Most important fix

[l33tpenguin]

mrambassador1 wrote:
how is letting larger ships repair crits better not screwing low PL fleets.


Because that way the Drazi / EA Early can still bring the same ammount of ships as before.

yeah, but the big ships are now stronger than before. How is bringing less low PL ships against weaker big ships any different to bringing more low PL ships against stronger big ships. Doesn't it just even out whichever way you do it. Why is one screwing low PL ships while the other doesn't. They both make small ships comparatively weaker to big ships so now 1 big ship is equal to lots of small ships.

Yes, but are big ships worth their weight against swarms, though? I don't think so.

because its swarm fleets that are screwing large ships?

Swarms aren't affected as heavily by crits as large ships. half the time a war level ship doesn't make it through half its damage track before it is critted out of the game.

How many skirmish/raid ships get critted out?

But won't reducing the number of small ships fix the swarm problem anyway. Why change the crit system so different sized ships take different numbers of crits or are harder to crit or whatever crit fix people want, rather than just changing the number of "buy down" ships you get when you purchase below PL.[/quote]

The biggest issue, as I see it is crits. When you change the FAP you are changing more than just the crit ratio. You are changing the amount of damage the swarm and take and inflict, its number of sinks, etc. Just giving big ships a crit save doesn't change ALL that. Just crits.

I don't *mind* the *idea* of swarm fleets. Some fleets are designed that way. And they should get their swarms. But they should be balanced against small numbers of large ships. Currently they aren't.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I don'tknow if this is the right threat for this but some people here came up with an alternative for the initiative system.

What would be if someone with fewer ships would be able to pass his movement until he and his opponent have the same number of unmoved ships left? So a fleet with 5 ships vs. a fleet with 10 ships would be able to pass 5 time before he moves a ship in order to line up against its target.

Your thoughts?

 

[H]

so basically helldorado style initiative? not overly fair on some fleets who need to pick smaller ships to be competitive

 

[Lone Gunman]

This ini-system is from Helldorado? Never knew that as the system is basicly dead in my area.

Why would it be unfair? ActA presently favours small ships so why not simply make them less usefull?

As a Drazi player myself, I know what problems might occur. Perhaps making prefixed squadrons also count as this?

 

[greenboy]

How about high level ships ignore x crit per turn this would stop crit fishing on large ships but a concentrated barrage would still work. Or the the crit level role could be replaced withe the number of crit hits rolled

 

[stepan.razin]

mrambassador1 wrote:
how is letting larger ships repair crits better not screwing low PL fleets.


Because that way the Drazi / EA Early can still bring the same ammount of ships as before.

yeah, but the big ships are now stronger than before. How is bringing less low PL ships against weaker big ships any different to bringing more low PL ships against stronger big ships. Doesn't it just even out whichever way you do it. Why is one screwing low PL ships while the other doesn't. They both make small ships comparatively weaker to big ships so now 1 big ship is equal to lots of small ships.

because its swarm fleets that are screwing large ships?

Swarms aren't affected as heavily by crits as large ships. half the time a war level ship doesn't make it through half its damage track before it is critted out of the game.

How many skirmish/raid ships get critted out?

But won't reducing the number of small ships fix the swarm problem anyway. Why change the crit system so different sized ships take different numbers of crits or are harder to crit or whatever crit fix people want, rather than just changing the number of "buy down" ships you get when you purchase below PL.

Making big ships much stronger while restricting the amount of smaller ships once can bring works well ONLY IF YOU HAVE GOOD BIG SHIPS.

 

[mrambassador1]

I'm not suggesting we make big ships stronger (harder to crit) AND make small ships weaker (less of em). As far as I can tell, I'm saying make small ships weaker (less of em) INSTEAD OF your idea to make large ships stronger (harder to crit).

You seem to think that making the game more even by making big ships stronger so 1 big ship can beat 8 small ships 50% of the time is somehow not screwing the small ships. While my idea of taking less small ships so 1 big ship can beat 5 small ships 50% of the time is somehow unfair to small ships.

Is this roughly what we are saying, or am I misunderstanding you.

 

[mrambassador1]

mrambassador1 wrote:
how is letting larger ships repair crits better not screwing low PL fleets.


Because that way the Drazi / EA Early can still bring the same ammount of ships as before.

yeah, but the big ships are now stronger than before. How is bringing less low PL ships against weaker big ships any different to bringing more low PL ships against stronger big ships. Doesn't it just even out whichever way you do it. Why is one screwing low PL ships while the other doesn't. They both make small ships comparatively weaker to big ships so now 1 big ship is equal to lots of small ships.

because its swarm fleets that are screwing large ships?

Swarms aren't affected as heavily by crits as large ships. half the time a war level ship doesn't make it through half its damage track before it is critted out of the game.

