Earth/Centauri War fanmade scenario pack
- Thread starter katadder
- Start date
it's a hard life writing and balancing ships 
luckily, juyaie didn't get too slated!
personally, I see where some points are valid, and some less so, I'd alrwady made my coments pre release anyway, so not going to repeat anything here.
The key point is, it's easy to spot problems in someone else's ship designs, but when you are actually writing/designing them, your view can get clouded by what specifically you are trying to achieve. it's hard to be objective, when you are pretty darn sure you are right
luckily, juyaie didn't get too slated!
personally, I see where some points are valid, and some less so, I'd alrwady made my coments pre release anyway, so not going to repeat anything here.
The key point is, it's easy to spot problems in someone else's ship designs, but when you are actually writing/designing them, your view can get clouded by what specifically you are trying to achieve. it's hard to be objective, when you are pretty darn sure you are right
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Should the G'kar really have triple damage Ion Torpedoes?
sooo truehiffano said:it's a hard life writing and balancing ships
luckily, juyaie didn't get too slated!
personally, I see where some points are valid, and some less so, I'd alrwady made my coments pre release anyway, so not going to repeat anything here.
The key point is, it's easy to spot problems in someone else's ship designs, but when you are actually writing/designing them, your view can get clouded by what specifically you are trying to achieve. it's hard to be objective, when you are pretty darn sure you are right
Absolutely, it's why I tried not to sound too negative.
Too many player made things getting too strong led a lot of SFB groups to ban player made stuff all together. Just don't want to see that kind of thing happen.
So thought I'd push the point that you should never replace an already made ship, or fill a hole in a fleet that has already been compensated for. You want to provide interesting alternatives. Using the Juyaie examples from the abbai, the Milaie (there is some concern over total defenses here) is completely different from the Bimith in role, without replacing anything. The Bimith I proposed would have a hard time competing with a Lakara as a beam platform, and fills a different role at the battle pl. The Chronus Missile ship would be great if it didn't have the special rule as you would trade range, rate of fire and crits for the raw damage and every turn fire. Sniper and brawler.
Anyway, just agreeing its very very hard to make all these great supplements, and tough to balance your fluff with your stats.
Ripple
Too many player made things getting too strong led a lot of SFB groups to ban player made stuff all together. Just don't want to see that kind of thing happen.
So thought I'd push the point that you should never replace an already made ship, or fill a hole in a fleet that has already been compensated for. You want to provide interesting alternatives. Using the Juyaie examples from the abbai, the Milaie (there is some concern over total defenses here) is completely different from the Bimith in role, without replacing anything. The Bimith I proposed would have a hard time competing with a Lakara as a beam platform, and fills a different role at the battle pl. The Chronus Missile ship would be great if it didn't have the special rule as you would trade range, rate of fire and crits for the raw damage and every turn fire. Sniper and brawler.
Anyway, just agreeing its very very hard to make all these great supplements, and tough to balance your fluff with your stats.
Ripple
Ripple said:
its actual firepower is not much more than a xill, the GEG makes up for the xills extra damage. the xill can go SM so in a fight between the 2 the vorchar does have to be careful when losing init.
Ripple said:
Balvar has slightly more firepower than 2 balvarins at 2 levels higher so you can get 4 balvarins for the cost of a balvar. or for around 4 raid pts you can get 2 balvarins loaded with rutarians plus 8 more rutarians for the firepower differnace. this is what it was balanced against more than the posiedon.
Aquila is more like a centauri teshlan, damag wise its a hard choice between 2 of these and the dargan. smaller profile makes more stealthy tooRipple said:
it was stealth 4 originally but stealth 5 just seemed right.possibly true but it does lose 8 pulse dice to gain only 4 AF dice. added in with no other weapons it cannot fire at all when on close blast doors which i see alot from my EA players chronos (almost every turn)Ripple said:
well the choice here of course is 5" more range single damage/precise versus DD. thats a choice available. to me it seems ok, to others maybe not.Ripple said:
but you feel it would be better as slow loading? if so would range 30 balance that back out? what do others think on this?
this was more or less based off hiffanos charybdis cruiser stats. think i gae it 2 more damage as 22 seemed too low for raid level. i did say to hiff the firepower was too great but no one had a problem with his so i went with itRipple said:
its more based off the var'nic hull. especially if you look at the counter. more damage would have been a bit much with the adv mag gun, command and its manouvrability.Ripple said:
oops typo on the torps. narn ion torps are obviously single damage and thats what this is being returned to in updated PDF.Ripple said:
Ripple said:
fair enough, people have their own views on things and i asked for what people though. i have added my own comments/reasons on why things are the way they are. maybe shed some light on things.
