Matching the Show - Ideas Wanted!

[Foxmeister]

however if it cant fool the hyperion whats the point in init?

Very little anyway if your opponent outnumbers you with silly little init sinks - that's part of the problem

I don't know how to fix this, but a simple band aid that will give at least a little succor would be to allow the player who wins initiative to always retain a ship to move last.

Regards,

Dave

 

[l33tpenguin]

it doesnt balance it out at all, you cant out manouvre the ship then as it gets to see which way you go.
if my vorchan wants to take on a hyperion and the hyperion moves 1st it has a chance as it can go the opposite way, however if it cant fool the hyperion whats the point in init?
the same could then be applied to foreward arc ships, you still have to decide which way you think the enemy is going to go, this special action gives the benefit to boresight ships in that regard.

So, by your reasoning, the Vorchan waits around in space until the hyperion is done moving, then reacts.

Why is it then, that if I have two dozen Tethys and you only have half that number of ships, my Hyperion (or omega or whatever) just became super manuverable and can now boresight whatever it wants?

Since all the ships are 'essentially' moving in real time, the idea of a SA that allows boresighting is that the Hyperion is reacting to the Vorchan (gasp!). As the Vorchan manuvers, the Hyperion moves to keep its gun on target. If, however, the Vorchan is able to keep out of the fire arc because of speed and turns, the Hyperion isn't going to get the shot.

Hi all,

I have been following this thread with a lot of interest. I think that there are a lot of good ideas her so far. But here are a couple that I would like to add to the mix. Please excuse if they are already in the rules or have been suggested here or other places. I have not looked at the rule books in about 6 months:

1. Time on Target – make this a special action for the bigger ships and space stations or with a personality for an added bonus that represents all of a ships weapons hitting one target all at the same time.

this is already true. All weapons from a ship hit their target at the same time.

2. Ramming – For both fighters and capital ships

and make it easier (especially for fighters!) rather than resorting to failing at skin dancing to ram

4. Change to the hull defense numbers from 1-6 to 1-10 – I see many of the ships in the show either being tougher to hit or much more hardy than they seem in the game. Expand the toughness of ships like the Vorlons and Shadows and it would make their weapons much more devastating that they can hit more often at the higher level. The fact that we see a shadow ship hit by multiple beam weapons for several seconds etc. is where this really comes across in the show.

while I'm all for changing the system to a d10 base, I don't see it happening
And, if you only ever field Ancient Shadow Vessels, you get that sort of hull splitting effect

5. Target lock - make bore sight weapons easier to deal with. Once you have HIT a target with your bore weapon it can track and follow the target for each successive round, as long as the ship is in the same arc as the direction of the weapon.

See above

6. Power levels and Hyperspace engines - Several times during the show we see ships take their jump engines offline for a power increase to weapons

I'd love to see a simplistic system for dealing with this. Although I COULD see it being exploited. It could be done something along the lines of "Halve the ships speed, add +2 AD to one weapon system" or "Halve the AD of all weapons, add 50% to the ships speed" (yes, I know, APTE already does this).

7. Along the same lines “One, continuous focused burst”(I think this is the line) – I don’t remember the episode when Sheridan says this but I like the idea of putting all of your eggs in one basket. Have the ability to loose all of your other weapons for a round or two to fire a heavily augmented shot from your main weapon against a target.

Well that is all for now. I am now jazzed to get all 5 seasons and start watching again for other ideas.

This would best work similar to the engine to weapons thing as well. Along the lines of 'decrease a weapon systems AD by 5, gain 1 AD to another weapon' but again its going to be subject to abuse.

 

[Iain McGhee]

The only thing that comes to mind has already been mentioned, so I'll second it. Shadows should be able to enter and leave a scenario via hyperspace (but not multiple times of course). They used hit and run tactics frequently in the series.

There is a couple of things I'd like altered however, as they don't work the same way as in the series. Boarding actions were very rare, and even then it was only space stations that were boarded as far as I remember (B5 itself at least twice and an Orion station during the E/M War). It should be much harder than it is now to use the SA version, considering how powerful it can be. I'd like to see it go back to the original rules where you could only board an Immobile target (or Adrift ship with V2) with the SA and perhaps give the target the ability to use AF weapons against boarders using the SA.

Jump engines is the other one. I understand why the change from V1 was neccessary, but I think limiting ships to one use of them was a step too far as you often saw the same ship jumping in and out of an engagement. Perhaps doubling the delay in using them (from V1) to 6 turns would be enough, as well as making it illegal for ships to open Jump Points with no intention of a ship using it to enter Realspace. Or several ships opening Jump Points and choosing the best exit(s). Neither situation ever happened in B5 as far as I know.

 

[Morpheus1975]

Why don't you simply move by FAP. Player 1 loses init and moves 1 raid FAP. Player 2 moves 1 raid FAP and so on. Makes moves based on FAPs and not on # of units.

