Matching the Show - Ideas Wanted!

[cadno ap annwn]

I love the shadows but felt that a few things were missing when playing as them. I noticed a few things mentioned already that I would love to support.

Accurate for the slicer beam - Personally its an absolute nightmare to hit whitestars and if we remember in the series the only reason whitestar 1 got away from the mars shadow ship is because it was confused. Also the time the shadows were unsure what the ship was and simply fired shots to test it.

Shadow Cloak - We seen this in the long twilight, the shadows literally sat half cloaked and layed a wonderful ambush. Perhaps giving the shadows ancient and young ships a little stealth would cover that idea.

Shadow Scream - I think this seemed to do nothing more than spark fear in people. Though with telepaths it was interesting, only the ships were vunerable, the shadows themselves seemed to do quite the oppisite!!

Instant Hyperspace - Though this would be accurate to the series, it would have the downside of making shadows nearly impossible to play against. But perhaps allowing a specail order that allowed them to exit it while firing?

Well that's just a few of my ideas, hope you guys don't mind me throwing in my 10 pennies worth

Cadno

 

[Burger]

White Star was designed to fight Shadows. Giving the Shadow Ship Accurate would make the WS totally redundant.

"Virtually SM" isn't quite the same thing. For one thing, it doesn't allow the White Star to slide sideways. Besides, the manoeuvre I'm thinking of is where the White Star is going fast one way, does a full 180 on the spot, continues for a little while under momentum as it decelerates to a stop, then accelerates rapidly on its new course.

You mean like this...

Well I can already do that, with 1/90"!

Given any starting position and orientation, 2/90 with agile and a bonus to Come About rolls means you can pretty much get anywhere you want, facing any way you want.

 

[Burger]

How about :wink:

Psychic Scream: Upon a successful hit

Excellent, it can kill fighters, without turning the beam into a WS killing machine! :lol:

 

[Ripple]

Still like the idea of turning the AD of the beam into AAF out to the range of the beam (or at least four)... shows how they concentrated on the ships, but the one ship, when it had a moment, had not trouble sweeping the Frazi's away.

Ripple

 

[Da Boss]

that would work - maybe turreted though if short range?

 

[Ripple]

Drazi warbird hull that shoots missiles...

Lumbering ships that both open jump points and turn 180 degrees at the same time to retreat into them... (we see both G'Quans and Omega's do this). Can't do this now due to turning restrictions and the need for two SA's even on more maneuverable ships.

Fighter that clings to the hull of an enemy to gain intelligence... (campaign rule to gain info, maybe force one player to attack another?)

Ripple

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Regarding Shadow Ships shooting down fighters, didn't the scenes involve fighters being shot down at a rate of about 6 (1 flight) per shot? If so, that would already tally up with a Shadow Ship's beam causing an average of 6 hits, and 5 of those being dodged by the fighters. Even if we see 2 flights being shot down in a scene, that wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the current figures unless it was shown to be a reliable occurance in the show.

On a different note, in GROPOS, wasn't it a Nova being shown as the ship carrying them all to battle? If so, it would be nice to have a Nova assault varient, even if it is just a case of replacing most (all?) of the fighters with shuttles, and upping the troops score.

 

[AdrianH]

Making Shadow Beams accurate is problematic as it means it ignores Dodge and we see the White Star dodging the beams..........

Not making Shadow beams accurate is problematic as it means it doesn't ignore Dodge and we see plenty of fighters being killed by the beams (e.g. Narn fighters in Gorash, Warren Keffer RIP).

Edit, having just read what other people were writing while I was writing this: I like the suggestion of turning AD into AAF. That means the beam doesn't need to be Accurate to be useful against fighters, while the White Star can still dodge it.

Shadows also use something to grab Garabaldi and they dont presently have AF?

AF wouldn't grab him, it would kill him. Tractor beams have already been mentioned in this thread; the Shadows have just joined the queue to get one.

not against White Stars being SM but how do you balance that?
perhaps can only fire one gun per turn?

Boresight beam.

Shadow Cloak - We seen this in the long twilight, the shadows literally sat half cloaked and layed a wonderful ambush. Perhaps giving the shadows ancient and young ships a little stealth would cover that idea.

I like ATN082268's idea of resurrecting Babylon 5 Wars' half phase. The ship can't go into hyperspace and then reappear anywhere it likes on the battlefield; it stays where it is and both it and anyone shooting at it get penalties to hit. Or go the whole way, if it's half phased then it can't shoot or be shot at, but it can't simply reappear - it can only move in its usual manner.

White Star was designed to fight Shadows. Giving the Shadow Ship Accurate would make the WS totally redundant.

Not quite. Its still has its adaptive armour and CBD. And, since it's a Raid level ship going up against a War level Young Ship, there are four of them. At the moment, I wouldn't fancy a Young Ship's chances against four White Stars.

"Virtually SM" isn't quite the same thing. For one thing, it doesn't allow the White Star to slide sideways. Besides, the manoeuvre I'm thinking of is where the White Star is going fast one way, does a full 180 on the spot, continues for a little while under momentum as it decelerates to a stop, then accelerates rapidly on its new course.

