[ACTA-SF] Looking ahead - Hellbore

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

Okay, lets get the hellbore discussion going on here!

IMHO the major game mechanic of the hellbore was to find the weak part of the shields and exploit it, thus generating internal damage sooner than other weapons.

To that end my suggestion would be fore it to bypass shields on 5-6. Logically it should ignore the Klingon special front shield rule, but balance wise I'm not sure its justifiable.

-Tim

 

[Da Boss]

Is there a FC definition you can post as I don't know enough about it to comment.

re balance - it can be awesome - just means its very expensive

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

Is there a FC definition you can post as I don't know enough about it to comment.

re balance - it can be awesome - just means its very expensive

I'll leave the definition to others. I don't play FC, just used to play SFB and I really never gave the Hydrans much attention (other than getting reamed by them a few times - nothing like having Stinger 2's taking down one of your shields and then the cruiser pinging you with hellbores (one at a time of course to get more weapon/power hits)).

The balance was just in reference to the anti-klingon ability. Hard to price that aspect of it correctly if it is only used against one race.

-Tim

 

[katadder]

yes it finds the weakest shields but you only have one shield. ignoring them on a 5/6 could be slightly overpowered as a hellbore is generally more powerful and accurate than a photon in FC iirc. best thing is to do more damage to shields as crackles all over them.

 

[Sgt_G]

Copying from the other topic, my suggestion is the HB should be a Devastating +1 / Multihit 4 / Killzone 6 weapon that does not bypass shields on a "6", but rather looks at the pre-hit damage to the target's shields. If they are down more than 25% (1/4 damaged), then 1 points of damage (2 points inside Killzone) bypasses the shields and goes internal.

Pre-hit damages is before the HB fires, not at the start of the combat phase, so you can hit the target from another ship and/or with phasers first to knock them down to 25% before firing HB.

 

[Nomad]

Pre-hit damages is before the HB fires, not at the start of the combat phase, so you can hit the target from another ship and/or with phasers first to knock them down to 25% before firing HB.

I don't believe this aspect of the HB translates into ACtA, and trying to include it just adds unnecessary complication.

In the SFU, Hellbores attack the targets weakest shield. This makes sense as in the SFU, ships have six separate shields each covering 60 degrees (one hex side).

It makes no sense at all in ACtA, where ships have one global shield figure. The only relevance it has is that wherever the HB deposits it's damage, it won't be on the double-effect forward shield on Klingon ships.

The 'all shields equal strength shields spreads out the HB damage' scenario in SFB was, in my experience, more illusory than real. It was fairly trivial for the Hydran to damage one shield with phasers or fusions, or use the HBs in 'Direct Fire' mode, when their damage was concentrated on the facing shield.

I don't think it's worth trying to replicate any of that in ACtA.

 

[Sgt_G]

I'm not trying to replicate everything from SFB. Rather, I'm trying to balance the HB out within the ACTA engine. In my suggestion, there is no chance of shield bypass if the shields are full, unlike a photon and most other weapons where a luck first-hit can go internal. To get internals with my HB suggesiton, you need to knock shields down first.

For what it's worth, I heard there's already an official HB in playtest, but I don't know anything about how it works.

 

[Nerroth]

As posted in the other thread, I might suggest reducing the Klingon shield fraction to one-quarter, but have it apply against hellbore damage from any direction (to represent at least some of the shield damage being scored in the front arc).

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

I would rather avoid quartering numbers, personally. :|

 

[Nomad]

Garth - fair enough, but I'd rather the HB (and other weapons) were just defined by their stat lines with a minimum of special rules.

Nerroth - I'm with GG. In any case, the only HB effect which will hit a klingon's boosted forward shield is one of the 'splash' elements, which are in practice next to irrelevant anyway. The first attempt to model the HB in FC concentrated on the 'splash', which led to some very odd results (and rendered the weapon effectively useless).

 

[Sgt_G]

Nomad, there is that. It would be nice to get everything on one line. It may not be possible without losing the SFB/FedCmdr "flavor" of the weapon system. I am trying to keep special rules simple.

However, the part you quoted back to me, thus the part I thought you had heartburn about, was the part about firing phasers first to knock down the shields. That's already in the game, for Matthew has said damage from one weapon hit take effect before the next weapon fires. Example was phasers and photons fired from the same ship, if one system gets a critical that knocks shields off-line, they're down before the other weapon system fires.

