New Gaim

[Ripple]

Actually, not having an official standard leads to a lot of opinions expressed by customers/playtesters being worth little. I go back to the playtest of the original gaim list, in which some testers were using stem and others using base. This leads to radically different utility in use of suicide fighters.

Here you have to very different scenarios...

If you remove the 'stem contact' flights as they contact, you are increasing the ability of of fighters to close and shoot, saturating AF. You will be able to force something through the AF screen, either your fighter attacks or you crewed missiles/pods.

If you don't remove them you are creating a situation where AF is much more effective, and combining crewed missile/pod attacks and fighters is difficult.

Ripple

 

[Foxmeister]

yeah this was mentioned, EA have good AF though generally, and if they have an escort too well its all bad for the Gaim.
although the flipside is 20 fighters can attack a KBT which also only has AF6

Basing the calculation on damage points adds a massive boost to adaptive armour. Essentially, anything with adaptive armour is gaining a double benefit - not only do you take half damage, you also reduce the number that can attack in the first place!

So a Ka'Bin'Tak will take potentially 20 attacks at full damage, whereas that poor, underpowered, Victory will take a maximum of 12 at half damage. :shock: (and before anyone says "trait loss", that has always been the case!)

Not a good solution IMHO - I'd have preferred to see something based on priority level.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Greg Smith]

Not a good solution IMHO - I'd have preferred to see something based on priority level.

But priority level isn't an indication of size - it would mean a White Star can be attacked by as many fighters as an Explorer.

 

[Foxmeister]

Not a good solution IMHO - I'd have preferred to see something based on priority level.

But priority level isn't an indication of size - it would mean a White Star can be attacked by as many fighters as an Explorer.

Basing it on PL would at least be fair because that is the whole purposeof PLs (allegedly ) - basing it on damage points just penalizes thoses races that rely on high damage points rather than active defences.

In your specific example, given the relative offensive capabilities of an Explorer vs a Whitestar, and that a Whitestar is probably far too fast to catch anyway, what's the problem?

All this does is give the ISA another buff that they simply didn't need which is precisely what this ruling does IMHO.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Triggy]

Not a good solution IMHO - I'd have preferred to see something based on priority level.

But priority level isn't an indication of size - it would mean a White Star can be attacked by as many fighters as an Explorer.

Basing it on PL would at least be fair because that is the whole purposeof PLs (allegedly ) - basing it on damage points just penalizes thoses races that rely on high damage points rather than active defences.

In your specific example, given the relative offensive capabilities of an Explorer vs a Whitestar, and that a Whitestar is probably far too fast to catch anyway, what's the problem?

All this does is give the ISA another buff that they simply didn't need which is precisely what this ruling does IMHO.

Regards,

Dave

Actually the "based on Damage points" number of fighters is deliberate in that White Stars are meant to get a slight break here, as are any other ship with Dodge. This also has an effect with boarding with Breaching Pods as ships like the Victory only have half of the Crew in the first place. Of course, by not getting them all in in one turn you aren't actually losing the fighters/pods, it only slows you down a little so a good player can still get as many in even if it takes slightly longer.

 

[Foxmeister]

Actually the "based on Damage points" number of fighters is deliberate in that White Stars are meant to get a slight break here, as are any other ship with Dodge.

Why? They are so fast and manouvreable they would have to *choose* to be caught in the vast majority of cases. Not sure about the relevance of dodge here - my issue is with this and adaptive armour.

This also has an effect with boarding with Breaching Pods as ships like the Victory only have half of the Crew in the first place.

Immaterial - they had this "issue" prior to this ruling and i didn't see anyone complaining. The simple fact of the matter is that prior to this ruling, whichever way you played it you could get the same number of fighters/breaching pods "in contact" with a Ka'Bin'Tak as you could with a Victory - now it's 20 vs 12 and that disparity is unwarranted IMHO. Given that the Klikkitak is DD precise, AA is always going to reduce damage, and as they are precise each hit is twice as likely to result in a critical. So, the result here is that Victory gains a buff - did it need one?

Of course, by not getting them all in in one turn you aren't actually losing the fighters/pods, it only slows you down a little so a good player can still get as many in even if it takes slightly longer

Again, immaterial. Your opponent has more opportunities to shoot them down.

Regards,

Dave

 

[katadder]

apart from as triggy said with breaching pods, ships with AA generally have half the crew and AA doesnt effect boarders.
also as mentioned the missiles are precise so more crits means more chance of trait loss which then leaves you with half the damage of other ships your level if lose AA.

 

[Greg Smith]

Why? They are so fast and manouvreable they would have to *choose* to be caught in the vast majority of cases.

If you take all of the Gaim fleet in consideration, the White Stars are particularly vulnerable to their emines, so giving them a break against fighters isn't a bad thing.

 

[Foxmeister]

apart from as triggy said with breaching pods, ships with AA generally have half the crew and AA doesnt effect boarders.
also as mentioned the missiles are precise so more crits means more chance of trait loss which then leaves you with half the damage of other ships your level if lose AA.

Again this is *totally* immaterial! Where were the howls of complaints (ships with AA vs boarders) that this was a specific issue prior to this "fix"? Also, AA trait loss has always been a risk, so there is nothing new there either.

I seriously doubt you could have got 20 klikkitaks in contact with a KBT whichever way you looked at it in the past, but now you can so the damage potential against the KBT has increased significantly, whereas with a Victory it has probably gone down.

