[House Rules] A drone nerf and some cloaking changes.

[gord314]

I wrote up some house rules here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eEOrek4nOiSOEMKRNfOLuzebUxDzqYyDDkWHPWL59uY/edit

plutonyum and I will be testing them over the coming weeks. I don't think any of them are game breaking, but hopefully they will give the Romulans a little help.

Here a few notes:

Drones are good in most cases, but the real problem with drones seems to be massed long range fire, these rules will hopefully help with that.

Cloaked movement slows down the game a little to much for our tastes, so we sped it up a bit.

Romulans are over priced in scenarios where cloaking doesn't work, so we gave them a boost in these to. This will need some more play testing to balance correctly probably.

plutonyum wanted de-cloaking to be more of a surprise, so we put in an option for that.

It just feels right that an entirely cloaked fleet should have the initiative.

 

[Da Boss]

Thanks - it will be interesting to see how you playtest games go - especially against what appear to be non optimal fleets like the Gorn?

Drones are good in most cases, but the real problem with drones seems to be massed long range fire, these rules will hopefully help with that.

Cetainly one possible solution - there are others but interesting tos ee how this plays out.

Cloaked movement slows down the game a little to much for our tastes, so we sped it up a bit.

Hmm you do seem to have given the Romulans a very very big boost - are they really that underpowered?

Romulans are over priced in scenarios where cloaking doesn't work, so we gave them a boost in these to. This will need some more play testing to balance correctly probably. [/i]

I assume that Cloaked Ships means that all ships must start the game cloaked not just capable of being cloaked. This again is a big boost to the Romulans if they are sure that they are always going to fire first and are able to move more quickly and get better protection and...............

plutonyum wanted de-cloaking to be more of a surprise, so we put in an option for that. [/i]

Oh thats also really nasty and yet another boost????

Why would the Romulans not do this with their entire fleet making the entire enemy fleet move first before decloaking and destroying them - yeah it might be fluffy but no fun for your opponent to just line his ships and watch them explode especially since your new re-cloaoking save has been enhance to 3+ so even the next turn will be harder - if he has anything left.

Really need to see some playtest results...................but I think that whilst eech of your boosts to the Romulans may be (and thats only a may be) ok - giving them all these will be way too much?

 

[Greg Smith]

Let me say that we did a lot of playtesting with Romulans.

A couple of those are just minor boosts to the Romulans. Several of them are quite big boosts. All together they will make the Romulans insanely good.

On top of that you reduce the effectiveness of the Kzinti (and to a lesser extent the Fed and Klingons).

But it is your game, I will be interested to hear how it works.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Re your house rules. Nothing personal intenede here, they just seem a tad over the top :wink: :lol:

Drones.
Since drones fired at long range have a long flight time, it is easier to hit them with defensive fire.
To represent this, if a ship is fired upon by drones from over 18” (possibly less, more testing is needed with drone heavy fleets) away any ship in the same fleet can assist in defensive fire as if it had successfully declared an intensify defensive fire special order.

Yes but its going to cut drones to nothing. With a special action required to defend against the Drone swarms you have used that turns special action meaning you can either defend yourself or do something else.

By allowing any ship within Phaser range of the target to fire at any Drone fired from long range you use up the target fleets Phasers while completely negating the Drone firepower.

Kzinti (or Fed/Klink Drone chucker fleets) are a pain to deal with due to the 24+ Drones a turn from across the map. However negating the Drone fire which is, after all, the core attack of the Kzinti is equally wrong.

Making IDF automatic against Drones from over 18" has the same effect but makes people use the special action, it doesn't give them a free Fleet Immunity to Drones.

Cloaks Yesh where to start. :wink: :lol:

Cloaked ships may move 9” while cloaked. This does not change their movement while cloaking or de-cloaking.

This makes them faster than slow ships, faster than power drained ships which I believe the 6” speed is representing, fast enough to actually chase people across the map. Cloaks at 6” wander around the map, 9” seems excessive. You can bring on your early era ships under cloak, flank and dump a mass of plasmas far more effectively that is possible now. It also means that Rom cruisers with turn mode 4 can, under cloak, out turn Gorn cruisers with Lumbering. :shock:

The turn a ship activates its cloaking device, it gains stealth 3+ instead of stealth 4+.

