FAP breakdowns in the new edition

[Burger]

but as has been said this can be spread over numerous games. pure maths just doesnt work for standard one off gaming, and you would have to record results over numerous games anyway.

Yes, that is why we have playtesters, to record results over multiple games and report back which ships consistently perform better/worse than they should.

Like I said... the ships stats have to represent the averages to be balanced. Otherwise you'd win/lose more than your fair share, and that ship would be what we call "overpowered".

 

[Hash]

As a brief aside - anyone catch that "Enemies of reason" show on channel 4 last night (apologies to my American friends).

It's just that the argument on the boards seems very similar, belief vs. science, intuition vs. reason.

As I see it the boards are split between those who view game balance as down to intuition (what feels right...which is subjective) and what can be shown, mathematically, to be fair and reasonably equivalent.

Well I have to weigh in on the side of reason here lads although I'm not as a big a fan of looking at the expected value when considering the result of games...mainly because a standard ACTA game depends on so many wildly variant rolls that comparing any one ship vs. any other one ship is often a futile gesture. In short I think the entire system I don't think there is a real problem with game balance...I think the entire system, as demonstrated by the absurd bias towards swarm fleets in the FAP breakdown, makes the game unplayable without making considerable house rulings (limiting fleet size etc).

I am considerably disheartened that comments from the playtesters seem to have been ignored and the general consensus on the boards is that using the rule as written, i.e. the FAP breakdown, to maximize benefit is seen as cheesy and unsporting. If it isn't fair, then FIX the rule!

...actually no, you know what, do what you want. I'm done complaining on this forum there are other games that are more fun.

 

[Triggy]

mathshammer just is annoying, and you know how much it annoys me triggy. it also doesnt make up for 12AD beams or all the other crazy amount of dice you have tried to put onto weapons cos they would be really broken

Fair enough, I'll leave it at that for the maths

I'm glad a perfectly valid approach doesn't make up for another perfectly valid set of suggestions I think you know my comments but there's no need to publicly have a go like some people...

 

[Reaverman]

As a brief aside - anyone catch that "Enemies of reason" show on channel 4 last night (apologies to my American friends).

It's just that the argument on the boards seems very similar, belief vs. science, intuition vs. reason.

As I see it the boards are split between those who view game balance as down to intuition (what feels right...which is subjective) and what can be shown, mathematically, to be fair and reasonably equivalent.

Well I have to weigh in on the side of reason here lads although I'm not as a big a fan of looking at the expected value when considering the result of games...mainly because a standard ACTA game depends on so many wildly variant rolls that comparing any one ship vs. any other one ship is often a futile gesture. In short I think the entire system I don't think there is a real problem with game balance...I think the entire system, as demonstrated by the absurd bias towards swarm fleets in the FAP breakdown, makes the game unplayable without making considerable house rulings (limiting fleet size etc).

I am considerably disheartened that comments from the playtesters seem to have been ignored and the general consensus on the boards is that using the rule as written, i.e. the FAP breakdown, to maximize benefit is seen as cheesy and unsporting. If it isn't fair, then FIX the rule!

...actually no, you know what, do what you want. I'm done complaining on this forum there are other games that are more fun.

Well said that man!

 

[Triggy]

As a brief aside - anyone catch that "Enemies of reason" show on channel 4 last night (apologies to my American friends).

It's just that the argument on the boards seems very similar, belief vs. science, intuition vs. reason.

As I see it the boards are split between those who view game balance as down to intuition (what feels right...which is subjective) and what can be shown, mathematically, to be fair and reasonably equivalent.

Well I have to weigh in on the side of reason here lads although I'm not as a big a fan of looking at the expected value when considering the result of games...mainly because a standard ACTA game depends on so many wildly variant rolls that comparing any one ship vs. any other one ship is often a futile gesture. In short I think the entire system I don't think there is a real problem with game balance...I think the entire system, as demonstrated by the absurd bias towards swarm fleets in the FAP breakdown, makes the game unplayable without making considerable house rulings (limiting fleet size etc).

I am considerably disheartened that comments from the playtesters seem to have been ignored and the general consensus on the boards is that using the rule as written, i.e. the FAP breakdown, to maximize benefit is seen as cheesy and unsporting. If it isn't fair, then FIX the rule!

...actually no, you know what, do what you want. I'm done complaining on this forum there are other games that are more fun.

Well said that man!

I've just been checking through the e-mails and we were asked a couple of weeks ago what we wanted as the FAP split and (led by Greg), the only suggestions were for the 1/2/3 split with buy ups. Weird how this never got followed through on. Very frustrating!

 

[MustEatBrains]

How exactly did that alternative point splitting system of yours work again? For the whole range of PLs I mean. Depending in how the rules actually look in the 2nd Ed rulebook, it might be worth to try out as a houserule...

 

[Greg Smith]

There were various splits suggested. My prefered method:

Going down:
1 FAP buys:
2 ships, 1 level lower
3 ships, 2 levels lower
5 ships, 3 levels lower
8 ships, 4 levels lower
12 ships 5 levels lower (this gives 1.5 times per level change, rounded up)

2 ships could be traded up to a higher level.

Example: 1 war point could be split into 3 raid points, two of which could be traded up to 1 battle, so 1 war = 1battle & 1raid.

This wasn't neccesarily a simple solution. What it achieved was to limit swarms, while provide a method for mixing and matching ships from different priorities. It eliminated the loophole from the Armageddon split, but at lower levels created mixes that were somewhat incongruous:

1 war = 8 patrol = 3 skirmish & 2 patrol (trading 6 patrol up)
but 1 war = 5 skirmish (so you get less value by mixing and matching).

------
We also looked at making it easier to buy up:

A ship 1PL higher costs 2FAP
2PL higher costs 3FAP
3PL higher costs 6FAP
4PL higher costs 12FAP
5PL higher costs 24FAP

However 3 raid points for a war ship was generally considered too good.

 

[Ripple]

The original beauty of the pl system that I liked was it encouraged buying at the level of the fight or close to it. That just seems to have gone by the wayside and now we're doing some bizarre comedy sketch version of a true points system. The simple value of having extra activations on the table got lost in the valuation process somewhere and we're reluctant to put it back in for reasons I don't understand.

Buying down should not always be a benefit, because one point bought down drastically enhances the points bought up. If this were a straight points system I would understand the idea of wanting 12 patrol = 1 war as that is a 'fair' match but that what we're building. It's not a game of one points, it is two or more. Two war ships vs one war and twelve sinks (possible with long range weapons, or worse 24 sinks ick) I put the money on the numerically larger side.

Ripple

 

[Sulfurdown]

The original beauty of the pl system that I liked was it encouraged buying at the level of the fight or close to it. That just seems to have gone by the wayside and now we're doing some bizarre comedy sketch version of a true points system. The simple value of having extra activations on the table got lost in the valuation process somewhere and we're reluctant to put it back in for reasons I don't understand.

Ripple

That probably stems from the way the fleets are built. Drazi are low end fleets, ISA are higher end fleets. Since everyone HAS to be great at all levels and in all scenarios the buy out has to be adjusted so that if the game is high end the Drazi can field billions and billions while if the battle is low end... well... that's what the Blue Stars were put at patrol for.

There are so many calling for their favorite fleets as if they were being singled out to be beat up that the rules seem to have been adjusted to allow your favorite fleet to use it's favorite tactic regardless of the game conditions. I can't say I'm better, I put in my 2cents (x100) of whining about the Shadows since I started. But I think that's why the PL breakdown has been modified to allow such dramatic fleets.