Changes for 3rd edition ACTA

[CZuschlag]

I don't mind the armament, but the combination of speed, range for Raid, and Agile makes the 21" leapover a significant threat. The Whitestar can do it, too, but it doesn't have the stealth capability, which, for me, counts for a lot. Close-and-kill races can have zero shot at times (I think of the slow Dilgar fleet in particular, but the Early EA and the slow Narn get caught, too). It could be made a whole lot less rock-paper-scissors pretty easily.

**Edit: Important caveat! We always play with full randomly-generated terrain, which gives an average of 4 pieces of terrain per battle, and play on a regulation 4x6 table. In the case of this ship, the value you place on the vessel corresponds strongly with the board you play on .... Shadows are particularly relevant here.

Yes, I want both War-level carriers to be better. Frankly, 4 Garasoch or Brokados are better, without question, than one Cidikar or Poseidon. 3 Garasoch or Brokados are still probably much better. And this is wrong. The new War-level ships are supposed to be frightening. Most are. The Z'Takk is. The Mishakur is. The Warlock is (mostly). The Sharlin is. The Dra'Vash is. Neighter of these are. They're almost a relief .... "Thank goodness it's a Cidikar and not a Corumai." That's just off.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

What's being done in S&P are just band-aids, and the retuning of such a significant number of ships is more likely to happen as an edition change.
If you are talking about ships to be rebalanced for 3rd Ed, I wouldn't even bother worrying about that right now. The system needs base mechanics to be changed to fix several of the problems ACTA has, and those changes will only change the balance of various ships anyway. Worry about how to rebalance ships after the system is sorted out.

 

[Ripple]

Actually katadders response tells me a lot of what went wrong...

his response on the two individual ships is not comparing them to other ships of their own level, but to what they used to be. To me that means certain things like the overall power creep got overlooked and that changes weren't really looked closely in terms of overall balance. (better vs hull 6... lots of ships... worse vs hull 4... a couple of ships, are not equivalent, especially in light of the large scale ship issues.)

I heard the same answer back a ways in the G'Quan threads... basically... 'you wanted the G'Quan to have an extra die on it's laser... we gave you that and your still complaining' was the (admittedly paraphrased) quote. Those of us complaining said, yeah we wanted an extra die, but that was under the old system. So much else changed the whole ship needed to be re-evaluated, nothing said under the old system really mattered.

Sorry if that comes across as a slam. I just seen more than a couple comments that have me pausing and wondering what was used as the base to decide what was okay and what wasn't. I have a local friend who looks at me when I win a game and say a certain ship just underperforms and says 'what are you complaining about, you won!' like that should be the end all be all of whether a individual ship is worth its points. Lots of things go into winning... not just the stats of the ship.

Anyway... full disclosure... I don't agree with Chris about a number of those ships... think we're closer to ten to fifteen ships that need serious looks than fifty... but part of that is I think the abbai just need a whole rethink that starts small and goes up. We have a local idea about their shield that would work great, a sort of range dependent dodge, that would work for them much better than shields currently do.

Sigh... rambled again...

Ripple

 

[CZuschlag]

The retuning of a significant number of ships has happened before (almost that many --- certainly a comparable amount) without an edition change --- it was the Tournament Ship pack released before Armageddon.

50 ships out of the over 350 that currently exist is just not that many. And, keep in mind, that it is always more important to fix ships on the high side than the low side; the low-side ships won't unbalance a game, because no one will field them!

 

[katadder]

we did also compare the ships mentioned with other ships in their PL. the posiedon has better broadsides than most other ships, it has more damage than the majority of warships, command +3 which is rarely seen at war level. and on top of that 24 fighters to boot.

yes the teshlan could be said to be more powerful. but across the board its firepower did not go up, whilst its damage went down and its threshold got made alot worse 2/3 instead of the 25% or less most other races get. also it has alot of traits to lose, which the new crit system effects.
so yes the 2e beam rules may help it against hull 6 ships (although most raid are also hull 5 which it has the same ability as 1e against) but theres alot of 2e rules which also proved downsides for it, (crit trait loss, more ways to reduce stealth etc).

most those ships dont need anything changing.
WSs - IMO need boresighting
Abbai - fleet as a whole needs looking at
Drazi warship - pretty crap TBH
G'vhran/bin'tak relationship (bin'tak is good warship just not on par with g'vrahn)
Demos - lower AD on ion cannons on par with vorchan.

the rest I just dont see as many problems as you obviously do. and 50 is actually a huge chunk of 350 ships really.

