A Call To Arms Star Fleet question

[Nerroth]

Faceted shield facings are in the Starmada adaptation, which is aimed at the same kind of fleet-on-fleet action that ACtA work with. Although, since Starmada defaults to a hex map, the hexside facings translate more readily than to a game which uses a hexless map.


When it comes to firing arcs, Starmada also added a range of new ones specifically for the SFU adaptation; allowing it to more closely echo those in SFB/FC.

 

[Rambler]

Figured I would post this here instead of dragging another topic further of its topic :wink:

Got a few games in with the latest version of the rules and I was really quite happy with the way they held together.

The game is quick (needs to be a trifle quicker, but working on that) but, more importantly, it has a very good feel to it - Dilithium Chambers spiraling out of control due to damage and the crew desperately trying to bring them back to operation before they blow. Ships with fires on all decks trying to retreat so they can repair and come back into the fight.

Awesome stuff

Ok, this just set off a great deal of concern in my mind. Warp Core, Dilithium Chamber, or Intermix Chamber exploding, is not a Star Fleet Universe thing. Fair enough in the early days of the Commander Edition if a Ship actually exploded it caused a ungodly amount of carnage. But that was not because of some kind of lucky shot hitting the Warp Core. But, a case of Catastrophic Damage being caused to the ship. And those same rules were changed / nerfered drastically because of abuses in the system. Things like parking a DN or a CVA with Overloaded weapons on top of a Starbase and Self destructing it.

This seems more like some kind of Movie or Episode bad writing than something that would occur in the ADB systems..

Now I am still excited to see the actual rules an have been playing around with the Nobel Armada stuff trying to get a good feel for how A Call to Arms work but this really is not what a Star Fleet Battle game should feels to me. And if this is a common occurrence it will give me a lot of pause implementing ACTA:SF as a Fleet Battle tool in my campaigns. This does not mean this will not be a kicking good game though. =p

Edit: Changed Daging to Dragging =p

 

[Nerroth]

There are (optional) rules covering critical hits in SFB; though not in FC.

 

[Lincolnlog]

Scoutdad posted a very nice playtest report on the FC Forum.

A staunch SFB/FC guy and he thoroughly enjoyed the game. Anticipation increased.

 

[Rick]

Ship explosions can happen and are a part of the ACTA core mechanics. Remember what I said several pages ago about getting a good mix from the both systems? I'm more concerned that in the interests of speeding play up, ACTA will lose a lot of the core mechanics that make it a good game.

 

[Poi]

IMHO ACTA doesn't need speeding up. I haven't played NA, but B5 played great, even with large games, ie, 20+ ships per side.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Figured I would post this here instead of daging another topic further of its topic :wink:

Got a few games in with the latest version of the rules and I was really quite happy with the way they held together.

The game is quick (needs to be a trifle quicker, but working on that) but, more importantly, it has a very good feel to it - Dilithium Chambers spiraling out of control due to damage and the crew desperately trying to bring them back to operation before they blow. Ships with fires on all decks trying to retreat so they can repair and come back into the fight.

Awesome stuff

Ok, this just set off a great deal of concern in my mind. Warp Core, Dilithium Chamber, or Intermix Chamber exploding, is not a Star Fleet Universe thing. Fair enough in the early days of the Commander Edition if a Ship actually exploded it caused a ungodly amount of carnage. But that was not because of some kind of lucky shot hitting the Warp Core. But, a case of Catastrophic Damage being caused to the ship. And those same rules were changed / nerfered drastically because of abuses in the system. Things like parking a DN or a CVA with Overloaded weapons on top of a Starbase and Self destructing it.

This seems more like some kind of Movie or Episode bad writing than something that would occur in the ADB systems..
p

Criticals don't work like that in ACTA rules (the older B5 version did with the catastrophic explosion critical, or 6-6-6 roll as a friend of mine sometimes puts it ).

You should know this if you've looked at NA, but basically each critical hit to a system increases the severity of the critical effect and damage control may remove or reduce these effects. It's a little more complex than that, but you'd have to score six criticals on the power system on a single turn to get to the point your ship would explode which is going to be very rare (assuming the target ship hasn't already got several unrepaired reactor crits).

 

[Rick]

Yeah - there are no entries on the critical table that will automatically cause the ship to explode - as i said, ships can explode - but you have to inflict a shedload more damage than the ship can take - normally they just quietly stop working!! :lol:

 

[BFalcon]

Well, no big release yet, but the section is up on the website...

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/ctastarfleet.html

 

[scoutdad]

I did get a chance to run our first playtest session this past weekend, and much enjoyment was had by all.
The next session is scheduled for this coming weekend. There will be more participants present, more games played, and more enjoyment had...

