Playtest Rules 1.1 - Centauri

[Bendigeidfran]

CBD is an issue. It's replaced CAF as the single best SA in the game, and any ship that can't leverage it feels like it isn't good enough. Look at how much emotion has been attached to even suggesting that CBD go to a 50% AD rather than one weapon. It's central to the tactics of every fleet in the game.

Ripple

Not that I know the full history of CBD from the earliest, but I'm not a big fan of a rule being designed so it has special exceptions not inherent to ships. Ships without Interceptors obviously don't benefit from SA that increase those - but CBD had to specifically exclude all 1-weapon ships and created these bizarre situations where some ships get no benefit and others get alternating benefits for nearly free. I won't say completely free because they do have to give up other SA to use it but that's a pretty light cost to me.

I would have preferred that the CBD SA either be dropped completely since most ships probably "Closed Blast Doors" when it entered combat, or revised it so that power was taken from some other sources - like the old 1/2 thrust and/or have ALL weapons offline.

 

[Cavalier1645]

You know I just really hate that people just clown on Demos, White stars, or any small squadron ships. IF your big cruiser keeps getting clobbered by a group small ships, well oh well. Any big ship might as well paint please shoot me it's self. Classic military planing is take the most dangerous target first. Often that is the biggest warship out there. If don't like small ships adjust your tactics to deal with them. And remember its a random die game, any tactic doesn't save you from bad dice

 

[Cavalier1645]

Ok for my personal edification why is the demos so feared

Ok let us compare to its predessor Vorchan
10 AD ION cannon vs 10 AD Ion (now 6 what garbage)
10 AD Plasma Accelerator vs 6 Ballistic torps

40 points of damage vs 26 points of damage
yes torps crit more, yes its got longer range (all 8 inches)

The only reason I take Demos over the Vorchan is because the Vorchan has no interceptors. I think it stupid that advance race fleet don't have any defensive system against in coming fire. If they (mongouse) put interceptor on Vorchan, I would be using them.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The Vorchan never had 10AD ion cannons. It's 8AD. The Demos got 2 extra dice and the interceptor, that was the issue. Since Mongoose refuses all entreaties of reason and persist with the PL system, the Demos had to be downgraded to "pay" for the interceptor.

The primary weapons were always considered a simple swap, and broadly equal, just horses for courses. The ion cannons couldn't be reduced to parity because then the interceptor would be "free." Can't have that in the PL system, so the Demos took a hit to the ion cannon and dropped to 6AD.

Frankly I'd only really use one for the interceptor, now. I prefer the Vorchan's weapons, I don't like slow loading weapons.

 

[katadder]

I only ever used vorchans and with the drop to 6 ion cannon I never see a reason for demos now anyway. 8 ioncannon AD would have been fine as most peoples problem was the fact that it had more ion cannon for some reason.

 

[CZuschlag]

The corrected (6 AD) Demos is fine. The old one was not.

Edit: I found a quoted value for it of 3.8 (skirmish is base 2). Getting confirmation.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

The corrected (6 AD) Demos is fine. The old one was not.

Edit: I found a quoted value for it of 3.8 (skirmish is base 2). Getting confirmation.

A pox on you and your maths obsession! :evil:

 

[Ripple]

Just trying to picture a maths obsession with a pox... what would it look like?

Ripple

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Just trying to picture a maths obsession with a pox... what would it look like?

Ripple

It'd look grim, believe me. Like death warmed up.

 

[Cavalier1645]

ok so the Demos got nerfed

So the number of them we can field got nerfed

I guess every one fears Centauri

But at least we got a hunting pack rule (which i may now use from now on-Life is hard for Maximus Frigate)

 

[Ripple]

Actually the numbers thing had little to do with Centauri, that had to do with swarms being broken.

And don't get too cozy with the wolf pack rule, as that is not favored at all by the crowd and may end up, like the Minbari did at one point, being something you can only play with alone.

