1st Battle Report and Rules Queries (long post)

[Rambler]

1 X Phaser 1 2AD Accuracy +2 killzone 8, precise firing at target at 6” range

Scenario 1 – target has shields still up.

Roll a 4,6
1 “shot” goes on to the shields though because KZ8 this removes 2 points of shields
1 “shot” goes through the shields. This causes 2 “hits” on the hull though because of KZ8
Roll again getting 1,5 Because of precise this causes one point of hull damage from the 1 and a critical from the 5. (2 and 6 would have had the same effect if weapon had not been precise).
Roll again on the critical table to determine which table is consulted. A “4” means the critical score on the Weapons critical table is increased by 1.

Scenario 2 – target has depleted all of it’s shields.
Roll a 4,6
Both shots are hits, both shots go through the shields because there aren’t any. Effectively in this scenario a 6 is no different than any other roll that successfully hits.The 2 “hits” actually cause 4 rolls on the hits table because the KZ8 makes them multihit 2
Roll again getting 2,5,6,6 . Because of precise this causes one hit and 3 criticals. One point of hull damage is caused and 3 dice rerolled.
2,5,5 are rolled meaning the critical score on the impulse chart is increased by one and the critical score on the crew chart is increased by 2.

These are correct.

Actually I have readed it a litle differently but close. The Attack Table on Page 7 says that a Critical Hit is treated as a Solid Hit BUT also rolls on the System Table.

So in your second example it would be 4 Damage Hits and then roll for 3 Criticals on top of that.

 

[Totenkopf]

From what I have seen in the dozen games I have played is that Klingon's shields are the weakest for there class. If you can maneuver a side shot into one it will eat the shields fast. The offset to that is if you hit the foreward arc and he has a shield up it halves you damage. Get the game play a little bit. There may need to be some tweaking but not much.

That and Klingons have less Phaser-1s than comparable ships from other factions, and their firing arcs are predominantly in the forward arc. Klingon ships also have a harder time dealing with ships on their flanks/tails because of their poor coverage.

 

[starbreaker]

From what I have seen in the dozen games I have played is that Klingon's shields are the weakest for there class. If you can maneuver a side shot into one it will eat the shields fast. The offset to that is if you hit the foreward arc and he has a shield up it halves you damage. Get the game play a little bit. There may need to be some tweaking but not much.

That and Klingons have less Phaser-1s than comparable ships from other factions, and their firing arcs are predominantly in the forward arc. Klingon ships also have a harder time dealing with ships on their flanks/tails because of their poor coverage.

Huh? What happened to the wing and waist phasers that they aren't providing rear and flank coverage? They ought to be able to fire more phasers back and side than forward on many hulls if their arcs were translated right. While I wouldn't expect ACTA to model such a crazy specific rule, the original D6/D7 ships had special rules that allowed them to fire every phaser on the ship straight backward due to their odd hull shape.

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

Totenkopf is not quite correct, many of the Klingon ships have excellent firepower to the side arcs. The D7, for example, the boom phaser-1s cover the Front, Port, and Starboard arcs, while the wing/waist Phaser-2s each cover the Port Half and Starboard Half arcs respectively.

The ability to fire the boom phasers to the direct rear, and the unique cross-over arcs of the wing phasers are unfortunately not present due to the needs for simplicity.

 

[starbreaker]

Totenkopf is not quite correct, many of the Klingon ships have excellent firepower to the side arcs. The D7, for example, the boom phaser-1s cover the Front, Port, and Starboard arcs, while the wing/waist Phaser-2s each cover the Port Half and Starboard Half arcs respectively.

That's reasssuring.

The ability to fire the boom phasers to the direct rear, and the unique cross-over arcs of the wing phasers are unfortunately not present due to the needs for simplicity.

Really too much to expect. Even a lot of SFB players forget/ignore those rules. Characterful, but needlessly complex.

 

[andywatkins1963]

2 points of query....

Is yesterdays comment correct. Does a critical count as a solid hit AND a critical. We have not been allocatting 1 hull damage for the critical.

Halving damage fired at the front of a klingon (rounded up). Do you do this after ALL the weapons on a ship have fired, after ALL the phasers have fired or after each individual line on the weapons chart. e.g. shooter had 2 phasers in arc each with 2AD and a photon torpedo with 2 AD.

Do you roll 2AD half and apply then roll for the 2nd phaser, half and apply then the same for the photon.
OR
Do you roll 4AD for the pahasers half and apply then roll for the photon
OR
do you roll for everything add it up then half and apply?

My pure guess is either the 1st or 2nd option, because of the rounding up issue it could make quite a difference.

Ta

Andy

 

[Renny]

.

Is yesterdays comment correct. Does a critical count as a solid hit AND a critical. We have not been allocatting 1 hull damage for the critical.

When you roll a critical, the target ship takes 1 damage as per a solid hit, and then you roll on the systems table and apply the effects from that result.

 

[andywatkins1963]

Thanks, not a big deal but we were not applying the point of damage for the critical.

 

[locarno24]

A viable solution to Klingons tailing you in ACTA might be to adopt a Lufbery Circle formation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufbery_circle

where each of your ships tails one of your others in a ring formation. If the enemy drops in behind a ship, you wind up with at least one ship on his tail, and Klingons do not like being hit from behind where their shields are softer. A smart Klingon will counter by concentrating many ships on one of yours at a time, but with practice you should be able to predict which ship is going to be main target in a given turn and use defensive SAs to help it survive longer while its squadronmates position themselves to chew on rear/side shields.

