Paganini ([info]taiji_jian) wrote,
@ 2007-12-08 14:07:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend  Next Entry
Entry tags:spacegame

Maneuver Resolution

Drive Pods



Drive Pods are units of propulsion. Each Drive Pod equipped on a ship provides that ship with one Burn and one Maneuvering Thrust per turn.

Burns



A Burn accelerates the ship 2 hexes per turn in the direction it is currently facing. If the ship is facing a hex side, both points of thrust go into that hex side. If the ship is facing a hex spine, 1 point of thrust goes into each of the hex sides adjacent to that hex spine.

Maneuvering Thrust



A Maneuvering Thrust rotates the ship 30 degrees (i.e., to the adjacent spine or side) OR accelerates the ship 1 hex per turn in any direction *except* the direction it is currently facing.

Example



A ship with 3 drive pods may make up to 3 Burns and 3 Maneuvering Thrusts (rotations OR pushes) each turn. Burns and Maneuvers may be made in any order. A ship with the following orders:

PA, RS, BURN, RS, BURN, BURN

Will push aft, rotate 30 degrees to starboard, burn, rotate another 30 degrees to starboard, and burn twice more.

(2 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]dariuswolfe
2007-12-08 10:27 pm UTC (link)
Okay, I'm not sure I get what happens when a ship "burns" when facing a spine.

When it's facing a side, it moves two hexes in that direction, right?

So.. how does it move when it's facing a spine?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]taiji_jian
2007-12-09 04:35 pm UTC (link)
When writing those notes I made the assumption that you already know how vector movement works, since *I* know how it works, and will also have explained how it works in the rules *before* the part I was making notes about. ;) So here is a more detailed explanation.

In a standard vector movement system - like you would find in LNL, Hard Vacuum, VMS, triplnetary, etc. - ships have momentum. They will slide a long the map in a particular direction for a particular number of hexes every turn. Movement in a particular direction at a particular velocity is the ship's vector. (Sorry if I'm covering stuff you actually *do* already know - not everyone does vectors in school.)

There are a couple of standard ways of tracking a ship's vector. In LNL and Hard Vacuum there are little paper counters with numbers on them that you put on the board around the ship. So if your ship is traveling on a vector of 4 hexes per turn towards the "top" of the map, it would look like this:
  ___
 | 4 |
 |___|
 /   \
/SHIP \ 
\     /
 \___/


VMS uses a similar system, except that instead of counters on the map, your ship control sheet has a representation of the ship that you write your vectors on. It's cleaner than the counter system, but makes the course and speed of each ship on the map less obvious to inspection.

Triplanetary uses a system where you actually draw the vector on the map with a grease pencil.

A similar system to Triplanetary is to use a future position marker placed on the hex that the ship will move to next turn. To make course changes you just move the future position marker in various directions.

If you're interested in a little more in-depth coverage, check out LNL. It is free:

http://www.bonegames.com/pdfs/lnl.pdf

Anyway, a common feature of all these games is that they only allow facing-changes of 60 degrees (i.e., you can only face hex sides). This means that in order to have a vector at 90 degrees to a hex row you have to make two burns, which means it takes twice as much fuel to move in that direction as it does to move down a hex row. I don't like this, since 90 degree courses actually turn out to be pretty common, both in real life, and in game. :)

So what I figured I'd do is allow spine facing, and burns only make veolcity changes in multiples of 2.

So in the previous example, if you are facing towards the "top" of the map and you make a burn, your new vector will be:
  ___
 | 6 |
 |___|
 /   \
/SHIP \ 
\     /
 \___/


But if you are facing to the "right" of the map, your vector will be:

  ___
 | 4 |
 |___|____
 /   \  1 |
/SHIP \___| 
\     / 1 |
 \___/


Since vectors that are one hex side apart combine into that hex side, the final vector configuartion will consolidate into:

  ___
 | 3 |
 |___|____
 /   \  2 |
/SHIP \___| 
\     /
 \___/

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(2 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…