TBH the only really overpowered ship in there IMO is the Valerius. but thats cos i went for small adira rather than looking at octurion stats.
To be fair as well the Valerius replaces the Octurion in the fleet list so its not a choice anymore - is it too much - I don't know. As was mentioned to me recently its very difficult to make a "advanced" ship without going up a PL.
Many of my ships in Darkness Rising have gone up and down in power thanks to suggestions - wierdly several I thought were too good have been shown to me as lacking !
All in all I thought the Earth Centauri war was most enjoyable read - which I presume is the point of it ?
Be interesting to know what the other races were doing at the time - the Drazi and the Minbari with the more warlike attitude and trying to stay ahead respectivly.
Another cool thing might have a been a couple of Unique personalities (not sure if the titian counts? )
Many of my ships in Darkness Rising have gone up and down in power thanks to suggestions - wierdly several I thought were too good have been shown to me as lacking !
All in all I thought the Earth Centauri war was most enjoyable read - which I presume is the point of it ?
Be interesting to know what the other races were doing at the time - the Drazi and the Minbari with the more warlike attitude and trying to stay ahead respectivly.
Another cool thing might have a been a couple of Unique personalities (not sure if the titian counts?
)Thanks for the responses Katadder.
I can see where you were approaching the thing from, but scaling up or down a ship concept still needs to be checked against the other ships at that level. Sometimes the concept itself is why it went up a level. ie front arc beams rather than boresight on your battle pl ship could bump you up right there.
One concept I've seen in a number of discussion is the idea of total AD being given up rather than AD in an arc, or two. Maybe it's the local play style but we work very hard to not let anyone get more than two arcs in play and usually succeed. So we don't tend to count total AD, we count AD we think will be in play on any one turn.
That could also be why our group feels differently than the playtest crowd about a lot of single arc ships. To our way of thinking, single arc is a penalty due to crits, or if you are hard to maneuver, otherwise it's not even a factor. By the time we see ships in the middle of the enemy the fight is usually effectively over. That could be our SFB battle pass training.
Ripple
I can see where you were approaching the thing from, but scaling up or down a ship concept still needs to be checked against the other ships at that level. Sometimes the concept itself is why it went up a level. ie front arc beams rather than boresight on your battle pl ship could bump you up right there.
One concept I've seen in a number of discussion is the idea of total AD being given up rather than AD in an arc, or two. Maybe it's the local play style but we work very hard to not let anyone get more than two arcs in play and usually succeed. So we don't tend to count total AD, we count AD we think will be in play on any one turn.
That could also be why our group feels differently than the playtest crowd about a lot of single arc ships. To our way of thinking, single arc is a penalty due to crits, or if you are hard to maneuver, otherwise it's not even a factor. By the time we see ships in the middle of the enemy the fight is usually effectively over. That could be our SFB battle pass training.
Ripple
Da Boss said:To be fair as well the Valerius replaces the Octurion in the fleet list so its not a choice anymore - is it too much - I don't know. As was mentioned to me recently its very difficult to make a "advanced" ship without going up a PL.
Many of my ships in Darkness Rising have gone up and down in power thanks to suggestions - wierdly several I thought were too good have been shown to me as lacking !
All in all I thought the Earth Centauri war was most enjoyable read - which I presume is the point of it ?
Be interesting to know what the other races were doing at the time - the Drazi and the Minbari with the more warlike attitude and trying to stay ahead respectivly.
Another cool thing might have a been a couple of Unique personalities (not sure if the titian counts?
glad you liked it. i guess could have done some personalities but would have been from scratch as most the ones we know and love would be too old or dead (thought perhaps susan ivanova obviously as commander of Titans but how old would she be in 2301?).
drazi were busy fighting the border wars instigated by the centauri in scenario 1 which also tied up the ISA.D
minbari probably had their own internal problems.