 

[CZuschlag]

A couple of reasons ....

1). You can init sink by FAPs, too. Heavy Carriers behind cover do this well, as to scout squads and, in some cases, vessels in Hyperspace. Remember, there is no LOS requirement for the Fleet Carrier or Scout properties, so these can sink just as well. Even some units function as capable init sinks when doing long flanking runs --- Drakh Light Raiders are VERY skilled at this.

2). More importantly, you totally hose the Drazi, who might have to move a whole FAP of Warbirds that end up targetting nothing. Then, if you have your own scout swarm, the Drazi are hosed again, because the vast majority of their firepower cannot use the Scout redirect (it's Twin-Linked or Beam), so they get hosed, twice. Not cool.

----

And, oh, yeah --- Shadows should be able to exit and enter hyperspace once per battle, in that order. The current restrictions are bizzare, and (I know it's stretching to use this term) ahistorical.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Something else from the show that I'd like to see is a special action to allow a ship to take the hits for a friendly ship. Part of my mind is screaming at me that there was something similar in 1st Ed actually...

 

[Foxmeister]

as well as making it illegal for ships to open Jump Points with no intention of a ship using it to enter Realspace.

I definitely agree with this. IMHO, when you open a jump point you should place the ship that opened it on the JP as a marker and if it decides to enter realspace it can only do so through that JP. Cycle time should be 2 turns - so if you don't enter, you can't initiate another JP with that ship until your turn after next.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Triggy]

Something else from the show that I'd like to see is a special action to allow a ship to take the hits for a friendly ship. Part of my mind is screaming at me that there was something similar in 1st Ed actually...

A couple of reasons ....

1). You can init sink by FAPs, too. Heavy Carriers behind cover do this well, as to scout squads and, in some cases, vessels in Hyperspace. Remember, there is no LOS requirement for the Fleet Carrier or Scout properties, so these can sink just as well. Even some units function as capable init sinks when doing long flanking runs --- Drakh Light Raiders are VERY skilled at this.

2). More importantly, you totally hose the Drazi, who might have to move a whole FAP of Warbirds that end up targetting nothing. Then, if you have your own scout swarm, the Drazi are hosed again, because the vast majority of their firepower cannot use the Scout redirect (it's Twin-Linked or Beam), so they get hosed, twice. Not cool.

----

And, oh, yeah --- Shadows should be able to exit and enter hyperspace once per battle, in that order. The current restrictions are bizzare, and (I know it's stretching to use this term) ahistorical.

Well so far we have a couple of Special Actions to help out boresight fleets (Follow That Target!) so boresight/initiative sink issues are less of an issue in the game and there is Manoeuvre to Shield Them! back in (pretty much as in 1st ed.) as it's a fun Special Action if you can pull it off.

Of course, this is tentative but they're there at the moment...

 

[l33tpenguin]

I still vote on calling it 'Bring to Bear' rather than 'Follow that Target'

Follow that target is what you tell the cabbie in a bad detective movie.

Ordering your crew to bring your ships primary batteries to bear on a target is what starship captains order their crews to do when they want something dead

 

[Foxmeister]

I still vote on calling it 'Bring to Bear' rather than 'Follow that Target'

I prefer "Stay on Target" - assuming it's a variant where you have to have already got a boresight anyway!

Regards,

Dave

 

[l33tpenguin]

I still vote on calling it 'Bring to Bear' rather than 'Follow that Target'

I prefer "Stay on Target" - assuming it's a variant where you have to have already got a boresight anyway!

Regards,

Dave

Can we get an SA that gives the sensor trait to fighters called 'Use the Force'?

 

[Ripple]

katadder wrote

it doesnt balance it out at all, you cant out manouvre the ship then as it gets to see which way you go.
if my vorchan wants to take on a hyperion and the hyperion moves 1st it has a chance as it can go the opposite way, however if it cant fool the hyperion whats the point in init?
the same could then be applied to foreward arc ships, you still have to decide which way you think the enemy is going to go, this special action gives the benefit to boresight ships in that regard.

I don't follow you at all Kat. l33tpenguin gave a good couple examples of why you basic concept of outmaneuver doesn't work. Initiative sinking has removed all relation between movement and maneuverability.

It seems what you want is for the initiative dice to determine if a ship is able to be fired on or not by a bore sighted ship. If that is the goal, we should just write the rule that way. Give each ship a stat called 'maneuverability' each ship rolls for it each turn, and if one ship rolls higher than the other it cannot be hit by boresighted weapons. That way sinking doesn't make anyone more maneuverable, your vorchan or my omega.

