Alterative Inititive proposal

[Skipper]

I posted this on another thread, but though I'd give it its own to air out the idea.

"Another proposal, Nominate an oponents ship to move.

When you win initiative, select a ship on the enemies side and they have to move it. The enemy then selects one of yours and you move it. Alternate till all ships have moved.

This still gives fleets with excess ships the last moves, but reduces the amount of "freeplay". It should work reasonabley well without overbalancing in the opposite direction."

 

[Reaverman]

I posted this on another thread, but though I'd give it its own to air out the idea.

"Another proposal, Nominate an oponents ship to move.

When you win initiative, select a ship on the enemies side and they have to move it. The enemy then selects one of yours and you move it. Alternate till all ships have moved.

This still gives fleets with excess ships the last moves, but reduces the amount of "freeplay". It should work reasonabley well without overbalancing in the opposite direction."

Errr..thats Mad...my opponent chooses what ship I move. So the EA, Narn, and Drazi get boned even more since they have boresights. A clever opponent will make sure he gets you to move all your bore sights, thus completely nerfing your main weapons!

 

[Majeh]

and moving all your big bad ships into his boresights.

 

[Burger]

Worst... idea... ever

 

[Locutus9956]

Yep sorry Skipper but thats a truly awful idea as it totally and utterly rogers any fleet with boresights. Not to mention it pretty heavily screwing the shadows and Vree too. In fact it seems to me that the only races that it doesnt utterly bone are the Minbari, the Vorlons and the Centauri who have lots of long range forward Arc Beams.

edit: And EA missile whore fleets

 

[Silvereye]

edit: And EA missile whore fleets

I like it. The missile whore term, not the crazy, crazy idea of the original poster. So do we add this to the list of technical terms along with the Narn Bat Squad and Centauri Beam Team?

 

[Skipper]

Actually, it doesn't nerf bore sights at all. It just changes the way they are played. It also makes winning initiative pretty important.

Boresights: If you loose inititive and only have one bore sight, then yes you are screwed. However, if you have won the initiative, you select the ship you want to target. That ship moves (attempting to position itself for expected moves of the enemy or moves to get out of the possible boresight of the ship they will select). Later when you boresight is activated (probably next) you will try and line up on you intended target.

Lots of little ships: These are still effective as they will have free range of movement at the end of the turn if you have complete superiority in numbers, they just won't be able to be used as pure "inititative sinks". The three patrol level sinks 54" away from the action won't give an artificial boost in movement just because they are on the board.

Most of you jumped negatively on this idea without really thinking it through. As I posted earlier, this is just an idea to get the minds working. I'm currently playing Vree so the Boresight issue isn't a problem for me (i.e. this isn't an idea to boost my flets performance but one to fix the artificiallity of inititative sinks in the next "parsec" from playing to large a role). Most of ya'll are answering from your own vested interest for your fleet. All I'm asking is that you air the idea out and actually discuss it. It does have merrit, but it is only a novel idea that might be built upon.

 

[Burger]

Most of you jumped negatively on this idea without really thinking it through.

No, most of us jumped on it because we know the game very well and can anticipate all the problems and issues it would raise very quickly. Don't let it put you off presenting more ideas though, just because most people don't like this one, your next idea might be really great

Most of ya'll are answering from your own vested interest for your fleet.

1. Minbari
2. ISA
3. Drazi

OK my third fleet is affected. But since I only take Skirmish ships, losing one boresighter wouldn't be a major impact. The boresight issue affects EA and Narn (and other Drazi players) much worse than me.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Actually, it doesn't nerf bore sights at all. It just changes the way they are played. It also makes winning initiative pretty important.

Or, more accurately, absolutely vital.

Boresights: If you loose inititive and only have one bore sight, then yes you are screwed. However, if you have won the initiative, you select the ship you want to target.

And if you lose, your opponent will select all your credible Boresighters before any credible (or important) targets. Either way round, one side does not get the benefit of choosing their own order of activation - thus negating any ideas of co-ordnated envelopment or 'herding'. Being denied your own choice of tactics is not a viable method of determining initiative.

Lots of little ships: These are still effective as they will have free range of movement at the end of the turn if you have complete superiority in numbers, they just won't be able to be used as pure "inititative sinks". The three patrol level sinks 54" away from the action won't give an artificial boost in movement just because they are on the board.

The movement of outlying ships is just a viable tactic as any other. Being allowed to line up attack runs for future Turns is a sensible tactic, and one to use carefully - not at your opponent's discretion.

Most of you jumped negatively on this idea without really thinking it through.

Or maybe because we DID.

Most of ya'll are answering from your own vested interest for your fleet.

Of course we are, because we know what the idea will do to our fleets and our tactics. You have suggested it, at your own admission, in the knowledge it won't really critically affect you. Perhaps if you were to study the tactics required of some of the other races, you would realise how disastrous it is!

As an idea for discussion, it's been extremely effective. Everyone is finally agreed on something - the idea doesn't work.

Wulf

 

[Ripple]

Agree with Burger here.

To take your idea and discuss it though, this means that init stat for each race becomes even more important. Given a lot of folks at my end of the world do not feel that init is taken into account in ship balance to a sufficient degree this put me off. Note the Minbari and Centauri who both have superior ships have high initiative.

