Have points costs for ships.

[Slightly Norse John]

I remember those conversions- downloaded and tried out some of them- and they did not seem an improvement.

Too many ships came out of the conversion process as either far too easy to kill- two round games becoming normal- or far too heavily armed for their own survivability.
The original stats ported to the ACtA system is a bad plan- it just doesn't function the same way. They produced shorter, tactically duller games.

 

[Triggy]

Ahem,
Just to remind people (and introduce newbies), I did up a series of points conversions for ACTA about six months ago.

The ships are converted to match their B5W original stats, and their points are based off those. As such this system allows quick and easy conversion of other races (for example the Hyach, below)

The lot:
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mrpunch/Babylon5/B5W/#AACTAPoints

Individual Races:
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mrpunch/Babylon5/B5W/ACTA-Points-EA.pdf
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mrpunch/Babylon5/B5W/ACTA-Points-Minbari.pdf
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mrpunch/Babylon5/B5W/ACTA-Points-Dilgar.pdf
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mrpunch/Babylon5/B5W/ACTA-Points-Narn.pdf
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~mrpunch/Babylon5/B5W/ACTA-Points-Hyach.pdf

Standard rules all apply to the ships (with the exception that Masters of Destruction does NOT apply to these Dilgar).

Playtest reports on the level of balance present would be more than welcome. :wink:

john

You're right, it is hard to balance out a ship but it is possible.... you just need the correct modifiers for all of the traits and values (mine come out virtually bang on the money every time so far).

First thing to bear in mind is that each ship has a combat ability three times greater than a ship of the PL below. This combat ability is defined as its defensive capability multiplied by its firepower, factoring for speed/manoeuvrability and adding/multiplying for various traits such as Scout, Jump Point or it carrying fighters.

As an example, you can calculate defensive capability of a ship by taking its damage score (I'm not going to bother here with showing you how to factor in crew score or thresholds); add a value for self-repair; multiply by 2 for adaptive armour; divide by 3.5 for taking d6 damage for each hit; do a complicated little function for GEG; add the average number of hits the interceptors will stop (generally half of it's potential due to some fleets ignoring them) - commonly add 4.0 for Interceptors 2 (or 3.0 for Interceptors 1, 4.67 for interceptors 3, etc.) and multiply by 13/12 (each figure being half of what they can do); multiply for dodge; multiply for stealth (taking a factor slightly lower than normal due to scouts, range and fighters); multiply for hull value (1.5 for hull 6, 0.67 for hull 4); multiply for manoeuvrability (more manoeuvrable ships are more survivable) and you should have a figure.

All of these steps would need to be performed in the correct order and tend to give fairly consistant answers. Do a similar sum for weapons and you're then very close to an end result. Add in fighters, etc. and you have a score for the ship. Divide this by a constant then do a log to the base 3 and you have a value for your ship.

Simple really!

 

[Target]

Had a quick work out trying to assign points to ships.
Did the Prefect, Centurion, Vorchan, Tourney Balvarian and Sentri.
Did some rounding.
Prefect 1650
Centurion 1340
Vorchan 420
Balvarian 1300
Sentri 50
Need a lot of rethinking , fighters came out to low i think
Basicaly went hull * hits + hull * crews, weapon range*dam*ad*special abilities( various values for beam 1.5,ap 1.5 and such)
But it did show that prefect is far superior to centurion which seemed right.
Went Speed* no of 45 turns
minus the average between the thresholds* hull.
JP was worth the hits.
Not sure what i did for carrier, think went carrier no * hits.
1/2 the cost of fighters on board ships.
It's all bit hard to read as they just scribbles on random pieces of papers so makes it hard put up.

 

[Triggy]

Had a quick work out trying to assign points to ships.
Did the Prefect, Centurion, Vorchan, Tourney Balvarian and Sentri.
Did some rounding.
Prefect 1650
Centurion 1340
Vorchan 420
Balvarian 1300
Sentri 50
Need a lot of rethinking , fighters came out to low i think
Basicaly went hull * hits + hull * crews, weapon range*dam*ad*special abilities( various values for beam 1.5,ap 1.5 and such)
But it did show that prefect is far superior to centurion which seemed right.
Went Speed* no of 45 turns
minus the average between the thresholds* hull.
JP was worth the hits.
Not sure what i did for carrier, think went carrier no * hits.
1/2 the cost of fighters on board ships.
It's all bit hard to read as they just scribbles on random pieces of papers so makes it hard put up.

Not too bad, I had a quick blast with my system:

Sentri: 25
Vorchan: 139
Centurion: 411
Prefect: 496
Balvarin: 433
Primus: 896
Tertius: 1011
Octurion: 1801

With a baseline of Patrol being worth 100, Skirmish 200, Raid 400, Battle 800 and War 1600.

