I'm getting sick of "Lumbering"

[Da Boss]

If Drones are a problem there are numerous possible fixes including reducing range, reduce the Multi-hit,

What if seeker weapons (both drones and plasma) had to declare launch and target at the beginning of combat phase but don't actually hit until the launching ship's turn to fire other weapons (phasers, etc).

This would still allow you to do pretty much the same thing as now, just have to be slightly more careful in choosing what order ships fire? Ie if you have big drone ship and won Iniative you can declare shooting and fire straight away? Also really not keen on having to track which ship is firing which drones at which ship during a combat turn.

Movement step includes a seeking weapons step where you fire drones at the beginning of movement. Counters are put down where the firing ship starts it's movement. You could even be a git and have secret targeting as an advanced rule, just having an arrow on the drone counter saying where it is headed.

Or just do it like BFG torpedo salvos?

I came up with an alt drone system for my Alt universe idea -just an idea but might spark some more ideas..............

Drones
The weapon technology of most Empires is based around the phaser, disruptor or similar energy weapons but the Kzinti have spent many decades perfecting a advanced missile system, capable of traversing space rapidly, breaking through enemy ECM and point defences. A few other Empires have used drones or other missile systems in the past but none have come close to matching those used by the Kzinti and they were rarely seen in operation by the time the general war broke out,

Standard Drones
On the rare occasions another Empire uses drones or similar weapons they should use the following profile
Drone....................30...........T......1........Devastating+2, Multi-hit 2, Seeking

Kzinti Drones
The Kiznti have perfected their multirole drone weapon system, allowing them to use it to compete with energy weapon using enemies on a level playing field. At the start of a game decide configuration the Drones on a ship begins play with. Any Kzinti ship may reset the configuration of all of its onboard Drones by carrying out a Reload Weapons! Special Action

Direct Fire Drone........12...........T......1.........Accurate +1, Devastating +2, Kill Zone 4",
Used to saturate a target at close range the Direct Fire configuration uses the unused onboard fuel to enhance the explosive power of the warhead. Its guidance systems have less time to react to the enemies evasive manoeuvres and so are not guaranteed a hit.

Primary Drone.............24...........T......1........Devastating +1, Multi-hit D6, Seeking
The normal configuration of the Kzinti weapon system balances agility, warhead capacity and speed to provide an effective weapon. The warhead fragments its power at close range to provide multiple impact points.

Long Range Drone......36...........T......1.........Devastating+1, Multi-hit 2, Seeking
By diverting energy capacity from the secondary warheads, the Long range drone configuration is able to provide extended bombardment capabilities for the Kzinti war machine.

 

[Sgt_G]

Ben,

Technically, they shouldn't move 36" but rather move 12" for three turns. Alas, when I posted that suggestion, you would have thought I suggested turning it into a CLIX game for all the negative feedback I got.

 

[Ben2]

Yeah, I know they should be moving 12" a turn, but there are two issues with that.

1) Book keeping.

2) Turn 1 - Launch drones, they and the ship move 12", Turn 2 - Launch drones, they and the ship and the Turn 1 drones move 12", Turn 3 - Launch drones and then 3 waves of drones hit the enemy fleet plus whatever guns you have on the ship.

Resolving it all in one turn like torpedoes in VaS or missiles in B5W avoids carrying stuff over, turn to turn.

Though you could reduce drone range to 18" to represent the speed-32 drones, but have standard drones range 12.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Several friends have suggested dropping the Multi-Hit to D3 (or d3+1) and just leaving it at that. I think this 'might' work, as you actually don't need to change any rules, just reduce damage. If thats the case, massive drone assults will still will need to be defended against, but will not be game breaking.

It will also make plasma more 'scary' with it's Multi-Hit D6, and give it the psychological effect of a Plasma R at close range, as you would need to fire 14 drones at D3 (around 10 at D3+1) to have about the ssame effect.
now fill there actuall
It also makes the drone users close, as secondary weapons - like disruptors :? , now would fill there actually role.

(again, strange, but when did drones become lumbering )

 

[storeylf]

I suppose discussions of lumbering are bound to focus on Gorn, and a gorn are probably also the worst race at defending against drones.

Reducing damage, or having drones suffer the run out of ammo as ADD are one way to tone them down. I think I'd prefer to see defense against them boosted, by altering the intensify fire to be automatic.