 

[Foxmeister]

most those ships dont need anything changing.
WSs - IMO need boresighting
Abbai - fleet as a whole needs looking at
Drazi warship - pretty crap TBH
G'vhran/bin'tak relationship (bin'tak is good warship just not on par with g'vrahn)
Demos - lower AD on ion cannons on par with vorchan.

I agree on the whole, except:

* There needs to be a reason to take a G'Quan - currently there isn't one. IMHO, either F arc it, or give it a SL e-mine
* Shadow Omega - needs something

Regards,

Dave

 

[Target]

If im using a Demos i need more AD, fired at Solarhawk the other day & got 3 hits with twinlinks & 1 with torps. End result was 9 hit beam on me. I hate dice.
Pretty much agree with Kats list & Foxs.
I would like fighters to be way faster & also the abilty to shoot fighters instead of dogfighting. Why would a sky serpent dogfight when it has the the opportunity to shoot at a caps which is it's job. If you survive the Satrfury why would engae it in a dogfight again instead of shooting.I've always hated the way dogfights works it really makes fighters pretty useless. We give them weapon stats, hull & dodge & then scrap them for a dogfight roll. It seems a little silly. Fighters can't dodge fighters but caps can :roll: eg Havens, Whitestars.
We use the dogfight score as dodge modifier & suddenly fighters were actually useful. Some fighters would need restated in their weapons eg starsnake. Makes ships that can dodge vunerable to fighters which seems about right. Also means you don't fire fighters all at once but in groups (a set number or patrol points worth)& it's not that hard to keep track of or take that much time compared dogfighting. We have been doing this for about 2 and half years & we don't do rules that are time consuming.

 

[Ripple]

Not sure I agree on the posiedon having better broadsides than most ships, it does have a couple more AD than average, but single damage shots are not that big a deal at this level. And while it does have more damage, that is more than made up for with it's low hull score for it's PL. Your flights replace your main weapons... I'd still fly it, but it doesn't impress me vs the stack of avengers, at least in part due to crit weakness.

As to the demos... it has to lose more than on par with the vorchan. The main guns are already on par... you still have to balance the interceptor.




Ripple

 

[Tolwyn]

I agree with CZuschlag's list of ships and would even add some more, primarily EA ships (Cronos :wink: ). The Crusade and 3rd Age Era lists lack the flexibility of the early Era list. This is enhanced by the fact that the Early Era has mainly ships without Boresight while the other 2 have many more of this, but less alternate choices.

 

[Foxmeister]

I agree with CZuschlag's list of ships and would even add some more, primarily EA ships (Cronos :wink: ). The Crusade and 3rd Age Era lists lack the flexibility of the early Era list. This is enhanced by the fact that the Early Era has mainly ships without Boresight while the other 2 have many more of this, but less alternate choices.

EA is "fixed" (and I use that term very loosely!) by either

a) Removing the Early/3rd Age/Crusade distinction - ISDs should be the tool to serve this purpose

OR

b) Keep the 3 lists, but allow 1 or 2 FAPs to be drawn from the earlier lists

In addition, I'd allow ISA member races to add a couple of White Stars into their selections - why is it always member races supporting the ISA when it should probably be the other way round?

Regards,

Dave

 

[katadder]

I would do this with whitestars but only for campaign play and only for your defensive battles (if no ISA involved in campaign) as the member states cannot use the ISA for agression, only for defense.

on the shadow omega really it just needs its beam to have a range of 30" I think.

