ISA, Vorlon, Shadows overpowered?

[lastbesthope]

2) ISA in general, why the +1 CQ? seriously. there are not that many rangers, a lot of the crew on the ISA ships are religious cast. SO, an isa fleet may have up to say 2FAP with +1 CQ. the rest are standard?

[/quote]

Well I'm not going to argue you on the rules aspect of +1CQ for the ISA, but fluff wise, while most of the crews, in the early days of the WS fleet, were religious caste rather than Rangers, I think it's fairly safe to assume that they were very very well trained religious caste.

LBH

 

[Joe_Dracos]

As a reply to a post about AA earlier...

Adaptive armour is much more effective then adding 50%. Since everything is rounded down, all your 5's and 3's (and all other odd numbers) give you additional damage saved. Though with a minimum of 1 damage it doesn't add a whole lot, but using dice rolls against adaptive armour you should add about 1.4 damage for every offical damage in its damage score. So a Destroyer with 35 damage might as well have another 49, not including Self repair rolls. These make for severly harty ships.

That being said, with only 3 viable warships on the list and one mediocure choice for skirmish you might as well count on any comptient oponent getting many (if not all) bore sight weapons and main batteries on to these ships. They need to absorb the extra damage because of a severe lack of init sinks, which makes the necessity for higher damage scores a reality.

No if you start adding additional ships to the list, the additional damage scores become unneccessary and cause the ships survivability to become a balancing issue.

 

[lastbesthope]

Adaptive armour is much more effective then adding 50%.

Depends, it's exactly 0% bonus against a 1AD weapon. It's at best when taking only 1 Damage from a 3 Damage hit).

LBH

 

[Joe_Dracos]

Adaptive armour is much more effective then adding 50%.

Depends, it's exactly 0% bonus against a 1AD weapon. It's at best when taking only 1 Damage from a 3 Damage hit).

LBH

This is true, and it does get factored in mathmatically. However, when being attacked by 4 AD, 6AD or 8AD of single damage twin linked that extra saved damage adds up faster then the effect from a 2 AD twin linked weapon (which usually produces 1 damage most of the time).

Double damage weapons usually need 8AD for 4 rounds to accumulate any significant damage (without Self repair). and if you want a kill within 4 rounds it will take a Quad damage beam to do it in 3 on average.

 

[Taran]

TOTALLY AGREE! The +1 CQ bonus (also fo the Vree and Psi Corps) is extremely bad. CQ checks are very delicate, they have to be just hard enough for a normal ship but not too easy for fleet with +1 CQ. The fact that some fleets have +1, means that the difficulty of CQ checks has to be that bit harder for the rest of us. For example Come About, or repair rolls, could be made 8, if it weren't for the fact that ISA could do it to easily due to their +1. If I were in charge then I'd remove the +1 CQ from ISA and give them +4 or +5 initiative due of their ranger training (that would help with the Boresighted WS too).

I thionk I could happily make that trade. This is supposedly THE most advanced fleet of the Younger Races with THE most agile ships. Why is it so often out-inited by its opponents in this game?

 

[Triggy]

Adaptive armour is much more effective then adding 50%.

Depends, it's exactly 0% bonus against a 1AD weapon. It's at best when taking only 1 Damage from a 3 Damage hit).

LBH

This is true, and it does get factored in mathmatically. However, when being attacked by 4 AD, 6AD or 8AD of single damage twin linked that extra saved damage adds up faster then the effect from a 2 AD twin linked weapon (which usually produces 1 damage most of the time).

Double damage weapons usually need 8AD for 4 rounds to accumulate any significant damage (without Self repair). and if you want a kill within 4 rounds it will take a Quad damage beam to do it in 3 on average.

Indeed, it's probably closer to 80-100% bonus overall with some fleets doing better (e.g. EA, Raiders), some getting pretty much 100% all the time (e.g. Gaim, Centauri) and others losing out more often (e.g. Shadows, Minbari).

A good general could probably get the curve down to 70-90% but beyond that you're generally spreading your firepower so thinly that although lots of ships are taking single hits, none of them are actually being finished off and therefore the ISA get an advantage.

 

[lastbesthope]

The way to overcome AA is similar to one of the methods of overcoming stealth, put as many different weapon systems on to a WS as possible, fighter swarms are the bane of a WS life.

LBH

 

[skavendan]

skavendan,

The Psi Corps already have an effective Fleet Carrier recovery, that is unmodifiable currently. The 4+ save is better, and I think having both is just too much.

As far as the ISA +1 CQ, I'd give it up for a higher Init gladly. Although, the mostly religious caste crew are trained to Ranger standards so I think it is a very good representative of that.

I think everyone should have access to a SA that allows a squadron to form... everyone does have awesome communications systems and all.

Which doesn't work against accurate weapons or E mines yeah real effective!

