Campaign Ideas

[Reaverman]

This idea is just in its infancy, but its something we might be doing in our campaign.

At the start of the campaign, we have noticed it can be a little fickel when you are selecting CQ's and Ships. My point being, who the hell would let CQ3 crew, anywhere near a VCD. In war, I could understand rushing crews to ships. But at the begining, all fleets should have some sort of control on its level of training.

Today, we have a minimum requirement on our military training, before the recruit is allowed into an engagement. People are not going to crew ships, at the whim of a dice.

So our way round this, is to give the Admirals a least a choice, of what crew they require to man those ships. Let them choose the ships, and the crews to man them.


At the begining of the campaign, the Admiral gets 200 RR's to spend on his fleet. Below, is the cost table to spend on ships and crews;

Class CQ3 CQ4 CQ5
Patrol 2 5 10
Skirmish 5 10 15
Raid 10 15 20
Battle 15 20 25
War 20 25 30
Armageddon 35 40 45

This only applies to non ancient fleets, who all start off at CQ4 (they dont trivialise themselve with such worries)

This means, if an Admiral wants lots of less trained ships he can, or he can opt for a better trained smaller fleet.

 

[Hash]

I like the idea in principle but a difference in 5RR seems large for the lower PLs - in your table it costs just as much for a CQ3 Skirmish ship than a CQ4 Patrol Ship...also it's not just the ancients that have flight computers, races like the Minbari are going to be laughing.

Personally I think it should be dependent on number of crew

e.g. Buy a CQ4 ship at normal cost

To "upgrade" crew, Pay 1RR per 5 Crew members on board (round up) so a ship with Crew 20 would cost an additional 4RR to get a veteran crew (CQ 5)

To "downgrade" crew, Save 1RR per 10 Crew members on board (round down), so a ship with Crew 20 would save 2RR to have a CQ 3 ship.

The balance should be costly to increase CQ and less valuable to decrease CQ to discourage powergaming / min/maxing this sort of thing...

 

[Burger]

I think the CQ difference costs too much at the lower (patrol and skirmish) ends. It should be done on percentage, say 20% cheaper for CQ3 and 20% more expensive for CQ5.

Class      CQ3 CQ4 CQ5
Patrol       4   5   6
Skirmish     8  10  12
Raid        12  15  18
Battle      16  20  24
War         20  25  30
Armageddon  32  40  48

 

[Burger]

Personally I think it should be dependent on number of crew

e.g. Buy a CQ4 ship at normal cost

To "upgrade" crew, Pay 1RR per 5 Crew members on board (round up) so a ship with Crew 20 would cost an additional 4RR to get a veteran crew (CQ 5)

All White Stars would be CQ6, then Since it would cost only 3 RR to get to CQ5, then the ISA +1 would give CQ6.

 

[Reaverman]

Personally I think it should be dependent on number of crew

e.g. Buy a CQ4 ship at normal cost

To "upgrade" crew, Pay 1RR per 5 Crew members on board (round up) so a ship with Crew 20 would cost an additional 4RR to get a veteran crew (CQ 5)

All White Stars would be CQ6, then Since it would cost only 3 RR to get to CQ5, then the ISA +1 would give CQ6.

Well yeah, that would be the idea. If you want to pay extra, say "20%"

 

[Hash]

That's ok I guess but I don't think buy up and down should be balanced, if you want a fluff viewpoint, you've already spent most of the "training budget" on getting officers to green military combat status

 

[Reaverman]

That's ok I guess but I don't think buy up and down should be balanced, if you want a fluff viewpoint, you've already spent most of the "training budget" on getting officers to green military combat status

in what way should it not be balanced?

 

[Hash]

Personally I think it should be dependent on number of crew

e.g. Buy a CQ4 ship at normal cost

To "upgrade" crew, Pay 1RR per 5 Crew members on board (round up) so a ship with Crew 20 would cost an additional 4RR to get a veteran crew (CQ 5)

All White Stars would be CQ6, then Since it would cost only 3 RR to get to CQ5, then the ISA +1 would give CQ6.

Forgot about pesky white stars - personally I think WS shouldn't be able to buy "elite" crew anyway since they all start with Rangers on board! What you want elite Rangers?!!!

 

[Burger]

I think 20% cost to buy up or down is fairer, and easier than mucking around counting crew values
The fleet cost can easily be calculated and independently verified by the campaign manager, without intimate knowledge of everyone's ships or pouring through stats.

