Initiative Sinking

[Slightly Norse John]

I do this a lot, it's one of the cornerstones of my MO; my Early EA fleets are full of Hermes and Missile Tethys, my Centauri fleets almost invariably have a few Corvan here and there, my Dilgar have more Jashakar (and the odd Rishekur) than you can shake a triple damage crit at- or is that from?-
but, in the course of the early vs. late EA games, it occurred to me to wonder; what does this represent?
There is no on- screen or even quasi- real precedent for the ability of small ships to protect large ones by making themselves irritating to the enemy. The how is obvious. What gets me is why, say, that Omega should be prevented from shooting up my Targrath, by the utterly unrelated actions of that scoutship 40 degrees off target bearing and so far out of range it's meaningless.
The rules not only allow initiative sinking, they damn' near enforce it. An alternating move sequence is better than first one side moving then another, as per BFG- but it leaves large boresight ships near enough paralysed. At the very least, they need a lot of initiative sinks. At worst, they don't get a worthwhile target.

The main problem I have with an order based system- you write movement orders for each ship before anything is moved, then all movement is simultaneous- is just that; boresights. How do you line up a boresight under simultaneous movement?
Also, how do you keep to the general theme that precision is possible, you get to make measured turns and split millimetre (yes, I know we aren't metric- the alternative units of measurement aren't suitable for a family forum) judgements?
Maybe we can thrash our way to a solution, because at the moment, I'm finding it too easy for fleets with good small ships to score well on the strength of what is essentially a rules quirk.

 

[Chernobyl]

maybe it would be enough simply to write down all of the special orders you want to do.
Or, you could say, "make minimum required movement, and boresight nearest enemy in range/arc, boresight a specific ship, etc..."

The old Space Marine system back in the 80's used blind orders. You'd have to put an upside down marker next to the formation and then you'd all reveal at once. Then roll initiative, and reveal all of the orders.

Chern

 

[lastbesthope]

There is no on- screen or even quasi- real precedent for the ability of small ships to protect large ones by making themselves irritating to the enemy.

I'm sure it's happened somewhere in real life, but if you want on screen precedent for ships saving other ships and being annoying to the enemy, I give you the Drazi ship (IIRC) protecting Sheridan's WS in Into The Fire.

LBH

 

[Slightly Norse John]

That's Manoeuvre to Shield Them, though; a full blown SA rather than routinely beating your opponents to death with sharpened Suffolk cheese.
I know I'm arguing against my own case here, but I would not want to see a separate 'thinky phase' at the beginning of the turn; that would break up the flow of the game a bit too much.
Basically, at the moment, ACtA gives the players a wildly unrealistic abiity to micro-manage ships; instead of being the fleet admiral, you're up to thirty-odd captains. Space Marine (If I'm remembering it correctly, I was always more into Adeptus Titanicus) was actually more realistic in that you gave non- detailed orders which you had to check the consequences of.
On the other hand, I like the unrealistic approach, as a game. No entity could behave the way the rules allow the players to, but it makes a better play experience. Considering the howls of protest when anyone suggests anything which involves increased book keeping, too...
Suicidally Daft Idea no. 1; you jot down- scrap paper- a Statement of Intent for each ship, something along the lines of 'move up the flank then turn towards the centre of the board, shoot at the nearest target in each arc, fire the turret guns at the weakest of my own targets.' Then hand the statement of intent to your opponent, and get his. You still take turns to move alternately, but only in accordance with the statement, and all movement is considered simultaneous. So the players would be checking each other.
I consider this the beginnings of an idea. It's too complicated, and far too open to arguments, but I want to see if it can be trimmed down to the point where it's lean enough to function.

 

[Silvereye]

There is no on- screen or even quasi- real precedent for the ability of small ships to protect large ones by making themselves irritating to the enemy.

I keep thinking of the intro to Farscapes Peacekeeper Wars here. Where the Peacekeepers ambush the Scarens as they hide beneath a planets rings. There is an opening barrage from the Peacekeeper Command Carriers then a rush of small escorts and fighters close the gap between the fleets.

 

[Ripple]

If you really do not like it, you could try a proportional movment system. Still not exactly great but it allows for less sinking.

The other idea I had was a SA that you assign before movement. Much like CAF you nominate a target, the ship in question always moves after said ship and must try to boresight said ship (regardless of whether it has a boresighted weapon, penalty of going out of order). Ship may make a minimium move required to get the boresight or must come as close as it can.

Shrug...ideas anyway.

Ripple

 

[Slightly Norse John]

"Transfer Helm Control to the Spinal Mount"?
That could work- would it need a CQ check? I'd be inclined to say yes, but a low one, 7 or 8.

One alternative would be to give boresights some latitude of fire. I find them absurdly ungenerous at the moment- as the name suggests, I was used to Traveller spinal mounts, and some versions of the rules were indeed that bloody minded, others (Brilliant Lances and Battle Rider, IIRC), others allowed you to yaw a bit to- well, for smeg's sake, getting a shot from the main gun is the entire purpose and reason of the ship. Why should it be prevented by an artifact of the rules? Basically you had a 30 degree fire arc, and enough fine control steering thrust to lay the main gun on anything within that arc. It was one of the very few things about BL that actually made sense.

