Balance Changes

[logical_proof]

Couple of observations that we made this weekend.

Plasmas are REALLY good... if they can hit. They are pretty easy to shoot down though. We revisted the idea of removing the accurate bonus to simulate the fact that in the Star Fleet Universe Plasmas only lose 1 point of power for every 2 phaser points. This helped the Romulans but we haven't tried it with the Gorn.

Disruptors having Multihit two at long range just makes no sense. We tried adding Kill Zone 12 instead and that really brought back the feel of the disruptor as a long range sniping weapon.

 

[billclo]

Couple of observations that we made this weekend.

Plasmas are REALLY good... if they can hit. They are pretty easy to shoot down though. We revisted the idea of removing the accurate bonus to simulate the fact that in the Star Fleet Universe Plasmas only lose 1 point of power for every 2 phaser points. This helped the Romulans but we haven't tried it with the Gorn.

Disruptors having Multihit two at long range just makes no sense. We tried adding Kill Zone 12 instead and that really brought back the feel of the disruptor as a long range sniping weapon.

I've suggested both things in the past, but haven't gotten anywhere. Both make sense to me.

 

[archon96]

with the comments by svc in the fedcom boards I don't think this game is going to get a book 2 or any other changes any time soon. He seems to have a full plate with just ADB products.

 

[firekite]

between the computer crash , his braking a leg and a couple of other things his product schedule went to hell in a hand basket. try as they might at ADB there just is not enough time in the day for them to accomplish all that they desire to. svc is committed to this working but he will not just shove material out the door for all of us (that's just bad business). as much as I would love to have the next book in my hot little hands I have learned over the years that you can not rush steve. he is dead set on this be right the first time and will not settle for anything less.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

If the removal of accurate helped Romulan's, it will help the Gorn (as they have more Plasma per ship). Might backfire a bit in defence though, as their phaser suites don't have that many weapons. At least you won't be getting phaser fire as well as plasma from the pointed ears, 12AD of plasma is a nice way of saying 'welcome to the BBQ'

 

[storeylf]

I generally played the Gorns in ACTA and always found them pretty darn good. They generally have too much plasma to stop, in order beat them you have to have hit them hard before they reached you, or have a really good IDF rolling spike.

Losing accuracy on phasers may be a double whammy, it makes shooting down plasma harder and it makes shooting down the Gorn ships before hand harder. It also makes shooting down Gorn ships after launching harder, which makes their reload phase easier on them. It probably doesn't hurt the Roms or Gorns much offensively as other empires as neither really rely on phasers for killing power to the same extent, though it would make drones tougher on them.

It also obvioulsy affects everyone looking to defend against drones.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

The removal of Accurate doesn't make much sense to me though. How would it affect things if we gave plasma the same "hard to hit" (-1 to be hit) rule as shuttles? This would mathematically give the same effect for ph-2 and ph-3, and reduce the ph-1 to effectively only being Accurate +1.

 

[Stu--]

Wasn't the Q whether to remove accurate from phasers firing at plasma torps?
Rather than to remove it from phasers. IE: a buff to plasma.

The plasma does need some kind of buff to stop it being shot down so easily & bring it more in line with FC.

Do rather like the idea of changing disruptors to Killzone 12".

 

[storeylf]

Well the OP just said remove accurate from phasers, not sure whether he just meant against plasma.

Not sure what the killzone 12" meant, OP said 'add', which sounded like multi hit 2 killzone 12, but he also said 'instead' which sounded like no multi hit but killzone 12. But neither makes the disrupter a long range sniping weapon. killzone 12 makes no difference to long range, and removing multi hit 2 weakens it at long range. Having both would make it hideously potent.

 

[Stu--]

The net reault I believe would be DISR range 24" Killzone 12"

Which is in effect a nerf to make it less effective over a foot.

 

[storeylf]

Any reason why it needs to be half as effective beyond half range? It would also make it way less effective than photons between 12 and 15. The disrupter seems pretty OK to me.

Its quite common in FC to take fairly significant amount of damage from disrupters well before firing photons. In ACTA you can't even be sure you will get a single disrupter shot beyond photon range.

 

[scoutdad]

The removal of Accurate doesn't make much sense to me though. How would it affect things if we gave plasma the same "hard to hit" (-1 to be hit) rule as shuttles? This would mathematically give the same effect for ph-2 and ph-3, and reduce the ph-1 to effectively only being Accurate +1.

