ACTA: Battlestar Galactica - Some input please...

[captainsmirk]

I believe the Nuclear weapon trait is one shot per game not a permenant thing:

Nuclear Weapon: Once per game a weapon with this trait may elect to fire its Nuclear payload instead of normal ammunition. Any nuclear attack gets the Triple Damage trait.

Otherwise makes the missiles having the Double Damage trait a bit superfluous...


Nick

 

[Court Jester]

Regarding the Rail Guns issue... The Wiki clearly states that there is NO set type of weaponry for use on the Battlestar. The shows sreators have stated that they could be railguns and they could easily use other more baisc firing methods. I simply chose one and went with it.

As for Autocannons, only the fighters are equiped with these as they seem to imply smaller calibre weapons that then main turret guns.

captainsmirk is indeed right, neuclear weapons can only be used once per game. After that one round of firing you are back to normal stats.

In my next reply I'll make a list of the changes I'm considering making to the PDF for the next draft based on this feedback.

Thanks for playing even half a game guy. The information confirms what I feared with the fighter balance.

 

[Silvereye]

Cylon Raiders are simply too good at dodging. 2+ means that even salvo fire (TL) cannot reliably kill 1 single hit from a wave of Cylon Raiders per turn (8 dice TL, that is, hitting on 4s) because they dodge 5/6 hits. This doesn't IMO reflect the effectiveness of Galactica/Pegasus' flak patterns in the show.

Perhaps, again, have 2 seperate dodge stats for the full wave and the depleted wave. (e.g. 4+ / 2+ ?)

Vipers aren't good enough at dogfighting, or Raiders are too good - in the show, again, Vipers kill ratios against raiders are massive - in the game, Vipers need to go 2:1 against a swarm just to equal its dogfight score, and then beat it in combat 6 times. Doesn't work...

Beaing in mind that a wave would be massive and would require more then 1 group of Vipers to guarentee eliminating it. However, would altering the Damage of a wave to say 4/2 work better, or perhaps making a Dogfight 'Double Damage' so only 3 wins are needed to remove the wave.

Regards launching raiders - 3 a turn is your max with scramble (assuming you make your roll). You can barely keep up with the Cylons swarming out...

Arguing from the show point of view, Basestars indeed vomit forth great clouds of Raiders.

Carrier rules need a rehash - obviously a Battlestar cannot enter from FTL with fighters deployed (but it can with Raptors - since they can FTL). Cylon Raiders can FTL - this is a bit of imbalance, and needs a rethink.
Also, it needs to be stated whether Raptors give rerolls for deployment and first turn init.

An tweak to the (A)JP mechanic might be better - allow Auxillary craft to be launched normally after a Jump, or while performing special actions. Also in the show, it seems to take ships/raptors a few seconds to RADAR/LiDAR/Draedus/phased-wibblyon scan the area immediatetly after a jump.

 

[firekite]

i would not worry whether the guns are railguns or another type of weapon at this point because it will just cause all kinds of chaos while everyone argues about who is right. i look forward to seeing your next draft.

 

[Court Jester]

Cylon Raiders
The problem as I see it is that they are just too damn tough and they launch too quickly.

Drop the Waves dodge to 4+ and reduce the hits to 4 and simplify the wave rules.

I think dropping the Raiders dodge to 4+ would work well. This represnts the fact that as a swarm you can just aim in the general direction and fire and you should hit something.

Point Defenses
Since removing them as actual weapons they ceased being effective anti fighter weapons. However I like the idea of them being used like Interceptors so I thought something like this might work:

The point defenses work like Interceptors with the following difference:

After you have worked out how many attacks from a fighter wave or squadron were stopped by the point defenses you may then attack the fighter squadron with that many dice. These attacks have the anti-fighter trait.

The Point defenses can shoot back and can then effectivly be overwhelmed my massed attacks, quite apt I think.

Battlestar Manuverbility
I think giving the Battlestar's two turns should be enough to solve this problem.

