Gorn's - chocolate bricks ?

[Keeper Nilbog]

As a note, i have yet to play ActA:SF, though do have a background in ActA:B5 and a small amount 1-2 games of NA.

Been looking at the stats for the various ships across the Empires, and for a Race renowned for 'tough' ships, the Gorn don't seem that tough. They maneuver like bricks - check :? , good all round Phaser coverage, mainly PH-1 - check , tougher than the ships of other Empires - well, not really :shock: :? .

I understand that a formula was used to develop damage/hull, but the Gorn ships appear to generally have less Damage than other ships in the same class.

Compare a Gorn Lt Crusier vs a Sparrowhawk (possibly a bad choice as the Sparrowhawk has a massive hull/damage score - unless mixed up with a Firehawk). they both cost around 170pts (Gorn more costly by 5pts), they have similar Plasma (the Gorn has an extra type S) and Phaser (the gorn has an extra PH-1, and better all round coverage. Both have equivilant Phaser concentrations) Loads. The Romulan has a cloak. Even assuming the Hull/Damage should be 28/10, our Romulan still has 4 more hull/damage (with 2 higher crippled rating) and a 6pt shield advantage. The gorn hardly seem's tough.

When compared against the 170pt vessels for the other Empires, only the D7 is weaker structurally, having a hull/damage of 22 (2 less), though it has the same shield - with the Klingon rules (so really stronger shields), all others have shields at least 6pts higher. (suppose this is down to the fact that in SFB/FC, most Empires have stronger shields to the fore - 6/1/2 in game terms, whereas Gorn shields were strong all around).

And the further up the weight class you go, the more noticable it is. The Gorn Dreadnought is structurally the weakest (against most others, it gives away damage/crippled and shielding - Kzinti is it's nearest stat wise).

With the movement issues (which i totally agree with, Bricks in space indeed) and the low (minus) Initative rating, i'm not sure they are that viable a tabletop force.

Gentlemen, your views please.

 

[Da Boss]

I mentioned it on another thread - the Gorns are not at all tough - the toughest point for point seem to be the Romulan Hawk class vessels.

The points values seem to be ok but the fluff of being durable does not match the reality - unless its all just Gorn propoganda?


Not played them but they appear to have lots of guns and at least they are not crappy Phaser 2's

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Just checked against my FC cards, and to be fair, the Lt crusier isn't that tough (though the Sparrowhawk is the more expensive ship of the 2 in FC, by about 15pts). It seems that the way they've set up the Gorn in this version is a Targets with massive firepower - the plasma's. As the firing arcs for these are generally good, maybe thats how they intended them to run.

Still not sure about the minus initiative AND Lumbering on anything bigger than a lt. Crusier. One or the other, and i'd go with the Lumbering over the initiative minus (don't understand why the Orion's have a minus as well, not really a strike from suprise option - maybe Lumbering on there bigger ships - salvage crusier - and a fleet rule that they can use 'High Energy Turn SA')

 

[Ben2]

Gorn BC damage is fine.


Fed Com/SFB SSD boxes

Kzinti BC - 99

Fed CA - 95

Gorn BC - 94

Romulan Firehawk - 92

Klingon D7 - 87

Orion CA - 84

Tholian CA - 83

ACTA:SFU damage

Kzinti BC - 34/12

Fed CA - 32/11

Gorn BC - 32/11

Orion CA (using current damage calc) - 32/11

Romulan Firehawk - 28/10

Tholian CA - 28/10

Klingon D7 - 22/8

At the moment the ships out of alignment are the Klingon D7, Romulan Firehawk and the Tholian CA. If the current damage calculation (hull+cargo x 2 = damage)is unchanged in Battleships then the six cargo boxes on the Orion CA move it from the bottom to nearly the top of the list.

