New Beam rules.
- Thread starter Stonehorse
- Start date
LaranosTZ
Mongoose
*shrugs* Always hitting on a 4+ effectively means that on-average, (yes the dreaded on average term) a beam will hit as many times as it has dice initially firing. It will also do this more regularly, with a higher curve of more hits then the previous rule, and a lower curve of less hits then the previous rule.
As long as the number of beam dice fired is adjusted appropriately, I do think that this will be a very nice rule mechanic for next edition, since it also means that ships with a much wider range of hull values become as desirable as any other. No more heavy hull 6 bias that we see now.
As long as the number of beam dice fired is adjusted appropriately, I do think that this will be a very nice rule mechanic for next edition, since it also means that ships with a much wider range of hull values become as desirable as any other. No more heavy hull 6 bias that we see now.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
Here's a thought: ships with low hull scores should be destroyed easily by high-powered weapons, including most beams. Why? Because they're lightly armoured or otherwise weak in defence. If you've got a weapon that's great at penetrating armour, it follows that it'll blow right through ships with light armour. Why shouldn't it?
Perhaps the "issue" with hull 4 ships dying too easily isn't a problem with beams, but with the prevalence of AP and SAP weapons. Perhaps that should be addressed instead of changing core game mechanics for powerful weapon systems...
Perhaps the "issue" with hull 4 ships dying too easily isn't a problem with beams, but with the prevalence of AP and SAP weapons. Perhaps that should be addressed instead of changing core game mechanics for powerful weapon systems...
one way to view it is that the beams are powerful enoughto slice through anything, it doesn't matter what their armour is, they go through Titanium as easily as they go through cheese. Armour therefore is only effective against lesser weapons, such as ion cannons and railguns.
Greg Smith
Mongoose
katadder said:
Actually you can. If you are going to reveal stuff, get it right.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
hiffano said:
If a weapon can slice through titanium as easily as cheese, it'll slice through thin aluminium armour a lot faster than it will go through the advanced energy-resistant armours used in Babylon 5.
This new always-hits-on-a-4+ mechanic is an arbitary number, and all it serves to do is make weakly-defended ships unreasonably hard to hit with beams, while leaving well-defended targets (hull 6) taking the same penalty they always had. The more I think about it the less sense it makes. It's a lazy quick-fix that has no place in a total overhaul of a wargame.
Make SAP beams rarer and rebalance ships' armament instead of messing game mechanics that work perfectly well. Or adopt a more realistc to-hit, to-damage system like in VaS. In this way small, lightly-armoured ships will be harder to hit but easy to damage, and the opposite will be true of lumbering dreadnoughts.
More realistic? For fraks sake we are playing a SPACE combat game set a couple of centuries in the future with alien races some of whom have been around since before our planet had life on it.... How on earth is it meant to be realistic?
Its easy to create fluff to justify anything, and its just as easy too dismiss that fluff with other fluff. At the end of the day what I want (and the people I game with) and I assume most other players want is a balanced game system that works.
I really don't care wether the HULL score is a reflection on how hard it is too hit and damage a ship, or a reflection on how much armour it has. I can't remember reading anything in any of the rules books that states exaclty what the HULL score represents, other than how difficult it is too damage the ship.
There is a problem in the current game high hull ships just far outweight low hull ships. Beam with AP or SAP just exasberates this problem, by changing beam so that hits on a 4+ regardless of the hull score goes some way to balance this, high hull ships are still good, and low hull ships are better, but still vulnerable to lots of other weapons.
Its easy to create fluff to justify anything, and its just as easy too dismiss that fluff with other fluff. At the end of the day what I want (and the people I game with) and I assume most other players want is a balanced game system that works.
I really don't care wether the HULL score is a reflection on how hard it is too hit and damage a ship, or a reflection on how much armour it has. I can't remember reading anything in any of the rules books that states exaclty what the HULL score represents, other than how difficult it is too damage the ship.
There is a problem in the current game high hull ships just far outweight low hull ships. Beam with AP or SAP just exasberates this problem, by changing beam so that hits on a 4+ regardless of the hull score goes some way to balance this, high hull ships are still good, and low hull ships are better, but still vulnerable to lots of other weapons.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
hiffano said:It won't affect you anyway, apparantly the centauri loose their beams
It's the principle, Hiff. I don't want to see a bad rule in a game I play, whether or not that rules affects my games. I want ACtA to be the best game it can be, that's all.
Cordas said:
By paying attention to simple common sense and the immutable laws of physics, of course. Just because, in this sci-fi setting, we have weapons and technologies that aren't possible now doesn't mean we should have game mechanics that fly in the face of simple common sense. See my comment above about being the best game possible...
Lord David the Denied said:
No arguements against that, depending on what you regard as... we should have game mechanics that fly in the face of simple common sense. I don't see how a beam weapon that always hits on a 4+ irrelevant of hull score flies against simple common sense, its just a powerfull weapon that ignores whatever armour the ship has.... Or however MGP want to write the fluff.
Locutus9956
Mongoose
Well to justify it with common sense you could argue as Cordas suggests that beams are sufficiently penetrative or work in such a way that armour is IRRELEVANT therefore its just as easy to hit a lightly armour target as a heavily armoured one.
And trying to apply 'the imutable laws of physics' to science fiction is one of those little things that always starts to get on my nerves a bit when people start trying to get all 'it wouldn't work like that if it was real'. Try and explain a laser cannon with 14th century 'science' and see if that makes much sense in terms of todays science.
The laws of physics may well be immutable but thats not to say we've got it right at the moment, can you REALLY say that in 200 years time we wont have discovered some massive revolution in science that overturns some or all of those laws? What about alient technology, the Minbari in game are supposed to be over 1000 years ahead of use scientifically. The Vorlons and Shadows are MILLIONS of years ahead of us. How can you possibly presume that what we understand as the laws of physics apply in any way shape or form? That's the thing with science, its an evolving process, much of what we now 'know' will in time turn out to be, at least partially wrong.
And trying to apply 'the imutable laws of physics' to science fiction is one of those little things that always starts to get on my nerves a bit when people start trying to get all 'it wouldn't work like that if it was real'. Try and explain a laser cannon with 14th century 'science' and see if that makes much sense in terms of todays science.
The laws of physics may well be immutable but thats not to say we've got it right at the moment, can you REALLY say that in 200 years time we wont have discovered some massive revolution in science that overturns some or all of those laws? What about alient technology, the Minbari in game are supposed to be over 1000 years ahead of use scientifically. The Vorlons and Shadows are MILLIONS of years ahead of us. How can you possibly presume that what we understand as the laws of physics apply in any way shape or form? That's the thing with science, its an evolving process, much of what we now 'know' will in time turn out to be, at least partially wrong.