Basestar Firepower
I think lowering the range of their missles should help solve the overwhelming firepower at ranges the battlestar cannot return fire at. After all you don't ever see them complaining about being out ranged in the show.

I think also limiting the special orders Cylons can make should be in order. After all something that is entirley machanical and automated cannot be urged on or rushed.

Reduce the Basestar missles to 20" range.

Cylon ships cannot perform the following special actions:
All Hands to Deck
Concentrait all Firepower
Scramble Scramble
Stand Down and prepare to be Boarded
Give me Ramming Speed
All Power to Engines

Remove the Fleet Carrier trait from the Basestar

Introduce Basestar specific carrier rules. Launch one wave and two Heavy Raiders a turn.

Raptors
Seperate out the Raptor types to give more options.

Vipers
Keep the Battlestars at Carrier 2 so they can lauch up to three squadrons a turn.

The Fleet Carrier trait on all battlestars already puts their dogfight on equal terms with the Raiders.

Balance out the weapon load outs of all the fighters in the game.

 

[Court Jester]

Hi guys,

I have uploaded the 4th Draft of the rules.

It can be found here:

http://www.thecourtjestersstudio.com/files/ACTA_BSG_4.pdf

All changes and additions have been highlighted in red to aid those following the changes.

Please don't get too upset over the addition of the Valkyrie Class Battlestar. I took some liberties with the little information the show has given us so far but it did create quite a cool idea.

I have also tried to incorporate much of the feedback from Alexb83's game. Cheers guys.

I am also looking to assign Priority Levels to the ships through playing games. Instead of designing the ships to fit with the levels, let the levels come later... and we can make up some new ones to fit the tiers of unit strength the ships fit too.

Any how, night all.

Dave.

 

[Alexb83]

Thanks Dave,

The changes are nice - except, I wouldn't reduce the Basestars' range - it's good at 30. Removing their CAF makes it acceptable, IMO.

Will have to try the raiders again with the 4/2 and 4+ dodge setup.

Introducing AF may make raiders too weak altogether with just 4 hits, but will give that a go.

 

[Court Jester]

Introducing AF may make raiders too weak altogether with just 4 hits, but will give that a go.

That I think will be the crux to balancing them. To be honest I think 4 hits is too weak but it is easy enough to monitior now.

 

[captainsmirk]

Not to flog a dead horse but my comments about railguns were based on the visual effects used in representing the battlestars' main guns. They do not operate in a fashion coherent with a railgun.

However I think it would actually make more sense if they were railguns, no explosive ammunition to cause collateral if you get hit, able to achieve the high velocities you going to want when to cause maximum damage to the target. The is the problem of supplying power to all of these things I suppose, but if you have enough power to travel faster than light then I shouldn't think that's going to be too much of a problem...

Anyway it doesn't effect the game at all and so not worth going on about.

Nick

 

[Silvereye]

Advanced FTL Drive / FTL Drive: Any ship equiped with FTL Drives can
try to make a jump at light speed to either enter or leave the battlefield. Ships
with Advanced FTL Drives and FTL drives follow the same fules for Advanced
Jump Point and Jump Point respectivly.

This implies a vortex will be created (along with the damaging votex backwash), and additional non-jump capable vessels would be able to tranist FTL. I would suggest using something similar to the Shadows Hyperspace Mastery for the Cylons, and a slightly watered down version for the Colonial Fleet - Basically, instead of placing a vortex, place a ship and roll for deviation.

Acropolis class Battlestar

Weapons              Range   Arc   AD  Traits
Missile Tubes          20”    T     4  Double Damage, Nuclear Weapon, Slow
                                       loading, SAP
Fore Dorsal Battery    15”  F/P/S   8  Fire Control
Aft Dorsal Battery     15”  A/P/S   8  Fire Control
Port Battery           15”    P     8  Fire Control
Starboard Battery      15”    S     8  Fire Control
Aft Battery            15”    A     8  Fire Control

Whilst the Foreward Dosal Battery can taget to the Fore Arc, the Acropolis Class Battlestar has no dedicated foreward battery. Perhaps replace the two Dorsal Batteries with an 8AD Foreward Battery and a 12 AD Dorsal Turret system.