 

[CodeofArms]

For those who say it's too complicated to use points systems, hand back your GCSE maths certificate with shame

:lol:

Its good to see some conversion systems going on. And with that mention of Battletech somewhere on here i'm going to have to fo buy it.

Generally though I still stand by that points are just a pain in the glutes. Fair enough if you adore eeking over books to get a build fair play to you; but the fact that AcTA has such a high new-game recycle time compared to others i'd quickly find points tedious; having to scrap a fleet list and starting afresh inbetween each game to get the right "build"

 

[Kosh127]

Ok guys how many times are we going to run throught this??????????

 

[DrSeltsam]

After re-reading the posts i start to believe that some people don't want to loose the current PL system - regardless what arguments you bring for a better balancing of the game .... however :roll:

Why not use both ?
Give each ship a PL level as today and a point value. So each player group can decide what they want to use for their games.

What do you thing ?
Good idea / Bad Idea ?
Might this be a solution ?

 

[H]

After re-reading the posts i start to believe that some people don't want to loose the current PL system - regardless what arguments you bring for a better balancing of the game .... however :roll:

Why not use both ?
Give each ship a PL level as today and a point value. So each player group can decide what they want to use for their games.

What do you thing ?
Good idea / Bad Idea ?
Might this be a solution ?

It's alot of work that i suspect Mongoose will not want to do. I suppose their is the option of a fan created PDF for a points system.
Personally, whatever it's deficiances, I like to say, ooh, I have 5 raid points, and my fleet is 2 raid, 6 skirmish and some patrol ships, instead of saying I have 15000 points, then having to get a book out, and remember how to add and subtract. Yes, you are welcome to my GCSE maths certificate if you want.

 

[Greg Smith]

I do prefer the priority system for its simplicity. And it really is simpler. Not the maths, but in the choosing.

I play Heroscape which has a points system and the amount of time it takes people to chose a 400 points army from a bunch of cards with points values in multiples of ten, is ridiculous. "I could have him, but then I'm 10 points over, so If I choose him and them, I could get him instead, but then I'd have 20 points to spare...." It is painful to watch.

And I don't have GCSE maths, so you can't get my certificate. I have two O Levels, an A level and a degree, though. But you ain't getting those. :lol:

 

[Reaverman]

I do prefer the priority system for its simplicity. And it really is simpler. Not the maths, but in the choosing.

I play Heroscape which has a points system and the amount of time it takes people to chose a 400 points army from a bunch of cards with points values in multiples of ten, is ridiculous. "I could have him, but then I'm 10 points over, so If I choose him and them, I could get him instead, but then I'd have 20 points to spare...." It is painful to watch.

And I don't have GCSE maths, so you can't get my certificate. I have two O Levels, an A level and a degree, though. But you ain't getting those. :lol:

Agreed, and well put

 

[emperorpenguin]

After re-reading the posts i start to believe that some people don't want to loose the current PL system - regardless what arguments you bring for a better balancing of the game .... however :roll:
?

Because some of us KNOW that points systems suffer balance issues too!

:roll:

 

[DrSeltsam]

After re-reading the posts i start to believe that some people don't want to loose the current PL system - regardless what arguments you bring for a better balancing of the game .... however :roll:
?

Because some of us KNOW that points systems suffer balance issues too!

:roll:

Im sorry but i don't think that i said that a point based system is always and forever without any balance issues. From my experience a point based system can be graduated much more finely and this can lead to much more balanced game. Nothing is guaranteed but it possesses the possibility for more balance :roll:

/sarcasm mod on
If somesay just say "PL is better - point based is crap" and does not try to justify this with arguments i have the impression that this maybe - eventually - is not a very productive part in a discussion ... maybe im wrong with this impression.
/sarcasm mod off

If your opponent is not able to add/subtract/divide some values how will he/she be able to calculate beam effect with AP or SuperAP, double or triple damage, different speed values, Adaptive Armour damage value, .... ?

@ Greg Smith
I understand your point completey regarding people+problem with too much choice.
But do we really want to have a system as simple as possilbe just do help people that seem not be able to make a decision ?

How do you and the people you are playing build your fleets ?
We always have a fleet list ready before we meet for a game - so there is no problem with this in our gaming area/group.

 

[Alexb83]

Not too bad, I had a quick blast with my system:

Sentri: 25
Vorchan: 139
Centurion: 411
Prefect: 496
Balvarin: 433
Primus: 896
Tertius: 1011
Octurion: 1801

With a baseline of Patrol being worth 100, Skirmish 200, Raid 400, Battle 800 and War 1600.