As it stands the Gorn BC damage is perfectly in line with what it was in SFU, just as tough as the Federation CA, with only the Kzinti BC beating them.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

True, but with the exception of the Kzinti (same pts) and Firehawk (25pts more), it's also 20-30 pts more expensive, with the Lumbering trait and -1 Fleet intiative (thats a 2pt. advantage for Klingon/Romulan/Kzinti)

Make them more fun to play, and to be fair, the smaller ships have MASSIVE firepower, IF they can get close enough - still not sure over that.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Ah. Bit of a misconception here.

Gorns’ have never been tougher per se, the reputation for toughness goes back to SFB and the way damage was handled.

In SFB once the shields were down each point of damage was rolled to see what had been hit. Hull boxes were free hits since they did nothing and could be marked off as damage without impacting the ships performance.

Hull came as Forward, Centre and aft. Hits from the front hit forward Hull, Aft hits to the Aft Hull and centre Hull came in when you had run out of Forward or aft hull.

So on a Klink ship with a fragile front end and a low number of Forward Hull boxes it quickly ran out of free hits, not having any worthwhile central Hull all those Hull hits on the table became weapons and systems.

Fed ships had large Forward hulls and weaker aft hulls and so suffered the same problem when hit from behind.

Now the Gorns had this huge block of centre Hull which meant that they could go on taking Hull hits longer than most of the other races from either Forward or Aft. 20 forward internals on a Gorn BC compared to 20 on a D7 would give more Hull to the Gorn and more weapons and systems to the D7 who quickly ran out of forward Hull.

The Gorn were not tougher, they just took damage better due to the block of centre Hull that absorbed internal hits protecting vital systems.

This would reflect in them having just as many hull hits as they do but a lower cripple number. They cannot take more internal damage than the other ships before they blow up, what they do is remain functioning for longer.

I would suggest that you house rule the Gorns cripple rate downwards, they blow up the same as other ships of the same size but remain functional for longer.

Gorn BC 32/8 or even as low as 6.

This allows the Gorn to take several extra internal hits while still remaining combat effective but means that once crippled they will be destroyed quicker than others. Which is about what happened to my Gorn ships in SFB, hang on in there till the bitter end still firing then suddenly explode :lol:

 

[Iron Domokun]

Jonah, in ACTA no ship loses any capabilities (barring critical hits) until crippled. So the Gorns aren't downgraded, it's just that everything else got upgraded.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Yep.

But the Gorn Fleet marketing department campaign to scare potential enemies by always referring to the Gorn ships as tougher than everyone else stems from how they handled internals in SFB.

In ACTA:SF they have no such advantage which is why I suggested lowering the point they are crippled to reflect the old Gorn fleet ability to better take internal damage.

Not played them yet (waiting for some ships)(and a few more local players) so I’m not going to comment on how they balance. The heavy weapon arcs should compensate for the restricted turning and the Gorn Scissors should handled those pesky klinks etc plus the firepower looks to balance against the other races but I’ll see once I have a few battles done.

Odd detail missed on the calculations above. Plasmas are multi box weapons, they are a single box on the SSD because one hit takes them out but Gs and Ss are two box weapons and I remember the R being a 4 box weapon so those Gorn and Romulan and ISC ships have more actual boxes than mentioned in the comparison. Makes no difference either way.

 

[starbreaker]

The Gorn were not tougher, they just took damage better due to the block of centre Hull that absorbed internal hits protecting vital systems.

This would reflect in them having just as many hull hits as they do but a lower cripple number. They cannot take more internal damage than the other ships before they blow up, what they do is remain functioning for longer.

I would suggest that you house rule the Gorns cripple rate downwards, they blow up the same as other ships of the same size but remain functional for longer.

Gorn BC 32/8 or even as low as 6.

Agreed, but it needs to be an official rules change, not a house rule. The "center hull" thing is very important to modelling actual SFB/FC combat effectiveness, and it needs to be addressed before the release of the Hydrans, who are even better at soaking damage on their hull - it isn't called the #7 shield for them for nothing.

 

[Sgt_G]

Odd detail missed on the calculations above. Plasmas are multi box weapons, they are a single box on the SSD because one hit takes them out but Gs and Ss are two box weapons and I remember the R being a 4 box weapon so those Gorn and Romulan and ISC ships have more actual boxes than mentioned in the comparison. Makes no difference either way.