If you have enough hulls, you can make a double circle, with each ring rotating in an opposite direction, which is even harder to approach without taking serious counterfire. OTOH. the Lumbering trait makes this a harder trick to manage - it works best when all your ships have similar speed and maneuver capability.

SFU ships fly and fight more like very large aircraft than like naval ships, and some research into WW1 and WW2 dogfighting tactics can be helpful - as long as you remember that space is flat and altitude is not a factor.

Agreed. Dogfighting tricks and formations are a good source of inspiration. The Thach Weave - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_weave - is another one, and very good for taking on more manouvrable flanking forces (like klingons) whilst still generally moving in a given direction, especially since it generally presents the side or rear of the enemy.

 

[Captain Jonah]

However Gorn and Romulans could have serious problems unless they're willing to sacrifice a couple of War Eagles to blow holes in the circle at short range.

As a Gorn I am more than happy to sacrifice a couple of romulan ships :lol:

Feds have a lot of problems because of the very restrictive arc of photons. Still they have plenty of phasers and a tail gating Klingon can taker a lot of phaser fire from a fleet if he gets too close.

For the Roms I would think they should be cloaking in and out making this sort of thing far more difficult for the Klingons plus the Klingon loan ships are agile meaning they can flank and come about to chase of those pesky Klingon back stabbers. Yes people have said this staged cloaking doesn't work that well but wait till the Romulan players have a score of battles under thier belts :twisted:

Gorns can use the wide plasma arcs and use a scissor move. Pair up your Gorn ships and keep them together side by side, if you get klingons or anyone else behind you turn both ships toward each other, they can generally only do 45% but that should be enough to pass each other and create a 360 degree fire zone where several plasmas are in arc of any target along with a lot of phasers.

In terms of those huge front end shields on the Klinks, this is a Fleet combat game. Even the feds have access to agile ships which can operate on the fleets flanks and quickly turn to catch a Klink on his side shields.

Something which I think is going to take time to get used to is the Fleet aspect. SFB was hugely complex to run multi ship fleets (this killed many a campaign when the battles got too big), FC is geared towards small fleet battles but it is single ship rules scaled down to a less powerful version for squadrons.

ACTA-SF is about fleets. Yes the Klinks are agile and will run in behind one of your ships but if they are moving at speed they have no overloads reducing the ability to single shot kill your ships. On the other hand your fleet should have enough ships to flank some of the Klink ones as well and it doesn’t take many Photon and phaser hits to strip even the mid range Klink ships of shields from the sides or rear.

Give it till April. All the main fleets will be out by then and there will have been time for hundreds of battles. That is the time to start taking a look at any imbalances.

Until then fight for the glory of your Stellar Nation, crush the enemy under the mail fist of your mighty Fleet and most importantly. Have Fun. :lol:

 

[andywatkins1963]

Halving damage fired at the front of a klingon (rounded up). Do you do this after ALL the weapons on a ship have fired, after ALL the phasers have fired or after each individual line on the weapons chart. e.g. shooter had 2 phasers in arc each with 2AD and a photon torpedo with 2 AD.

Do you roll 2AD half and apply then roll for the 2nd phaser, half and apply then the same for the photon.
OR
Do you roll 4AD for the pahasers half and apply then roll for the photon
OR
do you roll for everything add it up then half and apply?

My pure guess is either the 1st or 2nd option, because of the rounding up issue it could make quite a difference.

Ta

Andy

Anyone know the answer?

 

[Renny]

I guess it's a matter of interpretation. The text in the book says the ship will have the number of hits it sustains halved. I would interpret this as halving the hits from each weapons system for simplicity. So your Klingon is fired on by a Fed ship with 2AD of phaser-1's and 4AD of photons in the F arc. So i would resolve as follows;

2Ad of phasers, rolls a 4 and a 5. These two beams hit. Neither defensive fire or stealth are applicable so the Klingon should take 2 hits. These are halved to 1, which is crossed off the shield total of the Klingon ship.

4AD of photons, assume 3 hits are scored. Photons have the multihit 4 trait. This means the Klingon should actually take 12 hits from this attack. Again, stealth or DF are irrelevant so reduce the number of hits by half, rounding up, so only 6 actual hits are marked off the shield score.

This means out of a potential reduction in shield level by 14, the Klingon ship has only actually lost 7 from it's shield total.

 

[Greg Smith]

4AD of photons, assume 3 hits are scored. Again, stealth or DF are relevant so reduce the number of hits by half, rounding up, so only two actual hits are marked off the shield score.

Except 3 successful rolls mean 12 hits (multi-hit 4), so 6 are applied to the shields.

 

[Renny]

I knew that . Thanks Greg. I've edited my example to avoid confusion.

 

[Ostmann]

The klingon Dread, C7 and F5 all charged forwards and engaged the Fed frigate which was destroyed. The fed dread, battlecruiser and Frigate all charged forward and concentrated fire on the Klingon Dread, it survived the 1st turns attention but lost all it’s shields and almost half it’s hull along with some criticals.

Well I was the Klingon player - these seemed the only thing to do as a Klingon - Dive straight in shoot and soak the damage up!!!!

Was a lot of fun, got me in to the game, ordered the starter fleets and rules (Thanks to Matt also who sent me a pocket rule book to get me goign till my fleets and rules arrive)

Loved B5 and now converted back to SF

Al