Topic: Opinions wanted

[[UFP]Exeter]

A couple questions:

What is movement point ratio?

What is combat efficiency used for?

They may be earlier than ADB.

And what is a shield point ratio

[TarMinyatur]

What is movement point ratio?

...

...

They may be earlier than ADB.

Speed = Momentum / Mass

Arbitrary assignments of mass (i.e. "movement point ratio"):
Heavy Cruiser = 1
Destroyer = 0.5

If a speed of 10 is desired, the Heavy Cruiser must apply 10 momentum units.
If a speed of 10 is desired, the Destroyer must apply 5 momentum units.

We can arbitrarily define a momentum unit as one Warp engine unit (out of 30 on a CA) or one Dilithium unit (out of 15 on a DD).

These ideas are from well before ADB or computers. I believe Newton described them a long time ago.

Momentum = Velocity * Mass

...which can be rearranged to...

Velocity = Momentum/Mass

The Chinese and Mayans may have known this 5000 years ago.

[[UFP]Exeter]

Thanks, the physics I understand, it tells me to just assigh an actual mass to the ships as my physics engine understands mass.

[TarMinyatur]

Yeah. The idea is that a Destroyer has less mass than a Heavy Cruiser. If both ships apply an identical force of 1 unit, the Destroyer will accelerate faster than the Heavy Cruiser.

force = mass * acceleration

But board games don't deal with acceleration smoothly. They use chunks of psuedo-acceleration instead. Thus on turn #1 you can go from motionless to, let's say, a speed of 10 instantly. On turn #2, you can jump to speed 20. On turn #3, you can reach top speed. It is easier to use three steps of momentum than true acceleration.

As long as the force of one unit of dilithium crystal (or hampster wheel) is the same on all ships, it should work.

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

OK you are using terms from FASA's Star Trek Starship Combat Simulator.

So I'll tackle them one by one...

A couple questions:

Q: What is movement point ratio?
A: This is the total amount of energy required to move one hex in a combat phase/turn..  Larger vessels generally have higher ratios (5/1 or higher  is generally used by battleship sized vessels, cruisers typically have 4/1 or 3/1, small vessels can have 2/1, 1/1 and  if I remember right even less than 1/1 in rare cases).

Q: What is combat efficiency used for?
A: This is an arbitrary rating determined based on the weapons, etc. a ship is mounting, used to compare versus other vessels r.e. combat effectiveness.  It has no ingame function, and is similar to how BPV (Basic Point Value) is used in SFB/SFC.

They may be earlier than ADB.

Q: And what is a shield point ratio
A: This is the number of shield points added to a shield facing per point of power.  So if you have  a shield ratio of 1/3, every point of power nets 3 shield strength.  Total weapon damage is reduced by the facing shield strength when a volley strikes a vessel.  You'll also note a "Maximum Shield Rating" or some such is also referenced, this is the maximum shield strength for any given facing.  Shield points are distributed among the six shields, keeping the max rating in mind.  The TMP era Enterprise has a 1/4 ratio and a 16 max strength, so you'd need  24 power to boost all six shields to 16 each.
I implemented a house rule where the max shield strength was the max POWER that could be applied to a facing, in which case the Enterprise could generate 64 shield points in a given direction, if 16 power was assigned to that facing.  this change made combat feel more like what you see in the original series, etc.

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

If you want to peruse the FASA Starship Tactical Combat Simulator  material (assuming you don't have it already), here are a couple of useful links:

http://home.comcast.net/~ststcsolda/
I've used this link as a reference for a while.

http://www.tacticalstarshipcombat.com/FASA/STSTCS%20Home%20Page.htm
This link is new to me, but looks to be a very well designed website.

This page has a bunch of links to things, some you may find useful:
http://www.thecrimsonpirate.com/xon/

Here's a link to a fan made computer game version of the Tactical Combat Simulator:
http://ststcs.slightlysilly.com/

[[UFP]Exeter]

Thanks for the information.  I had none of the FASA stuff