I don’t see this as being gross, need to be tested though because it improves from 50% to 66% to number of misses which improves cloaking ships survivability

If a ship equipped with a cloaking device is not cloaked and does not perform an all power to engines special action, it gets stealth 5+ until it fires a weapon offensively.

Cough. So every Rom ship has a cloak and therefore gets stealth 5+ all the time unless under cloak and therefore better. That is somewhat excessive, not just for the early stuff, the middle Klink ships with double front shield and now perma 5+ stealth or the much tougher late ships with decent shields, high damage values, turn mode 4 and 5+ stealth. :roll:

If a cloaked ship performs no special action, it may de-cloak at the end of the movement phase (after all ships and shuttles have moved) and fire normally this turn.

How is this new, if it performs no special order is the same as performing a De-Cloak special order. Ships that De-cloak get the 6” reposition and can fire normally anyway. Or are you angling for a 9” reposition based on your improved speed above. :?

If a fleet consists only of cloaked ships, that fleet always wins the initiative. If two or more fleets have only cloaked ships, roll for initiative as normal.

Cough Cough. On your bike sunshine. :lol: So you start your entire fleet cloaked, win initiative every turn automatically while moving at 9” and leaving the poor sod facing you to try to keep out of range of your faster ships and increased turning ability while trying to hurt your 2+ stealth ships which are immune to seeking weapons. :shock:

It is enough of a puzzle why the Gorns still exist with most of their cruisers Lumbering against the Rom who can out turn them across the board. With all of these changes the Gorn would be signing up as a province of the Federation to avoid being wiped out. :roll:

Please go ahead and have fun with your games, but I think you will find people in your games who go up against the Romulans will quickly become more than a little annoyed. :lol:

 

[storeylf]

As above (though I haven't played that much) some of them do seem insanely good, and especially taken as a whole.

But this one confuses me:

If a ship equipped with a cloaking device is not cloaked and does not perform an all power to engines special action, it gets stealth 5+ until it fires a weapon offensively.

Why?

I can sort of see why you are looking at the other house rules, but not that one.

 

[storeylf]

If a cloaked ship performs no special action, it may de-cloak at the end of the movement phase (after all ships and shuttles have moved) and fire normally this turn.

How is this new, if it performs no special order is the same as performing a De-Cloak special order. Ships that De-cloak get the 6” reposition and can fire normally anyway. Or are you angling for a 9” reposition based on your improved speed above. :?

What that does is allow you hold back on the decision to uncloak until you see where all enemy ships are. If you had to use the uncloak action you'd uncloak and enemy ships may then respond to that.

Seems very overpowered to me.

 

[Greg Smith]

The turn a ship activates its cloaking device, it gains stealth 3+ instead of stealth 4+.

I don’t see this as being gross, need to be tested though because it improves from 50% to 66% to number of misses which improves cloaking ships survivability

If a Romulan fleet decloaks as one, then attacks, then recloaks, the turn that they recloak is pretty much the only turn they are vulnerable to attack. The turn they decloak, almost every phaser is tasked to defence, so they don't get hit a lot. Plus they can move anywher and so stay away from a lot (not all) photons and other heavies.

If a cloaked ship performs no special action, it may de-cloak at the end of the movement phase (after all ships and shuttles have moved) and fire normally this turn.

How is this new, if it performs no special order is the same as performing a De-Cloak special order. Ships that De-cloak get the 6” reposition and can fire normally anyway. Or are you angling for a 9” reposition based on your improved speed above. :?

This is insane.

Normally what happens is that Romulans decloak one ship, their enemy moves a ship to be able to fire at it. Romulans decloak second behind enemy ship, enemy moves a ship to fire at a decloaked ship....

With this: enemy moves entire fleet, Romulans decloak behind entire enemy fleet. It completely negates the I-go-you-go basis of the ACTA rules.

Romulans can be tricky to get right with the existing rules. But they are not a weak fleet.

 

[logical_proof]

Always winning initiative is excessive, always 5+ stealth is excessive, 3+ on recloaking may fit. And lastly holding the option to recloaking AFTER all movement sounds like it would be a lot of fun for the Romulan, but not for anyone else, I like the idea but I am afraid it would be broken. I think a better option would be to allow the regular six inch move and then the free 6" after you use your only special action to decloak.

