ACTA - I want, I hate, lets adjust

[l33tpenguin]

Love: I can't say 'B5' here, can I? since they already got rid of that

Hate: To be honest, I don't really hate anything about the game

Adjust: oh, this is where I have LOTS to say

Boresight - Easily fixed with a special action that gives a contested Crew Check to allow one ship to move after a specified ship. I like bore sights. I don't like how they can hinder a fleet

FAP - FAP is something that is ACtA. It's like the wings at Hooters. It's not why you go, but you'd miss it if they weren't there. I think making it a little more granular, so it's not crossing into the realm of 'points' but gives more diversity would help. I like the number 10, personally, as a base 10 system makes life so much easier. And drop the naming. Just call it a lvl 1 ship. It saves a calculation in the players head as to how powerful something is. It's much more obvious the ability between a level 1 ship and a level 6 ship than a Patrol vs. Raid vs. Battle. When I first started I had a hard time keeping them straight.

Bigger ships - an incentive NEEDS to be there to buy up. I really don't care to see War level battles with nothing but Raid priority ships. I spent a lot of money on my big ships and I love it when they get table time. I understand that this is an issue when you are dealing with 'less powerful' fleets. If the advantage is balanced right, it can be balanced against a numerical advantage.

Initiative sinking - Is just a silly concept and really ruins things in my opinion. Why is my big carrier rushing into combat? Oh, because the scouts out over out of range and behind some clouds of dust are moving! that makes sense...? Easily fixed by moving a minimum of 1 FAP at a time. This would also speed up game play, making less 'you go I go'.

Crits - Oh how Crits need fixed. Especially on larger ships. A single crit should NOT take out a ship of the line. But they can. This just doesn't make sense. I can accept a VERY lucky crit knocking out my capital ships. But I can't accept them having the same chance as a patrol skiff at being put out of commission. *I* like a redundancy score. It's also useful for ship balancing and only adds an extra die roll when a crit is rolled. It can also give more character to ships, as crits can be such game changing effects. Despite large damage tracks, it seems that many big ships are 'glass cannons' that can be shattered with a lucky die roll.

Notes: I think part of ACtA's FAP problem comes with having a large selection of ships. The smaller fleets don't seem bothered by it, they have 1 or 2 selections per level. It's the fleets that have MANY selections where you see the issue. What makes Ship A different than Ship B, but still makes them equal? Not to mention ships C, D and E.

Don't get me wrong, I like fleet diversity, I just think that might be where the problem is.

 

[l33tpenguin]

A boresight weapon is presumably one which is so large that it can't be mounted in a turret but must be built into the hull of the ship, e.g. the spinal mount weapons in Traveller. Thus it should be more powerful than forward arc weapons in other ships of similar priority level.

The other reason for boresight is if there's a mount on each side of the ship, e.g. the laser weapons on Earth ships. One way to model this in a game might be to allow the ship to fire the weapon at 1/2AD anywhere in the forward arc or full AD on the boresight. No SA is needed - boresight is the only place which both mounts can see, so if you've achieved it, you get to use full AD, otherwise only the mount which can see the target gets to fire for 1/2AD.

One nice thing about boresight is the pleasure of putting an Earth ship on a direct line between two enemies, turning and attacking them both with front and aft boresight weapons. A Sharlin can do the same, but full fore and aft arc weapons just make this too easy, and a Sharoos is no challenge at all.

B5 Wars did a much better (and much more complex) way of handling weapon arcs. EVERY weapon on the ship was individual and each specific weapon had its own specific arc, unlike ACtA that lumps weapons into groups. So, an Omega destroyer, for instance, would have something like 6 pulse cannons/laser batteries per side with full side arcs (they could hit anything in the 180 side of the ship) two heavy laser/pulse batteries in the front, each with a 45 degree arc, meaning the left laser could hit anything from 315 degrees to 0 degrees and the right could hit anything from 0 degrees to 45 degrees. It gave more flexability to what weapons covered where, but it was HELLA more bookkeeping, especially with the larger ships that were blistering with weapons

 

[Lifegiver]

I think the ACTA crit system is just too much of "all or nothing", and also much too comlicated. In my adjustments, I took care of the criticals not having bigger influence on stronger attributes by mixing up a numeric system with a percentage system:


THE LIFEGIVER CRITICAL HITS SYSTEM

If You roll a critical hit to a weapon system or the engines, do not roll agian. Instead, apply the sum of critical hits taken by this ship system. For each critical hit of the appropriate system repaired, go back the appropriate number of lines.
All critical hits above 5 to the weapons systems und 4 to the engines are ignored. They do not have to be repaired in addition to the critical hits causing effects.

critical hits to weapons
first critical hit: ship looses 4 attack dice

second critical crit: ship looses additional 8 attack dice (12 in the sum)

third critical hit: ship looses additional 12 attack dice (24 in the sum)

4th critical hit: all weapons decrease to 50% attack dice of their original score. Ignore this effect for weapons that already have less than 50% AD.

