B5 Point Values
- Thread starter drcyclops
- Start date
Greg Smith
Mongoose
No one has ever done a proper breakdown.
Roughly speaking a raid point is about 200 points.
So maybe patrol 50, skirmish 100, raid 200, battle 360, war 600, amageddon 1000.
Of course, there will be people who disagree on the exact ratio.
You could then point up ships accordingly, and vary the value of good and bad ships.
Roughly speaking a raid point is about 200 points.
So maybe patrol 50, skirmish 100, raid 200, battle 360, war 600, amageddon 1000.
Of course, there will be people who disagree on the exact ratio.
You could then point up ships accordingly, and vary the value of good and bad ships.
I just recently started playing B5 2nd ed with my gaming group (everyone but me played it when it came out and had the minis).
The system is really unbalanced as it stands. The Earth, Narn and Centauri seem balanced against each other. The Minbari are overpowered against those three races and the Vorlons & Shadows overpower the Minbari. Most of the other lesser races are underpowered against the main three races in one way or another. There are a few other factions in there that I missed but they balance issues too.
I was just hoping that someone some ware worked out a balanced point system since the game stopped being supported.
Thanks
The system is really unbalanced as it stands. The Earth, Narn and Centauri seem balanced against each other. The Minbari are overpowered against those three races and the Vorlons & Shadows overpower the Minbari. Most of the other lesser races are underpowered against the main three races in one way or another. There are a few other factions in there that I missed but they balance issues too.
I was just hoping that someone some ware worked out a balanced point system since the game stopped being supported.
Thanks
Minbari vs. Shadows is actually quite a good balanced game. The Shadows have plenty of Scouts to help knock down the Minbari stealth, plus their Scouts and Stalkers have stealth of their own - which a Leshath can all but negate entirely. But Shadows are vulnerable to pinning by beams, which is the Minbari speciality. Shadows vs. Minbari is interesting. As for Minbari vs. Vorlons, see the other recent thread. 
.
I quite like the FAP system because it makes initial ship selection quick and easy - no need to figure out exactly how to use up your last few points, or what to get rid of because your initial choice is a few points over budget.
In any case, whether by FAP or by points, some races will always seem unbalanced against others. I'd agree that Minbari are unbalanced against Earth, for example, since Earth's main strong points are fighters and interceptors, pretty well negated by the Minbari's massed anti-fighter and beam/mini-beam armament. This will be the case whether you're playing a 5 Raid or a 1000 Point game unless there's some sort of complicated system for working out how much a ship is worth depending on who it is facing.
.I quite like the FAP system because it makes initial ship selection quick and easy - no need to figure out exactly how to use up your last few points, or what to get rid of because your initial choice is a few points over budget.
In any case, whether by FAP or by points, some races will always seem unbalanced against others. I'd agree that Minbari are unbalanced against Earth, for example, since Earth's main strong points are fighters and interceptors, pretty well negated by the Minbari's massed anti-fighter and beam/mini-beam armament. This will be the case whether you're playing a 5 Raid or a 1000 Point game unless there's some sort of complicated system for working out how much a ship is worth depending on who it is facing.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
I agree with Adrian. FAP makes fleet selection very quick.
Without add-ons and extras to fill the gaps it can be quite hard to make your fleet to an exact number of points.
Without add-ons and extras to fill the gaps it can be quite hard to make your fleet to an exact number of points.
Hi there. Sorry don't mean to "newbie bash", but you admit you are a new player and say the system is broken. I think you really need to get a lot of experience before being able to say that kind of thing. Yes at first some fleets are better than others because they are more newbie-friendly. I remember my first game Minbari vs EA, the EA did not score a single point of damage against the Minbari. But given time the EA player learned the tricks and skills necessary, and now the EA can regularly beat the Minbari. And even when you're an expert player, some match-ups are just really difficult. Try playing Drazi against Shadows and just watch the slaughter. But Drazi are not underpowered, and Shadows are not overpowered. It's just a bad match-up.drcyclops said:
Rather than changing the system I think you need to learn to play it first
hmm, Unbalanced, occasionally, as said, depends on fleet a beating fleet b, which can beat c, beats a, in a nice rock paper scissors kinda way. The unbalancing exists in every game with or without point values. Heck how many of the evil empires games are won on the initial initiative roll. Thats the whole issue with any dice game. Anyone can beat anyone else on their day, good beam rolls, crits, and of course some sneaky fleet selections can work easily. narn V Minbari? ok low level can be a massacre, but as you go up levels, the narn can come into their own with massed e-mine fire, and lots of hitpoints to soak up the beams.
