P&P Playtest Pack v 1.1

[Scipio]

Crew Quality 8
To peform this special action, a ship must be able to turn at the end of its movement (ie. satisfy the movement requirements and not be adrift etc), and must have a turn remaining unused. At the end of the movement phase, it must use this turn to attempt to Boresight the specified target ship. If the target cannot be boresighted then the ship must turn as far as it can in the direction of the target. The ship may only fire on the specified target.

This is the solution I'm hoping for.
Bore sighting in this case is still quite restricted when comparing it to forward arc as you:
- Have to spend a SA that you could have done something else with.
- Most races only succeds half the times.
- You still have to point in the boresight direction of a specific ship so you can't align up the forward and side arcs in an optimal way to get to fire both a lot of times.
- The opponent knows which ship is targeted and can try to escape from the tracking ships turn radius.

 

[Meredda]

If we're going to go down a 'track that target' kind of road, then i really think it should have a dogfight type feel: an opposed crew quality should be used to give the feel of the target crew trying to shake off the tracking ship...

Could it not also be made so that the tracking ship announces it's intention to use this SA and it''s target when activated, and rolls the opposed CQ check then.

If it succeeds, play continues and the ship's actual movement is delayed until after the target ship has moved.

If the opposed CQ check is failed, then it moves immediately (giving its target the opportunity to shake him off), and the ship cannot fire it's Forward or Boresight guns (they were attempting to target the target ships, but failed)


>>>BTW: Happy to finally post on here. I've been lurking for a long time - so hi everyone! I'm a mate of Prophaniti who posts on here occaisionally. We're part of a wargames club in Leamington Spa / Warwick in the UK and have a 8-10 strong B5 ACTA community and an active campaign. We're going to start playtesting some of these new rules next Monday (our club night), so we'll be reporting back. Cheers<<<

 

[Triggy]

Battle report time!

Psi Corps vs Army of Light
5 Fleet Aallocation Points at War Priority Level
Annihilation scenario

Psi Corps
1 x Nemesis (with new modifications)
1 x Shadow Omega (24" Beam, 6/6/12/12 AD Mini-Beams, no Phasing Pulse Cannon and Shields 10/d6)
1 x Omega
2 x Mothership
1 x Hyperion
1 x Oracle
4 x Hermes

Army of Light
1 x Command Omega
1 x Sharlin
2 x Avioki
2 x Hyperion
3 x White Star
1 x White Star II (all White Stars were squadroned)
1 x Xill
1 x Xixx
2 x Sunhawk

The battle was fairly close and we realised afterwards that the Psi Corps fleet could have bought another Raid and Skirmish ship but initiative sinks aside this was a minor concern. I say this as we squadroned the White Stars and the Sunhawks to ensure rough balance for the sinks (we wanted to test lots of big Psi Corps ships at once so it seemed fair).

The big ships faced off at a bit of an angle with the Psi Corps Motherships and Hyperion facing the Sharlin/Command Omega directly and the Xill further on that flank and the White Stars/Sunhawks on the other flank facing three Hermes.

All of the big ships did reasonable amounts of damage but in particular at range they all were really survivable (on both sides - CBD, Shields, Self-Repair, Stealth, etc. all make for survivable ships). Indeed it was only when they all got to mid-range that the AoL focussed on the Nemesis and took it mostly down with combined fire from the Sharlin, Command Omega, White Stars and an Avioki. The White Stars did a fair amount of damage but got caught by a fighter horde (half of the Psi Corps fighters).

In the end, the game was won by the AoL with the Sharlin, Command Omega, Xill and a Hyperion surviving against the Shadow Omega and two Hermes when we called it.

Findings

The AoL fleet has excellent variety and seems to work really well. I still maintain it should have access to the Warbird/Strikehawk/Sky Serpent from the Drazi and should not have access to Centauri ships (they were never a part of the AoL). The game actually really felt like an assault on Clark forces so from that point of view it worked too.

The Nemesis really dished out plenty of damage and more importantly took it too. At the end it was crippled, skeleton crewed, had engines adrift and was about to die but was always functional even with severe damage (it isn't totally reliant on its main beam!).

The Shadow Omega has a good beam (the extra range meant it was in range a whole turn earlier) now, is also very survivable and the minibeams whilst not overwhealming, forced enemy White Stars and fighters to stay out of its sphere of influence.

Track That Target was used occasionally and whilst not a great threat, it did allow the odd ship to get a shot it couldn't have otherwise done.

All in all, a fun game and one that probably would have been even closer if the Psi Corps had taken the extra ship or two.

 

[Foxmeister]

Could it not also be made so that the tracking ship announces it's intention to use this SA and it''s target when activated, and rolls the opposed CQ check then.

