ACTA: Battlestar Galactica - Some input please...

[The Legend]

Ah now that sounds good. Also gives a good account of Auxilliary survivability. I always wondered why there was no To-Hit roll in ACTA the reasoning always seemed a little ponderous. Think I'll be trying this out as soon as I can.

Court Jester would you keep the target number mid to high, i.e. 4 or 5 for waves as it does seem that the Raiders attack as a block en mass rather than in Squadrons like the Vipers.

I was also wondering what your take on the Galacticas Armour deficiency was. When you look at the Galactica in the series it has massive gaps in its armour which show off the superstructure quite extensively. Have you based the Acropolis on this example or is it the fully armoured version that Raven studios have sculpted.

I ask this as it does seem that Galactica can weather damage but is possibly a little more vulnerable than it sould be. My take on this is that anyone wishing to use the Galactica as seen in the series would have to have a lower armour score than a fully armoured Acropolis Class Battlestar.

 

[Locutus9956]

Locutus - you giving the Colonials Kra'Vak guns and the Cylons LR missiles and advanced drives?

To get the Basestar fighter complement in, you are going to have some craaazy mass on their ships, same for the Battlestars. How are you going to represent the flak field on Battlestars? Scatterguns are one-use only which isn't really great, and PDS simply dont do the job IMO.

Yep on the KGuns No on the LR missiles:

Im basing the Cylons on Savasku tech but giving them a few UNSC AMTs (to represent nukes) as well. The advantage of using Savasku tech is that they can grow more fighters (theyre still pretty massive ships though as are the Colonial ones).

And as for the fighter compliment the simple answer there is that Im NOT trying to actually put the real numbers in in FT terms. Rather I'm keeping them proportional to each other (if you like you can assume that each 6 fighter FT squadron represents a whole wing of vipers or raiders etc).

Ive played a few test games and the Colonial ships are feeling about right but the Cylons werent quite there (my first version of them was with human tech just lots and lots of missiles, the result was that they didnt really work that well, they either scored a massive missile strike early on or or lost and had insufficient fighters to hold their own (was using raiders as attack fighgers and this resulted in a massacre in dodgfighting). New improved Cylons should work much better but need testing.

As for flak fields , Scatterguns are indeed 1 shot and thus not what I wanted, so I am using standard PDS. But Im using ALOT of it... didnt actually see your post for a while Alex but if you pm me an email adress I can send you a copy of the ships as Ive got them to date.

Ok now any further discussion on this will have to be via pm or email really as this is an ACTA forum not an FT one

 

[cordas]

Well finally got the game I wanted and really enjoyed it.

It was a fairly convincing win for the Cylons, but I think was more down to the Battlestar turning to port in the 1st turn and allowing my basestar to slide away to its aft

Shame about those multiple Nukes Eh? :wink:

Hmmm how many of the nukes actually got through to do any damage when you where rolling handfulls of 6's........ :?: :roll:

:idea: Wasn't I the person who said I was sure I had read that you only got one salvo.... and as you couldn't see that rule more than 1 was launched..... Muppet :lol:

 

[cordas]

Adding this system into the existing ACT rules should be very easy. Add some simple range based modifiers and away you go. Fighters have a Target score of 6 but a very low hull score. Basestars have both low. Battlestars have mid-low target but very good hull.

Thoughts?

Why should Basestars be any (significantly) more vunerable than Battlestars? We have seen them taking a fair pounding in the TV series and survive and we have seen both the Battlestars take a serious pounding and survive.

I suppose it will come down to the game balancing at the end of the day.

As for salvo's of nukes, the Cylons in the TV show don't fire multipul salvos as it would kill the Galactica and that would end the TV show.... We really don't know what they did to the rest of the fleet, all we know is that they wiped it out quickly and with ease. Mind you a ship that can't fight back at all will be fairly easy to kill anyway. Either way its fine it was just a suggestion to give the Cylons a cheap point soak to give more flexability in games till more ships arrive.

Really want to fight with a Mercury and 2 Valkiries against 4 Basestars.

 

[Court Jester]

The reason for the low armour is because whenever you see the in a fight they are exploding all over the place. You don't see their armour stopping anything... they are usually just crumpling undder the weight of fire. The fact that they can take plenty of damage balances this. Where as with the battlestars you see explosions around them and only everynow and then do you see hull breahces or reall internal explosions.

 

[captainsmirk]

I think the Basestars survivability is through structure not armour. The Battlestars railgun rounds shred Basestars repeatedly, they only survive so long because there is a lot of the to shred (common with carriers, for example look how much it took to actually sink the Yorktown, yet she had almost no real armour)...

Battlestars on the other hadnd take a lot of surface hits but not so much interior damage.

Basestars are big fighter carriers/missile ships, designed to fight from range with missiles and their Raiders. Battlestars appear much more like battleships with a carrier capability tacked on...


Nick

 

[The Legend]

Shame about those multiple Nukes Eh? :wink:

Hmmm how many of the nukes actually got through to do any damage when you where rolling handfulls of 6's........ :?: :roll:

:idea: Wasn't I the person who said I was sure I had read that you only got one salvo.... and as you couldn't see that rule more than 1 was launched..... Muppet :lol:

:roll:

Well that may be true but only one needed to get through to knock out the Battlestars entire defence system for the next turn.

