Is stealth too powerful?
- Thread starter zulu01
- Start date
katadder said:
Assuming you can shoot them, yes you are correct. This is the inherent problem with balancing ships with stealth. The mechanism for balancing stealth has looked at 2 different elements for balancing purposes, thresholds and range adjustments to the target number. Both have been hard to adjust to insure proper balance. I think the issue with stealth is the all or nothing aspect of fire, especially given the D6 aspect of the game. If you roll hot, then stealth is no big deal, and the Minbari players cry because their ships are too brittle, if you roll poorly, then people complain that the Minbari are unbeatable.
Dave
lastbesthope
Mongoose
Burger said:
Yeah you can declare a ship firing that has nothing in range, the question is, why woldd you want to? (Unless it was part of a squadron)
LBH
MustEatBrains
Mongoose
Tried border dispute as a scenario in a tournament I organized - noone even bothered to fake damage; they open fire right away! A pity, I like the idea behind the scenario...
Yeah, it wouldn't really work in a tournament, because ships are regenerated for each subsequent game, and there is no real penalty for losing ships. It makes more sense in a campaign, where each ship lost costs you RR's to replace... if both players are short of ships they may agree to use fake damage... until one of them breaks the deal...
Just summing up a bit from the thread...
Changed from Arm. stealth rules are the following...
fighters may no longer lower stealth
scouts may lower stealth from greater range
if a previous ship both passes stealth and hits the target ship with an attack it lowers stealth one (max one here or do multiple ships stack?)
Minbari stealth generally went up one.
To me this reads as a wash/benefit to the Minbari. One weapon vs stealth was removed (fighters) in return for higher stealth numbers on the main user of stealth and a general loss of initiative against stealth in an attempt to get stealth back to what it used to be. If the Minbari player is smart he'll start heavily squadroned so that he destroys most of your firepower in the first pass or two while you try frantically to get better than a 50-50 shot at hitting him.
To be clear -
first turn will be exchange of long range fire. You may have reduced stealth with a scout (this means usually you are concentrating fire instead of using the 'spread' method of fighting stealth) so -1. So anthing that survives the first shot from the Minbari gets a shot at roughly the former stealth levels.
second turn you hopefully have reached short range with at least some ships (not likely with a number of races...but hey, we're not talking about them) -1. Fifty fifty for the scout again assuming its alive, -1. Again assuming you survive a round of fire you may have gained a -1 from a lower priority ships attempts to bust stealth. No better off than previous edition with fighters, and your given up fire initative.
third turn, the minbari hit all power and are back at long range and behind you, see turn one for the next two turns of stealth, though maybe minus scout. How did stealth get easier to defeat again?
Agree with earlier comment, stealth is the least 'fun' rule in the game.
Ripple
Changed from Arm. stealth rules are the following...
fighters may no longer lower stealth
scouts may lower stealth from greater range
if a previous ship both passes stealth and hits the target ship with an attack it lowers stealth one (max one here or do multiple ships stack?)
Minbari stealth generally went up one.
To me this reads as a wash/benefit to the Minbari. One weapon vs stealth was removed (fighters) in return for higher stealth numbers on the main user of stealth and a general loss of initiative against stealth in an attempt to get stealth back to what it used to be. If the Minbari player is smart he'll start heavily squadroned so that he destroys most of your firepower in the first pass or two while you try frantically to get better than a 50-50 shot at hitting him.
To be clear -
first turn will be exchange of long range fire. You may have reduced stealth with a scout (this means usually you are concentrating fire instead of using the 'spread' method of fighting stealth) so -1. So anthing that survives the first shot from the Minbari gets a shot at roughly the former stealth levels.
second turn you hopefully have reached short range with at least some ships (not likely with a number of races...but hey, we're not talking about them) -1. Fifty fifty for the scout again assuming its alive, -1. Again assuming you survive a round of fire you may have gained a -1 from a lower priority ships attempts to bust stealth. No better off than previous edition with fighters, and your given up fire initative.
third turn, the minbari hit all power and are back at long range and behind you, see turn one for the next two turns of stealth, though maybe minus scout. How did stealth get easier to defeat again?
Agree with earlier comment, stealth is the least 'fun' rule in the game.
Ripple
I think also if you try the low priority attack ships and they die that +1 bonus is lost - but not got rulebook to hand!
Slow loading gets a bit odd as well now -
ie: I fire my Demos at a Sharlin and a Leshath - I spot the Sharlin (cool) and fire half my torps - I fail to spot the Leshath (damn) and so keep half. Now does that mean I still have 3 to fire (or 6 in two turns) - I think it does - just a bit more book keeping?
Slow loading gets a bit odd as well now -
ie: I fire my Demos at a Sharlin and a Leshath - I spot the Sharlin (cool) and fire half my torps - I fail to spot the Leshath (damn) and so keep half. Now does that mean I still have 3 to fire (or 6 in two turns) - I think it does - just a bit more book keeping?