If it succeeds, play continues and the ship's actual movement is delayed until after the target ship has moved.

If the opposed CQ check is failed, then it moves immediately (giving its target the opportunity to shake him off), and the ship cannot fire it's Forward or Boresight guns (they were attempting to target the target ships, but failed)

I posted a similar solution a while ago:

The first is that the side that wins initiative can always move one ship last, after all his opponents ships have moved. In the above example, this would at least give one of the EA ships a chance to boresight the G'Quan on any turn that the EA player wins initiative.

The second rule is a new special action which will give boresighted weapons a chance to stay on target - for the sake of argument, I'll call it "Stay On Target" (to distinguish it from the "Follow That Target SA expressed elsewhere) and it works thus:

A ship that currently has an enemy ship boresighted may declare that it wishes to attempt to "Stay On Target" when it is nominated to "move". Both ships make a contested Crew Quality check with the following modifiers:

• Player won initiative +1
• Ship is agile +1
• Ship has psychic crew and is within 8" of opposing ship +1
• Ship is lumbering -1
• Ship is currently suffering from the effect of a "speed" critical -1

If successful, the player attempting the SA may delay moving his ship until directly after the boresighted enemy has moved. This does not change the alternating sequence of ship moves - the ship performing the SA is considered to have moved "in sequence", the physical movement is just delayed until after the target ship has moved.

However, the "delaying" ship must move so as to bring the boresighted ship back into boresight, even if the enemy ships cannot subsequently be boresighted because the ship does not have sufficient turns or the target moves out of weapons range. In addition, if the ship cannot bring the target back into boresight, they cannot choose to boresight another ship even if an alternative target is now presented. Where this SA conflicts with the rule allowing the player who won initiative moving their ship last, this SA takes precedence.

 

[Prophaniti]

I'm usually against anything with lots of modifiers. Also, the current arc change is open to abuse, e,g. attacking targets that it would be impossible to engage otherwise.

My thoughts on TTT would be CQ check 8,9,opposed (tbc) (my preference would be 8 as it gives a 50% chance for an average crew to fire at 50% effect.). Declare target, line boresight up on its current position. Then you can attack it at half effect in the shooting phase (unless for some reason its still on the boresight, in which case stay at full effect.)

I've always considered this order to be a way of getting some effect when your fleet is out initiative sunk, so it doesn't need to be used that frequently, compare it to 'stand down and prepare to be boarded'.

As mentioned before I'll be playing Meredda on Monday so we can try some stuff out then.

 

[B5freak]

Agree the Abbai shield tweak looks good. One request however, please change the language in the last two lines to be more specific:

from PnP v1.1

Crew Quality Check: Automatic
Effect: By channelling excess power to the main shield arrays and carefully monitoring the fluctuations caused by enemy fire, Abbai engineers have developed the skill to boost the recharge rates of their shields. If this Special Action is successful, the ship will automatically restore half of its total Shields in the next End Phase. A Lakara-class cruiser, for example, will regain 6 points of Shields in the End Phase, rather than 2.

If I'm correctly interpreting the writer's intent, the language needs to specifically state that the shield rating becomes X/(.5*X). So the example would read, "A Lakara-class cruiser, for example, will have it's shield rating changed from 12/2 to 12/6 for the turn in which the SA was executed".[/i]

 

[Ripple]

Keep in mind that a 50% chance to do 50% of anything means have roughly 25% of a fleet...

TTT right now is solving three issues with bore sight, one perhaps unintended solution.

One is no target available due to sinks. Solves this by allowing you to target a ship in a cone of fire like any other race with less effect. Most bore sighted weapons are night twice as effective as non-boresighted so being dropped to 50% is a penalty even compared to the front arc cousins.

Two is no attractive targets due to sinks. This is the five Hermes behind you preventing you from getting a shot a the Omega in front of you. This was fixed for some ships due to Lumbering at least part of the time as you can line up on the ship, but doesn't affect all ships and you have to be able to match flight line... so not good for Lumbering shooters still.

Three is the over kill issue. Because a bore sighted weapon cannot be retargetted during fire, you often have to over kill your target and accept a effective net loss of AD in comparison with F arced opponents. Thing that makes the Vree so nasty is almost no AD ever fails to find a target, as should one die they simply spin the turret. All arced opponents do this to some extent, line up and multiple ships and fire the amount needed. Bore fleets now have the option to redirect some of their fire some of the time, especially if they have given up things like CBD protection for the priviledge.

For the record I still prefer Follow that Target as outlined by Burger above, though I would not have a restriction on only fireing on the tracked target... the bore weapon yes, but side gus could still fire at that menacing Whitestar to your flank.