The Mercury class Battlestar still seems to be in a similar league to the Acropolis Class, and behind when Fire Control is used, it . Perhaps it should have increased AD on the Port/Starboard Batteries (12 AD?), and a Smaller amound of Dorsal Turret 6 AD, as the fluff indicates most of them were dedicated to Port/Starboard arcs.

Raptors: (Need the title text made not red).
Raptor ECM: ECM Countermeasueres - I'd increase this to a couple of inches rather then Base to Base contact, and I'd add in an ability to provide a +1 dogfight to Colonial Vipers within the same radius (The Pilot episode showed them using electronic support for Galactica's Viper Squadrons).
Raptor Gunship: Would it be worth including Troops? Mechanic as Breaching Pod.
Limited Pyload With the Raptor Gunship having two Missile Racks, would it be worth making 1 rack Super-AP and the other Anti-Fighter? Or revising the Limited Payload Trait to Limited Payload (x) where x is the number of uses of the trait?

Cylon Raiders
Are there any plans to include Raiders carrying nukes as this is seen on a few occaisions in the series?
Heavy Raider: Would it be worth including Troops? Mechanic as Breaching Pod. During the series, one did land in Galactica and disgorge Cylons to attack various parts of the ship.

 

[Arcadia]

What happened to the raider's nukes??? There could be a raider wave variant with nukes. Give them damage 1, dodge 2+, half the AD and the missiles get the nuke trait. And 2 per basestar

Arcadia.

 

[Court Jester]

Acropolis class BattlestarWhilst the Foreward Dosal Battery can taget to the Fore Arc, the Acropolis Class Battlestar has no dedicated foreward battery. Perhaps replace the two Dorsal Batteries with an 8AD Foreward Battery and a 12 AD Dorsal Turret system.

HA HA!

Good catch, my notes and origional draft of the ship stats have a fore battery so there are 8 dice in every arc and then the two dorsal batteries.

The Mercury class Battlestar still seems to be in a similar league to the Acropolis Class, and behind when Fire Control is used, it . Perhaps it should have increased AD on the Port/Starboard Batteries (12 AD?), and a Smaller amound of Dorsal Turret 6 AD, as the fluff indicates most of them were dedicated to Port/Starboard arcs.]

From my reading the Mercury is indeed suitably weaker than the Acropolis when it comes to broadsides. The acropolis can throw 24 dice to one side but only 16 forwards. The Mercury however was designed as a more direct assault ship... hence the incredibly powerful fore heavy battery, meaning the Mercury can throw 24 dice forwards and 8 of those dice are going to hurt.

I could maybe look at making the fore heavy battery more useful. Remove Slowloading? Change the arc from Boresight to Forward? I want there to be a real different feeling to how the ships fight.

Raptors: (Need the title text made not red).
Raptor ECM: ECM Countermeasueres - I'd increase this to a couple of inches rather then Base to Base contact, and I'd add in an ability to provide a +1 dogfight to Colonial Vipers within the same radius (The Pilot episode showed them using electronic support for Galactica's Viper Squadrons).

I like the idea of this but I would make it an either/or choice. Allow the Raptor to do one or the other in a single turn.

Raptor Gunship: Would it be worth including Troops? Mechanic as Breaching Pod.

For Raptors I am not keen on this as although they are a transport they only carry around 8 men... not really enough for a boarding action. And from the show boarding ebemy ships doesn't seem like a used tactic.

Limited Pyload With the Raptor Gunship having two Missile Racks, would it be worth making 1 rack Super-AP and the other Anti-Fighter? Or revising the Limited Payload Trait to Limited Payload (x) where x is the number of uses of the trait?

I like the idea of different traits for the two racks, consider that implemented.

Are there any plans to include Raiders carrying nukes as this is seen on a few occaisions in the series?

I think this would be a scenario specific thing.