Iain McGhee
Mongoose
Unless it's been changed, if you fire any number of dice from a slow-loading weapons system (i.e. one line on the weapons list) then that system can't fire at all next turn.
Hmm, good catch...
Slow-loading weapons not counting as firing, is unbalanced anyway. Their ADs against a non-stealth ship are adjusted for only firing once every other turn; therefore against a stealth ship, they should only have a chance to fire every other turn. Assuming 50-50 stealth checks, they would hit the ship 1 out of 3 turns instead of one in 4.
By the letter of the rules, a slow-loading weapon will not count as being fired if you fail stealth. So, you can fire it again with full AD next turn!!!
Slow-loading weapons not counting as firing, is unbalanced anyway. Their ADs against a non-stealth ship are adjusted for only firing once every other turn; therefore against a stealth ship, they should only have a chance to fire every other turn. Assuming 50-50 stealth checks, they would hit the ship 1 out of 3 turns instead of one in 4.
Also, you don't have do damage the Stealthed ship with an attacke to get the bonus, just beat the Stealth roll, be in range, roll some AD and stay alive. The attack is a success, even if no damage is done. (consider this, your sensors have still locked on and the ship has been "lit up" by energy/explosions, regardless of whether significant harm has been done)
Triggy said:
So What? How does this make it easier to see a ship that has the stealth trait than it did in the Armageddon version of the rules? Stealth numbers went up for the Minbari, you lost the Scanners to Full ability for the fighters, and you gain an ability that is questionable at best to beat the stealth by firing. The range breaks for stealth are the same. So that Tinashi at range 21 Starts at Stealth 5+, goes to 6+ because of range. Can be reduced to 5+ if you make your 50-50 roll with your scout. So the first ship that fires on it has a 33% chance of actually seeing the Minbari ship to give you a chance, assuming of course you hit with the weapons you fire at the Bonehead, to reduce the stealth to a 50-50 shot again. I fail to see how this makes it easer to see a Minbari ship then it was in Armageddon. Using that same Tinashi, 4+ stealth in armageddon, up to 5+ stealth due to range, down to 4+ with the scout. 50-50 chance to see with the first ship you fire at. A 17% better chance to actually shoot at the Tinashi. But then again, it's easier to break stealth in 2nd Edition. :roll:
Dave
I'd contest that one. The rules say "successfully attacked". I'd take that to mean, has scored at least one hit. Of course that doesn't mean doing damage; a bulkhead hit would still count. So to get the bonus you must either:Triggy said:
a) Beat stealth, be in range, arc and score at least one hit.
b) Fire an e-mine and get one hit. Get the bonus without even rolling against stealth.
c) Fighters can get you the bonus, because they are "ships" now.
Hmm, missed those when 2nd tier playetesting
MustEatBrains
Mongoose
Burger said:
a.) sounds right
b.) don´t you have to "beat stealth" to get the reduction? Also, an e-mine doesn´t attack a ship, but an area of space - so I´d say no to this one
c.)interesting - good replacement for "Scanners to full"
Basically, as Scouts are more useful in general now they are more prevalent in all fleets; Fighters rarely got to perform Scanners to Full if the Minbari player was halfway competent; Thresholds have been adjusted too.Davesaint said:
At the end of the day, we tested them out and although they are still fairly hit or miss (literally) due to the Stealth mechanic, they are just about balanced in 2nd ed.
The situation you describe is a Minbari player's optimal position - at long range. Therefore you attempt to deny them that advantage. It was rare that we ever saw a shot at over 20" in any of my playtest games due to closing quickly with the enemy and firing at the closest targets. Scouts often stay in cover as they are so essential to winning the game and the tactics tended to be fairly similar no matter who the Minbari were facing.
Triggy said:
You never saw a minbari player move 1/2 his move and CBD or all stop to stay at long range?
How are scouts more useful now? You cant redirect beams. This is a huge deal. What was done with extending the range of scouts to 36" was to make them more survivable as people can't target them now. The redirect did go down to a CQ check of 8, but except for dealing with a ship that has stealth, I would never field one as a Minbari player as they cant make the majority of my weapons better. Sure it will help if I field a troligan or a tigara, but why would I when I am better at fighting at range with most of my ships? The Minbari are the current Beam Team. Why take a Leshath when I can have another Teshlan in my fleet? And that Teshlan is now more survivable as it now has stealth 5+ too!
Dave
Minbari stealth ratings going up is the worst news I have had all day... As if they weren't irritating enough allready?
Sure, there are some new ways to lower stealth, but those are all "if this, then that..." tactics. Building an attack plan based on multiple conditional dice rolls going in your favor is really dangerous.
Sure, there are some new ways to lower stealth, but those are all "if this, then that..." tactics. Building an attack plan based on multiple conditional dice rolls going in your favor is really dangerous.
