LGS trying to expand A Call to Arms game

[Crimson Castle]

Hello all, I'm an owner of a game store and we have about 10 people playing Star Fleet and Noble Armada combined. It has been suggested that we play them against one another. However I see a lot of differences in the two games. Is it possible to play them against each other and if yes, does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this?

Thanks

 

[katadder]

they are very different in most ways. like how shields work, numbers of attack dice etc so not really compatible.

 

[Ben2]

Not really compatible at all.

If you want to have big games have everyone take a cruiser or battlecruiser, form two teams, and just go for it.

In terms of overlaps though, one set of terrain does nicely for both, and you can use the same scenarios for each one.

Noble Armada is cheaper to get into, but ACTA:SFU is Star Trek.

 

[Crimson Castle]

We have already played a few games against each other and ran into more than a few problems. Star Fleet does not have enough AD to over come Noble Armada's shields at a distance. However when Star Fleet gets close and lets loose with a full barrage of Plasma's or Photon's, Noble Armada usually loses a ship or two. But when Noble Armada marines board a Star Fleet ship, it usually gets taken over.
One suggestion is to give all Star Fleet Phaser-1's the burnout trait.

 

[Ben2]

If you do want them to fight each other, add burn out to phaser 1s and 2s, and allow phasers to intercept rockets, missiles and torpedoes in the same way they do drones. Also give drones the slow trait.

 

[katadder]

well thats just handing SFU the victory if do that as they have their shields that regenerate and are much bigger. yes they have less AD but the burnout of NA has no effect on starfleet any more than any other weapon

 

[tneva82]

well thats just handing SFU the victory if do that as they have their shields that regenerate and are much bigger. yes they have less AD but the burnout of NA has no effect on starfleet any more than any other weapon

Then again SFU ships have less troops in general + no defences against grapling lines + unable to mount their own boardings(only hit&run)=NA ships could end up taking couple SFU ships for their own use in no time and even things out.

NA ships themselves might not be that of an issue but NA ship + couple captured SFU ships might be more worry

Also there's of course ramming possibility NA's can do which SFU ships can't do in return.

 

[Ben2]

You'd have to play using the NA rules.

This means you can use transporters to put marines aboard enemy ships with their shields down, allowing capture, and that you can go round shouting 'ramming speed' with Star Trek ships.

It would also limit you to the Noble Armada special actions, meaning no reinforcing shields.

Shields would still give Star Trek ships an advantage, but Noble armada ships have far more hull.

However the points system would be completely screwed, though you might give the NA ships a flat discount of something like 50%.

 

[Nerroth]

Or, alternatively, you could use the ACTA:SF rules, and assume that the Noble Armada ships are fighting at "sublight"; i.e. with Non-Tactical Warp (Impulse) Drives. That would mean the NA fleets would go no further than Speed 1 (or Speed 4, if you wanted to be a little more generous; in FC, sublight ships must set a baseline Speed of 0, but can pay to "accelerate" in four separate Impulses in the course of a turn) and have no option to use the All Power to Engines! Special Action.

Plus, the NA weapon ranges would then be scaled back, to represent the difference between the "warp-class" weapons which modern Star Fleet Universe ships have, compared to the "sublight" weapons (lasers, atomic missiles, etc) which were used in the SFU prior to the onset of Tactical Warp.


Since Noble Armada fleets have no faster-than-light engines (they need the jump gates to go from one system to another) they would only really scale properly with the Q-era (sublight) ships in the SFU; but if you tried to adjust the scales one way or another to take the setting differences into account, it probably wouldn't end well for the side not making use of Tactical Warp Drive.

 

[tneva82]

You'd have to play using the NA rules.

Not really. Actually it would have to be mix&match. SFU ships don't have speed and turn values as per NA...

Actually pretty much only thing you CAN do is "both sides play their own rules as far as possible".

So when NA ship moves it moves according to NA rules, SFU ship moves it uses SFU rules. Shooting same. Boarding it's reasonable to have SFU ships defend as per NA rules but they would be unable to mount their own boarding. And no ramming in SFU rules=no ramming with SFU ships.

Forcing other ships to use rules that are not part of their own rules won't work.

But if both sides use their own rules where applicable that can be made to work. Balanced? Nope(well okay you CAN balance it if you are willing to tinker with point values) but possible.