Allowing a ship to lock onto and move after it's target is probably simpler, though.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Although with the "Gentleman's Agreement" boresight decleration you do get some latitude with the firing arc.

 

[Tredrick]

There is no on- screen or even quasi- real precedent for the ability of small ships to protect large ones by making themselves irritating to the enemy. The how is obvious. What gets me is why, say, that Omega should be prevented from shooting up my Targrath, by the utterly unrelated actions of that scoutship 40 degrees off target bearing and so far out of range it's meaningless.

Try the Battle off Samar

 

[Ripple]

Actually the 'gentlemans agreement' does not get you any latitude as far as I knew. The one refered to around here is just that you cannot 'bore' a ship that has not already moved. Strictly a limit on the bore ship rather than a 'close enough' type agreement.

Ripple

 

[kritikalfailure]

Something you might want to screw around with is a "Maximum Activations" house rule that states you can only activate as many ships/squadrons in the movement phase as the point level being fought +1 (i.e. maximum six activations in a 5 point raid). That way Drakh/Vree/Centauri cannot swamp you with tons of cheap scouts in order to nullfiy your boresight weapons.

In general, people facing EA and Narn tend to load up on initiative sinks to protect their big ships from boresight lasers, and the EA and Narn players try to load up on initiative sinks in order to counter said threat.

I'd just like to see the altering movement/firing system be less about keeping boresight weapons off of you, and more about movement and positioning in general.

 

[Slightly Norse John]

Leyte Gulf is more like a fast, brutal campaign than a single battle, geographically and numerically huge, and Samar was a sub- phase; one of those improbable results where one side commits a lot more force than the other. In ACtA terms, a 7 point War rolled up when one side only has five points of Skirmish left uncommitted.
Strategically, maybe, but that's not the issue, the issue is manipulating the initiative sequence to deny your enemy's heavy weapons a shot. It's a rules artifact.
A Maximum Activations rule, that is going to need playing around with; it could cure the problem at issue, or at least mitigate it. It should prevent swarms of light units hogging the sequence. I wonder if it should be tied in some way to fleet initiative anc Command bonuses, though?

 

[dant164]

Solution for Crusade Era EA:

Solution 1

Take lots and lots of Apollos for a few games, watch those Initiative sinks dissapear in a cloud of irrdescent space debris.

Solution 2

Take a ton of Hermes transports and load them up with heavy missiles.

Solution 3

Threaten their manhood and or if not applicable family/car.

 

[kritikalfailure]

A Maximum Activations rule, that is going to need playing around with; it could cure the problem at issue, or at least mitigate it. It should prevent swarms of light units hogging the sequence. I wonder if it should be tied in some way to fleet initiative anc Command bonuses, though?

Well, the the forced squadrons aspect is obviously a double edged sword. Although an EA player may have to group 3 Hermes into a squadron and thus lose the sinks, he's also got 3 of them firing at once.

There would also have to be some work done as to what happens when Squadrons are unintentionally broken (my first thought on this is that any ships above Maximum Activation have to move before any other ships, or perhaps that you simply don't get to activate them in the movement phase).

I think Fleet Initiative and the Command Bonus still works nicely, as the player winning the initiative will still get to make the last move (if both sides are equal).

Keep in mind that savvy players are still going to move their lower level ships first in hopes that the boresight weapons will be kept off the bigger level ships, so this idea probably won't mitigate the problem dramatically (but will still be a help).

I see the intention of Boresight weapons to be that a ship must turn to get them on target, and thus cannot CAF. It seems silly that patrol level choices on the other end of the board would keep me from getting a boresight on the much bigger Z'Takk or Octurian.

Personally I'd just like to see either Boresight abolished totally, or have all Beam weapons become Boresight (though that will certainly illicit cries of havok from Centauri and Minbari players).

 

[Silvereye]

A suggestion for you to consider based on the idea that you can only activate as many ships/squadrons as the PL value +1 (+highest command bonus).

To get the best return from the greater amount of smaller ships they will be fielded as part of a squadron to ensure they can all act in a turn (e.g. cap ship and escorts or assault groups). Basically create movement steps. A first tier of movement where drifting hulks are moved, a second tier where ships that are out of squadron are moved (as normal by initiative order), a third tier where squadrons and other ships move as normal (again restarting in initiative order) and a fourth tier where fighters move. Firing could be resolved fighters, squadrons/ships, dropped ships from squadrons.

Ships that are dropped out of squadron could also be moved during tier 3 providing there is sufficient activation slots for them.

Example 4 point battle. EA (3A) takes, 1 Omega, 2 Hyperions, 2 Nova, 1 Oracle, 1 Artemis, 2 Hermes. Knowing that only 5 activations a turn are allowed, the EA's ships will need to be squadroned, so the Artemis forms ip to escort the Oracle as a squadron. The other ships pair up as necessary. If during the battle the Artemis is damaged as a result of a Manoeuvre To Shield Them!, for the Oracle and forced to drop out of the squadron. It would then move after any drifting hulks and before the bulk of the fleet, but would fire after the bulk of the fleet. If both Hermes were destroyed in the following turn, then there would be enough command in the fleet to give the Artemis full orders and it would resume moving and firing in the same tier as the rest of the fleet.

