Boresight question

[Ripple]

Not jump in as in 'jump from hyper space'... as in move suddenly without a chance for reaction. How does the Omega catch a number of Vorchans off guard, or whitestars, given they are supposedly the much more maneuverable. With move and fire as one action, you essentially remove all ability of formation to protect elements of the fleet. Our current system has some of the same issues, but at least allows some reaction with fire choices.

On the turn idea.... it is not an 'extra turn', it is a reserved turn. As in I reserve my 1/45 on the Omega until after movement, at which point it can only be used to line my boresight up on the ship I targeted before movement began. Hardly an advantage, or much of a change in the rules. As to getting a ship in the side arc, given I gave up my SA to do this, and potentially not get to target anything if my target gets beyond my boresight even with the turn, I don't see that as an issue.

The thing that the 1/2 AD changes in a massive way is the maneuver of the ships that have boresight. You would have to rebalance many fleets as part of the balance is that they cannot effectively shoot ships twice due to having to move directly towards them. Under this idea I can now operate at the edges of my F arc and greatly increase the ability to redirect firepower to different targets depending on how my dice fall on the first ship lined up on the target. This is a huge change in tactical realities of ships like the drazi, well anything, and Ka'Toc while only a minor issue in most cases for things like the Omega.

The PL system works fine as long as the 'value' of the ship as an activation is part of its price. The current splits seem to only value the damage/firepower and not take into account that the number of activations per point spent is a big deal. The old breakdowns did a better job.

Ripple

Ripple

 

[SylvrDragon]

Not jump in as in 'jump from hyper space'... as in move suddenly without a chance for reaction. How does the Omega catch a number of Vorchans off guard, or whitestars, given they are supposedly the much more maneuverable. With move and fire as one action, you essentially remove all ability of formation to protect elements of the fleet. Our current system has some of the same issues, but at least allows some reaction with fire choices.
Ripple

Ripple

Um, formations only protect ships from boresights. Your statement basically means it takes your ability to use initiative sinks to avoid boresights. I thought this was what we were trying to get rid of? Omega's aren't the only ships able to more and fire. All ships can. This means that a Whitestar has the chane to get the jump on the Omega, the only difference is he'll have to activate it first to do so, which actually mirrors the fast moving ship much better than the current rules in which the ship usually acts last.

 

[harikaridog]

Thanks Ripple for the comments, please don't take any of my reponses below as digs.

You have probably played this game much more than I have, and I respect your views, I just love tinkering with game mechanics and have a real passion for B5. (I really think the Drazi are not that stupid)

Not jump in as in 'jump from hyper space'... as in move suddenly without a chance for reaction.

Sorry that was not originally clear

How does the Omega catch a number of Vorchans off guard, or whitestars, given they are supposedly the much more maneuverable.

Its not just manoueverable ships......its anything that can move at least 1cm!!....thats all it takes to move out of boresight.
If there was something in the fluff that indicated that Boresight weapons are designed to be used against immobile targets only...then i would accept this......

With move and fire as one action, you essentially remove all ability of formation to protect elements of the fleet.

Right....thats if you like the concept of 'initiative sinks' and see it as a simulation of some form of escort protection......but one that is more effective against those ships that are 'blessed' with the current boresight arc.

On the turn idea.... it is not an 'extra turn', it is a reserved turn. As in I reserve my 1/45 on the Omega until after movement, at which point it can only be used to line my boresight up on the ship I targeted before movement began.

Hmm so you suggest a new special order for boresight ships only, with also the additional bookeeping of nominating a target

Hardly an advantage, or much of a change in the rules. As to getting a ship in the side arc, given I gave up my SA to do this, and potentially not get to target anything if my target gets beyond my boresight even with the turn, I don't see that as an issue.

Are you saying here that if the target gets out of your boresight then you cannot fire any other arc'd weapons at any other target.....

The thing that the 1/2 AD changes in a massive way is the maneuver of the ships that have boresight.

Is that a bad thing?...surely its just a question of changing tactics.....one of the challenges of wargaming is how to react to changing circumstances

You would have to rebalance many fleets as part of the balance is that they cannot effectively shoot ships twice due to having to move directly towards them.

Surely this makes the sense of building ships with boresight weapons even more crazy....creating vessels with such tactical limitations would have made them obsolete very quickly.

Under this idea I can now operate at the edges of my F arc and greatly increase the ability to redirect firepower to different targets depending on how my dice fall on the first ship lined up on the target. This is a huge change in tactical realities of ships like the drazi, well anything, and Ka'Toc while only a minor issue in most cases for things like the Omega.