...
Given any starting position and orientation, 2/90 with agile and a bonus to Come About rolls means you can pretty much get anywhere you want, facing any way you want.

But it doesn't look quite the same as a 180 degree turn on the spot. And it still doesn't allow the White Star to slide sideways.

 

[cadno ap annwn]

I like the scream idea, but I will have to say that accurate would help with the shadows. I've faced a whitestar fleet and been completely destroyed due to the failure of my shadow ships to even manage to hit one, that dodge can be some what annoying. This can be overcome with the use of scouts, but range becomes an issue there, compare a shadow scout to a WS and you suddenly realise that ramming may well have been the only option that poor scout had in the series lol.

But I do understand what you mean, if they had accurate they would be pretty much blasting WS out of the stars with ease. Maybe a rethink on the dodge ability of the whitestar to even it up.

That way it would reflect the series well as whitestars good at dodging a lot of fire power the shadow ships were just as good.

I have to say it again though, shadow scream sounds good, fighters are a right pain when you only have one main weapon to fire!!

Cadno

 

[Joe_Dracos]

3) Mining asteroids.

3. For what purpose during a battle?

Mine layers and mine fields! Yes! we have several variants for mine layers and mine sweepers here in our Gaming Group.

Also, Omegas are abundant and plentiful in the show, perhaps some variants to make them more accessable (raid level ships maybe... as long as balance can be maintained). Removing 3rd age ships from the crusade era fleet and replacing them with Crusade era ships (in the lost tales you see far more Crusade era vessels and only a single lone omega in the background. A Crusade era carrier (Cause EA loves its fighters).

Accurate beams on the Ancient shadow vessel.

There isn't much to that you can add to the book that isn't EA, ISA, or Shadow....

Add the Stribe!!!

Add the Drala'Fi to the Minbari list.

Add the Dusk Coutari to the Centauri list.

Restrict the Thunderbolt to only certain 3rd age ships. (Omega's, Posiedons)

Remove the Warlock from the 3rd age list (it didn't come into service until the end of the 3rd age).

GIVE US B4!!!

Omega's seem to use Laser/Pulse arrays. Perhapse the Omegas and the Crusade era could have laser pulse arrays back as long as the laser is mini beams only?

 

[nekomata fuyu]

The Warlock is introduced at the beginning of season 4 IIRC (when Ivanova leaves to captain one). Seeing as Crusade Era starts about 5 years later, the Warlock should be left in the DotTA list.

Babylon 4 is one I definitely want to see, alongside individual station stats for all the races again.

With regards to the Shadow Ships killing fighters, can anyone point to battles/episodes in which more than about 6-8 fighters are killed in a single shot? I didn't see any in Gorash 7 (killing the G'Quans was a much higher priority). Without that I'm seeing absolutely no need to add accurate from an on-screen evidence point of view.

 

[lastbesthope]

Sliding and and a Special Action for pivoting while firing would be great.
Whitestars use them on several ocassions.

I especially remember the part where the WS slide along the side of a Shadow Omega while firing full guns at it.

Agreed, the ability was called a 'Shelton slide' in the Wing Commander PC games.

This should definitely be in the game.

LBH

 

[Da Boss]

Mine layers and mine fields! Yes! we have several variants for mine layers and mine sweepers here in our Gaming Group.isn't EA, ISA, or Shadow....

any chance of posting them - be interested to read

 

[Sneaky Chris]

how about rules for using runaway psi corps. Blips, Leta gets them a few ships from the narn.........

 

[Joe_Dracos]

any chance of posting them - be interested to read

Yes, but it will take some time to post them.... there is quite a few of them and this forum doesn't like excel copy and paste jobs... gotta do a conversion first

I'll post them tonight or tomorrow... for now, its off to painting!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Sliding and and a Special Action for pivoting while firing would be great.
Whitestars use them on several ocassions.

I especially remember the part where the WS slide along the side of a Shadow Omega while firing full guns at it.

Agreed, the ability was called a 'Shelton slide' in the Wing Commander PC games.

This should definitely be in the game.

LBH

I say again, that kind of manouevre requires an inertia-based movement system. It's unsuited to the way ACtA works.

 

[lastbesthope]

But we already have rules where you can shoot with weapons from any facing, see orbiting.

You could have a CQ check, with a target vessel, possibly opposed. As the WS, or other vessel performing the SA moves past the target vessel it is allowed to fire with weapons not normally in arc for that target. And some rule about restrictions on firing facing and end of manoeuvre facing based on initial facing.

No inertia based movement required, just an SA.

C'mon, even Matt said we didn't need to come up with a rules basis for it, why you making me work so hard? :lol:

LBH

 

[Da Boss]

isn't it sorta like Skin Dancing should have been ?

now hopefully this is something being clarified finally in P+P?

 

[lastbesthope]

MAybe, but the 'Shelton Slide' manoeuvre and the Skin Dancing manoeuvre are 2 very different beasts, show wise.

LBH

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I think before the Shelton Slide I'd like to see barrel rolls.
"You took out my portside weaponry? Shame..."