Kzinti & Drones - Input Welcomed

[Nerroth]

One might argue the Kirov's anti-drone ability is too high as it stands; if it were to more accurately reflect the FC Ship Card, it should split two of its attack dice into a separate weapon line, which would then be treated as a "normal" drone rack.

(This is typically the case with Fed drone bombardment variants in FC, too; most of the drone launchers being subbed in to replace photons are "standard" racks, with no anti-drone warheads included. As it stands, letting the likes of an NCD treat all of its racks as dual-mode launchers would give too much with the one hand, but take away part of the point of the ship on the other.)

 

[Captain Jonah]

I think three ships.............. Gives the Kzinti a choice, but makes them work for bigger rewards.

Which is how it should be.

Give it a whirl, let us know on Monday!

3 ships? Have you been turned by Captain Jonah? Are you...GORN?!?!

I had suggested he get help to deal with his irrational Gorn hatred issues, thats a bit fast for a result so I suspect he is just faking being nice to us. It will change.

In fact if I mention one word I’m sure he will go straight back to his normal Gorn hating self.

LUMBERING :lol:

Still Drones are being sorted in time for the Kzinti fleet release, I could be cynical and expect Lumbering to be sorted in about 4-6 weeks just in time for the Gorn fleet release :wink:

In terms of balance - particularly with regards to Gorn and Romulans - what about plasmas needing 2 phaser hits to knock off 1 attack dice?

In SFB phaser damage against plasmas is halved and that makes a big impact with regards to the impact of plasmas in the game .............................
With "phaser damage halved against plasmas" in force you could also make Intensify Defensive Fire an automatic special order removing the risk of failing the test...........................
This would allow better defensive networks against drones and plasmas - but in a form that would act as a balance with the Kzinti without totally nerfing the plasma races due to the impact of the "damage halved versus plasmas" rule................

This has been considered before but it was a while ago so I’ll cover it again.

Making IDF automatic forces you to use your special action to survive, no reloads, no boosting shields etc. Making it automatic means every ship that goes IDF gets to fire defensively and it will kill huge numbers of Drones. And Plasmas and fighters and every other seeking weapon that comes out in future.

Then to allow plasma’s to still be viable you need to make them tougher or more powerful. This in turn changes the entire dynamic of the Plasma races which throws other things out of balance. The solution to Drones MUST only affect Drones. Changing IDF forces a change to plasmas and then to fighters and other things.

Making plasma’s tougher by requiring 2hits per dice significantly increases the damage they will inflict. A cruiser can Phaser down 5-6 Dice of plasmas, The Gorn will be dumping 12AD of plasma per cruiser, the Roms 8-12. At present this means a single Plasma cruiser will get 6 dice through defences to hit the shield or approx 21 damage. Enough to smash or significantly weaken a shield. If that same cruiser can only stop 3AD of plasmas with those 6 Phasers then 9AD dice hits, roughly 31 damage. Enough to take down any cruisers shields and do internals.

I really like this solution. It makes drones a nuisance, but not totally lethal, at long range and serious problem at shorter ranges when phasers start having other targets. Nomad, to address your concern if you consider a 6 on 6 scenario, firing your first 3 ships at a ship that used IDF should drain the defensive fire from it, and probably one other ship that passed the check, leaving the last one open to attack from your remaining 3 ships. This is assuming of course that your opponent declares IDF with all his ships foregoing other special actions. It also drains the offensive phasers fire from these ships, something they may not be able to afford once the range closes.

I look forward to trying out these changes this afternoon.

EDIT: federation ADD from drones will need to be addressed though. The implication (though there was no official ruling) previously had been that if the ADD does not run out, its level resets to the number of AD of the drone weapon on the next turn. Since some federation ships have 4 AD of drones, this would make them completely immune to drones if they did not fire theirs. Requiring a reload special action to switch back to drones from anti-drones (and reset the ADD score to the drone score) might work.

I’m not sure that it should require a reload. I mentioned this above. The Drone 4 stuff is immune to Drones anyway since they have 3ADD every turn. A Drone 2 ships can stand off a 3 ship group if it gives up offensive Phasers. There are Fed ships with Drone 1 that will lose both ADD AND Drones when they run out of ammo. What I don’t want to see is a rules change to balance the rules change that was caused by the other rules change.

