Balancing Ships
- Thread starter cordas
- Start date
Something else, and that's this: Common sense.
Think from the potential ship commanders' perspective. Ships should all have their merits, be it that they're a good strike ship, a good carrier - whatever. Specialised roles if you will - and this ties into both their practical use in one-off battles and in campaigns, as you would choose a ship to fit a task/opponent.
But in terms of balance - not only do those ships have to be different enough to warrant choosing one over the other, but they have to have the same inherent value such that the choice is determined only by what you want to do. Sharlin variants are a good example, as they all have slight differences in their main armament that /seems/ to commend them to different roles. The Sharkaan shoots slightly further and has weapons which, dice for dice, have more damage potential. The Sharoos has better arcs.
The problem is this: the Sharoos and Sharkaan both lose secondary weapon AD, and almost their entire fighter complements to get it. They also lose main weapon AD. They gain a very minor difference in their application, but for it they lose in terms of value (weapons, aux craft) than they gain. It's a no-brainer... you'd always take a Sharlin. Move it further forwards and it'll shoot just as well as a Sharkaan. Turn it more astutely and it'll outshoot a Sharoos. In all cases it will have more fighters.
Think from the potential ship commanders' perspective. Ships should all have their merits, be it that they're a good strike ship, a good carrier - whatever. Specialised roles if you will - and this ties into both their practical use in one-off battles and in campaigns, as you would choose a ship to fit a task/opponent.
But in terms of balance - not only do those ships have to be different enough to warrant choosing one over the other, but they have to have the same inherent value such that the choice is determined only by what you want to do. Sharlin variants are a good example, as they all have slight differences in their main armament that /seems/ to commend them to different roles. The Sharkaan shoots slightly further and has weapons which, dice for dice, have more damage potential. The Sharoos has better arcs.
The problem is this: the Sharoos and Sharkaan both lose secondary weapon AD, and almost their entire fighter complements to get it. They also lose main weapon AD. They gain a very minor difference in their application, but for it they lose in terms of value (weapons, aux craft) than they gain. It's a no-brainer... you'd always take a Sharlin. Move it further forwards and it'll shoot just as well as a Sharkaan. Turn it more astutely and it'll outshoot a Sharoos. In all cases it will have more fighters.
katadder said:
TBH, if a ship is made well balanced for one off play, it should find itself used more often in tourneys, too. Currently there are far too many cases where ships you /could/ pick are simply inferior to some of their stablemates, and that's not right. As someone said a while ago, picking your ships should be like a trip to the candy store where you're spoiled for choice, not picking a team for rounders and leaving the geeks for last.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
The source material has to be paramount, otherwise we're playing MGP's sci-fi wargame that has nothing to do with Babylon 5. If I wanted that I'd get my BFG fleet out again. I came here for B5, not Generic-Sci-Fi-Setting.
Lord David the Denied said:
What source material, and how far do you take it? JMS has said that there where mistakes in B5 with ships that they didn't notice till after the show had aried, and others they did spot before but couldn't afford to correct.
Don't get me wrong I want ACTA to be firmly set in the B5 universe and as long as ships do that I am happy, but if you follow that to closely you get all Narn ships must explode when 1st shot at unless B5 is also there and such rubbish.
Personally I think ships design should take campaign game play into mind as its most important factor, afterall in the "real world" capital ships are designed to fullful fleet roles and meant to have a life span that is longer than a single battle, which to me says campaign play not 1 off battles.
Agreed.
Remember, there are only 5 'levels', and each ship has to be as close as possible to the 'value' of one of them, or else you have distincly superior and inferior 'raid' ships.
We know - having seen it on the show - that a vorchan can move like greased wombat droppings, has a big forward pulse-type weapon, and that various ships at time displayed varying armaments (e.g. missiles on the Dusk Coutari) and fighting power, suggesting multiple variants.
But the actual hull value, attack dice, etc, need to be 'tweaked'; if two ships end up being similar priority they need to be of equal utility.
Balance between one-off games and campaigns depends on the definition of the two:
I would say that if fleets are balanced for one-off games they are balanced for campaigns, unless by one-off games you mean purely tournaments.
Games where you're playing ambush/blockade run/recon run are important campaign elements one doesnt meet in a tournament, as are patrol-priority or big war-priority battles.
captainsmirk
Mongoose
Where does all this stuff about Narn ships exploding in one hit come from?
The only Narn ships which do that in the show are those attacked by Shadows, and in case it wasn't noticed just about everything short of the Vorlons were destoyed by one hit from the Shadows...
The one in In the Beginning was hit by a whole salvo of fire, not one shot...
And was a one off...
If anything its the Primus's reputation which should be rock bottom not the G'Quan, they die just as easily, and never actually win a battle, even a phyrric victory...
Nick
The only Narn ships which do that in the show are those attacked by Shadows, and in case it wasn't noticed just about everything short of the Vorlons were destoyed by one hit from the Shadows...
The one in In the Beginning was hit by a whole salvo of fire, not one shot...