As to the idea of opposed checks... i like that idea, if it replaces the CQ check rather than as an additional layer of roles. This is an order that I think we want to work about half the time, not 25% of the time or less... it just becomes another run silent then... an order that primarily just takes up space and complicates the rules.

If it works 50% of the time on average it gives the first ship to move a chance when you lose initiative (most important at the end of a game, when it's Omega vs Primus say and all the sinks have died) and it becomes an interesting choice vs defensive SAs like CBD, or maneuver SAs like Come About. Drop below that and your better off just trying to survive the turn and get position for next., which is frankly no fun.

Ripple

 

[dag'karlove]

Personally,

Boresighting was a reason i played the fleets i did. I liked that it made me think and made it all the more sweeter when i defeated that guy with turreted or forward arced weapons. yeah it sucked whn i couldnt use my big heavy gun but eventually i got the job done. Im kinda insulted actually that there needs to be a special action. It makes me feel like the game makers feel that we as players are not intelligent enough to learn how to use these weapons and use them effectively. Then everyone complained about boresight because they want an easy button. Personally i say get rid of that SA and lets go back to the old way.

 

[stepan.razin]

Personally,

Boresighting was a reason i played the fleets i did. I liked that it made me think and made it all the more sweeter when i defeated that guy with turreted or forward arced weapons. yeah it sucked whn i couldnt use my big heavy gun but eventually i got the job done. Im kinda insulted actually that there needs to be a special action. It makes me feel like the game makers feel that we as players are not intelligent enough to learn how to use these weapons and use them effectively. Then everyone complained about boresight because they want an easy button. Personally i say get rid of that SA and lets go back to the old way.

Now that you finished padding yourself on the back, and reaffirming your own greatness, please recall that most people here have an understanding that this game has to maintain a balance between fleets.

 

[katadder]

it does, boresight ships tend to get more AD (but not always I know) than foreward arc ships.

 

[dag'karlove]

Personally,

Boresighting was a reason i played the fleets i did. I liked that it made me think and made it all the more sweeter when i defeated that guy with turreted or forward arced weapons. yeah it sucked whn i couldnt use my big heavy gun but eventually i got the job done. Im kinda insulted actually that there needs to be a special action. It makes me feel like the game makers feel that we as players are not intelligent enough to learn how to use these weapons and use them effectively. Then everyone complained about boresight because they want an easy button. Personally i say get rid of that SA and lets go back to the old way.

Now that you finished padding yourself on the back, and reaffirming your own greatness, please recall that most people here have an understanding that this game has to maintain a balance between fleets.

While i applaud your english skills comrade razin, the expression is patting yourself on the back not padding. As for the understanding of the game and balance, for those of us that have been playing this since first edition, boresighting has been in the game since the beginning. It was offset by more dice on the main weapon. Yes it was a bit more difficult to target but when you did it made it count. A quick search will reveal several threads, the gist of which is that Boresight is too ineffective particularly for boresight dependent fleets and. that its too difficult to use. this is why this proposed SA has been devised. simply ecause people find it hard to play the fleet not because it unbalanced. Have a great day

 

[wkehrman]

Personally,

Boresighting was a reason i played the fleets i did. I liked that it made me think and made it all the more sweeter when i defeated that guy with turreted or forward arced weapons. yeah it sucked whn i couldnt use my big heavy gun but eventually i got the job done. Im kinda insulted actually that there needs to be a special action. It makes me feel like the game makers feel that we as players are not intelligent enough to learn how to use these weapons and use them effectively. Then everyone complained about boresight because they want an easy button. Personally i say get rid of that SA and lets go back to the old way.

Now that you finished padding yourself on the back, and reaffirming your own greatness, please recall that most people here have an understanding that this game has to maintain a balance between fleets.

Stepan,

Please recall that even the author of the game isn't really happy about this SA and has included it because people clamored for it. Additionally, please recall that this game is based on an existing universe (that of the TV show Babylon 5) and must allow for certain similarities between the game and the show to emerge. Often this is done at the expense of balance.

Dag'kar's support for Matt in this instance is reflective of a concern that it "dumbs down" the game--though this isn't necessarily what Matt sees as the "issues with a rule like this". There are regular posts around here about boresights and initiative which lead to a lot of arguing and lead me to wonder if there aren't a few people out there who are using the "maintaining a balance" argument as an excuse to cover poorly chosen fleets or poor tactics. That's not true in all cases of course, but I see very little in the way of FACTS coming out of the discussion and much more in the way of WHINING and RECRIMINATION.

I would agree with Dag'Kar that this SA is not necessary, or rather , it is necessary for just a few fleets--the Drazi spring to mind.

