New Scout Rules vs Drone Limits

[Asguard101]

Granted I have not seen the new scout rules, but from what bits I have read on the forum, it appears scouts can hinder drones, to a large degree.

Has any thought been given to the fact the Kzinti rely on drones more than any other race and should, perhaps, be granted a racial trait allowing them to be able to have 4 or 5 ships firing on one target?

 

[Myrm]

I've never been a huge fan of the 3 ship limit myself, I saw it really as a balance effect for the fact that lots of single AD drone armed ships could mizia away ADD defences, our group has a tendency to use tractors and phasers against those saving the ADDs for the big hitters, so for our player decisions it made little difference when we played games with and without the 3 ship rule.

It certainly is not there accurately simulating previous SFU drone control issues - and for games where drone control becomes more of an issue (earlier periods ofthe SFU and fighter games) there are better ways of doing that (IMO of course). The Scout ability and its persistence and multichannel possibilities do stymie the 3 ship limit I feel, and I think there needs to be some consideration of this with those rules in mind - after all the limit came into play after playtesting the rules as is and defining 3 ships as the break point of silliness - the change in rules may alter that break point (I expect it to do so).

That said Drone Control limits are the cited justification for that limit and so thats the structure that Im working and thinking about where the next bit comes from.....

If you wonder about drone specialist ships and want them able to fire fairly freely within the game while it has a 3 ship firing cap to simulate drone control limits, then my first point will be that it shouldn't just be Kzinti to consider, though they will be relevant more than most. Any race with double drone control capable ships that carry a whack of racks will be relevant.

A fairly simple solution is to go through the SFB and FC lists and find those ships with Double Drone Control, mark them in ACTA as 'Dedicated Drone Platforms' and state that they do not count towards the 3 ship limit as their superior drone control systems allow them more frequencies and so do not interfere with their fleetmates.

 

[Ben2]

A drone ship with scout (like a lot of drone ships) can spend a scout channel on drone control and throw their drones at a target that has already been fired at be three ships. You can only do this once per target though.

As drone ships usually have 6 drone dice, this can be very handy.

I look forward to the D6D coming out.

 

[Captain Jonah]

A couple of things.


Firstly the scout ability to jam drones is targeted against an enemy ship firing at a friendly ship. I don’t believe it prevents three other ships firing on the target, it just stops one ship per scout channel firing its drones. So increasing the three ship limit simply puts us back where we were to begin with, a scout jams Drone fire from one or two or three ships but the rest of the fleet is then free to pile in silly numbers of drones again.


Secondly one of the scout abilities is to add an extra ship to the three ship limit by using its scout sensors to control the extra Drones. This means four ship Drone groups attacking a single target. The Klingon Drone bombardment cruiser has 6 AD of Drones which it can add to an existing three ship group.

Once we get more fleets with Drone ships you will be back to throwing 18+ Drones at a single ship with Fed and Kzinti fleets. Or more since a Drone bombardment ship can be part of a three ship group with a DN and BCH and then a second Drone Bombardment ship can use a scout sensor to join the group for bigger games when you want to legally hit people with 20+ Drones onto a single target.....

Speaking as a Gorn I'm not happy with the thought of that. :roll:

 

[Asguard101]

A couple of things.


Firstly the scout ability to jam drones is targeted against an enemy ship firing at a friendly ship. I don’t believe it prevents three other ships firing on the target, it just stops one ship per scout channel firing its drones. So increasing the three ship limit simply puts us back where we were to begin with, a scout jams Drone fire from one or two or three ships but the rest of the fleet is then free to pile in silly numbers of drones again.


Secondly one of the scout abilities is to add an extra ship to the three ship limit by using its scout sensors to control the extra Drones. This means four ship Drone groups attacking a single target. The Klingon Drone bombardment cruiser has 6 AD of Drones which it can add to an existing three ship group.

Once we get more fleets with Drone ships you will be back to throwing 18+ Drones at a single ship with Fed and Kzinti fleets. Or more since a Drone bombardment ship can be part of a three ship group with a DN and BCH and then a second Drone Bombardment ship can use a scout sensor to join the group for bigger games when you want to legally hit people with 20+ Drones onto a single target.....

Speaking as a Gorn I'm not happy with the thought of that. :roll:

I'm a Hydran person, myself, but until they come out I have playing with Kzinti and Feds. With the Kzinti I've noticed they are much more dependent on Drones, than the Klingons & Feds. If you compare equal ship from both races, you can see the Kzinti have half the Disruptors than the Klingons equal. All the Kzinti ships in play have 4 drones, until you reach the Heavy ships. SO typically you'll see 12AD firing on a ship from a KZ. In the last game I played, I saw a D7 swat down 14 AD drones and that was with no assistance from any other ships. Now granted there was a lot of luck involved, with the ADD not rolling any 1s, but you cannot base playability of a race off of a chance of knocking out the ADD quickly.

