Subject:
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Re: Rules Talk: JumpShip Ideas
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.gaming.starship
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Date:
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Thu, 29 May 2003 22:14:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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1974 times
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Hi!
If I may interject, as someone who's mulling over
joining up (unless my lack of any actual Brick at
the moment is an intent-killer) and has read the
rules as a fresh outsider:
In lugnet.gaming.starship, John P. Henderson wrote:
> In lugnet.gaming.starship, Richard Parsons wrote a bunch o' stuff.
>
> Hmm. Interesting thoughts. I am happy with the direction of this discussion
> thus far...
>
> > This way the true JumpDrive ships can flit about anywhere in a week.
>
> So you are proposing a re-write of the previously stated rules on Full JumpShips
> to reduce their travel time to one week per jump.
This sounds fair. Otherwise, no significant gain
is made by true JumpShips that would warrant the
use of an additional HQ slot unless conducting a
full diagonal crossing of the Galaxy. Just as
they are expensive, they ought to be true strategic
investments.
> > I would hope that there'd be precious few of these vessels about.
>
> So long as we continue to say the Full JumpShip engine costs 1 Fast (HQ) slot
> against propulsion, then any single player could never have more than five Full
> JumpShips in their fleet at any one time.
>
> ...I am still concerned about the lack of restriction on Ferries, however, since
> the 5 HQ limit does not prevent a player from designing a micro-fig scale
> JumpShip and claiming that it is a Ferry large enough to carry all the other
> ships in his fleet. This scenario would pretty much make the propulsion
> characteristic irrelevent. (Of course, an SM can restrict the number of ships
> from a single player within their own sector, so perhaps a giant fleet could
> never actually be useful versus a single desitination. This is the only
> fail-safe I can think of against this scenario.)
Ferries (or "tenders" as my High Guard-bent brain
tends to think of them) were precisely the issue
that I thought about as reading the rules and the
NG discussions last night. Carriers aren't such a
concern because the fighter craft are clearly sub-
ordinate, but the ferry is another matter. I would
tend to think that, given the rarity of true gate
drives, that they would be "destabilized" if they
increase by a great mass over their empty size.
Those are precision instruments, after all, not
enormous "public" JumpGates for which a gigantic
warship is a tiny speck of mass that can be offset
easily. That right there would probably rule out
ten..er, Ferries, because unlike a carrier that
carries perhaps 8-10% of its mass as fighter craft
(and those at all times) a tender would carry 60
to 80 per cent of its mass as indepenedent and
temporary ships. Allowing ferry JumpShips ("GateShips?")
would seem severely unbalancing unless a *further*
cost were added (with concomitant complexity, yuck).
I'd suggest close the door on Ferries with gating
capability that can carry more than one pre-designated
ship (like K-T drives in BattleTech's, well, "JumpShips").
But, of course, as an outsider, feel free to tell
me to go soak my head. ;)
I presume there is no classification or limit on
"ship sizes"--that these are fully subsumed into
the three-tier qualitative system? (e.g., you can
make that Death Star, but it's no better than any
other HQ-stat in the galaxy, and just looks all the
more ridiculous when it gets blown up by a flagship
fighter?)
> > Ships with the lesser 'JumpGate Generator' type engines would have some more
> > strategic options, and could get about the large distances of the map more
> > speedily (max three weeks). It would also mean that a ship using its
> > engines to create an adhoc exit gate would be isolated from JumpSpace for
> > three weeks until the engines recharged.
>
> I do like the basic idea here. But I am concerned with the complexity of how to
> explain it. I would rather keep the rules as simple as possible. So a Medium
> JumpShip (or whatever name we want to give it) has a choice between a three-week
> jump between any two points, or a one-week jump as long as one of the two points
> is an existing Gate? Could work. I think worrying about recharging times
> before and after is an extra complexity we don't need in the rules. Plus it
> would add the requirement that the GM would then need to spend more time
> tracking who is charged and who is not. I'd rather leave recharge times out of
> it, and just say that the recharge is included in the time required for the
> given jump. Otherwise, I like your revised proposal.
Or, perhaps, have it require two weeks in JumpSpace,
irrespective of destination. That would still confer a
benefit for the investment, without making it overpowering.
> With the number of ships flying about, it would be too much work for the GM
> (IMO) to actually roll on a chart for every ship. But with JumpShips, and there
> being never more than 5 per player, it would be easier to manage. As current
> GM, I would be willing to put together a chart especially catered to JumpSpace
> travel. The possibility of the unexpected actually would be yet another way to
> prevent over-usage of JumpShips.
If it can be made wieldy for the GM, then that sounds like
a very neat idea.
> ...Another thought I just had is that perhaps, just maybe, a player could build
> a super-JumpDrive by taking both a HQ and a MQ slot to have a ship that can jump
> with perfect safety. Or is that getting too complicated?
Too complicated. The unexpected is the spice of life!
(Yes, you may remind me I said this should I jump into
the heart of a blazing sun.)
> > And Hendo's trying to integrate the thinking with the propulsion tiers is
> > most laudable.
>
> Thank you. :) ...I have always liked the 3-tier system for describing things for this game. I think one reason we left out discussing Jump rules for so long is that they did not fit in perfectly with the 3-tier (we had slow, medium, fast, and wait there's a fourth one!! ack!). So, I came up with this latest plan of having them take up extra slots versus medium or fast. ...The only other way to deal with it that I can think of would be to add a new characteristic of JumpAbility to each ship, but then things would just get messy (IMO).
It's very easy to understand the basics. I will
of course have questions about the specifics in
due time, but I'm not at all in doubt that I can
grok the Way Things Are™.
Time to break out the MLCAD...o je.
> (joking...)
> Aha! So your support to revamp the JumpShip rules is nothing more than a ploy to
> make New Pacific the most profitable sector in the galaxy! I knew it!
This is a surprise how? Arrr.
all best
LFB
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Rules Talk: JumpShip Ideas
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| (...) Heck no! Get in here :-) (...) I agree completely. (...) The tiers are more a guide to the GM and SMs, and other players. The propulsion tiers impact on galactic movement, but not much on in-sector movement (GM monitors and administers) (...) (21 years ago, 30-May-03, to lugnet.gaming.starship)
| | | Re: Rules Talk: JumpShip Ideas
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| In lugnet.gaming.starship, Lindsay Frederick Braun wrote too much to repeat here. Well, these are some interesting views, and I mostly agree. I've been standing back from this whirlwind of discussion for a while, but now I have some ideas to add. (...) (21 years ago, 30-May-03, to lugnet.gaming.starship)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Rules Talk: JumpShip Ideas
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| In lugnet.gaming.starship, Richard Parsons wrote a bunch o' stuff. Hmm. Interesting thoughts. I am happy with the direction of this discussion thus far... (...) So you are proposing a re-write of the previously stated rules on Full JumpShips to (...) (21 years ago, 29-May-03, to lugnet.gaming.starship)
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