Game Balance - Hopes and fears for 2nd Edition

[Burger]

their is a new stealth mechanism?

Not a new mechanism, a new complication. If one of your ships has broken the stealth on a ship this turn already, your other ships get a +1 to stealth rolls against that ship.

Over-complicated and hard to keep track of.

 

[H]

yup, but it makes sense in some ways as well. I like the idea in principle, but it's just more book keeping, which i would rather not have. It is however probably no more difficult than tracking interceptors? stick a dice on the base showing the number to be subtracted from stealth/added to next roll?

 

[cordas]

their is a new stealth mechanism?

Not a new mechanism, a new complication. If one of your ships has broken the stealth on a ship this turn already, your other ships get a +1 to stealth rolls against that ship.

Over-complicated and hard to keep track of.

Hmmm hardly, just put a die by the ship that shows the ships current stealth score and reduce it by one every time a ship gets a successful lock on.... We already do this in our gaming group to signify when a ship has its stealth reduced by scout (or fighter lock on).

In fact this is going to be far easier to keep track of than interceptors, which we easily manage... similarly putting dice beside the ship indicating how many ID it has left and on what score.

 

[Burger]

Yes but I thought 2e was about streamlining rules, not having more and more coloured dice to represent different things. It does kind of make sense but its just too much bookkeeping.

 

[H]

If we streamline all the rules, everything will hit on a 4, and every ship will have hull 6, and 40 damage and crew. :twisted:

 

[Burger]

We already do this in our gaming group to signify when a ship has its stealth reduced by scout (or fighter lock on).

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.

 

[Alexb83]

their is a new stealth mechanism?

Not a new mechanism, a new complication. If one of your ships has broken the stealth on a ship this turn already, your other ships get a +1 to stealth rolls against that ship.

Over-complicated and hard to keep track of.

It kind of makes a mockery out of the advanced sensors on scouts which are required to give lockon assistance. Suddenly all ships have them, and no CQ check required!
And you can stack it with scout redirection!

I wouldn't mind seeing this in squadrons (you could say the lead ship is directing fire for the squadron) but giving it to ships which could theoretically be on opposite sides of gas giants is a stretch.

 

[H]

red scout blue scout, red dice blue dice, come on man, think creative ;-)

 

[cordas]

We already do this in our gaming group to signify when a ship has its stealth reduced by scout (or fighter lock on).

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....

As for making the game more simple, thats the idea but sometimes you have to add complications as well, its a swings and roundabouts with the over all aim being simplicity. It really isn't that difficult and given your wanting for common sense rules, it makes sense to me in a space combat game that ships will send data to other ships about successfully targeting a stealthed ship in order for those other ships to target it easier.

I also love this rule as it adds an extra level of tactical play when playing against stealthed ships and races, do you fire your little ships 1st hoping they lower stealth, or do you fire your big ship that could maybe kill the target now.... This is going to change the firing priority.....

 

[Burger]

We already do this in our gaming group to signify when a ship has its stealth reduced by scout (or fighter lock on).

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.

Unlike Scanners To Full, which does persist even if the fighter gets blown up.

 

[cordas]

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.

Unlike Scanners To Full, which does persist even if the fighter gets blown up.

Shrugs thats not how we have played in the past, will pass this on to the rest of the group and see what they say... House rules may apply. Even so its still easy enough to keep track of, just note down which scout locked which ship, if that scout dies then the ship it had stealth lock on regains a point of stealth...

Ok its not the most simple system going, but we are playing a Space Combat wargame.... not Battleships.

 

[Jhary]

some where in the rules stand´s only the thougest and best ship have a hull of 6

so right out of the sfos
hull 6 list
10 EA hull 6 (including Breachingpot)
1 Minbary Hull 6 War Level
9 Centauri Hull 6
9 Narn Hull 6(including Breaching Pod)
1 ISA Hull 6 War level
1 Shadow Hull 6 War Level
2 Abbai Hull 6
5 Brakiri Hull 6 (including Breaching Pod)
4 Drazi Hull 6 (including Breaching Pod)
1 Vree Hull 6 Battle Level
2 Raider Hull 6 (including Breaching Pod)
No Hull 6 for the Vorlones

Then the civilian ships are all ecept the space liner Hull 4 the liner is Hull 3

And this list outdated there right now more Hull 6 Ships in the list

 

[CZuschlag]

The Dilgar have 5 Hull 6 (Rohric, Tikrit, Wahant, Khatrik, Mishakur, Mankhat)
The Drakh have none
The pak'ma'ra have 5 (going off memory, here --- Por'fa'tais, P'Shul'Shi, Urik'hal, Warbird, revised Halik(?)).

 

[Davesaint]

If you include the Breaching Pods - the Brakiri have 7. The Bratrado, Avioki, Kaliva, Tashkat, Takata, Brivoki(Boombox of Death), and the breaching pod.

Under the new unoffical beam rules, the Boombox of death, the Avioki, and the Haltona might be some of the more disgusting ships in the game.


The Pak have 4 hull 6 ships - The Porfatis, Pshul'shi, Urik'hal, and the Warbird


Dave

 

[emperorpenguin]

The Ad (playtester) stated quite clearly twice over the weekend, once on the way home from the tourney, and once yesterday while painting figures for a different game.

That he is not playing B5 anymore. And its because of the current state of 2e, and poor decisions. we may get him to play the odd game but he seems pretty serious. The big one was realising the new ultimate cheese fleet. Gaim..

So he's not playing anymore based on a fleet that has yet to be playtested? :roll: The Gaim are being deliberatelt left until last so that a) we have balanced fleets to test them against and b) that the [insert weapon name] mechanic is fair

 

[emperorpenguin]

would increase the length of time. would also completely change the whole game/fleets and so add more time before a release.

It works for VaS. That simple fact puts the lie to any argument about clunky mechanics. You're re-balancing all the fleet lists anyway. It's not hard to add an extra stat to each unit and a few more paragraphs to the "shooting" section of the main rulebook. Hell, much of the text could be lifted from the VaS rulebook and modified slightly..

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

 

[emperorpenguin]

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

 

[Lord David the Denied]

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? :?

 

[Ripple]

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

I keep hearing from Greg at least that the game is not changing much.
It is just not true. There are major changes to at least one major mechanic affecting virtually every fleet. Just the changes to movement, criticals and beam can be looked at as virtually game defining.

With so much in flux I am concerned that there seems to be significant disagreement between the play testers and mongoose. I am especially concerned that the new play testers brought in to help seem somewhat to not be having the kind of impact on balance I had hoped to see. The troli stats brought out in S&P do seem to have defined what Matt sees as balanced (remember his defense of the Sag). Given there has been a lot of outcry against such stats on at least two occasions now I wonder if the concept of balance, canon accuracy and player participation are really as important as they should be.

Ripple

 

[Lord David the Denied]

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...