5th critical hit: all weapons shut down

For the 1st to 3rd critical hit, divide the loss of AD by the firing arcs covered by at least a single weapon system. The fire arc "turret" does not increase the fire arcs of a ship over 4. The result is applied to every fire arc of the ship. If the ship has more than 1 weapon in a single fire arc, the opposing player decides which of theese looses the AD. Always round up the loss of attack dice.
Double damage, triple damage and quad damage count as the appropriate number of dices. Remember to alwyas round up losses, this means that fractions of DD, TD and QD will be lost as well.

Change the effect of the The Dilgar alpha strike to: crew Quality check 8
On a successful CQ check, the pentagon squadron may only target a single ship. If the target ship takes at least 1 point of damage from at least two of the ships in the pentagon formation using this order, it also takes 1 additional critial hit. This bonus is only applied once per special action of the pentagon squadron as a whole, it is NOT applied for each single ship in the squadron.

Example: A ship with weapons on 4 fire arcs takes 2 critical hits to its weapons systems. Each fire arc looses 3 AD. A ship with 3 fire arcs looses 4 AD on each fire arc. A ship with 2 fire arcs looses 6 AD on each weapon system. A ship with only one fire arc looses 12 AD to each weapon system.


critical hits to engines
1st critical hit: -1 speed
2nd critical hit: -2 speed
3rd critical hit: speed decreases to 50%. If the ship is already decreased to the 50% speed or less, ignore the 3trd crit.
4th critical hit: ship moves as running adrift


My critical hits system requires much less book keeping. The weapons systems of bigger ships require more critical hits to take down than those of smaller ships. Faster ships become a little bit more vulnerable to critical hits to the engines. If You are going to use my main principle in the 3rd edition, just mention my nickname somewhere in the rulebook .

 

[No. 1 Bear]

thats more complex than the current system

 

[Burger]

critical hits to weapons
first critical hit: ship looses 4 attack dice

This would pretty much shut down most ships at Raid or below!
White Star would have nothing left, whereas Nova would barely even notice.

 

[Lifegiver]

Please note that the damage traits count for the appripriate dice, and that a weapon has to be chosen if the ship has different weapons in a single arc. WS has 2AD TD and 4 AD DD. This is is 14 AD for counting dice losses. Loosing 4 of theese is not much. O course, a canny opponent may decide to shut down the neutron laser, but most effects of the original weapon crits table are at least as bad for the WS. Maybe I even have to increase the dice losses to 6/12/24 or 8/16/24 in the sum to shut down the low level ships.

thats more complex than the current system

The table beeing cumulative, in most cases You only need a chart and a marker to mark the line. Move it down if the ship gets critical effects, and move it up if some are repaired. I think this is easier than noting each effect individually, and it saves a lot of dice rolls.
Another way to go is putting little dice of different colours on the base of each ship, the color indicating the type of critical hit table and the number showing the line. This way You know the status of Your ships at first sight.

 

[Mean Mutton]

Please note that the damage traits count for the appripriate dice, and that a weapon has to be chosen if the ship has different weapons in a single arc. WS has 2AD TD and 4 AD DD. This is is 14 AD for counting dice losses. Loosing 4 of theese is not much. O course, a canny opponent can decide to shut down the neutron laser, but most effects of the original weapon crits table are at least as bad for the WS. Mayben I even have to increase the dice losses to 6/12/24 or 8/16/24 in the sum to shut down the low level ships.

thats more complex than the current system

The table beeing cumulative, in most cases You only need a chart and a marker to mark the line. Move it down if the ship gets critical effects, and move it up if some are repaired. I think this is easier than noting each effect individually, and it saves a lot of dice rolls.

I like the general idea... the cumulative table seems like a good way to go. Not sure about the number of AD you're losing, might need to tweak that one, but in general it's an interesting idea and worth looking at.

 

[AdrianH]

Please note that the damage traits count for the appripriate dice, and that a weapon has to be chosen if the ship has different weapons in a single arc. WS has 2AD TD and 4 AD DD. This is is 14 AD for counting dice losses. Loosing 4 of theese is not much.

How do you apply 4AD damage to a ship with 3AD TD? Knock one AD off entirely and give it 1AD DD plus 1AD TD?

