ACTA: Battlestar Galactica - Some input please...

Court Jester - absolutely fantastic mod, thanks!

Extremely impressive design, love the counters, and the research is obviously there!

One minor quibble - I know we see Cylon Raiders firing missiles at different times, but it's amazing the number of times when they should when they don't.

And when they do, we don't see them do anything else, but they unload six or more missiles - or a nuke!

Pesonally I think there are two variants - one interceptor, one missile boat.

Because if all Raider can fire missiles, we'd see just huge salvos of the suckers, and we don't.

For example, in the miniseries, we see two Raiders launch six missiles IIRC.

If a Basestar carries 300 fighters or so, then they should be able to launch near 3600 missiles in one salvo...

Anyway, food for thought. Overall extremely good work, and visually stunning. Thanks!
 
Hi guys, I have just been doing some thinking, and the idea of a base star having 60 flights of fighters just hasn't sat right with me for a while now...

Not only is it unweildy in the game but I feel it would just not work very well.

So I propose this idea...

Cylon Raiders are deployed in Waves. A Wave is a sing unit on the table like a single ship or flight of fighters.

A Cylon Raider Wave moves and acts like a normal fighter flight except for one difference. A Cylon Raider Wave has a Damage Score like a ship. For each hit that the wave takes reduce its damage by one point. When the damage score reaches zero there are not enough fighters in the wave to make it an effective fighting force and it is removed form the table.

When a wave has taken damage equalt to half its damage score all attack dice on its weapons are halved rounding down.

Waves do not take critical hits.

Cylon Raider Wave

Hull 4
Speed 15
Turns: SM
Dogfight: +0
Damage: 6/3
Traits: Advanced FTL Drive, Afterburners, Atmospheric, Dodge 2+

Weapon Range Arc AD Traits
Missles 8" T 2 AP, Double Damage
Autocannon 3" T 12 Weak, Twin-Linked
 
I like the Mod. Very well thought out and presented.


Perhaps a way to solve the missile or nuke armed raider problem by making all fighter based missiles 'one-shot' weapons.

Interesting idea on the cylon wave. However how would dogfights work with such a fighter horde. Perhaps being able to dogfight a number of times equal to it's remaining damage? Each dogfight lost reduces the waves remaining damage by 1? I would also suggest having it two dogfight values, one for when it is 'healthy' and there are loads of free fighters to support one another and a seperate value for when it is 'crippled'.
 
The Raptor's and Viper VII's Missles indeed have the trait :Limited payload:

I do like the idea that there is a "gunship" styled raider with missles and not much else... I included the missles in the "Wave" idea but only with a small number of AD (2 in this case) to represent the fact that there might be one or two raiders in amongst the group who have missles.

RE: Dogfights...

I was thinking that if it wins the dogfight the enemy looses their flight, if it looses the dogfight it takes a point of damage. Or even "it takes damage equal to the difference in the dogfight scores"

But I do like the idea of two dogfight scores... If I improve the basic dogfight value to +2 and then say when a wave is crippled it drops to +0.
 
I have fiddled a bit more with the layout of the document and I have also adjusted some of the stats and rules based on ideas and suggestion from this thread.

It should be available to download from this link...

www.thecourtjestersstudio.com/files/bsg.pdf

At some point soon...

Night.
 
Still eagerly awaiting to hear what your idea for the 'nuclear weapons' trait is ;) Also waiting on exactly what 'limited payload' means. Does it mean only 1 shot or is it a certain number etc?

Oh one othe minor typo you may not have noticed: Both your Vipers are listed as Viper Mark II (though its pretty clear which is meant to be which of course)
 
Yes - nukes will be interesting. But I think that nukes should also be limited payload weapons. Not every missile that basestars fire is a nuke, yet currently their whole launcher system has the trait and isn't slowloading - same for the Battlestars (although they are SL).

I would make the nuke launchers separate systems...
 
that said, we dont know what the nuke trait actually does... It could be slow loading by default or could be a one use thing like afterburners (ie you can use the missiles as much as you like but the nuke trait only once)...

We shall see :P
 
Locutus9956 said:
that said, we dont know what the nuke trait actually does... It could be slow loading by default or could be a one use thing like afterburners (ie you can use the missiles as much as you like but the nuke trait only once)...

We shall see :P
Click to expand...

Or that the Nukes are limited too. Remember they can manufacture equipment, Ammuntion, and fighters on the move. Its not going to be too hard, to manufacture a nuke (Not Hard at all).
 
