Any new Special Actions planned in the future?

[nekomata fuyu]

I have performed a HET, but it was only because it was a last moment do it or lose the game manouver. I would probably find it to be a more competitive SA if the number of criticals was 1 less that at present (so an extra 45 degree turn would carry no risk other than a wasted SA for example).

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

My take on shotgun and enveloping:

Shotgun - causes powerdrain - player selects which of his plasma torps will be fired in shotgun and which won't be. Each one firing in shotgun attacks a number of fighters or shuttles based on the AD at the range of the furthest fighter/shuttle targetted. Shogun torps may not target ships.

Enveloping - causes power drain - Double number of AD AFTER reducing the base AD for energy bleed.


Notes: Shotgun is really only needed to help plasma races deal with fighters, so it can only be used on fighters. Ships can currently fire different plasma torps and different ships which is enough already.

Enveloping in SFB doubles the damage on a plasma, which doesn't allow it to go further, but does mean it takes a lot more defensive fire to "shoot it down". The energy then is divided on all ships equally which is nice for down getting by downed shields - but is kind of lost on this system. Given the gross amounts of shield damage plasma torps do in this game I think that would suffice!

-Tim

 

[SneakyPete]

A couple good ideas on a low risk HET there. I have used HET a couple times, but only when I am playing with ships that have higher than 4 CQ scores generally unless a ships has gotten itself in a really bad position where it has nothing to lose.

 

[storeylf]

I don't see a need for enveloping. It just doesn't fit the way the system works.

The above suggestion seems horribly broken. Plasma already outputs large number of dice, and that is going to double it for the cost of a power drain. Move 6", and fire at range 12 with more damage than I can output normally at range 8. 12AD plasma R and 6AD plasma S plus 2AD Fs, 16AD on a typical cruiser!

The power drain may make it somewhat harder to use, but non the less in a system that can't handle the shield mechanics of the enveloper that is just ludicrous to double the damage the output. In SFB the enveloper is a slow attrition weapon - slowly whittle down all shields rather than blast through one, the above makes it a single strike ship killer.

 

[The Big D]

My take on shotgun and enveloping:

Shotgun - causes powerdrain - player selects which of his plasma torps will be fired in shotgun and which won't be. Each one firing in shotgun attacks a number of fighters or shuttles based on the AD at the range of the furthest fighter/shuttle targetted. Shogun torps may not target ships.

Enveloping - causes power drain - Double number of AD AFTER reducing the base AD for energy bleed.


Notes: Shotgun is really only needed to help plasma races deal with fighters, so it can only be used on fighters. Ships can currently fire different plasma torps and different ships which is enough already.

Enveloping in SFB doubles the damage on a plasma, which doesn't allow it to go further, but does mean it takes a lot more defensive fire to "shoot it down". The energy then is divided on all ships equally which is nice for down getting by downed shields - but is kind of lost on this system. Given the gross amounts of shield damage plasma torps do in this game I think that would suffice!

-Tim

Shotgun is definitely needed if/when fighters get introduced. It will probably end up with a dedicated carriers suplement at that point. It would seem pretty easy to take the standard SFB breakdown of R=5, S=3 and G(when is arrives)=2 targets engaged as a plasma F, targetting fighters only.

EPTs are a little more difficult. Although they cause lots of pure damage and strip shields by virtue of their effect, they will cause little hull damage most of the time. With the damage split between 6 shields evenly most of the time in SFB 1 or 2 of them maybe damaged but 3 or 4 will be at full strength. This tends to bring shields into play that stop the plasma damage that actually would never ever end up being used at all in this engagement! But the opposite is true that you then pour damage through a shield that is down that you couldn't otherwise hit with weapons at that angle.
EPTs definitely need some kind of ability to bypass shields like ordinary fire and also bring down shields more readily. My approach would be something more like 2 phaser hits to drop an AD, once multi hit is rolled roll 1 dice for each hit. on a 6 it bypasses shields, on a 1-5 it causes a hit as normal but each hit removes 2 points of shields if they are still up.

