I'm getting sick of "Lumbering"

[Nerroth]

Try looking at it this way. Ships are big, Drones are multiton but still tiny in comparison so a ship can carry a hundred or more in a fairly small area.

ADDs on the other hand are the same size but rather than having "cruise" drives designed to cover long ranges they have "Sprint " drives that last mere seconds but propel them at truly insane speeds. The ADDs don't just fire one Anti drone, they fire a group at the probable target vectors. A Drone cruiser can fire 20 or 30 drones over an entire battle, it can fire a hundred anti drones in the same time.

With the Feds they use the same drones but the technically advanced drone drives have both "cruise" and "sprint" settings and so the same drones are used for both modes. Burn through the ADD and you have emptied the ships Drone magazines. I see the never ending bit as a handful of star fleet engineers franticly converting Drones to sprint mode to restock the fast launch ADD racks ready for the next use, ADD runs low and the engineers convert more from the Drone magazine. Running out of one means you ran out of the other hence NO drones.

Not exactly; an anti-drone warhead is a "half-space" item, the same size as the type-VI dogfight drone (only seen so far in SFB) and roughly 50% the size of a standard drone.

The reason why the Feds can fire both drones and anti-drones out of the same mount is because they use what in SFB is referred to as the type-G rack; with spaces set aside for both standard drones and ADD warheads. (In FC, you can see the difference between the Fed drone racks and those of, say, the Klingons by comparing a sample Ship Card from each empire; the Fed BCF has two drones and four anti-drones in each rack, while the Klingon C7 has four drones in each standard rack and a separate ammo track for its ADD.)

Although, I should probably note that only Fed ships with a small number of drone launchers have those type-G racks; if you look at, say, the Fed BCG, you'll notice that the third and fourth drone racks (those mounted in the gunhouse in place of the BCF's plasmas) are standard types (with four drones and no anti-drones).

I suppose if you really wanted to be picky, you should split two of the Kirov's racks into a separate line, and only allow one of the two lines to count towards its anti-drone capability; but that might be making things a tad too finely grained to be worth the effort.

(That said, if/when the likes of the Fed NCD from FC Booster #92 pops over, splitting the "type-G" racks into a separate line from the standards would keep the ship's drone, and anti-drone, capabilities more in keeping with how they work in Federation Commander.)

 

[Sgt_G]

Technically how come photon's don't run out? They need ammo as well.

Not in Star Fleet Universe; they're pure energy weapons. Paramount changed that because they wanted a casket at the end of the movie. SFU has the same thing, but uses the science-probe launcher instead.

If drone's runs out then you need to make phaser 1's, disruptors, photons and plasma's run out too.

Why would phasers, etc, run out of ammo? Those are and always have been in all SFU & Trek relems pure energy weapons.

 

[tneva82]

If drone's runs out then you need to make phaser 1's, disruptors, photons and plasma's run out too.

Why would phasers, etc, run out of ammo? Those are and always have been in all SFU & Trek relems pure energy weapons.

Because they are main weapons of some fleet.

If you want to have one fleet running out of main weapons you need to balance it by introducing similar rule for other fleets. Or do some serious balance tweaking as the ammo running out fleet would a) suffer majorly in longer games b) probably suffer a lot in shorter battles too.

Having main weapons run out just sucks. You then are pretty much at the mercy of opponent.

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

The turn limits in a CTA:SF game are typically 8 or 12 anyways. Every Kzintis ship has enough drone ammo per rack to last at least that long. They do have to spend a turn to reload the drone racks every 4 launches in FedCom, but that'd be a hassle to keep track of. Same reason that Plasma Torpedoes only take one turn to reload in CTA:SF instead of the two they need in FedCom/SFB.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Try looking at it this way. Ships are big, Drones are multiton but still tiny in comparison so a ship can carry a hundred or more in a fairly small area.

ADDs on the other hand are the same size but rather than having "cruise" drives designed to cover long ranges they have "Sprint " drives that last mere seconds but propel them at truly insane speeds. The ADDs don't just fire one Anti drone, they fire a group at the probable target vectors. A Drone cruiser can fire 20 or 30 drones over an entire battle, it can fire a hundred anti drones in the same time.

With the Feds they use the same drones but the technically advanced drone drives have both "cruise" and "sprint" settings and so the same drones are used for both modes. Burn through the ADD and you have emptied the ships Drone magazines. I see the never ending bit as a handful of star fleet engineers franticly converting Drones to sprint mode to restock the fast launch ADD racks ready for the next use, ADD runs low and the engineers convert more from the Drone magazine. Running out of one means you ran out of the other hence NO drones.

