Fleet Update 2 - Questions, issues etc

[Da Boss]

I will try and keep this updated with issues noted by myself and others - lets try to avoid discussion here and keep it as a simple thread to point matt to when he wants to have a look at it - it worked well in this way recently for Dredd.

First Pass

1) The C6 and the C9 seem to be again oddly pointed as per the last update with the fed variants: The C9 gains: Anti-drone1, 4 extra Phaser 1's, 2 extra Disruptors, 2 extra shields, for the loss of 4 Phaser 2's???? Does not seem to compute?

2) Should the Unique trait be applied to those ships that fluff highlights as one offs?

3)Drone upgrades: Should the Phaser II upgrade be Type IV and V (heavy frames) rather than the current Type VI and V quoted?

4) Fleet Doctrine: Should the Gorn BC which is the refitted heavy cruiser be considered, like the D7, to be a cruiser and therefore not restricted to two ships.

5)Question: when modifying warheads of Type-IV or Type-V drones, do I use the original Attack Dice value to calculate cost or the number of Attack Dice after it's been halved? Put another way, in what order are the upgrades applied? E.g. Kzinti ship has four AD of drones, and I upgrade them to Type-IV costing 20 points (4x5), but the number of AD is halved to 2. If I want them armoured as well, do I pay 2x5 = 10 more points, or do I pay 4 (original value) x5=20 more points?

6) Spearfish drone, p.23: Change "Killshot" to "Kill Zone".

7) The Constitution Plus refit fluff says it "increased the power systems and shields, added a drone rack, and two turret-mounted phasers-3 to the Constitution."
However there is no Phaser 3 mount on that ship sheet?

 

[billclo]

Something is unclear to me.

Re: Type 4 and 5 drones, where it says you may re-roll it's Multihit Die. Does this mean:
1) Re-roll the die and pick the higher result of the 2 rolls?
or
2) Add the re-roll to the result from the first die and apply as damage?

Under Type 2 drones, it says "Each phaser or tractor beam used in Defensive Fire against a Type-II drone must re-roll any successful hit.". Does this mean that if you get a hit with a phaser or tractor beam that you must score a second successful "hit" on the same drone, and then it is considered destroyed?

Type 3 Drones:
I assume over 18" you roll to hit, but the roll becomes 4-6 out to 36 (half range), and 5-6 over 36? The rule does not say, and I wanted to clarify that.

 

[Myrm]

As has been pointed out by Terry O'Carroll on the ADB discussion board, a Type IV letting you re-roll for half the AD is inferior to launching 2 Type Is. Average Damage of 2AD of Type Is = 7

Average damage on reroll is by definition equal to or less than 6 - I'd have to do the maths properly but assuming if you do not reroll anything of 4 or higher, I think it pretty much makes it 4-5points average, narrower variance I give you. But the heavy drone is no harder to take out, its boom or bust if rolling to hit whereas the 2 Type Is have a better chance of at least one hitting but worse for 2.

FOr that you have to pay points

This to me reinforces my earlier comment that I expected the Type IV to look like the proposed Type V rule.

There's something not quite right in the design of the Type IVs

 

[Da Boss]

re Question 4

ADB asked to be posted here to clarify:


Somebody post this over there.
-
Definitions list:
-
Command Cruisers include any CC, Fed CB, any CCH, Klingon D7C, D6C; Romulan SuperHawk, RoyalHawk-A, and NovaHawk-A.
-
Heavy Cruisers include Romulan KR, K7R; Klingon D6, D7, E7; any BC (not otherwise listed) or CA.
-
New Heavy Cruisers include any NCA; Klingon D5W; Romulan FireHawk, RegentHawk; Gorn CS and CM.
-
Heavy Battlecruiser: including BCH; Fed BC, BCG, BCF, BCJ, BCP; Klingon C7; Romulan NovaHawk-K, RoyalHawk-K, KillerHawk, etc.;

 

[Greg Smith]

Type VI drones ignore the Dodge trait of any target. But Dodge does not exist in ACTA SF.

Armoured drones require two hits from ADD to destroy it? How does that work. ADD does not roll to hit, it simply destroys drones and rolls to see if runs out of ammo.

The Making Crime Pay scenario has different starting criteria base on which side won the previous scenario. Yet a draw was a real possibility....

 

[billclo]

Question about the F6's shields. They seem to be abnormally high. Should they really be as tough as a Heavy Battle Cruiser's shields?

Here's some other ships, with their FedCom shields (front, front side, rear side) and ACTA:SF rating:

F5 21, 16, 16, ACTA:SF (16)
F5W 26, 20, 16 (18)
F6 30, 24, 24 (24)
D5 30, 26, 26 (20)
D5W 30, 26, 26 (20)
D7 30, 22, 22 (18).
C7 36, 30, 24 (24)

Seems out of whack, when the D5 and D5W ought to have higher shields than the F6.