Ripple

 

[Da Boss]

must admit not keen on it but need to try it - hope to get a game over next few days to try

 

[Triggy]

Actually the numbers showed where a ship was in relation to the PL distributions. There was no indication of whether a ship was "worth" its PL, just where it ranked in the scheme of things.

 

[Da Boss]

trying out 5 battle vs Narn tonight - see how the 4+ save does against the hunting pack

 

[Ripple]

The two rules most agreed on being questionable in the way more important over powered direction... tested against each other... what exactly will that tell you Da Boss?

Ripple

 

[Da Boss]

well as you said in another thread - gotta test these things as well as just say they are broken?

I'll stick a report up tommorow as just off to bed - having had a really fun game (Centauri won) and then watched Batman with Jack as the Joker - cool

short synopsis = the Hunting pack did not really work for me (tried a Primus, 3 Demos and a Maximus) but I played it badly, the 4+ save made Sho'Kovs almost invulnerable but did not really help the rest of the Narn fleet that much...........

Demos with 6AD seemed ok, TTT on target did not come into play as I had so many ships tied up in the squadron Narn had no problem getting Boresight - I think Greg used it once.

 

[CZuschlag]

But, Da Boss, you always test against a control, not another experiment. That's the point of an experiment; you always test against a known quantity. Just like when you're doing pH testing in Chemistry lab. Suggested controls include:

-- Brakiri. Very little has changed with them in the current release.

-- Minbari. Web of Death has created very little negative feedback and is likely now fully included.

-- Vree. Almost no known changes.

-- pak'ma'ra. No changes yet whatsoever.

Other options:

Vorlons without the Frigate.
Shadow Scouts.
Dilgar.

These are relatively unchanged from previous releases.

 

[silashand]

But, Da Boss, you always test against a control, not another experiment. That's the point of an experiment; you always test against a known quantity. Just like when you're doing pH testing in Chemistry lab.

That's not always true. You only test against a control when the control is what you want to achieve as a result. When both sides of the equation are changing as in many of the new options, unless it is agreed that all are meant to achieve the same level as control option it is best to test the changes against themselves to insure the entire set is balanced against each other. Your supposition assumes that the relative power level of your examples is the desired outcome for all modifications. Given the number and scope of changes across all the fleets in the P&P playtest document, I think that assumption is flawed since some are noticably more potent than others. Unless you are in the know as to what level is desired by Matt and perhaps the official playtesters, I think yours is nothing but an uninformed assumption at this point. It may be accurate, but personally I doubt it given what we've seen so far.

Cheers, Gary

 

[CZuschlag]

Because some races are not changing (seen any pak'ma'ra updates lately?) we can safely assume that this level of quality is the expectation. The designers have already made it clear that they are looking for small cool options, and only provide real upgrades to three fleets --- Raiders, Abbai, and Narn. Therefore the other minimally-changed races are indeed the norm, and therefore, since we are looking for a balanced game, they are the correct targets.

Quad Erat Demonstratum.

 

[Ripple]

Essentially my take is the same as Chris's...

I wasn't meaning to be snarky DaBoss, just asking what you thought you'd see as results. If the two worked well against each other it wouldn't tell you much about how they would work against other races, in particular as both of these significantly increase the survivability of the races in question.

If both work as advertised they would cancel each other out, and the contest would not tell you how much tougher they make an individual race against one of the races that is not receiving a significant upgrade.

Didn't mean to imply that it wouldn't be fun to play, just wondered what you hoped the test would show.

- side note, the Drazi are also getting some significant love of some kind. Attack Run could be a significant help with the trouble the Drazi had thanks to changes between first and second ed. Ranges generally moved outward in second ed, but the drazi's didn't, Agile helped keep them in arc, but their speed kept them from getting multiple shots on single ships.

The new orders let them potentially shoot when they lose initiative (normally a guaranteed missed ship), shoot a second time at the same ship (often hard due to closing speeds of the two ships) and at least for the small ships, shoot in movement allowing you to use Sunhawks effectively. These ships rarely survive being targetted, and as the breakdowns are becoming less friendly, getting a shot out of these short range small ships will be even more important.

Sean

rambling again I know