Game play

[Iain McGhee]

I think that's a fair trade-off considering you also don't have to worry about emptying your offensive drone racks in ACTA. Might make drone-heavy ships a bit OP without any restrictions in a fleet environment.

Something I did notice in the gameplay section: I wonder if the firing order rules are different for SF than B5 ? It mentions rolling all the firing weapons' AD together to speed things up, but in most cases I'd have thought, for example, you'd be better resolving phasers first in case you drop or crit out the target's shields (or knock out it's ADD and several phasers and tractors for drone users) before walloping it with photons which have the Devastating trait.

Might be a FC carryover, whether from the rules or the players

 

[Iron Domokun]

I think drones probably are more powerful in ACTASF than in the original game. In SFB/FC, it's generally possible to fly around drones or maneuver to take them out with non-facing weapons if necessary. The damage they do is also proportionally somewhat higher, especially given the Devastating +1 trait.

Iain: Yes, I noticed that too, perhaps it's a case of roll the AD together and apply the damage in the order you prefer? Because it's obviously better to knock down the shields with disruptors and then apply phasers to the bare hull.

Given the different way that shields work in ACTASF, the shield crits may be different as well?

 

[scoutdad]

I recommended rolling all the dice at once, just to speed things up.

We regularly rolled everything... then resolved in the desired order.

OK... these three phaser-3s hit and none were sixes. Lose 3 shields.
These two phaser-1s hit, but you're in the kill zone. lose 4 more shields.
Oh, there's only 2 left, well then lose thm and I'll re-roll these two on the Attack table.
All four OL'ed Photons hit. That's 4 photons at multihit 4 each (doubled for overloads); or 32 hits to your ship. Oh... you only have 28 boxes remaining... so sorry.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Fair enough. I'd guess that the best firing order is so obvious after a few games that there's not even any need to announce it before rolling, unless you're trying something out of the ordinary (same as with B5).

 

[Da Boss]

I recommended rolling all the dice at once, just to speed things up.

We regularly rolled everything... then resolved in the desired order.

OK... these three phaser-3s hit and none were sixes. Lose 3 shields.
These two phaser-1s hit, but you're in the kill zone. lose 4 more shields.
Oh, there's only 2 left, well then lose thm and I'll re-roll these two on the Attack table.
All four OL'ed Photons hit. That's 4 photons at multihit 4 each (doubled for overloads); or 32 hits to your ship. Oh... you only have 28 boxes remaining... so sorry.

Interesting that will certainly speed it up.

We normally declare each weapon system and enact its results......on occassion there may be times when impact of weapons will effect others - eg a a shot slips through and knocks out the shields etc for the rest of weapons to hammer straight on the unprotected hull, or knock out tractor beams so no defense against a drone salvo. Might be hangover from B5 when you fired certain weapons that bypassed specific defences....

 

[Myrm]

After reading that excellent article, I do have question.
Why does Energy Drain affect drones?

It doesn't have to - you can choose to fire any one weapon system under energy drain - that could be the stack of N drones. For a drone armed Kzinti that may be the best penalty to take.

 

[Asguard101]

After reading that excellent article, I do have question.
Why does Energy Drain affect drones?

It doesn't have to - you can choose to fire any one weapon system under energy drain - that could be the stack of N drones. For a drone armed Kzinti that may be the best penalty to take.

If you want to argue why it affects drones, Powers would be needed to open launch tubes, activate trageting computers, release lockign clamps, ect...

Think of a Jumbo airliner, when all of it's engines are off, it requires a external power sopurce to start one engine.

 

[katadder]

game balance mainly as drones dont usually require energy. would be a bit much for kzinti to always be on an energy drain order at full weapons.

 

[Asguard101]

You wouldn't be on energy drain at all times, it would only be when you are doign a special actions that's penilty is enery drain.

 

[katadder]

and the kzinti would be on special actions all the time