The way I'm view the world of drones is the Feds and Klingons have drones for opportunity shots, and the Kzinti have drones as their life blood. It would make sense for them to have better drone control over all. Even if it was being able to add one more ship to a fire line, that would help balance the weapon the Kzinti favor in battle.

 

[Captain Jonah]

We have just gone through months of grief to try to settle the Drones problems and the three ship limit while not perfect was better than some of the other options.

Yes the Kzinti are the premier Drone chuckers which means every Kzinti fleet gets to throw 12 AD of Drones against a single target every turn. The Feds and the Klingon’s car lucky if they can do half that number against an enemy without buying a cheesey DWD fleet.

ADDs run out of ammo, it may not be on turn one, it may take till turn three or four but once those ships in the Fed and Klingon fleets no longer have an ADD they are reduced to the same state that non Cloak/ADD races are when facing Drone heavy fleets. Dead……..

A Kzinti Scout can add its Drone fire to a three ship group as any other scout can. Allowing the Kzinti to field four ship groups means that they are firing more Drones against a single target than Fed or Klingon fleets have in total.

With a Fed fleet as an enemy who you Drone jam is easy, a DN/BCH/DWD because each has 4 AD of Drones and jamming them reduces the Fed Drone fire to all but worthless. A Kzinti fleet, ok I jam those three who all have 4AD of Drones. That just leaves those five who also have 4AD of Drones.

The scout rules don’t make the Kzinti any less the main Drone user. In fact they make them more so since the ability to jam the Drone fire from chosen ships means with a Fed or Klingon fleet you go for the big ones leaving the rest of the fleet with one or two Drones each. A Kzinti fleet will have far more Drone firepower left in a scout environment than anyone else will.

 

[McKinstry]

We have just gone through months of grief to try to settle the Drones problems and the three ship limit while not perfect was better than some of the other options.

Amen to that.

ADDs run out of ammo, it may not be on turn one, it may take till turn three or four but once those ships in the Fed and Klingon fleets no longer have an ADD they are reduced to the same state that non Cloak/ADD races are when facing Drone heavy fleets. Dead……...

The laws of probability will always apply over time. Any one game can anecdotaly feature wildly good or bad examples but over time, a 1 will appear 1/6th of the time and the more drones an ADD has to roll against, the sooner they go dry.

The scout rules don’t make the Kzinti any less the main Drone user. In fact they make them more so since the ability to jam the Drone fire from chosen ships means with a Fed or Klingon fleet you go for the big ones leaving the rest of the fleet with one or two Drones each. A Kzinti fleet will have far more Drone firepower left in a scout environment than anyone else will.

Amen again. The Feds won't be shooting many if any drones against a Kizinti fleet since to use the combo in offensive mode (except at the end of an initiative cycle where the last ship still hasn't had to use it as an ADD) exposes them to instant targeting. For Klingons, assuming a roughly even amount of drone channels are available to both fleets, the scout rules should really aid the Kizinti in both being able to selectively fire 4 drone salvos at a target or two while at the same time, selectively jam the D5D or C8 that will be one of the few Klingon ships with a drone salvo bigger than 2. Cutting down on incoming drone fire should also help the Kizinti redress the phaser/disruptor disadvantage as in later rounds, the Klingon will be using Phaser 1's and 2's for defense while the ADD load on the Kizinti should be much healthier.

The plasma races are going to have a bit more challenge as well now that a four ship salvo becomes a possibility. About the only good news for the Gorn was that otherwise crummy light cruiser becomes very useful as a scout.

 

[storeylf]

If you compare equal ship from both races, you can see the Kzinti have half the Disruptors than the Klingons equal.

Heavy cruisers on both sides have 4.
BCH on both sides have 4
DNs on both side have 6.
Fast cruisrs on both sides have 2
d6/light cruiser have 4 ( I tend to view the D6 as the light cruiser equivalent)

There are some odd ships on both sides that don't always have a direct comparison, but the workhorse ships are nearly all the same number of disrupters.

Where kzinti have traditionally been weaker is offensive phasers, they have forests of phaser 3s, but only a handful of phaser 1s.

 

[Asguard101]

Two more questions:

Can a Scout Counter the Counter-drone action?

and

Can a Scout use Counter-Drone on a Scout firing drones?

 

[Rambler]

Two more questions:

Can a Scout Counter the Counter-drone action?

As the rules are written No. Nothing says that you can Counter a Counter-Drone.

and

Can a Scout use Counter-Drone on a Scout firing drones?

Yes

 

[Captain Jonah]

This hasn't been ruled on yet but ftom SFB the Scout counter Drone function is against the Drones rather than the ship. You get sensor lock on the ship and swat its drones as they are launched rather than affect the launching ship.

So while you can counter Drone I don't see you being able to counter the counter Drone use

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

We played a 1500pt last night - Kzinti vs. Gorn, 2 players per side. Kzinti had no scout, but the Gorn had the CLS with Scout 4!