Some matchups plain suck it's true, but thats because of ship abilities at any certain level. I often hear abbai are underpowered, but they regularly tonk my Narn and EA, whilst my Minbari have faced some embarrasing reverses.
you aren't completely wrong, but It's really not as bad as you think.
mix up your game sizes and ship selections, you'll find what works well and when.
Some matchups plain suck it's true, but thats because of ship abilities at any certain level. I often hear abbai are underpowered, but they regularly tonk my Narn and EA, whilst my Minbari have faced some embarrasing reverses.
you aren't completely wrong, but It's really not as bad as you think.
mix up your game sizes and ship selections, you'll find what works well and when.
Yeah, ACTA is designed to be played at any level from 3pt Patrol (150 points) to 5 War (5000 points).
In general 2 ships of one PL will always be more powerful than 1 ship of the level above.
So the FAP breakdown is not linear; it varies depending at what level you are playing the game. If it were linear than you could always win a 5pt War level game by buying 40x skirmish ships. But with the non-linear breakdowns you only get 25 skirmish ships, making a much fairer game against someone who takes a more sensible fleet.
In general 2 ships of one PL will always be more powerful than 1 ship of the level above.
So the FAP breakdown is not linear; it varies depending at what level you are playing the game. If it were linear than you could always win a 5pt War level game by buying 40x skirmish ships. But with the non-linear breakdowns you only get 25 skirmish ships, making a much fairer game against someone who takes a more sensible fleet.
Burger said:
Except that if you switch to a points based system, this hierarchy breaks down - you can put forty 100 point ships into a 4000 point game. There would need to be some sort of rule to prevent this, e.g. require that a certain proportion of the points be allocated to a single ship, or that there be a maximum number of ships in a fleet.
Incidentally, there has been (at least) one attempt to design a points-based system for B5:ACTA:
http://babylon-5-acta.forumotion.net/t41-selfmade-points-system-and-rules
I haven't tried this so I have no idea if it works well, or even if it works at all!
Ahh the old Points vs FAP discussion
Both have merits - FAP allows for extremely rapid fleet selection but suffers from some balance issues and difficulty in making ships within a PL different but still blanced.
Points tend to more complicated to work out but allow lots more effective costing of variants and similar. There are issues relating to time needed to generate the list, what exactly things are worth in points - especially when they are combined together in very different ships.
Adrain ninjed me on the link its very intersting to see all the work put in and the points generated.
Fleets - Whilst the Younger races make for good match ups - using the eldar races or indeed the First Ones is not a guarented victory. Centauri have (IMO) a better than average chance of hammering the Vorlons given the Vorlons low hull and their great firepower. Battles against the Minbari always coem down to a large degree of luck - it can be leveraged as Burger says but roll a few ones or 6's and the game is done far more than against any other fleet. Shadows are extremely powerful esp in a tournament format but can be taken down! especially by their rivals.
Both have merits - FAP allows for extremely rapid fleet selection but suffers from some balance issues and difficulty in making ships within a PL different but still blanced.
Points tend to more complicated to work out but allow lots more effective costing of variants and similar. There are issues relating to time needed to generate the list, what exactly things are worth in points - especially when they are combined together in very different ships.
Adrain ninjed me on the link
its very intersting to see all the work put in and the points generated.Fleets - Whilst the Younger races make for good match ups - using the eldar races or indeed the First Ones is not a guarented victory. Centauri have (IMO) a better than average chance of hammering the Vorlons given the Vorlons low hull and their great firepower. Battles against the Minbari always coem down to a large degree of luck - it can be leveraged as Burger says but roll a few ones or 6's and the game is done far more than against any other fleet. Shadows are extremely powerful
esp in a tournament format but can be taken down! especially by their rivals.