Not exactly; an anti-drone warhead is a "half-space" item, the same size as the type-VI dogfight drone (only seen so far in SFB) and roughly 50% the size of a standard drone.

The reason why the Feds can fire both drones and anti-drones out of the same mount is because they use what in SFB is referred to as the type-G rack; with spaces set aside for both standard drones and ADD warheads. work in Federation Commander.)

Erm sorry nope, not in ACTA-SFB. Yes in SFB they are seperate items and simply share a launcher but in ACTA they are the same things, run out of ADDs and you have run out of Drones as well. My thought was to explain how that happens and the only possible reason is the dual setting Drones. In SFB ADDs are half sized sprint mode units and in ACTA for the Klinks and furballs they still probably are but not on the Feds.

Fed Drones and ADDs are the same unit used in differing modes hence the neverending ADD reset back to the Drone rating as ammo is swapped from one to the other.

As people keep telling me we are not playing SFB/FC. :wink: :lol:

 

[storeylf]

As people keep telling me we are not playing SFB/FC. :wink: :lol:

But we are still playing in the SFU. Drones and anti drones are expendable, limited, ammo. Other stuff isn't. So it seems baffling that we have one running out and the other not.

 

[Da Boss]

A number of thngs that are in limited supply are not tracked - despite any effects that this might have on percieved realism.

Crew for instance............

 

[GalagaGalaxian]

As people keep telling me we are not playing SFB/FC. :wink: :lol:

But we are still playing in the SFU. Drones and anti drones are expendable, limited, ammo. Other stuff isn't. So it seems baffling that we have one running out and the other not.

And as I already stated, Kzintis ships in the SFU have more then enough ammo for the battle/turn lengths in standard CTA:SF games given drone launchers have a RoF of 1 attack drone per turn.

If you want to house rule keeping track of when each Kzinti ship has fired 4 drones [edit](per AD)[/edit] so it can spend a turn reloading the rack, feel free, but I don't think the majority of us want to bother with it. And if you're gonna do that, you might as well switch Plasma over to two turns of reload special action, which will make your Gorns and Romulan pals just as irritable as the Kzintis.

 

[Captain Jonah]

As people keep telling me we are not playing SFB/FC. :wink: :lol:

But we are still playing in the SFU. Drones and anti drones are expendable, limited, ammo. Other stuff isn't. So it seems baffling that we have one running out and the other not.

And as I already stated, Kzintis ships in the SFU have more then enough ammo for the battle/turn lengths in standard CTA:SF games given drone launchers have a RoF of 1 attack drone per turn.

If you want to house rule keeping track of when each Kzinti ship has fired 4 drones so it can spend a turn reloading the rack, feel free, but I don't think the majority of us want to bother with it. And if you're gonna do that, you might as well switch Plasma over to two turns of reload special action, which will make your Gorns and Romulan pals just as irritable as the Kzintis.

Irritable, it will be far more than irritable you will see if we Gorn players get saddled with a two turn reload on the plasmas.

ACTA-SAFB is not, as people keep telling me SFB/FC. it is intended to be simple and quick fleet actions. While picking on the Kzinit by making them reload after every few shots would be fun its not worth it. ADDs run through ammo at a rate of knots, one shot per impulse in SFB means an ADD can run out of ammo in one turn while the Drone racks keep firing.

The rules here reflect that without introducing more complex rules to clone it.

Keep it simple, keep it fast, keep it fun. :lol:

 

[Myrm]

As people keep telling me we are not playing SFB/FC. :wink: :lol:

But we are still playing in the SFU. Drones and anti drones are expendable, limited, ammo. Other stuff isn't. So it seems baffling that we have one running out and the other not.

Its because of relative use of the two systems in the SFU, combined with an abstraction to the ACtA systems. ADDs run out in game, Drones much more rarely so.

ADDs fire rapidly - extremely rapidly and once out the slow rate of reload of the system (even if available) takes them out of the game in my experience, even with as many crew units/deck crews as possible tasked. Drones in standard mode have a limited launch rate and a limit to the number on table at any time with drone control limits (which are not in ACtA) that provide a further brake on launches and so expenditure of ammo.

OK Im not one of the 'play SFB once a week people' but I was in my teen years and I can count on one hand the number of times I can remember someone actually having to reload a drone rack.

Usually when it happened in big fleet games on starbase assaults where we went more than 6 or so turns - and usually late period vessels with medium numbers of racks and double drone control limits. I found that those with more racks, or less control limits choked on launch rate and so could stop firing from certain racks and reload them while firing the rest - providing effectively a continuous fire rate (lower than the total number of racks, but still continuous). Those with less racks are not using them so much as they have to time the strike and launch carefully - effectively eking out the ammo supply.

