House Rules compilation

[Greg Smith]

I'd think an AF (or AAF) rating equal to the GEG would be a good option.

Makes a single fighter attacking a raider a dangerous prospect, but a swarm would work. And careful placement of fighter swarms to tempt ships to drop their defence.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I like Snap Shot, but it shares something that I didn't like in some of the others either. Opposed CQ. I think it should be a fixed number. Just one more advantage given to the ISA and another kick in the balls for the Pak'ma'ra.

Opposed CQ is one of the least important parts of the SA - a fixed CQ target would work just as well.
I just know though that if I had put a fixed target in though someone would have complained that it should be opposed instead

 

[Foxmeister]

When calculating Redundancy, at the bottom of page 4, you said to round down the numbers if a ship has better than Stealth 3+ or Dodge 5+. What about Interceptors? This is another trait that reduces crits received. Maybe round down for ships with 2 or more interceptors?

The equation is mine. I did consider trying to factor in Interceptors, but I decided that unlike Shields, Dodge, or Stealth, Interceptors do nothing against beams which is a fair proportion of the weapons in ACTA, and I think someone showed that interceptors over a certain level were diminishing in return.

Plus almost every race (I know the exceptions! ) have fighters they can use as interceptors anyway, so it seemed a little unfair to penalize ships with interceptors to the same degree as decent levels of stealth and dodge.

Regards,

Dave

 

[l33tpenguin]

Here is the home brewed SA I created that does a better job of fixing the problem than TTT (and helps with a lot of the init sinking issues). I've posted it before and figured I'd do it again here. It makes more sense than TTT, has greater flexability, IMO, and feels more realistic and faithful to the spirit of the game, as well as the spirit of Babylon 5

Bring Weapons to Bear
CQ: Opposed
Requirements: Ship capable of making at least 1 turn.

This special action declares that the crew of one ship is following the course of a specific ship in order to bring their weapons to bear on their target. When this special action is declared, the attacker designates the target ship and an opposed check is rolled. If the attacking ship wins, the player declares the firing arc and the ship performing the special action is moved, using all but 1 if its turn. The firing arc is which ever weapon arc the player wishes to bring to bear on the target ship and the target ship is any opposing ship that has not yet been moved. The movement phase proceeds as normal until the target ship is moved. At the end of the target ship’s movement, the ship that declared the Bring to Bear special action uses its last turn to attempt to bring the target ship into the designated fire arc. The player must commit to the turn whether or not it is possible to bring the target ship into the designated arc. If unable to bring the target into the designated arc, the ship must be turned its full turn in the direction of the target ship.

Not too bad. I have to disagree on it offering more flexibility. It offers considerably less, in that your effective firing arc is reduced and in that your maneuverability is reduced. Mind you it's still better than the book's rules, but it's much less flexible than the P&P. I do like that it doesn't reduce beam effectiveness to increase arc, unlike many others. I don't think the beam's AD should be reduced by a special order that's supposed to be helping you.

Its more flexible in that it can be used with any arc, not just boresight. Its an attempt to follow a target and fire your weapons on them. So, you want to make sure your forward guns are aimed at them, you can do that. Want to ensure a broadside? Sure, boresight is going to get the MOST use of of it, but there are other applications. Also, since the smallest turn is 45 degrees, that gives you 90 degrees of play (45 either way) and thus is just as flexible as TTT

 

[SylvrDragon]

Its more flexible in that it can be used with any arc, not just boresight. Its an attempt to follow a target and fire your weapons on them. So, you want to make sure your forward guns are aimed at them, you can do that. Want to ensure a broadside? Sure, boresight is going to get the MOST use of of it, but there are other applications. Also, since the smallest turn is 45 degrees, that gives you 90 degrees of play (45 either way) and thus is just as flexible as TTT

I didn't even consider that. I was too focused on boresights. That is very nice. Great for ships such as Novas, or fleets such as the Dilgar that have many ships that only fire forward! I like it!!!

