FAPs, actual "official" reason? Anyone know?

[Greg Smith]

In line with what tneva82 said, do you have to maintain perfect balance between the priority levels in every single battle?

ie if a battle-level ship is roughly worth 4 skirmish level ships, do you have to be able to get four for a single FAP in a Priority Battle game?

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You'd hope so, but I can see the argument for diminishing returns on smaller ships. In a battle level game you ought to be seeing raid, battle and war choices. The skirmishers and patrol ships aren't going to cut the mustard...

 

[Greg Smith]

That is pretty much my thinking. I kind of dislike swarms of small ships. Also one of the complaints about the current edition is that larger ships don't cut the mustard compared to quantities of smaller ones - reducing the number of smaller ships in larger battles helps redress that.

 

[tneva82]

Also one of the complaints about the current edition is that larger ships don't cut the mustard compared to quantities of smaller ones

Yep.

You could say that the current system is Mongoose's attempt to balance out initiave/critical hit advantage swarm has over bigger ship. Wether they did it enough is open to debate but imagine how much worse it would be if single war point gives you 16 patrol ships instead of 12...Even worse.

 

[verdantgreen]

I don't mind the 1-2-3-4-6 breakdown so much...count me in as one of those who likes to keep a battle close to its listed priority level.

However, the sub-breakdowns introduced in Armageddon do bug me. As other posters have suggested, a 3-Raid breakdown should not be equivalent to a 2-Raid/1-Battle breakdown.

The added complication of the Armageddon breakdowns pushes the game toward the level of intricacy found in a points-based system. The system should either be a simple power-level system or a points-based system - not this bizarre hybrid we have now.

 

[katadder]

the armageddon breakdowns are actually alot easier to remember off the top of my head. with the SFOS ones sometimes you had to check the book alot more to make sure you had it right.

 

[cordas]

Why would you take 3 Raid ships for 1 War point, when you could take 1 Battle, and 2 Raid... whilst there are some very good raid ships out there such as the Prefect, its nowhere near as powerfull as a Primus.

Maybe point is to discourage smaller ships appearing in higher priority? Afterall you don't send 40+ hermes against single octurion in RL unless there's good reason. While hermeses might win they would lose heaps of them in process which a) cost lots of money b) cost lots of human lives.

Right tool for right job. War level ships should bear the brunt in war priority. Raid level ships are more at home in raid level

That sort of breaks up the ideas of having fleets then.... In most naval engagements there ships of all sorts of sizes represented as they fullfill different rolls.

Also what you said doesn't make any sense when it states that you can take 3 raid ships, or 2 raid ships and 1 battle.

To me it would make more sense to keep the same formular going down as up, and then just put in a limit on smaller ships, say for every 3 points you can't take more than 1 point at 2+ levels lower than the level of the fight.

i.e. in a 3 point war you can't take more than 1 point of raid or lower ships. Which would give you 4 raid, or 2 raid and 4 skirmish, or if you really wanted to 16 patrol ships(but 2 raid, 2 skirmish and 4 patrol would probably be a better spend of 1 war point).

This is similar to the rule that you can't take a ship more than 2 levels higher than the PL of the fight.

P.S. I am now thinking of having a game with a mate, one of us with 1 war ship, and the other with a 1 point war fleet (nothing higher than raid) in a sort of ambush game, imagine the Bismark taking on a convoy escort if it had made it out into the Atlantic undamaged.

 

[lastbesthope]

However, the sub-breakdowns introduced in Armageddon do bug me.

[SNIP]

The added complication of the Armageddon breakdowns pushes the game toward the level of intricacy found in a points-based system. The system should either be a simple power-level system or a points-based system - not this bizarre hybrid we have now.

The trick to simpligying the points breakdown is to realise that it is recursive in nature.

That and there is no spoon! :lol:

LBH

 

[Lord David the Denied]

You don't need to be good at maths to deal with a points system - you can use a calculator. You do need to be good at maths to "realise the PL system is recursive in nature" - and to understand what the means and how to use it.

Personally, I'd rather sit with my calculator and a book open in front of me for ten minutes than listen to people telling me to realise something is recursive in nature. Whatever the devil that means...

 

[lastbesthope]

You don't need to be good at maths to deal with a points system - you can use a calculator. You do need to be good at maths to "realise the PL system is recursive in nature" - and to understand what the means and how to use it.

Depends on what you mean by goosd at maths.

Besides, you don't need to be good at maths to learn by rote.

Some people have maths/arithmetic skills they don't realise. A few old guys down my pub suck at arithmetic, unless it's dart scores, then they're faster than I am.

LBH

 

[Valen is my name]

well i got a maths GCSE last year and still get stuck with the breakdown most of the time!

 

[lastbesthope]

Well I didn't get the moniker "Freak Boy" from Matt for nothing you know :lol:

LBH