Pre-General war for example the D7 with the ol Jump Rack - yes it has 2 racks, yes they have 4 drones each only but they fire alternately and give continuous fire for 8 turns. Thats longer than most games lasted in an effective engagement range. Once upgraded - more ammo from memory (6 drones) so thats fire for 6 turns - again that more time within engagement range than most games I have played.

So the upshot is that for most cases you don't tend to run out of drones in SFB - allowing ACtA to abstract that to a non-reload system. Whereas ADDs do run out and so need some form of limits.

No it is not a perfect extrapolation of the SFU - I can think of times where this doesn't go down to the detail SFB does and so will not cover all the situations (clearly from the handful of cases I mentioned where I have seen drones did run out) but it does cover enough for a basic rule in a much simpler system - ACtA is not competing with SFB for detail - really thats precisely what it isn't there for.

For certain ships where it might be more likely - or for scenarios where you are going to see ammo become an issue you can do various things to simulate it and I can think of a few ideas that work fairly simply if you want some house rules - but basically I want to avoid the idea of tracking firing from racks over a number of turns and then doing a reload action - because one isn't certainly enough to simulate reloading a drone rack from stores in SFB - it takes several rounds. While mechanically it can be done the amount of effort required for the level of gain in detail is too much for what is in my experience a relatively rare event that can be ignored for a quick play game like ACtA (in my opinion obviously, your mileage may vary).

 

[storeylf]

To clarify, I'm not after drones running out as such. It's the ADD/Drone difference I find odd. I think they ought to be the same, either both run out or both last forever. Or both run out and both be reloadable. I'm happy with dropping tracking stuff, but the 2 systems were balanced to each other to some extent in SFU by both being limited ammo, and both being reloadable. That 'balance' has been lost in ACTA.

As to how it works in FedCom. Drones often run out before most games are over unless you reduce your fire rate to allow a rolling reload through out the game. Its not an uncommon tactic against a drone heavy force to try and pull out most drones before moving in for the kill. Four turns is not a long game. ADDs, however, are less likely to run out (barring Feds with only 4 per rack), as you get few chances to fire them. SFB may have been different on ADDs as it allowed more firing opportunities, but both systems ran out and both systems were reloadable.


PS: If it turns out that drones etc are balanced then I'm happy, no matter what I say here about SFU. But at the moment I'm struggling to see how some empires, and I'm looking at Gorn as the most clear cut case, can handle drone empires. From my brief excursion with gorns, in a small game where I only had to handle 2 drone chucking ships I got a taste of just how bad they are at defending against them. Had the other ships on the enemy side also been drone throwers I'd have been looking at effectively dead ships before even getting in range.

 

[Captain Jonah]

But at the moment I'm struggling to see how some empires, and I'm looking at Gorn as the most clear cut case, can handle drone empires. From my brief excursion with gorns, in a small game where I only had to handle 2 drone chucking ships I got a taste of just how bad they are at defending against them. Had the other ships on the enemy side also been drone throwers I'd have been looking at effectively dead ships before even getting in range.

Welcome to my world. :roll:

What do we want D-Racks.
When do we want them. NOW :lol:

 

[tneva82]

To clarify, I'm not after drones running out as such. It's the ADD/Drone difference I find odd. I think they ought to be the same, either both run out or both last forever. Or both run out and both be reloadable. I'm happy with dropping tracking stuff, but the 2 systems were balanced to each other to some extent in SFU by both being limited ammo, and both being reloadable. That 'balance' has been lost in ACTA.

Well if you make ADD non-runouttable then you either need to reduce it's efficiency or boost the drones.

Pretty much entire rules need rewritten on drones and how they work then...

 

[Captain Jonah]

To clarify, I'm not after drones running out as such. It's the ADD/Drone difference I find odd. I think they ought to be the same, either both run out or both last forever. Or both run out and both be reloadable. I'm happy with dropping tracking stuff, but the 2 systems were balanced to each other to some extent in SFU by both being limited ammo, and both being reloadable. That 'balance' has been lost in ACTA.

Well if you make ADD non-runouttable then you either need to reduce it's efficiency or boost the drones.

Pretty much entire rules need rewritten on drones and how they work then...

/sarcasm on for those who missed it :lol:

Oh great. Give ADDs unlimited ammo then compensate by making Drones more powerful :roll: :wink:

Poke the non Drone users in the eye with a sharp stick why don't you. :shock:

/sarcasm off

As it stands the Kzinti are the main ones chucking the drones out so unless you see a civil war or they face a Drone heavy fed fleet they are fine. The Feds have two ships (DWD and BCH) with ADD4 of never ending and a couple I think with ADD2. The ADD2 ships can take one ammo hit in a turn then need to shut down or they lose both ADDs AND Drones.

