A little Idea

Would this work?

  • It works.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Need more work but good idea.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • you need to see a doctor

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
I certainly think the basic idea has merit (the fact that it bears a stunning resemblence to the rarity system used by AOG is in no way a bad thing - it was one of B5W and FA's gretest strengths).

The problem with any points systems is that not all units fit exactly right where they are. You may say what you like, but the Priority system Mongoose use in ACtA is just a points system, but with very coarse quantisation. Some units have been forced to fit, and others just aren't quite right.

A rarity system combats this quite nicely (though in some cases it should mean that some units should drop down a PL to earn their rarity...). Whilst it does encourage a certain level of Min-Max, it also means that you can't just take the good stuff so the munchkin tendency is curbed.

Anything that forces "historical" fleet compositions must be a good thing...
 
RR's come closer to representing status and prestige, I reckon. There is no way that a Poseidon is only five times the cost of a Hermes, or a Morgrath half the price of a Primus. They're not credit value.
Instead, they are an indication of how much pull the theatre commander has, how much he, she, it, they or insert your own alien vernacular here can have assigned to them. I think.
 
Yes but RR should also represent that if a Admiral with a mighty pull should be able to influence the building order of ships back home.

Like Goddamit we lost 5 Novae.....we need more of em.

Politicians and bureaucrats: Sry all we have is Hermes class Transports, Good day.

Wanna play like that? If you go a step and say A, you might as well say B.

plus ill never get tired of saying: Rarity doesnt help the over underpoweredness of some ships.

Some common ships are clearly better than theyre supposed to be. Tertius? It is a fraggin low cost refit on the Primus. And it is alot better than the Primus, so Rarity wouldnt even help here.

Rarity also enforces more of the must take options. Yes ofc you need 3 Sags, cause youre not allowed to take more.

Unique Ships also rarely make sense, unless some part of their techology cannot be replicted, which doesnt really make sense in a SF Setting. Any ship that performs better than expected will be turned into a production run. UJnless it is hidesouly expensive, but make it successful enough, Admirals back home will make sure that more are built.
 
ARRRRRRR

OF COURRRSE


uhh yes for raiders most definitely.

erhm. Centauri why not? they are based around power and gold richness makes power. Brakiri and Vree? Hell yes!!!! Theyre trader races.

So actually it kinda works Burger :D
 
Wulf Corbett said:
I've suggested the same idea, rating ships as
Unique: Only one of this design may be taken for any fleet, including Campaign Fleets (where they may not be replaced if destroyed)
Rare: Only 1/5 of points in any fleet may be Rare, including Campaign Fleets, although more may be taken in individual Campaign battles
Uncommon: No more than half the ships in any fleet may be Uncommon, including Campaign fleets, although more may be taken in individual Campaign battles
Common: Any number of these ships may be chosen for any fleet

So far it's been declared an an unneccessary complication to fleet selection, but we have now seen some Unique ships (Dusk Coutari, etc), so maybe it could meet with official support.

Wulf

Fixed that. Just change 1 out of 5 ships to 1/5th the points (rounding down) and you have a very workable solution.
 
Wulf Corbett said:
Burger said:
Restrictions on freedom of choice is a bad thing, sorry I disagree. Bring on the men in white coats!
The problem is, if we are to keep anywhere near the background canon, there simply are some ships that should be restricted. There are, for example, only 10 Solarhawks in existance, so you should not be allowed any more than that in any campaign. The Vree Scout (Vaarl? I forget) is noted as rarely seen at all, almost never two at once. Those restrictions should be enforced for accuracy to the background, otherwise why are we calling this a Babylon 5 game?

Wulf

Which would be a perfectly reasonable comment, playing historically, ie the Fins only had 3 KV1 or some such nonsense, the thing with ACTA in a campaign is it evolves beyond the show, it has to so that vorlons can fight drakh, can fight dilgar can fight crusade EA and so on. If we were to stick to cannon, then the Narn would only have G'Quans and t'loths, oh and some frazi's. I think it would be limiting to add such a restriction, and I think in fairness to the people I play with, and probably to most of you, none of us go OTT in ship selection, although i think it would be nice to see it applied in tourneys, i would hate to see it in a campaign.
 
Afraid pts would help to solve this issue rather than priority system as well. The rarity (crap spelling sorry i think) thing is really just trying to cover unbalance.
 
Geekybiker said:
Wulf Corbett said:
Unique: Only one of this design may be taken for any fleet, including Campaign Fleets (where they may not be replaced if destroyed)
Rare: Only 1 in 5 ships in any fleet may be Rare, including Campaign Fleets, although more may be taken in individual Campaign battles
Uncommon: No more than half the ships in any fleet may be Uncommon, including Campaign fleets, although more may be taken in individual Campaign battles
Common: Any number of these ships may be chosen for any fleet
Fixed that. Just change 1 out of 5 ships to 1/5th the points (rounding down) and you have a very workable solution.
You didn't 'fix' anything. I said ships and that's what I meant. There was no error there. A single Rare War PL ship may constitute most of the points of a 5 point Raid PL fleet, but still be a completely legitimate choice. Using points is too restrictive.

