I'm done for now. Call me if 3rd edition fixes things.

[Admiral Phlop]

I have to agree with the people who have felt the game is dying do to a lack of mini's. This is what brings players in to a game. I also play Battletech and we had a game last week at a game store. There was a Star Wars miniature tournament going on with about 20 kids and some adults running the tourney. Probably half of the kids came over to the table and seen the mini's. This raised comments of neat game, love the figures, what game is this?. If you had counters out there like the group behind us on another table, nobody gave them even a look. Hence, no mini's, no attention. As far as the game, I like the game. With 2E we started a new campaign and I played the Drakh. This probably turned me off to the game more than anything else. But as far as the rules I feel that the crits for large ships vs small ships. With the PL and the ability to take lots of small ships which with their vast amounts of die rolls will eventually get the crit needed to take out that large ship. I feel the PL needs the most help. Just my ramblings.

 

[darknight]

i agree with burger, as i said all a long, its dead, yes we may play it, but there wont be any new playes, i dont think many new people will want to start playing a space game with counters.

 

[Locutus9956]

BTW how many do believe that we actually get a decent 3rd edition now that they already stopped the minis?

Not me, I can't see ACTA lasting much longer. The lack of minis means there won't be many new players picking it up. As old players dwindle, move on and stop playing, the player base will shrink and shrink. The latest generation of gamers don't even know what Babylon 5 is, and even if they do they just think of it as a cheesy 80's series.

Just my opinion, hope I'm wrong!

I hope you're wrong too, but, sadly, I agree. Mongoose effectively killed A Call to Arms with the end of the mini line.

Aye its sad but I tend to agree I still enjoy the game but I just cant see it living in the long run now. No miniatures game is really likely, when you get right down to it, to last long once new players can no longer get into the game (not easily anyway). And lets face it, ACTA is fun but it does have its flaws. Personally one of the main things I love about the game is that I get to play with B5 miniatures. If it was just a generic space game or just counters I dont think Id enjoy it half as much so lack of miniatures for me would mean lack of game. Now I personally have most of the minis I'll ever need but getting newbies in is now nigh on impossible.

I'm actually going to post a poll about this as Id be interested to see how people feel about it

 

[Da Boss]

Short term it should be fine given that there has apparently been an absolute fortune spent on minis?

 

[H]

i'm gonna shrink wrap mine and sell them as collectors items in 50 years time.

 

[ATN082268]

idea for iniatitive and moving. Battle tech had a good system (if memoery serves me right). The turn is split into 4 phases. Each phase would tell you how many ships to move that phase. Makes big battles easier and quicker.

problem with battletech init is that it wont work for ACTA. take one shadow ship against a drazi fleet and you have pretty much won. if the shadows win init the drazi cannot line up a single boresight.

hopefully mini production will be back and running next year. whilst a return of B5 acta would be nice it doesnt have to be, with good minis a generic space combat game could also work. also if mongoose started a 3e now they would be accused of being worse than GW who just keep doing slight changes and releasing a whole new edition

Although it should be taken into account, I'm not sure that a worst case scenario paints an accurate picture of how well a system like proportional initiative would work overall. Besides, not being able to boresight isn't much of an issue for Drazi units like the Darkhawk-class Missile Cruiser


Sincerely,

Andrew Norris

 

[katadder]

true, but battletech does have the advantage of being able to twist torso, a forwadr arc fleet or boresight one will have serious problems against a ship that can always be out of arc due to init differances. as a general rule CBT also doesnt have init mods like shadows can have +6 v pak -3 so 9 differance and only 2d6 to roll it on isnt so good in CBT style init.

 

[CratZ]

Well obviously it isnt as easy as just changing one little part of the game. All the fleets need to be reworked if the basic mechanism are going to change. Thats why we need a new rules edition.

 

[lastbesthope]

The latest generation of gamers don't even know what Babylon 5 is, and even if they do they just think of it as a cheesy 80's series.

Just my opinion, hope I'm wrong!

I hope they at least think of it as a cheesy 90's series :lol:

LBH

 

[Burger]

The latest generation of gamers don't even know what Babylon 5 is, and even if they do they just think of it as a cheesy 80's series.

