[Gen] General forum request, feel free to ignore

S

Spence

Mongoose
I’m pretty sure I am going to tic off quite a few people and upset many more. But I’d like to make a general appeal to the posters in the ACTA:SF threads.

Can we please stay on topic? If someone asks a specific question about ACTA:SF and your reply starts as “I don’t know about ACTA, but in SFB….” or “In SFB/FC….” Can you please just stop, think about it and not reply.

Like many people I played SFB from the days when it was a pocket game into the 90’s. when FC came out is was similar to SFB, but still a completely different game play wise. Things that I did successfully in SFB could cause me to lose in FC. SFB and FC were related and close, but very different games in play. Then came M12’s version using the Starmada rules as its base. Still in hexes, but very very very different in play than SFB or FC.

Now we have ACTA:SF. Of all the previous versions, the first incarnation designed from the start to be a hexless miniatures game. While it is keeping the flavor or the SFU, it cannot keep the exact specific play feel of SFB or FC.

The Noble Armada people are asking for a separate forum because they feel they are being drowned out by the ACTA:SF threads. I actually feel that both Noble Armada AND ACTA:SF are being crushed by the SFB/FC arguments.

I get it. You love your SFB/FC. Cool. Great. Fantastic. But show a little love for ACTA:SF too. If you have to talk SFC/FC, please start a separate thread.

How about using general forum etiquette, start your thread with one of these [ACTA:SF, rules], [ACTA:SF, gen], [SFB], [FC], [NA], [ACTA/SFB], etc. And then stick to the subject?

That way a person reading the board can decide what s/he wants to read, and when someone asks a question the thread doesn’t get hijacked and run off into left field and obscurity.

I know that this will provoke a landslide of indignant protest, which is not my intent. But I have pretty much given up wading through the 100’s of “SFB this” “FC that” responses to find one useful ACTA’s related nugget.

So I might as well wrap this up with another hated web term.

I’m just sayin…… :wink:
 
Dude I agree with you and the noble armada people are right they should split up the forum. I never played SFB and get sick of people interjecting it in to ACTA:SF threads as well!

So a big +1 from me! :P
 
Spence Markdawg - I agree in principle what you 2 are saying but there is a big but here, The Joint Venture had opened the Star Fleet Universe up to 3 game systems here. A Call to Arms, Federation Commander, and Star Fleet Battles. Due to the nature of the Setting, if Cause A has affect B and C. Then this has to be consitant across all 3 rule sets. Now do we need to know how a similar Cause works in another corner of the universe or how it works in a 4th rule set? No. Do we need to expand on other interactions to other portions or rules in SFB? No.

But for example Plasma Carronades. In SFB Romulans can not use them. That is not a Rules thing that is a Setting thing. Or Kestrals and the base Klingon Hulls should have almost identical stats and traits once again that is not a SFB thing that is a setting thing. Those things need to be consistsnt regardless.

Now will there be differances yes. The Armor on the Texas Class cruiser comes to mind. The setting says the OCL has armour but Matthew says that instead of armour the Texas is getting a higher damage rating. Effect is the same mechanics are different.
 
A lot of the SFB / FedCmdr "injection" is in the topics discussion future weapons / systems yet to be ported over to ACTA:SF. If one doesn't know how an ESG / Hellbore / Fusion Beam / PPD / etc/ etc/ etc /etc work in the first two games, how are you going to be able to port them over to ACTA game engine? Granted, some things may have to change to "fit" into the new engine so as to not break other things.

Example, in SFB the PPD gets several to-hit attempts over several impulses (32 impulses per turn), and once one PPD wave connects the rest automatically hit. Now, seeing as ACTA only has one fire phase per turn, how do you port that effect over? (I have an idea, but that's for another topic). But if all you knew was about the PPD is "it's a weapon that sends out waves of energy", would you know to capture that effect?

You might ask why it matters. Again, we have to go back to the SFB roots. If I hit with several weapons at once (say, three phasers and two disruptors), I add all that damage up into one big chunk, and then I work my way down the Damage Allocation Chart (DAC). However, if I spread those weapon hits over several impulses, I start at the top of the DAC each time, which gives me a better chance to hit more weapons and less padding (hull, tractor, transporter, etc). There's actually a well-know tactic call the Miza Effect that takes advantage of that DAC feature. The PPD weapon was designed to do the very same thing, a mini-Miza with each volley.

Now, I admit I do not know how the damage system works in ACTA, but if it is purely random, that is without weighting the first "hits" to weapons / engines and later hits to "padding", then the whole point of the PPD may not port over well to ACTA without losing its SFB "flavor".

Bottom line is there are times you HAVE to talk about SFB / FedCmdr to be able to talk about the future of AFTA:SF.

But, yes, we cannot "kill off" discussion about other versions of ACTA, and those (Noble Armada) deserve to have their own category.
 
it's a fair request, I understand that things need to be discussed in relation to previous games, but their is a lot more than nescesary, and unless I am mistaken, ADB still have forums on thier site to discuss.
a lot of people who will play ST CTA did not play FC or SFB (I played 1 game 1v1, i was 2 years older when it finished) and so have no interest at all. we nee to strike a middle ground, and the game writers/developers will be deciding how things translate accross, not 32 different SFB players all arguing over it :-)
so really, by all means discuss the game and some of the implications, but try to make it CTA relevant and not a constant stream of "well SFB did THIS and it's so much better.... cos if thats the case, play SFB, much like I an others will still play B5 cta, but not mention it in every other thread. (I will also dable in ST so you know, i'll be posting)
 
Well as one of the guilty parties, I'll stop contributing since it appears that it upsets the established players so much here.

Part of it was that I was unaware that ACTA:SF was going to be ported from FC, not SFB. So I was concerned that some items might not have been ported over "accurately", and wanted clarifications.

Some folk, especially the non-Star Fleet Universe people, may not have understood why something was the way it was, and since ACTA:SF is based in the SFU having a basic understanding of the way things work in the SFU. Now an item may not have been ported over exactly, as we've been finding, but sometimes knowing the "whys" is useful.

I actually haven't played SFB in 10+ years mainly - I've played a couple pickup games recently, but that's it. It's too hard to find opponents locally due to it's complexity. I welcome ACTA:SF coming along; it gives me a new opportunity to play a game that I love with a broadened potential opponent base. And an excuse to buy a ton of neat looking miniatures. :)

That and being able to do a large fleet action in 4-8 hours versus a several days is appealing to say the least.

I'm sorry if you regular ACTA players feel overwhelmed. I do agree that separate areas for each flavor of ACTA is warranted. That way things are more streamlined and it's easier for each faction to do their own thing. But apparently it's a low priority item to Mongoose.

If anything you ought to brace yourself for an explosion of posts once people have had a chance to absorb the rules, get their minis, paint them, and actually play. I expect that all the newbies posting may be a burden to one accustomed to the much slower pace of discussions when NA/B5/other flavors of ACTA were all there was. Given that ACTA:SF appears to have been much more popular than anticipated, hold onto your hat; it's about to pick up in here.
 
Sgt_G said:
A lot of the SFB / FedCmdr "injection" is in the topics discussion future weapons / systems yet to be ported over to ACTA:SF. If one doesn't know how an ESG / Hellbore / Fusion Beam / PPD / etc/ etc/ etc /etc work in the first two games, how are you going to be able to port them over to ACTA game engine? Granted, some things may have to change to "fit" into the new engine so as to not break other things.

Now, I admit I do not know how the damage system works in ACTA, but if it is purely random, that is without weighting the first "hits" to weapons / engines and later hits to "padding", then the whole point of the PPD may not port over well to ACTA without losing its SFB "flavor".

Bottom line is there are times you HAVE to talk about SFB / FedCmdr to be able to talk about the future of AFTA:SF.

.
Click to expand...
Equally to fully work out how to convert things over ACTA: you need to understand how that game works as well - although its not ideal at present due to rulebook delays. We are quite happy to try and adapt things but there are also fundemental concepts about the ACTA system that have to hold true and which was outlinned in blogs by M Sprange

ACTA is deisgned to be fast and to accomplish this we reduce book keeping to a minimum hence we often seem to keep saying porting SFB mechanisms is way too complicated when talking about things like ammo for drones etcs.

Also its very clear from discussions on the forum here that ACTA: SF seems to be based on Federation Commander not Star Fleet Battles and perhaps this needs to be remembered when looking at mechanisms. It seems quite a bit was changed / simplified to make FC out of SFB and ACTA is a further step in that direction.
 
billclo said:
Well as one of the guilty parties, I'll stop contributing since it appears that it upsets the established players so much here.

.
Click to expand...

hey hey Feller, it's not about stopping contributing, far from it. It's about contributing to ACTA, not a discussion on SFB mechanics :-)
sounds like you will be playing anyway, so get stuck in!
 
Indeed but at the moment alot of the discussion seems to be focussed on "is it the same as SFB, it must be X, Y Z to be the same as SFB" rather than how it actually works in game play..............is it a good game etc which is arguably as important?

I am sure the SFB veterans who were part of playtesting took alot of the sacred cows of the SFU into consideration when they were working on the game.
 
If I may stick my nose in here ...

I think that part of why you are seeing so much SFU "stuff" is the current nature of the topics. Some of the same types of things went on when the Federation Commander forums opened. New players have questions about why this "thing" works as it does, and the only answers lie in the game it was ported from.

The questions about errors do fall back to FC as they are the source and the ships need the same effect. So if you think a ship has turned into a broken ship, the first place to check is the FC data to see if it accidentally doubled its weapons. :) If that is what happened, the answer is clear. If not, then the tactics you are using might need to be explored.

Finally, I think that when folks ask about how a particular weapon should work in advance of the designer's decisions and play testing, then that is an open invitation to the SFU folks to stick noses in. The play test groups included people from both areas of expertise: ACTA and SFU. That's so that a Really Kewl Idea didn't translate into a weapon that wasn't having the same effect as it would in the SFU. That continuity is a vital part of our license.

I think as you start asking about tactics and specific game mechanics, the forums will concentrate more on ACTASF and less on the SFU.

SFU guys, WebMom is asking you to tone it down just a bit. Until you have read the ACTA Rulebook and really understand the game system, try to keep the "in the SFU we do it this way" down to a murmur. How we play the game in the SFU may not work in this game. You know that some of the things that work in SFB get your ship blown up in FC; the same is likely true in FC to ACTASF. Remember that this board culture is quite different from our BBS. Be nice to our new friends and don't throw the SFB rules in their entire glory at them. If you get too overwhelming, I'll have to Gibbs you and we should keep the violence down to blowing up ships. :)

Jean
 
billclo said:
Well as one of the guilty parties, I'll stop contributing since it appears that it upsets the established players so much here.

Part of it was that I was unaware that ACTA:SF was going to be ported from FC, not SFB. So I was concerned that some items might not have been ported over "accurately", and wanted clarifications.

Some folk, especially the non-Star Fleet Universe people, may not have understood why something was the way it was, and since ACTA:SF is based in the SFU having a basic understanding of the way things work in the SFU. Now an item may not have been ported over exactly, as we've been finding, but sometimes knowing the "whys" is useful.

I actually haven't played SFB in 10+ years mainly - I've played a couple pickup games recently, but that's it. It's too hard to find opponents locally due to it's complexity. I welcome ACTA:SF coming along; it gives me a new opportunity to play a game that I love with a broadened potential opponent base. And an excuse to buy a ton of neat looking miniatures. :)

That and being able to do a large fleet action in 4-8 hours versus a several days is appealing to say the least.

I'm sorry if you regular ACTA players feel overwhelmed. I do agree that separate areas for each flavor of ACTA is warranted. That way things are more streamlined and it's easier for each faction to do their own thing. But apparently it's a low priority item to Mongoose.

If anything you ought to brace yourself for an explosion of posts once people have had a chance to absorb the rules, get their minis, paint them, and actually play. I expect that all the newbies posting may be a burden to one accustomed to the much slower pace of discussions when NA/B5/other flavors of ACTA were all there was. Given that ACTA:SF appears to have been much more popular than anticipated, hold onto your hat; it's about to pick up in here.
Click to expand...

Chillax bro no said we wanted you to not contribute. We just want discussion of ACTA:SF to be just that discussion of ACTA:SF not some other game. I think we need forum separation in a big way as well. The Noble Armada guys must be given a place to post were there threads don't smashed down the boards by SF posters.
 
@ da boss: as one of the playtesters, we really did take a good hard look at some of the "sacred cows". As many as were possible were imported into ACTA, but some... Well, they just didn't make the cut. Either there was no way to do it simply, or in some cases it just couldn't be done.
Klingon cross deck firing arcs for example. With ACTAs 90 degree arcs, it was impossible to duplicate w/o making every phaser a 360 mount. Instead, they were still given the 180 arcs, but now they are PH or SH. This combined with the Klingon reinforced shield rule means the Klingon Sabre Dance doesn't work exactly like it would in either SFB or FC.
The Klingons are still a "finesse" epire lackign the hammer of the Federation, but gien a vast number of games and players of equal skill - you will still get results roughly equivalent to the same number of games in SFB / FC.

As for separating the forums, I tend to agree with the pack.
Our Federation Commander (dot) com forums and the SFB bulletin board are split into separate threads for many different systems, allowing one to read only those that interest them; while others ( :roll: ) can read everything.
I have not played NA and probably won't; and really haven't read many of the posts here concerning NA. I do feel sorry for those who make a valid NA post only to see it immediately pushed off the bottom of the page by us rabid ADB types
 
Well given that several people's posts seemed to be directed at me, I got a little defensive.

I do plan to play ACTA:SF as I do have a rulebook and squadron pack arriving next week.

Jean:
I feel like the proverbial enthusiastic puppy that's peed all over the rug, and has just gotten a rolled up newspaper across the nose. :oops: I'll avoid SFB/FC from now on.

It does bring me to ask for a clarification though. Since I get the impression that we are being discouraged from referring to either SFB/FC, when is it appropriate to question a ship's stats or traits? I mean if we see something that really doesn't seem right, and we can't use the other 2 games as a baseline how are we to question it? Or is the policy going to be these are the stats, don't question it and go away?

A classic example would be the Klingon F5; it has a labs, tractor and ADD. When the ship is sold to the Romulans and they convert it to the KF5R, the ADD is removed, and the labs and tractor remain. When one looks at the stats for the KF5R in ACTA:SF, it has no labs or tractor but does have an ADD. This is inconsistent with previous games. Is it a legitimate errata or are we to be quiet and ignore it?

Also, Jean, can you ask Mongoose to assign a higher priority to a seperate forum for SF? The folk around here have been asking since August and the level of annoyance about it seems to be reaching a near-boil. It would save considerable angst if there was a seperate place for the NA/B5, etc guys to go and not get trod over by us SF guys.
 
To a certain extent, we want the SFB/FC (though mainly FC) crowd to give us an idea when something is wrong with ship stats and weapon tech. SFU has a wide base of tech, and though this is ACTA:SF, how they work in previous systems will be important to maintianing the flavour of the setting.

(Haven't played SFB for around 20 years, but have FC and play that for smaller engagements. Am looking forword to ACTA:SF allowing manageable 'FLEET' actions in a reasonable time).

What the current issue appears (IMHO) to be is that the level of complexity of the parent systems will sometimes NOT WORK in ACTA:SF, as the game engine is not set up for that. So when people discuss 'weapon A' in FC, it may not be able to be fully modelled under ACTA:SF, so a fit must be found. We need the SFU crowd for this, but also need to remember that we're talking about ACTA:SF, not SFB/FC. I got into this game (having dropped B5) as i want a fleet game in the SFU, so flavour is important to me.

We all have something to offer as the game grows, and grow it will.

(and i want my PPD's and Plasma-F defence blocks - boy are the concerns about overpowered weapon systems going to be interesting - a DN with 4 RH Plasma-F launchers :D :lol: :D )
 
I don't think anyone expects to seperate ACTA:SF from it's parent FC (or grandparent SFB) games - what would be helpful would be a well-thought out comment. A lot of the comments posted on this (ACTA) forum seem to be of the 'well it works this way in FC/SFB so there' (ok - I may be unfairly generalising here!) - whereas if the commentator explained any unfamiliar acronyms and tried to relate how they thought something worked in FC to the ACTA rules, it'd be a lot better! Takes a little bit more work and thinking, but is loads better in the long run, lol!
 
@ billclo *scritches the puppy's ears *

I honestly think that this is a short-term problem.

The ACTASF folks need to realize that the history of how weapons work and what ships have on them is based in FC. Questions cannot be asked and answers given without that. If you are going to try to jump the gun and bring in a new weapon you remember from a long-ago game of SFB, then you will need the input of SFU people. If you think a ship is off, then FC might hold the answer.

SFU folks need to realize that we are talking to new players and not throw acronyms and concepts around without definitions. We need to be very careful about answering questions until we've dealt with ACTASF as its own game. If you want to fiddle with SFU ships in ACTASF, you might consider doing that on the BBS where you won't overwhelm new players and you can debate the ideas with SFB terms and know you are speaking the same language. If you think something in ACTASF isn't accurately reflecting the FC information, take that to SVC on our boards so that he can compile the information there.

Jean
 
Jean said:
If you think a ship is off, then FC might hold the answer.
Jean
Click to expand...

Jean, given that I don't own or have access to FC, I will refrain from questioning ship stats/traits then since ACTASF is based on FC.
 
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