Game Balance - Hopes and fears for 2nd Edition

[The Legend]

But you also need to keep track of which scout did the reduction. If the scout dies or loses its Scout trait, it loses the stealth reduction.

Hmmm we have played that differently.... once a lock has been achieved its done for the turn, irrespective of if the scout (or fighters) dies or not... The scout ship has been assumed to have already passed on the targetting data, rather than doing it again for each ship as it fires. You don't have to re-roll the lock on each time....

Yes you do only roll once (per turn). But if your scout gets blown up or loses its Scout trait from being crippled, the stealth reduction benefit is lost immediately. Your ships that haven't yet fired that turn do not get the +1. So you need to keep track of which scout succeeded in its roll on each target.

Well.... I think you only apply the stealth being broken once so I didn't read this as being a cumulative bonus. If it does cumulate then it seems that Stealth may become next to useless! I must say that I see the Scout ability as not persisting after a ship has been destroyed as I see the ship continually posting information to the firing ship so once it's gone it can longer continue doing this.

Personally I'm excited about the changes. I see the changes as a good thing that'll add a good deal to the game. I can understand the apprehension of many players that have been with game since the beginning as this seems like a huge uplift from the current dynamic for a few players.

I'm a Narn player because they are my favorite race from the show (not including the Centauri) and I'm chuffed that they're looking to make them more playable in the new system. I started playing the game and my regular opponant started off wanting to play narn but promptly switched to the Centauri after finding that they were a much..... easier option. I've stayed with the Narn and unfortunatly for me I regularly get by arse caned.

On a side note my regular fleet is:

At least 1 or 2 G'quans core ships of the fleet I take a varient hull every so often, but I reserve them for larger battles where I view them as being used more often in a specialised role.
1 T'rann to deliver much needed Fighter support
1 Sho'Kar for scout ability
A number of Thentus frigates.

In my opinion a much more realistic fleet with a good range of ship/hull types that give me flexibility and variety.

 

[cordas]

Well.... I think you only apply the stealth being broken once so I didn't read this as being a cumulative bonus. If it does cumulate then it seems that Stealth may become next to useless! I must say that I see the Scout ability as not persisting after a ship has been destroyed as I see the ship continually posting information to the firing ship so once it's gone it can longer continue doing this.

Personally I'm excited about the changes. I see the changes as a good thing that'll add a good deal to the game. I can understand the apprehension of many players that have been with game since the beginning as this seems like a huge uplift from the current dynamic for a few players.

The anti-stealth bonuses from numerous scout ships don't stack, not yet at least. In the FAQ for SFOS it states that the AS bonus from fighters and scouts do stack (to a max of -2 stealth). In 2e it talks about you getting a cumulative bonus from each subsequent ship that successfully targets a stealthed ship.

It states in SFOS that

If it rolls 8 or more, the target ship will have its Stealth score reduced by 1 for the remainder of the turn.

I would say that closes the arguement (it also sames the same thing about fighters ability to lower stealth for the turn, not until destroyed).

Snap about being excitied about 2e.

 

[Alexb83]

I would tend to disagree - if they're small and moving fast, they get a dodge score. Their hull should be their hull strength, not some wishy-washy combination of the two.!

Very, very difficult to acheive on a D6 system. Give fighters too low a hull and no matter the dodge they will roll a "1" with the sheer number of hits they'll take from Starship guns

With respect, isn't that realistic? Fighters are not going to stand up to direct hits from weapons designed to carve through other starships.

The simple counter is: more fighters for your money.

 

[Alexb83]

Well.... I think you only apply the stealth being broken once so I didn't read this as being a cumulative bonus. If it does cumulate then it seems that Stealth may become next to useless! I must say that I see the Scout ability as not persisting after a ship has been destroyed as I see the ship continually posting information to the firing ship so once it's gone it can longer continue doing this.

Personally I'm excited about the changes. I see the changes as a good thing that'll add a good deal to the game. I can understand the apprehension of many players that have been with game since the beginning as this seems like a huge uplift from the current dynamic for a few players.

The anti-stealth bonuses from numerous scout ships don't stack, not yet at least. In the FAQ for SFOS it states that the AS bonus from fighters and scouts do stack (to a max of -2 stealth). In 2e it talks about you getting a cumulative bonus from each subsequent ship that successfully targets a stealthed ship.

It states in SFOS that

If it rolls 8 or more, the target ship will have its Stealth score reduced by 1 for the remainder of the turn.

I would say that closes the arguement (it also sames the same thing about fighters ability to lower stealth for the turn, not until destroyed).

Snap about being excitied about 2e.