I lobbied for this during playtesting, but to no avail.
I felt that if the shuttle received a -1 "small target modifier", then the plasma [much smaller, much faster] should receive similar... but alas, it was not implemented.

 

[McKinstry]

In terms of game outcome, plasma users are holding up pretty well but I can see the merits of a -1 to hit for Ph.1 v plasma.

I'm not sure bringing things 'in line with FC' is a reason for anything though. Is the game to be a direct analog of FC as much as possible or simply a different game with an FC/SFU 'feel' and matching mechanics relatively unimportant at the detail level?

I also think, from a game balance standpoint, the biggest weapon problem/nerf are still photons. The single most inaccurate weapon in the game, subject to reload and while very powerful, relatively unimportant in the Federations battles. They are the tactical eqivalent of a wild haymaker punch, devastating but relatively useless except when lucky. Quite specifically, the inaccuaracy is the biggest problem and from an actual playing the game standpoint, with the larger models, the giant parking lot crunch caused by photons needing 7.5-6" along the killzone at 9" enhances the ugly table issues.

Great models, gorgeous table, oh wait, everything is packed in a 12-18" circle!

 

[storeylf]

I'm not sure bringing things 'in line with FC' is a reason for anything though. Is the game to be a direct analog of FC as much as possible or simply a different game with an FC/SFU 'feel' and matching mechanics relatively unimportant at the detail level?

agreed. It has a lot of the feel in it at the moment, seekers being the thing tha 'feels' wrong. Disrupter, photons, phasers, shields, hull, etc all feel near enough and produce what don't seem massively out of kilter results.

I also think, from a game balance standpoint, the biggest weapon problem/nerf are still photons. The single most inaccurate weapon in the game, subject to reload and while very powerful, relatively unimportant in the Federations battles. They are the tactical eqivalent of a wild haymaker punch, devastating but relatively useless except when lucky.

So it perfectly produces the feel of FC.
Most inaccurate weapon, check
Very powerful when they hit, check
Subject to reload, check.
But on average a volley (at the range you are most likely going to fire) is as good if not better than 2 disrupter volleys, check.


The one big thing that is missing from photons is that in FC they have the uber efficient overload that makes then ultra scary. Disrupters, Hellbores, Fusion, Plasmas (SFB), PCs, ICs etc have to find the overload energy at the point of fire, on top of the energy to arm it as well, that makes overloading with those weapons a huge energy drain. At least at the start of the game the Feds do not have that issue, they can hold fully overloaded torps for the same cost (or cheaper) of other weapons standard arm cost. That's makes Feds super scary at the start of an FC battle, you really really do not want to give them that overload shot, but they can afford to go fairly fast with those held overloads so it is hard to deny them that shot for long, quite literally impossible on a closed map. Once they have fired they are not as bad, as overloading is going to cost a lot of power whilst you are on top of them, which they may find hard to do.

Allowing Feds to overload and then retain the overload until they have fired would be one way of representing that, they would have to go slow on that turn, as they probably are in FC, but they would then be able to pile in at full tilt with overloads again like they can in FC. It would mean that you would often face the same type of match you face in FC:
Turn 1 = overload whilst out of range.
Turn 2 = pile in at full tilt and fire those multi hit 8 shots.
Turn 3+ = hope you did well on turn 2 cos you are now close to some one shooting the crap out of you whilst you reload. Firing more overloads is difficult, and this effectively represented by the need to use reload and overload SAs in 2 different turns.

I'd be concerned that would make them too powerful though.

Great models, gorgeous table, oh wait, everything is packed in a 12-18" circle!

Another good representation then, where often all ships end up within a 5 hexes of each other.

 

[Stu--]

I have to agree most things work OK.
The photons are modelled in ATCA as they are in FC - they are a wild punch weapon, potentially devastating but usually 'meh'

The #1 thing that doesn't 'feel' right in comparison to FC is seekers. Now that would be OK but almost everything has a seeking weapon.

I have written a ton of house rules myself but frankly my enthusiasm for this game is very low right now owing to /having/ to house rule everything and the fact that little seems to be happening in the way of altering the rules. When ADB / mongoose get around to it, I'll start playing again.