The equation is mine. I did consider trying to factor in Interceptors, but I decided that unlike Shields, Dodge, or Stealth, Interceptors do nothing against beams which is a fair proportion of the weapons in ACTA, and I think someone showed that interceptors over a certain level were diminishing in return.

Plus almost every race (I know the exceptions! ) have fighters they can use as interceptors anyway, so it seemed a little unfair to penalize ships with interceptors to the same degree as decent levels of stealth and dodge.

Regards,

Dave

Good point indeed. Ships having interceptors, however, can still make use of fighters to increase their interceptor pool. So I can still see punishing them for having them, but the beam/mini-beam argument does stand pretty strong. I think it could be argued either way to be honest.

Opposed CQ is one of the least important parts of the SA - a fixed CQ target would work just as well.
I just know though that if I had put a fixed target in though someone would have complained that it should be opposed instead

Sounds about right. lol But I still think it should be fixed. The boreswighted fleets are more prone to lower CQ scores, as they tend to not have flight computers or they get CQ penalties, so giving them an option that's very difficult, if not sometimes impossible, to take advantage of is moot.

I'd think an AF (or AAF) rating equal to the GEG would be a good option.

Makes a single fighter attacking a raider a dangerous prospect, but a swarm would work. And careful placement of fighter swarms to tempt ships to drop their defence.

I considered saying the same thing, but I don't think AF/AAF captures the feel of the wave that's described in the entry. AF/AAF also isn't an offensive weapon, it's purely defensive, which also goes against the spirit of this ability. Spirit and feel aside, balance is an issue.
Perhaps, ignoring the spirit and feel, if this ability temporarily granted AAF and the Escort trait? Gives an excellent tool for dealing with fighters, which the Drakh do need, and sticks somewhat closely to the description.

 

[SylvrDragon]

Something that I noted earlier, and that has stuck in te back of my mind, was the comment you made below the "Activate Focusing Lenses" SA. You stated that it was an attempt to make make the G'Quan usable. That sounds as though you consider it to be useless? I've used the ship before, and I just did a quick stat comparison, and it seems to me to be a solid ship. What's so terribly wrong with this vessel? I looked at it compared to the Omega and the Tikrit, two vessels I'm very familiar with, and it seems to stand up rather well to each. It's less defended that the Omega, but it has more raw firepower. It's slower and has less directed firepower than the Tikrit, but it has more rounded firepower and it's tougher. Any ship that can throw 16 dice in every direction at once, not including it's e-mines and laser canons, is something to be respected. Especially since 10 of those 16 dice are twin-linked. I admit I'd take the Tikrit or the Omega over it, but then I also prefer both EA and Dilgar to the Narn anyways....Let me emphasize taking the Tikrit over it. GOD I love that ship!!! :twisted:

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Updated version:
Snap Shot - CQ Target: 9
At any point during your movement, you can declare a snapshot on an enemy ship, with weapons that are within arc and range at that time. Roll an opposed CQ check with the target ship. If you succeed, the chosen weapons may fire on the target ship even if it is no longer in arc or range for those weapons. If you fail, those weapons may not be used at all this turn.[/quote]


I'm also working on the basis that this shouldn't give too great a boost to boresight fleets because it can also be used by non-boresight fleets.

I'm guessing that the most contraversial thing about this SA would be that it potentially allows you to fire upon a target with multiple arcs (snap shot forward, turn, fire broadside conventionally).
I personally don't think that this is a problem, as you have to fulfill several conditions to pull it off:
- You have to pass a CQ check.
- Potentially, the ship will not be able to fire some of its weapons at all.
- This stops you from using a different special action (barring admirals and the like).
- Trying to pull off this trick can mean having to move your ships in ways you don't want them to move, if they're manouverable to pull it off in the first place.

 

[SylvrDragon]

Updated version:
Snap Shot - CQ Target: 9
At any point during your movement, you can declare a snapshot on an enemy ship, with weapons that are within arc and range at that time. Roll an opposed CQ check with the target ship. If you succeed, the chosen weapons may fire on the target ship even if it is no longer in arc or range for those weapons. If you fail, those weapons may not be used at all this turn.