 

[Foxmeister]

I would do this with whitestars but only for campaign play and only for your defensive battles (if no ISA involved in campaign) as the member states cannot use the ISA for agression, only for defense.

I agree in principle, however people do fight with whatever they've got, and in tourney play it would not be unusual to see say Minbari vs ISA, or even ISA vs ISA making the point rather moot outside of a campaign setting.

Regards,

Dave

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Personally I would prefer a unified EA list which used the ISDs to determine which ships are available. Even if ISDs are optional for other races, you could still make it a special rule of the EA that they must use the ISD rules.

The only issue I could see this leaving is that ships are different in different eras, but even this we could turn to an advantage. Just make one ship entry for each varient, and overlap the ISDs:
Explorer Mk1 (currently Early Years) - ISD: 2225 - 2255
Explorer Mk3 (currently Third Age/Crusade) ISD: 2240+

This way, you have transition periods where you can use either varient (refits weren't complete during this period). Also, you only need to put the major varient in the main list, and can add more minor varients in expansions if desired.

 

[Burger]

Even if ISDs are optional for other races, you could still make it a special rule of the EA that they must use the ISD rules.

How is that different to having 3 lists?

 

[nekomata fuyu]

1) You only have 1 list.
2) You have the flexibility of tens of lists, maybe even hundreds.

Just to take a single example from the current list, Third Age starts at 2250, whilst the Third Age Explorer has an ISD of 2240+. At the moment you just can't take that varient of the Explorer for the first 10 years of its life, and the only way to shoehorn it in using the current tactic of split lists would be to have yet another list called "EA: Still The Early Years But Almost The Dawn Of The Third Age Of Mankind".
Now just imagine that with every ship out there at the same tiime.

So yeah, it's quite a bit different from having 3 lists.

 

[Burger]

Its the same but simplified.

 

[Chernobyl]

Not a bad idea, but it doesn't sound like something you need a new edition for. This could be just a fleet list update (like so many have done before)
personally, I'd much rather see a "version 2.1" rules update done in S&P before a whole new 3rd edition. Too many product releases for this game so far - if you want to call it a new edition, make it a substantive update, but you need to "work into it".

Chern

 

[Triggy]

most those ships dont need anything changing.
WSs - IMO need boresighting
Abbai - fleet as a whole needs looking at
Drazi warship - pretty crap TBH
G'vhran/bin'tak relationship (bin'tak is good warship just not on par with g'vrahn)
Demos - lower AD on ion cannons on par with vorchan.

I agree on the whole, except:

* There needs to be a reason to take a G'Quan - currently there isn't one. IMHO, either F arc it, or give it a SL e-mine
* Shadow Omega - needs something

Regards,

Dave

My list of ships that need changing (most powerful ships are at the top in order down to least powerful):

Overpowered ships that are high priority changes
Demos
Xeel
G'Quan
Xaar
White Star
White Star II
G'Vrahn

-------------------

Overpowered ships that are lower priority changes
Amu
Tethys Laser
Blue Star
Jashakar Tae

-------------------

Underpowered ships
Shadowfury
Nemesis
Stalker
Abbai (global changes)
Bimith
Shadow Fighter
Fireraptor

This is a list of 13/17 ships with a tweak to the Abbai as a whole too. I don't think we'll be seeing more than 20 ships amended in P&P and more likely this will be closer to 10 or so. Pretty much all of the top and bottom lists of ships will definitely have changes (except the Xaar and Nemesis at the moment) but we're still discussing certain ships or fleet changes.

 

[Da Boss]

Overpowered ships that are high priority changes
G'Quan

Triggy - I really hope you are joking here

agree wth some of these Demos, not as convinced that the WS needs to
change that much...........

Nice to see Shadow fighters on the list...............

 

[katadder]

dont think the Amu is bad. its about war level really, and other people said hull 5 wasnt enough for even a war level ship has its weaknesses. ok it brings a mini-fleet, but thats the drakhs strength, they have no fighters so they have something else.