And was a one off...
If anything its the Primus's reputation which should be rock bottom not the G'Quan, they die just as easily, and never actually win a battle, even a phyrric victory...
Nick
Lord David the Denied said:
as people have said stuff has to be balanced in game as well. otherwise you would never be able to kill a WS with sheriden on board. and WSs would be lots harder. the minbari would scare everyone away when they turn up. the shadows would get 6,6 crits everytime they hit and only miss WSs.
also if it was B5 only we would have what ships?
Omega, Hyperion, Nova?, Olympus, Shadow Omega, Primus, Vorchan, G'quan, T'loth, Sharlin, Avioki, Sunhawks, Strikhawks, and a vree saucer or 2, WS, Victory, plus shadows/vorlons
and all the variant ships of the above. wouldnt give us much to play with.
The game is based in the B5 universe but not only about the ships we see. plus the show could have anything happen due to either it needed to happen to further story lines or due to CGI cockups.
and at the end of everything it is a game so needs to be balanced.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
Why do people trot out those same stupid arguments every time? Just because we have more ships than appeared in the show doesn't mean we just abandon everything we know to be true from watching it. Nor does it mean that "6,6, crits" are the reason Narn ships are carved to pieces by the Shadows. That critical result represents a lucky hit. The Shadows' weapons should be able to slaughter ships like that on average shots. Otherwise why have the Minbari feared them for a thousand years?
There wasn't much evidence for their ships being any more fragile than anyone elses' in the show, with or without stealth.
The only two we ever see destroyed outright are nuked and hit by planet buster missiles IIRC - and that worked just as well on Shadows and Vorlons.
IIRC JMS stated that the one rammed by the Nova in ITB wasn't even destroyed, but back in service a while later.
We do see Sharlins survive hits from Shadow ships - IIRC the Enfali limps away from the first big battle with the shadows with a missing fin, and the Sharlin hit by a couple of shadow ships at Coriana 6 simply loses a few large chunks of its main hull.
The only two we ever see destroyed outright are nuked and hit by planet buster missiles IIRC - and that worked just as well on Shadows and Vorlons.
IIRC JMS stated that the one rammed by the Nova in ITB wasn't even destroyed, but back in service a while later.
We do see Sharlins survive hits from Shadow ships - IIRC the Enfali limps away from the first big battle with the shadows with a missing fin, and the Sharlin hit by a couple of shadow ships at Coriana 6 simply loses a few large chunks of its main hull.
cos those 20" beams are on hull 4 ships. and the centauri probably dont have alot of them whilst the minbari probably have hundreds or even thousands of sharlins. and a sharlin will easily carve up a darkner 
in the series they dont go by PLs. the minbari just send sharlins to deal with everything.
i mean why did delenn need the threat to the earth captains about the only one to suvive an attack by the minbari was behind her? she had what 3 sharlins and a WS versus 2 omegas and some hyperions. i know who my money would have been on anyway.
in the series they dont go by PLs. the minbari just send sharlins to deal with everything.
i mean why did delenn need the threat to the earth captains about the only one to suvive an attack by the minbari was behind her? she had what 3 sharlins and a WS versus 2 omegas and some hyperions. i know who my money would have been on anyway.
captainsmirk
Mongoose
Alexb83 said:
Ummm... the one at Coriana 6 was sliced into three pieces I doubt it was operational afterwards...
Nick
Lord David the Denied said:
No one is saying we should chuck out everything in the show. I posed this poll and question wondering which of the 3 options (or something I forgot to inculde) was the most important, not which should be ignored.
Please don't back yourself into a corner and start an arguement a different question to the one I posed.
Personally I feel that when ships are being designed for the game the most important factor should be how they fit into the fleet and how they would work in a campaign setting. I know others disagree and think that single 1 off clashes are more important and that ships should be balanced along those lines. Thats the main discussion I want to have, as I think its an important issue that might affect 2e.
We all (or nearly all) play this game because we watched and loved the TV show, we want to wargame in the setting that JMS created. I am sure we all want ships that at least match the fluff written about them, i.e. when a ships fluff says it depends on its speed to keep it safe it shouldn't be speed 4. We also want ships that reflect what JMS put on our tellies, but we all know the arguements about that, and have argued them in other threads endlessly......
captainsmirk said:
Can you get a screen grab of that? I haven't watched the episode in a long time and don't recall the damage being that severe. I retain that a Sharlin in an earlier episode survived a slicer beam. As much cannot be said for pretty much any other ship that was ever shot with one (aside from the Vorlon Heavy Cruiser).
captainsmirk
Mongoose
Not a screen grab I'm afraid but you can find the shot about 2 minutes 20secs into this film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-WHrJSBUF4
It doesn't explode and is attacked by two Shadow ships but since both beams go all the way through, I think on would have been able to kill anyway.
Nick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-WHrJSBUF4
It doesn't explode and is attacked by two Shadow ships but since both beams go all the way through, I think on would have been able to kill anyway.
Nick