Again why on Earth (or Zhabar) would anyone build ships with such a limitation

The PL system works fine as long as the 'value' of the ship as an activation is part of its price. The current splits seem to only value the damage/firepower and not take into account that the number of activations per point spent is a big deal. The old breakdowns did a better job.

Yes cannot disagree......but (again in my opinion the PL thing is broken anyway....just as it is in VAS. Its a Mongoose 'trademark' mechanic.

All the best

 

[ShopKeepJon]

On the turn idea.... it is not an 'extra turn', it is a reserved turn. As in I reserve my 1/45 on the Omega until after movement, at which point it can only be used to line my boresight up on the ship I targeted before movement began. Hardly an advantage, or much of a change in the rules. As to getting a ship in the side arc, given I gave up my SA to do this, and potentially not get to target anything if my target gets beyond my boresight even with the turn, I don't see that as an issue.

My only problem with the reserved turn is the added on table record keeping. You would have to track both which ships have reserved a turn and which ships they have targeted. Tracking which ships are owed a turn is easy enough and not much different from current special orders, but tracking targeted ships could become quite cumbersome, especially in larger games. I really like how clean the battlefield remains in the current game.

The thing that the 1/2 AD changes in a massive way is the maneuver of the ships that have boresight. You would have to rebalance many fleets as part of the balance is that they cannot effectively shoot ships twice due to having to move directly towards them. Under this idea I can now operate at the edges of my F arc and greatly increase the ability to redirect firepower to different targets depending on how my dice fall on the first ship lined up on the target. This is a huge change in tactical realities of ships like the drazi, well anything, and Ka'Toc while only a minor issue in most cases for things like the Omega.

Exactly.

ShopKeepJon

 

[Ripple]

First on formations...

Under the current rules it is not just sinking, but alternating activations. You move your Omega in to my squadron of Vorchans, I move away. If my squadron has already moved, I move in a Primus on your Avenger, you respond with your other Omega. Which do you fire first? Save the Avenger or kill a few Vorchans.

Under move and fire there is no ability to respond with counter threats, evasion, fighter strikes or (previously) maneuver to shield. It simplifies the tactics to 'what can I blow up with the ship I'm activating right now'. I think that is a loss.

So I don't believe that formations only protect you from boresights, or that they only are useful in relation to initiative sinking.

Responding to Harikari - no offense taken, at least as much because boards make complete communication difficult as because we're just chatting about a game.

With move and fire you change not just the boresight mechanic but the mechanic of all weapons fire. Maneuver become much less of a defense. With boresights and the half AD I agree that it deals to some degree with the ability to fire at all, but it doesn't retain the feel of say the Drazi fleet diving straight into the enemy to get a shot.

And while I certainly do suggest a new special order for boresighted ship only, a bit like intensify defensive fire only applying to ships that have defenses or IJP only applies to ships with jump engines or even like CAF only really applies ships with weapons that can benefit (non-beam/non-TL), it does not include any extra bookeeping. Right no you have to track the target of boresights already, the only difference now would be you declare you boresight target and find out at the end of the movement phase whether you actually can see it. Again, no different than CAF for other ships, and no more than you already do with boresights.

I did not say that the ship would not be able to use it's other arcs... I only said I potentially don't get to target anything... think Drazi ships that only have boresight arc, if my reserved turn is not sufficient to get the whitestar back in arc I don't fire. An Omega would certainly be able to fire its side guns.

This type of 'forced move' SA only works due to the fact that you have to line up exactly on the targetted ships stem, thus no room for discussion on where you are turning too...

From a fluff standpoint, I agree that very limited arc weapons are not ideal, but folks have certainly built plenty of them over time. Look at many tank destroyers in WWII, modern fighter plaines canon mounts and even some torpedo tubes. All basically 'this end toward enemy' weapons.

As to the PL system... it's at least an attempt to simulate something that is rarely seen in mini's games. Using real world examples, why did we not see PT boats being used in major deep water conflicts? Why ever build a battleship? In part it was about economics, lives and prestige. The PL system attempted to make buying at the level of the fight the best bet at one point, with maybe an up or a down being okay (sending the right ship for the job of those available so to speak as opposed to the absolute best ship the fleet produces).

The current split abandoned that due to, in part, requests for a pure point system. But what they got was all the issues of a pure point system and none of the benefits of a pl system. Find the best stats and built nothing but that, as you point will always be a point worth of damage/firepower, but still trying to squeeze all the ships in the game into six/seven point values.

