Musings on plasma

[Da Boss]

I understand you want plasma to influence movement but that does not work in this system - it was tried - believe me it was tried in playtesting and was horrible.

If it was a single ship versus a sigle ship than some of the proposals might work - but the movement phase depends on the tactical movement and positioning of your ships to maximise your firepower and minimse the enemies. Now this is dependant on the Initiatve and movement phase - if you change this or even worse invalidate it - the game just does not work.

And yes, the danger of a target moving behind something is a factor that a plasma user has to take into account...it adds to tactics, not removes them

Yes but the tactics are in play when you set up your fleet in the movement phase - if you set up cetnreline shots with 3 ships and then your target moves up next to you and unloads a clsoe range barrage after all movement has supposed to have been finished - any player is going scream murder!

It would like moving your ships in one impulse and then saying just as the other player was going to fire - OH actually I get another move, I'll just change all the ranges and arcs................anyone happy with that scenario? Mutiply that by having 3 or 4 ships lined up to fire on what is now empty space............

Also finally if the target is able to somehow react to the ship firing at it - why can not the firing ship react to it and track it??

 

[Talonz]

Not following some of your statements there....

Another way to represent plasma and influence movement; place the seeker counter on the target's base apon launch. Resolve impact after movement next turn. That's the very simplified version, there are numerous nuances that could be added (and ive spent some time on this).

The idea is not to have seeking weapons moving about, but just a marker that tracks target and delays impact without requiring recordkeeping.

 

[Da Boss]

Hmm post some ideas on this or better yet a seperate thread - I know the playtesters looked at numerous iterations of counter style movement as Matt and Scoutdad have said and both confirmed it did not work but perhaps you have a better way - which would be cool .

Which statements was I unclear about- sorry my replies can meander a bit at times.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

Any system which increases the running time of plasma's wil have to see a major change to either the warhead strength (more die) or energy bleed (lengthen bands), otherwise they just aren't going to do any damage. In the core systems, with combined movement, the torp closes as the target evades, so you only effect warhead strength slightly - then phaser effects are added. It might do nothing, or just a few points, but has effected movement. This won't happen in ActA, the movement system just doesn't work like that.

One point that is constantly mentioned in many threads is that this is NOT SFB or FC ( and actually has more in common with FC than SFB) and as such attempts to model the systems WITHIN the acta system from a SFU point of view, not SFU rules. IT's not prefect, but does not in it's current form, it's just when new things are introduced (i do feel that the current playtest group are you and me) it generates these issues (the drones and now PH-G, also escorts and ADD and plasma are fairly common items, some now fixed). Many enjoy the game focus aspect (fleets) which i always found to time intensive in the core systems to handle, and the fact that these can be played in the time you would play a game of the core ssytem is great. It's never going to be 'SFB' or 'FC', just use the SFU and get as close as it can (sometimes very, sometimes not).

 

[McKinstry]

Mckinstry, suffice to say I utterly disagree. The fact that plasma does not work anything like in the SFU is the reason why I haven't personally invested my money in acta yet.

I guess we are looking at it from two different viewpoints. I don't want to play FC. I like the SFU but am perfectly happy not recreating the complications of FC, a game I looked at and rejected.

 

[scoutdad]

Not following some of your statements there....

Another way to represent plasma and influence movement; place the seeker counter on the target's base apon launch. Resolve impact after movement next turn. That's the very simplified version, there are numerous nuances that could be added (and ive spent some time on this).

The idea is not to have seeking weapons moving about, but just a marker that tracks target and delays impact without requiring recordkeeping.

This was one of the methods originally play tested.
Seeking weapons were placed on the ships base at the instant of launch, in the arcs they were fired in.
The final phase fo the turn was Defensive Fire. Any seekers launced from within 18 inches hit and could be fired upon via Defensive Fire. [And yes, if the ship hadn't moved before it was targeted... it could turn during movement and change the arc of impact.
And seekers from 18.01+ inches "moved=up" and impacted during defensive fire of the subsequent turn.
The first time a ship was moved with mulitple marker on its base and they fell off...
We eventually created a play-aid called the Ships-base-template. it had an oversized base drawn on it, with firing arcs and two range bands. Markers were placed on it, in teh approriate arcs... moved up as needed... and as the ship turned, the ship indicator in teh center turned to show the current orientation.
It worked... but it was a hassle.
We once played a 3,000 point Kzinti versus Klingon battle using this system. It took about twice as long as the current system does to play out.

 

[bcantwell]

Not following some of your statements there....

Another way to represent plasma and influence movement; place the seeker counter on the target's base apon launch. Resolve impact after movement next turn. That's the very simplified version, there are numerous nuances that could be added (and ive spent some time on this).

The idea is not to have seeking weapons moving about, but just a marker that tracks target and delays impact without requiring recordkeeping.

