Critical Damage.

[Lone Gunman]

Perhaps it would be sufficient to leave the crit table as it is and make it 2d6 instead of 1?

 

[Iain McGhee]

we believe it was a CG goof, there is no conclusive evidence AFAIK Triggy. Just like the lasers from the opening scene of "Severed Dreams"

Not sure about the Vorchan, but The Great Maker himself pointed out the error in "Severed Dreams" on one of the DVD voice-overs. Think it was one of the "making of" ones rather than the episode itself, but it's certainly mentioned somewhere.


As for Critical Hits, I think they're best left alone as is. With the revised All Hands On Deck and Close Blast Doors SAs it's much less likely that a ship will be made useless with a few bad critical results (other than vital systems, but that's as it should be). They're even less critical( ) in campaigns as ships can always use XP dice to reroll any 6s (or at least the critical table result on vitals).

Reducing their effect would likely make fighters much less effective too, which might well throw off the balancing for races that make heavy use of them.

They do make small ships as much of a threat as larger ones (a pair of Olympus frigates knocked out the bridge, engineering and interceptors of one of my Tashkats with multi warhead missiles over 4 turns in a recent game, effectively forcing it to disengage) but it does make for a more exciting and unpredictable game and I think there is enough evidence in Babylon 5 of large ships taking critical-type damage from fighters and starships for it to be left as is.

As always, all IMNSHO :wink:

 

[Triggy]

Just to remind people, that was a CG goof - it was meant to be a Primus coming out of hyperspace and destroying the G'Quan in a single salvo, not a Vorchan.

we believe it was a CG goof, there is no conclusive evidence AFAIK Triggy. Just like the lasers from the opening scene of "Severed Dreams"

It was said by JMS on one of the old bulletin boards. However I have no link now to back it up

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Personally I'd rather see ACtA move to a more BFG-like critical and damage system. Ships in BFG have far, far fewer hits than in ACtA, and you can relibaly destroy a ship without getting any criticals in a couple of turns of firing, if you concentrate two or three ships of the same class on it. Two-three cruisers can kill a cruiser in one or two turns of firing, for instance. Critical hits add some spice but don't happen that often and you don't rely on them to kill anything.

 

[Court Jester]

But haven't you heard... criticals make the game "exciting" and "fun"...

Although probably only for one player.

 

[emperorpenguin]

Personally I'd rather see ACtA move to a more BFG-like critical and damage system. Ships in BFG have far, far fewer hits than in ACtA, and you can relibaly destroy a ship without getting any criticals in a couple of turns of firing, if you concentrate two or three ships of the same class on it. Two-three cruisers can kill a cruiser in one or two turns of firing, for instance. Critical hits add some spice but don't happen that often and you don't rely on them to kill anything.

Personally (and this may sound odd coming from a playtester) but I don't think the damage in the game reflects the show very well. Games turn into long slugging matches whereas most on-screen fights are quick and bloody affairs. I'd like to see changes myself.

 

[Ripple]

Quick and bloody would be great, I just hate the way it is now, who rolls the good crits wins.

Ripple