I believe this may have been error, but this updated version technically requires two CQ's. Oh, and here's a simple fix. When you decide what weapons to fire on them, simply limit what can be fired at the ship to the chosen weapons only. So say you line up a boresight with your Omega, and you use this SA and declare your front weapon systems, as well as your boresight. Then the pesky little bugger moves to a broadside, well you declared forward and boresight weaponry, not the broadside weaponry, so you can fire only the forward and boresighted weapons. And since the SA requires chosen weaponry to those already in arc, you can't choose a broadside when ordering it! Keeps the idea and eliminates that downside.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Personaly I see your "fix" as more of a break, but as I say, I don't have any problems with being able to concentrate multiple arcs onto a target considering the drawbacks you need to suffer to do so.

Also, with regards to the number of CQ checks, it's just the one. I was just saying about making the CQ check in the description because I was playing around with when you should make the check (when you set up the snapshot or after you finish moving).

 

[SylvrDragon]

Personaly I see your "fix" as more of a break, but as I say, I don't have any problems with being able to concentrate multiple arcs onto a target considering the drawbacks you need to suffer to do so.

Also, with regards to the number of CQ checks, it's just the one. I was just saying about making the CQ check in the description because I was playing around with when you should make the check (when you set up the snapshot or after you finish moving).

How is it a break? Oh wait....I think I slightly miswrote something. When I said you could only fire the previously selected weapons, I meant you could only fire the previously selected weapons at the chosen target. You could still fire anything and everything else, you just couldn't fire at that specific target.

And I figured that was an error. lol

 

[nekomata fuyu]

That what I thought you meant, and I still see that as a break. If the target has moved into your broadside after your snapshot, I see no reason to say that the broadside weapons shouldn't be able to fire at it.

 

[Da Boss]

Something that I noted earlier, and that has stuck in te back of my mind, was the comment you made below the "Activate Focusing Lenses" SA. You stated that it was an attempt to make make the G'Quan usable. That sounds as though you consider it to be useless? I've used the ship before, and I just did a quick stat comparison, and it seems to me to be a solid ship. What's so terribly wrong with this vessel? I looked at it compared to the Omega and the Tikrit, two vessels I'm very familiar with, and it seems to stand up rather well to each. It's less defended that the Omega, but it has more raw firepower. It's slower and has less directed firepower than the Tikrit, but it has more rounded firepower and it's tougher. Any ship that can throw 16 dice in every direction at once, not including it's e-mines and laser canons, is something to be respected. Especially since 10 of those 16 dice are twin-linked. I admit I'd take the Tikrit or the Omega over it, but then I also prefer both EA and Dilgar to the Narn anyways....Let me emphasize taking the Tikrit over it. GOD I love that ship!!! :twisted:

The majority of those who play with or against the Narn (I dont play with them) consider the G'Quon weak. Its stats as described above sound formidable but remember that the vast majority of its guns are at range 8" and it has no active defenses of any kind. It can use its fighters as interceptors but these can also be jumped on by other fighters (what I do as a Centauri player). Its damage is quite good (eps if P+P increases it) but personally I always feel relieved when a Nan opponnent puts one down on the table -which is not a good sign. Its beam is very weak for its PL (compare to the Omega) for a ship that on several occassion in the show uses it to great effect............emines are ok but they are One shot. As stated on other threads its not really good at anything - not a carrier, not a sniper and its slow enough to ignore.....A couple of people - Katadder is one - don't think it is that weak but they are in the minority - not saying they are wrong but I personally don't agree.

 

[Da Boss]

Excellent! Though I'd make a few suggestions...

The page tops seems to be cut off. I noticed on of the worst ones is page 6. There seems to be a Dilgar ship, I only know it's Dilgar from the description under the name, that's name is unreadable.

When calculating Redundancy, at the bottom of page 4, you said to round down the numbers if a ship has better than Stealth 3+ or Dodge 5+. What about Interceptors? This is another trait that reduces crits received. Maybe round down for ships with 2 or more interceptors?