The Klinks are the ones most hurt by ADD ammo since many of them are ADD1.

However. Its not as unbalanced as it seems. Yes the Klinks rapidly run out of ADDs but they have the mobility to get into range with Drone chuckers in two or at worst three turns after which having no ADDs isn't such an issue. Those ADD1s buy them time to close and after that it’s a face full of angry Klingon.

The Feds can, if they are prepared for Drones, stack BCHs, war era ships and DWDs so everything has at least Drone 2 giving them that never ending ADD of at least 1 ammo hit a turn, enough to get those photons in range. The Kzinti have enough Drones and phaser-3s to survive.

The Lyran have ESGs, the Hyrdans have both fighters and Gatlings (not sure how fighters will work against drones) but in SFB they are able to cut down massed Drone attacks with ease.

It’s the poor Plasma races that get it in the eye if you do anything to make Drones more effective.

I don't want to reach the point where every fleet I field must have a pair of BDD(E)s in it just so some of my ships can survive the first few turns against Drone heavy fleets (which will be all three races when the D6Ds and other Drone ships arrive)

It’s not just the Gorn either, the ISC have no cloaks to cower under and while they have a load of defensive plasma Fs these are in rear facings so not much use while going forward.

Also since plasmas cannot be used against drones in ACTA the defensive ones are of no use except against fighters or ships. Since fighters are 2013 and ISC after that it isn’t such a problem but if the ISC turn mode D ships are also cursed with Lumbering that gives you two major races that are floating targets.

With a limited number of fights the Klingon Drones are mostly annoying but can be used to snipe damaged ships across the map. The Klingons have enough ADDs to make a Kzinti fleet concentrate fire on one ship at a time, they lose one or two ships getting into range but once there its barbequed Furballs.

The old Fed ships are vulnerable with just Drone 1, the war era ships and others with Drone 2 or Drone 4 again force a drone heavy fleet to concentrate on one ship, beat down its defences and kill it so you may lose one or two Feds before getting in close.

Running out of ADD ammo mid or late game is far less of a problem than not having ADDs at all. :roll: :wink:

 

[tneva82]

Oh great. Give ADDs unlimited ammo then compensate by making Drones more powerful :roll: :wink:

Well gee duh. If you boost the ADD then you need to counter balance or you have drone's as underpowered :roll:

You think you can give constitution class 10AD photon tubes without needing some rebalancing to compensate? Points fine just like that? You think you can significantly alter game balance by boosting ADD without helping drone's at all? Why the hate on drones? You want them extinguished from the game?

Ever heard the term game balance? You know? That nice little concept? Pretty much essential for fun game? That one?

 

[Da Boss]

Oh great. Give ADDs unlimited ammo then compensate by making Drones more powerful :roll: :wink:

Well gee duh. If you boost the ADD then you need to counter balance or you have drone's as underpowered :roll:

It is also very similar to just adding or subtracting weapons from ships "to make them fit the SFU" and then not changing the points costs............oh wait......

 

[Captain Jonah]

Oh great. Give ADDs unlimited ammo then compensate by making Drones more powerful :roll: :wink:

Well gee duh. If you boost the ADD then you need to counter balance or you have drone's as underpowered :roll:

Ever heard the term game balance? You know? That nice little concept? Pretty much essential for fun game? That one?

I was being sarcastic in response to the post above mine where they were talking about making ADDs unlimited and then imporving Drones to compensate.

Besides, Me Gorn. Whats an ADD. Hey where did those phasers go :roll: :wink:

 

[McKinstry]

Are drones supposed to be a major weapons system or simply an ancillary one with the capacity to be tactically annoying to the point of forcing adjustments but not a primary killer such as phasers, photons, plasmas or disrupters?

 

[gord314]

That depends on the situation. Most federation ships have one drone, so they fill the annoyance role much of the time. However some federation ships (and later Klingon ships I understand) and the Kzinti have drones as their primary heavy weapons, and when used in mass they can be a real killer.

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

Are drones supposed to be a major weapons system or simply an ancillary one with the capacity to be tactically annoying to the point of forcing adjustments but not a primary killer such as phasers, photons, plasmas or disrupters?

For all races except the Kzinti yes. Kzinti use them as their primary weapon (as you can probably see).

In the games we've had so far, they really haven't been a huge factor - although both sides have spent a lot of time worrying about them! They would be less of a worry if "Intensify Defensive Fire" wasn't a 50/50 kind of thing!

-Tim