Stealth - A New Approach

[Digger]

As it has been noted before on this forum, stealth is a very much hit or miss affair; one roll and its all or nothing.

May I offer a small solution called Partial Lock On.

Simply, it reduces the number you have to roll by 1, and you gain a partial lock on. So if a 5 was needed for full lock on and a 4 were rolled, then a partial lock on would have been achieved.

The player could then choose between either having a single weapon fire at half AD or all weapons that can bear at quarter AD.

Its a solution, not brilliant I know as you can still miss completely, but it does alleviate the problem slightly.

Constructive Comments and Suggestions Please.

Regards

[Burger]

The most common complaint about stealth was that it is "all or nothing". My suggestion to fix that, was that it should be changed to a per-weapon roll, rather than per-target.

Both my suggestion and yours, are better than the Armageddon changes IMO, which didn't make it any less "more or nothing"... they just made it more "all" and less "nothing".

[Digger]

I concur with you Burger, it still is an all or nothing roll, but at least its easier to get part of something than all of nothing as it is now (go figure! ).

We have tried this and it does make things easier, as now at range 10 or less, you have a better than 50% chance of hitting.

Unlike previously, where you could've seen the damn ship out of the window and still not hit it according to the rules!!

[Locutus9956]

agreed, whilst I do think the armageddon stealth rule is an improvement I still (as many people) were hoping we'd lose some of the randomness. Both your ideas would be good but I would go further and still maintain that a fixed effect like a range modifier or reduced damage etc (in a similar way to the non randomness of adaptive armour and GEGs etc).

As you say burger they havent changed the rule at all really just shifted the target number slightly (though admittedly it does change the game slightly in that it is even more vital for minbari to hold range (which also handily nerfs slightly the Tigara (which admittedly might have needed it) and the Torotha (in this case I suspect it has simply taken the Torotha from 'ok sometimes' to 'utterly crap')

[Lord David the Denied]

The most common complaint about stealth was that it is "all or nothing". My suggestion to fix that, was that it should be changed to a per-weapon roll, rather than per-target.

Both my suggestion and yours, are better than the Armageddon changes IMO, which didn't make it any less "more or nothing"... they just made it more "all" and less "nothing".

The problem with a per-weapon check is that your ship's sensors can either lock onto the target, or they can't, and all your weapons are linked to the ship's sensor suite.

I'd suggest a "save" of sorts for stealth. If you can't lock onto the target with your sensors your gunners are in their virtual reality back-up targeting system (mentioned in the novels and seen, sadly, in LotR) and firing into the general vicinity of the target. So your stealth system gives you a save against each AD from the firing weapon, representing the pulses or beams or whatever firing blind hoping for a hit.

Does any of that make any sense at all?

[H]

it makes sense, but it is indanger of becoming a dodge roll.

I liked the proposed special order someone suggested of just saturating the area of space with weapons fire, knowing you should at least hit something. As much as I hate to mention it, the Startrek federation used this to try and hit cloaked Romulan and Klingon ships.

[angelus2000]

Lord David, what you just suggested sounds much like dodge already does, rolld dodge for each AD that hits in an attempt to negate it.

I'd suggest leave the Stealth rule intact at ranges over 15".
At under 15" a failed stealth roll imposes a -3 modifier on the hits table(kinda like the Weak strait), so 1-4=bulkhead hit, 5-6=solid hit.

I think that would balance out nicely. Weapon AD must still beat hull score regardless, meaning hull 4 will get more than hull 6, but after thats theres only a 1/3 chance that the hit will do anything. Just cause it says bulkhead hit, doesnt actually mean the shot hit the ship, the sensors may just think it did.

[Alexb83]

I thought stealth was already a per-weapon roll? In S&P on the Minbari tactics (issue 32?), it was discussed that the Narn were the most well off against minbari in some ways, as they had a large number of weapon systems in any given arc, so more chances to overcome stealth?

I think it'd work nicely having a roll for each weapon, since (as we see numerous times in B5) there are 'gunnery teams' - the guys who actually aim the things and push the button to fire them, and there would be one in each weapon compartment who'd do so, rather than a centralised system which would attempt to target once and once only.

Weapons can already break down their dice and get individual attempts to target different ships to a certain extent, but multiple weapons in one arc should have a similar option.

Out of interest on this note - can boresighted beams split their dice within 4 inches? Or indeed boresighted weapons of any type?

[Burger]

I thought stealth was already a per-weapon roll?

Nope.

Out of interest on this note - can boresighted beams split their dice within 4 inches? Or indeed boresighted weapons of any type?

Yes, if two targets are both in arc (ie. boresighted) then you can split fire. Ships do not block line of sight in ACTA. A Ka'Toc once shot down 2 of my Nial flights in this way!

[Alexb83]

Unfortunate :S Per-weapon does make more sense, as the gunners should be able to target independently. Another alternative would be a special action 'go to manual targetting!' (a la war without End pt 1 and Ivanova) in which you get to pump out 1/2 your AD in a given arc.

[TenaciousB]

Digger, I like the idea of partial lock-on, but weapons should not be able to score criticals with a partial.

Just an idea.

