Newer ships, lower thresholds?

[Alexb83]

Okay, this really got picked out in a hijack of another thread, but having reviewed the new additions in Armageddon, to the EA Crusade era and the Minbari, as well as the Liati (but not the Brivioki, Ka'bin'tak or Adira).

Was it intentional to give these ships much smaller crews, but much more importantly, thresholds for hull and crew which go as low as 50% in both cases? Almost every ship in every PL as of SFOS has thresholds at 70% minimum (and by my calculations some up to the high 80s). Why then are some of these new ships so crippled?

Perhaps newer ships require less crew due to higher automation. But by the same token, shouldn't they be /less/ sensitive to having their crews wiped out?

See http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22529&start=15

for some earlier discussion and no.s

 

[Burger]

WS Gunship is just as bad as Liati IMO. Neroon is a close 3rd. The EA have higher thresholds yes, but nowhere near as severe as 50%.

 

[Alexb83]

Oh, I agree the EA are slightly better off. The WSG at least has adaptive armour (for what that's worth).

But whatever way you cut it, all of these new ships are easily 5-20% worse off just in their thresholds. (then there's their hull values and overall crew scores, which seem low for all ships relative to their PLs).

 

[Voronesh]

Makes a little bit of sense.

So much fancy equipment, that can suddenly go poop.

But yes Armageddon has a few good ships, but most of the new ones, are mostly soandso....

 

[Alexb83]

It just doesn't make any sense that these 4-5 ships are the only ones in the fleet lists which do not have comfortably 70% or higher thresholds for crew and hull.
Why is that?

I can't believe more people haven't picked up on this - there are a few ships here which are greatly disadvantaged against their peers, and all of them are at war PL and above.

 

[Voronesh]

Well practically everyone knows about those thresholds, but there are so many problems with ships like the Neroon or Nemesis, that the threshold part is just one of many.....

 

[Morpheus1975]

Problem with assuming that the automation reduces crew is that you have no way of reducing the amount of crew damage received compared to other ships. If the crew damage was halved as in for every 2 crew hits the ship would take 1 then the crew can be adjusted properly to fit the expectations.

As it is you have less crew but your crew are just as likely to be hit.

 

[Kadorak]

I don't think its unreasonable to assume some advanced ships have high thresholds. I'm working on a personal unofficial add-on of ships including raider and non-white star based ISA ships and many of these have high damage thresholds: the raiders because their ships are jury-rigged and conversions to something the hull wasn't designed for, less redundant systems, and the ISA because the ships are very advanced and an amalgamation of technologies that don't really work together that well.

Also, the crew scores thing makes at least a vague amount of sense. It may not be good as a practical play matter, but logically if there are people running the systems at all, then hits will kill some of them. While they may be more spread out so you would think fewer would be killed at once, that may also mean there aren't as many 'spare' crew to take over their posts. Also, a lot of the automation may be of very routine non-combat tasks. These otherwise would be handled by crewmen who could then be pressed into service to staff deserted posts during a combat situation or engage in damage control. Thus there would still be the same number of people at risk in vulnerable combat positions, but fewer 'reserves' to take their place.

 

[Triggy]

Best way of showing a reduced crew is to have a normal-to-high crew score but raise the threshold showing that crew losses affect the ship earlier in the battle. As it is, most of those ships have high thresholds and low scores, rendering the damage score and threshold meaningless.

 

[Alexb83]

The issue I'm pointing out is that pretty much every other ship, at every PL, has 70% or above thresholds for their hulls (some around 85%) and crew damage tracks. These ships are all below 70, and some are at 50%. This doesn't make any sense, and isn't in keeping with the rest of ACTA.

They also mostly have far lower crew scores than are typical for their PLs.

 

[dant164]

Most EA players are more upset at their woefully lacking war PL choices they have yet to notice the low thresholds.

Is a ship of the line for humanities sake soooo much to ask for?!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

That'd be the Omega-class destroyer. Not powerful enough for war level, but definately EarthForce's standard line ship.

 

[WickedE]

I give my EA players a choice: SFoS Warlock, or Armageddon Warlock. They can use one or the other, but not both.
Same with WhiteStars. I let everyone in the campaign decide whether they wanna fight "Gimped" Whitestars or "Lethal" Whitestars.
Most think the Changes os of the Tournament/Armageddon list make them less effective, so they let the ISA player have the Lethal Whitestars.

...Which means I'ma have to buy a Liati for my campaign fleet. Dayamn.

 

[Kadorak]

Yeah, I intend to keep using the SFOS Warlock stats. It just doesn't make sense from a gameplay or fluff perspective that the EA would jump from Battle level Omega --> Armageddon level Warlock even *before* all the technology transferred from the ISA could be implemented, remnants of shadowtech or not. Should be Omega-->Warlock--->Nemesis

 

[Triggy]

I give my EA players a choice: SFoS Warlock, or Armageddon Warlock. They can use one or the other, but not both.
Same with WhiteStars. I let everyone in the campaign decide whether they wanna fight "Gimped" Whitestars or "Lethal" Whitestars.
Most think the Changes os of the Tournament/Armageddon list make them less effective, so they let the ISA player have the Lethal Whitestars.

...Which means I'ma have to buy a Liati for my campaign fleet. Dayamn.

The White Stars were rebalanced for good reasons - they were far too powerful in SFoS.

As for the Warlock, the new version is fair but it does leave the EA lacking at War level so I can understand your choice there!

 

[Voronesh]

Basically EA doesnt need even ANOTHER ship for war lvl.

Just make Warlock and Shadow Omega at war lvl. Also makes the tech advancement a little bit more believable. Narn get ISA tech advances too, and they need a super dreadnought at armageddon, EA manages by making a simple armored/heavy cruiser?

But im going to use Preludes great ship as SFOS warlocks for stats ^^.

 

[Alexb83]

I don't think moving the ships around in PLs is the solution - nor is the total hull value of any given vessel a problem. Ships should be in the same order of magnitude at a given PL, bu that's about all.

Again, to point out the title of the thread, this is about what seem to be completely inappropriate threshold levels, for ships at any PL, let alone war and armageddon where these ships all sit.

50% thresholds just don't belong to the rest of ACTA, so why are they in there?

 

[Voronesh]

Simply because most armageddon lvl ships arent worth it.

Take a Nemesis and you might have just decided to lose this day, cause your enemy made the smart decision and went with 2 Bin'Taks.

The problem isnt just the thresholds. Thats just a ruleset. (there was a good listing of why Stealth cant work as advised in ACTA) Same here. Reality does not apply inbig measures here. Its about play balance and fun. And feeling right. Sure the Thresholds feel wrong. But then again, its just a rule.

The problem isnt just this number after the "/" its the whole ship in many cases.