Coming from a long history (29 years) of SFB and no history of ACTA [I found the B5 version just as the license was pulled, so I didn't get into it] - I had no preconceivd notions about what to expect.

Our group read through the rules several times before hand, discussed a few points here and there, and then set-up Sunday to play. To keep it simple for our first game, we only played Klingons versus Federation; 4 ships per side (2 ships per player).

As has previously mentioned by others - our big concern was the exploding ship rule. Having been present during the use and abuse of the Commanders Edition SFB explosion rules, we were concerned about this one rule more than anything. Nothing spoils the fun of a good game as quickly as the abuses seen during that era. But we also understand that explosions have been part and parcel of ACTA since B5: 1st Edition.

With that in mind, we set out to actually abuse the rule and intentionally blow up a ship while it was in close proximty to the rest ofhte fleet. As has also been previously mentioned; ACTA: SF does not have a "Golden BB". There is no single hit that can cause a lucky shot to blow up a ship. Now, can a ship be blown up in a single turn? Yes, it can and we did it. But doing so takes a massive amount of damage... usually much more than cna be generated by a single ship. Now, sue to the you fire-I fire-you fire-etc nature of ACTA, one can use follow-up fire to destroy a ship. It takes a minimum of 6 points of damage (in a single volley) above and beyond that needed to destroy the ship to even have a chance at causeing it to explode. 9 points extra gives you a 50:50 shot and 13 points extra guarantees an explosion. Even with the multihit wepaons available to the average Federation Cruiser - this is a massive amount of damage to cause in a single volley.

What we found was that you could cause ships to blow up, but it took so much damge that you actaully caused more effective damage by firing enough at your primary victim to kill him and then directing the rest of the damage at other vessels. A very accurate phaser is much more likely to cause damage to ship #2 than is an expolding ship which only hits 50% of the time.

Now bear in mind that this is data from a whopping total of two playtest games, YMMV. We do intend to play many more games and we do intend to keep an eye on this. The last thing we want is a game system that will allow the Federation player to tergat all overloaded photons on a single enemy ship, blow it up, cause an explosion that damages every other enemy ship, possibly to the point were one of them explodes, causing more damage to every other enemy ship, and so on...

 

[scoutdad]

Scoutdad posted a very nice playtest report on the FC Forum.

A staunch SFB/FC guy and he thoroughly enjoyed the game. Anticipation increased.

Thank you sir, for the kind words. We did have fun and there will be more games and more reports in the future.

Ok, this just set off a great deal of concern in my mind. Warp Core, Dilithium Chamber, or Intermix Chamber exploding, is not a Star Fleet Universe thing. ..

Dal, one thing to remember: the words used [Warp Core, Dilithium Chamber, etc.] are just verbal descriptors of the critical hits. These systems are not represented on the ACTA: SF ships and could just have easily been called the "Glocken-spork", a "Zumm Ziggereedoo", and a "Baltimore Spanner Socket". These terms were chosen because they create an image in the minds eye. I'm sure that ADB and Mongoose will float these terms by the legal department prior to publication to avoid any IP issues.

But to ease your biggest concern - exploding ships!, see my previous post.
I'll admit, I've only played two games... but right now I don't see this as a huge issue, but give me some more time to work with it. I intend to see if I can break the system and create the same kind of abuse you refer to.

 

[Renny]

Scoutdad, it's good to know that you are on the case. I found your playtest report very interesting and useful.

 

[Rick]

Yes, but details, details - we demands 'em!!
Like - did the different fleets play differently, how are shields handled, how 'StarFleet' did it feel? Surely you can say more about it than just "the ships don't blow up a lot!" :lol:

 

[Da Boss]

I am hopng that adpations for SFU don't change the feel of ACTA too much or more importantly the speed of play - especailly concerend about seeking weapons and how much clutter will be on the table.......mutiple shield arcs are alos a major concern whne youa re talking about tracking 10 or more ships and still getting the game done in an hour or two.

ACTA B5 can be played very quickly - we had a game tonight - 5 point battle (guessing baout 2-3000pts equvalent for Noble Armada) with about 20 ships and 35 fighters on the table - took two hours to conclude and mcuh fun it was too.

I want a game where ships go boom when several ships our fire into it, critical effects help this a great deal IMO. It can be hard enought to kill ships as it is in NA and thats wahat I personally want - ships dying on both sides (mainly my opponents)

The ACTA rules are quick and reasonably intuiative whilst it needs to capture the feel of the SFU I feel its important it does not just clone the other games already published for the SFU - that helps no one....

 

[BFalcon]

Thanks for the report there Scoutdad... although I'd love to hear about the rules as they stand right now...

Boss: Agreed, although the ST universe is better reflected by dead ships with sparking deck fires and so on than a big boom (any explosions in TOS was more a budget thing) I feel...