Regards,

Dave

 

[katadder]

dunno, doubt you could get 12 fighters in base contact with a victory before so its actually gone up too.

 

[Foxmeister]

Why? They are so fast and manouvreable they would have to *choose* to be caught in the vast majority of cases.

If you take all of the Gaim fleet in consideration, the White Stars are particularly vulnerable to their emines, so giving them a break against fighters isn't a bad thing.

I really don't see that as a justification - IMHO, the WhiteStar is only a hairs width away from being broken in the first place!

Regards,

Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

dunno, doubt you could get 12 fighters in base contact with a victory before so its actually gone up too.

Whatever the number is, it's still a hell of a lot closer to 12 than it is to 20. The nett result of this ruling is that AA gets to "double dip" and that doesn't seem right to me. YMMV of course, but I think most of the ships that have AA are sturdy enough as is.

Regards,

Dave

 

[katadder]

against WSs better to keep them as klikkitas and have around 6 attacking the sides/rear with their AP guns more hits, all seperate weapons, all single damage so more than likely to take off more damage from a WS.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

Basing it on PL would at least be fair because that is the whole purposeof PLs (allegedly ) - basing it on damage points just penalizes thoses races that rely on high damage points rather than active defences.

Last I checked, the whole point of PL was to show the rough combat capability or a ship, not to show how large the ship is. I'm not sure what gave you that idea. And yes, basing it on damage points does penalise larger ships. That seems to be kind of the whole point when dealing with something for which the size of the target is a significant factor...

 

[silashand]

against WSs better to keep them as klikkitas and have around 6 attacking the sides/rear with their AP guns more hits, all seperate weapons, all single damage so more than likely to take off more damage from a WS.

Klikkitta Plasma Bolts are not AP, never have been. If they were I might actually think they were worth it.

As to being "horribly vulnerable to emines," now that the number of banks of such weapons have been reduced as well as making them slow loading and reduced AD in most instances, I think the WS are pretty safe taking a little damage as they come in. Once they get close they can easily dish out enough to compensate for what they've taken.

Cheers, Gary

 

[Triggy]

apart from as triggy said with breaching pods, ships with AA generally have half the crew and AA doesnt effect boarders.
also as mentioned the missiles are precise so more crits means more chance of trait loss which then leaves you with half the damage of other ships your level if lose AA.

Again this is *totally* immaterial! Where were the howls of complaints (ships with AA vs boarders) that this was a specific issue prior to this "fix"? Also, AA trait loss has always been a risk, so there is nothing new there either.

I seriously doubt you could have got 20 klikkitaks in contact with a KBT whichever way you looked at it in the past, but now you can so the damage potential against the KBT has increased significantly, whereas with a Victory it has probably gone down.

Regards,

Dave

Sorry to disagree but I don't think it is immaterial at all. Breaching Pods have always been an issue for ships with AA, Dodge and Stealth due to the low Crew scores. Combine this with ships with Dodge or Stealth suffering against the Photon Bombs and it's been a purposeful decision to give them a break on the Klikkitaks.

If White Stars are overpowered then we'll deal with that separately - this is about balancing the Gaim/Dilgar/Breaching Pods with this rule!

against WSs better to keep them as klikkitas and have around 6 attacking the sides/rear with their AP guns more hits, all seperate weapons, all single damage so more than likely to take off more damage from a WS.

Klikkitta Plasma Bolts are not AP, never have been. If they were I might actually think they were worth it.

As to being "horribly vulnerable to emines," now that the number of banks of such weapons have been reduced as well as making them slow loading and reduced AD in most instances, I think the WS are pretty safe taking a little damage as they come in. Once they get close they can easily dish out enough to compensate for what they've taken.

Cheers, Gary

In all of the games I've played both before and after this revision, ISA were horribly vulnerable to e-mines. This means that they took more damage than any other race, it doesn't mean that they were automatically destroyed.

 

[animus]

I think the rule is just. I may change my mind after a score of games but until then it all seems good to me.

As to White Stars being too tough, I disagree. I've yet to win a game with the ISA - they're very unforgiving of mistakes I've found.

 

[Foxmeister]

deleted unfinished posting
Regards,
Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

Basing it on PL would at least be fair because that is the whole purposeof PLs (allegedly ) - basing it on damage points just penalizes thoses races that rely on high damage points rather than active defences.

Last I checked, the whole point of PL was to show the rough combat capability or a ship, not to show how large the ship is. I'm not sure what gave you that idea.

What gave you the idea that I said it was? I said basing it on PL would be fair because that is how ships are supposed to be *balanced* in ACTA - I made no mention of ship size whatsoever! It would be nice if you would actually read what was said before putting words into other peoples mouths!

Regards,

Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

Basing it on PL would at least be fair because that is the whole purposeof PLs (allegedly ) - basing it on damage points just penalizes thoses races that rely on high damage points rather than active defences.

Last I checked, the whole point of PL was to show the rough combat capability or a ship, not to show how large the ship is. I'm not sure what gave you that idea.

What gave you the idea that I said it was? I said basing it on PL would be fair because that is how ships are supposed to be *balanced* in ACTA - I made no mention of ship size whatsoever! It would be nice if you would actually read what was said before putting words into other peoples mouths!

Regards,

Dave