Initiative sinking - new solution?

[CheesyRobMan]

Just thought of something, it may have been suggested before, but it seems like a nice simple solution to the "more ships than you = win" swarm problem in terms of initiative. Keep the current system of taking turns to move a ship, but start with the highest priority level ships, and move downwards.

eg.

let's say I have an Octurion, 3 Vorchans and 4 Kutais (or something) - I would have to move the Octurion first, then the Vorchans, then the Kutais. This would represent the larger, heavier ships being slower to respond to the changing situation, and being more predictable in their movements, whereas smaller ships being lighter and more agile would be less predictable and more able to react quickly to things going on. It would also stop people from taking (say) 10 Havens just so they can be guaranteed a good shot with their big guns. This would work really nicely with the new Track That Target SA - in the show it's often the big ships slugging it out, while the smaller ones swarm around them fighting each other.

Haven't seen this suggested before, maybe it has been and I missed it? Any thoughts, suggestions or open ridicule?

 

[Triggy]

Unfortunately what you're missing is that it makes the big ships much, much worse as they're really unlikely to get their big guns or multiple arcs to fire.

We need to boost the big ships, not nerf them. Sorry.

 

[Tion]

Why not base it on the damage of the vessel rather than priority?

That would be more representative of mass and speed.

Otherwise you could get some big lumbering ships moving before ships that are in their higher level due to speed and firepower.

 

[katadder]

plus the big ships in EA/Narn generally come with a boresight main gun, this was they would never get to fire it except on TTT.

 

[Narchy]

Why not make it so that in a game of Battle level or higher, ships of Patrol/Skirmish priority level MUST be placed in squadrons? And those squadrons can only be broken if one of the ships is lost?

 

[locarno24]

Well....someone would have to move first, but the second ship to move would also have to be a bigger one, giving the third ship to move a worthwhile boresight target and so on.


example:

Omega
Omega
Omega
Omega
Omega

versus

Octurian

Centurion
Vorchan
Vorchan

Centurion
Vorchan
Vorchan

Centurion
Vorchan
Vorchan


Obviously in the current rules you'd never get a shot with the heavy lasers at the Octurian short of Track That Target!

order of move:

Omega (Track that Target! Octurian)
Vorchan
Omega (Vorchan)
Vorchan
Omega (Vorchan)
Vorchan
Omega (Vorchan)
Vorchan
Omega (Vorchan)
Vorchan
Vorchan
Centurion
Centurion
Centurion
Octurian

Even if the Omegas all fire on seperate targets and kill their targets outright, they still won't get any shots at the battleship unless they can repeat the feat in the following turn.




With the proposed change, assuming the Centauri win initiative (which with a better natural initiative and a battleship with command +2 should be a foregone conclusion), the move order is

Omega (Track that Target!)
Octurian
Omega (Octurian)
Centurion
Omega (Octurian)
Centurion
Omega (Octurian)
Centurion
Omega (Octurian)
Vorchan
Vorchan
Vorchan
Vorchan
Vorchan
Vorchan

That means a hell of a lot more firepower landing on the big ship.

The rule stops you hiding one big ship behind a swarm. It doesn't affect a pure swarm since they are likely all the same priority (all the same class in the case of many fleets).




The big problem is if you want to field one big ship and a couple of escorts:

Warlock
Olympus
Olympus

Shadow Scout
Shadow Scout
Shadow Scout
Shadow Scout
Shadow Scout

Assuming the Centauri win initiative again, the Warlock must move first, which means that short of succeeding in a Track that Target! check, the Warlock's G.O.D. particle cannon never gets to fire, because it must move first and nothing is there for it to boresight.

 

[Ripple]

that's exactly the issue right now...

You didn't include an example where the Centauri fleet is all Vorchans with say a Corvan. Move the corvan in the corner as the second ship... two Omegas with no target at all as the Vorchans power through the TTT envelope.

Just saying the issue with big ships has to include a way for big ships to target small ships with primary weapons, otherwise the mass of small is almost always superior. If the game had been designed different from the get go so that small weapons couldn't affect large ships easily you could have had masses of small weapons for dealing with small ships and big weapons for big ships... but well... roads not taken and such.

So you need to find a way for a big ship to move in an activation system in such a way that it can targets its counter part in the enemy fleet and still target small ships if there is no counter part or the counterpart is in a completely different part of the playing field.

Ripple

 

[wpngjstr]

Here's a variant to the original suggestion in the thread;

First, the biggest issue I see is winning the initiative doesn't help much vs swarm fleets, followed by the effect on boresight.

So I would suggest: the loser of initiative has to move ships from highest PL to lowest, while the winner may move as desired(or possibly, has to move lowest PL first).