 

[Lokai]

its more an issue of how easy it is for a person to get initiative sinks and thus make it harder for borsight weapons to get a good target. generally they get more bang for their buck in AD so i can't aggree its a balance issue. they're balanced in that they get more AD to make up for their difficulty in picking the juiciest targets at times. IF their is going to be a special action that allows a boresight weapon to essentially act as a F weapon (even if it has to designate a target before hand) it should not also get the advantage of using all its AD. this would facilitate someone boresighting a less then optimal target and then use the SA and TRY to aquire a better target in its F/A arc, and if it fails that roll it can still use its weapon on what it was borsighted on.

some of the changes being made will help the initiative issue to some extent, but more work can be done in this area perhaps which would make boresight a little less of an issue.

 

[dag'karlove]

I have to disagree lokai. Personally i just destroy the initiative sinks in the first turn or 2 until i have th numbers whitled down to what i need them to be and then i go after the big boys. Yes it gets dicey but as i said earlier most definitely not impossible. Ill refernce my statement that this type of stuff dumbs it down for all of us and i dont think its nessecarry for about 95% of us on here.

 

[Lokai]

guess i got a lil jibberish, but what i was trying to say is i don't really think boresight weapons should be getting the SA, but anywho

 

[l33tpenguin]

its more an issue of how easy it is for a person to get initiative sinks and thus make it harder for borsight weapons to get a good target. generally they get more bang for their buck in AD so i can't aggree its a balance issue. they're balanced in that they get more AD to make up for their difficulty in picking the juiciest targets at times. IF their is going to be a special action that allows a boresight weapon to essentially act as a F weapon (even if it has to designate a target before hand) it should not also get the advantage of using all its AD. this would facilitate someone boresighting a less then optimal target and then use the SA and TRY to aquire a better target in its F/A arc, and if it fails that roll it can still use its weapon on what it was borsighted on.

some of the changes being made will help the initiative issue to some extent, but more work can be done in this area perhaps which would make boresight a little less of an issue.

The problem is most evident in large, slow ships that use boresight weapons. These are where almost all of ACtAs flaws show up.

1- large ships are not as powerful as swarms of small ships
2- they suffer from poor manuverability, making it difficult to use their main boresight weapon
3- swarm fleets can use multiple init sinks against the larger ships to stay out of boresight.

So you have strong bore sight weapons as the main armerment on slow, lumbering ships that aren't capable against swarms.

Just giving these slow ships a chance to move or even just turn out of order, i.e. after their target has moved (opposed CQ?) would help.

 

[dag'karlove]

@ Lokai i understood what you were sayin. I just disagree on the other part of the explanation. We agree but for different reasons. No worries.

@ LEET, Lets look at this from a naval perspective. A group of smaller faster ships are alsways going to have an advantage over the larger less agile ships in manuverabilty and mak it to where its hard to target said ship. Thats a fact of life. If a group of former soviet union (FSU) built Tarantul PG's or OSA 1 or OSa 2 Patrol craft attack say a Cruiser or an amphibious ship or an aircraft carrier of course its going to be hard to target them. They are nimble and small and thats the benefit to them. The downside to them is that it takes on hit and its sunk. The same thing can be said in reverse for teh Bigger ships. yes they are more manouverable but they can take more damage and have much better weapons (usually). Its Just facts of life. Combat is not equal sorry.

 

[l33tpenguin]

Combat is not equal sorry.

And I agree 100%

But we are playing a game

The new FAP breakdown helps, but swarms still have an advantage over larger ships. I agree that it *should* be difficult for large ships to bore sight small fast ones, I would prefer an SA that was more reflective a real time situation of one crew manuvering against the other.

 

[dag'karlove]

Combat is not equal sorry.

And I agree 100%

But we are playing a game

The new FAP breakdown helps, but swarms still have an advantage over larger ships. I agree that it *should* be difficult for large ships to bore sight small fast ones, I would prefer an SA that was more reflective a real time situation of one crew manuvering against the other.

Ahh but we are playing a game that emulates combat. And those are the realities in any emulation or simulation. those are things you cant get around. Basically even though you dont want it to its going to happen. This is one of the unexpected consequenceswhen one attempts to be like something else.

 

[silashand]

I would agree with Dag'Kar that this SA is not necessary, or rather , it is necessary for just a few fleets--the Drazi spring to mind.

Realistically, the only fleet I think this rule is appropriate for is Drazi. All the rest have other ways to compensate for the ships in their list that have boresight weapons. Otherwise I dislike any rule that gives boresight a wider arc than a straight line. The other variant suggested where the ship can make a turn at the end of the movement phase assuming it has one left out of its allotment seems a *lot* more appropriate IYAM and limits it somewhat because it forces players to consider a bit more during their movement what they will do. The current one I dislike a lot.

Cheers, Gary