Boresight vs Fwd arc idea

[Target]

Been thinking about the old fwd arc vs boresight debate.
There isn't a positive to boresight so began thinking what if?
Ships with fwd arc beam weapon range is the boresight range & half it and that becomes the range it becomes fwd arc eg Sharlin Boresights 30-15 & fwd arc till 15 & less.
This would represent boresighting is how you get range with your beam weapon. This would stop the CAF at range which is the real killer & you would have rely on your scouts if you want a reroll.
This would still represent the technical edge the Centauri & Minbari have over the younger races just weakens the fwd arc a little as it really a little much with beams.
Ancients would still keep their fwd arc as is.
This would make the Centauri & Minbari a little more tactical in what they do instead of move slowly forward as possible obliterating a ship or two a round.

 

[Poi]

Fluff-wise, a boresight represents a couple of factors.

Ship maneuverability.
Weapon too large for flexible mount.

Personally, I'm happy with boresights. My Ochlavitas have been having a rough time, until I worked out that using Skirmish ships in raid games, and pentacons, gave me enough of a priority sink to get my boresights lined up.

 

[Triggy]

Yeah, I like boresights too and agree with the reasoning why. So long as the ships are balanced stats wise, then it's just another dimension and a way you have to play fleets differently. Fluff wise, I've always seen Narn and EA as far more cumbersome than Minbari and ISA and that was before I even picked up the AoG rules!

 

[Ripple]

Cumbersome is one thing...but completely unable to fire is another. Maybe I've been ruined on the fluff of boresights by playing drazi, but in that fleet at least you tyically have three or four ships that cannot fire at all (assuming you fighting one of the many races with a scout ship worth taking).

I just do not buy the concept that small scout vessels on the edge of the field will prevent my warships from firing but they do.

I just do not buy the concept that I cannot get a shot on a ship moving directly in front of me. If the weapon is that lacking you would not have built it, EA in particular would have all missle ships.

Again, boresights would be great if you could declare a target and reserve a turn to try and boresight that ship after it moves. This gets rid of the two hard to swallow aspects of boresights without giving lots of options to the boresighted races. Not as good an order as CAF, but at least you can shoot.

The other idea was the half AD in the F (or A) arc and full AD in the B arc. I like that as well, but it opens up the various orders for the ships in question, which I think is a bigger balance issue.

Ripple

 

[Arcadia]

Target wrote:
Maybe weapon ranges should be reversed, beam for close up work slicing and dicing and your other weapons for range firing like in the the show. It's nearly always the ballistic weapons firing first.
Missles, Torps then Pulse cannons then TWL,MB then Railguns, Anti Matter Cannons then for ultracarnage Beams which are nigh unstopable. Ranges longest to shortest. Boresight beams being longer range than fwd arc.


Hi, I like your idea Target, that would justify bore sight beams. All beam should be under 18” except for Vorlons and bore sight races and Minbari and Centauri may get the full range only by bore sight at close range they get back there full arc.

There was another idea that could help a lot, it came up on don’t remember when. A special action “lock on target” CQ8 that gives the ship an extra 45º turn at the end of the movement fase, to get a bore sight of the declared enemy ship that moved after your ship; with the restriction that you can only fire at the declared target ship.

Arcadia.

 

[Calistan]

I just do not buy the concept that I cannot get a shot on a ship moving directly in front of me. If the weapon is that lacking you would not have built it, EA in particular would have all missle ships.
Ripple

The problem with missle ships that has not been taken into account is that missle are a finite resource, where beam weapons are not. As long as you have energy, then you can fire beam weapons, which is why the Vorlons can be so deadly, they never need to resupply. As the fluff states, they can draw energy from hyperspace and it is how the Vorlons can power the planet killer.

Boresights, in general, should produce greater damage and longer range. Ships should be built on a points system, rather than what seems right for a certain level. Traits, Truns, Crew, Damage ... all of the basic stats should be allocated points according to usablility. A good example is, jump points. Lets say JP is 3 points and AJP is 5. Once we have a good points system for ship parts, we can then place ships into their correct PL.