Not only is helping defend against drones easy in the source universe (they travel slowish and take a long time to arrive making it easy for ships to cover each other). It also feels wrong that if a wave of drones are coming directly at me my ability to fire at them is determined by whether they are targeted at me or the ship behind me. I can freely fire at any other target no matter the range or threat I'm under, but for some reason those drones that look like they are coming directly at my ship just yards away are beyond the ability of my crew to fire at

Intensify fire doesn't need to be that hard to do, there are disadvantages to it built in. There is an opportunity cost to using it, if you use that you can't reload, boost shields, power to engines etc. Also it means that should you actually use it then you are using phasers in defense and not against the enemy (which was often about all you might have expected in the source system).

2 possible alternative flavors of it being automatic.
1. Can only help a friendly ship within 4(?) inches.
or
2. Can only use it if you are closer to the launcher than the target.

These both reflect the way drones function in SFU, they really are quite easy to defend against in multi ship actions if you want to do such, and approach in an appropiate 'formation'.

Importantly it gives everyone the ability to handle drone heavy ships whether they have ADD or not (or other anti drone systems not yet ported) . Given the serious boost that auto hit at any range is, then that is important.

 

[deadshane]

On Plasma's being less powerful in ACTA than in SFU:

In total contrast look at plasma. They get the same advantage of auto hit immediately, but it appears that someone considered that too powerful, so plasma did receive a big downgrade- defensive fire is hugely effective against them. In SFU it takes ~12 phaser 1s to knock out a close range plasma S, in ACTA it takes about ~5. In SFU the 4 plasma point blank impact from a Gorn BC was guaranteed to cripple an enemy cruiser even after all phasers defensive fire, in ACTA that only reduces the enemy shields somewhat

Don't forget that plasma takes a turn less to reload now than it used to.

That is huge.

 

[storeylf]

I'm not yet convinced that is as big as it looks at first.

Reload is a special action, therefore reloading prevents doing all sorts of other things. In SFB/FC it may take 3 turns but you can do other things whilst doing it, you can HET away, go fast, cloak, defend other ships vs drones etc etc.

I was playing romulans last night, they are to some extent on a 3 turn cycle as you uncloak, launch, then its recloak, then reload, then you can fire again. Those older 'proper' romulans especially really are not robust enough to be hanging around uncloaked whilst reloading.

playing Gorns the week before, I was left having to decide after launch whether to reload or try and mitigate the incoming fire by either powering away on all power to engines or boosting shields, again 'fast' reloading did not seem quite the boon it appears.

 

[deadshane]

It's huge when considering "damage dealt" over the course of an entire game. I cannot speak for the romulans, but Gorn ships are generally tough enough to hang in there for a turn during the reload.

If the enemy fleet concentrates on one, it will proabably go down, meanwhile the rest of your fleet has just reloaded and is ready to fire again quickly.

It's especially important for Gorn since that gives them one turn sooner to fire b4 the enemy dodges out of their forward firing arcs.

"Shoot, move backward while reloading, pivot and shoot again, or move forward and shoot again."

 

[Sgt_G]

(again, strange, but when did drones become lumbering )

They're not, but they're a huge problem for lumbering ships in that they can't attempt to evade because they'll never be able to get turned around to put the drones behind them (and if they do, they'll never get back around to point the nose at the enemy) and therefore must use up phasers defensively and thus never get a good punch in.

 

[Da Boss]

I think in earlier versions of the rules the Gorn (and others) could also set up a fighter screen of shuttles to help shoot down plamsa/ drones but that was removed.....

"Easy" (ie not having to track things or clutter the table with lots of counters) options for Drone tone down if it is required:

[*]Reduce Multihit to 1, 2 or 1d3 etc
[*]Reduce Range
[*]Make them roll to hit (say 4+) over a certain range (half?) but still not penetrate shields on a 6.
[*]Make it that a phaser tasked with hitting one does not need to roll just shoots one down
[*]Over certain range (half?) ship (unless adrift) always gets to try and evade on an opposed CQ check with firing vessel.

plenty of options really without getting complicated.............

but of course only if the powers that be think it is needed?

 

[storeylf]

"Shoot, move backward while reloading, pivot and shoot again, or move forward and shoot again."

I don't see how that works well, you have to launch at max range to be able to reverse enough to still have the enemy not behind you (and even that doesn't work if they go power to engines). At max range your plasma is so weak it is easily negated. If you fire at up to half range then the enemy can overload on you as you are reloading, and then be behind you.

