Initiative Sinking Problems

[Morpheus1975]

Is it just me or is having a huge number of ships for initiative sinking making larger ships that much weaker?

I think movement should be handled like it is in Battletech.

If player a has more than twice the number of units than player B he move 2 units for every one of player B until he no longer has twice as many units.

Player A has 9 units and player B has 4.
Player A wins initiative.
Player B moves 1 unit. Has 3 ramaining.
Player A moves 2 units and he has 6 remaining.
Player B moves 1 unit. Has 2 more.
Player A moves 2 units 4 remaining
Player B moves 1 unit. 1 Left.
Player A moves 2 units 2 Left
Player B moves last unit.
Player A moves last 2 units

Player A has 9 units and player B has 4.
Player B wins initiative.
Player A moves 2 units and he has 6 remaining.
Player B moves 1 unit. Has 3 more.
Player A moves 2 units 4 remaining
Player B moves 1 unit. 2 Left.
Player A moves 2 units 2 Left
Player B moves unit 1 left.
Player A moves last 2 units
Player B moves last unit.

This means that teams like the Drazi with numerous units are not given a huge advantage especially against ships with weapon in his Beam arcs and even out the playing field/

 

[Major Chaos]

I think this could help. It is not to complicated and makes smaller fleets still viable without taking away the entire advantage of taking a lot of small ships.

 

[Blackavar]

This looks like a reasonable idea. I too have been sorta irked that large ships are completely swarmable, especially for a Narn player.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

This entirely defeats the whole purpose of deliberately taking larger fleets. Smaller numbers get swamped because they SHOULD DO. The idea of proportionately moving ships makes the situation for boresight-heavy fleets worse than ever. If you want simultaneous movement, do it by fractions of movement, not by ships.

Wulf

 

[MongooseMatt]

Also worth pointing out the the bigger ships are already balanced to take this into effect. . .

 

[demonllamma]

Having more ships would give you a better situational awareness in relation to your opponent in all reality. The method at present represents that well. The issue that I see you having with the alternating is that you don't percieve it as representing real time adequately. It really does, but in a different way than usual. Having more ships gives you A) more theoretical sensor readings leading to more accurate projections of ship trajectories. B) Less ships to worry about. A smaller fleet of big ships cannot react to all of the smaller ones. This is skewed a bit by the system, however it is really as close as you are going to get without making an overly complex system. and yes, I think having one person move two ships for every one is overly complex. It creates the situation whereby your opponent will get to shoot two times for your one. what is to keep someone from taking 2 war level ships and as many patrol choices as possible to simply outnumber their opponent 2:1. That makes two big shots for one single one in return. I know your system is intended for movement to simulate simultanious movement, however, the rules largely need to be standard across the board or things can get confusing (i.e. it is too complicated).

 

[E Nicely]

Yeah I play Earth Alliance a lot, it can be a little rough when you're trying to boresight against a fleet that outnumbers you 2 to 1. But bigger ships can take more punishment and kill those smaller ships. It comes down to tactics and getting in closer to bring weapons in all arcs possible to bear on enemy ships to compensate for an enemy's numerical advantage.

Nothing wrong with the initiative rules the way they are. Thats where smart playing becomes a must. You've got to know how to be on either side of the initiative sink issue without having it work against you.

 

[Morpheus1975]

I see a lot of people against this idea that have posted but to me the poll still seems split almost 50/50.

I don't see how much better having larger ships is than smaller ones when you get 2 small ships for the price of one.

I'd rather have 2 hyperions than 1 omega. The exception is the Bin'Tak which is worth more than 2 gquans.

There are advantages to either way of doing things.

A - Having smaller and larger fleets helps you keep ahead of your enemies at all times.

B - Having larger ships increases your survivability but makes you have to concentrate more on the movement order in order to keep your firepower deployed properly.

Players often have a few large ships and multiple small ships to act simply as init sink to keep there big ships in reserve do they can use beam mounted weapons.

I'd rather have a game where you are not worried about how many ships you have so your good ships can move last.

Flame or support away!

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Flame or support away!

So... how did you actually vote? Because I sure as hell can't tell from your post... :?

Wulf

 

[Morpheus1975]

Dohh

I'm for spreading out the movement and not waiting until one player no longer has ships to move and the other player then moves all of his ships.

It also allows a damaged ship tp get away.

Omega is firing at a Drazi ship. The ships loses over half its hull.
The omega wants to continue tracking it to finish it off but because of the magical init sinking his buddies do the Omega cannot even come close to keeping it in his forward beam arc!

Realistic? :wink:

 

[emperorpenguin]

Omega is firing at a Drazi ship. The ships loses over half its hull.
The omega wants to continue tracking it to finish it off but because of the magical init sinking his buddies do the Omega cannot even come close to keeping it in his forward beam arc!

Realistic? :wink:

not that realistic, they've got a boresight arc! :lol:

 

[E Nicely]

.
I don't see how much better having larger ships is than smaller ones when you get 2 small ships for the price of one.

More firepower, more Damage&Crew, bigger hangars, jump points...

Having larger ships increases your survivability but makes you have to concentrate more on the movement order in order to keep your firepower deployed properly

Whats wrong with that? That's why the orders are there in the first place.

 

[lastbesthope]

Initiative and movement is fine the way it is.

LBH

 

[E-Mines Hurt]

Many smaller ships can be used for initiative sinks, but the counter is of course....


1. The most cost efficient fleets are exclusivly made up of one above or one below engagement level. ie you get 4 raid for one war at battle level, but you only get 3 raid for one war at war level.

2. Ships drop both damage/crew and hull rating while dropping the rankings, so you hit twice as often against twice as many ships with half the crew/damage. Just do the math, how many normally distributed normal AD do you need to destroy 1 point of War on war, battle, raid, skirmish and patrol level??

 

[Morpheus1975]

The weaker hull ratings is the best argument I've heard so far for doing init as it is.

 

[Wulf Corbett]

The weaker hull ratings is the best argument I've heard so far for doing init as it is.

...and then there's the Warbird :twisted:

Wulf

 

[E-Mines Hurt]

The weaker hull ratings is the best argument I've heard so far for doing init as it is.

I'll take one War level ship against 6 patrol any day. It'll take 4-6 turns of combat to finish off the smaller ships.