Horned Owl:
Aw, but that´s a matter of taste. I loved the idea of vector movement, and the mechanic translated wonderfully when I applied it to Silent Death and Renegade Legion Interceptor. It simply felt more "right" to me. Though I agree that cinematic movement is a lot easier to keep track of.
Dmcgee:
I haven't tried it, yet, with Silent Death. How does movement translate with regard to turning, etc? In other words, in Silent Death, one pays 3 points of movement for a one hexside turn, and 3 + (Pilot roll) for a two hexside turn; do you simply apply thrust to turn, giving fast fighters the advantage? If Full Thrust is supposedly more realistic, wouldn't this lead to extreme g-forces during those turns, making structurally fragile craft rip apart?
Yes, I realize that I am being a bit technical, but I am curious about gameplay and fun, and do believe that the current movement system for SD is flawed. I would appreciate the insight.
Also, forgive the thread hijacking. We may have to move this discussion to the General Section.
Oh, a SD player!
It´s always nice to exchange views. We used the vector movement from 2nd edition Full Thrust (which is quite different from 1st edition). We let all fighters turn for free, with a pilot roll for every 60° – which meant that ships could veer terribly off course if you failed your roll with a fast fighter. Gunboats could only turn 90°, and warhounds only 60°, in between applying forward or reverse thrust. We also borrowed the Interceptor system of rolling to avoid losing consciousness for rapid thrust changes (over 8 units difference), which balanced out the faster fighters nicely. In addition, the smaller fighters usually have nose-mounted weapons whose limited fields of fire counteract the advantage of manoeuverability.
By changing the firing restrictions of the larger weapons systems from [the target fighter´s thrust rating] to [actual vector speed], gameplay became quite interesting. There was actually quite a lot of satisfaction to be had waiting patiently for one of those pesky Darts to slow down for a turn, and then nailing it with the Seraph´s laser. We also decided that if movement vectors matched with less than 30° difference (either tailgating or meeting the enemy ship head-on), firing restriction speeds were doubled.
Torpedoes were already hard to keep track of in the original system, and really became something of a nuisance with vector movement.
The idea we finally stuck with was to let torps ignore vector movement, always turning towards their target at the start of their activation and then travelling in a straight line for their full movement allowance. Firing torps was decided before movement orders for the ships were revealed. When fired, their first activation was in a straight line from the nose of the ship. This worked well in cluttered battlefields – we had endless fun dodging behind asteroids or trying to manoeuvre the slower enemy ships in place to catch the torps meant for us.
Missile salvoes worked great with the 2nd edition Full Thrust missile rules. By ignoring the Gunnery roll and just placing the missiles where you thought the enemy was going, missiles suddenly relied on the skill of the gamer and not on dumb luck.