This is all really academic - how do you compare 1 AD of SAP, TD, P Beam to 1AD of a non-traited weapon? How would you quantify the value of a stealth system, or adaptive armour? Trying to do this leads to a system like Full Thrust, where certain races pay through the nose to get things which they ought to get for free.
The PL system is good. What it needs is a review of the ship designs within each PL for each fleet. Mongoose have given us plenty of choices, but unfortunately there's frequently little real choice.

 

[DrSeltsam]

This is all really academic - how do you compare 1 AD of SAP, TD, P Beam to 1AD of a non-traited weapon? How would you quantify the value of a stealth system, or adaptive armour? Trying to do this leads to a system like Full Thrust, where certain races pay through the nose to get things which they ought to get for free.
The PL system is good. What it needs is a review of the ship designs within each PL for each fleet. Mongoose have given us plenty of choices, but unfortunately there's frequently little real choice.

Oh come on ...
Yep , all the other companies using a point based system have a Deep Blue ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_blue ) in their cellar for the calculation :roll:

This is all really academic - how do you compare
Thats exactly the point - you don't. There is no "i think" in this process. The value is calculated by a mathematical formula and not decided by a person.

In a reasonable point based system something like the Sagittarius( http://chburger.brinkster.net/armageddon/ViewShip.asp?ShipID=54 ) and the Neroon would not be possible. The point value would show that the ship is too strong/too weak for its suggested level.

 

[Burger]

This is all really academic - how do you compare
Thats exactly the point - you don't. There is no "i think" in this process. The value is calculated by a mathematical formula and not decided by a person.

In a reasonable point based system something like the Sagittarius( http://chburger.brinkster.net/armageddon/ViewShip.asp?ShipID=54 ) and the Neroon would not be possible. The point value would show that the ship is too strong/too weak for its suggested level.

So what mathematical formula decides what is the points value of Adaptive Armour? And what is the value of 1AD SAP/TD/P/B compared to 1AD traitless? Somebody has to decide those things.

 

[Alexb83]

That is my point! (and thanks to Burger for putting it for me)

Breaking this down into a formula does involve an 'I think' factor, since you are going to apply arbitrary multipliers and values to different traits. What price would you put on a 45 degree turn compared to a 90? What price for speed 12 vs speed 6? Are you assuming a value per point?

The ships should be revised such that they are more closely equivalent to other ships at their PL, in terms of offensive capacity or defensive capacity. That's all that is required to fix the existing problems with the fleet breakdowns. With so many ships (especially variant ships) you lose more than you gain in the variant, or gain far more than you lose - without a respective change in PL. That's the problem.

 

[Alexb83]

In a reasonable point based system something like the Sagittarius( http://chburger.brinkster.net/armageddon/ViewShip.asp?ShipID=54 ) and the Neroon would not be possible. The point value would show that the ship is too strong/too weak for its suggested level.

Of course they would be possible - they would simply cost little more than a War level ship in terms of points (certainly not the 2x as much which the PL system seems to indicate).

 

[DrSeltsam]

In a reasonable point based system something like the Sagittarius( http://chburger.brinkster.net/armageddon/ViewShip.asp?ShipID=54 ) and the Neroon would not be possible. The point value would show that the ship is too strong/too weak for its suggested level.

Of course they would be possible - they would simply cost little more than a War level ship in terms of points (certainly not the 2x as much which the PL system seems to indicate).

But that's the problem in the PL system !
You get 2 skirmish Sag ( fictitiously cost of 150pt per ship = 300pt ) while your opponent gets 2 skirmish ship ( fictitiously cost of 100 per ship = 200pt ) or 1 raid ship ( fictitiously cost 150pt per ship= 150pt ). In the PL system you always get more than your opponents gets. Only "your feeling" can tell that there is something wrong. In point based system it would be shown that there is something wrong.

 

[Burger]

But that's the problem in the PL system !
You get 2 skirmish Sag ( fictitiously cost of 150pt per ship = 300pt ) while your opponent gets 2 skirmish ship ( fictitiously cost of 100 per ship = 200pt ) or 1 raid ship ( fictitiously cost 150pt per ship= 150pt ). In the PL system you always get more than your opponents gets. Only "your feeling" can tell that there is something wrong. In point based system it would be shown that there is something wrong.

So long as the points value of every ship is balanced. How do you do that, as Alex keeps asking but never gets answered, how do you decide how many points a ship is worth without being subjective? If Interceptors 1 is worth 10 points, how much is GEG 1 worth?

 

[Alexb83]

Sure, but my point is, why go to the extent of making a messy point system, when all you need to do to fix the current system is move around a few traits and change a few no.s of AD?

It is very clear at the moment which ships are considered broken, either too strong or too weak. It's also very easy to see how they are broken (too many AD, too strong a hull, etc. etc.).

It is therefore pretty easy to fix them, without getting in to very messy formulae which may seriously offer bias to some fleets and not others (a la the full thrust system).