Last was on the maneuver thing... whether it is good or bad to change the way ships maneuver... it is a massive change that would require a lot of re-balancing, over and above just refiguring the number of AD on the weapon.

Ripple

 

[ShopKeepJon]

It seems that what people really want is a mechanic that limits that impact of initiative sinks. There have been several suggestions along these lines elsewhere in the forum.

One that sounded good (but I haven't tried...) was to require the fleet with more maneuver elements (ships/squadrons) to keep moving ships until the number of maneuver elements became equal, then players would start alternating moving ships as normal. Another option was to have the player with more maneuver elements move two ships/squadrons per activation until the number of maneuver elements was equal.

This fixes most of the problems with initiative sinks (and, to an extent, boresight), but creates a few more. It punishes fleets with a large number of ships (which some would see as a good thing). The Dilgar Pentacon formation becomes extremely powerful. The Drazi (who are inherently a swarm fleet) suffer more than other fleets, which messes with fleet balance (though they could probably fix this to a large extent by squadroning more of their ships).

What do people think of this?

ShopKeepJon

 

[ShopKeepJon]

it does not include any extra bookeeping. Right no you have to track the target of boresights already, the only difference now would be you declare you boresight target and find out at the end of the movement phase whether you actually can see it. Again, no different than CAF for other ships, and no more than you already do with boresights.

I'd forgotten that CAF requires the same sort of record keeping. I'm going out to get more coffee before posting anymore...

ShopKeepJon

 

[SylvrDragon]

Alright, I certainly do have to agree that rebalancing would be an issue. The SA alternative may be better than the move-shoot rule and it changes less.
As for the PL, it's BS no matter how you look at it. It's cumbersome and accomplished nothing. You may say that taking a war level ship is difficult to do in a 3 point battle, but it doesn't stop you from taking it and if it were points based it would be just as hard. The PL system is just useless and complicated imo.

Conversion example...

If you based points value on a Patrol level game you'd get something like the following. (Please correct if values are off because I'm not up to date on the new PL system)

Patrol = 1 point
Skirmish = 2 points
Raid = 4 points
Battle = 8 points
War = 16 points
Armageddon = 32 points

Now, let's say you play a 3 point battle under the PL system. This means that the standard PL usage should be battle and you could take 3 of them. Now, what's the difference if you eliminated PL and played a 24 point game? You can fit the same number of ship but you don't have to sit and figure out what each PL costs. This is less calculating, more playing, and it allows the same ship usage. All the PL system does is tell you what size ships are the standard. I'm sorry, but if you don't have the math to look at a PL free 24 point game and know that battle level is likely your best choice then you need to stick to games that require less math.
So, basically, the PL system should be eliminated, not that it will, since it causes undue stress. At least it's an easy conversion to a real point system.

 

[harikaridog]

First on formations...

Under the current rules it is not just sinking, but alternating activations. You move your Omega in to my squadron of Vorchans, I move away. If my squadron has already moved, I move in a Primus on your Avenger, you respond with your other Omega. Which do you fire first? Save the Avenger or kill a few Vorchans.

You move your Omega and shoot at my Vorchans, I move the remaining Vorchans and get some juicy shots on the Omega or another EA target that has not fired.....say the Avenger. If my squadeon has moved I move in a Primus and shoot up the Avenger....now you respond with another Omega, well the Avenger is already perforated but at least I can choose to hit either the Primus or maybe the Vorchans....whichever i decide the greatest threat. Really don't see that great a difference....just planning and thinking a little differently.

Under move and fire there is no ability to respond with counter threats,
evasion,

hang on you don't have to fire you can still move to evade....i.e increase distance from the enemy.

fighter strikes or (previously) maneuver to shield. It simplifies the tactics to 'what can I blow up with the ship I'm activating right now'.

In tactical combat thats exactly what you want to do once you have committed an asset....however I can choose exactly how I wish to setup the attack and execute it.

I think that is a loss.

So I don't believe that formations only protect you from boresights, or that they only are useful in relation to initiative sinking.


Responding to Harikari - no offense taken, at least as much because boards make complete communication difficult as because we're just chatting about a game.

Indeed

With move and fire you change not just the boresight mechanic but the mechanic of all weapons fire. Maneuver become much less of a defense.

It does change tactics indeed...never denied it and it is only worse if you are moving second......and maybe the best defence is attack.

With boresights and the half AD I agree that it deals to some degree with the ability to fire at all, but it doesn't retain the feel of say the Drazi fleet diving straight into the enemy to get a shot.

