Dawn of a new Age of forumkind....

[Admiral Phlop]

I was able to play my first game Friday evening with my Drakh against the Narn. Most all my ships have beams and in this particular game did not have an inordinate amount of hits. If I rolled 4 die on the first roll it seems that about half of my die were hits. On the second rolls might get 1 or 2 more hits. We were very pleased with the results. May change as we play more games. As of right now every thing is good. The Narn did roll once where his ship with beams completely missed. What is wrong with a game needing some luck. Any time you roll die it is luck, just depending on the odds. Any way our group so far is pleased.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Demos - Basically very similar to a Vorchan but has an Interceptor as well

The Demos is exactly what we see on scree. We see a squadron of them shoot down Drazi missiles with their ion cannons, then shoot their own missiles back, then use their ion cannons to attack the Drazi. A Vorchan with no plasma accelerator, interceptors and missiles. Perhaps the ion cannons could drop to 8AD, since we have no reason to assume the Demos has more powerful ion cannon mounts than the Vorchan, but that's the only reasonable change I can see.

 

[Target]

Demos - Basically very similar to a Vorchan but has an Interceptor as well

The Demos is exactly what we see on scree. We see a squadron of them shoot down Drazi missiles with their ion cannons, then shoot their own missiles back, then use their ion cannons to attack the Drazi. A Vorchan with no plasma accelerator, interceptors and missiles. Perhaps the ion cannons could drop to 8AD, since we have no reason to assume the Demos has more powerful ion cannon mounts than the Vorchan, but that's the only reasonable change I can see.

I agree, it does seem a little odd. 10 AD is a little much. The Plasma excelerator is a pretty good swap for the Torps.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

I don't have a problem with the way beams work. Also don't see much real benefit of a Demos over a Vorchan. Both are good. I intend to use squadrons of 2 vorchans and 1 demos...

K

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Both are useful, as you say. Vorchan levels a hail of fire every turn, but the Demos has some stand-off power and active defences. It pays for this with reduced firepower every other turn. A trade-off that doesn't negate the original design.

 

[Da Boss]

Both are useful, as you say. Vorchan levels a hail of fire every turn, but the Demos has some stand-off power and active defences. It pays for this with reduced firepower every other turn. A trade-off that doesn't negate the original design.

Helps if you close blast doors while reloading

 

[Triggy]

Demos - Basically very similar to a Vorchan but has an Interceptor as well

The Demos is exactly what we see on scree. We see a squadron of them shoot down Drazi missiles with their ion cannons, then shoot their own missiles back, then use their ion cannons to attack the Drazi. A Vorchan with no plasma accelerator, interceptors and missiles. Perhaps the ion cannons could drop to 8AD, since we have no reason to assume the Demos has more powerful ion cannon mounts than the Vorchan, but that's the only reasonable change I can see.

Indeed

 

[Lord David the Denied]

So why wasn't this nobbled in playtesting? You guys drop the ball again? :wink:

 

[animus]

So why wasn't this noblled in playtesting? You guys drop the ball again? :wink:

:lol: :lol: ROTFL :lol: :lol:

 

[emperorpenguin]

It has no comparison to the show. It's pure and utter randomness.

yes it's called a dice roll, they're intrinsically random you know....

 

[Ripple]

Actually most die rolls used in games are not 'pure and utter' randomness, intrinsically or otherwise.

To use a real world example, beams right now are like a block of tnt, except you don't know whether it will barely burn your skin or light the atmosphere on fire like they feared nukes would do. It's not randomness that is itself being attacked...its the scale of it. I agree from a fluff perspective it's nice that a shadow ship can cut a G'Quan in half...and heartily disppointing that a race that never missed can have hard time even finding the G'Quan with a ten foot beam of light. Compromise no matter how you go to make a game playable and true to fluff.

Back a bit to some of what Davesaint has said and the responses.

