(TFT) Scale

["Jay Carlisle" <selfinflicted_wounds@boardermail.com>]

Okay,

Those Square-hexes again.

On "Quadrile" or quarter inch graph paper, a Square hex is 4 squares sts north to south, and 5 squares vertice to vertice east to west.
(else if ya gotta draw the grid across the hexes)

Representing a Melee hex, this makes a side, north or south, measure 1m across, or 3 squares.

So why do I bore y'all with this seemingly meaningless stuff?



< Jay sings horrabily off key >

Marc, made me doooooo iiiiiiit
I didn't wanna do it
I didn't have to do it

I never much cared for LUE.
All I can REALLY say for sure about games that I played so very long ago is that if I remember them at all, I recall them only as "fun" or "THAT one was a stinker".
LUE falls firmly in the odiferious catergory for me and I think I've FINALLY got the tools down to show why.

It works like this.

Lords of the Underearth
1 unit = 30 (or so) men
1 Turn = 6 minunets = 72 Melee Turns
1 hex = 30m sts = 900m^2 ~ 23 Melee hexes across (7.6 Mega-hexes across)
Passages
Wide = 10m (or more)
Narrow = 4m (1Mh)
Tunnel = 1m (1 hexside n/s)

Yeah? what of it, you might ask.
Well, unlike the problem we face in Goblin of an undescribed hex LUE is VERY clear about the Hex Scale they are useing.
This has VERY clear implications on concepts like ZOC, Stacking, and "Combat Factors (Attack Factors, Combat Strength, thy names are Legion).

Okay then, y'all remember that Scale-hex babble?

I'll refresh quickly.
Take a Square-hex (described above) 4 times larger, where each square in the Square-hex is a box 4 squares by 4 squares in the Scale-hex.
Representing a 1.3m hex, each square in the Scale-hex is 3.25" per side in the "Realworld".
(We're through the looking glass here people. "Milhouse")
Remember that Unit.

Now I'm ranting about all of this because, in talking about LUE, we are talking about body relative issues of Scale.
In other words, at the LEAST we've got Dwarf and Human diffrences in size.
And some of these spaces are cramped.
How cramped, and relative to which races?

Well we have a Scale-hex, and a Unit, but how to make it relative?
Perhaps like so?

In classical art, the Human figure is porportioned as follows;

8 heads high by 3 heads wide by 1 head deep.

1 Top of head to top of shoulders
2 shoulders to nipples
3 nipples to navel
4 navel to crotch
5 crotch to middle of thigh
6 thigh to knee
7 knee to middle of shin
8 shin to foot

Greek "heroic" figures stood 6' tall.
That's a 9" tall head (3 squares).

Now all I get outta ITL is that Dwarfs average less than 5' and Halflings are "small".
I arbitrally say that Humans are around 6', Elves 5', Dwarves 4' and HALFlings 3'.

This makes Dwarf heads about 6" tall (2 squares).

Now this is useing human proportions, and I suspose that much like Fireballs and Flight everybody has there own ideas about how these critters should look, but useing the 3.25" block as a Unit (sortta like a gummyblock, or Lego, almost a "hand") GM's can tweak the physiology as they see fit.

Useing this method, I can show strange or odd situations in more detail but what I'm concerned with here is Mass Combat involving 25ish folks per Unit.

In limited space like narrow tunnels, doorways, etc. where the combat is basicly 1 on 1, one at a time (Corwins asaualt up the stairway) 72 turns may not be sufficent to compleate the combat.

I've still got to run all of that (Mr. Fhurmans wonderful simulator) but I'm fairly sure that the Timescale is gonna prove inadaquite for all the situations this Hexscale presents.

The next issue is a packing problem.

For Stacking purposes, we need to know how many members of each type of Race can fit into one LUE hex.

This is the purpose of the Scale-hex.
Rather than give pre-calculated "restrictions" I'm looking for a Tool that'll allow me to be as flexable as possable.
The Scale-hex allows me to show proportional Figures, including stuff like reach (a Figure standing over 6' tall can reach the center of a hex 2 hexes away useing a "step thrust" and a weapon of at least 2 1/2' in length) and height questions (Yes me Droogies, Giants are just nuts over Halflings).
Once you know what's going on in a Melee-hex just walk it on up.

1 LUE-hex = 30m sts = 900m^2 = 532.54 Melee-hexes ~ 76 Mega-hexes.
1 LUE-hex ~ 23 Melee-hexes diameter ~ 7.6 Mh.

2 humans standing shoulder to shoulder ~ 1.3m

Alot more...



Jay



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