What's wrong with COACC?

atpollard · #1 July 25th, 2008, 10:23 AM

As someone who has used COACC and found a great deal to like about it, I was asked to come here and 'help with errata'.

So what is wrong with COACC?

Please be brief and specific - you are entirely within your rights to hate everything about it, but I have no desire to waste time trying to change anyone's OPINIONS.

Thank you for your participation.

Ishmael · #2 July 25th, 2008, 11:56 AM

I had a strong dislike for the design sequence, but that's just me; I have my own ideas about designing vehicles for Traveller and even FFS1 falls short in many areas imho.

iirc, the quick aerial combat rules were good but I never really used them in them Traveller
because of my design-rules bias. That, and it seemed too simplistic as a wargame and over-the-top for a fast and dirty rpg game-within-a-game. I recall using it as a basis for a hex-based dogfight game a long time ago ( something part-way between AH's "Richtofen's War" and SPI's "Air War" ).

The characters creation was very good
The artwork was top-notch

overall, it was a good product, but never quite suited my own personal tastes...it seemed to fall into the cracks between rpg and wargame.

just my opinion based on 15-20 year old memory ( which I expect is not nearly as sharp as it used to be...)

**aramis** · #3 July 25th, 2008, 05:18 PM

Conversions between mass and volume?
Displacement tonnage of loaded aircraft?
(These were the two major issues I had)
Inability to add airframe modifiers to starships...

It's not a bad design system, it's just that it's not fully compatible with the integrated system in RM.

atpollard · #4 July 25th, 2008, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aramis

Conversions between mass and volume?
Displacement tonnage of loaded aircraft?
(These were the two major issues I had)
Inability to add airframe modifiers to starships...

It's not a bad design system, it's just that it's not fully compatible with the integrated system in RM.

If this refers to the COACC design system being fully mass based with barely a nod to the Displacement Ton (or kl), I could not agree more. I wanted to add a turboprop engine to a boat to create one of those 'swamp boats' common in the Everglades, but of course, COACC lists no data on the volume of components, so I was just out of luck.

I thought once about rewriting the COACC design system using Striker and the Starship design system (for about an hour), but I came to my senses and decided that a High Guard-like Aircraft design system would be better.

That project is on hold until FFE releases the TNE Disk so I can incorporate HG, MT and TNE compatibility in one system (to whatever extent the rules will allow). Striker forms a bridge between CT and MT, but I have never seen FF&S.

jfetters · #5 July 28th, 2008, 11:11 PM

I don't think there is much technically wrong or bad in a content perspective. My only problem with it was "why did GDW publish this and not advance the Rebellion?" Props to Terry, who did a great job with the content, but IMO, it was the last thing that GDW needed to publish at the time.

kaladorn · #6 July 29th, 2008, 02:08 AM

Now, the official errata probably patches much of the utterly unusable bits (boy did they do a bad editing job).

I'll have to haul out my copy sometime soon (next couple or three weeks) and see if I have any thoughts on things that were done badly even after the Errata.

**aramis** · #7 July 29th, 2008, 03:47 AM

FF&S is essentially MT derived, however...
1) different armor and penetration scales, and thus armor and weapons differently rated
2) non-striker derived/compatible weapon design system
3) addition of surface area as a constraint
4) different computer rules
5) return to CT jump fuel rates
6) per year PP fuel rates (instead of per month.)
7) structure rated for G's, and built as a component, rather than a table lookup.
8) different crewing assumptions
9) very different range assumptions integrated into the weapons designs and sensors systems
10) 3 ton turrets standard, instead of 1 ton
11) 14Td Dton instead of the 13.5Td MT Dton.

It already integrates much of the stuff; working it back into MT stats is prety easily done.

Quote:

If this refers to the COACC design system being fully mass based with barely a nod to the Displacement Ton (or kl), I could not agree more. I wanted to add a turboprop engine to a boat to create one of those 'swamp boats' common in the Everglades, but of course, COACC lists no data on the volume of components, so I was just out of luck.

FF&S will in fact provide many of the needed volumes