 February 6, 2011 - 1:56pm | I thought it might be good to compile a list of things we dont think should be changed. For instance, I dont see a compelling need to change Void travel. One form of hyper space travel is probably as good as another and just as much a fantasy too. That said, if there are some things that dont get changed it sort of nixxes the complaints from the Negative Nellies that we changed everything and now they hate it. No doubt most N. Nellies will find something to gripe about but I see not trying to change every thing as a bit of a good thing. sort keeps it largely recognizable Some things might need little tweeking but little change too. Your thoughts? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 6, 2011 - 2:35pm | Turn sequence of side A move and side B shoots defensively / Side B moves and side A shoots defensively Do we like this? It not that intuitive and I'm not a fan of it but I'm not committed to changing it. what if movement and fire were considered simultaneous? Each turn each tactical officer rolls for ECM which represents his Locking up the other ship and attempting to jam or confuse the other ship's sensors- highest roll wins and that player chooses who goes first and is side A. All counter missiles fire at the top of the round. Then all missile salvos move 1/2 to 1/4 (if they reach attack range point defense is resolved then their attack is resolved) Side A moves 1/4 or 1/2 their movement, then side B does the same. anyone may fire at any time and all fire is simultaneous. repeat the process till all ships and missile salvos have moved their full movement. Each round begins with ECM rolls by tac officers (think of as an initiative roll) then counter missiles or ICM then all movement is done by the ships 1/4 to 1/2 at a time. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 7, 2011 - 8:37am | Speaking of changes. I don't want to start a thread for this, just want to share my thought. We are creating dozens of document pages for this project. In the past I've found that when a document page is updated I have to study the entire thing to discover what changed. With the many documents we are managing I propose that we agree to highlight or color any text that is new so we can digest it quickly. After we all agree on a change then we can remove the highlight or color. Silence can mean agreement. -iggy |
 February 7, 2011 - 9:24am | Or we could move it to the wiki where you can easily diff between versions. I agree that it is really hard to figure out what has changed between versions of a document. You can see what the old version is but you can't easily see what changed. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 February 13, 2011 - 12:20pm | Void travel is one of the items that exasperates me most with KH. I hate to say it, I thought Alpha Dawn was beautiful with the 1LY/day system. When you compare that to the convoluted mess that KH is with your navigator sitting around for hours trying to figure out where to go, then getting up to speed and the conflicts of how to do that vs. game rules all for a 3-5 sec jump... On the other topic, I agree with move/fire phases should be simultaneous. If I am a weapons officer and I know I am going for that best shot, it's probably not going to be at the end of the movement turn. While I would hate to move to a system like it do to complexity issues, Star Fleet Battles solved it with their 32 implulse chart. -LZ |
 February 13, 2011 - 1:01pm | The only aspect about void travel that has always bugged me is that though there are established void jump distances on the map that supposedly show common jump routes an astrogator must calculate a void jump everytime he makes a jump. If I recall the rules state that he (the astrogator) can sell a jump program but why would you sell a jump program if it is a one shot deal? If you make the jump successfully both to and from a destination you should be able to remake that jump again after spending a shorter period of time since you've already made all the calculations the first time, and would just be checking them over to see if anything has drastically changed, not recalculating the whole jump from scratch. Besides if jump programs are available for sale, why not just drop by the Spacers guild hall at the local space port,buy the program, check it over for mistakes and make the jump instad of calculating the jump from scratch. I think its just busywork the captain throws at the astrogator so noone in the crew bitches that the astrogator has nothing to do for most of the trip. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
February 13, 2011 - 1:39pm | Since there is already a thread for the discussion of FTL travel, let's move this discussion over there. Here's the link Refer to: FTL travel and movement Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 February 17, 2011 - 6:06pm | Back to the discussion at hand. My opinion is that Knight Hawks never really was a good system, both because its rules didn't match up with Alpha Dawn and because it fudged way too much. I like the movement system for its symplicity, but there's very little redeemable in it realitically. I can make the 1% c work with some fancy pseudo-science, so it doesn't really bug me. It's the total disregard for any known reality, the changes from Star Frontiers (Advanced Skills are irritating and the combat system is incompatible), and the shipbuilding mechanic all bug me. What's left? The economics stuff is okay, the implant, and ship statistics. That's about it. To be frank, as tossed together as it is, I find Zeb's Guide less fudged. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 April 17, 2011 - 12:35pm | B move A shoots / A moves B shoots is suposed to reflect initiative advantage, I have used that kind of reverse-initiative-style in many other systems, and it has become more intuitive for me. Like flying an airplane vs. piloting a submarine, the controls are often reversed, you just get used to it after awhile, and the advantages suddenly make sense one day. I like being able to position fire sequence for simultaneous action, but like mentioned by Ellzii, rules for that can be cumbersome. Not sure about breaking movment into sections. All 'passive system' rolls at the top of the round works ok. Even the point defence, though it might not need to be used, this again gives advantage to the initiative. Many systems have pointless inititives because of 'balance creep' shifting advantage so far from the inititive winner, that it is just another roll for the players to make, with no observable benifit. In some cases the initative-'looser' actually gains all the advantage, making all the tactics and speed bonuses a penalty, over slower less trained units. SF as it is (basic or advanced combat rule-sets), doesn't suffer from much of those problems... there are a few other issues however, items that have been 'overlooked' due to inadaquate playtesting, and simply were never included. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
April 17, 2011 - 1:32pm | is initiative a realistic consideration in space ship combat? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 17, 2011 - 1:53pm | the inital tactical advantage that comes with being able to assess and initiate actions, maneuver for best effect, so as to act or take advantage of subtile situations before others do? The initative is a distictive crucial element to any engagment, combat or otherwise, in any theater, and as a game mechanic, it makes it easier to ensure some order of progression in the turns. I don't see any reason not to use initative, or any reason that the abstract of the effects of tactical advantage it represents, shouldn't be considered. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