 

[logical_proof]

And yes Romulans are a weak fleet.

 

[ShadowDave]

I could never use all of these changes, maybe one or two... If I used them all I would feel too guilty to ever play Romulans again, assuming the other players didn't lynch me on the spot!

 

[Da Boss]

And yes Romulans are a weak fleet.

Really - don;t see it myself

Huge range of ships (15 ships(*)) - Check
variety of play styles - check
Iniative Bonus - check
lots of Command ships - check
Unique Cloaking defence- check
Ships with low damage - ships with high damage - check
non lumbering cloakable Comman Dreadnought - check

What exactly is weak about them? :?

(*) Klingons have 10, Gorn have 11, Kzinti have 11...........

 

[gord314]

The consensus seems to be that taken as a whole this is to much, and it probably is, we will see from play testing. Also maybe there is something I'm missing about the Romulans, but they seem somewhat weak in head to head fights and very weak in most of the scenarios.

A couple of other notes: Our group has one Federation player, one Romulan player, and one Klingon player, so I'm sorry Gorn players, we are not that concerned about Gorn balance yet, we want to play reasonably balanced campaigns with those three empires.

A quick note about drones: If your plan is to sit way back and fire drones, your plan is pretty boring. This will only nerf the Kziniti if your strategy is boring, if instead you move into firing range with a few weapons, then you won't need to worry about it, since you will be inside 18 inches from your target anyway. In any event, no one in our group plays Kzinti. The rule is mostly to prevent me from wanting to take a 9 DWD fleet with my federation, even without the rule I haven't because it would be boring.

I wanted to avoid complication but the 5+ stealth until you fire should probably be changed to if you didn't fire last turn, you can have 5+ stealth until you fire. Has anyone actually tried playing Romulans in the I Come in Peace (Shoot to Kill) scenario, or towering inferno? Okay, I haven't either, but I have played against them, and it just isn't sporting.

The change from 3+ stealth while cloaking might be excessive, but so far re-cloaking doesn't really happen, so we will have to see.

The 9 inch movement while cloaked is because its way to easy to avoid cloaked Romulans, and there is nothing I hate more in a game than the correct move from a tactical sense being boring. There is a rumor that splitting your fleet up to box them in with Romulans is a viable strategy, if someone makes that work, let me know.

About the surprise de-cloaking. We should probably say if they didn't move more than 6" this turn they can do a surprise de-cloaking, keeping their effective strike range to 14".

About the initiative rule: This isn't ships with the cloak trait, only if all your ships are actually cloaked. This one might have to go, we will see. Normally the Romulans just don't de-cloak if they lost the initiative so it just saves them a turn or two of getting shot at with their stealth 2+ on.

We will be playing a few games on Thursday, I will be sure to talk about how they went. We probably gave the Romulan's to many boosts, but we will see which ones are fun and which ones are just technical (if we felt they were not good enough we could have made them cheaper, but where is the fun in that).

 

[Da Boss]

It may be worth using one new rule at a time to see how each changes the game?

Some of them are totally game changing - especially the move after everyone else has moved.

 

[gord314]

There was no intention of a move after everyone else moves option. When I say de-cloak at the end of the movement phase I mean simply stating this ship is no longer cloaked. No move, no turn, it can just fire and be fired on as normal that turn.

 

[Da Boss]

There was no intention of a move after everyone else moves option. When I say de-cloak at the end of the movement phase I mean simply stating this ship is no longer cloaked. No move, no turn, it can just fire and be fired on as normal that turn.

Ok the House rules did not say this so I like others assumed it was a normal decloak in all respects. In that case - when does the ship that's doing this have to declare it is doing so - I assume you still have to nominate it during the normal turn sequence and then just not either move it or carry out a Special Action??

Is that what you are thinking of?

 

[gord314]

Sorry that wasn't so clear, the idea is that you have a cloaked ship which doesn't carry out any special actions (not that there are many it can do), and you nominate it to move as normal, so it moves 6 (or 9 with our house rules) inches. Then after everything moves, its like suprise! I'm not cloaked any more, but its still in the same spot.