[Alexb83]

What about: Special action 'Weapons to Manual!' CQ Test 8+

Nominate a fire arc. On a successful CQ check, your gunnery teams are able to obtain targets in their arc manually, without the aid of their fallable targetting computers. As a result you can fire weapons in that arc at 1/2 their AD (losing the precise trait where applicable, and gaining the weak trait) at a target, ignoring their stealth value.

[Burger]

I think better would be:

"Direct Sensors That Way!" CQ 8+
Nominate one enemy target. All the ship's sensors are directed towards this target, in a desperate attempt to break its stealth. If the CQ check succeeds you may re-roll a failed stealth check once against the declared target, but you may not fire at any other targets.

[H]

What about: Special action 'Weapons to Manual!' CQ Test 8+

Nominate a fire arc. On a successful CQ check, your gunnery teams are able to obtain targets in their arc manually, without the aid of their fallable targetting computers. As a result you can fire weapons in that arc at 1/2 their AD (losing the precise trait where applicable, and gaining the weak trait) at a target, ignoring their stealth value.

I actually quite like the Mechanic of that

[Burger]

What about: Special action 'Weapons to Manual!' CQ Test 8+

Nominate a fire arc. On a successful CQ check, your gunnery teams are able to obtain targets in their arc manually, without the aid of their fallable targetting computers. As a result you can fire weapons in that arc at 1/2 their AD (losing the precise trait where applicable, and gaining the weak trait) at a target, ignoring their stealth value.

Maybe the fluff should say...
"Your gunnery team look out the window, and see a tiny blue dot several thousand kilometers away. They decide their eyes are better than a multi-billion credit targetting computer, and point the guns vaguely in that direction."

[Alexb83]

I think either is a viable option - although 'direct sensors that way' already seems to be covered by scout ships giving rerolls against targets to a certain extent.

As for my version, it would have to be: 1/2 AD (rounding down where necessary) lose precise (firing randomly by definition can't be precise), and either gain weak, or lose AP/Super AP where present.

[Locutus9956]

I will still maintain to the death that the B5Wars double range penalty worked FAR better and just felt more right. Now Im not just saying switch to that outright, the Minbari list (and othe stealth ships too) would certainly need altering if that was the setup but I really think it would be far less annoying than relying on random dice for stealth.

As for those who say 'the Minbari were overpowered in B5Wars' firstly I dont subscribe to that particular belief anyway, Ive fought and beaten them with various opponents in both ACTA and B5Wars. Yes perhaps SOME ships (Im looking at you Mr. Tinashi...) were a tad broken in B5Wars but it was NOT because of the Jammers. The Jammer rule was pure gold and I loved it. So why not put it ACTA?

Now at this point Im expecting the usualy wave of: 'ACTA is not B5Wars its a completely different game' rants but thats not the point! Mononopoly is a completely different game from snakes and ladders but you dont seen anyone saying 'you cant use dice to decide how far you move in Monopoly cos its not snakes and ladders, we put 6 hampsters in a maze and see which reaches the end first to generate our random numbers'

Just because its a different game doesnt mean you cant change a rule to be the same as another if that rule is a better way of doing things.

Though actually that hampster race number generator would be WAY cooler than rolling dice I think I may have to pay the pet store a visit.....

[Alexb83]

What about: Special action 'Weapons to Manual!' CQ Test 8+

Nominate a fire arc. On a successful CQ check, your gunnery teams are able to obtain targets in their arc manually, without the aid of their fallable targetting computers. As a result you can fire weapons in that arc at 1/2 their AD (losing the precise trait where applicable, and gaining the weak trait) at a target, ignoring their stealth value.

Maybe the fluff should say...
"Your gunnery team look out the window, and see a tiny blue dot several thousand kilometers away. They decide their eyes are better than a multi-billion credit targetting computer, and point the guns vaguely in that direction."

Very funny Seriously though, there are a number of times in the series where characters do just this, because they are 'outside optimum firing range' etc. - they switch to manual. And where the computer is being fritzed by stealth, or otherwise disabled (i.e. by critical hits) you /have/ to go to manual, because the computer pops up with 'no solution'. This could also cover those eventualities where you would otherwise have lost that fire arc due to a crit.

Even if the computer did cost billions, if the equations built into it don't give a generous margin for what's not 'optimum firing range', the gunner is still necessary.

[Burger]

I will still maintain to the death that the B5Wars double range penalty worked FAR better and just felt more right. Now Im not just saying switch to that outright, the Minbari list (and othe stealth ships too) would certainly need altering if that was the setup but I really think it would be far less annoying than relying on random dice for stealth.

Now at this point Im expecting the usualy wave of: 'ACTA is not B5Wars its a completely different game' rants but thats not the point!

I don't object to rules from B5W coming into ACTA... I'll only object if the only reason you want it is because thats how it worked in B5W. Thats clearly not the case here. If a rule makes sense then I'll suport it, no matter what its origins.

Personally I don't like the range penalty method, because it is so hard to keep at range in ACTA. One or two turns of APTE! and the Narn Bat Squad is 4" away from you.

[angelus2000]

Narn Bat Squad? while I'm sitting here laughing my ass off, where'd that paticualr term come from?