"Fleet Movement or Why I like a Grid" Topic

Awhile back we played a game of Full Thrust using the cinematic movement rules on an open map (no grid or hexes).

Now I have to admit we have used FT as the basis for our own set of rules for conventions, and we essentially use the cinematic movement rules however we use a map with a square grid.

What is the difference you ask? Well I thought none really until I tried it on a grid less map. So here is what I did not like: you had to very carefully plot out each movement, and it was very difficult to move my ships where I wanted to with any form of precision. It was pretty easy to smack into a planet or asteroid. In fact one of the more experienced players did just that.

Now in my opinion the one thing a starship captain out to be able to do is maneuver the ship basically where he wants to go? Hitting an asteroid should be because they tried a risky maneuver and took a hit to their thrust (partially losing control) not because they decided not to use the nav computer, or because the ships cook has decided to fill in for the helmsman.

In my opinion this made the maneuver plotting as, or more important than the battle plan, and slowed things down without adding much to the game. So I guess in the end if I play FT again, I will continue using the a hex map or grid to focus more on the strategy than the movement.

If I want to play "Asteroids" (that was a video arcade game back in the olden days for you young ones) I will fire up the Atari (ancient ancestor to the X-box).

So for this reason I am definitely a fan of the grid or hex for the larger fleet games.

Any other thoughts on this?

Having written both historical naval and space navy games, I've found there is a lot more tolerance for hexes/grids amongst the space navy crowds than the wet navy fans.

My current starship project uses hexes, and I expect to continue with that approach for all future starship games up until the point I start getting a lot of requests for a grid-less system.

Personally, I prefer hexes. Keeps things neater and easier – but my wet navy games are open table because hexes aren't what the market wants in that genre.

Dervel,
For space battle I'm all in favor of a grid, square or hex.
I find it speeds up play. Easier to move and calculate fire.

Hex me baby. Maybe you should float this question as a TMP poll.

LLC aka Ron

you had to very carefully plot out each movement, and it was very difficult to move my ships where I wanted to with any form of precision.

That would pretty much be the point of it, yes.

It's the reason we play all of our games gridless.

Hexes also eliminate that fudge factor, where a players was just in range last turn then after movement where the ranges should be the same all of a sudden they are out of range.

If you don't care for Full Thrusts movement, I might suggest Starmada, but for the price you can't beat Full Thrust.

Grid it, baby, grid it. Faster, less fiddly, and given that we're controlling spaceships, which presumably have extremely sophisticated computer-controlled navigation and weapons systems, the fact that the player can know exact ranges and movement results at a glance is entirely in keeping with the milieu. Yes, the captain of an 18th century naval vessel might have to guess how far away the enemy is, but a starship captain will just glance at his computer screen and know the range down to micrometers.

Couldn't you make a play aid with angles pre-marked to ensure the same directional precision you'd get with grids and hexes?

Gale Force 9 has something like that, for finding line of sight in Warhammer games, you could copy it as an example: link

Or even a clear plastic protractor with the 30/45/60/90/120/165 angles marked?

Yeah, I prefer hexes. I usually don't in most games. But plotting movement is so much easier with hexes. It's one of the reasons why I prefer Starmada to FT. Accidently bump a ship in FT and you'll never get it back where it belongs.

Thanks,

John

"It's one of the reasons why I prefer Starmada to FT. Accidently bump a ship in FT and you'll never get it back where it belongs."

So play Full Thrust on hexes:
link

That would pretty much be the point of it, yes.

It's the reason we play all of our games gridless.

Actually my point was no, that is not the point. I am not sailing a 18th century ship (mentioned above) or even flying a fighter. I can play Asteroids on an Atari.

I am commanding a fleet of highly sophisticated and technologically advanced starships capable of making faster than light jump across solar systems, yet somehow we cannot manage to maneuver are ship precisely and turn them precisely once we enter a solar system?

For example on turn one I am orbiting earth, on turn two I order my ships to converge on Jupiter, but two of them plotted wrong. One ends up near Saturn, and the other plows into Neptune. It seems to me that the navigation systems on the ships should be a little more accurate than that. It is very possible to make the plotting more accurate, and if you take enough time or use some really good templates as mentioned above. yes you can do it, but it seems to me it starts to really bog down.

For example if I play Federation Commander where everyone has a single starship then the free movement doesn't seem to be such an issue. Also, if you are dealing with maneuver on a smaller scale (fighters vs. fighters) or even the classic Star Trek right in your face phaser duels maybe this type of plotting makes more sense.

It just seems to me that unless your ship is damaged you should pretty much be able to go where you thought you were going (i.e. the Nav computer).

Perhaps the problem is the movement system that requires you to spend so much time plotting?

If an otherwise functional ship can crash into a planet then the decision cycle is way off base.

Bob

Hex grids are for people that can't plot straight :) The most serious FT piloting problems that I've seen have always resulted from players setting their starting speeds waaaay too fast.
I don't understand the need for everything to be on grids. It's either a board game or a miniatures game as far as I'm concerned.

No grids . . . For FT mount your ships on hex bases, bein wit each ship with one hex edge parellel to a cardinal table edge, then for each facing change rotate 1 hex edge to the next cardinal table edge.

Dervel: "I am commanding a fleet of highly sophisticated and technologically advanced starships capable of making faster than light jump across solar systems, yet somehow we cannot -defy the laws of physics?-"

Fixed it for you. :)

You want to maneuver better? Slow the ship down.

It is not a problem with physics, it is a problem with game mechanics.

