Crews
- Thread starter tlee33
- Start date
LimeyDragon
Banded Mongoose
tlee33 said:
Yep, in campaign play. Veteran players start with a 3 newbies a 4..
Yes, for variety.
Certain scenarios I select crew ratings of different levels relevant for the game as a preset thing - for instance I ran a game where some of the Klingon ships were supposed to be J types (penal ships), and for that I simply lowered the crew quality to 3. Equally I did the same in another game for those ships that were designated Fed police vessels when the Starfleet reinforcements were CQ4.
I have also operated games where in a then the admiral/player can take a CQ ship of 5 for taking 2 of CQ3.
We routinely make use of the random crew method. For balanced play - the smaller fleet rolls as many dice as it has ships and assigns a dice value to each of their ships. A number of ships in the larger fleet use the same dice values in the same way assigning them to a number of vessels in their fleet. Vessels in the opposing fleet that are excess to that number are simply given CQ4 or CQ3 (3 if the dice rolls are below average and 4 if the rolls are above average).
It provides a number of variables - and yes Enhanced bridge can be used to haul a CQ1-3 roll up to normal. It was done once by one player but made little difference - the other side put their 1 on police cutter and only did specials that were automatic. Although i have occasionally use some metric to avoid the worst abuses (eg flagship must take the highest dice roll - preventing the use of enhanced bridge on the flag allowing both the use of that trait to cover a 1 and pass a 6 to another cruiser - also I did one game where I allowed the smaller fleet to pick which opposing vessel other than the flagship were automatically valued etc)
Certain scenarios I select crew ratings of different levels relevant for the game as a preset thing - for instance I ran a game where some of the Klingon ships were supposed to be J types (penal ships), and for that I simply lowered the crew quality to 3. Equally I did the same in another game for those ships that were designated Fed police vessels when the Starfleet reinforcements were CQ4.
I have also operated games where in a then the admiral/player can take a CQ ship of 5 for taking 2 of CQ3.
We routinely make use of the random crew method. For balanced play - the smaller fleet rolls as many dice as it has ships and assigns a dice value to each of their ships. A number of ships in the larger fleet use the same dice values in the same way assigning them to a number of vessels in their fleet. Vessels in the opposing fleet that are excess to that number are simply given CQ4 or CQ3 (3 if the dice rolls are below average and 4 if the rolls are above average).
It provides a number of variables - and yes Enhanced bridge can be used to haul a CQ1-3 roll up to normal. It was done once by one player but made little difference - the other side put their 1 on police cutter and only did specials that were automatic. Although i have occasionally use some metric to avoid the worst abuses (eg flagship must take the highest dice roll - preventing the use of enhanced bridge on the flag allowing both the use of that trait to cover a 1 and pass a 6 to another cruiser - also I did one game where I allowed the smaller fleet to pick which opposing vessel other than the flagship were automatically valued etc)
I've used them as I think they add some fun to the game, although I'd consider changing 7 on the chart to Military as a general rule.
I don't worry about the points that a difference in crew quality would make. The guys I play with are just not that worried about min/maxing that much.
Great fun in campaign games...
I don't worry about the points that a difference in crew quality would make. The guys I play with are just not that worried about min/maxing that much.
Great fun in campaign games...
billclo said:
That would be a useful addtion. Isnt there a crew experience thing in the campaign set.
For most of the game I have run they have been set scenarios, rather than simple pickup games. So that gives me more leeway to throw options like this into the mix. The other options I have had are either player choice driven, or aim to provide a balance between fleets to avoid the need to points cost it.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
LimeyDragon said:
Would your veterans be suffering from shell shock then as they are worse than the guys and girls (and others things) fresh out of training :lol:
Myrm said:
I don't use the campaign rules. Nor do many ships survive the scenario to accumulate experience towards higher crew quality it seems.
My games have been the opposite; pick up games. Due to the method I use to generate ship record sheets, I do them up in advance, making sheets of 3 ships (squadrons) that can be assembled into forces. Mostly I have done large forces of X point values, of "old" style ships and "New/War hull" ships.
So having some way to use up some surplus points or even up forces would be rather handy. I have no real way to estimate how much extra a crew quality of say 5 would cost. Something like X percentage of base hull cost is preferable.