What about "weapons" which are listed in the weapons table but have no AD, e.g. Brakiri grav shifters or Shadows fighter dispersal tubes?

Another way to go is putting little dice of different colours on the base of each ship, the color indicating the type of critical hit table and the number showing the line. This way You know the status of Your ships at first sight.

It also means you need to be a lot more careful when moving your ships. And sometimes the ship's base is already occupied by fighters, either supporting or attacking.

 

[Lifegiver]

True, You need a place to put the dice. I use small dices for this purpose (0.5x0.5 cm). Theese dice easily fit on the ships´ bases, next to the bases and even on fighter bases if necessary.

How do you apply 4AD damage to a ship with 3AD TD? Knock one AD off entirely and give it 1AD DD plus 1AD TD?

I knock off the fractions, the latter is too complicated.

Well, I think my company rules were ill-defined. I revised them, hoping they become clearlier now. I also translated the rest of my critical hits rules. My purpose is to streamline and shorten the original critical hits rules, and to make bigger ships less vulnerabe to them than the smaller ones. Please let me know what You think about it.


THE LIFEGIVER CRITICAL HITS SYSTEM

For each critical hit, roll a d6 to determine which system is affected:

1-2: power systems
3-4: weapons systems
5-6: internal systems

The effect on the ship depends on the sum of critical hits the ship has taken in the according category until this time. For each critical hit suffered, go down one line. For each critical hit repaired, go up one line. All effects are cumulative, i.e. each line also contains the lines above. Effects of critical hits that have been repaired are ignored, but crew and dmg lost due to critical hits are not regained.
If the power systems take more than 6 critical hits, the additional crits are allocated to the weapons systems. If the weapons systems take more than 6 critical hits, the additional crits are allocated to the internal systems. If the internal systems take more than 6 critical hits, ignore the additional hits.

sum of critical hits /effect:

power systems
1: -25% speed
2: ship looses additional 25% speed to a total of 50% speed
3: no special actions
4: running adrift
5: loose all positive traits (does not affect weapon traits, nor lumbering)
6: -1 hull


weapons systems
1: ship looses 6 AD (or 3 AD DD, or 2 AD TD, or 1 AD QD)*
2: ship looses additional 6 AD to a total of 12 AD (or 6 AD DD, or 4 AD TD, or 3 AD QD)*
3: ship looses additional 12 AD to a total of 24 AD (or 12 AD DD, or 8 AD TD, or 6 AD QD)*
4: all weapons of the ship decrease to 50% attack dice of their original score. Ignore this effect for weapons that already have less than 50% AD.
5: all weapons of the ship decrease to 25% attack dice of their original score. Ignore this effect for weapons that already have less than 25% AD.
6: all weapons of the ship shut down

*The loss of AD is separated between all fire arcs covered by at least 1 weapon. The fire arc "turret" counts as an additional fire arc, but does not increase the total of the fire arcs above 4.
Devide the loss of AD by this number of arcs, rounding up. The result is applied to every fire arc of the ship. If the ship has more than 1 weapon in a single fire arc, the opposing player decides which of theese looses the AD.

Example: A Jashakar frigate takes its first critical hit to the weapons systems. This ship has 3 fire arcs (Bolters F, Light Pulsars T, Light Bolters A). Each fire arc looses 6:3=2 AD. This takes the Light Pulsars down to zero AD. The front Bolters and the Light Bolters are DD, reducing their AD only by 1 each.


internal systems
1: ship takes 3 dmg once. If this line is repaired and gained again, the ship takes 3 dmg again.
2: ship looses 5 crew once. If this line is repaired and gained again, the ship looses 5 additional crew again.
3: -1 CQ
4: take 5 dmg each turn
5: loose 5 crew and 1 troop each turn
6: The opponent player takes control of the ship. The ship has to do damage control, and it has to make an "all hands on board" special action if possible.


Additional Adjustments to my critical hits system

The Dilgar alpha strike
change to: crew Quality check 8
On a successful CQ check, the pentagon squadron may only target a single ship. If the target ship takes at least 1 point of damage from at least two of the ships in the pentagon formation using this order, it also takes 1 additional critial hit. This bonus is only applied once per special action of the pentagon squadron as a whole, it is NOT applied for each single ship in the squadron.

all hands on deck
The maximum number of additional critical hits that can be repaired by the "all hands on deck" special action depends on the level of the ship:
patrol: 1
skirmish: 2
raid: 3
battle: 4
war: 5
armageddon: 6

 

[H]

mm, I want

A concise well written and interesting setting, hopefully something of the scope of B5, Farscape etc, not some barely known or specialist setting. OR a brand new setting with appropriate support and "fluff"

I want equality of fleets, I want it to be balanced, and to be well playtested without glaring errors /imbalances a pigeon could spot

differential playstyles to identify different fleets

a system that promotes tactical awareness and cunning plans


I don't want

Minis with the surface detail of a piece of paper

Mongoose/writers to get too embroiled in listening to every issue/complaint and over compensating to fix things

any "all or nothing" situations, eg current stealth mechanic, 6-6 crit on a td weapon and so on

"favourites", eg ISA like....