I'd not bother for the Bucket
Cylon nukes would do DD on crew, most of the missiles are just normal though.

One of the battery traits should be flak suppression so it effects an area with flak, anything going through it will be effected ..very few if in fact none of the fighters get through it.

You might want to consider a missle counter set...a large number of cylons some BS ones and a few nuke

please please adapt the Viper counters from five ships to 2..please!
also tyopo of Viper Mk II for both fighter stats

also the point defence batteries I'd get rid of and just concentrate on the main battery AD

a new CQ check would be needed for "emergency landings" ie recover flights quickly but a slight risk of putting out of action a flight or two.

you also need redundency see forum i suggest redundency 4
CQ of 5 for all ships

ps great start!
 
alex shall we test this out on our next weekend at aldershot?

I've planned an intro ACTA game this sunday for a friend (not at aldershot) using these BSG rules
I'll have an update next week
 
Well in the new pdf which was uploaded around 10am this morning (sorry for the wait) I have addressed most of the issue you guys have raised here... let me see...

Nukes are one shot, and for that shot the missles go up to triple damage. I kept it simple to avoid clogging things up. Keeping track of radiation and fires just seemed too much. Although I am open to hearing other suggestions.

THe Battlestars do actually have two types of turret, one that in the main offensive weapon that is covered by the different bateries. HOwever the Galactica has three fields of poit defense turrets which are what put out the flakfield you see in the show.

Although the Point Defense batteries have been removed and replaced with the Point Defenses X trait. Which works just like interceptors but only against missiles and fighters.

Instead of redundancy I have cahnaged how the critical hit table is used to make criticals still a part of the game, but generally less effective. However it remains to be seen if it works...

I have modified the Mercury's weapons to have them include the Fire Control trait, her guns are not quite as manuverable now but she has the wickedly powerful heavy battery at the front of the ship.

I have reduced the number of flights the Colonial ships have to represent 1 Squadron each. So Acropolis has 4 and the Mercury has 8.

I have introduce the Auxiliary Scout rule which is like scout but shorter in range, however multiple auxiliary scouts can band together to get a stronger signal.

Limited Payload is indeed a single shot.
 
I know it's tough to try and incorporate 3-d movement on any 2-d system, but it might be worth employing a 'roll' special order, a-la Full Thrust, where you can roll a ship over, switching fire arcs from left to right/fore to aft. I daresay you could give it to ACTA ships, too - but that might sort of nullify the 180 deg turn monopoly that WS's have.

This is employed at least once in S2 Galactica, where the Pegasus is ambushed, IIRC, since they need to hide the damaged quarters of the ship from the Cylons.
 
Also bear in mind these stats are for a generic ship of that class, that had its full compiment of fighters, all its armour and a full weapons load... Details about the pegasus indicate that Colonial ships carried at least a salvo of nukes.
 
In all honesty though there really wouldnt be much point in ACTA, barring the occasional weapon crit that takes out a fire arc, swapping port and starboard arcs would make very little difference. Its more of an issue in FT where indicidual weapons can go offline pretty easily and there can be quite a discrepencey between side arcs at times, and of course was rather more important in games like B5Wars and so on where you take damage on different facings etc.

Basically in ACTA rules rolling would really not be worth the extra rules imho.
 
The ship only has a 1/45 turn - it loses its flak fields on side, with a Cylon Basestar pouring missiles and raiders into it - it wont want to spend turns trying to bring the ship around (indeed, the Cylons could probably simply move to sit in its disabled arc). It'll want to roll over and use the guns from the other side.

It's a very handy tactic, and in pseudo 3d is the only way to really represent it.

You could argue it's pretty pointless in FT - since all you need is 1 thrust to turn your ship to any heading on the next turn anyways, why would you bother rolling? I think it's much more handy in ACTA, where the only way to approximate it takes two turns of SAs (all stop, then All stop and pivot, or two turns trying to come about!)
 
I don't have a copy of ACTA yet but reading your BSG rules have made me want to get one! Come the end of February (when I get my redundancy money), I'm buying it! Does anybody know where in the Gloucester/Cheltenham area I can get a copy? Or is it best to get it mail order?
 
If you can find a local retail store that carries the product I would go there, but there are plenty of online stores with great service. Just searching google in the UK for A Call To Arms should get you a few different options.
 
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