A message to Burger and the other long standing fans

A

andywatkins1963

Mongoose
Burger,

I used to play A call to arms a couple of years ago, we met once in Swindon, along with Katadder and a few of the other vets (Captain Kremen).

I recently bought firestorm armada and fancied converting the large number of B5 ships I still have over to their rules. After a bit of digging it ocurred to me to give up and just go back to a call to arms!

The only thing I was never happy about was the priority system. For the sake of playing with my friends I am considering just assigning a points value to the ships that I have.

A couple of questions. I have both 1st and 2nd edition call to arms, bought 2nd just before I stopped playing, don't think i ever played it. Which version do most of you guys play now?

If I assigned a vanilla points value to each ship, based on the same ratio as the current priority split as a starting point, which ships would effectively be significantly over or under priced?

I use Narn, Centauri, Vorlon, Shadow, Drazi and Minbari. No earth force.

For playing with my friends I wanted to encourage using the big ships from the series, so was considering lowering the effective points value of ships like Sharlin, G'quan, Primus and Vorchan, you could almost call it a 5% "fame" discount for having been on the series.

All comments welcome.

I always find that when I try to get friends into a "new" system the first game is crucial, if they don't like it, think it is unbalanced etc I can't get them to play again.

I am lending one friend who never saw the series the in the beginning film, i thought this would be a good introduction for him to see if he liked it or not.

Andy (Cpt Kremmen)
 
A tip here (because we have gone down this path ourselves).

Start with the basic Hyperion and set it at 100 points - use this as the baseline for all your other ships.

You might also want to set other baselines (based on the Hyperion, and assuming it is 'medium') for tiny, small, large, very large and 'Armageddon' ships within the Earth Alliance list.

You can then establish similar baselines in every other fleet list before filling them all out.

This will make your life a lot easier!
 
mikelosaurus said:
msprange said:
A tip here (because we have gone down this path ourselves).
Click to expand...

Does that mean the designers/publishers of ACTA aren't even using their own rules any more...? :P
Click to expand...

When CTA was first designed, it was as a points-based system (with the Hyperion as the 100 point baseline). We have also been toying with the idea of a points-based CTA 3.

And that is all I will say about CTA 3 for now :)
 
why not look towards a rules set incl points costing for all varieties of ship

mj12games.com/starmada/shipbuilder.xlt
 
I have taken Matt's suggestion of 100 points for an Hyperion and based mmy other models off of this.

First I have determined a number of base points for a level

Armageddon 600
War 350
Battle 175
Raid 100
Skirmish 60
Patrol 30

This in itself will be controversial to some as it does not strictly follow the current exchange rate. I would like to see some of the bigger ships used so have made them relatively cheaper

Then I have tried to assign each ship a points cost starting with the base and then factoring in two additional items. 1) Are they perceived to be under or over powered at their current level 2) Are they really cool canon ships off of the TV series, if so then I have reduced their price by around 10% to encourage their usage.

Please note this is to get some friends into playing this game non competitively amongst ourselves, non of us have any interest in tournament play etc.

I would greatly appreciate all of your observations on my points costs I realise that no one will agree with all my points and some will disagree with most! I am particularly interested where you guys have infinitely more experience than me especially with 2nd edition rules where I have perhaps costed one raid level ship at 100 points and another at 90 points but you know that the one I costed at 90 is actually the better of the two ships so perhaps I should have made it 110-120 points not 90

All fighter costs are for one stand

Andy

MINBARI
Nial fighter 15 points
Torotha frigate 50 - 60 points
Tinashi 175
Morshin carrier 175
Tigara 100
Sharlin Warcruiser 320-350

NARN
Bintak 350
Dagkar 100
Frazi 5
G'Sten 90
G'Quan 150
Ka' Toc 70
Rongoth 60
Sho Kos 20
Thentus 60
T'Loth 80-90
Varnic 100

CENTAURI
Centurion 110
Dargan 170
Darkner 60
Haven 20
Maximus 60
Primus 160
Sentri 5-7
Sulust 100
Vorchan 50
Demos 50

ISA
Whitestar 100

DRAZI
Firehawk 90
Sky Serpents 10
Star Snakes 5
Storm Falcon 170
Sunhawk 25-30
Solar Hawk 50
Warbird 60

VORLON
Destroyer 160
Light Cruiser 300
Heavy Cruiser 600
fighter 10

SHADOW
Fighter 15
Shadow Stalker 165
Shadowship 550
Young shadowship 300
 
msprange said:
We have also been toying with the idea of a points-based CTA 3.

And that is all I will say about CTA 3 for now :)
Click to expand...

All I want out of CTA 3 would be a way to easily convert B5 fleets to the new system, e.g. all the existing rules mechanisms such as hull armour, damage points, special rules, etc. would be reflected in the new rules so it would be possible to still play B5 under the new edition even if it isn't the supported backstory. If the new system did not include this then I doubt I would play it. Not because it might not be a good system, but I played CTA for B5, not the other way around. JMO though :-).

Cheers, Gary
 
Well I will be buying CTA 3 when it arrives and I will be buying new Mongoose ships to go with it, if I like the sculpts.

CTA is only one of a long line of spacship mini games I own and have minis for.

Not to say I wouldn't like to see Bab 5 crossover rules, and I have no doubt whatsoever that this community will take care of that.
 
i think straight 60 would be better they are iconic ships but when bought in packs using the centauri pack rule they rock.
 
Why is Vorchan/Demos better than average? very manueverable, all its punch is in one arc. A moderately skilled player can use thm to make mincemeat of similar priority ships that can't maneuver as well, or have their firepower spread into multiple arcs.

example: olympus is a good skirmish ship, but it cannot deliver the same firepower in a single burst.
 
This is just my two cents, but...

I like that you have a slight curve to the cost as the ships go higher in PL. I have yet to see where 1 ship is worth two from a PL below it. This just gets compounded as you go up in PL. 1 Armageddon ship vs 1 Armageddon point worth of patrol... Have you ever seen what that many Blue Stars can do?
 
This just means that, as well as a value per ship, you also need to factor in the number of ships - penalise a swarm of small ships which would otherwise be equal in value to the one large ship. This is what "Powers & Principalities" does in its FAP breakdown - 1 Armageddon point will get you 2 War ships, 3 Battle ships, 5 Raid ships, 8 Skirmish ships or 12 Patrol ships. Going the other way, it takes 32 Patrol points to buy an Armageddon ship. A less drastic example is Raid vs. Patrol; 1 Raid point gets you 3 Patrol ships but 4 Patrol points gets you 1 Raid ship.

With a points based system that does away with priority levels, you'll need some other way to make a swarm of 12 ships cost as much as 32 individual ships of that type, but only make a group of 3 ships cost as much as 4 individuals. Maybe not 12 to 32 and 3 to 4, but you get the idea - increase the cost of the fleet based on the number of ships in it.

And the Blue Star will presumably end up more expensive than pretty well any other Patrol level ship, probably almost as expensive as some Skirmish ships. ;)
 
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