Apollo-X Project

[nekomata fuyu]

I'm getting things together now to start on the Apollo-X project, and just because I'm the sort of person who likes the models to have usable rules, I started playing around with some very rough stats:

Apollo-X
War
Speed: 7
Turns: 1/45
Hull: 6
Damage: 58/12
Crew: 60/14
Troops: 2
Craft: 1 Shadowfury flight
Special Rules: Advanced Jump Engine, Anti-Fighter 6, Flight Computer, Interceptors 4, Self-Repairing 1d6
In Service: 2270+

Weapon                   Range  Arc  AD  Traits
Heavy Phasing Pulse       12     F   5   AP, Double Damage
Heavy Phasing Pulse       12     P   8   AP, Double Damage
Heavy Phasing Pulse       12     S   8   AP, Double Damage
Heavy Phasing Pulse       12     A   4   AP, Double Damage
Light Multi-Phased Cutter 10     P   4   Mini-Beam, Twin-Linked
Light Multi-Phased Cutter 10     S   4   Mini-Beam, Twin-Linked
Shadow Missile            30     F   12  One-Shot, Overpowering*, Quad Damage, Super AP
Shadow Missile            30     F   12  One-Shot, Overpowering*, Quad Damage, Super AP

*Overpowering - this weapon overpowers most forms of defences, and is immune to the effects of Interceptors, Shields and GEG in the same way as Mass Drivers.

For the missiles, I'm created a trait called "Overpowering", which is basically Mass Driver without the targetting restriction. I couldn't remember if the ships in the Shadow cloud ended up being mostly shut down - if they did, I could replace the trait with Mass-Driver instead to represent that Sheriden's White Star was drifting whilst they tried to kill him.

Main concern: Assuming that the missiles don't switch to being Mass Driver, do you think that it can work to have 2 One-Shot weapons of this power level on a War level hull? My current plan is to replace the missile pods on the Apollo and mount one Shadow missile either side of the hull, but if it wouldn't have much of a chance of working in game I could always just add a single Shadow missile under the hull.

Also, any other comments regarding possible changes to the stats are welcome.

 

[l33tpenguin]

I, personally, think even 1 single shot Quad damage, 12 AD SAP missile is a bit of overkill, especially if they are ignoring all active defenses. Chances are you are going to score a good number of crits, probably knocking out a battle level or lower ship with each one, and crippling anything bigger.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Well, against a Hull 6 target you'll average 6 hits and 1 critical, and against Hull 5 you'll average 8 hits and 1.3 criticals. They're hardly crit machines.
Keep in mind that these are planet killing missiles which are individually over half the length of a Sharlin, and pretty much kill a Sharlin in one shot on the show. I figure that the stats should be scary, even if I haven't put them anywhere near powerful enough to one-shot a Sharlin.

 

[CZuschlag]

No, this ship doesn't pass the smell test.

First of all, there is no way you fire one of those missiles without a Scout Redirect or a CAF. You'll get it eventually. Under CAF, you're looking at 9 hits from each weapon system for 41.1:42.6 against Hull 5 per weapon system. That is, between the two guns, a one-shot effect of 82.2:85.2 against ANY SHIP IN THE GAME. At range 30. That's instakilling a War-level ship.

This is more powerful than 4.25 Dilgar Mass Driver systems combined, without any of the targetting difficulties. And that system is litterally throwing a small asteroid at the target.

This isn't even remotely reasonable.

Heck, you can even split your missiles amoungst multiple targets with this loadout.

Anything like this needs to be extremely hard to use to be anywhere near balanced. But, as it is, it's a game ender. You can't even mitigate this ship by range, because if you ever get to deploy it by hyperspace, you'll just autokill whatever ship/ships you choose.

I suggest that you attribute the Sharlin exploding to a 6-6 crit instead of trying to make it happen through average damage. Or, turn this thing into an Armageddon-level ship. Because it is.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Well, against a Hull 6 target you'll average 6 hits and 1 critical, and against Hull 5 you'll average 8 hits and 1.3 criticals. They're hardly crit machines.
Keep in mind that these are planet killing missiles which are individually over half the length of a Sharlin, and pretty much kill a Sharlin in one shot on the show. I figure that the stats should be scary, even if I haven't put them anywhere near powerful enough to one-shot a Sharlin.

I was rather disappointed when the missiles were blowing up single ships in 'Into the Fire' It was very unimpressive for the supposed thousands of megatons they were supposed to be. Even the nuke used against the black star made a more impressive explosion.

