A New Universe for ACTA's
- Thread starter godsgopher
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But it still affects different ships differently.katadder said:
If I am hull 6 and you're firing half AD at me only hitting on 6, I take half the amount of damage I would normally take.
If I'm hull 5 and you're firing half AD at me only hitting on 6, I take 1/4 the amount of damage I would normally take.
Yeah if most ships are the same and very few are 5 or 6 then it should affect everyone roughly similarly.
Remember that tactical warp is still at a low warp speed; and that the scale isn't quite so vast (10,000km per hex). Also, many maps in the other game systems are either "fixed" (set to cover a certain number of map panels) or "location" (as in, you can't move a certain distance from a given point or terrain piece without being considered to have disengaged).
While Earth fits within a single hex, gas giants can be several hexes across, and still make for significant terrain pieces (especially if they have rings and/or moons). Speaking of moons, Luna would be somewhere between 36-41 hexes away from Earth on such a map, depending on how close to perigee or apogee it is at the time of the encounter. In contrast, Mars at its closest approach to Earth would still be 5576 hexes away!
So, rather than fighting across the whole star system, battles will generally be fought a bit more locally.
In terms of terrain, SFB, FC and Starmada all have various kinds of rules for terrtain types; fighting in a nebula, an asteroid field, even near the ravenous maw of a black hole!
When it comes to stealth and cloaks, there are two unrelated forms of protection at play; Orion strealth coating (a form of counter-measures which only applies when they are uncloaked) and the use of the cloak itself.
Stealth coating is handled pretty simply in FC and Starmada (where it uses the pre-existing Countermeasures rule); you adjust your die roll by 1 in whichever direction will give that weapon a worse result.
Cloaks are another matter. In FC, you have a kind of partial cloak; you can still try to shoot at a cloaked ship, but at a significant penalty. In Starmada, you have a true "hidden cloak"; you cannot attack a cloaked ship unless you first "detect" it (which can happen during each movement phase while the ship is cloaked; you roll a die and if the result is less than the number of turns the ship has been under cloak, the cloak is pierced and the ship detected. However, the cloaking device is still active, so even a detected cloaked ship still has to de-cloak in order to operate normally.)
Actually, if you want to see what the relevant Starmada rules are like, the Klingon, Romulan and Alien (which expands upon the Orion, Tholian and terrain rules available) Armada rulebooks are available on e23.
While Earth fits within a single hex, gas giants can be several hexes across, and still make for significant terrain pieces (especially if they have rings and/or moons). Speaking of moons, Luna would be somewhere between 36-41 hexes away from Earth on such a map, depending on how close to perigee or apogee it is at the time of the encounter. In contrast, Mars at its closest approach to Earth would still be 5576 hexes away!
So, rather than fighting across the whole star system, battles will generally be fought a bit more locally.
In terms of terrain, SFB, FC and Starmada all have various kinds of rules for terrtain types; fighting in a nebula, an asteroid field, even near the ravenous maw of a black hole!
When it comes to stealth and cloaks, there are two unrelated forms of protection at play; Orion strealth coating (a form of counter-measures which only applies when they are uncloaked) and the use of the cloak itself.
Stealth coating is handled pretty simply in FC and Starmada (where it uses the pre-existing Countermeasures rule); you adjust your die roll by 1 in whichever direction will give that weapon a worse result.
Cloaks are another matter. In FC, you have a kind of partial cloak; you can still try to shoot at a cloaked ship, but at a significant penalty. In Starmada, you have a true "hidden cloak"; you cannot attack a cloaked ship unless you first "detect" it (which can happen during each movement phase while the ship is cloaked; you roll a die and if the result is less than the number of turns the ship has been under cloak, the cloak is pierced and the ship detected. However, the cloaking device is still active, so even a detected cloaked ship still has to de-cloak in order to operate normally.)
Actually, if you want to see what the relevant Starmada rules are like, the Klingon, Romulan and Alien (which expands upon the Orion, Tholian and terrain rules available) Armada rulebooks are available on e23.
Light travels at 299,792,458 m/s, or about 30 hexes per second. So does a ship going at warp 1, by definition. At warp 2 it goes 240 hexes in one second, meaning either there are a lot of hexes on the board or the ship is off the board very quickly! I'm not sure how long a game turn is supposed to represent, but if it's on the order of minutes then even a game involving tactical warping at warp 1 will probably cover the inner solar system.Nerroth said:
This I would like to see - more exotic types of scenery in addition to the asteroid fields, dust clouds and planets already present in ACTA.
That's pretty much how ACTA handles stealth, except it is not dependent on time. You roll a die and if the number is greater than or equal to the ship's stealth rating, modified by various factors, you're allowed to attack it. But this does not address the fundamental difference between stealth and cloaking, which is that a cloaked ship is invisible - you don't even know which way to point your ship to aim weapons at the cloaked ship unless you've pierced the cloak. If you turn to port, are you pointing your photon torpedoes at the enemy or exposing your tail? If that aspect of cloaking is ignored then ACTA's usual stealth rules will suffice.