Must say I agree with Court Jester and Captain Smirk like. The Basestars you see being engaged directly by the Battlestars flake away dramatically under fire from their main guns. I point out the episodes Resurrection Ship, the one where the Pegasus is caught on her own by 3 Basestars before Apollo takes command and the 4th episode of season 3. I rest my case.

8)

 

[cordas]

Hmmm something that occured to me whilst thinking about a new game of this want to have, is the fact that the new critical system really hampers the Cylons, at most they are only ever likely to recieve a 1 or 2 crit and a 3 crit will be one of those once in a blue moon crits. (12 dice SAP, against an Acropolis hull 5 will get 8 hits giving 1 crit, and even if they get lucky and get 2 crits most of the time it won't make any difference as 1 and 2 are the same for most crits).

Where as I can see the Colonials being able to get 4 or 5 crits easily (a full broadside off the Acropolis is 36 dice with AP and twin linked in full salvo, so needing 4s (the Basestar hull is 5) will produce 27 hits, the Mercury is even "better" being able to deal 40 dice AP, TL in its forward arc giving a straight 5 crits then an extra 8 dice SAP,DD, Precise if it manages to get boresight, just to add insult to injury).

Yes these mumbers will get a bit fudged by "interceptors" but that again favours the colonials as they have more.

If this is by design then OK, but I still feel its a little harsh, as its crits that win battles in CTA far more than accumulated damage generaly. I would suggest allowing the Cylons a specail rule that allows Basestars (or all ships if you want) to roll their "double damage" to give them a better chance of criticals i.e. after PD the Basestar has scored 8 hits, the Cylon player will roll 16 dice to see the damage done (these dice are now treated as normal die not DD die) this will give them a chance of getting a 2-3 crit rather than 1-2 crits.

Oh one other thing what happens if you roll more than 6 crits? do you just start a 2nd crit score, or are they ignored?

 

[Court Jester]

as its crits that win battles in CTA far more than accumulated damage generaly.

Ah but this is not B5:ACTA it is BSG:ACT. Part of the feel is that the ships really do slug it out. You see Basestars exploding all over the place and Battlestars taking withering punishment but carrying on the fight.

Oh one other thing what happens if you roll more than 6 crits? do you just start a 2nd crit score, or are they ignored?

The one time I scored 7 criticals we just treated it as a 6.

 

[captainsmirk]

Ah but this is not B5:ACTA it is BSG:ACT. Part of the feel is that the ships really do slug it out. You see Basestars exploding all over the place and Battlestars taking withering punishment but carrying on the fight.

Yeah, about the only system that Battlestar's seem to have disabled regularly by enemy fire is the jump drive, funny would have thought that would be quite well protected...

Of course Pegasus's drive was knocked out by a nuke hit (which did very little apparent damage otherwise), and Galactica had suffered a lot of other damage at the time (possibly from nukes... hmmm wonder if the jump drives are susceptible to radiation...).


Nick

 

[Traveller-61]

I have just got hold of a Hasbro Titanium Battlestar Galactica, it is almost exactly the right scale for the Mongoose Omega Destroyer and it is not bad with the detail and paint job as well. Perfect for use with these rules.

The good news is that it will be joined by a Pegasus model in a few months - the bad news is that they are hard to get hold of (especially in the UK) and not cheap (and I'll have to mortgage the cat to pay for mine).

DW

 

[Lone Gunman]

Sorry to revive this threat, but is there still a possibility to download this Mod?

Thx!

 

[Court Jester]

Sorry to revive this threat, but is there still a possibility to download this Mod?

Thx!

I believe so...

My website was down for a while today but is back up and runing now.

I'll check which files I have atm.

 

[Court Jester]

The latest version of the rules can be found here
The high-res colonial counters can be found here
The high-res Cylon counters can be found here

I am also working on a VaS/ACtA game...

 

[Poi]

I am also working on a VaS/ACtA game...

You are? Do tell.

 

[super squirel]

Brilliant, I know a few people that will like this . Great work!!

 

[Court Jester]

Well the way attack dice and damage dice are rolled in VaS is much more representative of what you see in the BSG show so I am going to stat up ships based on that system. In fact I think the game will be far more a VaS mod with a few elements of ACtA...

I am also looking at giving the game two strategic levels. So a game that can be played with just two ships on each side that is fun but then also a versio of the game where you can have dozens of ships on each side without wasting time in the details.

 

[Romu]

Looks like very nice work, i'll have to read it all when i have the time.
Anyone ever tried something similar with star trek ?

 

[aqp.accounts]

Ah, BSG. Soon to be airing another season...
I recently saw this on drive thru, anyone actually seen what is in it?

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=50186

Thank You
AQP

 

[Renny]

Hi

You can get the Quickstart game here

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=29552&it=1

This contains a basic version of the rules, a few pre gen characters and a nice starter adventure. Should give you a feel for the game. I ran my players through the adventure and they're hassling me for more..

Renny