This would make winning the initiative a little more important, as it should be, without totally nerfing heavy boresights. Command variants would certainly become more of an issue (taking and targeting).
I'd also throw in an initiative modifier of, say -1 per 6 full ships or squadrons, since coordinating larger forces is harder and slower. (or just give the smaller fleet an initiative bonus of 1-2)

As it is, I rarely worry about winning the initiative, since numerical imbalances make it almost irrelevant, so I have no incentive to take or target command vessels (granted it's nice to get the first shot, but rarely crucial)

 

[Triggy]

Unfortunately that makes fleets with boresight and low initiatives (they mostly go together as it is) even worse than the original suggestion. Sorry but if people want to "solve" the initiative sink issue, you've got to rebuild the game from the ground up to not rely on alternating movement, one unit at a time, with boresights being common.

 

[stepan.razin]

A slight variation of a suggested idea.

1. Each player moves their Patrol level ships in order of initiative until all patrol level ships moved.

2. Each player moves their Skirmish level ships in order of initiative until all Skirmish level ships moved.

3. Each player moves their Raid level ships in order of initiative until all Raid level ships moved.

4. Each player moves their Battle level ships in order of initiative until all Battle level ships moved.

5. Each player moves their War level ships in order of initiative until all War level ships moved.


6. Each player moves their Armageddon level ships in order of initiative until all Armageddon level ships moved.

 

[stepan.razin]

Or you could improvise... all small ships move in order of initiative followed by all the ships of a line move in order of initiative, followed by the Armageddon ships in order of initiative.

 

[Triggy]

A slight variation of a suggested idea.

1. Each player moves their Patrol level ships in order of initiative until all patrol level ships moved.

2. Each player moves their Skirmish level ships in order of initiative until all Skirmish level ships moved.

3. Each player moves their Raid level ships in order of initiative until all Raid level ships moved.

4. Each player moves their Battle level ships in order of initiative until all Battle level ships moved.

5. Each player moves their War level ships in order of initiative until all War level ships moved.


6. Each player moves their Armageddon level ships in order of initiative until all Armageddon level ships moved.

I've suggested that one before and as far as I can see it's about as close as you're going to get to being both relatively balanced and encouraging big ship usage. It still has a couple of issues but they're much less minor than other suggestions (including the current system).

 

[Ukezwoll]

Sorry but if people want to "solve" the initiative sink issue, you've got to rebuild the game from the ground up to not rely on alternating movement, one unit at a time, with boresights being common.

You would indeed have to stop relying on alternating movement one unit at a time. I'd have to say I don't see that as a critical part of the system though.

One could also have the number of ships held by the player with the least ships decide how many turns each side should get in the movement phase.

The player with the fewest ships will move one ship each turn. The other player could move number ofhis ships each turn, except that the ships would have to be spread out as evenly as possible among all his turns.

Suppose for example the player with the fewest ships has three ships. If the other player also has three ships then both will have the fewest ships and both players will move one ship in each of the three turns. If the player with the most ships has six ships he will have to move two ships each turn. If the player with the most ships has nine ships he will have to move three ships in each of his three turns.


Player one: 3 ships--Player two:3 ships....6 ships....9 ships

Turn 1........1...------................1.............2............3........

Turn 2........1...-------...............1.............2............3.......

Turn 3........1...-------...............1.............2............3.......


But suppose instead the player with the most ships has four ships. When should that fourth ship activate? The answer is that the fourth ship may activate in any of the three turns. The player decides which turn.

In this case the player decides to save the activation of his fourth ship until his third turn:

Player one: 3 ships--Player two:4 ships

Turn 1........1...------................1(+0)

Turn 2........1...-------...............1(+0)

Turn 3........1...-------...............1(+1)


But suppose the player with the most ships has five ships instead. When could the fifth ship activate? Well, because his activations would have to be spread out as evenly as possible among his turns only turn 1 or turn 2 would still be available. Turn 3 has already been maxed out with the previous addition of the fourth ship's activation. Instead the player in this case decides to activate his fifth ship in turn 1

Player one: 3 ships--Player two:5 ships

Turn 1........1...------................1(+1)

Turn 2........1...-------...............1(+0)

Turn 3........1...-------...............1(+1)


The movement phase would seem to in theory represent a lot of ships moving at the same time. This movement is then executed sequentially in the game for practical reasons. The current system does a poor job of representing the theoretical simultaneity of all ship movements when a player with a much larger number of ships is allowed to execute a large portion of his activations after every ship of the other player has already activated. This I believe is the underlying reason as to why people are dissatisfied with the current system. It represents time in a warped manner. While sequentiality is a practical necessity given the design of the game, this sequentiality must be balanced to provide a decent approximation of simultaneity.

