Points or PL system to pick fleets?

[katadder]

no problem for me with maths, but i hate wasting half an hour or more of limited time whilst an opponent spends every last point and i have seen this happen with people taking forever to do their 40k/fantasy lists.
also havent seen any major in balance with armageddon breakdowns either as the breakdowns apply to both sides so both can get the same advanatage/or disadvantage (apart from those without skirmish/patrol ships.

 

[Capt_Cosmo]

The big concern that I would have over a point system is that it is too easy to break. You could find a very low level ship with a single long range beam and buy fifty of them for the price of say 1 primus. Then when rolling 50 dice you can saturate your opponent with hits.

I have seen it happen with multiple systems.

Basically the game devolves into a simple algebra problem. How do I spend points to guaranty that I can roll the most dice.

 

[katadder]

theres that too, but it also happens with the PL system - hence the narn bat squad, or the 10 saggi fleet of doom.

 

[JayRaider]

Voted stick with the Priority level system that we have.
This is a GAME. For FUN. :twisted:

 

[emperorpenguin]

no problem for me with maths, but i hate wasting half an hour or more of limited time whilst an opponent spends every last point and i have seen this happen with people taking forever to do their 40k/fantasy lists..

absolutely agree, I see this all the time, in fact I'm guilty of it myself. I find it very difficult to write lists for points systems. With the PL system I can create fleets in minutes

 

[Jhary]

A Point system woud be suit better for a Fleet action game because you have to fill the gaps for real fleets.

Now we have 5 point Battle ok take 5 Battlelevel ships or split one point or put some point toghter for a Warlevel one.

But what happens if you don´t have any ship for this PL´s?

Right now you have the discusion why is my Centaurie EA Cruiser Pl War and not Raid. Is this better then why cost the Centaurie Ea Cruiser 999 Points?

 

[Locutus9956]

The problem I see with the PL system is that it's a nice idea in theory. But it just doesnt work any more. When the game first came out it was fine, ships werent euqal across a PL but they WERE roughly balanced across FLEETS. Now Im afraid theres just too MUCH variance across a PL, often within the same fleet list! (Compare a Vorchan to a Ka'Tan for example).

Now the textbook justification for this I would guess is the usual 'balanced as a fleet' idea in that this may be the case but then the Primus is vastly superior to the G'Quan. And indeed this is almost certainly the case, say for example you were playing 5 point raid, I would give 1 Priums and 6 Vorchans about even chances against 1 G'Quan and 6 Ka'Tans.

However this has one MAJOR flaw. It has the effect of, rather than resulitng in people picking those fleets and having balanced games, people just IGNORE the relatively weak ships. So rather than have those fleets you invariably end up with 2 Primus and 2 Vor'Chans vs 10 Ka'Tocs.

Now personally I dont think thats any less fair than the original fleets but its BORING. The G'Quan never gets used because its a worse choice. And THAT is the problem with balancing ships across fleets rather than on their own merit. Im sorry, but as much as a points system is FAR from perfect it is FAR less flawed than the PL system as it stands. Which is a shame as, at heart, I really DO like the PL system and want it to work.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Which is a shame as, at heart, I really DO like the PL system and want it to work.

All the issues you cite in your post are all reasons why a new edition is on its way. Points-based or not, games that are in continual development will always require a period of rebalancing and adjustment from time to time.

Which is precisely what we are doing

 

[Locutus9956]

I know, Matt, and from what I've seen so far I am really looking forward to 2nd Ed but I'm still worried that the PL system is going to make it harder to add new content without constanly redoing the entire lists. Still as I believe has been stated elsewhere I for one amd more than happy to hold off on the complaining about this that or the other thing until 2nd ed hits the shelves and has had some playtime

Besides theres more than enough to winge about with the new Troligan for now, so I'll leave the actual game mechanics alone for the time being

 

[Ripple]

The only reason 40k/Fantasy takes 'forever' to come up with a list is there are one and two point options on every unit. If you had to buy standard units it would be as fast or faster than the current pl system. The problem was never with the points, it was where you were allowed to make decisions.