Anyway, back to the ship, I just feel its a lot of quad damage AD to throw out to a range of 30. The mass drivers on the Octurion (MD) are 8 AD of triple at 10 inches... which seems like a really poor range for something used in planetary bombardment... I might say thats balanced by the real lack of weapons once those two are spent, but the ship also has a good amount of defense. Hull 6, AF 6, Interceptors 4 topped by a die of self repair, those semi decent secondaries, I think, would go a long ways.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

The Scout/CAF and split fire problems are something that I didn't spot, but both of which are fixable by changing the "Overpowering" trait to "Super Missile", and adding the special rules that any weapon with the Super Missile trait cannot split its AD, or benefit from Scout/CAF.

As is, after a bit more thought I'm tempted to say that the missiles probably do suffer from similar targetting restrictions to Mass Drivers - even if Sheriden's White Star wasn't powered down by the cloud, it was probably on All Stop for the little chat anyway. Throw in that I temporarily forgot just how large range is in this game (planets are only a few inches across) and the range can easily be dropped to 10-15 too. Those two aspects would explain why the missiles are very rarely used against ships, and would also more clearly define the Apollo-X as a bombardment cruiser again. Considering that these missiles are one-shot though, I'm wondering if boosting the AD to 15 might be an idea for the Mass Driver version.

Regarding the amount of secondaries and traits, they are very open to change. My main image is what's there - how much of them are there is something I just threw together to try and get ballpark figures.

 

[CZuschlag]

If you change the trait to Mass Driver, you'll find it very, very hard to target anything with them. However, it also means you can load up a ton more weapons on the ship and have it be still balanced. I recommend this.

Just to give some scope, I have played Dilgar from the day they have come out. Now, I admit, I have run a ton of Omelos, Ochliavita, and Targrath -- by far the large majority -- but I have also run Rohric (1st Edition had Mass Drivers), Khatrik, Wahant, and Mishakur as well. I think, I have fired a grand total of 5 Mass Driver rounds in my life.

If you want a truly unique weapon, check out this weapon trait idea:

Low-Velocity: This weapon moves at a much lower speed than standard munitions, but attempts to make up for it by self-guidance. When a player fires this weapon, do not resolve the fire. Instead, place a marker where the stem of the firing unit stands and announce the target. Resolve the weapon' AD after all move is performed the following turn; if the range from the marker to the target unit is greater than the weapon's range after movement, the attack has failed. This weapon cannot benefit from any trait or effect that grants a reroll.

The tactics around a weapon such as this could be highly unique, especiall if the range is relatively short (such as 10" or so), or, even trickier, if the target was not announced at time of launch! This could describe the weapon system you are talking about --- very unique.

 

[inq101]

I was rather disappointed when the missiles were blowing up single ships in 'Into the Fire' It was very unimpressive for the supposed thousands of megatons they were supposed to be. Even the nuke used against the black star made a more impressive explosion.

They were Obviously shaped nukes if they were able to destroy a planet (everyone knows that). How to destroy the Earth.

As everyone is saying this ship is somewhat overpowered. I'd say it's probably balanced if you put a normal EA missile rack on it instead of the shadow missiles. If you want the Shadow superweapon on the ship say it's a single missile (those things were almost as big as a Sharlin) so fire cannot be split. I doubt EA would understand the tech so restrict it's firing (to fire the Shadow Missile the ship must make a CQ8 that counts as the ships special action for that turn. It may not make a turn or fire any other weapons that turn as this interferes with the missiles guidance systems.) Even with this I'd only give it one missile (or 2 6-8AD missiles).

 

[Banichi]

The idea of a ship carried shadow nuke makes me think of those old pictures of the lancasters carrying those grandslam bombs in WW2. If memory serves, the planes were fairly heavily modified to be able to carry one of those, with less in the way of defensive guns.

 

[No. 1 Bear]

Just a crazy idea how about replacing the shadow fury and the one shot missiles of doom with 2:

Guided missiles.

Speed 10 Hull 6 Turns SM
Damage - Crew - Troops -
Dogfighting +0 Craft - Special rules: Fighter, Dodge 2+

Specail: When this reaches base contact with a ship it explodes ignoring defenses in the same manner as a Klikkiatk. Damge is as follows 8AD Quad Damage, SAP

I know this may appear overpowered but i feel that as it is very vunreable it balances out.

 

[l33tpenguin]

I was rather disappointed when the missiles were blowing up single ships in 'Into the Fire' It was very unimpressive for the supposed thousands of megatons they were supposed to be. Even the nuke used against the black star made a more impressive explosion.

They were Obviously shaped nukes if they were able to destroy a planet (everyone knows that). How to destroy the Earth.