As is 'maneuverability' is represented by speed, turns and/or dodge (and maybe crew quality). If you can't get out of a 90 degree cone in front of a ship using this special action you are not sufficiently maneuverable. Without the special action, you have large lumbering Octurians and Aviokis spinning out of the way of attacking Drazi Warbirds... like that makes sense.

- sorry, know this is dragging off topic, and thanks for the tidbits Triggy

Ripple

Ripple

 

[Digger]

Bring Back "Manoeuvre to Shield"!!

 

[Tolwyn]

If, then please with a restriction in PL.

The thing I disliked most of the SA was that you could put a Patrol choice between the firing ship and your dreadnought for example, and all fire was sucked of by the smaller ship and nothing hitting the larger one.

 

[CZuschlag]

The return of Manoeuver to Shield is eagerly awaited. It was one of the most tactical special actions out there, and worth the calculations more often than not. If CBD wasn't so obvious, it would even be more compelling. I thought the clever use of this SA was a big difference-maker, and I'm glad to see it back.

 

[greenboy]

You could simulate the slide and its return fire and eliminate some of the draw back with boresight with a special action which allowed a ship to fire one weapon during its movement phase

 

[Morpheus1975]

A couple of reasons ....

1). You can init sink by FAPs, too. Heavy Carriers behind cover do this well, as to scout squads and, in some cases, vessels in Hyperspace. Remember, there is no LOS requirement for the Fleet Carrier or Scout properties, so these can sink just as well. Even some units function as capable init sinks when doing long flanking runs --- Drakh Light Raiders are VERY skilled at this.

2). More importantly, you totally hose the Drazi, who might have to move a whole FAP of Warbirds that end up targetting nothing. Then, if you have your own scout swarm, the Drazi are hosed again, because the vast majority of their firepower cannot use the Scout redirect (it's Twin-Linked or Beam), so they get hosed, twice. Not cool.

I disagree, most scouts pay for their scouting in the FAP's you pay for them and if you move by FAP I'd argue that it is more balanced because you are moving a fairly equal value of shjips each time. If you want to sink a carrier that's your perogative but you are still sinking a lot because you must also sink all of its fighters which are included in the carriers cost. This means that if youi have an Omega and you move it you also move all of its fighters. This rule would require that fighters (being included in FAP's) are moved with their equivalent FAP groupings. This drops the effectiveness of fighters but is a requirement to moving with FAP's. This means you can't use tons of fighters to act as individual sinks but a large number of flights are a single sink.

As for #2 I also disagree in that a player not making an init roll guarantees that a large number of ships will not be in place to boresight.

Part of the fallback of boresight and losing the initiative right?

Scouts are not really sinks in that they are also part of a fleet and should always be counted in initiative. You don't count out ships because they are not part of the main strike force, you hunt them down with a smaller force made to flank the fleet and sweep into the support ships since they are aslo underarmed and underarmored(again teh scout trait being added to the FAP cost of the scout ship). This means people need to use ships like the Vorchan in a smarter way and makes their speed more of an asset.

Anyways that's my 2 cents.

 

[AdrianH]

thats something of a cut up clip though Im fairly certain thats in fact the last part of that scene (or possibly even a different scene entirely, cant remember if the shadows tried that routine more than once during the show...) I can clearly recall the opening volley of that engagement at long range was with pulsars....

To settle this, I finally got around to watching WWE. The sequence was:
White Star does the Time Warp. Three Shadow fighters turned round to intercept. Sheridan ordered "Forward batteries fire!". The White Star fired its beam only, destroying one fighter. The other two fired back; Lennier reported "minimal" damage due to the White Star's adaptive armour. The White Star continued on at full speed towards the fusion bomb. The targetting computer couldn't lock onto it at that range, so Sheridan invited Ivanova to shoot manually. This was when the pulsars were used. The first salvo missed the bomb but hit a fighter. Now Babylon 4 was in blast range of the bomb and so was the White Star. Ivanova fired again and hit the bomb.

What this tells us: either the White Star has additional weapons which we never saw, or Sheridan is stupid - "Forward batteries fire!" on a ship which only has forward weapons. The beam is probably accurate - it has 2D, so on average will get two hits, and it will need both of them to destroy a Shadow fighter. The pulsars are longer range, and probably not accurate or they would have been the better weapons to use for the first shot against the fighters. Either it's possible to miss the target you aimed at and hit something else nearby, or the Shadows are allowed the "Manouevre to shield them!" special action and one of the fighters did so to protect the bomb.

 

[Atreyeux]

Anybody considered the Red Helm aliens from the 'Mac and Bo' episode, look like semi organic ships, maybe Drakh/Minbari equivelant......Just a thought!

 

[M1ndr1d3rs]

What this tells us: either the White Star has additional weapons which we never saw, or Sheridan is stupid - "Forward batteries fire!" on a ship which only has forward weapons.

Could be force of habit... He used to command an Omega destroyer y'know