 

[No. 1 Bear]

weapons systems
1: ship looses 6 AD (or 3 AD DD, or 2 AD TD, or 1 AD QD)*
2: ship looses additional 6 AD to a total of 12 AD (or 6 AD DD, or 4 AD TD, or 3 AD QD)*
3: ship looses additional 12 AD to a total of 24 AD (or 12 AD DD, or 8 AD TD, or 6 AD QD)*
4: all weapons of the ship decrease to 50% attack dice of their original score. Ignore this effect for weapons that already have less than 50% AD.
5: all weapons of the ship decrease to 25% attack dice of their original score. Ignore this effect for weapons that already have less than 25% AD.
6: all weapons of the ship shut down

this is sickeningly too good.

vorlon light cruiser or ancient shado ship for example is critted you roll a 3 followed by a 3 it has no weapons now.

that is way way to powerful for any crit table ever.

 

[Lifegiver]

Well, it seems that I still have some problems with my English. As stated above, my tables are to be read as "sum of critical hits /effect". This means that the number at the beginning of each line is the number of critical hits taken until this time:
->You do NOT roll on my tables! The only dice roll after stating a critical hit is to determine the table which the critical hit is allocated to (power systems, weapon systems or internal systems). The effect of the tables is only determined by the NUMBER OF CRITICAL HITS allocated to the according table until this point of time. As stated above, the tables are cumulative listings.


Let my apply this to Your example:
The Vorlon light cruiser takes two critical hits. The rolls to determine the table show 3 and 4. This means that the critical hits are applied to the weapons systems. The number of critical hits applied to the weapons systems table is 2. Thus, apply the second line of the weapons systems table:
2: ship looses additional 6 AD to a total of 12 AD (or 6 AD DD, or 4 AD TD, or 3 AD QD)*

The Vorlon light cruiser has one fire arc, this means that all losses of AD are allocated to the front arc. The front arc has a weapon with the quad damage traid (QD). Looking at the line, the super lightning cannon looses 3 attack dice (AD). The Super lighning cannon still has 3 AD left.
Remember that the Vorlon cruiser will repair all critical hits automatically in the end phase.

The chance of allocating two critical hits to the weapons sytem is (1/3)*(1/3)=1/9. The chance of sufferung a critical hit is 1/6 per damage point taken. This means that the the Vorlon light cruiser on average needs 9*6=54 damage to loose 3 AD. Having hull 6 and the adaptive armour trait, this requires A LOT of firepower.

To apply the third line of the weapons systems table, the Cruiser has to suffer three critical hits aplied to the weapons systems. This average number of damage will destroy the ship anyway.

 

[Da Boss]

It might be best to start your own thread to disucss your proposed crit table properly?

Its an interesting alternative - although I am not sure that a more proproational crit table (as has been suggested before) may not work as well.

On the crit effects Internal Systems
I presume on a roll of 6 you mean that the ship can only undertake All Hands to Deck SA each turn rather than the opponent suddenly gains control over your ship. If it does mean gain control thats a bit too much as people are presently not happy with their big ships suddenly being taken out by lucky shots never mind loosing control of them?!!!!!

I know you have to get 6 crits to do it but I have seen enough occurances of 6 crits from a few hits - say 8-10 - to know that it happens scarly often!

 

[Burger]

TGT's crit system for his BSG conversion is quite good. When you get X crits with a weapon, instead of rolling X times on the crit table, you just roll once for location. The severity of the crit is then X.

So if one weapon system gets 4 crits, you roll a dice once, say you roll 5 then it's an 5-4 crit.

It means low-AD weapons cannot score the big crits such as 6-6, which is quite good, a Patrol ship will never take out a War ship in 1 turn.

 

[AdrianH]

What amuses me is that the first weapons critical will do less damage to a Shadow Scout than to a Stalker. Also, since you're dividing 6AD evenly between arcs and dropping fractions, a ship with four fire arcs will lose 1AD from each arc, effectively only a total of 4AD.