Having the Feds give up the Ability to Fire Drones in order to be safe from Drones seems reasonable, this was part of the original concept as far as I remember Matt saying. It means the Kzinti have problems facing a Fed fleet unless they are balanced, I don’t see this as a problem.

Every race should have someone they have problems facing and someone they have an easy time against. :lol:

If drones aren't broken at 1000 points - I'm not sure they aren't, what with the 9xDWD of doom option - then the limit should be 6 ships, really, since a 1000 point fleet can deliver as many drones as any 6 ships currently can. 3 ships might be an overreaction.

I see gord314 has beaten me to the punch by editing his post - limited to 3 volleys, you have the problem that the Federation can WTFPWN the Kzinti by just taking Kirovs (which is never a bad idea anyway), and even the regenerative 2 AD-of-drones ships, RAW, have remarkably strong resistance to drones at a 3 volley limit.

Matts tipping point was, in my oppinion a lot lower that 1500 points. A 1000 point fleet with 28 Drones is a huge problem.

Fed ships with Drone 4 are all but immune to Drones anyway, this doesn't make them more or less protected since they must use EITHER Drones or ADD, its all or nothing meaning the DWD or BCH is either immune to Drones or can use them. There is no point taking a DWD then not firing the drones becasue the DW hull is too flimsy to take more than a few hits so it cannot afford to ignore the enmey Drones. Giving the BCH the ability to split its Drones just gives them more of an advantage. Leave them as is, either a decent Drone 4 attack or immune to Drones, Drones are a scondary weapon, a Heavy Battle Cruiser should be able to laugh at a secondary weapon.

Drone 1 isn't useless. Yes it cannot be combined into huge Drone waves. But that Drone is a chance to empty an ADD, its an enemy phaser used on it not you, its another D6 damage with Devestating to throw at an enemy that has shields down and just used its last Phaser to shoot someone. In short Drone 1 is a secondary weapon and has secondary effects. A Fed CA fights with Photons and Phasers, the Done is very much a "Oh and throw in the Drone as well" weapon.

 

[Pavlov Grenadier]

Good analysis Captain Jonah!

Now to the test games we have this weekend. Should I still plan on testing out the FF heavy Kzinti fleet ( mentioned in the Kzinti Test Games thread)? The pre-change strategy was to kill a ship or two before the FFs started blowing up. With the 3 ship firing limit, would a player really bring that many fragile FFs knowing that (as you indicated above), it would probably take 2 turns to actually kill a ship?

I’d love to play several games with change and pre-change rules in place but not sure how much time Mckinstry can commit (spend the night party at the Clubhouse?? :wink: )

Also, to be clear, I like the proposed change idea a lot. I just wanted to make sure we have an appropriate test this weekend.

Either way, Im excited to get more games in.

Thanks!

 

[McKinstry]

I like the three, a lot.

The classic Fed CA or the Fed Ncl with it's one ADD/drone is worth taking in a game where it can, probably, survive a round or two in a drone heavy environment in a 3 ship channel environment where previously you wouldn't consider taking them otherwise versus a Kzinti fleet.

We will give it at least a two game test.

And no Pavlov, Saturday is for gardening.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Good analysis Captain Jonah!

Now to the test games we have this weekend. Should I still plan on testing out the FF heavy Kzinti fleet ( mentioned in the Kzinti Test Games thread)? The pre-change strategy was to kill a ship or two before the FFs started blowing up. With the 3 ship firing limit, would a player really bring that many fragile FFs knowing that (as you indicated above), it would probably take 2 turns to actually kill a ship?

I’d love to play several games with change and pre-change rules in place but not sure how much time Mckinstry can commit (spend the night party at the Clubhouse?? :wink: )

Also, to be clear, I like the proposed change idea a lot. I just wanted to make sure we have an appropriate test this weekend.

Either way, Im excited to get more games in.

Thanks!

What you need to decide is how you will play your fleet.

If you want to go with lots of long range flanking then the 2 BCs and 5 FFs is still fine. Yes they are limited to 12AD of Drones. That’s 3 FFs and 2FFs + a BC plus one lone BC to annoy a third ship (or 4 other ships). Keep the FFs far off and use them the same way, against Klingons use the three to take down one shield from outside its F arc and the other two to weaken another shield for the BC to hit. What changes is that you will need those BCs to be in the fight adding phaser and Disruptor fire once the shields are down.