 

[sidewinder]

I wouldnt mind boresights if they were worth it, but they really arent. The Forward beams on an omega are on turrets and they arent that big, not like the huge beams on a g'quan, which only do what like 3 AD? If boresights did a lot of damage, and I mean a lot, like the boresight on the warlock doing like 8 or 10 AD, then it would be worth it. I could even see 12 AD on the Warlock but 2 separate weapons at 6 each and slow loading. Same thing for the nemisis, maybe even more so since it lacks the amount of all around firepower of the warlock. But this should go for all the boresights, more for the larger ships though, giving the drazi all and extra 2 or 3 AD for their boresights might be a bit much for such small ships.

Oh, and I'm getting tired of the excuse about arc being related to manuverability. Brakiri ships have fwd arcs and those ships look a lot more like flying bricks then EA ships.

 

[Goldritter]

I think, that Boresight should get an arc and not a line.
Like the "Boresight-Weapons" in AOG´s Babylon 5 Wars.
There the Omega has a 60° arc with it´s Laser.

It should be possible to have an arc for Boresight Weapons too. So 30° or 45°.

 

[DrSeltsam]

Been thinking about the old fwd arc vs boresight debate.
There isn't a positive to boresight so began thinking what if?
Ships with fwd arc beam weapon range is the boresight range & half it and that becomes the range it becomes fwd arc eg Sharlin Boresights 30-15 & fwd arc till 15 & less.
This would represent boresighting is how you get range with your beam weapon. This would stop the CAF at range which is the real killer & you would have rely on your scouts if you want a reroll.
This would still represent the technical edge the Centauri & Minbari have over the younger races just weakens the fwd arc a little as it really a little much with beams.
Ancients would still keep their fwd arc as is.
This would make the Centauri & Minbari a little more tactical in what they do instead of move slowly forward as possible obliterating a ship or two a round.

Im sorry but how would this improve boresight weapons ?
It looks like it would just tweak forward arc beams ...
I can not see any improvement for EA, Narn, Drazi or whatever boresight weapons with this rule.

A AD-upgrade to boresight like suggested before would help more.

 

[Burger]

There is one advantage to boresight weapons...
"Lose a random weapon arc" is less effective, since B is a different arc to F. Some ships (eg. White Star, Shantavi) lose all their weapons from this crit; if one of their weapons were B, they wouldn't be so badly affected.

(I never said it was a big advantage... but it is an advantage nonetheless)

 

[Target]

Im sorry but how would this improve boresight weapons ?
It looks like it would just tweak forward arc beams ...
I can not see any improvement for EA, Narn, Drazi or whatever boresight weapons with this rule.

A AD-upgrade to boresight like suggested before would help more.

I was staying away from extra AD as that makes things get out of balance real quick. Making fwd arc less effective which gives Narm,EA,Drazi a more even ability, just when things gets close and personal the superior tech would count. If fwd arc beams couldn't pick there targets at range it would help the other races a lot.

I would actually prefer to twinlink boresights rather than increase the AD than this idea. Just trying to see if there are any great ideas out there. Twinlinking is better than increase in AD as it only effects the first roll.

Scouts with the increase in AD will make things absolute carnage.
Espicially with the way scouts work at the moment. Giving each ship a reroll on weapon when firing on that ship i view is completely insane. No wonder Centauri clean most races out. We only play one ship gets the reroll the weapon system and centauri still clean up. Off topic sorry.

Boresights Positives
Less likely to lose that arc to crit.
When crippled can still fire, 1 wpn per arc.