How many skirmish/raid ships get critted out?

But won't reducing the number of small ships fix the swarm problem anyway. Why change the crit system so different sized ships take different numbers of crits or are harder to crit or whatever crit fix people want, rather than just changing the number of "buy down" ships you get when you purchase below PL.

Making big ships much stronger while restricting the amount of smaller ships once can bring works well ONLY IF YOU HAVE GOOD BIG SHIPS.

You don't need to bring big ships. If you don't have good big ships you can still bring small ships. By bringing less small ships you should have a roughly 50% chance of beating big ships. As it stands now at 8 small to 1 big most people seem to think the small ships win most of the time.
1 big vs 1 big = 50% win
8 small vs 1 big = 75% win
5 small vs 1 big = 50%

The swarm problem isn't that people like taking swarm fleets, its that people who don't (who like omegas and sharlins) feel they can't win against them (small ships are too strong). What we are trying to do is make it so swarm fleets win 50% of the time against big fleets. that way you can take swarms and I can take my big ships and we both have the same chance of winning.

 

[stepan.razin]

You don't need to bring big ships. If you don't have good big ships you can still bring small ships

But isnt that the weakness for the new FAP. if you are not allowed to bring many small ships, then races with good big ships win. How good would Early EA be if all of a sudden a number of Skirmish and Patrol ships was reduced by a significant ammount.

 

[Hindsight]

Hardpoints, based on size. Each crit destroys a hard point, once all hard points are destroyed, crits go through as normal.

 

[mrambassador1]

You don't need to bring big ships. If you don't have good big ships you can still bring small ships

But isnt that the weakness for the new FAP. if you are not allowed to bring many small ships, then races with good big ships win. How good would Early EA be if all of a sudden a number of Skirmish and Patrol ships was reduced by a significant ammount.

The new FAP is designed to make small ships vs big ships win 50% of the time. It seems most players think the 8 small/1 big ship ratio lets the races with good small ships win all the time. They are hoping the 5 small/1 big ship ratio will let small ships win 50% of the time rather than 100% of the time.

How good would Early EA be if all of a sudden a number of Skirmish and Patrol ships was reduced by a significant ammount

Right now people seem to think Early EA are too good and can't be beaten by big ships. They hope that by reducing the number of skirmish and patrol ships Early EA should win about 50% of the time. If the Early EA get hammered all the time under the new FAP they will probably bring it back up to 6 or 7 for 3e.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Things I urgently want to have fixed:

1. alternative for the initiative system to remove ini-sinks

An idea of mine:

What would be if someone with fewer ships would be able to pass his movement until he and his opponent have the same number of unmoved ships left? So a fleet with 5 ships vs. a fleet with 10 ships would be able to pass 5 time before he moves a ship in order to line up against its target.

2. make larger ships more viable/ criticals less destructive than presently

3. somehow change those boresight and boresight aft, the rule is horrible and I don't think any sane ship designer would not do something like that.
Makte it 45° or 60° to the front to be limited but not this straight line.

4. get rid of the Close all Blast Doors special action

5. make the Abbai better without a new special action/special actions

6. make the Shadow Stalker tougher

 

[skavendan]

Crits and precise are the largest problems I see so I agree. CBD should make Crits only a 6 and give a crit save possibly

 

[Joe_Dracos]

I have several points of contention currently.

1. Precise weapons are WAY to common. The number of these available should be reduced. While I do respect the fact that some races are more advanced then others, but do all those beam teams need Double/Triple/Quad damage and precise weapons? Maybe a special rule that these more advanced races simply don't get bulkhead hits with there beams.

2. With the new FAP system the Drahk are going to need to be reassesed. They used to bring a full FAP worth of raiders with them, but now it will be a full FAP and then some. Either the number of ships carried are going to need to be reduced or alternatively the raiders are going to need to be changed so that the number of them carried is more balanced.

3. Interceptors for 3rd age/Crusade era ships. While I do agree that the early years ships (and there variants) should have lower, less effective interceptor networks (thus the constant of Interceptors 1 or 2) the use of large numbers of interceptors seems to be extremely redundant. might as well just have interceptors 2. Also, the guardian array seems to be much more effective then the EA interceptors.

 

[Ripple]

Third interceptor die is still a significant increase, but after that yes, generally pointless. Guardian array is better, but if all you ships have interceptors generally not too useful. You can basically help cripples and trait lost ships.