It would also limit you to the Noble Armada special actions, meaning no reinforcing shields.

Nah. SFU ships would use their own SA's obviously.

 

[AdrianH]

Since Noble Armada fleets have no faster-than-light engines (they need the jump gates to go from one system to another) they would only really scale properly with the Q-era (sublight) ships in the SFU; but if you tried to adjust the scales one way or another to take the setting differences into account, it probably wouldn't end well for the side not making use of Tactical Warp Drive.

Ah, scale. From the Cadet Training Manual (Rules):

HEX: Each hex represents an area 10,000 kilometers or a bit more than 6,000 miles across.
...
SPEED: A speed of one hex per turn equals the speed of light.
...
TURN: Each game turn represents a few minutes of subjective time

Since the speed of light is about 300000km/s, one hex is 10000km, and one turn represents a few minutes, either a turn is about 1/30 of a second or a hex is a lot bigger than 10000km.

Alternatively, just disregard the fluff about tactical warp, which incidentally also means you don't need to make up some sort of technowaffle to explain how a ship can fire an energy weapon forwards and not run straight into its own beam. And you get to play crossover battles against Noble Armada or B5 without having to worry about what happens when a ship moving at warp speed fights a ship which can't do that.

The other explanation is that light in the Star Fleet Universe really does take a few minutes to cross 10000km, giving it a speed of at most 84 km/s and meaning a SFU ship in the Noble Armada universe needs to use its tactical warp to move faster than a snail.

 

[Da Boss]

As I see it there are two main options:

a)Convert the relevant ships to the other system (which is time consuming and a bit fidely but not at all impossible) - eg you can work out NA stuff for say a Constitution:

Speed 12,
Hull 4,
Turns 2/45,
ram rating maybe 1/10 damage (just say they can only ram NA ships and vice versa)
use the SF weapons traits as is and maybe make some weapons like phasers burn out.
Slow weapons do not auto penetrate SF shields but those rolling a 6 do

Klingon D7
Speed 12
Hull 4
Turns 3/90 (scary)
Ram rating as above

b)Use the majority of the rules for each system with each fleet so NA rules for NA ships and SF rules for SF ships.

 

[Nerroth]

The concept of Tactical Warp vs. Non-Tactical Warp is far too deeply embedded into the SFU setting for it to be readily thrown out now; not least since it was originally intended to try and tackle one of the more awkward legacies from the original source material.

In TOS, combat was shown to take place at warp speeds; however, while the plasma torpedo in Balance of Terror could move at warp, the ship doing the firing of it was said to have "simple impulse". In order to try and account for how a ship with an impulse drive could travel faster than light from one star system to the next but still be more limited in battle, the division between Non-Tactical Warp derived from fusion-based impulse engines and Tactical Warp based on antimatter-powered warp engines was codified. (This would later be used as one of the benefits of the Treaty of Smarba; the advent of Klingon warp technology into the Romulan fleet, helping to turn them from an annoyance into a major threat. I imagine the Gorns might not have been too pleased at how their new-found Federation allies helped provoke the Klingons into that particular agreement...)

It has been acknowledged that there is an "error" in part of the "data tapes"; but SVC felt obliged at the time to honour the on-screen material (as much as ADB is allowed to be the terms of the licence), though the SFU does reserve the right to filter out certain technical elements from the shows in order to retain in-game consistency. (Essentially, the Air Force data tapes are the main source of data; the TV shows are positioned as in-universe trivideo adaptations of events within the SFU-historical data. Hence the SFU take on the Fed-Gorn first contact, in which two brash young captains shot first and faced embarrassing questions later, has no mention of the Metrons; who are said to have been added in to a later trivideo adaptation for dramatic purposes.)

But, if you want to be particular about how fast a "sublight" ship can go, I could note that the ability of an impulse-powered ship (like the old Romulan Warbird) is technically down to a very weak warp bubble around the hull, which is just barely managing to make it go at a speed close to c without tripping over relativistic effects. (It just can't go faster than c tactically, unlike a true Tactical Warp Drive.) So, if you want to be strict about limiting the speed of ships going at a low fraction of c, like, say, those in Noble Armada, you could spend the entire game with them going at Speed 0...