 

[Iron Domokun]

I interpreted "re-roll" to mean "If you don't like the first result, you may re-roll the die but you must take the second result even if it is worse" since that's what it means in other systems.

 

[Rambler]

Type VI drones ignore the Dodge trait of any target. But Dodge does not exist in ACTA SF.

Dodge does not exsist in ACTASF yet. But I am sure it is coming. I would leave it since Type VI are called Dog Fight Drones in the SFU for a reason.

Armoured drones require two hits from ADD to destroy it? How does that work. ADD does not roll to hit, it simply destroys drones and rolls to see if runs out of ammo.

I looked at this and wonder if it is you roll a Dice for each attack die of dones then if you do not roll a 1 you have to make a second roll to kill the drones. Hence if you roll a 1 on the first roll your just plain out of luck and the Drones smack you. If you roll a 1 on the second set of rolls then your laucher jammes and you kill still kill all the drone.

 

[Greg Smith]

I looked at this and wonder if it is you roll a Dice for each attack die of dones then if you do not roll a 1 you have to make a second roll to kill the drones. Hence if you roll a 1 on the first roll your just plain out of luck and the Drones smack you. If you roll a 1 on the second set of rolls then your laucher jammes and you kill still kill all the drone.

That would work, however it needs to be explained in the rules.

 

[Myrm]

However they choose to do ADDs vs this it needs to be rewritten, as is it is just plain wrong.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Sorry guys but that doesn't work. (caps used to emphasise how bad the numbers get below)

An ADD kills every Drone in a salvo, you roll a D6 for each Drone destroyed and if one or more of those D6s are a 1 then a single use of ammo is lost.

Rolling a one does NOT mean a Drone gets through.

Either you have a situation where:

The ADD fires one shot at each incoming and has a 50% chance of taking it out so roughly half of any incoming Armoured Drones will be stopped. I.E. Roll a D6 for each incoming, one or more 1s is an ammo loss and on a 4+ the Armoured Drone is killed. Note that at 5 points per Drone rack if Armoured Drones do work this way they will become very very popular since they will use up significant amounts of Phaser fire from ADD users simply to kill the 50% that make it through ADD fire. This will hurt the Kzinti a lot with lighter Phaser loads and also against the Feds since it will force the use of most Phaser 1s defensively.

Consider. A Fed heavy has 6 Phaser 1s in Arc and an ADD2. An enemy fires 4 Armoured Drones. The Fed ADD fires first and stops two of them, with a 4 in 6 chance of using up one Ammo. The Fed can then fire FOUR Phaser 1s or Two Phaser 1s and hope to make his Tractor Rolls. A second salvo of armoured Drones would also leak two meaning that if he fired FOUR Phaser 1s the last time he now fires his last two and must rely on his Tractors.

If Armoured Drones can leak past ADDs they will strip ships of Phaser fire very quickly. Given the need to fire Two Phasers in order to get the “An Armoured drone requires two hits from Defensive Fire (or ADD systems) to destroy it” fleets that use Phasers as main weapons will very quickly be reduced to wandering around trying to reload photons every so often.

Or

The ADD needs to fire two shots to kill the Armoured Drone, so you roll 2D6, the Drone is dead automatically as usual but you have twice the chance of getting a 1 hence using up one lot of ammo. In this case ships with ADDs can continue to gain complete protection from Drone attacks while they have ADDs left but will quickly run out of ammo. Ships and races without ADDs (yep that’s us again) are left with Phasers and Tractors.


Note that things are even more complicated. Having over thought this through Armoured Drones could have 4 hit points. A Drone is destroyed at the last minute by defensive fire, this puts it inside the Kill zone range of the Phaser since you are firing when the Drone is at 1-2” away. An Armoured Drone that needs two Phaser hits to Destroy therefore has 3 or 4 hits.

How does this relate to using Drones or Plasmas against them. Since a Type 6 does a single point of damage how many of them are needed to kill an Armoured Drone. Do Drones and Plasmas with Multi hit D6 need to do 3+ damage, 4+ damage or something else to kill an Armoured Drone.

For 5 points per rack and with enough ammo to last the whole battle Armoured Drones are an amazing bargain.

Consider this. A Non ADD Dreadnaught, Gorn or Romulan, can bring 10 or so Phasers to bear and 3 or 4 Tractors. With Two Phaser shots being required per Drone and allowing for misses that means a non ADD Dread naught can stop approx FOUR Drones by using its entire Phaser firepower and maybe stop TWO more with Tractors. Even against ADD races and without knowing exactly how the “Requires two ADD hits” bit works they are going to very quickly use up all Phaser fire power.