As for the power drain, it doesn't necessarily follow that a special order is required to fire them. In ACTA SF the power drain for big weapons comes from the reload action which occours the turn before you fire. Snazzy plasmas do need alot of power. An effect such as the war eagle special rule so you can simply fire an EPT or shotgun if you move no more than 6" may surfice.

Of course neither of these made it from SFB into FC and as FC is the basis of ACTA SF they may never be incorperated in to the main rules but then that is what house rules are for!

I for one really really hope carriers and fighters and for that matter fast patrol ships arrive eventually. They are a major part of SFB and Federation and Empire, the strategic level SF Universe game. I'm fairly sure they never made it into FC because they would slow it down too much but ACTA is totally a carrier war gaming system. If we don't see carriers in the next 5 years then damn it I'll kit bash e'm myself!

My random thoughts.

Geoff

 

[Myrm]

Agreed, Storyelf, we need to see how hellbores work before offering up an Enveloper - and it should use similar mechanisms....essentially it gets through shield weaknesses that aren't facing you and reduced shields all round and how to translate that to a single shield system isn't easy...if you simply bump up the shield penetration of the weapon, then overall it will do internals quicker than you might want, if you lower shield ratings it might work, you definitely ignore the klingon rule but nothing Ive thought of yet matches quite right....and as a Hydran player Ive been doing a bunch of thinking....

 

[Myrm]

Of course neither of these made it from SFB into FC and as FC is the basis of ACTA SF they may never be incorperated in to the main rules but then that is what house rules are for!

Well fighters didnt make it over in a big way, so the primary need for shotgun went - so its a convenient thing to lose for ease of play. Envelopers, maybe they just weren't used enough to justify the translation...

I for one really really hope carriers and fighters and for that matter fast patrol ships

PFs should be fairly easy to do as things stand just asume they fight for the battle only, campaign only would need the tender - hmmm, project for the weekend. Heck anything from the F111 through interceptor and up to Pfs should be workable - we'll want to see how scouts work precisely to get the leader and scout rules settled but I think I found Sunday afternoon....

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I expect carriers/fighters will appear in an expansion, and shotgun will probably be added at the same time.

 

[billclo]

I for one really really hope carriers and fighters and for that matter fast patrol ships

PFs should be fairly easy to do as things stand just asume they fight for the battle only, campaign only would need the tender

Well you could assume that some of the ships in the battle are "casual tenders"; some warships were equipped with "mech links" that were combined with the tractor systems to allow PFs to be docked to the ship and carried into battle (or out of battle). BUT the casual tenders cannot repair the PFs as a regular tender can.

 

[Finlos]

I was actually running some mental math on the bus this morning and came up with the same conclusion storyelf did: Enveloping plasmas would certainly be too much, for the same reasons he came up with.

Shotgun plasmas could still find a use in the current game however. Launching multiple Plasma Fs at different ships would allow plasma users to fine-tune the damage needed to blow ships up.

Plasma Gs are already in the game, just not on many ships (anymore). Most of the ships that had them got them upgraded to Plasma Ss.

 

[Rambler]

Plasma Gs are already in the game, just not on many ships (anymore). Most of the ships that had them got them upgraded to Plasma Ss.

Type G are the Largest Torpedo a Destroyer sized ship can carry. See the Romulan Battle Hawk and Snipe, as well as the Gorn DD and BDD.

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

The Gorn HDD Heavy Destroyer carries a Plasma-S! Though really the HDD is a Light/War Cruiser cleverly mislabeled a Destroyer to get past the Budget Committees.

 

[Myrm]

Shotgun plasmas could still find a use in the current game however. Launching multiple Plasma Fs at different ships would allow plasma users to fine-tune the damage needed to blow ships up.

If this is considered too gamey it would be fairly simple to limit shotgun to targetting fighters and PFs - or to 'Plasma-Fs created' actual targets to be valid. The first is easier and too be honest relevant to what the technique was introduced to the game for.

 

[Finlos]

Shotgun plasmas could still find a use in the current game however. Launching multiple Plasma Fs at different ships would allow plasma users to fine-tune the damage needed to blow ships up.

If this is considered too gamey it would be fairly simple to limit shotgun to targetting fighters and PFs - or to 'Plasma-Fs created' actual targets to be valid. The first is easier and too be honest relevant to what the technique was introduced to the game for.

I tend to think that restricting shotguns to handle attrition units in a game this dynamic may be insufficient considering the weapon is only available every third turn. Depending on how fighters are handled in SF, phasers may turn out to be the best way to deal with attrition units and leave plasmas to handle the ships.

Plasma Gs are already in the game, just not on many ships (anymore). Most of the ships that had them got them upgraded to Plasma Ss.

Type G are the Largest Torpedo a Destroyer sized ship can carry. See the Romulan Battle Hawk and Snipe, as well as the Gorn DD and BDD.

[SFB tech]A good number of older cruisers (Gorn CL, BC, etc.) with Plasma S launchers actually started out with Plasma G and were refitted as technology improved (which isn't reflected in ACTA). In general, those ships which still have G torpedoes were unable to support S torpedoes, mostly due to size. [/SFB tech]

 

[Myrm]

Shotgun plasmas could still find a use in the current game however. Launching multiple Plasma Fs at different ships would allow plasma users to fine-tune the damage needed to blow ships up.

If this is considered too gamey it would be fairly simple to limit shotgun to targetting fighters and PFs - or to 'Plasma-Fs created' actual targets to be valid. The first is easier and too be honest relevant to what the technique was introduced to the game for.

I tend to think that restricting shotguns to handle attrition units in a game this dynamic may be insufficient considering the weapon is only available every third turn.

Plasma is a one turn reload in ACtA - so its available every other turn. Given the shotgun was really set up for dealing with attrition units I don't see why it shouldnt be limited to being used against them. It could even be a non-special action like the Carronade, specific to antifighter and antiPF use - so no need to even mention it in the main game until fighters pop up - it simply becomes a rule that allows plasma to be half their dice and split fire when firing at such units - that would give 2 targets for S and G and 4 for R - not the precise numbers in SFB but its a simple method.

 

[Finlos]

I was under the assumption that both of those would be a special action. It makes sense for the enveloping but not so much for the shotgun. I maintain the enveloping torpedoes are probably too powerful given how plasma works in ACTA and agree that shotguns aren't needed until attrition units begin to show up. They may not even be needed / used when they do show up, depending on how efficient phasers are at killing them.

 

[JohnDW]

Maybe enveloping gives them a set Multihit value, taking away the randomness of d6. They may not be as powerful as they could be, but will not ever be weak.

 

[Myrm]

I was under the assumption that both of those would be a special action. It makes sense for the enveloping but not so much for the shotgun.

Agreed especially as enveloping requires energy and so you need to power drain option potentially. The existence of Carronade as a variant fire with no special action gives the option of doing the same for shotgun (and equally for introducing proxmity photons if considered necessary)

 

[storeylf]

I personally think if enevlopers ever make it in to the game then it should concentrate more on the effect they have and less on the doubling of strength that they get in SFB which is what people seem to fixate on. That is just a means to an end.

They are harder to shoot down, but wear your shields down rather than blast through them. In SFB their damage spreads around and hence only does about 1/3 the standard damage to any given shield. If you shoot someone with envelopers it will take 2 or 3 decent ones to go through the shields, unlike a normal plasma that can blast through in one go. They can find the weak points (the weak shield facing away from you) and do internals through them. They also require a good chunk of extra power, which can't be pre loaded like photons can, on top of the normal expensive arming cost.


Not fully though out, but:
Only applies to G, S and R. They fire at normal strength but only take half damage from phasers. If they hit a ship with shields they are multihit 2, but unless the target had boosted shields they do 1 internal hit per weapon (not AD) as they find a weak point and burn through it. If the target had no shields at the point of attack they do normal damage (D6). They ignore the klingon shield rule. They would be a power drain. Unlike other overloaded weapons they are not range restricted so overload doesn't really work. A slow ship could envelope all its heavy torps (choose 6" move), or go fast and envelope just one (fire one weapon system).

