photon multi 4 vs critical

[Meliadus]

Sorry was just wanting to know if you get a crit with the photon do you do 4 or what since it is a multi 4 weapon ??

Also anti-drone trait what is the point of having anything higher than a anti-drone trait of 1,I mean every drone attacking the ship is going to die with a 2 or above.

with the fed combined drone rack, is it really worth with the bigger ships at least going anti-drone 4 since if you throw a 1 your drone rack is completly emptied??

Just a couple of things that came up in my first battle wi my feds against klingons, and managed to get round their front arc, helped a lot since he proceeded to angle his ships :lol:

cheers guys

 

[Ben2]

No, the photon rolls four damage dice for a non-overloaded hit. If any of these are a 6, it scores a critical. Because photons are Devastating +1, that critical goes up two levels, applying the affects for both.

Ships have higher than anti drone 1 because on the roll of a 1 you run out of anti-drone ammo. Having higher means you can keep defending the ship with ADDs.

 

[Meliadus]

Right so am I right, that when firing with 4 photons you throw 16 dice.

Or as I've been playing it you throw 4 dice one for each photon and if it hits it does the 4 points of damage. This is what is throwing me ??

 

[scoutdad]

If you fire four photons... you roll 4 dice.
Each hit scores 4 points of damage.
If you hit the shield, simply reduce the shields by 4 boxes for every hit.

If you bypass the shields (or if they are all gone), then each photon rolls four dice and consults the attack chart:
1 - bulkhead hit... no damage.
2-5 solid hit, score one damage.
6 - Critical hit. Score one damage and roll on the system chart to determine the location of the critical hit.
And remember, as Ben2 aid, Photon torpedoes are Devastating +1, so every critical hit scores two "ranks/levels" of critical hit.

Anti-Drone greater than 1:
Actually... every drone dies. regardless. But if you roll a "1" the anti-drone is out of ammo. this will hurt of a D7C, as you go from anti-drone 2 to anti-drone 1; but if you only have anti-drone 1, you're now out of ammo! period.
that's the purpose of having more than anti-Drone 1!

With the Fed combined drone racks... they aren't emptied on a one. They only lose 1 AD.
so the 4AD drone rack drops to a 3Ad drone rack for the next volley.
A further roll of 1 will then reduce it to a 2Ad drone rack... and so on...

 

[Meliadus]

Ah thanks thats cleared up everything the only thing was when it mentioned in the combined drone racks was when the fed throws a one , ppl were saying you lose all your drones even if using it as add4, there's no reduction their just gone.

 

[captainquirk]

Actually... every drone dies.

Ah. But not every drone truly lives! :lol:

 

[Drummer]

Unfortunately though, in Star Fleet Battles, a Fed G-rack (this combo rack) could run out of ADDs, but still load and fire normal drones afterwards, which in this game, you loose the rack entirely and forever. Not exactly as flexible as SFB intended it to be, but there's always "house rules".

 

[storeylf]

In FedCom (whih is arguably the closer source game) the Fed rack will never run out of ADD or drones as it can reload both without ammo limits. However, reload mechanics on both drones and ADD tend to mean that once run out you are not terribly effective.

However, ACTA does still represent the Fed rack quite well in ADD mode. In FedCom, ships with multi Fed racks are extremely tough to take on with drones - to start with, once they run out of the initial load of ADD they do tend have more problems as you can't use the reload function in a turn that you fired the rack, and you must fully reload a rack before starting another, both combined mean it is very unlikely you will get back to that initial position without significant holes in ADD coverage.

Drones themselves should probably have a similar run out of ammo function, as whilst the source games have reloads for those as well, they work the same as ADD reloads which make it difficult to maintain the drone bombardment over multi turns. Kzinti in particular in FedCom tend to have a huge drone wave or two early a game and then slow down to a trickle. If the trickle of ADD reloads is represented by just running out then drones maybe should be as well. In FedCom going defensive whilst running out drone loads is a perfectly viable stategy, not so in ACTA.