The GEG Pulse seems a little overpowering in my opinion. I think it should either only ever inflict 1 AD attacks, or it should not have the E-Mine trait. Granting a ship 2 or 3 AD that ignore dodge against every fighter in range a bit....well, overpowering.

These aside, it's a great compilation. ^^

Yeah I'll fix the formatting issues in next draft - it looks different in pdf than it does in word! The Dilgar ship is the Ochlivita Destroyer.

 

[SylvrDragon]

That what I thought you meant, and I still see that as a break. If the target has moved into your broadside after your snapshot, I see no reason to say that the broadside weapons shouldn't be able to fire at it.

For starters the game only intends for you to be able to fire from one arc, or two with boresights, in the first place. This kind of thing really makes this a ground breaking SA for fleets with multiple strong arcs, such as EA, and though it gives flexibility to fleets with few strong arcs, such as Dilgar, the power it would grant to other fleets could negate this. The idea here is to enhance fleets with limiting arcs, not further enhance those with great arcs.

Oh, and to Da Boss, I'll just have to pass on further comment. To be honest I don't have huge experience with the G'Quan. It looks good, and that's about all I can say. Though it's hull 6 and higher damage pull than my Tikrit make it hard to see how it can be so vulnerable though.

 

[Foxmeister]

Something that I noted earlier, and that has stuck in te back of my mind, was the comment you made below the "Activate Focusing Lenses" SA. You stated that it was an attempt to make make the G'Quan usable. That sounds as though you consider it to be useless? I've used the ship before, and I just did a quick stat comparison, and it seems to me to be a solid ship. What's so terribly wrong with this vessel?

Very old ground you're recovering here. I suggest that you do a quick search for the G'Quan to see the argument in its entirety, but I can tell you this just looking at the stats is a massive mistake - I did just the same here before I'd got to use the ship in anger and found out to my cost that the stats only give you part of the picture..

However, since you've brought up the Omega comparison, and without trying to reignite old arguments, let us just say that the Omega::

• Has *double* the number of beam dice, some of it in a very usable B(a) arc which means it's not undefended when a ship gets into its rear arc.
  Has *double* the number of fighters, which are also much better in a dogfight than Frazis.
  Way better AF
  Has Interceptors - ok, no good against beams but very handy against secondaries like the G'Quans.
  Is faster - ok not, by much, but every little helps.
  Has longer ranger secondaries - it may not seem like much but having 10/12/15 inch range secondaries make the Omega a much more deadly opponent.

The plus points for the G'Quan are:

• Has an e-mine, but since it's only O/S it is mostly a waste of space. The command bonus on the G'Tal or the mag gun on the G'Lan are usually worth "more" than the e-mine.
  Has more crew/damage - usually means it is critted into worthlessness before it has lost all that additional damage/crew
  Has more troops - usually only useful "defensively" because the G'Quan is too slow to be able to pick it's own target.
  Has more secondary AD - 16AD in every arc looks like a lot, especially when 10 of it is TL, but the issue here is the range. It is very, very hard, to bring those guns into range of anyone other than the Abbai, unless your opponent makes a mistake and places themselves in harms way. Even if they were to do so, those 16AD won't actually produce many hits against high hull opponents and those that are are often intercepted.

What usually happens with a G'Quan is:

• It fires its e-mine against the most appropriate target.
  Spends the rest of the game endeavouring to get a boresight on something worthwhile, but often failing because it is slow and lumbering
  Gets flanked by faster more agile opponents
  Gets pecked to death by said opponents who never come within 8" so those secondaries never get rolled anyway.

The Omega on the other hand with Come-About or All Stop and Pivot, can effectively cover 360 with its B(f) and B(a) beams making it far, far, far deadlier since it cannot be reliably flanked in the same manner.

So, IMHO, whilst on paper the Omega and the G'Quan look comparable on paper, on the table they are not even in the same class.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Ripple]

To give the G'Quan it's due, it can also sit and all stop and pivot, but the weaker and less numerous arcs on its beams means it does the job poorly for it's PL.