Again, this kinda sucks. It essentially means that every ship in the game has become a scout, for free, all it has to do is roll against as many targets as it can each turn - you can have ships with 40 inch range weapons giving +1 bonuses to other ships with 40 inch range weapons on the opposite side of the table just because they roll lucky vs. stealth. This could even be easier than the scout CQ roll (restricted to 25 inches?) depending on the stealth of the target ship.

It sort of makes a mockery of what scout was supposed to represent, and makes stealth even suckier than it already is.

Squadron members giving each other bonuses makes sense. Ships that aren't scouts doing it... no.

 

[katadder]

I would tend to disagree - if they're small and moving fast, they get a dodge score. Their hull should be their hull strength, not some wishy-washy combination of the two.!

Very, very difficult to acheive on a D6 system. Give fighters too low a hull and no matter the dodge they will roll a "1" with the sheer number of hits they'll take from Starship guns

With respect, isn't that realistic? Fighters are not going to stand up to direct hits from weapons designed to carve through other starships.

The simple counter is: more fighters for your money.

thing is try hitting a fighter with weapons designed to carve through starships. they are fast and manouvrable even when not going evasive (dodging). main weapon systems are designed for killing capital ships and dont have the tracking systems for dealing with fighters, but ships do have dedicated antifighter weapons. thats why fighters can dodge main guns but not anti fighter stuff.

think of the hull of a fighter being both its speed and toughness. then think of the dodge being the main weapons unable to track them properly. AF guns remove this dodge.

 

[cordas]

It sort of makes a mockery of what scout was supposed to represent, and makes stealth even suckier than it already is.

Squadron members giving each other bonuses makes sense. Ships that aren't scouts doing it... no.

Sorry I must have missed a memo, I didn't realize stealth sucked at the moment, I personally feel its very powerfull, (we play SFOS not Armagedon stealth at the moment, as we haven't gotten round to buying that book yet).

If you are going to give the stealth bonus in 2e to squadrons why not give it to all ships.... to get from ships inside squadrons to its squadron mates its going to have to send the hard coded data, so why not send to the entire fleet?

I don't see stealth being knocked down that much without an aweful lot of ships contributing to the task, where as stealth happens before any shooting is done... For a ship with stealth 4 (with range and scout modifiers) its going to take probably 3-4 ships to knock its stealth down to 2 and there is no point knocking it lower as a roll of 1 always fails, move it to stealth 5 and you will probably need at least 6-8 ships to do the same. We also don't know what the stealth values of ships is going to be in 2e... remember they are re-balancing every ship in the game :shock: so anything can happen.....

 

[katadder]

actually 1 always fails is only for shooting. you can automatically pass stealth checks with the right combination of stuff.
plus the bonus for seeing through stealth is no cumulative with multiple ships seeing through it. just with scout, get within 8" and the someone else seen it. best you can get overall is +3 to stealth (+4 for drakh, shadows, vorlons), although with all this even a stealth 5 ship can be reduced to stealth 2. however thats available since armageddon anyway, only differance is you have to use fighters to get the bonus. so its basically the same thing, differance is the ship thats seen you can be killed to remove the bonus, whereas killing a fighter didnt remove the +1.

 

[On_DS9]

I'm gonna throw down the gauntlet to Mongoose (in case they're reading):

Do away with closed door game development. Seriously. Move to total open development. In the internet age, you have access to hundreds of potential playtesters, why not use that resource.

Now I'm not suggesting throw it open from day one, but how about releasing a couple of "draft" rules before the books go to print. Write everything up, send it out in a PDF, then use polls or guided threads to incorporate feedback.


Oh and stealth? Terrible fix. It's a frustrating and un-fun mechanic right now. Toss it. You've had several suggestions out there, and I'll throw in another: dodge.

Stealth uses the same mechanic as a dodge. So each model gets a "stealth" save against each hit and/or damage die done.

Because stealth is not unbalanced (just not fun), you'll need to do something to beef up the ships to make them a bit more durable.

 

[katadder]

open testign up to a few hundred or even thousand people? lots of people dont agree on things, hell we got some people liking the new beam rules and some not. suggestions always welcome but if everybody playtested nothing would get done I am sure.

 

[cordas]

actually 1 always fails is only for shooting. you can automatically pass stealth checks with the right combination of stuff.
plus the bonus for seeing through stealth is no cumulative with multiple ships seeing through it. just with scout, get within 8" and the someone else seen it. best you can get overall is +3 to stealth (+4 for drakh, shadows, vorlons), although with all this even a stealth 5 ship can be reduced to stealth 2. however thats available since armageddon anyway, only differance is you have to use fighters to get the bonus. so its basically the same thing, differance is the ship thats seen you can be killed to remove the bonus, whereas killing a fighter didnt remove the +1.