Wulf
 
Target said:
Afraid pts would help to solve this issue rather than priority system as well. The rarity (crap spelling sorry i think) thing is really just trying to cover unbalance.
Points do nothing here, unless you simply overprice rare ships. And you can do that in any system - and simply make the ships unusable.

Wulf
 
Never said anything about overpricing ships. Ships should be balanced to their point value whether it's a priority or point value, ultimately this is what this thread is about. No one will care if you took 10 rare ships if they were crap.
 
Wulf Corbett said:
Target said:
Afraid pts would help to solve this issue rather than priority system as well. The rarity (crap spelling sorry i think) thing is really just trying to cover unbalance.
Points do nothing here, unless you simply overprice rare ships. And you can do that in any system - and simply make the ships unusable.

Wulf

Isn't that what the priority system has done? Overpriced certain ships while underpricing others? The Tertius is a good deal in the priority system. It's like getting a battle ship plus a skirmish ship for the price of a battle ship. While the Sagg is like almost getting two skirmish ships for the price of one. Meanwhile the Dag'kar is like getting maybe half a raid ship for the price of a full raid ship.
 
Burger said:
philogara said:
Burger said:
That is if we are re-creating a historical battle. But, we are not, we are taking control of the empires ourselves, and doing things that were not done in the series. If I am playing the Drazi commander and I order 20 more Solarhawks to be built, then 20 more solarhawks will be built! :twisted:

So a Drazi commander gets to spend the military's budget? Wow he has some clout!
What do RR's represent, if not military budget?

I don't think he goes back with a cheque book and buys them off the shelf. The Drazi supposedly only built 10 for a reason, obviously if it was up to the admirals every ship off the line would be a Solarhawk, but they are not. Just like EA is still using Hyperions and Novas.

You are not taking control of the Drazi Freehold, just one admiral trying to make his way and get what he can from fleet command/MOD/whatever the department might be called.
 
Me: "Hey control, those Solarhawks were really cool, but they all got blown up"
Control: "Oh sorry we only had 10"
Me: "Can't you make more?"
Control: "No sorry, only 10"
Me: "How come? They were great!"
Control: "Oh they are very expensive, only 10 allowed, sorry"
Me: "There's 15 RR in it if you can make me another..."
Control: "Nope sorry, we can't make any more"
Me: "I urge you to reconsider"
Control: "Hmm, OK!"
 
Burger said:
Me: "Hey control, those Solarhawks were really cool, but they all got blown up"
Control: "Oh sorry we only had 10"
Me: "Can't you make more?"
Control: "No sorry, only 10"
Me: "How come? They were great!"
Control: "Oh they are very expensive, only 10 allowed, sorry"
Me: "There's 15 RR in it if you can make me another..."
Control: "Nope sorry, we can't make any more"
Me: "I urge you to reconsider"
Control: "Hmm, OK!"

More likely conversation...

Adm. Burger: "Hey control, those Solarhawks were really cool, but they all got blown up"
Control: "But we only had ten!"
Adm. Burger: "Errrr......"
Control: "Your replacement is on his way...."

And how quickly do they roll off the production line?
 
What's this new ruling for, so that MGP can write more books for ACTA?

Like I mentioned in other posts, adding caveats to a game that already uses Caveats is silly. If someone insists on using 10 Sagg, insist on him buying and painting the mini's himself. Then if he insists on playing 10 saggs in every game, dont play him. After a few weeks, he's going to be pissed off that no one plays him, and he's wasted £60 on a fleet that no one will fight!

Sorry, but the blue flashing lights on the horizon on say one thing :twisted:

Medic!!!
 
Hmmm most of the replys seem somewhat negative :( to the idea but the poll tends toward somewhat positive :? strange.

To Those who didnt like it due to less freedom of choise. Could this be used in tournaments only as an anti-cheese measure sice the normal one, dont play him, is useless in a tournament setting?

To those of you who tink it needs more work. Do you have any sugestions to changes?

Thanks for the feedback anyway. :D
 
To be honest, I've never quite got what they're trying to do with the saggitarius anyway.

My thoughts when designing would have been:

1) It's a missile cruiser, not a line ship. Why does it have multiple arc weapons? The apollo with one bloody huge forward launch rack makes sense. (the original with a forward 6-rack I liked. Never got why it had broadsides as well.)

2) It's a cruiser-class warship, historically and technologically contemporary to the hyperion cruiser, which is also a cruiser-class warship.
Surely it should be given the same fighting power and priority?


Some of the ships really do not fit exactly at any of the priority levels. It's the big weakness of the simplicity, and you'll find a half dozen threads making suggestions.....
 
The Sagittarius hull was originally just a test bed for mounting missile racks not a purpose designed warship per se
 
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