FAP breakdowns in the new edition

[Methos5000]

And that statement scares me more than anything else about 2nd ed. (everything else other than the FAP splits I consider to be mostly right and fun in 2nd ed.)

I agree completely. (Assuming they change the White Stars back in the Fleet Book).

Indeedy, I made sure to report this as extremely unbalanced and I know the US 2nd tier playtest group did as well. It looks as though we were ignored... wonder how much of our feedback was actually acted upon!

My original post got buried in the other discussions so Ill ask it again. What changes were made to the Whitestars? (other then the one is a scout and one carries a fighter thing)

 

[Greg Smith]

My concern was that the WS, WS2, sgunship and carrier had boresights. We playtested this and found it did not work well. Matt stated that he was changing it back, but the layout copy still had boresights. I'm concerned it hasn't been forgaotten.

 

[Methos5000]

Ah yes, that would be a rather bad thing to happen for the Whitestars, canon or not, unless the boresight beams had an AD upgrade to offset the boresight or the Damage and Crew was increased to reflect the more limited maneuverablity a boresight Whitestar would have, even then I think it would limit the Whitestar to much.
The maneuverablity of the Whitestar would help it get boresights but may leave it sitting somewhere you dont want it (ie. An enemy ship that hasnt moved yet may be able to get a large front arc on the Whitestar instead of weaker side arc or something due to the Whitestar having to turn sooner to get the boresight lock...something like that)

 

[CZuschlag]

Interesting. Locally, early reports have given surprisingly positive reviews to the Boresighted Whitestar.

 

[Methos5000]

I dont necessarily feel the Whitestar should not be a boresight, I just feel if is it needs to be offset by improvements elsewhere (more AD on the beam or more crew and damage since it does lose some ability to stay out of enemy arcs in order to get the boresight lock)
If the Whitestar is boresight with no other changes then I consider it a pretty bad downgrade.

 

[CZuschlag]

Given that you can now pass a (for ISA relatively simple) CQ to CAF while turning, have Scout access in a Whitestar, the inclusion of Agile, as well as weapon upgrades (I won't disclose what), a downgrade is the LAST thing I would use to describe the Whitestar. Our original worry was that it was WAY overpowered.

 

[Methos5000]

Ah well see I knew it was gaining things like agile but so are other ships so i consider that a wash.

CAF doesnt matter for the boresight beam anymore so while it helps with the pulsars it does nothing for the beam itself.

The Scout access it good I'll give you that, but given the vulnerablity of Whitestars to fighters (not sure if this still holds true in 2nd Ed) losing the fighter on the scout Whitestar does hurt it a bit.

As far as weapon upgrades, I have never heard it mentioned before so I was unaware of them at the time of my post. When I originally asked about the changes to the Whitestars the only major change listed (other then choosing either scout or a fighter) was the beam was boresight.

Plus in my post I did state that if the Whitestars beam was made boresight with no other changes I consider it a downgrade. I still stand by that, but now I know there were more changes then just a potential boresight beam. So without knowing the other changes Ill hold off any other opinions on it until I see the complete stats.

 

[Da Boss]

There was one tourney at Wargames Workshop which had two players with 6 Sagis each, plus additional missile ships. One of them won. The other found out how effective hull 6 Centauri ships with interceptors were against a missile fleet.

Go MAXIMUS! although it helped massively that Triggy kept helping me when i forgot things!

 

[katadder]

Given that you can now pass a (for ISA relatively simple) CQ to CAF while turning, have Scout access in a Whitestar, the inclusion of Agile, as well as weapon upgrades (I won't disclose what), a downgrade is the LAST thing I would use to describe the Whitestar. Our original worry was that it was WAY overpowered.

given that all beams now hit on 4+ and you cannot CAF with them the WS needed the increase inbeam to average 1.5 hits compared to the 0.5 if had been left with 1AD.
I am in favour of boresight WSs (but not gunship/carrier) however even if its front arc its far from overpowered.

 

[Burger]

given that all beams now hit on 4+ and you cannot CAF with them the WS needed the increase inbeam to average 1.5 hits compared to the 0.5 if had been left with 1AD.

Your point is valid but your maths sucks. Per Attack Dice...

Old beam rules:
Hull 6: 0.7 hits, hull 5: 1.1333 hits, hull 4: 1.777 hits.
Old beam rules with CAF/redirect:
Hull 6: 1.05 hits, hull 5: 1.5111, hull 4: 2.07

Averaging them all gives 1.37 hits, assuming you are shooting at a variety of hulls and have a CAF or redirect 50% of the time.