Heavy Raider: Would it be worth including Troops? Mechanic as Breaching Pod. During the series, one did land in Galactica and disgorge Cylons to attack various parts of the ship.

They do have a troops score of 2. Maybe giving them the "breaching Pod" trait would suffice. And some generic rule about Cylon Troops being better than humans.

 

[captainsmirk]

Don't kow whether its worth saying this but as far as i can make out the Galactica's big guns are arranged in two groups of four on both the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the ship, with a further four under the lip of the nose.

The Pegasus has seven turrets on each flight pod, two at each end and three along the side. It then has sixteen turrets in pairs along the lip of the nose as well as the fixed big guns forwards.

http://www.shipschematics.net/cgi-bin/bsg/bsg.cgi?ColCap

This site has pics of both ships showing their weapons layouts.

Nick

 

[Arcadia]

After reviewing bsg_4, please clarify point defenses of a basestar (raider wave in base contact) only protects missiles attacks from ship and squadrons???

Raider wave’s now at damage 4 but they lose point per missile intercept, in dogfights they lose a point per enemy squadron and battlestars point defenses now attack back with AF trait??? Maybe they should go back to damage 6.

Arcadia.

 

[Court Jester]

Point Defences work just like Interceptors with the one difference that when they are attacked by a fighter squadron any attacks that they stop get converted into attacks back at the squadron. You still have to roll to hit the fighters.

The Wave may well be too weak now but it is not a problem putting its back to 6. I'll be testing the rules on Tuesday and another revision will come out after that.

Thanks again for the comments guys.

Dave.

 

[Arcadia]

Point Defences work just like Interceptors with the one difference that when they are attacked by a fighter squadron any attacks that they stop get converted into attacks back at the squadron. You still have to roll to hit the fighters.

Sorry little slow. Yes they work like interceptors but on the basestar only with missile attacks, what happens with railgun batterys??? Are they not interceptable??? More like waves can´t intercept them.

 

[Court Jester]

Don't kow whether its worth saying this but as far as i can make out the Galactica's big guns are arranged in two groups of four on both the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the ship, with a further four under the lip of the nose.

Essentially then the Port and Starboard batteries need changing to Fore Ventral and Aft Ventral with suitable arcts. and the Aft guns removing completely.

This is good as it makes deciding on where to group batteries and what salvos to use more interesting.

The Pegasus has seven turrets on each flight pod, two at each end and three along the side. It then has sixteen turrets in pairs along the lip of the nose as well as the fixed big guns forwards.

Righty then... The Mercury needs to have double the number of dice on its fore batteries... :shock:

The flight pod turrets need slightly more fiddling to get the arcs right.

And again the aft guns need to vanish

 

[Court Jester]

Point Defences work just like Interceptors with the one difference that when they are attacked by a fighter squadron any attacks that they stop get converted into attacks back at the squadron. You still have to roll to hit the fighters.

Sorry little slow. Yes they work like interceptors but on the basestar only with missile attacks, what happens with railgun batterys??? Are they not interceptable??? More like waves can´t intercept them.

Ah yes, the basestars point defense granted with by a base to base wave will stop all attacks. I do mention missles in the fluff description which is probably a bad thing.

I have tried to keep to the same layout throughout. When explaining rules the fluff description of the rules is in normal case and the actual rules are in italics. However I will adjust the fluff to avoid confusion.

 

[Shadow Queen]

How about the rest of the fleet ie: Cloud 9

 

[captainsmirk]

Ah yes, the basestars point defense granted with by a base to base wave will stop all attacks. I do mention missles in the fluff description which is probably a bad thing.

I have tried to keep to the same layout throughout. When explaining rules the fluff description of the rules is in normal case and the actual rules are in italics. However I will adjust the fluff to avoid confusion.

How do they stop railgun fire? :?

Other than by flying into the way of shots... (hmmm... that's an idea, for every railgun shot they intercept they suffer a 1AD attack... or perhaps not they might be dying to quickly already...)

Ok forget it, justs makes thinks too complex...

Nick