Against the Feds you will need to change since they can stand off 12AD a turn with the G-Racks. Try 2 BCs and then 4 DW/CLs. The FFs become all but useless against a Fed fleet unless there are Drone 1 old style ships to pick on. You need more tough ships to mix in.

The BC/CM/NCA become more important since you need to mix it with the Fed fleets more so.

Try a game with the 2xBC and 5xFF with the old rules, then one with the Drone control channel.

Use the same ships and same terrain and it should give a good comparison. I suspect the FFs will become little threat and the Feds will go after the BCs since they are the ones that will do the damage.

Then if you have time for a third game against the Feds go for more DW/CL/CM/NCAs and mix it with the Flat tops and see how that works.

Regardless keep your ships separated rather than tightly grouped. The reasons I gave earlier remain valid even though you have smaller Drone attacks and are fighting the Feds, don’t get pinned, you will out manoeuvre the flat tops so take advantage of that fact and stay out of that F arc as much as possible.

Oh and have fun and publish the reports here :lol:

Plan on going after two ships a turn and damaging them rather than one ship a turn and killing it with Drones. Well apart from the Feds, with them look for ships with Drone one and give them some Drone love.

 

[gord314]

I really like this solution. It makes drones a nuisance, but not totally lethal, at long range and serious problem at shorter ranges when phasers start having other targets. Nomad, to address your concern if you consider a 6 on 6 scenario, firing your first 3 ships at a ship that used IDF should drain the defensive fire from it, and probably one other ship that passed the check, leaving the last one open to attack from your remaining 3 ships. This is assuming of course that your opponent declares IDF with all his ships foregoing other special actions. It also drains the offensive phasers fire from these ships, something they may not be able to afford once the range closes.

I look forward to trying out these changes this afternoon.

EDIT: federation ADD from drones will need to be addressed though. The implication (though there was no official ruling) previously had been that if the ADD does not run out, its level resets to the number of AD of the drone weapon on the next turn. Since some federation ships have 4 AD of drones, this would make them completely immune to drones if they did not fire theirs. Requiring a reload special action to switch back to drones from anti-drones (and reset the ADD score to the drone score) might work.

I’m not sure that it should require a reload. I mentioned this above. The Drone 4 stuff is immune to Drones anyway since they have 3ADD every turn. A Drone 2 ships can stand off a 3 ship group if it gives up offensive Phasers. There are Fed ships with Drone 1 that will lose both ADD AND Drones when they run out of ammo. What I don’t want to see is a rules change to balance the rules change that was caused by the other rules change.

Having the Feds give up the Ability to Fire Drones in order to be safe from Drones seems reasonable, this was part of the original concept as far as I remember Matt saying. It means the Kzinti have problems facing a Fed fleet unless they are balanced, I don’t see this as a problem.

Every race should have someone they have problems facing and someone they have an easy time against. :lol:

You make a very good point. Especially since once a 4 drone ship uses its ADD once you can switch targets to something else having caused them to lose their drones for the turn. You can also save your drone heavy ships till after another ship has fired and see if they save their drones to stop yours. This is actually one of those cases where it might not be best to fire first even if you win initiative.

 

[andypalmer]

It's an interesting proposal. It's completely not consistent with SFB (where drone control limited the number you could have in the air per ship, but not how many could be targeted on something), but as SFB didn't work in fleet battles either, I'm more interested in game balance than consistency is something as subtle as that.

That said, I do have some concerns.

Everyone is focused on the Kzinti in the discussion, but we shouldn't have a solution which balances them but hurts the other drone races (Klingons, Orions, Feds). I feel that a 3-ship limit would do that as these other races need more ships to create the same "launch-weight" in many cases.

I am also concerned as larger units are put into the game - things like Battleships and Starbases will require a heavy throw weight in drones to get through their defenses.

Also, we will eventually see drone-launching fighters in the game so we don't want a solution that will make them ineffective.

So, thinking out loud, I think the ideal solution would be to have a graduated scale, based upon the size of the target. For example:

Frigates/Destroyers - 3 ships worth of drones
Cruisers - 4 ships
Dreadnoughts - 6 ships
Battleships - 8 ships
Starbase - 12 ships
...having not seen the rules yet, I'm unsure how ACTA is classifying the "sizes" of ships, but some scale based upon target size would seem to be the way to go.