Here again the incredible Fed Phaser G escorts prove powerful given that escorts cannot officially use ADDs to defend other ships, they are able to bring 8 shots of Phaser Gs and another 1 or 4 shots of Phaser 1s to defend a ship under Armoured Drone attack. If Drones can take out armoured Drones on a one to one or even needing to roll a D6 damage and get 3+ or 4+ they are still more effective than an ADD giving the Feds yet another advantage.

My feeling here is that Armoured Drones are extremely powerful and either need some limits or need to be more expensive. Drone heavy fleets can use these for 20 points per ship with 4AD, a three ship group with 12AD pays 60 points for the ability to strip any ship in the game of its ADD AND Phaser fire and still get a few Drones through every turn.

What were the play test results and who has Drone fleets that can play a few fights with them over the next few weeks.

PS.
Swordfish Drones, can they be used against Plasmas, they are firing a Phaser after all ?

Spearfish Drones, hello Mr Klingon front shield. If they are still Devastating they are going to be funny on that Kzinti DND, well I don’t play Klingon so I would laugh. :lol:

Type 2 Drones, if they cost the same as Armoured Drones then Type 2s are not worth it. If you combine Type 2s with Armoured Drones you end up firing two Phasers and rerolling both. Expensive at 10 points each but they will likely take 3 Phasers to stop.

Type 3s, 72” range, hitting on a 4+ at 36”. Great for those fragile Drone ships who like hiding at long range.

Type 4s, waste of time and money. Rerolling a D6 but getting half as many AD. Did anyone think that through as the numbers make no sense. Paying 5 points per rack to lower your average damage done :roll:

Type 5s, 10 points each, combine type 4s which are a bad idea with type 2s half range but reroll Phaser fire. So a type 5 has half the AD, does less damage and its only advantage is the reroll to hit which makes you use about one more Phaser per 4 Drones. For 10 points each. :shock:

 

[billclo]

I don't know why ADDs should need a second hit on an armored drone to kill it; they've always been an auto-kill on any drone type as far as I can remember.

I suspect that folk will be forced to start using drones against incoming armored drones as a defensive measure rather more often. I believe a drone is still an auto-kill vs another drone. So that might help defang the copious Combined Drone Racks on certain Fed escorts/heavy ships if they want to have any Phaser-1s left to use against enemy ships instead of using them on armored drones.

I can see where Type-2 Armored drones are going to be a real headache, and downright deadly vs Gorns/Roms. Require 2 hits to destroy, and 2 x required re-rolls to confirm each of those hits means significantly more phasers used to stop them. Plus tractors are less effective as they have to re-roll success. That tractor just went from 50% effective vs normal drones to 25% effective vs Armored drones.

 

[billclo]

Another question. Type 2 drones are listed as having 18" max range. Are we to assume that over 9" away they require a die roll of 5-6 to hit, or do they auto-hit out to 18"?

I can see why they reduced range to 18", probably due to the fuel being expended faster driving the drone much faster, but it seems to me that the increased speed ought to keep the auto-hit range to 18 because the target has less time to evade or stretch out the flight time.

 

[Greg Smith]

The rule for seeking weapons says that anything over 18" requires a roll to hit, so Type 2 would never roll to hit.

 

[billclo]

The rule for seeking weapons says that anything over 18" requires a roll to hit, so Type 2 would never roll to hit.

Yes, I agree, but the rules were likely written before drones with only 18" range were considered as well.

 

[Greg Smith]

Probably, but if you change seeking weapons so they have to roll to hit over half range, you mess with plasma too.

 

[Myrm]

The rule for seeking weapons says that anything over 18" requires a roll to hit, so Type 2 would never roll to hit.

Yes, I agree, but the rules were likely written before drones with only 18" range were considered as well.

...but they were written when plasma with under 18" range was in game, so short range seekers were in the thought process

 

[Captain Jonah]

To me this is:

Any seeking weapon fired at ranges over 18" needs a roll to hit. Weapons fired under half range are 4+; over half range are 5+.

So a Drone with an 18" range is not required to make a roll. Long range drones make a roll if fired at over 18" but have a half range and 4+ roll out to 36".

 

[Greg Smith]

To me this is:

Any seeking weapon fired at ranges over 18" needs a roll to hit. Weapons fired under half range are 4+; over half range are 5+.

So a Drone with an 18" range is not required to make a roll. Long range drones make a roll if fired at over 18" but have a half range and 4+ roll out to 36".

That is indeed the way the rules work.

 

[billclo]

Glad to hear this is the way it is supposed to work, else those type-2 drones were going to be more difficult to use. Though it isn't significantly better than having to close to 9" to get full effect, like plasma users have to do.

Hopefully this gets codified in the revised Fleet Update 2 so there is no more confusion on the matter.