The lack or real interceptors also is an issue when facing the secondaries on flanking ships or long range bombardment ships.

The Omega's secondaries means it usually can range it's flanking opponents, this is important as there is no way to move sideways with a lumbering ship.

Net effect is that the G'Quan that loses it's beam or it's SA's becomes very weak, an Omega is usually still in the fight but reduced.

Tikrit, if it gets it's moment is awesome, and folks will actively try to avoid its space. This give a lot more impact than a ship best left parked for max arc.

Ripple

 

[Foxmeister]

To give the G'Quan it's due, it can also sit and all stop and pivot, but the weaker and less numerous arcs on its beams means it does the job poorly for it's PL.

All Stop and Pivot doesn't help much really - it only doubles your existing turn, giving you a 90 degree turn. So, if you have a White Star who has got directly behind you at more than 8" (exceedingly easy for a WS to do!) , you have to:

1. All Stop
2. All Stop and Pivot - to turn 90 degrees
3. All Stop and Pivot - to turn the extra 90 degrees to face behind you

So, that's three turns required to face the enemy (e.g. the proverbial White Star in the ar$€ ) and boresight it with the only weapon you could possibly bring to bear, and that all rather assumes it hasn't already moved away in the direction of the G'Quans first turn which of course it would have! And even if it didn't, the G'Quan would need the initiative sinks to get the boresight in.

The Omega, by contrast, with it's 4AD B(a) beam has no problems whatsoever assuming it gets to move after the WS because its two beams give it effectively 360 coverage.

Of course, I'm sure some would argue that the G'Quan requires more support on the flanks and rear than an Omega. If the G'Quan had a much better beam (say 8AD - note this is *not* a change I'm advocating), I could see that argument, as the G'Quan would be sacrificing all round firepower for frontal firepower and *still* have 2AD less beamy goodness than an Omega.

However, as it stands, the Omega is better armed from the front, massively better equipped in the rear, and considering they are the same PL is a vastly superior ship to the G'Quan (again in my opinion - your mileage may vary!).

Regards,

Dave

 

[SylvrDragon]

The Omega on the other hand with Come-About or All Stop and Pivot, can effectively cover 360 with its B(f) and B(a) beams making it far, far, far deadlier since it cannot be reliably flanked in the same manner.

So, IMHO, whilst on paper the Omega and the G'Quan look comparable on paper, on the table they are not even in the same class.

Regards,

Dave

The Omega's also Lumbering, which means you can't make use of Come About. All other arguments, for the Omega over the G'Quan, made by all parties, are very convincing. As I said, I have very little experience with the G'Quan. I have used it successfully, and it does look good, but stats and a couple successful games don't mean everything in the big picture. To be honest, 8" secondaries is a major factor in why I don't play Narn much. Both EA and Dilgar have some really good 15" guns, secondaries in the case of EA and seriously nasty Primaries in case of the Dilgar, which is something I find very favorable.

 

[katadder]

omega can use come about, it just uses it to make one 90 degree turn as it cant make 2 turns.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

For starters the game only intends for you to be able to fire from one arc, or two with boresights, in the first place. This kind of thing really makes this a ground breaking SA for fleets with multiple strong arcs, such as EA, and though it gives flexibility to fleets with few strong arcs, such as Dilgar, the power it would grant to other fleets could negate this. The idea here is to enhance fleets with limiting arcs, not further enhance those with great arcs.

You can just as easily say that the game intends for you to be able to boresight ships that move before you. That doesn't stop us from changing that though does it?
Whilst it's easy to say that fleets like EA are getting to fire twice as many weapons at the enemy, most of the time I see multi-arc fleets used they manouver in such a way that they can fire both arcs anyway. The only difference is that such fleets could fire both sets of weapons at a single target instead of at 2 targets right next to each other, and even then only if they're willing to lose the chance to fire one of those sets of weapons at all.

I would also disagree that the idea is to enhance fleets with limiting arcs - the idea isn't to enhance any given fleets at all. The idea is to overcome some of the silliness that is generated by the initiative system.