Iain McGhee
Mongoose
I'd suggest few ships survive your games because there's no need to preserve them beyond that 
In campaign play I've found that there's more of a tendency to disengage ships if they're in danger of being crippled or destroyed, or when you don't still have a reasonable chance of winning, rather than fight on to the bitter end. CQ and ship experience plays into that too, as it's less likely you'll want to sacrifice a ship with several refits and/or a well-trained crew.
As for random CQ outside of campaign play, can't say that I've used it (nor ever in years of playing B5:ACTA for that matter). I'd agree it would be useful to have the option of adjusting a ship's points by altering it for pick-up games.
In campaign play I've found that there's more of a tendency to disengage ships if they're in danger of being crippled or destroyed, or when you don't still have a reasonable chance of winning, rather than fight on to the bitter end. CQ and ship experience plays into that too, as it's less likely you'll want to sacrifice a ship with several refits and/or a well-trained crew.
As for random CQ outside of campaign play, can't say that I've used it (nor ever in years of playing B5:ACTA for that matter). I'd agree it would be useful to have the option of adjusting a ship's points by altering it for pick-up games.
Another option is to allow both sides to have the same fixed CQ's. In a small game, each side is allowed one Veteran. In a larger game, each side has an Elite, a Veteran and a Green. Of course, the better crews will go to the big ships while the Greens end up on expendable little frigates.
One format which was suggested some time ago for B5:ACTA was a sort of mini-campaign. You don't bother with strategic targets or full fleet lists. Instead, you play a series of games of escalating value. Anything which survives the first game earns XP and can upgrade in the usual manner, then form part of your fleet in the next, larger game. This gives you some incentive to preserve ships without all the preliminary paperwork of a normal campaign.
One format which was suggested some time ago for B5:ACTA was a sort of mini-campaign. You don't bother with strategic targets or full fleet lists. Instead, you play a series of games of escalating value. Anything which survives the first game earns XP and can upgrade in the usual manner, then form part of your fleet in the next, larger game. This gives you some incentive to preserve ships without all the preliminary paperwork of a normal campaign.
We've got a three player campaign going on, using the variable crew quality rankings.
They provide some interesting "in game" and out of game effects.
Out of game, you find yourself considering the crew qualities of individual ships when creating your fleets. And depending on which opponent you're facing, you might choose a slightly inferior ship with a better crew rather than vise-versa.
In game, you tend to double-think your selection of Special Actions based on what the crew quality is...
And since it is a campaign, there are no fights to the death - disengagement and survivablity is an overwhelming factor. Surviving ships with low QC scores usually try to improve them as quiclkly as possible.
They provide some interesting "in game" and out of game effects.
Out of game, you find yourself considering the crew qualities of individual ships when creating your fleets. And depending on which opponent you're facing, you might choose a slightly inferior ship with a better crew rather than vise-versa.
In game, you tend to double-think your selection of Special Actions based on what the crew quality is...
And since it is a campaign, there are no fights to the death - disengagement and survivablity is an overwhelming factor. Surviving ships with low QC scores usually try to improve them as quiclkly as possible.
In our last pick up game I had the players roll for slight adjustments in crew quality. A one dropped the crew to 3 and a six upped the rating to 5. It had a noticeable effect on certain special actions as well as greatly increasing the willingness to attempt transit of asteroid fields.
scoutdad said:
I saw all of those things in my recent campaign as well. The difference in special actions was interesting. I found a lot of smaller ships with better crews choosing Take Evasive Action if they didn't need to go far over Boost Energy to Shields. The shield boost would only give one die, so even if you rolled well, that one die was gone soon in a concerted attack, whereas the TEA could provide constant help, especially against seekers where the small ships defenses were easily overwhelmed. Ships with cruddy crews just went with BES as some help was better than nothing.
Crew quality also makes a huge difference in surviving the criticals, again especially for small vessels. The extra 1 or 2 damage for going to level 2 or 3 was not a huge deal to a heavy cruiser, but is a huge deal to a 12 / 4 destroyer. Keeping the crit levels low allowed these guys to escape.
I poured every available XP into improving crew until the crews got to veteran, at which point stockpiling re-rolls or going for refits started to be more cost effective.
We added a couple of tweaks to MWN in order to make disengaging a little easier and allow a few more ships to get away and build up crew skills