Being a multi-box weapon is only for the number weapon options mounts, such as on Orion ships, a plamsa torp take up on a ship. It does nothing to increase the damage a ship can take; in fact, it decreases it because now two boxes are marked off with one hit.

 

[Iron Domokun]

The initiative and toughness issues raised by some posters will turn out to be non-issues I think. They are about as tough as Federation ships and Feds are plenty tough, enough so that they all get a chance to fire even when losing initiative.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Starbreaker.

Never mind the Methane suckers, they exist to give the Klingons something to beat and the Lyrans something to eat. Sort the Gorns out first :twisted:


Sgt_G

Well for a weapon that a ship is often built around those plasma Rs are a bit small and wimpy, you can wave a Phaser 3 at them and they break. :roll:

 

[starbreaker]

Starbreaker.

Never mind the Methane suckers, they exist to give the Klingons a savage beating and the Lyrans something to fear. Sort the Gorns out first :twisted:

Fixed that for you. Any complaints, talk to the gatling phaser.

Well for a weapon that a ship is often built around those plasma Rs are a bit small and wimpy, you can wave a Phaser 3 at them and they break. :roll:

A flaw in SFB right from the start. In hindsight, having multi-box weapon systems that suffered a degradation in performance as they took damage would have made a much better game in terms of variety and balance. People were telling Task Force that back when the game was still in a ziplock baggie, but would Steve listen? Nope, instead we got baby plasma tacked on to give ships some damage padding.

 

[Sgt_G]

Oh, but if we only had a time machine to go back an re-invent things at the moment when they were first invented ......

There's a few things I wish SFB did differently. Just as when I'm reading the ACTA:SF rulebook I find things I wonder why it wasn't done some other way.

 

[Nerroth]

There are some weapons out there which do take multiple hits to disable (and which do degrade in performance as their component boxes are disabled); however, most of those are in non-Alpha settings (where it was perhaps easier to create them anew rather than to re-work pre-existing systems).

But in some cases, what you see on the SSD is not always the weapon proper, but rather a component of it (such as a firing chamber, or perhaps a control interface). In the case of certain Alpha Octant plasma launchers, you can still fire a torpedo out of a disabled chamber within a certain number of impulses; though once it's fired (or lost), you'd still have to repair it before re-arming.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Like the idea of a reduced crippled threshold, even just a point or two (actually thinking along this line myself). Gorn ships did tend to do the famous imploding brick trick on a regular basis in games i played, as i tended to try to stop it as being part of the fun.

Gorn ships are not better than other vessels (though a full salvo of plasma's may give some arguement to that), but did tend to last longer in a fight - rather like Drazi in B5W (and that was down to the 'diamond hull box formation' on the ships.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Gorn ships are not better than other vessels (though a full salvo of plasma's may give some arguement to that),

Oh, yes. A Gorn at short range is just plain rude...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Whats that, how dare you sir. :shock:

A Romulan behind you is rude.

A Gorn in front of you is simply terrifying. After all its not as if you didn't see them coming towards you.

Rude. Bah..... :lol:


Regarding the Crit level. Perhaps dropping it to 1/4 round to nearest for the mighty Gorn (oh and those other types, short, odd number of legs, suck methane, Oh yes klingon targets :twisted: )

Its not going to be massive, most heavy weapons do enough to cover the extra in a hit but it will crop up enough to leave a Gorn (or Methane sucker) uncripled just that little bit longer.

Anyone with enough players to give it a few games to see how it balances against the lumbering and slow witted (sorry -1 initiative) :lol:

 

[archon96]

hey is there a gorn command cruiser yet to help overcome the -1 initiative. if not us reptile players need one.

 

[Da Boss]

IIRC there are a couple of Gorn Command ships -Scouts may be more important to you in the future - as you would get a re-roll every turn...........and that could be very handy if you need to fire first.