Thats a subjective view of the Drazi not totally supported by the fluff...but it does give a flavour.....however a really aggressive spicies probably would want their ships to be able to hit at every possible opportunity and angle...why limit the options

And while I certainly do suggest a new special order for boresighted ship only, a bit like intensify defensive fire only applying to ships that have defenses or IJP only applies to ships with jump engines or even like CAF only really applies ships with weapons that can benefit (non-beam/non-TL), it does not include any extra bookeeping. Right no you have to track the target of boresights already, the only difference now would be you declare you boresight target and find out at the end of the movement phase whether you actually can see it.

but with 1/2 AD option you do not need to write down anything...nor use a special order....why not simplify rather than create more work.......

Again, no different than CAF for other ships, and no more than you already do with boresights.

You are still introducing yet another mechanic...and I'm sure the boresight player might resent having to waste an SA on just using what is his primary weapon system

I did not say that the ship would not be able to use it's other arcs... I only said I potentially don't get to target anything... think Drazi ships that only have boresight arc, if my reserved turn is not sufficient to get the whitestar back in arc I don't fire. An Omega would certainly be able to fire its side guns.

bit of the shame for the player who carefully manouever his ship into the blind arc of a boresight firing ship...who then finds massed broadside batteries pounding him.........using a manouver....out of sequence and specially reserved for boresight ships only.

This type of 'forced move' SA only works due to the fact that you have to line up exactly on the targetted ships stem, thus no room for discussion on where you are turning too...

so if he can't line up exactly he can't execute the turn?
Don't sound like a nice rule at all

From a fluff standpoint, I agree that very limited arc weapons are not ideal, but folks have certainly built plenty of them over time. Look at many tank destroyers in WWII,

self propelled ATG that normally always worked from an ambush position, (shoot and scoot)

modern fighter plaines canon mounts

unless designed for Ground attack such cannons were usually placed on agile manouverable fighters...
Nothing wrong with Boresight type weapons so long as the platform has the ability to easily engage a target through superior manouuver...deffo not a description of a mile long Lumbering Omega

As to the PL system... it's at least an attempt to simulate something that is rarely seen in mini's games.

Its actually simulated quite commonly with historical mini gamers...but I take your point.

Last was on the maneuver thing... whether it is good or bad to change the way ships maneuver... it is a massive change that would require a lot of re-balancing, over and above just refiguring the number of AD on the weapon.

Yep...but we should not be scared of it because it may take some work to achieve.

All the best

 

[harikaridog]

Alright, I certainly do have to agree that rebalancing would be an issue. The SA alternative may be better than the move-shoot rule and it changes less.

This game has been consistantly rebalanced since inception.....whats changed now to make it an issue? Not suggesting that everything changes now.....but nothing wrong with laying the ground for the next evolution whenever that might be.

 

[SylvrDragon]

Alright, I certainly do have to agree that rebalancing would be an issue. The SA alternative may be better than the move-shoot rule and it changes less.

This game has been consistantly rebalanced since inception.....whats changed now to make it an issue? Not suggesting that everything changes now.....but nothing wrong with laying the ground for the next evolution whenever that might be.

Very true, and the counterpoints you made in your prior post make for a good argument. I still like the idea of move-shoot, but will people agree and will Mongoose listen? I think not. There's one change I have yet to see Mongoose make, and that would be to listen to what we have to say. It may be their game, but honestly between all of us on the boards we get a whole lot of play and a whole lot of experience in how the game should work.

 

[mollari_uk]

Someone may have said this already, but instead of getting an extra turn with a boresight, why don't we try this:

Line up the boresight as normal, but if the target is still in the front arc when it comes to firing, it can still fire.

This would make it better than it currently is but worse than standard front arc as you are less manouverable.

There may be a need to rebalance the weapons because of the increased effectiveness but this would improve boresight but still keep within the current system.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I do like the idea of a special action that allows you to take your final turn after the other ships have moved, and not just for boresight ships.
Imagine a Nova moving first. It has no idea where the enemy ships will be, so it could use this SA to head forward and wait. After the enemy ships have moved, it can then take its turn in order to get the enemy ships into its broadsides.

 

[Burger]

Imagine a Nova moving first. It has no idea where the enemy ships will be, so it could use this SA to head forward and wait. After the enemy ships have moved, it can then take its turn in order to get the enemy ships into its broadsides.

...thereby giving the enemy no chance whatsoever of avoiding its broadsides.

That SA completely screws up all tactics that involve getting out of the enemy's arc.