I get the the idea; do not go too fast or you will not be able to turn the ship.

The issue is that unless you measure out every plot (too time consuming) you end up with ships "accidently" out of position cause you guessed wrong during the plotting phase. I would imagine that the ships computers and crews would tend to be good enough to prevent this….in most scifi genres. I mean do you really think Chekov would accidentally hit a planet cause he plotted the wrong course…oops.

with cinematic movement it's pretty hard to hit something a predictable course, or fixed. Perhaps that was no small moon, but some kind of space station.

As a past helmsman of the next closest thing to a starship (a submarine), it's depressingly easy to get yourself completely out of whack in some situations. I could rattle off hundreds of names of ships that have found themselves in extremis due to someone missing one minor detail. Maybe your thruster didn't fire or cut off at the correct time.

I could abuse Airbus' history of crashes for examples of how easy it is to mis-program a flight control computer (lots of fatalities because the displays are easy to mistake, or the computer decided that the commands you input meant you *really* wanted to do something other than what you intended)

I don't have much trouble plotting movement in FT, but plotting for AV:T or Squadron Strike is still a bit beyond my abilities. I can't quite picture how I'm moving in 3d yet.

"It is not a problem with physics, it is a problem with game mechanics."

Except that the game mechanics are meant to emulate physics to a certain degree. It makes the game somewhat skill based. And it is actually part of the point, it's the tactics of the genre. If you're not good at the tactics you will be out of position and unable to act effectively. It's like getting charged in the flank in a horse and musket game and then declaring that it wasn't fair because the general and his staff would be good enough to keep that from happening.

Read any naval history (or any military history) book and all battles are pretty much a giant series of mistakes and misinformation. In that the game seems to be pretty accurate. :)

I suppose you could just use regular movement, but then watch the game bog down even more as everyone tries to line up perfect shots all the time. Like the Battletech mech conga line. :)

Yep, even with radar, sonar, and satellite navigation, accidents do occasionally occur in peacetime.

I imagine that will increase exponentially in wartime…..

Mike S, FT is a good system. The threshold rolls are sometimes fiddily in larger games. However, I have found Starmjada to be an even better game. The design system is more balanced. There is a much larger selection of weapon systems which allows various backgrounds like B5, Star Wars, Trek and BSG to be modelled closer to what they act like in their respective shows/movies, IMO. Larger games in Starmada are also faster and easier to run. I wouldn't refuse to play a game of FT. But given the choice I'd take Starmada every time.

Thanks,

John

Wolfgang, I think we are partially debating a difference of scale.

When playing a fleet scale battle I am not all that excited about the individual course plotting of every destroyer and frigate. I think the strategy is in having the other player not know where you are going while you try to guess what he plans to do.

The one I mentioned above was pretty large, and plotting definitely bogged down the game.

And I have read a few books including the Japanese Imperial Navy translated version of their actions in WWII (twice actually – don't ask me why it was pretty dry ).

I agree in battles many mistakes are made, and often ships found themselves out of position to support other ships, or they were spotted by luck (good or bad), or came upon enemy ships unexpectedly…..

Pt boats, subs, and maybe the occasional destroyer may have hit an unseen shoal…

But I do not recall a lot of cases where aircraft carriers accidently ran into islands……?

I understand the point about Battletech, but that has a lot to do with the penalty for passing through terrain which is not much of an issue with FT.

Also, if I remember right you can pre-measure every shot anyway so how is it all that different?

I don't think a comparison to systems affected by such things as winds and water currents is valid for a starship game. No wind, no current. Gravitational effects, certainly, but these aren't an element in Full Thrust, except for a couple of "hand waves" about orbits and being clear of "gravity wells" to jump. Indeed the only valid comparison here is Dervel's point that aircraft carriers don't accidentally run into islands. You'd have to really, really suck as a navigator to run into a planet. In fact, I dare say the ship's computers would be screaming "there's-a-frickin'-planet-there-you-dolt" when you plotted your move. Absent significant damage to the ship, such an event simply wouldn't happen. (Note that I'm talking about Full Thrust's quasi-Newtonian in system drives, not FTL.)

Note that this doesn't preclude the possibility of tactical mistakes. You can be perfectly aware of where you're going and how fast you're going there, and still screw up because you picked the wrong spot, or the enemy went somewhere else, or you over extended yourself, or whatever. Trying to plan against the latter is true tactical thinking. Hoping your enemy "misplots" his movement is the poorest form of tactics. In fact, it's tactical folly. The true tactical thinker assumes the enemy is going to do everything perfectly, and then determines how to win under those circumstances. A plan that includes any variants of the phrase, "with luck, the enemy will make a mistake" is fated for disaster.

Lion In The Stars:

What's the issue you're having with SS plotting?

Here's the basic procedure:

1) Am I going to be facing the way I want to when I'm done moving? If yes, don't pivot. If no, pivot to face the way I want to.

To answer this question, you shoot a bearing from your EoT marker to the target's EoT marker.

2) Plot vertical move. AKA "I think I'll want to have some altitude when I get there."

3) Plot horizontal move. AKA "I could go straight, or a pattern of left hand slips will get me here, which might be advantageous."

Reveal – everyone moves.

The tricks are that you have to trust the play aids, and that you WILL 'plot a move correctly and discover your tactical assessment was wrong' in a couple of games. In the time it takes to play 3 games with 'Whoops. I didn't see that…', you'll play about one game with 'iterative grinding out of perfect moves', and you'll have more fun – and get better with the game.

The real key to 3-D games is that you're playing the geometry and the angles of closure.