Rawwar said:
I’ve used White Stars once and will never use them again until they get fixed as they are sick and an insult to me as a gamer to play. I play against them only because they need killing at any and all given opportunities.
There is a lot wrong with ACTA right now. I'll preface this reply with that. I watched Vorlons against Vree tonight, and the Vorlon War ship took a lucky crit in turn one, and couldn't fire at all for two turns.
The Vorlon player just about conceded right there, and so the White Star issue, as it has come up again and again, is an issue of popularity. The White Star is easily one of the top five "oh thats from Babylon 5" ships in the game, people who didn't watch the show, still recognize it from promotions and other materials which used it as a catch point for potential viewers.
I could write a book about the Demos, I could go on and on about Swarm Fleets. There are plenty of things that need updating/tweaking.
So with the above said, I'm going to ask that you come at the White Star with feedback, and the term "sick" doesn't help us construct changes to test out, as we are in a period of public testing, and I'd like to be able to sit back, when P&P is released, and know that the White Star had all the help it could get, at being balanced, while still being fun to play, and worth taking. The ISA doesn't have a whole lot going for it, as so many of our ships were invented for the game, they fail to capture what the original White Stars brought out during the series. I'll never buy a White Star Carrier, and at least the Narn craft that were invented look like they belong in a fleet with the other ships, some of what they gave ISA just looks like cobbled together chewing gum in the general shape of a White Star, and then stepped on in the case of our silly Skirmish shuttle thing.
Rawwar said:
The only way you can fix that is drop White Star’s range down to 8” or raise all secondary’s to 12” or above. Secondary’s do nothing against White Stars I know because I’ve used them sat in a Shadow Omega’s side arc range rolled my saves and said is that it. Once you get out of the most dangerous arc of a ship it becomes a war of attrition which you just can’t lose. If there is a particularly nasty ship in your opponent’s fleet you mob it with several White Stars and it dies.
I did not suggest the range reduction to bring the White Star in line with secondaries. The Demos and the Dag'Kar both are raid ships with tremendous range. The ISA can call on either as allies, but we're not taking White Stars with range, thats what the Victory is for, and thats a whole nother discussion.
The 12" Range of the White Star is about reducing our kill radius. With a smaller kill radius, if I stop at 12" and shoot you, sure, your secondaries cannot shoot me back... this turn. Where exactly am I going to go on the next turn? I can shoot past you, sure, and at 13" turn 90 to the left, move to 14" and face you, but I only have 15" of movement. That puts me literally in your face, and if you know that going into it, you can use tactics, to make your moves, to counter my movement options. At 18", I have a much larger kill radius to move around in, and the purpose in playtesting the Knife Fight variant, is to see if a smaller kill radius is enough of a nerf, to encourage fighting the way canon fluff nuts like myself use them, instead of abusing the 18" range and using them as White Star Snipers.
Losing 6" to our kill radius, it hurts. Many of my ships just didn't get to shoot, where usually its just the Blue Stars that get out maneuvered and wind up with nothing to shoot at. This time I had White Stars picking their noses, out maneuvered by a Narn of all things (initiative sinks mainly, I had 9 ships to his... 14 or something, some in squadrons so it was like 12 moves to my 9). A strong ISA Skirmish choice would help here, we'd get 1 White Star, 1 Skirmish Ship and 2 Blue Stars, instead of 1 White Star and 3 Blue Stars. Here's me wishing my Blue Star Skirmish Variant took a bit more cred before being discarded. I guess I could just a skirmish ally.
Rawwar said:
Oh and while I’m on the subject White Stars DO NOT need allies.
If we had solid options at all levels, I'd give up allies. As it stands there are only four ships in our fleet list I'd ever use. The Tara'lin (which is still weakish), the Victory (for giggles sake), the Blue Star, and the White Star.
Rawwar said:
There’s no point giving White Stars two extra AD or anything the point is they’re too powerful as admitted by Matt hence the nerf he’s put up for play testing. Basically they need to lose something.
Huh? Where'd you get +2 AD? We lose 6" to our beam, and gain 2 HP. We do not gain any AD in any of the scenarios presented. The only change to the gun is to the range, and a gain of 2 HP since we now can only fight at Knife Fight range. No crew gain.