And I may have noted this in a prioe thread, but the idea of "warp-class" weapons is that they are not limited by the speed of light, the way old-style lasers and atomic missiles are/were. They either have a miniature warp engine that allows them to travel at tactical warp speeds (drones, plasma torpedoes), or otherwise have some sort of tachyon/warp-shunt/technobabble-ey thing going on (phasers, disruptors). A SFU phaser is not a laser.

(This is another point that is highlighted in the Early Years modules for SFB; the onset of Tactical Warp made the need to get rid of the old-style lasers and missiles inevitable. Indeed, without an upgrade to its sensor net, and a set of warp-targeting gyros for its lasers, a non-tactical-warp ship cannot even detect a ship at Tactical Warp, let alone fire on it.)


Although, if you wanted to ask over there, someone over at the ADB BBS might be in a better position to clarify the whole tactical vs. non-tactical warp thing better than I can. (Especially in case I've messed up any of the above data.) Though they are currently in the midst of a final push to get Captain's Log #45 finished and ready to print, so my suggesting this right now is probably not the wisest thing I've ever posted around these parts...

 

[Ben2]

Yeah, just fudge it for the purposes of having fun.

 

[tneva82]

Alternatively, just disregard the fluff about tactical warp, which incidentally also means you don't need to make up some sort of technowaffle to explain how a ship can fire an energy weapon forwards and not run straight into its own beam. And you get to play crossover battles against Noble Armada or B5 without having to worry about what happens when a ship moving at warp speed fights a ship which can't do that.

And you don't have to worry about things like how the drones(which are basically nuclear bombs right?) are able to explode at precicely right time at 0.0000000000000000001 seconds accuracy at precice location within...oh couple hundred meters...that is neccessary for nuclear bomb to basically be a viable weapon.

Oh and yes. How on earth they can fit warp nacelles to every phaser beam and photon As trek tech has made it clear, no nacelles, no warp. So therefore phaser's need to have nacelles or they won't get past the ships gun barrel before hitting BACK into the firing ship

My games past warplight speed combats don't happen. Out of all the trek sillyness that's by far worst. Getting rid of the concept doesn't change game one bit so why worry about it. Just go for the LOGICAL approach. So it doesn't fit the TOS? Bohoo. Paramount ain't coming to sue me when I don't follow their series that wasn't even planned integrally consistent from the get-go.

 

[Crimson Castle]

You'd have to play using the NA rules.

Not really. Actually it would have to be mix&match. SFU ships don't have speed and turn values as per NA...

Actually pretty much only thing you CAN do is "both sides play their own rules as far as possible".

So when NA ship moves it moves according to NA rules, SFU ship moves it uses SFU rules. Shooting same. Boarding it's reasonable to have SFU ships defend as per NA rules but they would be unable to mount their own boarding. And no ramming in SFU rules=no ramming with SFU ships.

Forcing other ships to use rules that are not part of their own rules won't work.

But if both sides use their own rules where applicable that can be made to work. Balanced? Nope(well okay you CAN balance it if you are willing to tinker with point values) but possible.

It would also limit you to the Noble Armada special actions, meaning no reinforcing shields.

Nah. SFU ships would use their own SA's obviously.

This is actually the model we going to use. The only change at this time is that we are adding Burnout to all Phaser-1's. And see how that works.

 

[Rambler]

For whatever reason Star Fleet ships had their marine contingent haved in ACTA. I would double the troops and consider adding the ability to use their shuttles as breaching pods to the SF ships.

 

[Da Boss]

You'd have to play using the NA rules.

Not really. Actually it would have to be mix&match. SFU ships don't have speed and turn values as per NA...

Actually pretty much only thing you CAN do is "both sides play their own rules as far as possible".

So when NA ship moves it moves according to NA rules, SFU ship moves it uses SFU rules. Shooting same. Boarding it's reasonable to have SFU ships defend as per NA rules but they would be unable to mount their own boarding. And no ramming in SFU rules=no ramming with SFU ships.

Forcing other ships to use rules that are not part of their own rules won't work.

But if both sides use their own rules where applicable that can be made to work. Balanced? Nope(well okay you CAN balance it if you are willing to tinker with point values) but possible.

It would also limit you to the Noble Armada special actions, meaning no reinforcing shields.

Nah. SFU ships would use their own SA's obviously.

This is actually the model we going to use. The only change at this time is that we are adding Burnout to all Phaser-1's. And see how that works.

Sounds cool - look forward to hearing how it all works out