 

[Captain Jonah]

DD and BDD have 7AD of plasma with a reload, so 3.5 AD a turn.
HDD has 8AD or 4AD a turn, CL, CM, BC have 12 AD with the reload or 6AD a turn.

This is all at a range of 8" or less to max the damage.

The Kzinti have 4AD of drones on every ship plus disruptors that fire every turn.

So the FF has 5AD per turn, 4 AD at range 36", the DW has 6AD a turn at 24 or 36", all the cruiser types have 4AD of 24" Disruptors and 4AD of 36" Drones.

It’s not till the Gorn BCH that you get 16 AD of plasmas or 8AD a turn that the Gorn can match the firepower per turn but they still fall well short of range. At the DN level you have 19AD of plasma with a reload against 12AD of 24" Disruptors and 36" Drones.

This doesn't compare accurately since the Gorn dump all plasmas in a turn against the Kzinti Drones over two turns but the Gorn get a lot less shots given they need to close while taking those 36" Drone hits for several turn and then a turn at least of 24" Disruptor shots before being able to return fire with Plasmas.

To focus plasmas to destroy a single target you need to be bunched up since you need to be within 8" to get the full power from the plasmas and then you need to move to get them back in 8" two turns later, which takes a bit of effort when everyone apart from the Gorn and Fed have mostly turn 4 cruisers. A Kzinti fleet or Klingon fleet for that matter can be all over the place and still hit a single target with a mass of firepower from 24" or 36" away.

The Kzinti have a lot less Phaser’s but the ability to concentrate all that Drone fire makes the number of Phaser’s on a single Gorn ship irrelevant since after the second salvo of 4 you are out of Phasers.

Either IDF needs to be changed , made auto with a limitation or non SFU options need to make an appearance such as the D-Rack refits for a lot of ships that don’t normally get them. Replacing the 2 Plasma-Fs on the BC/CM/BCH or DN lowers the plasma firepower by 4AD but then you gain both 2AD of Ds and the option to ADD.

This doesn’t match the SFU since the D-racks were only on escorts but then this is its own game set in the SFU not an SFB/FC clone as people keep telling me.

This will also be a problem when the ISC arrive.

 

[McKinstry]

There are a lot of alternatives, some very minor tweaks such as auto IDF or some a bit more involved such as doing away with multi-hit, but in any case the solution can be implemented without upsetting game balance and without adding any additional record keeping (which in addition to adding complexity makes for an uglier table).

I think the divide at the moment seems to be an acknowledgement of drones being a problem.

My flashbulb moment was pulling three friends into the game and having all three (already familiar with ACTA B5 ), within 24 hours of receiving the rules, announce that drones were a problem. This was further confirmed when our resident min-maxer announced he was going Kzinti.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

As this is the Gorn thread 8) 8) (and the comment about lumbering drones was a joke - which i'm sure you all were aware :evil: ). Careful with the auto IDF, as the Plasma may well become redundant if everyone can target them. That was first thought, anyway. Then i thought, when you let those babies go, your usually under 8" (or mad) so most ships will be to busy trying to do interesting things such as burn away your shields, kill your ship, etc. So maybe not so bad.

I'm still, personally, of the option to all thats needed is to reduce damage from the drone (to D3 or D3+1), as i think otherwise they're fine. Reduced damage means they don't kill you so quick, but can still do an annoying amount of damage if not dealt with. It would also mean (at D3+1) 4 drones would hit with an average of 12 damage - out of a max of 16 (48 in SFU systems), whereas a 4AD Plasma will hit with an average of 14 damage - out of a max 24 (30 for a Pls-S), both fired at optimal range. As drones are easier to stop, small drone swarms will have the 'annoyance effect' they have in the SFU core systems, and the Plasma will get a bit more respect.

I know we want simplicity (and take that as the reason phasers are SO effective against Plasma in ActA), and thats the joy of this game. They've come up with a fine way of handling seeker - and if they and photons have devastating, there dangerous weapons when used in mass - as it should be.

We'll have to see what the Man in red and those across the lake think

(oh, and archon96 - i'm nicking your comment for my tag)

 

[Captain Jonah]

Improving IDF making plasmas even worse is a very solid concern.

There are ways around it but it involves making IDF range limited.