The PL system attempted to correct this somewhat by making the clumps generic, but what really happened was folks only ended up taking the top of the clumps, and ignored the bottoms. As Locutus points out above, if you had to take the good with the bad these edge plays wouldn't matter, but you don't so it creates issues.

As to Arm. breakdowns being of equal impact...sorry, races with good choices in the bottom rungs got much better, races with no choices in the bottom rungs or bad choices got worse. Saying it's equal because both sides have it would only be valid if the choices on both sides are equal too.

Ripple

 

[Locutus9956]

Y'know, one little idea that might really sort the PL system out would be a simple one like a rarity factor on ships.

Going with the example I used above you could have it along the lines of simple like asign three levels of rarity to ships:

Common, Uncommon, Rare

Common: You can take as many of these ships as you like.
Uncommon: You can take up to 1 Uncommon ships for every 2 full FAP of fleet allocation.
Rare: You can take up to 1 Rare ship for every full 5 FAP of fleet. Taking a Rare ship also uses up an 'uncommon slot' allocation available in the scenario.

These rarity values apply to ships at their own PL. If a ship is purchased either above its PL it counts as 1 higher than normal (to a maximum of 'Rare')

Along with these rules you could also have that no more than 2/3 of your fleet allocation points may be slpit down. The remaining third may ONLY be split if no choice at the current level is available and then must be split down as little as possible (ie if your fleet has no War choice availble in a War level game you may only split the remaining third down to battle choices)

These are very rough ideas and would need streamlining and adjusting of course but try this for example:

Vorchan: Common
Primus: Uncommon
Tertius: Rare
Demos: Common
Prefect: Rare
Sullust: Uncommon


In a 5 point raid game the centauri player can take either 1 Primus or 1 Tertius (the Primus is considered rare as its being bought above its PL). It may then spend the remaining 3 FAP as he wishes he could take a Sullust but only 1 as he would then have 2 Uncommon slots used. He could not take a Prefect as well as at this level both Tertius or Primus have used up his rare slot for these 5 FAP.

He can take as many Demos as he likes as they are common and at current PL. He can spend up to 3FAP on Vorchans as they are common but below the current PL so he cant spend more than 3 as that would be more than 2/3 of his fleet.

By contrast with the Narns:

G'Quan: Common
Ka'Toc: Common
Ka'Tan: Uncommon
G'Lan: Uncommon

The Narns in this case cant go with their full on 'Bat Fleet' as that would be splitting more than 2/3 down. They can spend a maximum of 3 FAP on splitting down so they take 4 Ka'Tocs and 2 Ka'Tans (the Ka'tans are uncommon so he cant take more than 2). He cant then take a G'Lan as this is also an uncommon choice so he takes a G'Quan as his final 2 FAP.

Some adtional ideas to go with these options:

Scouts: Scouts are a special case, I would say make them common but limit them to being able to take no more than 1 scout per 2 full FAP available.

Fighters: Increase the number of fighters most races get in wings but a MAXIMIMUM of 1 FAP may be spent on independant wings.

Get rid of the armageddon point split, it just overcomplicates things and leads to people trying to find loopholes to max out their fleet choices and defeats the spirit of the system imho.

This may all sound a bit complex from the way I've described it but if you look into it a bit you should see that its really not, and also neatly solves the issue of people shelving the vanilla ships for far better varients.

 

[Lord David the Denied]

A better idea in my opinion would be to classify ships according to role rather than availability. List ships as "line," "support" and "command," say, and restrict them to one command choice for every 5 FAPs in the game, 1 support per FAP spent on line units and unlimited line units to the game FAP total.

So the Centauri fleet, to go with what I know, and using a few examples, would look like this:

Vorchan - line
Sulust - support
Primus - command

So Johnny Centauri could have, in a 5 point raid game, a single Primus (for his 5 FAP fleet total), a Sulust for every whole FAP spent on Vorchans, and as many other Vorchans as he wanted. So the 1 Primus, 6 Vorchan fleet would be viable, but 2 Primi and 2 Vorchans wouldn't be legal. Or, he could take 1 Primus, 1 Sulust and 4 Vorchans, but not 1 Primus, 2 Sulusts and 2 Vorchans.