Boresights Negatives
Can only target non moving targets or targets that have moved.
If your target destroyed before you get to fire, you wasted your shot, can't redirect.
SA are limted to basically Scramble, Boarding, All hands to deck & Come about + the awesome Run silent.
Reinforce Defense grid, All power to engines & CAF are basically useless to you.
Extremly limited in the targets you can fire upon compared to fwd arc's

If your main weapon doesn't get to fire you start to lose quickly. I know when my Primus doesn't get fire every round im in trouble & goes double for boresight fleets.

 

[DrSeltsam]

@ Target
Didn't wanted to sounds rude in anyway - sorry if was understood in such a way.

Personally i would also prefer twin-link for boresight. Sure it would be something like a build in CAF but in the games we play the boresight weapon do not fire very often after the first few rounds of combat ... if at all. Too much depends on winning set-up and/or getting your Come About! special order working.

The idea of Goldritter regarding the borsight-arc also sounds interesting. Has anybody any experience with this AOG mechanism ?

 

[Target]

@ Target
Didn't wanted to sounds rude in anyway - sorry if was understood in such a way.

Personally i would also prefer twin-link for boresight. Sure it would be something like a build in CAF but in the games we play the boresight weapon do not fire very often after the first few rounds of combat ... if at all. Too much depends on winning set-up and/or getting your Come About! special order working.

The idea of Goldritter regarding the borsight-arc also sounds interesting. Has anybody any experience with this AOG mechanism ?

Didn't think you sounded rude at all.
Guessing with the 60 degree arc would only involve a couple more scribe marks on the base. Doesn't really sound like a hassle compared to lining up boresights any way. The more i think about it the easier it becomes. It would take about 5 mins per base to do. Since we already check arcs it wouldn't be a big hassle. The stats might have change a little though ( thinking the range) maybe but maybe not guess we have to test it.

 

[Goldritter]

The idea of Goldritter regarding the borsight-arc also sounds interesting. Has anybody any experience with this AOG mechanism ?

If you like, I can send you some PDFs of the Ship Sheets from AOG.
AOG was so nice to put an CD with all Ships in the Book "Ship of the Flet" into that book.

And because AOG is now out of buisness and Babylon 5 Wars dont "exist" anymore I can send you the PDFs.

You can send me your e-mail Adress per PM and please give me an information how big the e-mail can be and which ships are interesting for you.

 

[sidewinder]

As I said, I wouldnt give all ships a huge boost in AD, just the larger ones, like maybe raid or higher. And the higher the level the bigger the boost.

 

[Target]

As I said, I wouldnt give all ships a huge boost in AD, just the larger ones, like maybe raid or higher. And the higher the level the bigger the boost.

The problem with giving beams a increase in AD is that it also increases the subsequent rolls as well. Thats why i would prefer a twinlinking of boresights over increasing the AD. It would mean a higher average dam but you wouldn't get a huge amount of rerolls compared to if the AD were increased.

 

[sidewinder]

I could see TLing the warlock, you can see the 2 particle cannons under the forward hull, the nemisis on the other had probably only has one MSB, just like other shadow ships, the beam can come from anywhere but it only shoots one beam. Just another reason I think the MSB on the nemisis should be FWD arc, if EA can do it with the shadow hunter why not their newest ship that I think was made after the hunter.

 

[CodeofArms]

I dont really see any problems with bore-sights. The one beef I do have however is that they could benefit more with lower AD and Precise rather than a higher AD. Generally this would mean that most bore sighted weapons would be more useful when fired but with a reasonable penalty.

Of course it would become necessary to up the AD of Centauri and Minbari beams.

 

[HollowpointCatharsis]

How about a line the width of mini instead of an arc. A 60 degree still covers a lot of ground that probably would happen with a forward mounted weapon, but a line the width of the miniature, that can easily be a mounted weapon and is much easier to line up than a point-to-point line. My friend and I were considering making boresight work like this when we first got ACTA.

 

[Poi]

How about a line the width of mini instead of an arc.

There are at least three different sizes for most ships, ACTA, Fleet Action and counter, with some ships having different size counters, so model width won't work.

It's fundamental to the game that the ship is represented by the centre of the model/counter.