 

[mollari_uk]

..thereby giving the enemy no chance whatsoever of avoiding its broadsides.

That SA completely screws up all tactics that involve getting out of the enemy's arc.

That's why my solution works better because it effects nothing except making boresights into a quasi-front arc.

 

[Triggy]

Alright, I certainly do have to agree that rebalancing would be an issue. The SA alternative may be better than the move-shoot rule and it changes less.
As for the PL, it's BS no matter how you look at it. It's cumbersome and accomplished nothing. You may say that taking a war level ship is difficult to do in a 3 point battle, but it doesn't stop you from taking it and if it were points based it would be just as hard. The PL system is just useless and complicated imo.

Conversion example...

If you based points value on a Patrol level game you'd get something like the following. (Please correct if values are off because I'm not up to date on the new PL system)

Patrol = 1 point
Skirmish = 2 points
Raid = 4 points
Battle = 8 points
War = 16 points
Armageddon = 32 points

Now, let's say you play a 3 point battle under the PL system. This means that the standard PL usage should be battle and you could take 3 of them. Now, what's the difference if you eliminated PL and played a 24 point game? You can fit the same number of ship but you don't have to sit and figure out what each PL costs. This is less calculating, more playing, and it allows the same ship usage. All the PL system does is tell you what size ships are the standard. I'm sorry, but if you don't have the math to look at a PL free 24 point game and know that battle level is likely your best choice then you need to stick to games that require less math.
So, basically, the PL system should be eliminated, not that it will, since it causes undue stress. At least it's an easy conversion to a real point system.

As Ripple pointed out, the only reason that the PL system is a little redundant at the moment is because of the current numbers attributed to each split. With the old splits they encouraged purchases at no more than one PL below the PL of the game.

Ripple - your suggestion about boresighted ships could be made even simpler. Any ship with a Boresight weapon can perform a special action (e.g. on a CQ check of 9) of "Track that Ship". This action means the ship must not use at least one of its turns during its move. After ships have moved but before auxilliary craft have moved, a ship using this special action can make one turn of up to 45 degrees.

NB. You don't have to nominate a ship you are tracking and if you can't line up a boresight you can still make the move as you are attempting to do so. Also, if both players are using this special action, turns are carried out in the order of a normal movement phase.

 

[harikaridog]

your suggestion about boresighted ships could be made even simpler. Any ship with a Boresight weapon can perform a special action (e.g. on a CQ check of 9) of "Track that Ship". This action means the ship must not use at least one of its turns during its move. After ships have moved but before auxilliary craft have moved, a ship using this special action can make one turn of up to 45 degrees.

NB. You don't have to nominate a ship you are tracking and if you can't line up a boresight you can still make the move as you are attempting to do so. Also, if both players are using this special action, turns are carried out in the order of a normal movement phase.

Hi Triggy.....UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDS

Don't you think making an SA applicable just to boresight ships is too much papering over the cracks. Now whenever facing a boresight ship (with a healthy Broadside) I have to second guess where it will finally finish up (arc wise). can never be sure even if it moved first that i will be out of nasty arc. It gives boresight ships a level of initiative or quality they should not have. Something like this you would have to give to all ships or none at all I believe. If something is broken like boresight (my oppinion of course), then best to change the mechanic rather than create new ones to bolt on top.

All the best

 

[Triggy]

UUUURRRREEEDDDSSSS indeed

Actually I think boresight is fine as it is, I was only suggesting a way to make this special action a little simpler. You're probably right about a "paper over" solution not being the right answer to any problem.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Imagine a Nova moving first. It has no idea where the enemy ships will be, so it could use this SA to head forward and wait. After the enemy ships have moved, it can then take its turn in order to get the enemy ships into its broadsides.

...thereby giving the enemy no chance whatsoever of avoiding its broadsides.

That SA completely screws up all tactics that involve getting out of the enemy's arc.

But only if the ship in question actively uses its special action to do so. This means that it can't launch fighters, or do other special actions such as CAF. Throw a CQ check in to the SA, and you could easily end up throwing away your SA for nothing.

You also missed out the part it only affects tactics that are only usable against ships that have already moved. As such, you should really have said:

That SA completely screws up all tactics that involve init sinking more than the enemy before getting out of the enemy's arc.

Oh yes, I forgot... that init sinking it part of the whole problem in the first place

 

[Burger]

But only if the ship in question actively uses its special action to do so. This means that it can't launch fighters, or do other special actions such as CAF.

Yes because CAF is sooo useful for a Nova (3rd age, anyway)...