A Call To Arms Star Fleet question

[Greg Smith]

How many weapon systems / fire arcs does the typical NA vessel have?

Most NA ships have 1 each P&S and 1 T. Larger ships have 2 each P&S and 2-3 T. Only the biggest have 1 F. There are no combined arcs and overlapping arcs - only F,A,P,S,T - which makes it far easier to see what is in which fie arc.

How many seeking weapons does the typical NA vessel have?

None. Rockets/missiles/torpedoes are direct fire weapons. (in original origanal NA they were seeking weapons but have been abstracted in ACTA:NA)

How are seeking weapons handled in NA?

They are treated as direct fire weapons. Although they can be shot down by gattling lasers.

In my experience, far more people still play Babylon 5 ACTA than play NA and this is a better comparison for ACTA:SF than NA.

And answering your questions for B5:

1. Smaller ships have 1. Bigger ships 2-3. Turrets are uncommon. There is also the boresight arc - directly in front and aft. Guns had much higher AD. Again no overlapping or combined arcs.

2. Again there are no seeking weapons. There were fighters though.

 

[scoutdad]

There's the biggest part of the problem then...
The quintessential ACTA: SF ship, the Constitution class Heavy Cruiser has 8 weapon systems with 9 overlapping arcs.

The Romulan Condor dreadnought has 14 weapon systems, as does the KC9R dreadnought and the Gorn Tyrannasaurus Rex dreadnought.

Even the smaller War Destroyer classes have 5 and 6 differnt wepon systems with multiple, over-lapping arcs.

a squadron of 3 Heavy Cruisers clocks in at just over 500 points and you're dealing with a total of 42 Attack Dice of direct fire weapons and 3 AD of seeking weapons located in 3 seperate turret mounted launchers.

In the game from Sunday, the Klignon fleet alone had, for example:
74 weapon mounts dealing 157 Attack Dice of damage plus 15 separate seeking weapon mounts dealing 30 Attack Dice of drones.
The Kzinti fleet OTOH, had:
97 weapon mounts dealing 186 Attack Dice of damage plus 17 separate seeking weapon mounts dealing 68 attack dice of drones.

So you're looking at 21 minutes to deaclare and resolve the fire from a combined total of 170 weapon mounts, 343 Attack Dice, and targeting 98 AD of drones. That actually works out to resolving 16.3 AD per minute.

 

[Greg Smith]

There's the biggest part of the problem then...
The quintessential ACTA: SF ship, the Constitution class Heavy Cruiser has 8 weapon systems with 9 overlapping arcs.

The Babylon 5 Wars Omega Destroyer has some 18 weapons with at least 6 overlapping fire arcs. In B5 ACTA this becomes 6 distinct arcs with 6 weapons. In addition the B5 Wars ship has defensive interceptors with different arcs that become a single trait in ACTA.

The amalgamation of weapons and distinction betwee fire arcs keeps things quick. The single defensive trait speeds things up no end too.

 

[katadder]

thing was with transfer from B5 wars to B5 acta there was nobody to say any different.
here its under license from ADB and so stuff has to be closer in ideas.

 

[Da Boss]

There's the biggest part of the problem then...
The quintessential ACTA: SF ship, the Constitution class Heavy Cruiser has 8 weapon systems with 9 overlapping arcs.

The Babylon 5 Wars Omega Destroyer has some 18 weapons with at least 6 overlapping fire arcs. In B5 ACTA this becomes 6 distinct arcs with 6 weapons. In addition the B5 Wars ship has defensive interceptors with different arcs that become a single trait in ACTA.

The amalgamation of weapons and distinction betwee fire arcs keeps things quick. The single defensive trait speeds things up no end too.

Indeed

You can simulate the weapons abilities to fire into different arcs as they did in the above example. By having mutiple and overlapping arcs - it complicates the game and slows it down for very little IMO gain. Yo would still thorw pretty mcuh the same dice but just not have to kepp reading down a list of varying weapons and arcs. Instead you are saying - right this ships in my front arc - therefore I can fire this, this and this - roll dice. I assume shield arcs were (correctly IMO) simplified for eactly the same reason.

Terrain will change your games and will help and hinder some fleets.....its also worth thinking about the present interaction with cloaking and terrain and how that can presenlty be exploited.......

