I don't mind the movement system, primarily because I can't be bothered to write out some rules for it. I've always thought that trying to use Hard Vacuum vector movement rules would be good. They're quite simple to pick up. The only problem is that with that game you have thrusters in all arcs, while for Starmada you just have MPs...

My gaming group has come to Starmada after a very brief flirt with Full Thrust. When we began to play Starmada we used the vector movement as it seemed more “realistic”. After several battles, involving just such quick fly-bys as you mentioned, we switched to Stamada's intrinsic “cinematic” system. The vector movement reduced maneuvers in combat and all ships tended to have AB arc weapons as you were always turning to thrust at your opponent. With the regular Starmada movement, there is more maneuvering and it makes for a more challenging game as ships need side and rear mounted weapons. Again, one of the good things about Starmada is its ability to be molded to fit the playing styles of any milieu or setting.

I'd used Full Thrust for Star Wars in the past and I like the feel of it for that. When I started wanting to come up an alternative for B5Wars for B5 gaming I had considered FT. The main reason I kept looking was because I wanted a bit more variety in the weapon systems, which because of the very simple weapon system in FT was very difficult to set up with the right feel.

Well realism isn't the only thing I'm after (or I'd be playing Ad Astra's Attack Vector). As I've said, a lot of it depends on feel. I think B5's feel is captured best with a good Vector move. For Star Wars or Star Trek I'd probably use a variant of FT's Cinematic move - with changes made to reduce the high speed factor. i.e., a player could still attain those speeds if they wanted to, but there would be more drawbacks to doing so.

I have this concern as well. I think FT's Vector won't favor high speed as much as their Cinematic does, but the possibility is definitely there. If I can't get it to work the way I want I'll probably use a variant of FT's Cinematic move.

The main thing I'd want is a system that does allow momentum to carry over from turn to turn, and would also prefer a system that "naturally" discourages super-high speeds without having to set an "artificial" speed limit, the way that SX's Vector move does.

The most obvious, and easiest, way to discourage high speeds is to do something similar to what AoG did with Babylon 5 Wars: The faster a ship is traveling the more expensive turns become (in terms of thrust/MPs spent).

In standard FT a turn costs 1 thrust per clock face no matter what. A 6-thrust ship can come about completely in one turn no matter how fast it's going. The only drawback is that the arc of the turn will be wider.

My initial thought would be to use a modifier to the thrust/MP costs at faster speeds. Something like an additional thrust for every 5-10 points of speed the ship is moving at (would need testing to decide exactly how much). As an example, something like:At 0-10 speed it costs 1 thrust/MP for each point of turning; at 11-20 it costs 2; at 21-30 it costs 3 and so on.

This would naturally reduce speed somewhat. That 6 thrust ship can no longer come about in one turn at any speed higher than 10. Past speed 20 it can only turn two points a turn.

Note that one of the advantages of this system is that it's easily workable with hexes or without. The only big change with hexes is that you have to buy turns in 2-point increments, because you have 6 hexsides instead of 12-clock face directions.

It's been a while since I've played FT, but I believe a 6 thrust ship could only allocate three points to turning.
So it would actually take two turns to do a 180 degree facing change.
As for faster moving ships having to spend more MPs to turn, I disagree with that. The speed of the ship has nothing to do with changing the facing of the ship, because it should still cost the same amount of MPs (or take the same amount of energy), to turn the nose of the ship. Now when you start talking actual direction of flight that's a different story.
In my opinion the FT cinematic movement mechanic is an extremely good mechanic, and is easy to understand, from a game playing perspective. Fatser moving ships have a wider turning arc, which is the only difference there should be between two ships moving at different speeds. Granted, it doesn't allow for a facing different than the direction of flight, bit I don't see that as a problem. For me it's a non-issue, for I don't see any vector-based movement system as better. Just different.
Ultimately, it's about maneuver and bringing weapons to bear.
And no one's ever been able to convince me that a vector-based system is any more fun than a cinema-based system.
Kevin

I recently purchased Starmada X after playing Full Thrust for a while, primarily to see if SX's ship design system would be a better fit with my group's  custom setting. For my personal taste, if it's in space, it has to be vector, and I think FT's implementation is better, subject to the caveat that our house-rules do not permit manoeuvring thrusters to do anything but turn or roll the ship (FT's "thruster push" rule is ridiculous IMHO; I just don't believe in manoeuvring thrusters capable of delivering half the acceleration of the main drive!).