Have played through the first couple of scenario's now and both were a total white wash.
Due to the speed of the transports the first scenario is pretty much impossible for the brakiri to win
In the second mission the Earth Force player was left with 1 undamaged Warlock at the end of turn 1 everything else was dead. Admittedly the Centauri player was lucky. That said with the forces the way they are the game is pretty much a given that the Centauri will win.
As neither game has any ramifications for the rest of the campaign it’s odd to have the first two games pitched so heavily in 1 sides favour as it means that the non Centauri player is left playing 2 games where they’re vastly outnumbered/classed and don’t even have achievable victory conditions or the chance to make a difference in later games.
If the games could either be better balanced or else be given achievable objectives I think they’d work better.
We’re currently looking at finding time to actually play the 3rd scenario, but due to its size it might take a week or so to sort out. I’ll let you know more once we’ve played it.
Ships wise they all seem pretty balanced.
Really like the Chronos varients. So much so that we’re seriously thinking with making them a permanent addition in all our games.
The Darkener one is ok. The 2 Centauri war choices seem ever so slightly too hard (a few less dice on the secondries maybe), but almost comparable to the likes of Warlock’s and G’vrahns.
Really like the Narn ships (now that the G’Kar hasn’t the Triple Damage torpedoes anyway).
I’ll give you more thoughts when we’ve played with them a bit more.
Due to the speed of the transports the first scenario is pretty much impossible for the brakiri to win
In the second mission the Earth Force player was left with 1 undamaged Warlock at the end of turn 1 everything else was dead. Admittedly the Centauri player was lucky. That said with the forces the way they are the game is pretty much a given that the Centauri will win.
As neither game has any ramifications for the rest of the campaign it’s odd to have the first two games pitched so heavily in 1 sides favour as it means that the non Centauri player is left playing 2 games where they’re vastly outnumbered/classed and don’t even have achievable victory conditions or the chance to make a difference in later games.
If the games could either be better balanced or else be given achievable objectives I think they’d work better.
We’re currently looking at finding time to actually play the 3rd scenario, but due to its size it might take a week or so to sort out. I’ll let you know more once we’ve played it.
Ships wise they all seem pretty balanced.
Really like the Chronos varients. So much so that we’re seriously thinking with making them a permanent addition in all our games.
The Darkener one is ok. The 2 Centauri war choices seem ever so slightly too hard (a few less dice on the secondries maybe), but almost comparable to the likes of Warlock’s and G’vrahns.
Really like the Narn ships (now that the G’Kar hasn’t the Triple Damage torpedoes anyway).
I’ll give you more thoughts when we’ve played with them a bit more.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
katadder said:
Old, besides, she left EarthForce circa 2281 to become leader of the Rangers.
LBH
you will find the scenarios are skewed towards one side or another but thats the thing with this pack. the idea for the league/EA players is to see how well they can do. then swap sides and let your opponent see how well they can do.
hell if you can get a win as either the league or EA in the 1st 2 scenarios then really well done. the brakiri transports are tough though even if slow, much better to have than actual civilian ships
scenario 3 you will find is in the centauris favour, but unless he does really well here he will have a seriously hard time in scenario 4.
just a bit of fun here, its more about that and possible bragging rights if you do swap sides and do alot better
hell if you can get a win as either the league or EA in the 1st 2 scenarios then really well done. the brakiri transports are tough though even if slow, much better to have than actual civilian ships
scenario 3 you will find is in the centauris favour, but unless he does really well here he will have a seriously hard time in scenario 4.
just a bit of fun here, its more about that and possible bragging rights if you do swap sides and do alot better
Greg Smith
Mongoose
katadder said:
71. According to the timeline.
Take your point but it's work better if they could have a achievable goal or be a little balanced. I was the Centauri player and I thought it too heavily tilted in my favour to give the other guy much of chance. and as the game ended on turn 1 with him having 1 ship left and not all of mine having even fired I dunno while it could be all tactical genius/luck still seems a bit too much of a foregone conclusion to be a great scenario.
Especially as part of a campaign, when you could give the earth force fleet a target number of turns to hold out for to try and so that they could get additional reserves for the next game.
That said designing scenario's is really tricky, especially balanced ones that's why straight out fights are so popular.