New beam rules:
1 AD does 1 hit on average no matter what the hull.

So a Super AP beam requires a 37% increase in AD to stay the same power as before.

 

[Greg Smith]

Burger, the problem wasn't the overall power of the beams. It was that the single AD of the White Star meant it only had a 50% chance of getting that first shot.

You were actually likely to get more hits with the new beam, but that didn't manifest itself until after the second or third roll (depending on hull).

------
As for boresight, the problem was never lining up a shot - the White Stars were quite capable of doing that every turn. The problem was what they lined their shot up on. They could only line their laser up on something that had already moved. This meant the White Stars were chasing the patrol level ships, while the enemy's big ships were maneuvering into the White Stars' side arcs (the reverse of the way it should be).

It also meant you could never field an all-White Star fleet, since you have to initiative sink like crazy. So you would be swapping one aspect of canon (boresights) for another (capable all-WS fleets).

 

[katadder]

given that all beams now hit on 4+ and you cannot CAF with them the WS needed the increase inbeam to average 1.5 hits compared to the 0.5 if had been left with 1AD.

Your point is valid but your maths sucks. Per Attack Dice...

Old beam rules:
Hull 6: 0.7 hits, hull 5: 1.1333 hits, hull 4: 1.777 hits.
Old beam rules with CAF/redirect:
Hull 6: 1.05 hits, hull 5: 1.5111, hull 4: 2.07

Averaging them all gives 1.37 hits, assuming you are shooting at a variety of hulls and have a CAF or redirect 50% of the time.

New beam rules:
1 AD does 1 hit on average no matter what the hull.

So a Super AP beam requires a 37% increase in AD to stay the same power as before.

how against hull 6 in the old rules with a SAP beam can you get 0.7 hits? 4+ to hit is 50% of the dice therefore a 50% hit. on 1AD thats pretty easy to work out. maybe once you get that 1st hit but the 1st hit is only 50% and thats the real problem with whitestars.

new beam rules - 1AD does one hit on average? now 1AD does again 50% chance of a hit. however over a turn a 6AD beam does generally get 6 hits which is your 1AD does one hit but thats down to more rolls after the 1st.
a WS with 1AD beam using 2e rules would only hit 50% of the time not an average of one hit at all.

 

[Burger]

You're talking about the first hit. I'm talking about the average total hits.

Old beam rules SAP against hull 6, first hit is 1/2. 3rd hit is 1/3 assuming you got the 1st hit. 3rd and subsequent hits are 1/6 assuming you got all the others so far.

My figures are correct for the total average hits.


New beam rules, average hits is the sum of the converging sequence 1/(2^n), the sum of that sequence tends to 1.

 

[katadder]

yes yours are right assuming you get the 1st hit every time. but as thats 50/50 that throws all average hits out the window.

 

[Burger]

Now you're just not reading. I said 1/2 chance of getting first hit which equals 50%.

My figures are the total average hits and they are correct. Believe me, I know maths.

 

[katadder]

but you still have the problem of getting that 1st hit which will always be 50/50. so 50% chance you get 0 hits. which most experienced WS players know this actually works out to 90% beam atatcks miss

 

[Burger]

but you still have the problem of getting that 1st hit which will always be 50/50. so 50% chance you get 0 hits. which most experienced WS players know this actually works out to 90% beam atatcks miss

All beam attacks miss... eventually... because you keep re-rolling until they miss. Yes you have a 50% chance of getting 0 hits.

1 or more hits: 1/2 chance
2 or more hits: 1/4 chance
3 or more hits: 1/8 chance
4 or more hits: 1/16 chance
5 or more hits: 1/32 chance
6 or more hits: 1/64 chance
7 or more hits: 1/128 chance

Add them up what do you get... 1. So 1AD you will get an average of 1 hit.

 

[katadder]

I know where you coming from really i do and in pure maths that works, but you cant average it as always get one hit with 2e beams because of that. as its 50/50 to start with you wont get the other numbers to add upto your one if the original misses.

 

[Burger]

I am taking that into account. Nowhere am I saying you'll always get 1 hit. What I am saying is the average hits you'll get is 1. AVERAGE. Not ALWAYS.

 

[katadder]

average over how long? if its average in one turn then you are saying always. if its over 4 turns thats quite poor going.