15 replies to this topic

[Aero Slasher]

I was just wondering if why use a hex system of play instead of a oct system? "when refering to table top?"

[Renz Ward]

Octagons don't tessalate.

[Calisrue]

they do if you incorporate the squares.

[Karl Streiger]

However even with the squares, or maybe with a border around each tile - you have to recalculate the movement:
a unit with 3 MP is able to turn 180° with a octagon you need 4 MP... when 3 MP Hex are 4 MP Oct...than you have to reduce the scale.
A small laser for example would have now a range of 4...a flight of LRMs would reach 28 tiles...

The only advantage of octagons is, that you are able to walk in a 90° angle without turning - move turn - move -turn.
You could do the same with a simple house rule....

[Aero Slasher]

Renz Ward, on 15 July 2012 - 09:27 PM, said:

Octagons don't tessalate.

Ah i see

Calisrue, on 15 July 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

they do if you incorporate the squares.

what would squires be used for?

Karl Streiger, on 16 July 2012 - 01:19 AM, said:

However even with the squares, or maybe with a border around each tile - you have to recalculate the movement:
a unit with 3 MP is able to turn 180° with a octagon you need 4 MP... when 3 MP Hex are 4 MP Oct...than you have to reduce the scale.
A small laser for example would have now a range of 4...a flight of LRMs would reach 28 tiles...

The only advantage of octagons is, that you are able to walk in a 90° angle without turning - move turn - move -turn.
You could do the same with a simple house rule....

so lets say i took a 60 degree turn what would i be able to do?

[Koenig]

Aero Slasher, on 16 July 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

what would squires be used for?

Aero Slasher, on 16 July 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:

Ah i see

No, I'm pretty sure you don't.

[Bucky Goldstein]

As a part of movement, you make a turn would be either move forward/backward or another 60 degree turn. That's going to be the limit of what you can do in a single hex though. Assuming you have enough MP's you can do the same in the next hex you move into.

[Grokmoo]

Basically, there are only 3 possible tilings (assuming we want to keep things regular) - triangle, square, and hexagon.

The hex tiling has an interesting feature not present in square tilings that is useful for tactical games like BattleTech - the distance between a tile and any adjacent tile is always the same. This makes figuring out distance and paths easy. In a square tiling, some adjacent tiles are 1 unit distant, and others (the diagonal ones) are about 1.4 units distant.

There are a host of other properties that make hex tilings superior. The main disadvantage, of course, is simplicity in specifying coordinates and in drawing the tiling. For a square tiling, you can use the standard (x, y) coordinates that we are all used to. For hexagon tiling, you can construct a similar coordinate system but it is not quite as easy.

If you want to learn more, you can start here:

http://en.wikipedia....egular_polygons

Edited by Grokmoo, 16 July 2012 - 11:13 AM.

[TripleHex]

Wait... me vs. WHO??? lol

[Beazle]

Or, you can always play without any grid at all, on mini terrain.

That was always my favorite.

[acheronlv426]

Beazle, on 16 July 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

Or, you can always play without any grid at all, on mini terrain.

That was always my favorite.

Then you need to break out the rulers and I found the math tends to get more complicated.

[Beazle]

acheronlv426, on 18 July 2012 - 07:55 PM, said:

Then you need to break out the rulers and I found the math tends to get more complicated.

String with marks on it.

I never noticed anything i'd call difficult math.

[SiriusBeef]

Personally I prefer the Table Top rules just because the games look so much better when compared to the old school hex sheets. Hex sheets are still however the default for tourney play because there is no fudge factor that can be taken advantage of.

[SakuranoSenshi]

To answer the OP: Octagons just don't work (tessellation or rather the lack of it, is why) so it's Hexagons.

Like Sirius above me, though, I prefer to just use distance and arbitrary directions. What maths did you find difficult, acheron? A couple of tables can quickly get rid of repeating common calculations, though.

Edited by SakuranoSenshi, 26 July 2012 - 08:05 PM.

[Incunabulum]

Calisrue, on 15 July 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

they do if you incorporate the squares.

The fact that there are squares left over by definition means they don't tessalate - tesselation is when you create a 2d plane of repeating identical polygons with no gaps or overlaps.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Not quite actually. Octagons alone will not tessellate, therefore are not useful for us in this context, because we want an identical and regular polygon for each location. Tesselation doesn't require identical polygons, it requires a pattern of polygons that will endlessly tile with no gaps or overlaps. Octagons and squares can form such a pattern. Hexagons will tessellate by themselves.