Matt Bace - 08:41am Sep 10, 2002 PST (#1253 of 1272) "Where Zen ends, ass kicking begins" -- Steve Hyde I finally picked up Smokejumpers, and, after reading through the rules, I have to say that this looks like a pretty slick little game. I do have a few questions, though. I hope someone here can answer them for me: (1) How do ground crews who are not smokejumpers enter the map? My assumption would be that they can (a) start at any urban hex, (b) enter from off-map on a tanker truck, (c) enter from off-map on a helicopter, or possibly (d) enter from off-map on a bulldozer transport. (2) Is it OK to deploy resources and begin line building prior to ignition? (3) I don't know a lot about fighting forest fires, but is it really true that all of the line types are equivalent? For instance, it doesn't seem to me that an earth line would do to much to extinguish a fire. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. (4) There is only one air transport counter included in the game. Is this intended to limit the number of smokejumpers that can drop on a single game turn? Or, for instance, could I pay $2K to drop 8 teams on a single turn? (5) There aren't any "extinguished" markers in the counter mix. Is the intent simply to use a stack of line markers on top of a smouldering marker to indicate an extinguished hex? (6) Is the term "burning" meant to include both active and smouldering hexes? This term is used to describe both the trace from a ground crew to a tanker truck and the route of an evacuating resource. My guess is that the answer is yes, since 8.4 seems to indicate that a ground crew can't enter a smouldering hex. (7) Just out of curiousity, what are the units for "moisture content"? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kerry Anderson - 09:05am Sep 10, 2002 PST (#1255 of 1272) Matt, I'm a little rusty at the game but I'll see what I can do. 1. 8.2 says: Crews can be transported by helicopter and by tanker trucks - one crew per vehicle per turn - at the movement ability of the vehicle. Crews can combine transported movement with off-vehicle movement but because units move individually, a crew can be transported before and/or after but not during its off-vehicle movement. 2. Building line prior to ignition? Don't tell the Sierra Club. Errr... the rules don't say but I'll say -- no. 3. Are all types of line equivalent. Not really. Water tends to evaporate while retardant stays around. I envisioned optional rules for this but never followed up. Regarding an earth line, this is the principle way fire fighters contain the fire, digging a trench down to mineral soil (a few inches) a metre or so wide. By cutting off continuous fuel to the fire, surface fire spread stops. Fighting a crown fire is different. 4. 8.5.2 says Smokejumpers may be transported by the transport plane counter, which can carry up to 4 smokejumping crews. The operational cost of the transport is $1K per turn. Smokejumper crews that arrive on different turns must pay $1K for each turn transport is used. 5. Yes, there are no extinguished counters in the mix. 8.4 says Place a line marker (any value) to show that the fire has been extinguished. 6. Correct, smouldering hexes are still burning and can serve as a source for future fire spread. 6.1 states Once a fire has burned a hex, it becomes a smoldering fire. At the beginning of the fire growth phase, replace all active fire counters over to smoldering fires. A smoldering fire continues to burn in the hex, serving as a potential source of new fires. If weather conditions change exposing new fuels to be burned, the fire spreads into the new hexes as active fires. 7. Moisture content is a percentage of water weight to dry weight per volume, thus at 25% moisture content a 100 g sample would contain 20 g of water and 80 g of dry fuel. And as a bit of background, my real job is a fire research officer with the Canadian Forest Service. My home page for work is at http://nofc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/~kanderso/ so I know what I'm talking about :)