This was one of the methods originally play tested.
Seeking weapons were placed on the ships base at the instant of launch, in the arcs they were fired in.
The final phase fo the turn was Defensive Fire. Any seekers launced from within 18 inches hit and could be fired upon via Defensive Fire. [And yes, if the ship hadn't moved before it was targeted... it could turn during movement and change the arc of impact.
And seekers from 18.01+ inches "moved=up" and impacted during defensive fire of the subsequent turn.
The first time a ship was moved with mulitple marker on its base and they fell off...
We eventually created a play-aid called the Ships-base-template. it had an oversized base drawn on it, with firing arcs and two range bands. Markers were placed on it, in teh approriate arcs... moved up as needed... and as the ship turned, the ship indicator in teh center turned to show the current orientation.
It worked... but it was a hassle.
We once played a 3,000 point Kzinti versus Klingon battle using this system. It took about twice as long as the current system does to play out.

You could probably go in between. Use the current system of resolving all seeker fire in the same turn as launch, but just put a counter out to mark the launch point before movement then use that point to measure the range to the target when resolving the fire, So a target 15" away from a drone launch (i.e. being automatically hit) could turn and move beyond 18" and require a hit roll. Similarly for plasma. You could HET and move away, letting energy bleed to the work.

The only record keeping needed would be which drone/torp marker was aimed at which ship. Still more a lot more trouble though, especially in a big fleet engagement.

 

[Stu--]

To simplify the idea a bit...
use a die (or several) to represent the # drones/plasma fired at a target and put them all out at the very start of a turn (so every drone firer may place its die against a target) use a white die for auto-hits.
Use a coloured die for hits over 18".

Then do movement and firing, and resolve seeking weapons.

For drones this should be fine. For plasma users, this would change the dynamic of their game (they fire at turn start) and so would likely have knock on effects.


All in all, the very, very simple fix is to just say that you can always place one ship per 3 (or chose a number) ships you have on IDF. Without having to roll.

Someone suggested making some special actions much easier. For my money this is the way to go. Make stuff that the ship really should be able to do easy to do.
Evasive action, IDF, all hands on deck etc really should be easy to do except for some kind of flying circus, untrained types.. HET? - either track it like FC or make it a 4+ (or something)

 

[Da Boss]

I really think you are looking for a big change in the rules - now I could see this is a set of optional rules for those who like lots of counters and have to have it as close to SFU as possible but not in the main rules .

 

[Finlos]

I'm honestly not interested in having ACTA replicate SFB by using counters to mark whatever (And I came here from SFB!). If I want to go play SFB, I'll go pull out my books. I want to play ACTA so I can get fleet battles completed in a couple of hours, a feat SFB cannot hope to accomplish.

I do, however, want all fleets to be viable and not have a given empire(s) rendered unplayable because people are taking advantage of [insert overpowered feature of the month here]. And because escorts / the phaser-G (this month's OP feature) are being released as playtest rules we have an excellent chance to make them not-overpowered.

Fortunately the phaser-G also has a maximum range of 6" and not 3 hexes as in the parent game. Getting multiple ships within 3 hexes in SFB is much easier than getting multiple ships within 6" here.

 

[Keeper Nilbog]

I too want a 'fleet' game (ActA doesn't really work with anything less than 3 per side, and starts to show it's colours around 6 per side), so no counters for me either. Anything that slows things down (in turn moves, etc) makes me worry, and if we use this with current rules, they're going to need some major changes (if suggestions are accepted - plasma's are basically nerfed as any ship can add around 10-12" on the running time = useless plasma).

And, if we are looking at rules, and changes, sotryelf's idea in regard SA's and Plasma's is the best option i've seen, as it might solve some of the other concerns that have been raised (limits to drone strikes).

 

[Talonz]

lets go back and reexamine the ops main points;

Firstly, whilst large amounts of plasma is hard to handle, and can crush several ships in one go, smaller amounts of plasma are easily handled. Secondly, plasma has little effect on how close an opponent gets, the only range he is usually bothered about is range 8 (12 to some extent, but 8 mainly). Once he is at range 8 he has no concern about going closer as plasma does not get any better (and in the case of the plasma empires they have no other weapon that gets better after range 8 either, as they are all Phaser 1 empires).

The only way to influence enemy movement further from 8 out is to put counters on the board and give them an option to retreat to lessen damage. That currently does not exist in the game as a target at long range simply wont be fired apon.

The only way to influence enemy movement closer than 8 is either through counters again, and/or increasing close range plasma firepower. Plasma should get better from 5(4 in acta?) in as the f torps are physically stronger and the danger of getting anchored in sfb is significantly higher. Also the abstract ability to run plasma out gets harder to do the closer you are to the launcher.

Without counters there is no way I can see to influence the enemy to move away. The shield system doesnt allow for envelopers as an option without plasma becoming (possibly?) too strong.

But influencing the enemy from coming closer than 8 would be easy with stronger plasma close in and/or some kind of anchor effect (whether this is abstracted into the plasma damage or an actual rule that tractored targets take extra damage).

Well, my .02$