 

[eldiablito]

What if the Hellbore did double damage to enemy shields, but NOT against the hull. If any extra damage gets through on the same AD, then round back down to the remaining AD total? IOW, a 5AD Hellbore hits a ship with 7 shield points left. The first 4AD are doubled to ensure that the shields are dropped. then the last AD gets through to the hull...

No, it doesn't exactly match the older rules, but it does crush enemy shields really well...

 

[Sgt_G]

Doesn't fit the flavor. In SFB, the HB wraps around the target and does half the damage to the weakest shield (follows path pf least resistance), and the other half is spread out on the rest of the shields. Doing double-damage to shields with no pentatration doesn't come close to replicating that.

 

[Iron Domokun]

Garth, I disagree. El Diablito's idea does replicate how it works in FC pretty well. In FC, there is no direct-fire Hellbore option, so you find yourself pumping Hellbore after Hellbore into the target, turn after turn, and just wearing away the shields, maybe scoring insignificant internal damage from burn-through. Suddenly, the target is shieldless and the next salvo vaporises it.

In SFB/FC, you often see fusion beams creating weak shields for the Hellbores to exploit. In ACTASF, if El Diablito's suggestion is adopted, you'll see Hellbores creating weak shields for the fusion beams to exploit. Net result will be about the same.

 

[Nomad]

In FC, half the HB damage always hits just one shield, and ships fire in sequence.

In a fleet action, the first HB hits will create a weak shield - usually at the target's choice, so facing away from incoming Hydran phaser or fusion fire. Subsequent HB ships hitting the same target will attempt to collapse that shield and inflict internals on that turn.

That's important, as the enemy will do their damnedest to repair that shield over the two turn breaks while the HBs reload. Additionally, ESGs - being available every turn in FC - render this much less effective against Lyrans.

It's quite different from the phaser/fusion/hellbore (and, for that matter, ESG) interaction in SFB.

I don't think much of this will port into ACtA. I don't mind, as long as the HB is at least marginally useful.

 

[Sgt_G]

Iron D. As Nomad said, the HB in FedCmdr does half damage to the weakest shield, always. Having to pound the entire shield to nothing before the HB can do internals just isn't the same. If you allow it to bypass shields on a "6" with full damage, it's nothing more than a big Photon. I'm not demanding my-way-or-else, but I just haven't seen other suggestions that capture the flavor of the HB yet. If someone posts something better, I'll support it.

 

[Myrm]

OK, this is rehash of what I initially put up in the PhG thread, I know....but I'll put it over

THe basic thing with hellbores is that they don't damage the ship particularly more than anything else but they get onto ship internal damage very quickly by finding the weak point in shields - and then they leave some shield intact. The primary issue of no facing being safe has become somewhat irrelevant in ACtA without directional shields as standard. Its not an easy port to do....

The main feature that hasnt really been seen in any ideas so far for me is the fact that a shield facing in SFB/FC that has taken some damage becomes a liability particularly to hellbores - thats the difficult bit.

I think it really must ignore the Klingon shield benefit whatever you do and indeed must ignore any similar feature that positively boosts shields, though it would act on one that weakens a shield.

You could say 'double damage vs shields' to simulate wrapping round but while that neatly describes the overall effect of shredding shields, that leaves a hellbore hit vessel stripped of shields vs all other weapons which is not really what hellbores do. It is close though.

You could make it burn through more, on a 5-6 - seems a bit powerful but it leaves shields there for other shots which seems right.

You could say shield values are halved against it for that shot somehow. This is what I cobbled together as a first run
Trait: Shieldbreaker
This weapon is designed to target weak points in shields, enveloping targets to find weak points or cracking them open temporarily to do more internal damage while leaving some shielding intact.
When this weapon system is fired, all AD from weapons with this trait on the vessel aimed at the same target are fired as a single system. Hits obtained are applied to shields until the shields have absorbed half their rating at the point of firing. Once hits have been applied to this level, all subsequent hits are applied internally.
This weapon will not score internal hits on AD rolls of 6 and ignores all traits and special actions that increase the effective current shield rating in specific directions.

So you get shields left behind for other direct fire weapons, you do not become super efficient at stripping shields as per the double damage vs shields and it might be useful for other shield breaking weapons like enveloping plasma etc

Comments, specifically - is it closer to the existing SFU and is it still simple enough for ACtA?
Tim

 

[Sgt_G]

After some thought, no I don't think the HB should ignore the Klingon double-front shields. That rule is there to simulate that most Klingon ships have a brick face and a glass rear-end.