There was a fair bit of terrain on the table, so the Kzinti had trouble just getting LOS with all their ships - and of course now you have to be within 18" to get a good volley off. With the Gorn CLS canceling out pretty much 16 drones a turn for 3 turns - the Kzinti just could not keep the Gorn at bay and the plasma started taking its toll.

Needless to say the main Gorn player felt it was awesome and fair and the main Kzinti player strongly disagreed.

We too noticed later that even if the Kzinti had had their own Scout it wouldn't have allowed the to counter-counter drone.

If there is a rematch I think I can see the Kzinti player just going for straight numbers next time - say at 1500pts maybe 10 CLs! Scout 2 wouldn't have been such a big deal, but drone 4 with lots of terrain really shut things down!

-Tim

 

[mdauben]

With the Gorn CLS canceling out pretty much 16 drones a turn for 3 turns - the Kzinti just could not keep the Gorn at bay and the plasma started taking its toll.

Needless to say the main Gorn player felt it was awesome and fair and the main Kzinti player strongly disagreed.

As a long time Gorn player in SFB, who suffered at the hands of drone races for years, this makes me smile.

 

[Captain Jonah]

With the Gorn CLS canceling out pretty much 16 drones a turn for 3 turns - the Kzinti just could not keep the Gorn at bay and the plasma started taking its toll.

Needless to say the main Gorn player felt it was awesome and fair and the main Kzinti player strongly disagreed.

As a long time Gorn player in SFB, who suffered at the hands of drone races for years, this makes me smile.

If the Kzinit isn't sqealing like a roadkill furball then its clearly unbalanced and needs tweaking.

If the Gorn is cheering and happily snacking on fresh roast tribles in celebration of his impending victory then is clearly about right :lol: :wink:

 

[Asguard101]

We played a 1500pt last night - Kzinti vs. Gorn, 2 players per side. Kzinti had no scout, but the Gorn had the CLS with Scout 4!

There was a fair bit of terrain on the table, so the Kzinti had trouble just getting LOS with all their ships - and of course now you have to be within 18" to get a good volley off. With the Gorn CLS canceling out pretty much 16 drones a turn for 3 turns - the Kzinti just could not keep the Gorn at bay and the plasma started taking its toll.

Needless to say the main Gorn player felt it was awesome and fair and the main Kzinti player strongly disagreed.

We too noticed later that even if the Kzinti had had their own Scout it wouldn't have allowed the to counter-counter drone.

If there is a rematch I think I can see the Kzinti player just going for straight numbers next time - say at 1500pts maybe 10 CLs! Scout 2 wouldn't have been such a big deal, but drone 4 with lots of terrain really shut things down!

-Tim

How many ships did the Kzinti have firing drones verses how many where stopped by the Scout?

 

[mdauben]

If the Kzinit isn't sqealing like a roadkill furball then its clearly unbalanced and needs tweaking.

If the Gorn is cheering and happily snacking on fresh roast tribles in celebration of his impending victory then is clearly about right :lol: :wink:

I dont know if I'd go that far, but I honestly felt that the plasma races (primarily Gorn and Rom) where poorly balanced against the drone users in SFB, particularly in "late war" scenarios where Fed, Kling and Kzin fleets could litterally flood the board with ship and fighter launched drone markers.

The rules for drones and plasma are so different in ACTA that I don't have enough experience to voice an opinion on balance in this system (although the fact that a Gorn was able to decisivly beat a Kzinti gives me hope for the future!).

 

[AdmiralGrafSpee]

How many ships did the Kzinti have firing drones verses how many where stopped by the Scout?

There were 8 ships and 4 were getting stopped per turn. The 4 that weren't stopped often featured ships that didn't have line of sight or were over range 18. We played with quite a bit of terrain, and that in itself was good for the gorn and not so hot for the kzinti - well except the cruisers could actually navigate around the terrain!

-Tim

 

[Greg Smith]

I can see that one level 4 scout could skew the results of a small game, particularly for Kzinti.

 

[Asguard101]

I can see that one level 4 scout could skew the results of a small game, particularly for Kzinti.

I'd say even a Level 2 or 3 Scout could Ruin Kzinti 3 or 4 Ship drone Cap. And truth be told a smart Commander would jam the Kzinti Scout preventing it from being a 4th ship. They've been saying Scouts will help the Kzinti, but I'm not convinced that will be the case.

 

[SneakyPete]

A ship with the Scout trait can perform a number of duties during a battle equal to its Scout score.

I take this wording to mean a scout can only use a scout trait as many times as his Scout X score.

In addition, during each turn, a Scout ship can perform a number of the following functions equal to its Scout score.

So if the Gorn blocked 4 waves of drones in one turn it would have exhausted its Scout ability.


Do I have this right? Because if not, the scout becomes more powerful against Kzinti than a DN, and if they have two....
... and going the other way the Kzinti scouts have no ability to jam seeking Plasma attacks.