AdrianH said:
Well...
It has been acknowledged that some of the scale issues are a bit of a fudge, to put it mildly. (There have been compromises made for the sake of making the game systems work.)
In any case, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
In FC, the ship is replaced by a cloak marker, that indicates its presence on the board as it moves. In Starmada, a counter is placed in the hex the ship cloaks, and the cloaking player records their movement secretly.
(It's easier to do that in Starmada, since you play on a hex map, and ADB's maps have numbered hexes on them. On a hexless map like one used for ACtA, it might be trickier.)
I guess it would depend on which type of cloak ACtA will go with; or rather, whether or not it uses the FC or Starmada take as a source of inspiration... or decides to re-interpret the cloak in a different way altogether.
I would imagine, if the cloak is going to be allowed to be used during game play that it would work somewhat like this. A marker is placed in the position that the ship cloaks. Each turn that it remains cloaked, it can move X inches from that marker. So when it decloaks N turns later, you can place it anywhere you like, X*N inches from the marker. That's the simplest way I can think of. It might be a bit powerful though so it would have to be balanced, and have some serious drawbacks. A turn to decloak (in which it can be shot at as normal but can't shoot back), can only cloak once per game, and you have to keep at least one decloaked ship on the table at any time - at a bare minimum I would have thought.
Stormrider
Mongoose
I was thinking the same Burger, about the counter and making all your moves from that marker when you decloak, but it does mean that the player can use information they didn't have 3 turns ago, to manoeuvre themselves into position. It does also cause havoc with scenarios like Assassination if the target cloaks for half the game. Or even worse blockade!
The only way I could think to get around that would be to write down a destination for the cloaked ship (planet, asteroid, enemy/friendly ship, or just a heading), maybe put the piece of paper under the token. Then when it decloaks it moves directly at the destination, or if it can reach it, anywhere within say... 4", facing whichever way it wants. Then let a scout attempt to decloak the ship (looking for emissions etc). I don't really know enough of the fluff to say with any authority though.
Again though, it's book-keeping. I'd be comfortable saying it appears within X*N inches if perhaps the turn it decloaked in, it couldn't fire and none of it's positive traits worked?
Beyond that, I'm personally not against basic bookkeeping such as the movement orders in games like Full Thrust
The only way I could think to get around that would be to write down a destination for the cloaked ship (planet, asteroid, enemy/friendly ship, or just a heading), maybe put the piece of paper under the token. Then when it decloaks it moves directly at the destination, or if it can reach it, anywhere within say... 4", facing whichever way it wants. Then let a scout attempt to decloak the ship (looking for emissions etc). I don't really know enough of the fluff to say with any authority though.
Again though, it's book-keeping. I'd be comfortable saying it appears within X*N inches if perhaps the turn it decloaked in, it couldn't fire and none of it's positive traits worked?
Beyond that, I'm personally not against basic bookkeeping such as the movement orders in games like Full Thrust
So long as there is some sort of marker/dice/something on the board at the time the cloak is activated, and the cloaking player maintains a written record of the movement orders given while cloaked, it should be fair enough for the opposing player to double-check the orders given once the ship actually uncloaks.
(Since there are no hexes like in Starmada, you'd need to make sure you have the ship's facing clear on whatever it is you use to indicate the cloak point, so that the orders can be accurately re-constructed.)
Again, that assumes the cloak will actally be a "hidden cloak"; we don't know which way things may go yet.
(Since there are no hexes like in Starmada, you'd need to make sure you have the ship's facing clear on whatever it is you use to indicate the cloak point, so that the orders can be accurately re-constructed.)
Again, that assumes the cloak will actally be a "hidden cloak"; we don't know which way things may go yet.
Keeper Nilbog
Mongoose
If your talking on a start position marked with a counter, why not go the whole way and allow a set of 'Blips' (say 2-3) to move from that spot. As far as items on the board go, it coild be they show sensor anomolies or shadows, and when the ship (one of the counters) uncloaks, the decoys are removed as well (or maybe at the end of the turn). This does give the 'where the hell are they ?' factor, and will only include extra movement fro the cloaked side, who won't be shoting, even the upgraded War Eagle had power issues with holding an R-Type, staying cloaked and moving for tactical advantage - it could, but you'd only get one chance (ToS has no ships, that i can remember, firing from claok)
Turns in SFU run more toward seconds than minutes. On of the early sayings in SFB was a typical patrol was 6 months of boredom with 5 minutes of stark screaming terror. Either way ACTA:SF will adjust to whatever it needs to be playable I am sure.
In the SFU 1 hex is light speed the maximum a ship can move is 32 hexes per turn. Actual distance across a hex is open to some leeway. As long as the same weapon ranges are maintained who really cares how big a hex is. Once again I am sure ACTA:SF will adjust to what it needs.
