering of just a few adjacent hexes might be helpful.

Duplicate counters could be placed in relation to one another just as they were before moving into the same hex on the real map. Think of it as a tactical display.

Mike wrote:Think of it as a tactical display.

That's a good way of looking at it

Mike wrote:Or, instead of a giant hex, a small smattering of just a few adjacent hexes might be helpful.

Well actually it's a smattering, as you say, of giant hexes. It was quite a big piece of spare floor covering....

It's so fundamentally wrong that I cannot see it being easier. There would be a five-hour argument with miniatures and protractors every time you tried that.

Steve Cole wrote:It's so fundamentally wrong that I cannot see it being easier. There would be a five-hour argument with miniatures and protractors every time you tried that.

...'it' being...?

SVC, are you referring to every weapon being able to fire at range 0...

OR the tactical display idea?