The AD lost by one arc only applies to one weapon in that arc, so a Haven only loses one of its two forward weapons. A Kutai loses 3AD from its aft weapon and 3AD from one of its forward weapons, all of which are DD so it really only loses 2AD from each; its aft gun is gone, one of its front guns is half gone, the other front gun is intact. A Firehawk also loses either half its solar cannon or all its particle cannon, leaving its other weapon intact. So there's one non-Ancient Raid level ship which is about as badly affected as a Patrol level ship.

On the other hand, there's almost no bonus damage from these criticals, so precise weapons do much less damage than they used to. This will reduce the effectiveness of those fleets which rely on precise weapons, although for the Shadows there's the advantage that it's now harder to pin them.

 

[Lifegiver]

It might be best to start your own thread to disucss your proposed crit table properly?

You are right, just let me add one note before leaving:

On the crit effects Internal Systems
I presume on a roll of 6 you mean that the ship can only undertake All Hands to Deck SA each turn rather than the opponent suddenly gains control over your ship. If it does mean gain control thats a bit too much as people are presently not happy with their big ships suddenly being taken out by lucky shots never mind loosing control of them?!!!!!

No. I mean as soon as the 6th critical hit will have been allocated to the internal systems, the opponent player will immediatly gain control of the ship. The opponent can make she ship doing what he likes (assuming the best option is fighting the former allies of the ship), but he must give the all hands on deck special order. Having taken -1 CQ from line 3 before, the chance of repairing the loss of control effect is about 50%.

I know you have to get 6 crits to do it but I have seen enough occurances of 6 crits from a few hits - say 8-10 - to know that it happens scarly often!

True, but on the other hand it´s a lot of fun. On average, 18 critical hits are needed to make the ship running amok. Considering the according amount of damage, the ship will probably not be doing much.

OK that´s it, thx for Your patience. I am preparing to open a new thread now.

@Adrian
Thank You for mentioning, I will think about how to fix it.

 

[basaint]

@ Bear and HIff

Awesome ++++

 

[locarno24]

TGT's crit system for his BSG conversion is quite good. When you get X crits with a weapon, instead of rolling X times on the crit table, you just roll once for location. The severity of the crit is then X.

It's a very nice mod that doesn't take much changing.

The only other thing I'd pick on is (when losing weapons)

1) Break the weapons list down a bit
So a broadside would say
Heavy Pulse Cannon - 2AD - Twin-Linked
Heavy Pulse Cannon - 2AD - Twin-Linked
Heavy Pulse Cannon - 2AD - Twin-Linked
Heavy Pulse Cannon - 2AD - Twin-Linked

Rather than

Heavy Pulse Cannons - 8AD - Twin-Linked

because you can then have a critical result of 'loose 1 (or 2, or d6) weapons' rather than -1 AD or all of them.

Plus, as a pet hate, can the weapons be from the facing closest to the attacker? How exactly did I blow out the port weapons from the starboard side?

 

[AdrianH]

One thing which might be useful is to have a die modifier for critical rolls based on the sort of weapon which did the damage. For example, a basic pulse cannon shouldn't be able to do more in an Engine critical than "Power Relays Destroyed" or "Thrusters Damaged"; only a more powerful weapon should be able to get "Engines Disabled".

To get things moving:
-2 to all rolls for the exact critical hit after location has been determined.

+1 for DD, +2 for TD or better

+1 for Precise

In B5, that makes the Shadows and Vorlons more scary, and also means the 6D TD "Advanced" Neutron Laser on the Sharkaan really is an advance over the 8D DD Neutron Laser on the basic Sharlin.

 

[H]

One thing which might be useful is to have a die modifier for critical rolls based on the sort of weapon which did the damage. For example, a basic pulse cannon shouldn't be able to do more in an Engine critical than "Power Relays Destroyed" or "Thrusters Damaged"; only a more powerful weapon should be able to get "Engines Disabled".

To get things moving:
-2 to all rolls for the exact critical hit after location has been determined.

+1 for DD, +2 for TD or better

+1 for Precise

In B5, that makes the Shadows and Vorlons more scary, and also means the 6D TD "Advanced" Neutron Laser on the Sharkaan really is an advance over the 8D DD Neutron Laser on the basic Sharlin.

the idea of ACTA was always to keep less bookeeping than say SFB, continually adding new condition modifiers kinda kicks that in the knackers, and we may as well all play B5wars in whatever setting Matt has secured a licence for

Also, a single bullet can blowup a tank as easily as a missile, once it;s passed the armour. fuel tank, whoomph!
ok i now expect our large military contingent to tell me this ain;t so!