Ripple

 

[mrambassador1]

1.RR cost of ships
2.RR cost of repairing ships
3.PL of Huge hangers (maybe some normal carriers)/buy carrier flight seperately


One thing I would like to see that seems to have been overlooked is the campaign rules. Specifically the RR costs for ship replacements I think should reflect the changes to FAP costs. A battle ship costs 20 RR, patrol 3 RR, almost 7 patrol to battle, I would like to see battle RR go to 15 or thereabouts to reflect the 5 patrol per battle FAP. something like this (though I'm sure Matt Sprange could do a better job than me)

3 patrol
5 skirmish
8 raid
15 battle
25 war
42 armaggedon

CZuschlag suggested an FAP breakdown of

My rough calculations place the right breakdown at:

1 FAPlevel = 1 (FAPlevel-1) + 1 (FAPlevel-2)

so

1 Battle = 1 Raid + 1 Skirmish

This is very rough on breakdowns.

This would have RR costs as

3 patrol
5 skirmish
8 raid
13 battle
21 war
34 armaggedon

Pretty close but I think CZuschlag's is a slight improvement.

The RR cost or repairing ships also has to be looked at, with the small ships now much cheaper its hardly worth fixing them, you can just buy one for about the same cost as repairing even light damage.

The other thing that I think really needs looking at is the Drahk huge hangers. Currently (and even worse with my suggested RR ship costs) it is cheaper to buy a huge carrier than it is to buy the ships in it. It causes the same old empty carrier problem we used to have under SFOS. Also in changing the RR costs Matt might have to double check the costs of Regular carriers (I fear for the Morshin). One possible solution that has been suggested is to buy the fighters for carriers seperately. eg, a Morshin isn't battle PL with lots of fighters, its skirmish or raid PL and you buy the fighters seperately. Could eliminate the empty carrier (or huge carrier) problem forever.

 

[greenboy]

1.RR cost of ships
2.RR cost of repairing ships
3.PL of Huge hangers (maybe some normal carriers)/buy carrier flight seperately


One thing I would like to see that seems to have been overlooked is the campaign rules. Specifically the RR costs for ship replacements I think should reflect the changes to FAP costs. A battle ship costs 20 RR, patrol 3 RR, almost 7 patrol to battle, I would like to see battle RR go to 15 or thereabouts to reflect the 5 patrol per battle FAP. something like this (though I'm sure Matt Sprange could do a better job than me)

3 patrol
5 skirmish
8 raid
15 battle
25 war
42 armaggedon

CZuschlag suggested an FAP breakdown of

My rough calculations place the right breakdown at:

1 FAPlevel = 1 (FAPlevel-1) + 1 (FAPlevel-2)

so

1 Battle = 1 Raid + 1 Skirmish

This is very rough on breakdowns.

This would have RR costs as

3 patrol
5 skirmish
8 raid
13 battle
21 war
34 armaggedon

Pretty close but I think CZuschlag's is a slight improvement.

The RR cost or repairing ships also has to be looked at, with the small ships now much cheaper its hardly worth fixing them, you can just buy one for about the same cost as repairing even light damage.

The other thing that I think really needs looking at is the Drahk huge hangers. Currently (and even worse with my suggested RR ship costs) it is cheaper to buy a huge carrier than it is to buy the ships in it. It causes the same old empty carrier problem we used to have under SFOS. Also in changing the RR costs Matt might have to double check the costs of Regular carriers (I fear for the Morshin). One possible solution that has been suggested is to buy the fighters for carriers seperately. eg, a Morshin isn't battle PL with lots of fighters, its skirmish or raid PL and you buy the fighters seperately. Could eliminate the empty carrier (or huge carrier) problem forever.

I like the idea of buying fighters for carriers but as it stands at the moment unless the carrier has fleet carrier it ads nothing to the fighters and so you would be better off just buying the fighters and a proper warship

 

[l33tpenguin]

I like the idea of buying fighters for carriers but as it stands at the moment unless the carrier has fleet carrier it ads nothing to the fighters and so you would be better off just buying the fighters and a proper warship

I love the idea of buying fighters separate, but I understand the problem with no one buying carriers because of it. Its fixable, though.

1: Balance the ships taking into account no fighters. The Poseidon, for instance, would probably drop down to battle or raidish.

2: Add a rule: with the exception to Patrol and Skirmish level engagements, a fleet can have no more fighters than the total amount their ships are capable of carrying.

 

[mrambassador1]

one house rule we often use for campaigns is that fighters must have a carrier in the fleet, they can be broken off for individual engagements being used in a scenario without the carrier but must have a carrier to return to after.

 

[Ripple]

What about fighters from bases that are sent in the early episodes to fight raiders independently?

What about fights by races with no low PL ship choice or carrier? We just made a huge number of races very vulnerable to fighter swarms.

What about Vorlons... they can no longer take wings because they don't have carriers?

Sorry but both the house rule and the battle limitation above just don't work at too many levels...

Ripple