A lot of us here in the chicago region find ourselves thinking just what katadder does. Those folks across the water must not have the faintest clue what you can do with some of these ships. They must simply be using them wrong to have gotten to this abysmal state. We just tend to ask 'how is this supposed to work' before we say so.

Which is not to say we're not overreacting to some ships, or 'not getting the new vibe' in some ways. We found that winning on victory points even though we've lost ever single ship on the table to be a 'flaw' not a feature. Particularly since some games have no time limit.

I played a couple of games with a guy to demo it. He asked in the third game to stop playing nice and show me the flaws with the system. I shrugged and threw my ships into suicide runs knowing I'd likely crit my way to at least a break even fight. I did...I pulled out a 6-6 in the end with a triple damage gun and destroyed his biggest ship. I ended the game with one cripple left and he had nothing. I'd done little but charge, he'd maneuvered and planned and struggled.

I said that's the biggest issue right now. With the damage to defense curve in the game you can just go balls in with some fleets and win, no strategy need apply. He still likes the game, which is good, but he agrees its a flaw and we sort of have to agree to play a certain way for it to be fun.

I'll save specific complaints on races and ships for other discussions (what did you do to my abbai!)

Ripple

 

[Sulfurdown]

Also, I really, really dont get the Drakh issue. NOTHING has changed for them with regards to their anti fighter ability or the damage they can take from them. If they were complaining about the increased numbers of fighters maybe. As has been said before at least they get a defence against the longer ranged missiles of the thunderbolts and their like.

No, nothing really changed for them except the introduction of a few new cruiser-type ships and the upgrade in Huge Hangars to allow additional ship classes as storage. Yes the bump in the Raiders to Agile is a boon but there are a LOT of ships out there that got that same boost (Vorchan).

But that increase in the fighter focus was dramatic for 2E and the 'minor' threat of criticals are what can take down fleets left and right if applied. The ability of fighters to be sent into combat from a Carrier which doesn't participate in the combat (a definite improvement) and the Carrier's ability to replenish fighter supplies brings fighters to the front of my thought processes, especially after seeing how effective they can be under the right situation and that they can win scenarios now. But beyond that the sheer numbers of fighters has gone up (again - something I like). A large number of the carriers either got more flights or moved down in Priority level or both. The creation of new carriers like the Cidikar and the Gaim faction... well, 24 flights at raid level off of a carrier even though they are relatively weak fighters is impressive. The flights per patrol for Delta-V,Delta-V2, Double-V, Falkosi, Flyer, Frazi, Kotha, Nial, Sky Serpent, Star Snake, Thorun, SF-Aurora, SF-Thunderbolt SF-Tiger, WSF. The creation of Klikkita, Pikatos, Riva, Shadowfury, Shial, SF-Badger, SF-Black Omega, SF-Firebolt, SF-Tiger*, Zorth

2E seems to be big into fighters! Which is what will comparatively hurt those fleets with no AF defense like the Drakh/Shadows and to some degree the Vorlons. I'm still in favor of more fighters, the possibilities have been increased *overall* and I am glad that the Shadows and Drakh didn't get a jury-rigged defense that the Vorlons did through their Charged Pulse > AAF trait. But those dark factions are the ones that I always preferred and those are the ones that got the Random over Tactics and didn't get the AF defenses especially with the 'rebalancing' of the Priority level breakdown to allow dramatically more low level ships at higher level games.

Edit: I may or may not be one of those who sound like I'm missing my "I Win Button". But I never ran into a situation where my fleets automatically had an advantage in 1E, in fact I lost as many as I won (not to say I didn't have my balance complaints). Whether that's due to the skill of my opponents or my own ineptitude or an honest evaluation of my style and the fleets, I don't know. Any debate I've been in I'm hoping for the result to be a slight adjustment so there isn't a swing from either underpower to superpower nor the opposite. I also am hoping for all fleets to be relatively equal in effectiveness at any engagement so there isn't a glorified R-P-S going on. I also enjoy a good debate.

 

[djshire]

Cliffs? :lol: