Giving Ancients the Fear Factor
- Thread starter Achiles
- Start date
emperorpenguin
Mongoose
Achiles said:
that's the thinking behind the shadow ship too, but personally i don't like it, if any ship in the game can line up a boresight it's the white star!
demonllamma
Mongoose
I always figured that if the Minbari had the ability to use gravity as a powersource, they would have enough technology to bend the light in the beam. Perhaps I am thinking too much into it, but that makes at least some sense to me.
Wulf Corbett
Mongoose
If you could create a gravitational field strong enough to bend a laser any more than a few fractions of a degree, you wouldn't need the laser.demonllamma said:
Wulf
lastbesthope
Mongoose
demonllamma said:
I don't think the Minbari use gravity as a power source, they have the ability to generate gravitational fields, something quite different. I mean, even we humans can use gravity as a power source in this day and age.
LBH
I disagree on the Shadows having to manouvre to fire.
If you watch them shooting their slicer beam, you can see that the beam actually 'sweeps' in arc underneath them, from one side to the other.
So long as their underside is facing the target, they can hit pretty much anything in a 120 degree arc.
the vorlon lightning guns are even more agile. They zzap out like, um, lighting, and shoot out to the sides of the ship not just the front.
Hellebore
If you watch them shooting their slicer beam, you can see that the beam actually 'sweeps' in arc underneath them, from one side to the other.
So long as their underside is facing the target, they can hit pretty much anything in a 120 degree arc.
the vorlon lightning guns are even more agile. They zzap out like, um, lighting, and shoot out to the sides of the ship not just the front.
Hellebore
emperorpenguin
Mongoose
Hellebore said:
in that case there'd be no such thing as a boresight weapon either, we regularly see those firing at extreme angles
In every engagement the shadows fight they swing their ships around to have the spikier side facing the target they wish to kill, they never fire from the flat side, therefore are not turreted
Achiles
Mongoose
Yeah I didn't think I had ever seen a shadow ship firing out of anything but the front. So we change the Shadow ship's weapon to front then.
Does anyone have any more concerns or ideas on Shadows? It seems to me we have gotten a consensus on them. To make certain I'll restate things as they stand:
Shadow Ship: MSB 24" range and Front arc, 4d6 Self-Repair
Shadow Hunter: MSB 18" range, 3d6 Self-Repair
Shadow Scout: Stealth 5+
Shadow Destroyer: shadow scout varient replace PPC w/MSB, 12", 4AD, Beam Super AP Triple Damage Precise, loses Scout and Stealth
I did some investigation and found out the varient for the shadow scout was called a destroyer. I took away stealth because the loss of scout didn't seem enough for the gain in firepower, no race except the minbari has non-scouts with stealth, and taking away stealth seemed more appropriate to the destroyer name. I also dropped any changes to the fighters. I did some comparisons and I now think the fighters are comparable to other fighters in the tournament lists. I especially think they will be fine if we can get a fighter fix finally agreed upon.
As for the Vorlons it seems like most everyone is ok with them to. Let me repost the changes to them so we can be clear:
Vorlon Cruisers: Hull 6 and +1AD to all weapons
Vorlon Transport and Destroyer: +2AD to all weapons
Vorlon Scout: vorlon transport varient Scout and Stealth 4+
I took out the vorlon fighter improvement for the same reason as the shadow fighter improvement.
I look forward to your comments, critiscisms, ideas, and mad ravings. If no one posts anything I will be taking that as approval and will then post these changes in a poll for final approval. So please post and tell me what you don't like or agree with. I really want to get something that we all (well most of us atleast) can agree upon and reflects the community's opinions. 
Does anyone have any more concerns or ideas on Shadows? It seems to me we have gotten a consensus on them. To make certain I'll restate things as they stand:
Shadow Ship: MSB 24" range and Front arc, 4d6 Self-Repair
Shadow Hunter: MSB 18" range, 3d6 Self-Repair
Shadow Scout: Stealth 5+
Shadow Destroyer: shadow scout varient replace PPC w/MSB, 12", 4AD, Beam Super AP Triple Damage Precise, loses Scout and Stealth
I did some investigation and found out the varient for the shadow scout was called a destroyer. I took away stealth because the loss of scout didn't seem enough for the gain in firepower, no race except the minbari has non-scouts with stealth, and taking away stealth seemed more appropriate to the destroyer name. I also dropped any changes to the fighters. I did some comparisons and I now think the fighters are comparable to other fighters in the tournament lists. I especially think they will be fine if we can get a fighter fix finally agreed upon.
As for the Vorlons it seems like most everyone is ok with them to. Let me repost the changes to them so we can be clear:
Vorlon Cruisers: Hull 6 and +1AD to all weapons
Vorlon Transport and Destroyer: +2AD to all weapons
Vorlon Scout: vorlon transport varient Scout and Stealth 4+
I took out the vorlon fighter improvement for the same reason as the shadow fighter improvement.
I look forward to your comments, critiscisms, ideas, and mad ravings.
If no one posts anything I will be taking that as approval and will then post these changes in a poll for final approval. So please post and tell me what you don't like or agree with. I really want to get something that we all (well most of us atleast) can agree upon and reflects the community's opinions. l33tpenguin
Mongoose
This is an exerpt from my "whats wrong with the shadows" write up that hasn't been posted yet.
I did a lot of flipping back and forth between the Shadows, The Narn and the Earth Alliance comparing ships. What comes most to mind, and would possibly be the largest argument over the design of the Shadow vessels is the battle in "The Long Twilight Struggle."
The first weapons deployed are energy mines, obviously out ranging anything fielded in the battle. The e-mines burst on the shadows, dealing damage. (On a side note, this is one example of where shadows demonstrate adaptive armor. JMS states that the shadows "absorbed" part of the impact, though it was painful).
Next, the shadows release there 'fighter-ball' It would seem to indicate that the launch of these is at a similar or slightly shorter range as that of the e-mines.
At this point the shadows begin to tare into the narn ships and the narns attempt to return fire, causing some damage. Now, obviously both groups started out of range of their primary batteries if they are only just now bringing them to bare, which would indicate that both have similar ranges.
Narn fleet gets sliced and diced for a while then attempt to flee, opening jump points. At this time, the shadows rush forward, its rather apparent they are trying to close range as quickly as possible to disrupt the jump points. The current rules in SFoS lists the jump point disrupter and slicer beam as having the same range. This doesn't fit in with what is shown in the show.
So, boost slicer beams to around 30, boost energy mines to about 32, drop range on jump point distorter thing to like 10.
btw, the shadows also have a "dreadnaught" varrient. There are two sizes of "shadow ship" if you pay close enough attention you can tell. If you've done extensive 3d modeling with b5 ships you would be aware of this. For a comparison you can look here www.merzo.net/10mpp.htm (great list overall for ship comparison). It has both sizes of shadow vessel, along with bunches of other fun ships.
I did a lot of flipping back and forth between the Shadows, The Narn and the Earth Alliance comparing ships. What comes most to mind, and would possibly be the largest argument over the design of the Shadow vessels is the battle in "The Long Twilight Struggle."
The first weapons deployed are energy mines, obviously out ranging anything fielded in the battle. The e-mines burst on the shadows, dealing damage. (On a side note, this is one example of where shadows demonstrate adaptive armor. JMS states that the shadows "absorbed" part of the impact, though it was painful).
Next, the shadows release there 'fighter-ball' It would seem to indicate that the launch of these is at a similar or slightly shorter range as that of the e-mines.
At this point the shadows begin to tare into the narn ships and the narns attempt to return fire, causing some damage. Now, obviously both groups started out of range of their primary batteries if they are only just now bringing them to bare, which would indicate that both have similar ranges.
Narn fleet gets sliced and diced for a while then attempt to flee, opening jump points. At this time, the shadows rush forward, its rather apparent they are trying to close range as quickly as possible to disrupt the jump points. The current rules in SFoS lists the jump point disrupter and slicer beam as having the same range. This doesn't fit in with what is shown in the show.