Second, this game (and many other space games) often have a command ship or central large powerful ship in the fleet. For several races this ship will invariably be boresighted. Under this rule these races would be boned half the time or more depending on the initiative stat. This rule would have the effect of forcing folks to use even more small ships, when in the eyes of many people on these boards the problem in this game is giving folks a reason to use large ships.

Those are just two issues I have from a game play perspective.

Ripple

 

[Reaverman]

These are still effective as they will have free range of movement at the end of the turn if you have complete superiority in numbers, they just won't be able to be used as pure "inititative sinks".

So its unfair to play Zulu's agains British since the British have few men in their units. Initiative sinking, is common in real life battles. People using masses, to overcome superior trained or equiped units

Most of you jumped negatively on this idea without really thinking it through.

Nope, as burger mentioned, we are all well seasoned in this.

Most of ya'll are answering from your own vested interest for your fleet.

Well let see;

EA
Vorlon
Minbari
ISA
Narn

I think I have a broad selection of fleets, both boresight and non boresights.

 

[E Nicely]

Initiative doesn't need to change.

 

[CodeofArms]

This seems to really penalise low initiative fleets. And why would an enemy commander directly dicatate the movement of a fleet surely it will be his tact and cunning which do so? 8)

 

[Commador Q]

i'm curious, exactly what about the curent initiative system don't you like?

is it that fleets with larger numbers can outmanuver fleets with fewer ships?

or is it that the curent initiative ystem encourages fleets to have a number of smaller support ships and consequently hinders big ship only fleets?

or is it omething else?

personally i think the first 2 points are positive aspects of the curent initiative system. so i'm not sure why you think there needs to be a c hange at all.

 

[Lazy_bum_student]

This'll shag most of the ISA fleet, so what we'd be able to shoot, the whole idea of the ISA is having your fleet untouchable by the big hitters. If I have to move all my whitestars first they'd just be falling out the sky.

 

[Chernobyl]

if you put the boresight issue aside, I think its an interesting idea. Thats about the only thing that keeps me from liking it. I'd like to see some folks try it out though, to see if its really as bad as you all seem to think it will be. Try it without boresight fleets, and with boresight fleets.

Chern

 

[Wulf Corbett]

if you put the boresight issue aside, I think its an interesting idea. Thats about the only thing that keeps me from liking it. I'd like to see some folks try it out though, to see if its really as bad as you all seem to think it will be. Try it without boresight fleets, and with boresight fleets.

It'll be interesting also to see how it works (or doesn't) with long-range fleets vs. close range fleets. It'll be a hell of a lot easier to screw up your opponent when the combat gets to a scrum (as virtually all of mine do), and you most need to carefully choose your ship moves.

Wulf

 

[seldon]

Hey guys, I wouldn't discredit skippers idea completely!

If my fleet has 3 out of 6 main ships with important boeresight weapons and I loose initiative and my opponent has same or more ships than me with the current system by the time I move my first boresight ship I will have two possible targets selected by my opponent. And my last ship will have 5 possible targets selected by my opponent, but this last ship would be my best boresight ship.

With skipper's system, my first boresight ship would not have any available targets, my second ship would have one available target selected by me and my third boresight ship would have two available targets selected by me, but this would probably be my least powerful boresight.

It might not be a bad idea for boresight fleets if you like to be able to choose enemy targets, it could prove still too frustrating if you only have one boresight ship, which would never have a target unless you win initiative, where at least with the current system it might still shoot, but it could work. It could merit some playtesting.

In either case still the best way to deal with higher initiative fleets is to start shooting them out of the sky so he has less ships than you, which might mean that having one of your boresights not shooting whenever you loose initiative is too serious for this rule to work.

My personal opinion is that the cost is to high, you get to choose some targets but you ALWAYS loose your best boresight every time you loose initiative. I still wanted to bring up that the idea is not totally crazy and some other boresight commander might like to be able to target that nasty Octurion early in the game.

In principle, without the playtesting, I would keep the rule as is, I prefer not to loose my best boresight every time I loose initiative.

Regarding why you would choose your opponents ship, and how can the captain do that, well initiative is an abstraction and it can easily be explained either way. I think the main thing is to do a play testing, but the rule is too fundamental to implement without very careful play testing.

Cheers,
Seldon

 

[Locutus9956]

Hey Seldon, wheres that avatar pic of yours from? Im asuming its Hari Seldon in the time vault but can't see if its a photo or a drawing from here. (Basically it made me wonder if theres a TV show or movie out there based on the foundation series that I've missed (seeing as there just about my favourite book series ever I'd love to see something like that )

 

[Epaminondas]

I think there is absolutely no merit in this idea with the current bore sight rules.

In "real B5 life" rather then game, a captain could order his crew to "track" a certain enemy with its bore sight using side thrusters.

Same as ordering all stop, and not moving should mean you don't move in the next turn either, or if you close blast doors, they should stay closed.

But this is a game, not "real B5 life." Having all the ships from both sides moving simultaneously would be the most accurate way of doing things, but would be impossible to implement in a game.

Alternating ship activations is a reasonable mechanism for initiative.

===

The problem with bore sighting is that two fleets, the Narn and the EA get about 4/5s of their damage from bore sights.... with this proposed change, you hammer those two fleets with huge nerf bat.

At minimum this change would require a special order to track an enemy ship with the bore sight at a low CQ check, with in the limitations of one turn (and lose one turn).