Charged Energy Pulse

[Alexb83]

Remember, ships in 2e are supposed to get a new anti-fighter trait. lets wait and see if vorlon and shadows get it too. Maybe both races will get a dedicated anti-fighter escort ship?

The antifighter trait still wont protect against the range 3+ fighters which are oh-so-cheap and every race under the sun seems to be getting nowadays. Starsnakes, Thunderbolts, Portafis, the new Firebolt... the EA ones in particular are obscene, and Vorlons still have no real defence against it (Vorlon fighters you say? Yeah, right... you can't even stick them on your ships' bases to protect them from dogfights).

Thunderbolts are coming at you head on... you pour your main armament into them (and chances are this will be wasted on a hull 5, dodge 2+ target) then you die a whittling death over a few turns. With carriers being beefed up, I can see them becoming the defacto means to beat Vorlons/Shadows (perhaps not shadows - AF weapons on scout anyone?). Especially when killing the fighters wont even earn you VPs!

 

[CheesyRobMan]

If we're going by the show then Shadow battlecrabs' main gun should be AF. In the attack on the Narn outpost we see the main beam swatting Frazi after Frazi with pinpoint accuracy, and the only reason the prototype White Star gets to dodge the beam is that "they're trying to disable us"... On the other hand Vorlons don't have any obvious AF weapons in the show, relying solely on turning up unexpectedly, blasting seven shades of spoo out of something important and legging it before anyone can do anything about it...

 

[Da Boss]

Remember, ships in 2e are supposed to get a new anti-fighter trait. lets wait and see if vorlon and shadows get it too. Maybe both races will get a dedicated anti-fighter escort ship?

or not..........I think the last S+P mentioned a new Shadow ship replacing the lost Hunter ...........

re the issue that First Ones don't build small ships - er they do - fighters - and they are either slow, easily hit and vulnerable with a good gun (Vorlons) or faster, an average (but interceptable) gun and still vulnerable (Shadows). Yet we see that Narn fighetrs at least stand no chance against the Much Larger shadow fighters and ramming is the only option...........

So the First Ones build rubbish fighters?............hmm does that sound right? Surely they should be at least the equal of the vaunted and deadily White Star fighter........remember also that persently they don't get any fleet carrier support despite being seemingly formed from their "mother" ships.

Lastly I think both fleets need more ships because it makes the game better - at least one per priority from Skirmish up and a couple at the higher levels including a carrier..............but hey.

Must admit however I have had ships chopped into bits by lower level Vorlon warships - esp when the right critical comes up................

 

[katadder]

its about mindset too though. the younger races use fighters for dogfighting hence the good dogfight score. perhaps the ancient races never had this problem as they only used capital ships for the most part so all this dogfighting business is a new thing to them.

as for nanr fighters barely staying ahead of shadow ones, well in game the frazi is slower and IIRC they are trying to escape to send a warning, not actually fight so they dont fire on the shadow fighters. they ram them to slow them down to allow G'kar to escape.

 

[Banichi]

I kind of like the idea of the charged energy pulse. The vorlon' ships are meant to be living creatures, and it sort of has an organic feel to it. Almost like the zap of an electric eel. Just as an aside, I wonder how the vorlons feed their ships. Does each ship have a gaint bowl with its name on it floating through space somewhere? Also what about house/starbase training. Imagine flying through space in your starfury, and SPLAT.

 

[Greg Smith]

And with the heavy Cruiser (Armageddon level) you will struggle to kill 1-2 of your run-of-the-mill hull 6 skirmish/raid ships per turn (from experience!).

It did a pretty good job of killing my Whitestars in one go on Saturday.

 

[Alexb83]

Well, sure - but it was an Armageddon ship shooting at Raid lvls, and from what I remember it only managed to kill 2 outright in one turn and cripple one more with the backup of two destroyers

That's still an awfully large proportion of firepower that had to be dedicated to each target to guarantee a kill. Still, I did list the VHC as the one exception to the rule

 

[locarno24]

Yes.....but again, no ship should be reliably blowing others to bits in one shot unless there's a big disparity in points....otherwise there's no point in detailed rules, and we might as well give ships a svaing throw on a single d6 rather than a damage track.

its about mindset too though. the younger races use fighters for dogfighting hence the good dogfight score. perhaps the ancient races never had this problem as they only used capital ships for the most part so all this dogfighting business is a new thing to them.

If that was the case, surely they wouldn't use fighters at all?

I personally think that LDTD is both right and wrong at once (it's a zen thing, I guess. Congratulations); the Vorlons do need a viable patrol choice because - fluff aside - this is a game and it is possible to find yourself in a situation where patrol/skirmish priority are your only options.

However - if the transport is raid priority (not compulsory - it could be skirmishified for 2e) .....then no capital ship can sit below it. Arguments about 'Kosh is unusually strong' or 'refits' or whatever fall down - its a bloody shuttlecraft and has no place on the battlefield, and yet it's still kicking your cruiser's backside. There is nothing smaller.

Better fighters are a more realistic choice. There's nothing wrong with the 'design concept' of vorlon or shadow fighters; vorlon fighters with ranged AF beams and shadows with the 'spitfire' pulse are quite acceptible. But they need to be better. They're often considered dodgy for their cost, anyway.

There's no need for them to be WS fighter equivalents, or even Nial equivalents. But forming nothing more than a suicidal ablative screen seems a bit rubbish for the most advanced shipwrights in the galaxy.

as for nanr fighters barely staying ahead of shadow ones, well in game the frazi is slower and IIRC they are trying to escape to send a warning, not actually fight so they dont fire on the shadow fighters. they ram them to slow them down to allow G'kar to escape.