So, boost slicer beams to around 30, boost energy mines to about 32, drop range on jump point distorter thing to like 10.
btw, the shadows also have a "dreadnaught" varrient. There are two sizes of "shadow ship" if you pay close enough attention you can tell. If you've done extensive 3d modeling with b5 ships you would be aware of this. For a comparison you can look here www.merzo.net/10mpp.htm (great list overall for ship comparison). It has both sizes of shadow vessel, along with bunches of other fun ships.
TrueCentauri
Mongoose
When looking at the episodes, shadow ships are turreted. Indeed they only fire from one point of the hull. but they can roll the ship in any direction while doing so.
Example? The fleeing shadow vessels in shadow dancing fire on their pursuers.
So actually the ship can have any attitude while moving.
Example? The fleeing shadow vessels in shadow dancing fire on their pursuers.
So actually the ship can have any attitude while moving.
Wulf Corbett
Mongoose
Incorrect. They can move to face any direction, but can only fire from one side. SM movement, but no turretted fire.TrueCentauri said:
Partially correct. When fleeing from the Drazi/Whitestar pack, they clearly do not fire back, which makes me, at least, believe they cannot fire back (a single shot could easily destroy any one, or more, of the pursuers after all). This looks to me like they lose SM movement when moving at full speed to escape - as is already in ACtA - and that they do NOT have turretted weapons, so they cannot fire back. There is at least one that turns to fire as it escapes at the battle's end, but no proof whet speed it was moving at, it could have used SM movement, ended it's move facing backward, fired and Jumped.
Incorrect, it can face in any direction to fire, but only ever fires through one side of the hull, and only ever moves with this side 'forward'. SM movement, end movement facing whatever way it likes, but F arc weapons after the direction is decided on.
Wulf
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
Best example of Shadow Vessels not having turreted fire would be in "The Fall of Night"
Unless the Shadows just have a flair for the dramatic, why does the shadow vessel turn around to destroy Keffer's Starfury if they are capable of firing rearward?
Yes, seeing the ship turn around to destroy the little starfury is FAR more dramatic that just blowing a bright pink beam out its butt, like so much cosmic diarea, to annihilate our lone hero, but it just proves yet another time when the Shadows have been seen to not have full 260 degree coverage.
Unless the Shadows just have a flair for the dramatic, why does the shadow vessel turn around to destroy Keffer's Starfury if they are capable of firing rearward?
Yes, seeing the ship turn around to destroy the little starfury is FAR more dramatic that just blowing a bright pink beam out its butt, like so much cosmic diarea, to annihilate our lone hero, but it just proves yet another time when the Shadows have been seen to not have full 260 degree coverage.
Wulf Corbett
Mongoose
And you believe that Shadows operate with the same physical laws as mere mortals ? 8)Balance said:
Wulf
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
Balance said:
You expect typo-free posts at 6:30 in the morning on a monday?
I think the general concept is that use of Turret simulates the fact that Shadows can maneuver any direction they want while still traveling forward...Think a moving version of the Starblossom technique (right name?) from The Last Starfighter...If you had to turn the model to respresent this then the momentum of the ship wouldn't be represented if it decided to go AAF durring the next turn...
emperorpenguin
Mongoose
deathlynx said:
we see whitestars do that and they don't have "turret"
in fact according to newtonian physics all ships should be able to do it
sidewinder
Mongoose
giving shadows adaptive armor might be a quick fix but they dont really seem to operate the same as vorlon ships do. Those tendrals are supposed to be energy dissipaters, so the ship can take a certain amount of damage before it actually gets hurt. The B5 Wars rules did a pretty good job of showing it. And the real adaptive armor that the vorlons had from B5 wars was way better too.
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
These are some of my reasons for prefering a true point value system. *technically* the priority level system is a point system. You have X number of points and every ship costs 1 point. Exactly the same thing. However, with a true point system, you can break the ships down further and make them more diverse and varied instead of having to balance them within 5 levels of power. Shadows COULD be made immensly powerful. They would also cost a ton of points.
emperorpenguin
Mongoose
l33tpenguin said:
Personally I just find that points systems are picky and take too long, players try to cram as much in as possible
the priority system though not perfect works and works quickly
the problem with the first ones isn't the Priority system it's mostly the damage table, I never found the shadows a walkover in the original rules