 

[andrewgpaul]

Rackham's Confrontation game allows the player with fewest units a number of 'refusals' equal to the difference in number of units; to translate that to ACTA, if you have 18 ships and I have 4, I get 14 chances to say "actually, I don't want to move anything now; you move something else". That way, whoever actually wins initiative moves the first or last ship, depending on how they wish to go, and no-one gets a huge uncontested movement at the end of the phase.

Or there's Battletech; if at the start of an inititive 'bound' (ie, when it's the first player's turn to move again), if one player has x times as many unactivated models as another, then he must activate x models. So, if one side has 15 ships and the other has 6 (and wins initiative, chooses to go first), the move sequence is as follows:
P1: move 1 ship; P2 has twice as many as P1: moves 2 (15:6)
P1: move 1 ship; P2 moves 2 again (13:5)
P1: move 1 ship; P2 moves 2 (11:4)
P1: move 1 ship; P2 now has 3 times as many left (9 to 3), so moves 3
P1 moves 1 ship; P2 moves 3 again (6:2)
P1 moves final ship; P2 moves his final 3.

If P1 decided to activate second, he'd still get to move the final ship, even though P2 outnumbers him more than 2 to 1.

 

[Davesaint]

Rackham's Confrontation game allows the player with fewest units a number of 'refusals' equal to the difference in number of units; to translate that to ACTA, if you have 18 ships and I have 4, I get 14 chances to say "actually, I don't want to move anything now; you move something else". That way, whoever actually wins initiative moves the first or last ship, depending on how they wish to go, and no-one gets a huge uncontested movement at the end of the phase.

Or there's Battletech; if at the start of an inititive 'bound' (ie, when it's the first player's turn to move again), if one player has x times as many unactivated models as another, then he must activate x models. So, if one side has 15 ships and the other has 6 (and wins initiative, chooses to go first), the move sequence is as follows:
P1: move 1 ship; P2 has twice as many as P1: moves 2 (15:6)
P1: move 1 ship; P2 moves 2 again (13:5)
P1: move 1 ship; P2 moves 2 (11:4)
P1: move 1 ship; P2 now has 3 times as many left (9 to 3), so moves 3
P1 moves 1 ship; P2 moves 3 again (6:2)
P1 moves final ship; P2 moves his final 3.

If P1 decided to activate second, he'd still get to move the final ship, even though P2 outnumbers him more than 2 to 1.

If you give refusals to the race that has less ships, it rewards the Bigger is Better style of play and it really penalized boresight races.


Dave

 

[Slightly Norse John]

At the moment, it's too easy (I reckon) to go overboard on the smaller is better style of play.
Whatever we do has to be simple enough not to break the flow of the game, and there are a couple of things that deserve to be tried out.
The simplest option- an SA- would probably involve the least disruption to the existing system, bit it is a bit of a back door solution.
For all that can be said against Battletech, it was an active, competitive system for a long time, and by the end there was very little unintentional cheese left. I do like the concept of moving groups of ships by numerical proportion- it should make things slightly faster as well- but not necessarily in squadron. I don't think that should be mandatory, that's a tactical factor with other benefits and drawbacks.
Funny thing is, we get quite irate with Mongoose for unclear, poorly worded, rules lawyer vulnerable rules some of the time; not as easy from the creative end, is it?
The tier system- I'll have to try that one out. Maybe EA vs Drakh, to actually give it something to test, not much point in a fight between equal numbers of ships is there?

 

[Silvereye]

I think the squadron thing could be used better. At the minute you get the tactical flexibility of moving one ship/sqadron at a time as an initiative sink against firing one ship/squadron at a time. Certianlyin the show we see ships used in squadrons. Vorchans, White Stars and Drazi.

I suggested the aditional movement phases (tiers) as a way to encourage fleets to even out their activation sequences. If one buys from a level above the scenario PL, they free themselves a couple of 'command' slots. If you buy from below the scenario PL then the samller vessels are encourage to fight in squadrons to ensure that all ships remain in 'command', any spares would be outside command, moving as second tier and firing as third tier.

Thinking about it, the tier system would really hurt the Drazi the most especially at higher PLs as they really favour the Patrol and Skirmish ships. But then in the show when the Drazi fight as part of the Army of Light, they operate their ships in squadrons.

For your test game would Drazi Vs be a better test as they are one of the most Boresighting reliant and Boresighting capable fleets?

 

[CZuschlag]

Dave's got the right of it here. You just have traded one evil for a possibly worse evil. What about all those Skirmish Drazi ... they're absolutely hosed by this! Heaven help they try to fight an Adira.

You might try proportional, or each ship having an initiative -- kind of a complication and a bit of an accounting nightmare, but it worked out alright for B5W. Don't know how it'd translate here.