 

[logical_proof]

Sorry should have been more clear. The Disruptor is very accurate at long range, but its damage is reduced significantly at longer range. So replacing multihit2 with kill zone 12 would bring it back in line with what it is meant for, I.e. not long range pounding.

As far as removing accurate from phasers I did indeed mean against Plasma, drones are already incredibly strong as it stands. Drones also are a secondary weapon (even the Kzinti have full Disruptor suites). I do think the -1 penalty might be a better more balanced approach, but I do not think it should be added to drones, because again drones are very effective as it stands.

I noticed SVC mentioned in another thread that the photon was the best long range weapon in the game. There was a lot of outcry there it seemed, but if I may, I believe he might have been referencing the old strategy of parking 4-6 fed destroyers at long range of a star base and just volleying torpedoes until a lucky hit. Cheesy but very effective. If the photon had some sort of double range modifier, like accurate -2 out to range 24, and accurate +2 at range 3 it would model that effect well.

 

[storeylf]

Sorry should have been more clear. The Disruptor is very accurate at long range, but its damage is reduced significantly at longer range. So replacing multihit2 with kill zone 12 would bring it back in line with what it is meant for, I.e. not long range pounding.

The problem with comparisons to FC weapon charts is the way ACTA plays.

In FC the disrupter can fairly realiably get in 2 or 3 turns of pounding at longer ranges (unless you play on an overly closed map anyway!). The movement in FC allows you to fire early and turn away, and the impulse movement doesn't allow an enemy ship to suddenly move 32 hexes after you have moved a ship either.

Photons can fire at long range, but they very seldom will, there are just too many downsides on the whole (different from SFB with its proximities I know).

I'm not sure how many 'battles' other have played with FC rather than small squadron fights or 1 vs 1. But we quite often play larger fights, and at that size so long as you play on an appropiate sized map a disrupter/drone fleet is quite nasty. A D5W averages 7 damage at max range in FC, if you have 5 or 6 cruisers, a DN/BCH or some smaller ships you can dish out 50 odd damage a turn at range 25. That is a damaged cruiser every turn. At range 15 you can just about kill a cruiser a turn. For a photon fleet closing that is siginificant damage before they even fire their photons. Obviously there are ways of mitigating that - EM, Scouts etc. But those options all exist in ACTA as well. EM in particular is hard for the photon fleet as it seriousy hampers its ability to close due to energy requirements.

In the vast majority of photon vs disrupter fights the photon ships can expect to be taking more than merely token damage as they close, whilst probably not doing very much back, as they need to close and can barely afford to hold photons and fire phasers etc (and if they are EM they can't fire phasers).

In a larger FC game there are going to be scouts, they are just to significant not to take, if they are in then there really is no such thing as the long range photon volley - your max range is basically 12 and even then you need a 6 to hit. The disrupters lose a lot of max range punch, but they can still hit, a disrupter fleet may still being taking down a shield at max range even through scouts. At range 15 you are doing heavy internals through a full shield even against the scout. Again there the photon fleet has to endure a pounding before it launches anything of note.

In ACTA none of that really happens. With a 9" range advantage against ships moving possibly 12-16, and with no ability to fire at the start of a turn and then run it requires some skill to get even one 'free' shot in. Add in that photons are very good at their max range and you can't assume that they won't fire until short range either. However, ACTA does seem to represent that whole approach phase as the disrupter still dishes out decent damage in its long range. The ability to dish out long range damage in FC has to represented by a 'higher' damage capability as the amount of time at the longer ranges is effectively so condensed in ACTA.

Certainly for myself I think the disrupter and photon are reaonably well represented, it just requires that you stop looking at FC charts and look at the overall effect instead.

 

[logical_proof]

Storeylf,
That is a very reasonable point. I think you are right about the fact that the ship approaching is more abstracted out in this game.

I agree that it should be looked at as a whole, and where I was missing the approach factor, may I offer another parameter surrounding the drone/disruptor combo. Normally during the approach, say in a Fed vs, Klingon game, the nature of Drones allows the feds to fire their better phaser 1's back at the Klingons, in ACTASF Federation weapons are tied up by drones. The way I see it Disruptors are tied at the hip to Drones and as such they should really be viewed together (yes the feds have them, but not nearly to the extent of the K empires).

I think removing the long range bonus damage to the disruptor would actually help to simulate a MORE SFU like approach.