Not Another White Star Thread (TM)
- Thread starter Hindsight
- Start date
Foxmeister
Mongoose
katadder said:
That's not just an initiative issue though - it's initiative and boresight, which TTT or some variant will hopefully address.
Regards,
Dave
How does move first, fire first help with sinking?
I can help with one concern... the big squadron being held to last but firing last, but I don't see how it helps with the positioning/arc/bore sight issues that form most of the core issues.
What constitutes a normal sized game. Depending on race I see a real mix of activation numbers being normal.
Ripple
I can help with one concern... the big squadron being held to last but firing last, but I don't see how it helps with the positioning/arc/bore sight issues that form most of the core issues.
What constitutes a normal sized game. Depending on race I see a real mix of activation numbers being normal.
Ripple
Ripple said:
It would stop that whole situation were you can't shoot at the big ship right in front of you with your boresight because of the 2 scouts hiding behind the astroid field that get to move first.
Eg. under the present system if the EA had one omega, and the Vree a Xill and two of their skirmish vessels the omega is pretty much never going to get to shoot at the xill with its heavy laser. And if the two skirmish ships hid at the other end of the table, or behind something, the omega might not get to shoot anything with its heavy laser.
But with the move a ship then shoot with it (maybe move first, fire first isn't the best way to describe it) method the turn would go something like.
Vree scout moves, and because its hiding doesn't shoot.
Omega moves into boresight with the xill, then shoots it.
Xill moves, then shoots back.
last vree ship moves, and is also hiding so doesn't shoot.
Squadrons have the potential to be nasty, (especially bombardment squadrons), and would probably have to be limited to 3 ships max. But then again, if their killer blow doesn't work, then they are open to fire from the rest of the enemy fleet.
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
So you mean, move AND fire in the same action. Not going to happen. It alters the game too much.
Not saying its a good idea, it just is a drastic change to game play and affects much more than just movement and firing.
Not saying its a good idea, it just is a drastic change to game play and affects much more than just movement and firing.
mollari_uk
Mongoose
This isn't my idea for the rule. Perhaps I was too simplistic in my explaination but it's because I've brought it up before that I didn't want to go into too much detail.
The idea is that the moving and firing phases don't change except that in the firing phase you must choose to attack first with the ship that moved first. Hence why you need cards or something to keep track.
So if you use init sinks to move first that aren't in the battle and use you big ships last, then your big ships won't fire until the end of the turn. If I move my important ships first I get to fire first.
This also has the benefit of making bigger ships with lots of all round weapons better because you can move them first knowing you'll get to fire first.
Foxmeister
Mongoose
mollari_uk said:
Not if it's a boresight ship you won't, as you won't be able to select your target of choice.
This mechanism solves some of the issues, but not of all of them, and comes with the added headache of having to track the order in which ships moved which will become more and more cumbersome as the size of the game increases.
Regards,
Dave
I'd be quite interested to try playign the game with the movement system from AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS at some point - the maneuveres would make it quite interesting and its probably quite easy to work out which ship has
Low, High and Very High Maneuvability
not saying its any better but I think it could be fun to try
Low, High and Very High Maneuvability
not saying its any better but I think it could be fun to try
mollari_uk
Mongoose
Foxmeister said:
It's not supposed to solve issues with boresight but actually using my idea can help. At the moment you have to target the ships that moves before you (until TTT comes out) and that's normally the init sink ships. Using MFFF (Move First, Fire First) means that there's a good chance your opponent will move the ship he wants to fire first, that way you have more favourable targets to choose to boresight (in theory).
Tracking the order isn't difficult, it just requires some up front work. Most people have some way of tracking their damage and stats without usingthe books. All you need is one card per ship that has it's stats and damage track on it (this is useful to have now anyway). Then when you move a ship put it's card face down on a pile. Once it comes to fire, the top card fires first and you have all the stats in front of you. Simple!
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
mollari_uk said:
This doesn't in any way solve the main issue of init sinking and bore sights. I can still use my sinks to ensure your bore sights don't have targets and mine do.
If my Big Ship is parked infront of your Big Ship and I out sink you, I can move it to just the right position so it gets the most use of its guns and you get the least, primarily affecting bore sights
If your opponent is stupid, that is!!!mollari_uk said:
If a Warlock was parked in front of me and I had the opportunity to deny its main weapon firing at my big ship, I would say to hell with firing first, if I move my sinks first, you're not going to be able to fire at all!
mollari_uk
Mongoose
Fair point, but as I said, it's not supposed to fix boresight. In fact it's not a be-all-and-end-all fix at all. It's simply a way of gaining some benefits over the current system with very little change...IMO.
l33tpenguin
Mongoose
mollari_uk said:
The problem is, well, the MAIN problem is bore sight. I don't see many problems with the current system if there were no boresight weapons. Most other weapon arcs and ranges can be worked with. Boresight is just so limiting, that when combined with the way movement works you get something broken.
l33tpenguin said:
It doesn't affect the SAs. They can all be used as is.
It doesn't affect the ships. You don't need to meddle with the ship weapon or movement stats, they are good to go. Even traits like agile and lumbering can stay exactly the same.
Scouts would have to attempt to ping things at the begining of the turn, but thats no huge change.
We are going to run it that fighters still move and shoot before ships (Anti fighter will work as is.) It could make fighters more vunerable to accurate ships such as whitestars and shadow scouts. But hey, that can be overcome by tactics, such as not attacking with fighters until their attack can be supported by a ship or two. Make the accurate ship have to chose who to attack.
Ok, it is a big change to the turn structure, but I don't think it will drastically change much more than how ships move and fire. And even then that only changes in a good way as it makes sinking boresight ships out of the game much less of a problem.
As for it being hard to keep track of who has moved and fired in a big game, I guess I finally have a use for that big bag of red tiddly winks I bought ages ago. Like I said before, I'll report back on how our games go on Sunday.
More specifically, the main problem is Drazi boresight. Various ways have been suggested to make it less desirable to take a swarm of small ships to use as init sinks, and all run into the problem that the Drazi fleet is designed to be a swarm of small ships which will be fouled up by any such fix because of their boresights.l33tpenguin said:
The reason for making the White Star's laser forward arc rather than boresight is the White Star's manoeuvrability. Every Drazi ship of Raid level or lower is Agile with 2 x 45 degree turns - OK, not as good as the White Star's 2 x 90 degree turns, but still enough justification for making all Drazi weapons forward arc. Leave the boresight restriction on bigger, clumsier ships such as the Omega. Then apply your choice of fix for init sinking.
If that would make the Drazi too powerful, maybe just give them a bonus on the CQ check for TTT. Or define a new Drazi ship trait, Tracking System, which gives them all the effects of TTT while allowing them to use another special action during the same turn.
Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
hiffano said:
Got it. Can't have a White Star that isn't more powerful than anyone else, can you?