While this proposal admittedly would seem to require some basic knowledge of division from at least one of the players, I don't think that it would be too much. In practice the idea is basically about matching. You have to match a large number of activations with a small number of activations, as evenly as possible. Which does seem a fairly intuitive task most people should be able to accomplish.

 

[Ripple]

problem with packeting ships up that way is the all boresighted player loses and even bigger % f his firepower for losing initiative.

Ripple

 

[Hindsight]

Unfortunately that makes fleets with boresight and low initiatives (they mostly go together as it is) even worse than the original suggestion. Sorry but if people want to "solve" the initiative sink issue, you've got to rebuild the game from the ground up to not rely on alternating movement, one unit at a time, with boresights being common.

Regardless of whether this is or is not the solution ( I like ships moving by priority level, might even make me accept a White Star bore sight proposal if that were the case, but what gets me is what sounds like defeat in your voice. We've got to do something Triggy, the game is going to a new manufacturer for models, there has been a lull in production, and I'm sure the player base is shrinking. How many people stopped playing, before you got me? Are there others like me new to the material? Can we get back some who have left? Does Mongoose have the capability of contacting all old B5 posters with some friendly spam mail saying "Hey Try B5 Again!"

This is a very important time, and the better we do, and by we I mean us through you, to Matt, the better the game will do in this next phase of its life. I know at least two players in my area ready to stop playing, or just ignore all the current rules updates as they turn much of the game on its ear, and one of the two is too frustrated with not feeling like he is heard, or acknowledged, to the point where he doesn't feel like contributing in these threads would do any good.

This is why I asked in another thread for a Friday feature. It may mean more time from Matt, it may mean one of you big three going over with us some information direct from Matt, but the communication has got to improve, and we've got to think outside the box. I may be new to this game, but I've been a Games Workshop outrider for three years, up until the time they hired me, I'm no newcomer to healthy thriving game communities.

Lets make it happen yea?

 

[Triggy]

It's not that I wouldn't like to see a "solution" it's that the problem is twofold:

1) It is a fundamental game mechanic, not a tweak and is the sort of thing you include in a new edition of a game.
2) If it were to happen then every ship in the game would need rebalancing.

This is why TTT was suggested - something that works within the current mechanics of the game and reduces the problems inherent with low initiative, mainly boresight fleets. We're trying something

 

[l33tpenguin]

Priority level movement is very 'meh' It moves even further from 'realism' than currently. The order of movement essentially represents a ships mobility, if you are moving after another ship, you are out maneuvering them. I doubt the explorer and the White Star are similar...

If the way movement and initiative is done is going to change, I'd much rather see a speed based initiative be implemented. I already have a version as a house rule.

The bore sight problem is fixed by either TTT or a better solution that gives ships the oppertunity to follow the movement of a target ship.

 

[eldiablito]

Only adding a different spin on this boresight thread. What if the timing was changed and you activated your ship, did all your ship's movement, did all their special actions AND fired their guns? Everything else about the initiative system would remain the same.

This would mean that boresight was still limited and could draw your ship out of preferable arcs. Also, you would still have to anticipate the next turn, but this fixes the dumb situations where you have to move first and fire AFTER the target drifted away.

It would also remove the theoretical TTT special action that is floating around.

Finally, it would encourage people to move their large, lumbering and powerful ships first, to ensure that they get their shots off first (ie. Omegas), yet still telegraphing where to line up all response fire. In effect, larger ships would concentrate firepower into that first activation and would have a large advantage over smaller ships that need to gang up on the big guys.

Now, in order to make this work, the fighters might need to go before anyone else moves, or else they are paste for enemy secondaries. Also, scouts might have to do their scouting rolls at the start of turn instead of after movement.

This is just some food for thought...

 

[Hindsight]

That would be taking the Warmachine approach, activating one model at a time, and doing each legal action one after another, before activating a second model.

I think it would change a lot of things, but I think I'd support it. It makes sense that a Bore Sight ship would just move, while firing, and that they'd correct any changes made by their target, to stay on target. Moving seperately makes Bore Sight not a realistic game mechanic, as there is no way to represent agility, once you throw in enough initiative sinks to force me to move my bore sight ships first.

I'm just not happy with Bore Sight at all, and it sounds like no fleet that has it is satisfied with it. Drop it all together, and reduce Bore Sight to a 45 Degree Front Arc instead of a 90 Degree Front Arc. Less range, but still somewhat more forgiving than requiring a total line stem to stern to stem.

 

[Ripple]

The issues with move and fire systems is that large clunky ships out maneuver small quick ones. You activate you big ships first while stuff is still in front of them to shoot... with the surviving little stuff moving last.

Completely reverses the game, and oddly makes the bore problem worse in some ways as you are now targeted at where the enemy was a turn ago... meaning you very very far from being able to target again the next turn with most ships.

Ripple