Our experience is that vector movement does not inhibit manoeuvre, but it does make it very different from what we're all used to in the way wet-navy ships, aircraft etc. behave. Of course it's exactly the audience's unfamiliarity that leads the makers of most TV and movie SF to ignore physics and have spaceships banking into turns, whooshing as they pass by etc. I don't think there's much point using anything but "cinematic" movement if you're playing in the Star W*rs or Star Tr*k universes. B5 is a bit better, but still has apparently reaction-engined Earth Alliance ships decelerating into orbit etc. while still flying "bows forward" as it were.

The "put all your weapons in the front arc and charge" mutual fly-by scenario is encouraged by "line 'em up and send 'em in" encounter-battle scenarios, but it's not the only approach.  For example long-range weapons covering the broadside arcs offer interesting tactical options for holding the range open and circling the enemy's flanks as he charges. Think Saracen horse-archers rather than charging knights...

An issue our group has discussed a fair bit is the "sit and spin" problem. FT's vector rules allow a ship to turn from any heading to any other by burning one Thrust Point (TP). As a result, even the most sluggish armoured behemoth can spin as nimbly on its axis as the speediest frigate, and bring even single arc weapons to bear on any chosen bearing. That doesn't really feel right, and we've experimented with adopting the Turn-a-TP-for-each-arc-turned approach. That means, for example, that Thrust 2 dreadnaughts take two turns to reverse their heading, and gives an incentive to fit them with multi-arc weapons to counter nimbler opponents.

I'll see if it can be applied to Starmada later, but I've got a system that determines thrust output per engine based on the size of the ship.  Maneuver is also based on ship size and thrust output, but not halved...more of a square root.  Larger ships become slower on the turning and their engines are less effecient the bigger the ship is. 

If it's adaptable, I'll post it. 

And from a vector movement standpoint, the one used for Renegade Legions: Intercepter 1st Ed. was pretty cool.  :wink:

I gots that figured out as well...so you end up making more of a "J" curved turn rather than the 'ricochet' effect.

Of course a small ship can rotate more quickly, I worded that poorly. Considering, that many of these games use a fairly abstracted time scale, however, makes the amount of time a turn takes less important than the cost in thrust that it takes.

And, in an abstracted movement system like FT or SX* I think a set cost in thrust to go to whichever facing you want is probably the closest happy medium you'll get between realism and playability.

Of course, balance comes into play as well.

*Compare FT or SX's generic thrust points with AoG's Babylon 5 Wars, for example, which tries to deal with it in a more "absolute" manner - big ships have more total thrust, but their maneuvers cost more. Small ships have less total thrust, but their manuevers cost less - as opposed to the "relative" FT or SX method where all maneuvers cost the same but small ships have more thrust.

The end result is (or should be) the same, or close enough to call - small ships can maneuver more than big ships, it's just a different way of getting there.

True, and I confess that I'd forgotten about that when I posted above. The FB2 suggestions do make "thruster pushes" less bogus. However our group feels that the push acceleration is stilll too high. The manoeuvring thrusters on a thrust-2 battlewagon would still be delivering 50% of the main engines' acceleration.

There is a material that's essentially foamed silicon, IIRC. It's as hard as glass, but so light that it would float - about 5X as heavy as Air IIRC...

Wouldn't be great as hardface, but it would be great as frangible/ablative protection.

Only problem with that is one or two good clouds of 1" ball bearings and your high speed pass is gonna kill you without me having to take a shot.  :twisted:   A 1/4" diameter paint chip can nearly hole the space shuttles cockpit windows at no more than orbital velocity.  Heavier mass objects and faster velocities are going to play merry boom boom in that scenario.  :twisted:

Missiles are going to be the preferred long range intercept weapons, energy weapons mid ranged, and kinetics short ranged due to simple geometrics and trigonometry.  There just isn't any way around that from a realistic perspective.