Will P&P address PL?

[Scipio]

I think this was suggested before as a kind of armour. so damage track has 2 thresholds - armour, which until thats gone you cant score crits, and crippled.
this is something that could work well i feel.

I suggested something similar earlier but got not even one comment on it.

It's probably been mentioned before but I would like crits to work like this.

Roll on the attack table and calculate damage normally and check the damage off from the ship but don't check for crits until after writing off the damage from the hit.

If the ship after the damage calculation has more than half of its damage left none of the hits will crit but precise weapons crits if any of the attack table rolls were a 6.

If the ship has equal or less than half the damage left normal weapons crits if any of the attack table rolls were a 6 and precise weapons if any of the attack table rolls were a 5+.

That would make it much harder for low priority ships to "crit out" a big ship before the big ship at least gets to show how big and cool it is.
It would also show that ships are much more at risk for catastrophic failures after they have taken a pounding.

A possible variant could be that if the ship has more than half damage left it gets _one_ crit if more than one 6 is rolled on the attack table.
That would show that more powerful weapons have bigger chance to score crits than less powerful ones.

[animus]

I suggested something similar earlier but got not even one comment on it.

... well you ARE Swedish....

[Scipio]

... well you ARE Swedish....

And here I thought that my spelling were better than:




Guess not...

[Tank]

awesome

[Tolwyn]

LOL

[Lord David the Denied]

not sure whats wrong with dodge as a mechanism?

how does VaS deal with Stealth or similar (I have not got the game)

Dodge is irritating. You score hits then lose them. In a VaS-style AD,DD system you'd have evasiveness built into the to-hit number. Stealth would be the same.

[Chernobyl]

going back to swarms, I still prefer a fix of gouping ships according to FAP purchase. This gives all players the same number of activations in just about all scenarios, unless they buy up.

for instance, in a 5 FAP battle game, if you buy 2 raid-hyperions for 1 point, they're in a squadron of two. If I buy 4 skirmish-chronos, they operate in a squadron. this can also help speed up some games.

if you buy up, like if you buy a 1 war-warlock in the above example, you'd wind up shorting yourself, and have 1 fewer activation. so account for the disparity this creates, the player who bought up can force his oponnent to activate a group (oponnent's choice) before he moves the big ship, but then has to move the big ship on his next activation.

I also think huge hangars need a fix. after seeing a fleet of battle level drakh carriers and a bazillion raiders in a 5 point battle scenario at Kublacon, I think they need some toning down.

[Poi]

How would fixing activation affect Dilgar pentacons?

[katadder]

not sure whats wrong with dodge as a mechanism?

how does VaS deal with Stealth or similar (I have not got the game)

Dodge is irritating. You score hits then lose them. In a VaS-style AD,DD system you'd have evasiveness built into the to-hit number. Stealth would be the same.

all you would do then is dodge the AD not the DD, how would that change?
and you would still need to beat stealth to use your AD against a stealth ship.

[Lord David the Denied]

Did you actually read what I said?

[katadder]

yes but most small hulls like the WS, the vorchan and others would have a to hit of 5+ so what change does that make to the WS? it would lose dodge for nothing whilst by your own balancing the vorchan would get the equivalent of dodge.

ACTA is a differant game, VaS doesnt have stealth and dodge so you cannot build them into the to hit scores.

[Lord David the Denied]

Do you have conversations with people that you just make up yourself?

[animus]

The problem isn't Swarms, per se. The problem is that big ships are unattractive choices because they don't hold up. Squadroning might help initiative, but 1 ship is never a better choice than 2 ships as things stand now. Even the WS Gunship which is arguably exactly equal to 2 whitestars is inferior because a single crit takes it out whereas 2 crits would be necessary to take out the WS's.

[animus]

Do you have conversations with people that you just make up yourself?

I'm afraid to admit it but I know I do. I told you that already....

[Lord David the Denied]

I'm afraid to admit it but I know I do. I told you that already....

Nice.

[katadder]

and in answer, no. your idea just wouldnt work to balance out dodge/stealth like suggested.
it may help balance out the big ship, little ship thing but with a maximum of 6 numbers dodge/stealth could not be incorporated to the to hit rolls.

[Lord David the Denied]

The traits would affect the final to-hit numbers, not be incorporated into the ship's target value.

[Chernobyl]

How would fixing activation affect Dilgar pentacons?

yeah, you'd need to address this. you might re-create the pentacon rule to allow the Dilgar to skip an activation, giving them an activation advantage.

[katadder]

so a WS with say to hit 5+, gets a +2 or 3 bonus cos of its dodge? or a torotha with probably to hit 5+ or even 6+ gets +2 or 3 cos of stealth?
basically the to hit numbers on these ships would have to be similar to your detroyers in VaS for all the ships like WSs, Vorchans, Torothas etc then add in advanced defenses like dodge and stealth and you would never be able hit them. this is why this system would not work with ACTA, at least to get rid of the dodge stealth traits as they stand at the moment.
you could perhaps use the system as well as the current dodge/stealth traits etc but that would require restatting every ship and weapon in the game, then balancing them all.

[l33tpenguin]

How would fixing activation affect Dilgar pentacons?

yeah, you'd need to address this. you might re-create the pentacon rule to allow the Dilgar to skip an activation, giving them an activation advantage.

I'd rather use an activation early than skip on (or use both and then skip one, if that is what you mean)

Allowing an activation to be skipped to maintain pentacon and squadrons would be a HUGE advantage in forcing a player to move more of their ships before you.