And in a campaign fleet carrier replenish numbers while psi corps slowly die.

O btw just won a 3way that had the ISA in. So scratch another ISA win but I was Minbari this time.

Still think there broken

 

[katadder]

Remove it from the Psi Corps and give them, err something else, hang on they've got enough bonuses already!!!

I'd remove the Psi Corps from the fleet lists full stop, and make the ships an option for the EA lists, perhaps as a "Clark loyal" EA sub list.

Regards,

Dave

I would agree with this - allow EA fleets to take 2 FAPs from a black ops list (ie current psi-corps)

 

[skavendan]

I'd make it a more 50/50 and non of this they are allies rubbish!

Unless you do want to flip it back the other way and annoy anyone who actually went out and purchased enough to field a Psi Corp fleet without EA ships.

 

[H]

Aren't the ISA-era White Stars crewed by rangers? It is only the pre-ISA, Army of Light ones that are crewed by religious caste.

Why they should be better than warrior caste Minbari or Earthforce is another question. They should certainly be better than drunken Centauri has-beens, though.

:lol:

 

[Shadow Queen]

Id like to be searious here for a moment.

What would you like to see for a Skermish level Shadow Ship

 

[Burger]

I'd prefer a Raid level Vorlon ship before a Skirmish level Shadow. The gap between battle and skirmish is more hurtful than the gap between raid and fighter wing.

 

[H]

Id like to be searious here for a moment.

What would you like to see for a Skermish level Shadow Ship

for a shadow skirmish ship, how about a nice attack frigate. very Fast, swishy, lots of pulse cannons

 

[Da Boss]

I'd prefer a Raid level Vorlon ship before a Skirmish level Shadow. The gap between battle and skirmish is more hurtful than the gap between raid and fighter wing.

No reason not to have both I don't think :?:

 

[Greg Smith]

Unless you do want to flip it back the other way and annoy anyone who actually went out and purchased enough to field a Psi Corp fleet without EA ships.

Like me. :x

 

[H]

and I just bought 2 more hunters. but then i have a wad of earthforce, and i'd rather have the psi corps as an addition to them,

 

[l33tpenguin]

Just give EA the option to take X amount of Psi Corp ships as a addition, making them a black-ops or clark loyal fleet and leave the Psi-corp fleet as is, for the option to play a psi-corp only fleet.

 

[skavendan]

While I don't mind the suggestion. Really should have more than 1 choice at each level it's not that there uber good like shadows or vorlons.

 

[GhostRecon]

To recenter the discussion...

While Whitestars are shown to be Boresighted in the show, ACTA does very little to completely model the pure maneuverability and speed the Whitestars get, and the survivability that entails.

Firstly, they have, in the show, three weapon systems instead of the two given in ACTA, and possibly (I'm a bit too lazy to watch the seasons over to confirm) though unconfirmed, stealth.

Secondly, they are significantly faster than any other Capital ship in the game. ACTA does not model the vastly superior speed fighters and Whitestars have over "true" Capital ships. Whitestars flew circles around Omegas and Shadow Omegas. Literally. Even Thunderbolt Starfuries had difficulties keeping up. They were, in essence, Fighters with really big and scary weapons mounted on them, which is why they were so effective. They could kill capital ships, anti-fighter weapons couldn't really hurt them, and they were too fast for anti-capital ship weapons to hit them effectively.

Thirdly, Boresight was never an issue for the Whitestar because of the reason listed above. They were so maneuverable that Boresight was rarely, if ever a problem, and they easily strafed Capital ships. This is the primary reason the Whitestar has a Forward arc beam at the moment, to emulate or "metagame" the Whitestar's maneuverability.

Fourth, you almost never see a Whitestar decrewed in the course of a battle. It is, in the show, always crippled/destroyed before the crew is adversely effected (And the crew are usually adversely effected because of the gaping holes blasted in their ship). In ACTA, the reverse is true, where it is easier to decrew a Whitestar before you cripple it. ACTA does not emulate this for the Whitestar. Case in point, when Delenn's Whitestar is attacked, the ship is heavily damaged, crippled, which in turn decrewed it, not the other way around. The Whitestar would repair itself after the fact, but in the course of that short battle, it was crippled and rendered near inoperable before it was de-crewed.

In essence, to bring the Whitestar "more closely" to the show, you'd have to change it to something like...

White Star (Raid)
Speed: 20
Turns: SM
Damage: 4/1
Crew: 1 (Cannot be decrewed, like Technomage Pinnace)
Traits: AA, Dodge 2+, Flight Computer, SR1, AJE

Improved Neutron Laser: 18 inch boresight 2AD Beam, Triple Damage, Precise
Molecular Pulsar: 10 inch forward arc 4 AD Accurate, Double Damage, AP
Fusion Cannon/Pulsars/whatever: 12 inch forward arc 4AD Double Damage, SAP