Also, I think we should err on the size of having the limit be a bit bigger than we might want. After all, drones are the Kzinti's "thing"; you can't shoot down disruptors and photons which can all be targeted on the same ship, so IMO, the limit should be high enough that if they "cheese" it out, going for max throw-weight, they are still tough when they control the range.

Also, I think it would make sense that a SCOUT ship could add 1 to the limit for a turn. i.e., allowing more drones to target that ship. That, at least, is fully consistent with SFB ;-)

 

[Greg Smith]

Three ships firing - usually 12 AD - are very unlikely to get through a cruiser's defences, less so if she has a consort or two which have successfully IDF!ed.

Then the second batch of drones is targeted on the escort that has used up its phasers defending the cruiser. 12 AD is enough to send an undefended frigate to oblivion.

It isn't about the drones you can defend against, it is about the ones you can't.

 

[Sgt_G]

Total number of drones on target might be a little more robust in the long run; or maybe even a hybrid rule saying something like "If 10 [12? 15? 20?] AD or more of drones have been fired at a ship, no new Drone attacks may be made on it." Your super-droner would still be useful, since you'd be able to overrrun the limit with exactly one volley, people wouldn't feel overwhelmed by massive numbers of drones as the battle size hits 1500+, et cetera.

There are things in this game that are not tracked that I would not mind if they were tracked. However, tracking how many AD of drones were fired at each ship is not one of them. I can live with tracking that three or four (or how ever many) SHIPS have fired drones at a target, but not how many DRONES were fired at it. Even tracking how many ships did could get messy.

Ship 1 fires at target A.
Ship 2 fires at target B.
Ship 3 fires at target C.
Ship 4 fires at target B.
Ship 5 fires at target C.
Ship 6 fires at target D.
Ship 7 fires at target B.
Ship 8 fires at target C.
Ship 9 fires at target A.
Ship 10 fires at target A.
Ship 11 may now fire at which targets? Simple to answer here, but try that in the middle of a game.

The way I would do it is place a drone marker by each target as it is fired upon. Once there are three (or four or whatever number) of drones by that target, you can't fire any more at it this turn. That's not too bad. But I would not want to have to track a dozen or more AD of drones per target.

 

[McKinstry]

I want no part of tracking number of drones fired at any one ship.

I have a bunch of colored Litko counters I can use to indicate what ships fired and where simply by color and that I can live with that.

 

[Captain Jonah]

It's an interesting proposal. It's completely not consistent with SFB (where drone control limited the number you could have in the air per ship, but not how many could be targeted on something), but as SFB didn't work in fleet battles either, I'm more interested in game balance than consistency is something as subtle as that.

Well as is said from time to time this is ACTA-SF. A game set in the same Verse but not a slavish recreation. The ships may be the same but the rules make it a very different game and the fact that Drones teleport from the firing ship to its target makes them far more dangerous than in SFB where they wander across the board and everyone gets to shoot them as they fly past.

That said, I do have some concerns.

Everyone is focused on the Kzinti in the discussion, but we shouldn't have a solution which balances them but hurts the other drone races (Klingons, Orions, Feds). I feel that a 3-ship limit would do that as these other races need more ships to create the same "launch-weight" in many cases.

I am also concerned as larger units are put into the game - things like Battleships and Starbases will require a heavy throw weight in drones to get through their defenses.

Also, we will eventually see drone-launching fighters in the game so we don't want a solution that will make them ineffective.

So, thinking out loud, I think the ideal solution would be to have a graduated scale, based upon the size of the target. For example:

Frigates/Destroyers - 3 ships worth of drones
Cruisers - 4 ships
Dreadnoughts - 6 ships
Battleships - 8 ships
Starbase - 12 ships
...having not seen the rules yet, I'm unsure how ACTA is classifying the "sizes" of ships, but some scale based upon target size would seem to be the way to go.

Also, I think we should err on the size of having the limit be a bit bigger than we might want. After all, drones are the Kzinti "thing"; you can't shoot down disruptors and photons which can all be targeted on the same ship, so IMO, the limit should be high enough that if they "cheese" it out, going for max throw-weight, they are still tough when they control the range.