And the following is more information. In SFB cloaked ships used hidden deployment so it was more a plotted thing than any tokens used to mark its location. Ships rolled for a lock on at the start of a turn to determine if the could see a targeted ship and it was very hard to spot a cloaked ship. In Fed Com one of the things done to speed up the game was eliminating hidden deployment. So because of this things like cloaked ships, defence satellites, and mines are deployed on the board and there are rules saying things like you can not shoot at these units until they do something hostile. Cloaked ships are of course a exception to this rule because by definition a enemy combatant is hostile. They are just really hard to hit til they start fading in.
In the SFU 1 hex is light speed the maximum a ship can move is 32 hexes per turn. Actual distance across a hex is open to some leeway. As long as the same weapon ranges are maintained who really cares how big a hex is. Once again I am sure ACTA:SF will adjust to what it needs.
And the following is more information. In SFB cloaked ships used hidden deployment so it was more a plotted thing than any tokens used to mark its location. Ships rolled for a lock on at the start of a turn to determine if the could see a targeted ship and it was very hard to spot a cloaked ship. In Fed Com one of the things done to speed up the game was eliminating hidden deployment. So because of this things like cloaked ships, defence satellites, and mines are deployed on the board and there are rules saying things like you can not shoot at these units until they do something hostile. Cloaked ships are of course a exception to this rule because by definition a enemy combatant is hostile. They are just really hard to hit til they start fading in.
Da Boss said:
That's the reason those plasma torpedoes take so long to load =p
To be a good Romulan player requires lots of patients. You come in uncloak fire a honking huge torpedo the recloak and wait till your torpedo is ready again. The other huge liability for a Romulan player is your flying a egg shell if you playing with the old eagle/warbird classes.
Iron Domokun
Mongoose
If you remember watching the episode Balance of Terror, Enterprise was able to "depth charge" the Romulan Warbird with its phasers. In the SFU, cloak doesn't make you completely invisible, just hard to detect. It is "the ultimate form of ECM". It increases the range bracket your weapons are resolved on (reducing # of hits) and reduces damage by 50%-ish on top of that. Cloak does not affect shields, that's a post-TOS canon.
Rick
Mongoose
Iron Domokun said:
Spread of Photon torpedoes. Just to be extremely pedantic! :twisted:
In that TOS episode the BOP was completely invisible while cloaked. I don't know what the answer is; I rather liked the idea of real and dummy counters, but agree that moving a fleets worth of them would be time consuming. I think using it as some sort of "stealth+" effect might be the easiest compromise.
godsgopher
Mongoose
Well I take a day off from the forums and they explode! Amazing!
I see everyone is getting excited about cloaking, I guess I'm not surprised after all its one of the more unique things about Star Fleet Universe. But I am wondering does this mean were going to have a ton of Romulan converts here soon?
I'm left wondering if there will be any faithful watchdogs of the Federation left to hold the border against this insidious encroaching invisible doom...
I see everyone is getting excited about cloaking, I guess I'm not surprised after all its one of the more unique things about Star Fleet Universe. But I am wondering does this mean were going to have a ton of Romulan converts here soon?
I'm left wondering if there will be any faithful watchdogs of the Federation left to hold the border against this insidious encroaching invisible doom...
Burger said:
You got a rule named after you
Greg Smith
Mongoose
I can see several issues with a hidden cloak.
1) When we did a Star Trek conversion of Full Thrust many years ago, we had hidden cloaks with plotted movement. Over a couple of turns, it was quite easy to get completely lost. By plotting movement by eye, the end result could be wildly inaccurate. Obviously a simpler more abstract system would be neccesary- hovever not so abstract to make the opposing player feel cheated ("How did you get over there and turn around?!!")
2) It could be quite boring for the opposing player. "All my ships are cloaked. Move your ships now."
3) There may be anti-cloak weapons, which would require the players to knowing where the cloaked ship is. In SFB/FC isn't there a Plasma Carronade which can hit cloaked ships?
Going back to Balance of Terror, couldn't Sulu or Chekov see a distortion on the view screen when the BoP was cloaked? .
1) When we did a Star Trek conversion of Full Thrust many years ago, we had hidden cloaks with plotted movement. Over a couple of turns, it was quite easy to get completely lost. By plotting movement by eye, the end result could be wildly inaccurate. Obviously a simpler more abstract system would be neccesary- hovever not so abstract to make the opposing player feel cheated ("How did you get over there and turn around?!!")
2) It could be quite boring for the opposing player. "All my ships are cloaked. Move your ships now."
3) There may be anti-cloak weapons, which would require the players to knowing where the cloaked ship is. In SFB/FC isn't there a Plasma Carronade which can hit cloaked ships?
Going back to Balance of Terror, couldn't Sulu or Chekov see a distortion on the view screen when the BoP was cloaked? .
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