Allowing you to only cover ships within a certain range doesn't help the plasma races since a tight fleet formation wllh Phaser down your plasmas with ease.

On the other hand in SFB and FC it’s the fact that Drones are on the board and can be shot at as they go past that makes them easier to destroy.

A few people have mentioned a range bracket for IDF. Problem with this is a complexity, if IDF is automatic for fire beyond a certain range but not within that range then you end up making crew checks anyway against that drone from close in.

I still think IDF should be automatic, you should be able to cover ships within your Phaser range and ADDs within say 4" since ADDs are short ranged and you shouldn't be able to sit half way across the board with your Fed DWD and cover the rest of the fleet under IDF.

How about this then, Plasmas are very easy to stop, more easily than they perhaps should be given the limited range. Why not have IDF automatic, limit Phasers to their range and to hit roll. ADDs and D-racks have a 4" range, then Plasmas take half damage from Phaser fire, round up. The same as Klink shields.

If someone dumps a 7AD plasma wave on you from a ship and you have 6 Phasers in Arc you are going to be hard pressed to stop half that wave rather than good rolling reducing it to a single AD.

Stopping the full strike from a plasma ship (2 S and 2F torps) is much harder but you can call on nearby ships under IDF. A 12AD plasma strike will take 24 Phasers to completely stop, makes it a scary sight.

Given the short range and reload it’s not grossly over the top, Drones still fire every turn at a huge range, Photons cannot be shot down with defensive fire and have a better range plus shield penetration etc.

The math isn't going to be hard since only Phasers defend and a ship fires its Phasers once during the firing, total the hits, half and round up, move to next ship.

For example 12AD of plasmas are fired at a Klink ship, it has 5AD of Phasers in arc and range and hits with 4 which stop 2AD of plasmas, another Klingon ship on IDF 10” away throws in 8 Phasers, hits with 5 which are halved round up stopping 3AD more. The plasmas hit with 7AD which is a nasty and damaging hit to a ship (fear the plasmas) rather than having half the plasmas power killed by the target and the rest casually wiped out at range.

SO IDF is an auto action, ADDs and D-Racks have a 4” range, Phasers have normal range. Plasmas take half damage round up from Phaser defensive fire.

What do people think?

 

[logical_proof]

The only problem I have with using IDF to fix the problem is recloaking Romulans still lose a ship on their recloaking turn.

 

[storeylf]

At least that is in line with FedCom if nothing else - recloaking against drones in that game is not a good idea either.

The thing that got me last game playing roms was that whilst cloaked you can only uncloak or reload. Boost shields and all hands on deck would be useful to repair yourself. I don't see a power issue, if you can reload power hungry plasma you can put it to shields.

Though the 4+ as you recloak isn't bad to be honest, those older ships I was playing could only have stopped 3 or 4 drones anyway, so 4+ stealth is pretty good in comparison if you face multi drone 4 ships. It takes 8-9 full strength drones to take out the King eagles shields, so with stealth 4+ that means more like 16+ drones, just to drop shields.

 

[deadshane]

Answer to the drone problem: I've said it before...I'll say it again...

LAUNCH WILD WEASEL!
Crew Quality Check:Automatic
Power Drain: Yes
Effect:A shuttle is launched that jams seeking weapons and interferes with their targeting abilities. So long as the launching ship does not fire weapons, all seeking weapons fired at the launching ship are restricted to a range of 12". Within 12" the targetting system of the weapon is close enough to the larger target to not be fooled by the decoy. Destroying the shuttle causes the ship to be targetable again the next turn as the enemy's sensors recalibrate.

NOTE: In my honest opinion, shuttles are REALLY underused. This either forces the Kzinti to close or gives time to the other race to close the distance. Also, and I've noted a big problem here, there's been trouble nerfing the kzinti drone swarms w/o doing the same to the plasma races....this really doesnt nerf plasma that much since plasma is rarely fired over 12" effectively. You're not exactly immune to long range kzinti fleets b/c your supply of shuttles is limited.

 

[storeylf]

Presumably as the action itself requires no weapons fire that the power drain has to be the 6" move (which I'd expect anyway given how slow shuttles are)?

 

[deadshane]

Presumably as the action itself requires no weapons fire that the power drain has to be the 6" move (which I'd expect anyway given how slow shuttles are)?

You can negate the WW at any time by firing....at your own risk.