Against the HB, it could either be worked as normal, double-front to the front, or it could be worked as taking 1/4 damage off the HB. Half the HB hits the weakest shield and the other half hits the rest. Taking double shields off half the HB is a quarter.

Hits obtained are applied to shields until the shields have absorbed half their rating at the point of firing. Once hits have been applied to this level, all subsequent hits are applied internally.

By "rating at the point of fire", do you mean a shield of 24 that's been hit before and now at 18, the HB has to get it to 12, or to 9, before going internal??

So, your suggestion is if shields 50-100% strength, nothing from HB gets inside, but 0% to 50%, the whole HB gets inside.

My suggestion is shields 75-100%, nothing gets inside; 0% to 75% (of original strength), one-quarter damage gets inside. (By the way, I thought about going 50% for half-internals, either instead of or in addition to the 1/4 rule, but I thought that might be a little much.)

At any rate, we'd have to run some numbers to see whether your suggestion or mine is more balanced. I'm a little bias to my idea, of course, but I could support yours if the math is right.

 

[Myrm]

Hits obtained are applied to shields until the shields have absorbed half their rating at the point of firing. Once hits have been applied to this level, all subsequent hits are applied internally.

By "rating at the point of fire", do you mean a shield of 24 that's been hit before and now at 18, the HB has to get it to 12, or to 9, before going internal??

Its supposed to be that as shields weaken, its subsequently easier for a hellbore to penetrate in SFB/FC as it goes round the ship to do so - so Im trying to go for a method that abstracts the fact that damage weakens shields in weird ways for the ACtA setting. In other SFU games causes a turn away, or a risk of damage but with ACtA abstracting the shield facings there's none of these effects seen, but its a big part of hellbores so they need something to abstract that effect.

So, your suggestion is if shields 50-100% strength, nothing from HB gets inside, but 0% to 50%, the whole HB gets inside.

No, no actually its rather different. I'm sure there is a tidier way of explaining it as well, as I'm not sure I really put it right first time...

Say - Shield rating 20 is fired on. The idea was that once Hellbores score 10 damage in their volley (in SFB terms there) then the rest of the volley goes through to do damage. The ship is now left with 10 shield rating. So lets say a hellbore scores 6 hits on average (number plucked from the aether purely for demonstration) and run a demonstration.

Ship with 20 shields gets hit by a single hellbore. It takes 6 hits - this is not in excess of half its shield rating at the time the thing was fired so all the damage is taken on the shields. Ship now has shield rating of 14.
A nearby vessel next in Hydran initiative with two hellbore lines on its track decides to try its luck and fires both. These are treated as a single attack and it scores 12 hits. The current shield rating for the vessel when the firing occurs is 14, so the first 7 hits (that 50%) are taken on the shields with the remaining 5 going through. Our poor put-upon target now still has 7 shields left despite internals (say in this case simulating in ACtA terms a frigate whose no5 shield is down in SFB/FC).

At this stage a third ship decides to have a go with its one hellbore. It also does (miraculously conveniently) 6 hits. The target has 7 shields, half that (lets round up so as hellbores can eventually blast through a shield) is 4 so the first four go on the shield and 3 more internal hits are worked out. The ship still has a 3 point shield, but has taken 8 internals and thinks to breathe a sigh of relief, perhaps - simulating in this case that same frigate now missing now its 4, 5 and maybe 6 shields in SFB/FC.

I hope that explains what Im tryinig to suggest better. This could work for weapon with the trait Im suggesting for hellbores, as I think enveloping plasma could be done the same way and not sure if thats in FC, and if I remember the Seltorians had a shield cracking weapon too. It also with the all as one volley theme does simulate to an extent (enough of an extent) the weird place in the fire resolution order that hellbores had SFB.

Thus far this is the closest in ACtA style I can come to simulating what I used to see in SFB. I cannot comment of FC as Ive played about 3 games of that and only with the first set, but I've done a fair amount with VaS and ACtA:B5 and a moderate amount of SFB in my time and yes, Hydrans were my thing.

 

[Sgt_G]

Actually, you made it harder for the HB to do internals.

Target has original shields 24 but has taken 4 damage, so it is at 20. Your HB needs to do more than 10 to do intenals. That brings the shields down to 10. Next ship needs to do 5 with HB before going internal, bringing shields down to 5.

If, on the other hand, you went by original shields, 24 taken 4 is at 20. Half of 24 is 12, so HB need to do 8 to get shields to half-strength. Next ship hits with HB, shields are already at or below 50%, so the entire second HB goes internal.

The first way might be a little more game-balanced, however.