In terms of comparison - in ACTA: B5 a Centauri Primus battlecruiser- likely vaguely comparable in points to a Constitution, has a meaty 46 AD (but all with special traits) in a total of 5 weapon systems in 4 arcs.

 

[katadder]

you could do that DB with arcs and that works for 1v1 ships. but in a fleet engagement suddenly a weapon that you have to choose whether to fire in the front arc or the side arc is in both at the same time, effectively firing twice.
thought it was a good idea until realised this.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Just a quick note on this - the multiple fire arcs and weapon systems is not what has really been slowing the game down (and the slow down is _not_ all that acute, just something we want to improve upon).

However, just come across something that will speed things up no end and get rid of the last blockages - kind of a Design Epiphany

Playtesters will be getting the revision hopefully a little later this week.

 

[scoutdad]

YAY!!!!!
I can't wait!

 

[Rick]

I hope it's good - I really want this game to work for the ACTA players. From the sounds of it, some of the SFB players are sold on it in it's present form but I'd hate for it to be just a one-sided deal. :?

 

[ShadowDave]

My group will be happy as long as a turn doesn't take too much longer than it does in B5 ACTA. Got them to try SFB once with a single (small) ship each, too much record keeping for them. ACTA / VAS is about their limit for record keeping, so I hope it stays at about the same level, otherwise what can I do with all my romulans & feds?

 

[Greg Smith]

I will be waiting with baited breath for the update.

 

[Iron Domokun]

I'm looking forward to the release of ACTA: SF, ACTA: B5 still has its devotees in Australia so maybe I'll be able to rope some people into playing!

 

[sidewinder78]

I havent read every post but has anyone asked why the game wasnt set in the next generation era? I'm sick of every star trek game being kirks era with the old ships. I want the new ships.

 

[Poi]

This is not Star Trek, it's the Star Fleet Battles universe.

 

[sidewinder78]

Hmm, federation, kilingons, romulans. sounds like star trek to me.

 

[BFalcon]

Sidewinder: Try reading the thread and all will become clear (basically ADB who own SFB, got an open-ended license to use some of the original series after Paramount dropped it back in the 60s/70s... but not any of the newer stuff - but they've developed it beyond that point.)

And not ST - unless the Andromedans, Lyrans and the other new races have suddenly made an appearance...

 

[Jean]

sidewinder, I'm Jean, head of ADB's RPG line and in charge of marketing as well. Consider me sort of an ambassador here.

You might try reading the information here about the Star Fleet Universe: http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/about_universe.shtml

The top part of the page has links to the background and various empires and species found in the SFU. I hope it helps!

 

[sidewinder78]

Saying you can get a license for it and not the next generation stuff would have been sufficent. Annoying, but it explains why people always make games from SFB.

 

[scoutdad]

OK. Newest revision of the rules came out on Friday afternoon.
We had a previously scheduled plyatest session that evening.

Several games were played and many... mini... both? ships were blown to bits.
Everyone had a blast, blasting at the other guys ships.

The new tweaks, designed to reduce congestion seem to have worked.
I don't think you'll ever get ACTA: SF to the speed of ACTA: NA due to the sheer number of wepaon mounts, firing arcs, and seekign weapons involved. It is darn close however.

The new guys (those who'd never played ACTA before) were flyign solo after about 10 to 15 minutes of briefing. After that, they fought a three v. three battle in about 2 hours.
Yes.. I know that's a alot, but remember - htey'd never played ACTA before and had to keep referencing the rules.

Several other 3 v. 3 games were played by guys with differing amounts of experience and their games averaged 4 to 5 turns over the course of 1 to 1 1/4 hours - with the occasional refernce to the draft rulebook that came out 4 hours before the game started!

For the regulars here though, here's the great news. Merl DeWit and myself played one 3 v. 3 game - Feds versus Klingons. We had to refer to the rule book every now and then to double check something that had changed... and we had to answer rules questions for the new and lesser expereinced guys playign in the other two games.
Dispite the distractions / interuptions involved - we played a full four turn game (including blowing up 2 Klingon ships, crippling 2 Federation ships, and a High Energy Turn by the D7C nd a 1 turn rundown) in a grand total of 47 minutes.

With no interuptions and a more in-depth knowledge of how the current rules function - I think we could have finished in under 30 minutes!!! :shock:

 

[Greg Smith]

The new revision does seem to have gone a long way to speeding things up and reducing clutter. Clanger and I should be able to get a couple of games in tomorrow, hopefully.