Especially as part of a campaign, when you could give the earth force fleet a target number of turns to hold out for to try and so that they could get additional reserves for the next game.
That said designing scenario's is really tricky, especially balanced ones that's why straight out fights are so popular.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
Greg Smith said:
I knew you'd know that. My old PC B5 screensaver pegs her at 30
The photo of Garibaldi on the same thing has him with hair I'd judge to be Season 2 or early 3 (EA uniform), Sheridan is also in there so pegs it at Season 2 or 3 (EA uniform again) No Marcus which pegs it at Season 2.
That pretty much ballparks with being 71 in 2301 or at least part of it.
LBH
Ok played through scenario 3.
Well not all the through scenario 3. The first turn took us four and a half hours.
The sheer scale of it a little daunting, that said it was a lot of fun and it makes sense as it does effectively represent Earth forces last stand (although based on what you see in the show it should actually be based at Earth…)
The marathon first turn was pretty apocalyptic Centauri lost about 5 points of raid and took quite a bit of damage on lots of ships. Earth were resounding kicked and lost most of their fleet. 4 Omegas and 2 posidions and some fighters left.
While we didn’t get beyond turn 2 there wasn’t much left for EA to fight back with.
Means the Narn have a hell of a lot of Centauri to kill but it’ll be interesting to see.
This scenario despite being a wipe out felt a bit better than the previous 2 as while the Earth player was doomed at least there was a point to it.
Looking at the new ships a bit more.
The Vorchar is scary but killable and worked out about right made a good addition to the centauri fleet and seemed to be balanced.
Amar is also fine and balanced.
Aquila is a bit of a weak jack of all trades but it seems balanced enough.
The Valerius is just a bit too hard especially if you compare it to the Adira or to be honest most other war ships. I think if it lost a couple of dice off most of the gun batteries it’d be about right though.
Balvar carrier seems pretty balanced although the fighters didn’t get too much of a chance to shine in this game, they might be a little too hard in other’s again I’ll update as we play more.
Chronos Escort Frigate was awesome fills a decent gap in the fleet list and is really nicely balanced.
Zeus class frigate I thought was way too hard, but the game proved otherwise. I do think it should lose it’s rear rail guns though.
The EAS Titan was pretty good and seemed about right, it didn’t do it’s level in damage and got kicked but in a game this size when it’s the number 1 target I think that was a given.
Be interested to see how the Narn fare, again I’ll let you know once we get to play.
Well not all the through scenario 3. The first turn took us four and a half hours.
The sheer scale of it a little daunting, that said it was a lot of fun and it makes sense as it does effectively represent Earth forces last stand (although based on what you see in the show it should actually be based at Earth…)
The marathon first turn was pretty apocalyptic Centauri lost about 5 points of raid and took quite a bit of damage on lots of ships. Earth were resounding kicked and lost most of their fleet. 4 Omegas and 2 posidions and some fighters left.
While we didn’t get beyond turn 2 there wasn’t much left for EA to fight back with.
Means the Narn have a hell of a lot of Centauri to kill but it’ll be interesting to see.
This scenario despite being a wipe out felt a bit better than the previous 2 as while the Earth player was doomed at least there was a point to it.
Looking at the new ships a bit more.
The Vorchar is scary but killable and worked out about right made a good addition to the centauri fleet and seemed to be balanced.
Amar is also fine and balanced.
Aquila is a bit of a weak jack of all trades but it seems balanced enough.
The Valerius is just a bit too hard especially if you compare it to the Adira or to be honest most other war ships. I think if it lost a couple of dice off most of the gun batteries it’d be about right though.
Balvar carrier seems pretty balanced although the fighters didn’t get too much of a chance to shine in this game, they might be a little too hard in other’s again I’ll update as we play more.
Chronos Escort Frigate was awesome fills a decent gap in the fleet list and is really nicely balanced.
Zeus class frigate I thought was way too hard, but the game proved otherwise. I do think it should lose it’s rear rail guns though.
The EAS Titan was pretty good and seemed about right, it didn’t do it’s level in damage and got kicked but in a game this size when it’s the number 1 target I think that was a given.
Be interested to see how the Narn fare, again I’ll let you know once we get to play.