I don't see how it being a shaped charge changes the fact that is was a very little explosion for a very large yield. Shaped charges to very little to the actual size of the explosion, they just focus it in a specific direction.

edit: (forgot to post my other thoughts...)
I've always liked the idea of a 'missile' token that acts as a ship until it reaches its target. It gives a sense of the 'Oh $*%^' nature of something very big that is incoming. I think its target to should be declaired before hand, after all, a ships sensors would be able to tell what it is targetting. Give it a specific speed and range. Would work best to move it as a fighter, similar in nature to the heavy fighters.

"Shadow Thermonuclear Missile"
Crew Quality: N/A   Troops: 0 
Speed: 12           In Service: Until 2261 
Turns: SM           Craft: 1
Hull: 5             Special Rules:  Dodge 4+
                                    Stealth 5+
                                    Missile 3
                                    Shields 1/1
Damage: 8 / 0 Crew: 0 / 0 

Weapon                    Range   Arc    AD   Special 
Thermonuclear Warhead     0       T      12   SAP, Quad Damage

Ships with the Missile Trait are automatically removed from the board once the number of turns, indicated by the trait 'Missile X' have passed. If a ship with the 'Missile' Trait move into contact with an enemy ship, it will launch an automatic attack at the end of the Movement Phase. These ships may not use special actions

 

[captainsmirk]

Strangely the Shadow missiles hits on the allied ships were actually the most accurate representation of nuclear weapons in space in the whole series...

The Black Stars destruction and the mines used at Coriana VI are actually highly inaccurate...

The massive blast effect of a nuclear explosion is effectively a large pressure wave, which whilst that works fine in an atmosphere there isn't anything to carry the wave in the vacuum of space. As such a nuclear device in space would produce a large amount of radiation (and would also produce very little visual effect, but then nether should most of the lasers...).

Whilst this could conceivably prove lethal to a ship's crew it wouldn't actually effect the ships structure greatly (also large space ships will be shielded to some extent against cosmic radiation and their armour against energy weapons will probably also have a mitigating effect).

As such for a nuclear weapon to actual blast apart a ship it would need to score a direct hit so that the blast would carry through the ship itself.


Nick

 

[Shadow Queen]

Id give the Nuke a blast radius as well say 4-5 inches and anything in the blast template take 4 AD each with no dodge roll if fighters and no intercepters.

How advanced is the Ship? as i was thinking Shields

 

[No. 1 Bear]

Maybe an emine that chases ships.

 

[Shadow Queen]

an E mine wont cause crits but with a nuke you want to do as much damage as possable

 

[Foxmeister]

an E mine wont cause crits but with a nuke you want to do as much damage as possable

As has been previously mentioned, a nuke in space won't have an area blast effect anyway, so the effect should be limited to just the ship that is hit. If the nuke attack is made sufficiently powerful to take the target ship over the explode threshold, you'll get your area effect from the exploding ship.

Therefore, if you were going to have a nuke, it should have lots of AD and Quad damage as has previously been suggested.

Just my opinion of course! Since B5 starship combat is very "cinematic" there's no reason why you have to follow the laws of physics!

Regards,

Dave

 

[captainsmirk]

I was only stating the real physics behind it (or at least as far as we understand them, since no one has ever detonated a nuke in space we can't know for sure...)

Within the series itself there are the two case I mentioned which indicate that within the B5verse nukes do indeed have a blast effect...


Nick

 

[l33tpenguin]

I was only stating the real physics behind it (or at least as far as we understand them, since no one has ever detonated a nuke in space we can't know for sure...)

Within the series itself there are the two case I mentioned which indicate that within the B5verse nukes do indeed have a blast effect...


Nick

Cinematic effects for the win.

And yes, you are rather correct, nuclear weapons in space will more than likely be single target weapons. The lack of a atmosphere to carry both the blast wave and the thermal effects mean that very little will happen. The MASSIVE radiation release (which is actually increased do to the vacuum) will probably have a marginal effect as well, since ships will be shielded against radiation anyway (the amount of radiation space ships deal with just flying around the cosmos is quite a bit!).

But yes, I was rather disappointed by the blasts of the shadow missiles in 'Into the Fire' the blasts that took out the black star were much more impressive! It is funny, though, how the black star is obviously being pushed by a sort of 'blast wave' in a vacuum.

Shields would be hella cool on it. it IS shadowtech, after all, right?

Giving the missiles a blast radius is going to require another look at balance. even 4 AD, at a 4-5 inch radius is a LOT!

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I'm personally going with what we see on screen, of a very compact explosion doing massive damage to a single target. Also remember the the prime job of the missile is planetary bombardment - something that E-Mine is very bad at.
That isn't to say though that the Shadows (or Black Ops) couldn't have varient missile types... ;o)