 

[Hash]

That's ok I guess but I don't think buy up and down should be balanced, if you want a fluff viewpoint, you've already spent most of the "training budget" on getting officers to green military combat status

in what way should it not be balanced?

I think it should cost more to buy up and you save buying down - it's a basic principle found throughout the game and it discourages powergaming.

As it is the larger you make the gap, the more tempting it is simply to buy EVERYTHING at CQ3 and rely on flight computers and eventually XP to make up the difference. If you make it less cost-effective to downgrade (and upgrade) then it is less exploited and then you would only buy veteran crew for important ships and save RR on less important ships as would be more appropriate.

 

[Hash]

I think 20% cost to buy up or down is fairer, and easier than mucking around counting crew values
The fleet cost can easily be calculated and independently verified by the campaign manager, without intimate knowledge of everyone's ships or pouring through stats.

Good point on easier to use, I'm not that bothered to be honest although I still think the skew should be on making it less effective to downgrade - see how it goes I guess.

 

[Na-Po]

We decided here to throw the dice as usual but just to keep them in a "pool".
(1 throw per ship)
So you know globally what kind of crew you have.
In every army you've got old boys and newbs but here since you now how many of each you have you can decide how to affect them.

It's just like a general making everyone come back home before the fight to assign each group to a ship.

I think it's pretty fair as it avoids getting bad crew on flagships.

 

[Burger]

Thats actually a pretty good way to do it, too. Although I'd beware of players overpowering their scouts by putting high CQ's on them all the time. CQ6 scouts, especially Vree, can make entire fleets broken.

 

[Myrm]

In VaS the campaign rule allows you swap out your flagship crew with any other crew in the fleet at start, so you can guarantee that your major ship has a decent crew.

Hw well that fits around ship numbers in a ACTA campaign IM not sure...

 

[emperorpenguin]

In VaS the campaign rule allows you swap out your flagship crew with any other crew in the fleet at start, so you can guarantee that your major ship has a decent crew.

Hw well that fits around ship numbers in a ACTA campaign IM not sure...

You can do that in ACTA too so that your VCD doesn't get stuck with a low CQ

 

[Na-Po]

Sorry Burger I'm not sure to understand,
do you mean a scout is dangerous ?

For the "again stealth" part I would agree as once a minbari ship is seen it's nearly dead.

But I don't see the point of the "reroll" part. If you use this it means a maximum of your ship are aiming the same target and that only one weapon in each ship can reroll, correct ? So it's like CAF but not as good.

Maybe Boresight ships could like it as they do not CAF often. But a CQ check is not automatic (by definition) and if you want to be sure of the result you take several scouts that is to say a number of points not spent in "war ships".

I might be wrong but what is the point of rerolling if you can't see the target ?

Unless you've got an armada of cheap scouts (or playing Shadows) ....

 

[Burger]

Scout redirect fire is a very powerful ability. It is like CAF yes, but different: it allows your ships to turn, shoot other weapons at different targets (side and rear guns), and does not mean committing your ship's firepower in the movement phase (sometimes allowing your target to move out of arc/range!).

Giving a CQ of 6 to a scout means you only need a 3+ to perform the redirect (or a 2+ to lower stealth). If they're Vree scouts then they can redirect on a 2+ due to their racial bonus. This makes a high CQ on a scout, much more useful than a high CQ on any other ship. If you were allowed to assign all the CQ's as you like, you would put all the high CQ's where they were useful such as scouts, and leave the low ones for the ships that rarely need CQ checks.

 

[Na-Po]

Ok for that,

does it prevent the scout from firing ?
Or may a scout fire and reroll due to his own ability of "rerolling"?

If we go further, I play 3 scouts, each one succeed in redirecting, can I reroll 3 lines of weapon for each ship or only one assuming one success is enough ?

If one reroll is the max only one good CQ would be needed as you don't need all those scouts. And prior to Arm I'd rather have a carrier with a good CQ than a scout.

 

[Burger]

does it prevent the scout from firing ?

No, but it does prevent the scout from performing special actions.

Or may a scout fire and reroll due to his own ability of "rerolling"?

Yes.

If we go further, I play 3 scouts, each one succeed in redirecting, can I reroll 3 lines of weapon for each ship or only one assuming one success is enough ?

If 3 scouts all redirect fire onto the same target, then every ship in your fleet gets re-rolls on 3 weapons at that target. Including the scouts themselves.

 

[Silvereye]

does it prevent the scout from firing ?

No, but it does prevent the scout from performing special actions.

Actually the reverse is true; a Scout performing a Special Action cannot then use it's Scout trait.