Sorry my bad, you are right in ACTA a rolled 1 is not always a fail, however who is to say in 2e they don't make that a rule for stealth...

I am talking about changes that are making in 2e, so saying how things work now is irrelevant, as it could well all change in 2e.

 

[The Legend]

The anti-stealth bonuses from numerous scout ships don't stack, not yet at least. In the FAQ for SFOS it states that the AS bonus from fighters and scouts do stack (to a max of -2 stealth). In 2e it talks about you getting a cumulative bonus from each subsequent ship that successfully targets a stealthed ship.

No it doesn't. The rule as stated in S&P states that you get AN additional +1 IF ONE of your ships breaks the steath trait!!!!!

Snap about being excitied about 2e.

YEAH!!!!! SING ON BROTHER!!!!!!!!! 8) 8) 8) 8)

 

[Triggy]

The anti-stealth bonuses from numerous scout ships don't stack, not yet at least. In the FAQ for SFOS it states that the AS bonus from fighters and scouts do stack (to a max of -2 stealth). In 2e it talks about you getting a cumulative bonus from each subsequent ship that successfully targets a stealthed ship.

No it doesn't. The rule as stated in S&P states that you get AN additional +1 IF ONE of your ships breaks the steath trait!!!!!

That's not how the rule will appear though, sorry for any confusion. The +1 for other ships hitting/locking on will not stack.

Snap about being excitied about 2e.

YEAH!!!!! SING ON BROTHER!!!!!!!!! 8) 8) 8) 8)

Yeah baby! I'm a bit drained by the entire process but I'm happy with most of the fleets so far with my concerns mainly focussed on the balance of one fleet and a couple of ships in another. These will get resolved though I can't wait for it to be out there and played...(and with all those lovely new miniatures too)

 

[emperorpenguin]

Where were you Lord David when I needed support for this last year!? :wink:

I was here, backing you up, all the way. It appears my arguments were totally ignored and have been completely forgotten... Why do I bother even logging on? :?

Sorry LD I remember taking so much stick it was difficult to see anyone agreed, now even burger has come around to at least some of the ideas.. :wink: What can i say? I'm a visionary ahead of his time!

 

[emperorpenguin]

Same reason I do Lord David...only place you have a chance to be heard no matter how small.

I suppose you're right. At least I get a rise out of EP...

do you.......? :twisted:

 

[emperorpenguin]

Very, very difficult to acheive on a D6 system. Give fighters too low a hull and no matter the dodge they will roll a "1" with the sheer number of hits they'll take from Starship guns

With respect, isn't that realistic? Fighters are not going to stand up to direct hits from weapons designed to carve through other starships.

The simple counter is: more fighters for your money.

As katadder said, those weapons shouldn't find it so easy to hit/track fighters. In a more detailed system (eg B5 Wars) fighters are harder to hit, but with hulls 0f 4-6 (mostly) you just can't scale things enough

 

[MongooseMatt]

It doesn't inspire much confidence when playtesters have expressed reservations about whose opinions are/aren't carrying more weight amongst their own number.

Well, that would presume that everyone is right - clearly, they cannot be. . .

 

[MongooseMatt]

TAnd its because of the current state of 2e, and poor decisions.

2e has not been released yet. Basing any opinions on the current files is, frankly, ludicrous.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I'm always pesermistic about things... I can just see the 2nd edition needing a lot of refining to become playable. Which is frustrating as first edition is nearly there.

It is equally frustrating to see you type this

What do you think 2e is? And what do you think we have been doing since Armageddon?

The answer is that we have been refining to make it playable. And it is not a huge leap from 1e, as we know those rules are 'nearly' there', as you say.

At the end of the day, 2e is going to be the very best we can do for the game, and we are by no means relying on the extended playtest group to ensure this. A little while before release, we are going to have a second group created, drawn again from people on this forum (probably the mosy vocal, cynical and pessimistic ones ). This will act as the Test Group for 2e, using the final laid out files for the game, and will have the opportunity to poke holes and break balance.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I don't think there's any single fleet list atm where you can say that the ships are balanced in and of themselves, let alone where you start pitting them against each other,

Of course not. It is a fleet game. . .

 

[MongooseMatt]

Even more laughable are the hull 5 and 6 fighters... please. Fighters as tough as major warships (or tougher!).

It is indeed possible for an armour plate on a small craft to be tougher than an armour plate on a large craft. Indeed, it might be easier to armour up a small craft than a large one.

It is all relative. . .