So a plasma cruiser with 2 Ss could potentially launch at 8" with both Ss that if they hit fully will do 16 damage (and extra 2 internal hits if the target hadn't boosted). Enough to take out a small ships shields. This is roughly about right. They take half damage from phaser fire, so a typical cruiser with ~6 bearing phasers would only take off about 2-3 AD, and still lose 10-12 shield damage, and as long as both still got at least 1AD hitting would still do 2 internal damage. Note the ACTA rule that requires that each weapon system is resolved separately, avoiding any issues about which plasma was hit etc.

Against targets with down shields they are still brutal without any extra damage boost, making them hard to shoot down is still quite potent. A standard 7AD R torp in ACTA will do 25 average hits and averaging 4 devastating crits it will pop all but the toughest cruisers.

On the face of it that looks like it would provide the expected sort of interaction, a way of taking out enemy shields which is harder to stop than standard plasma, whilst also leaking some damage through against shields. Against unshielded ships it ensures that your already brutal plasma is more likely to hit the target.

The power drain combined with the way plasma are all single line weapons keeps it hard to launch all as envelopers at close range.

There may be better ways, and I don't think that they are needed anyway, plasma is pretty good in this game as is. It will certainly be interesting to see how Hellbores are handled, but envelopers also need to handle the hard to shoot down aspect as well, and unlike Hellbores they do not put most of their damaged through a single weak shield, so they are not usually going to inflict the same percentage of internal damage against a shielded ship.

 

[billclo]

I personally think if enevlopers ever make it in to the game then it should concentrate more on the effect they have and less on the doubling of strength that they get in SFB which is what people seem to fixate on. That is just a means to an end.

They are harder to shoot down, but wear your shields down rather than blast through them. In SFB their damage spreads around and hence only does about 1/3 the standard damage to any given shield. If you shoot someone with envelopers it will take 2 or 3 decent ones to go through the shields, unlike a normal plasma that can blast through in one go. They can find the weak points (the weak shield facing away from you) and do internals through them. They also require a good chunk of extra power, which can't be pre loaded like photons can, on top of the normal expensive arming cost.


Not fully though out, but:
Only applies to G, S and R. They fire at normal strength but only take half damage from phasers. If they hit a ship with shields they are multihit 2, but unless the target had boosted shields they do 1 internal hit per weapon (not AD) as they find a weak point and burn through it. If the target had no shields at the point of attack they do normal damage (D6). They ignore the klingon shield rule. They would be a power drain. Unlike other overloaded weapons they are not range restricted so overload doesn't really work. A slow ship could envelope all its heavy torps (choose 6" move), or go fast and envelope just one (fire one weapon system).

So a plasma cruiser with 2 Ss could potentially launch at 8" with both Ss that if they hit fully will do 16 damage (and extra 2 internal hits if the target hadn't boosted). Enough to take out a small ships shields. This is roughly about right. They take half damage from phaser fire, so a typical cruiser with ~6 bearing phasers would only take off about 2-3 AD, and still lose 10-12 shield damage, and as long as both still got at least 1AD hitting would still do 2 internal damage. Note the ACTA rule that requires that each weapon system is resolved separately, avoiding any issues about which plasma was hit etc.

Against targets with down shields they are still brutal without any extra damage boost, making them hard to shoot down is still quite potent. A standard 7AD R torp in ACTA will do 25 average hits and averaging 4 devastating crits it will pop all but the toughest cruisers.

On the face of it that looks like it would provide the expected sort of interaction, a way of taking out enemy shields which is harder to stop than standard plasma, whilst also leaking some damage through against shields. Against unshielded ships it ensures that your already brutal plasma is more likely to hit the target.

The power drain combined with the way plasma are all single line weapons keeps it hard to launch all as envelopers at close range.

There may be better ways, and I don't think that they are needed anyway, plasma is pretty good in this game as is. It will certainly be interesting to see how Hellbores are handled, but envelopers also need to handle the hard to shoot down aspect as well, and unlike Hellbores they do not put most of their damaged through a single weak shield, so they are not usually going to inflict the same percentage of internal damage against a shielded ship.

Certainly looks worth investigating sometime. Pretty decent idea.