Just my opinion, hope I'm wrong!

I hope they at least think of it as a cheesy 90's series :lol:

Glad to see someone picked up that one

 

[lastbesthope]

Burger, you know me, how could I not?

:lol:

LBH

 

[ATN082268]

true, but battletech does have the advantage of being able to twist torso, a forwadr arc fleet or boresight one will have serious problems against a ship that can always be out of arc due to init differances. as a general rule CBT also doesnt have init mods like shadows can have +6 v pak -3 so 9 differance and only 2d6 to roll it on isnt so good in CBT style init.

The weakness of the proportional system as you outlined in your Drazi example assumed that Race A had a far superior initiative bonus to Race B, Race A had one ship, and that Race B had all boresight units (and Race A winning initiative). How often does that happen? Besides, if a proportional initiative was adopted, it would be pretty easy to change the racial initiative too if need be.

The weakness of the current system occurs whenever there are different number of units on each side which happens all the time and frequently before the start of game play. A numerically superior opponent can always deny a numerically inferior opponent the opportunity to strike a particular ship with boresight and/or certain arcs as in a manner similar to your scenario for a proportional initiative system.

In any case, even if a proportional initiative system isn't the solution, I am convinced that the player with more units to move has an advantage over the other and that's not fair

Sincerely,

Andrew Norris

 

[CratZ]

How about each player has a maximum number of "activations". with 1 activation you can move an entire squadron or just 1 ship. Number of activations would be dependent on the size of the battle.

 

[Tank]

@Cratz

Have you been playing heroscape??? :lol:

 

[Da Boss]

Which is a superb game

 

[CratZ]

No I havent played the game.

 

[Commador Q]

In my opinion the FAP system is a briliant idea, but it needs a couple tweeks (it actually used to be closer to this if i recall corectly but the cinstant "we want a point system" complaints caused a change). first of all there should be reducing return on investment the further away you move from the PL of the scenario. Presently this hapens with larger ships as one Battle level ship is more vulnerable to critical hits and is easier to out manuver (init sinks) than 2 raid, and the effect is magnified the further up you go. however when trading down there's a convinient doubling effect. i'd say replace this with a linear increase in ship numbers. so for example 1 battle point buys, 2 raid points, or 3 skermish points, or 4 patrole points. then allow splitting of points once at each level. (so 1 battle point could buy for example: 1raid, 1 skermish, and 2 patrole) this would encourage players to choose the bulk of their fleet at or near the PL of the scenario, and when trading down, they're encouraged to take a veriety of sizes rather than just a huge swarm of low PL ships.

 

[Greg Smith]

first of all there should be reducing return on investment the further away you move from the PL of the scenario. ...

this would encourage players to choose the bulk of their fleet at or near the PL of the scenario, and when trading down, they're encouraged to take a veriety of sizes rather than just a huge swarm of low PL ships.

That is something I'd like to see too.

 

[Omnipotent]

Commador Q wrote:
first of all there should be reducing return on investment the further away you move from the PL of the scenario. ...

this would encourage players to choose the bulk of their fleet at or near the PL of the scenario, and when trading down, they're encouraged to take a veriety of sizes rather than just a huge swarm of low PL ships.

Indeed!

 

[ATN082268]

In my opinion the FAP system is a briliant idea, but it needs a couple tweeks (it actually used to be closer to this if i recall corectly but the cinstant "we want a point system" complaints caused a change). first of all there should be reducing return on investment the further away you move from the PL of the scenario. Presently this hapens with larger ships as one Battle level ship is more vulnerable to critical hits and is easier to out manuver (init sinks) than 2 raid, and the effect is magnified the further up you go. however when trading down there's a convinient doubling effect. i'd say replace this with a linear increase in ship numbers. so for example 1 battle point buys, 2 raid points, or 3 skermish points, or 4 patrole points. then allow splitting of points once at each level. (so 1 battle point could buy for example: 1raid, 1 skermish, and 2 patrole) this would encourage players to choose the bulk of their fleet at or near the PL of the scenario, and when trading down, they're encouraged to take a veriety of sizes rather than just a huge swarm of low PL ships.

That sounds like a good idea.

Sincerely,

Andrew Norris