Also, I think it would make sense that a SCOUT ship could add 1 to the limit for a turn. i.e., allowing more drones to target that ship. That, at least, is fully consistent with SFB ;-)

The problem with Drones, and this isn’t just theory crafting as both the Mongoose chaps and the ADB team have been playing games to find a solution to the problem, is that they went from a secondary weapon to being THE weapon. The Kzinti having 4 Drones per ship reduced Disruptors to secondary weapons that could be used but were not necessary. Having a system where your fleet HEAVY weapons are not needed in a fight is clearly wrong.

Raising the number of ships that can target based on the target size adds complexity and to a degree negates the point of restricting the Drones in the first place. That 4 ship limit on a cruiser adds 4 more Drones hitting, that is another 16 damage a turn from up to 36” away. The 6 limit on a DN forces you back to IDF all the time to protect your DN. The Fed DN is still ok, The C8 has to use its huge nose Phaser block to defend itself and will still take 8-10 drone hits. The Rom are back to being cloaked or taking 14-16 Drone hits on a Condor, the Kzinti can stand off the first wave then run out of ADD and will take a few hits IF it switches every Phaser and its Drones to defence. The Gorn will be taking 14-16 Drone hits a turn. Or to put it another way, we are back to the Plasma races being reduced to floating targets from an enemy far out of range.
By moving the limit up for bigger ships you leave Drone heavy fleets with the same ability to smash enemy ships in the name of helping the low Drone fleets who gain no real advantage.

How much fun is the star base assault going to be when your fleet has to keep the attackers fleet more than 36” away from the base, this places your fleet too far away for the base to help, reduces the base with all ifs firepower to a terrain item and once the attacker gets into range you can do nothing to stop them.
48 Drones from a Kzinti fleet, close to that many from a Fed or Klingon with Drone ships. Star bases are tough. 48 Drones a turn, not that tough. Along come the Plasma races who need to close to 8” and will take heavy loses doing so. Is that balanced?

Using a variable limit is more complex and waters down the whole point of the limit.

Drones are a secondary weapon, the Kzinti have Disruptors as a heavy weapon but can fight entire battles where they don’t fire more than a handful of them. Drone squadron nets puts drones back into the secondary category. They can do serious damage if concentrated but they cannot replace every other weapon. Let’s face it, Drones are so much better than Photons or Disruptors, why bother with anything but Drones.

Having said all this I like the Idea of a scout adding 1 to the control limit. It’s yet another scout function that is useless to the Plasma races but it gives the scout a use with Drones, plus we will at some point get the Drone bombardment ships with scout functions (that’s 24 Drones against a target from a dedicated Drone attack force in larger fleets).

 

[gord314]

We tested the new drone rules earlier today. From the game we played with the Kzinti the new drone rules seemed pretty reasonable with a 3 ship limit.

 

[greenboy]

It may be worth setting a range maby 4 to 8 under which the chanels rule does not apply.

They are launched over open sitghts the target is painted buy a laser the flight time is so low that they hit the target before other drones get close enought to interfere.

 

[Nomad]

Glad I didn't put money down on a Kzinti fleet box.

Very well. Next shelf down, eight inches to the right.

Klingon, now.

 

[tneva82]

Glad I didn't put money down on a Kzinti fleet box.

Very well. Next shelf down, eight inches to the right.

Klingon, now.

Lol. All pessimistic here...

Wonder why people play the game seeing amount of complaining going on here.

 

[Greg Smith]

One group of people complain he Kzinti are too good. Then when a fix is dicussed, another group complain they are getting nerfed. :roll:

 

[billclo]

Jonah, are you still putting forward your idea about drones being able to be shot down by any ship past half range?

One thing I would put out there is this: reduce drone's damage from 1D6 each, to a fixed number, say 2 damage per drone. Drones have a fixed warhead (usually 12 damage); allowing a variable amount of damage never made any sense to me.

 

[Da Boss]

@ Greg

that will be gaming then :wink:

 

[Digger]

Why not make drones like energy mines in ACTA:B5, they can't do criticals?

That would make them less effective!

<DUCKS>

 

[Nomad]

One group of people complain he Kzinti are too good.

That's because they don't play Kzinti.

another...complain(s) they are getting nerfed.

That's because I (used) to.

Vested interests all round. :?