The problem we were having is that the Romulans really want to uncloak with all their ships at once. So the federation loses initiative and moves a ship, then the Romulans leave their tiny ship cloaked and move it somewhere so as not to give away their master plan. Then the Federation moves a ship. Then the Romulans uncloak a ship within 8" to fire on the ship that just moved (or something else), then the rest of the federation ships know the Romulans are uncloaking this turn and are like LOLOVERLOADPHOTONS, and destroy the Romulan fleet. With our rule the Romulan's don't need to give away that they are decloaking right now, it just keeps the federation player guessing a little bit.

I keep saying federation because from the games I've seen with the Klingons they just dance around the cloaked Romulans hitting them with disrupters from very long range.

 

[McKinstry]

I think the +3 while recloaking may be a good idea as with no defensive fire, Romulan ships are horribly vulnerable when recloaking, in particular to drones.

As to the +5 just for having a cloak onboard, the 9" cloaked move and the 'gotcha' uncloak, I don't see them as needed and the Romulans are my first choice among fleets.

I do think drones have to be nerfed in some fashion but a simpler method such as making IDW an automatic or dropping the damage to D3 might be easier and less likely to totally nerf drones which would create additional balance problems.

 

[logical_proof]

And yes Romulans are a weak fleet.

Really - don;t see it myself

Huge range of ships (15 ships(*)) - Check
variety of play styles - check
Iniative Bonus - check
lots of Command ships - check
Unique Cloaking defence- check
Ships with low damage - ships with high damage - check
non lumbering cloakable Comman Dreadnought - check

What exactly is weak about them? :?
(*) Klingons have 10, Gorn have 11, Kzinti have 11...........

It doesn't matter if you don't see it or not. Just because th Romulans have more ships that is a bonus... Probably not when none of them compare to the value of the D6. Every singlen romulan ship is more expensive than the non-Romulan equivelant. Without drone defense the Romulan player loses a ship a turn and can't return as much damage. Add the fact that you have to start with less ships overall or weaker ships for initiative sinks (plasma f frigates are useless, you will at best get 2 ad of plasma out of them) screws a Romulan fleet completely. If you hadn't noticed Romulans pay about a 15% penalty for the cloaking device that they can't even use other than on the first turn.

I am so sick of the sanctimonious crap, "well have you tried them... They seem balanced to me", well have you tried them, have you seen anyone win with them when the opponent didn't just fly up and not fire back? If someone plays the Romulans and shows that they are weak we are told that the person playing was bad, and if someone is arguing theory we are told that they just haven't played them yet. Screw this, Romulans are bad, and this game is bad because of it. Personally I am done. Taking my toys and going back to federation commander. PEACE OUT!

 

[gord314]

I discussed the house rules with plutonyum again, made a few changes, we are about to test them out.

 

[Totenkopf]

And yes Romulans are a weak fleet.

Really - don;t see it myself

Huge range of ships (15 ships(*)) - Check
variety of play styles - check
Iniative Bonus - check
lots of Command ships - check
Unique Cloaking defence- check
Ships with low damage - ships with high damage - check
non lumbering cloakable Comman Dreadnought - check

What exactly is weak about them? :?
(*) Klingons have 10, Gorn have 11, Kzinti have 11...........

It doesn't matter if you don't see it or not. Just because th Romulans have more ships that is a bonus... Probably not when none of them compare to the value of the D6. Every singlen romulan ship is more expensive than the non-Romulan equivelant. Without drone defense the Romulan player loses a ship a turn and can't return as much damage. Add the fact that you have to start with less ships overall or weaker ships for initiative sinks (plasma f frigates are useless, you will at best get 2 ad of plasma out of them) screws a Romulan fleet completely. If you hadn't noticed Romulans pay about a 15% penalty for the cloaking device that they can't even use other than on the first turn.

I am so sick of the sanctimonious crap, "well have you tried them... They seem balanced to me", well have you tried them, have you seen anyone win with them when the opponent didn't just fly up and not fire back? If someone plays the Romulans and shows that they are weak we are told that the person playing was bad, and if someone is arguing theory we are told that they just haven't played them yet. Screw this, Romulans are bad, and this game is bad because of it. Personally I am done. Taking my toys and going back to federation commander. PEACE OUT!

That was neither logical or proof, but either way - Bye!