But in the game frazis will take shadow fighters on on pretty even terms - you don't try to ram someone you could kill by shooting and you don't leg it in a panic from someone you have a chance against; they didn't try to buy G'Kar time by dogfighting....

 

[tneva82]

What's absurd is the idea that a civilisation millions of years old can't build a light warship to cover the same roles as the younger races' light cutters and a patrol ships.

Uuuhh....Does USA build 1960 era fighters just so that they have something of equilavent power of some backward fighters? Or does it rather build some of their newer fighters...

Why would vorlons deliberatly build weak ships when they can just as well do vorlon transport which is as good as heavy cruiser of younger race. Why go around deliberatly doing weaker ship just so younger races stand a chance? Note it's not about roles really. Younger race sends light cutter to do something, Vorlon sends transport. Only difference is that the transport is bloody lot more powerfull...

Making weaker ships just so that younger races can have fighting chance against it 1 on 1 makes no sense from military nor economic sense.

 

[katadder]

Yes.....but again, no ship should be reliably blowing others to bits in one shot unless there's a big disparity in points....otherwise there's no point in detailed rules, and we might as well give ships a svaing throw on a single d6 rather than a damage track.

my adira managed to one turn kill a sharlin with just its beam and particle arrays meanwhile heavily damaging 2 teshlans and a veshetan as well.

 

[Alexb83]

I've had a vorlon transport kill an undamaged whitestar with one die before, too - there's no accounting for good rolling on crits

Normally that whitestar would tear the transport a new exhaust port...

 

[katadder]

and you had a vorlon tranny kill a dargan in one shot before too

 

[Burger]

a vorlon tranny

Brain bleach required in this thread please!!! :lol:

 

[TenaciousB]

a vorlon tranny

Brain bleach required in this thread please!!! :lol:

I too have an image of Kosh wearing fmb's and fishnets under his encounter suit :lol:

 

[Da Boss]

What's absurd is the idea that a civilisation millions of years old can't build a light warship to cover the same roles as the younger races' light cutters and a patrol ships.

Uuuhh....Does USA build 1960 era fighters just so that they have something of equilavent power of some backward fighters? Or does it rather build some of their newer fighters...

Why would vorlons deliberatly build weak ships when they can just as well do vorlon transport which is as good as heavy cruiser of younger race. Why go around deliberatly doing weaker ship just so younger races stand a chance? Note it's not about roles really. Younger race sends light cutter to do something, Vorlon sends transport. Only difference is that the transport is bloody lot more powerfull...

Making weaker ships just so that younger races can have fighting chance against it 1 on 1 makes no sense from military nor economic sense.

Can the 1960s fighter go faster than present fighters, out dogfight them and be more resiliant as well? No, well most ACTA fighters are better than Vorlon / Shadows in all of the above.................and they usually get more of them...............(I am in the main, a Centauri player)

Is the Transport as good as a heavy cruiser - hmm the Destroyer maybe (hence battle level)

The fleet selection for the First Ones is way too small - easily expanded with the excess ships around and no less cannon than the dozens of "new" ships that have been made for all the other races.

 

[tneva82]

Is the Transport as good as a heavy cruiser - hmm the Destroyer maybe (hence battle level)

Destroyer is BETTER than heavy cruiser. Hyperion is heavy cruiser and it's raid.

If destroyer would be as good as heavy cruiser then it should be on raid. Otherwise it's plain overpriced...

Transport is as good as heavy cruiser.

But making weaker ship just for sake of it isn't sensible idea in military or economically sense.

Tell me. If you can have 1 hermes or 1 vorlon transport which one would you take?

 

[Da Boss]

Is the Transport as good as a heavy cruiser - hmm the Destroyer maybe (hence battle level)

Destroyer is BETTER than heavy cruiser. Hyperion is heavy cruiser and it's raid.

If destroyer would be as good as heavy cruiser then it should be on raid. Otherwise it's plain overpriced...

Transport is as good as heavy cruiser.

But making weaker ship just for sake of it isn't sensible idea in military or economically sense.

Tell me. If you can have 1 hermes or 1 vorlon transport which one would you take?

ahh ok I sort of thought heavy Cruiser / Battlecruiser was battle - my bad Centauri thinking -

err you presently get a number of Hermes and I am not suggesting making the transport Patrol - no - I would prefer for Vorlons:
better OR more fighters at patrol, a skirmish transport , a raid option (a warship version of the transport maybe) , a couple of battle and war options including a Carrier.

Shadows - better OR more fighters at patrol, a small assault ship at skirmish, a a couple of battle and war options including a Carrier.

is 6 or 7 ships too much too ask?

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Who says the Vorlon transport is as good as a Hyperion, anyway? Where's the screen evidence for this?

 

[Alexb83]

Well, the ship which we see blast a Shadow Vessel/Ram it in Interludes and Examinations is arguably a Transport. It's got its wings folded down, but there's nothing to the CGI model to significantly differentiate it from Kosh's 'transport' aside from it being red/orange.

I'd like to see a Hyperion do that...

Then again, I'd like to see an ACTA vorlon Destroyer do that... oh wait, it can't.

And Vorlon fighters can't mess up Shadow ships close-in, either :S

 

[Lord David the Denied]

We see a ship that looks like a transport with its wings folded down blast a Shadow ship apart. What that ship actually is is anybody's guess. We see nothing to say that it's the same class of ship as Kosh's transport, or even that it's the same size.