As for the multiple shields... if they're in, then I don't think it'd slow things down too much would it?

I'm speaking from the disadvantage of only ever playing solo on ACTA: NA (having been told about ACTA: B5 by Burger, but then putting it on the "will buy later" list, only for it to go OOP).

 

[scoutdad]

Yes, but details, details - we demands 'em!!
Like - did the different fleets play differently, how are shields handled, how 'StarFleet' did it feel? Surely you can say more about it than just "the ships don't blow up a lot!" :lol:

Follow-up reports will have more details.
We spent an inordinate amount of time double checking rules,since none of us had ever played ACTA. This prevented the copious notes I usually take during a plytest session of SFB/FC.

In the future, I will endeavor to provide a more thorough description than, "The ships don't blow up a lot!"

And actually, they do blow up a lot. Only in our session, they tended ot blow up after a turn of running adift; so everyone was able to clear the blast radius. We still want to dogpile on one and make it go !BOOM! in the middle of a crowd to see the effects. :shock:

 

[Da Boss]

Boss: Agreed, although the ST universe is better reflected by dead ships with sparking deck fires and so on than a big boom (any explosions in TOS was more a budget thing) I feel...

As for the multiple shields... if they're in, then I don't think it'd slow things down too much would it? /quote]

Sadly I really think it would - playing the same game as tonight with my 15 ships I would need to have been tracking an addiitonal 80-90 tracks (6 shields per ship as a couple of ships already had a single shields score) not including crit effects and special orders which can also effect the performance of the ship and its weapons. Throw in a more complicated system for missile weapons invoiving different phases and the time and interest (for me at least) just slips away......

Its likely a matter of taste - I know that I (and at least one of my ACTA friends) would feel the game is not working properly if after a n hour or so a goodly portion of the ships were not dead or dying or one or both sides..........

 

[Rambler]

Boss: Agreed, although the ST universe is better reflected by dead ships with sparking deck fires and so on than a big boom (any explosions in TOS was more a budget thing) I feel...

As for the multiple shields... if they're in, then I don't think it'd slow things down too much would it?

Sadly I really think it would - playing the same game as tonight with my 15 ships I would need to have been tracking an addiitonal 80-90 tracks (6 shields per ship as a couple of ships already had a single shields score) not including crit effects and special orders which can also effect the performance of the ship and its weapons. Throw in a more complicated system for missile weapons invoiving different phases and the time and interest (for me at least) just slips away......

Its likely a matter of taste - I know that I (and at least one of my ACTA friends) would feel the game is not working properly if after a n hour or so a goodly portion of the ships were not dead or dying or one or both sides..........

Well my big concern was one shotting ships. If it works they way I am understand it in ACTA:NA then it might only just be slightly more common than SFB Excess Damage Hits or FedCom Frame Hits. Playtesting will tell the tell. But on the point of number of shields this is going to get back to the blending apect. SFB/FedCom use zonal shield arcs. Fair enough 6 may be to many as 4 maybe also and it would have to go with 2 or stay at one but once again that will be proved out in playtest. As far as harping on tracking those shields I am really not buying that as I have seen those nice ship data cards people make. it would just be at most 6 more check box lines on the sheet. Yes that may seem like nothing to me as I play Star Fleet Tax Codes and Audits but I am not sure it would be the insurmountable mountain same may claim.

And yes I am looking at running some ACTA:SF stuff at Con of the North in St Paul MN so I am almost certianly into this game alread. I also lucked up and think I have managed to order a unopened 2nd Edition ACTA:B5 Box set just need to find a cheap Fleet List some where....

As far as ships dieing thats what Tincands (DDs) and Eggshells (FFs) are for. In the Star Fleet Unvers the life expectantcy of a War Cruiser was 4 years give or take and Frigates vaporized like water on hot asphault. Major Ships do die but it is strive to make that a rare event. However we do have moments like the MacArthur over Remus.

 

[Iain McGhee]

I also lucked up and think I have managed to order a unopened 2nd Edition ACTA:B5 Box set just need to find a cheap Fleet List some where....
.

Sounds like the Revised 1st Edition if it's definitely a boxed set, 2nd Edition came as a rulebook and a fleet book (followed by the Powers & Principalities add-on). Major changes between the two.

 

[Da Boss]

Indeed the 2nd ed ACTA is in 3 book form (rules, fleet list and Powers and Principalities expansion) and has some important changes to rules / fleets.

You can get the jist of it from the older boxed set but it evolved and improved in 2nd ed.

re shields - well I am only talking from my own prefereces and experiences with the ACTA system - 6 tracks extra on a couple of ships is probably ok - on 15 ships - not for me...... and thats with brilliant (fan made) data sheets - which as a far as I know never appeared for Noble Armada.