Thoughts?

 

[Locutus9956]

Well I think were both essentially talking about the same thing LD

Needs fine tuning to make it work for all fleets though. But I think we can agree that it would be a massive improvement

I'd actually favour going with your version but factoring in some kind of rarity thing as well for varients. (with rare varients only allowed per 3 standard hulls (or part thereof (for example you could take 1 rare varient and no common 1s but you could only take a SECOND rare varient if you had 4 of that hull in total (for example you could take 1 Tertius, 1 Tertius + Primus, 1 Tertius and 2 Primus, 2 Tertius and 2 Priums, 2 Tertius and 3 Primus and so on (well you could in theory but theyre command so you cant). The only trouble here though is you would have to have different designations at different pls (what happens in a war level game otherwise? you get hundreds of Vorchans and still only a couple of Priuses etc)

So youd have (going with the Centauri example again) at Raid.

Vorchan - Line
Vorchar - Support (rare)
Corvan - Support
Sullust - Support
Primus - Command
Tertius - Command (rare)
Centurion - Line
Prefect - Line (rare)

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Adding a rarity component would add more depth and reflect background material, so I suppose it's worth doing.

Of course, this whole exercise doesn't actually fix anything. It restricts "good" choices rather than correcting ships that are too good, or too bad to use. A Vorchan with better stats would be used more often, and a Primus with less super-mega-death beams would be used less often.

That said, a decent fleet construction mechanic is worth having anyway. It will need a lot of research into actual fleet composition in the background material, though. Just how many Primus battlecruisers are there in the Centauri Royal Navy, and how many Vorchans for every Primus? How many Omega destroyers do the EA have? How many G'Quans do the Narn have? Things like that...

 

[katadder]

well the solarhawk would be rare as theres only 10 been built, but who's to say that all 10 cannot be brought to the same battle? thats the problem with adding in more limitations that really arnt needed. you could turn up at a world and find a load of saggis there in for routine maintenance checks so the 10 sagi fleet is viable, etc etc any example can be used and I ma against any more limiting factors than the number of ships you are allowed.

 

[Silvereye]

A better idea in my opinion would be to classify ships according to role rather than availability. List ships as "line," "support" and "command," say, and restrict them to one command choice for every 5 FAPs in the game, 1 support per FAP spent on line units and unlimited line units to the game FAP total.

So the Centauri fleet, to go with what I know, and using a few examples, would look like this:

Vorchan - line
Sulust - support
Primus - command

Bad idea using a Primus as a Command, as under your guidelines in a game involving 5 FAP at WAR level, you could still only field 1 Primus as that is your sole command choice.

Perhaps a better idea might be to allow up to 1 FAP in every 5 on command choices up to 1 FAP in every 5 on support choices and unlimited availability on Line choices.

 

[MongooseMatt]

well the solarhawk would be rare as theres only 10 been built, but who's to say that all 10 cannot be brought to the same battle? thats the problem with adding in more limitations that really arnt needed. you could turn up at a world and find a load of saggis there in for routine maintenance checks so the 10 sagi fleet is viable, etc etc any example can be used and I ma against any more limiting factors than the number of ships you are allowed.

This is true. As a company, we are also hesitant to tell you, the players, exactly what you can and cannot bring in _your_ armies!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

well the solarhawk would be rare as theres only 10 been built, but who's to say that all 10 cannot be brought to the same battle? thats the problem with adding in more limitations that really arnt needed. you could turn up at a world and find a load of saggis there in for routine maintenance checks so the 10 sagi fleet is viable, etc etc any example can be used and I ma against any more limiting factors than the number of ships you are allowed.

How often did the Germans run into every King George V class battleship ever built sailing in company? How often did the Japanese see every Iowa class battleship?

If there are only ten Firehawks in the whole Drazi navy, they're not going to risk every example of this rare class in one operation. That would be insane.

Bad idea using a Primus as a Command, as under your guidelines in a game involving 5 FAP at WAR level, you could still only field 1 Primus as that is your sole command choice.

Perhaps a better idea might be to allow up to 1 FAP in every 5 on command choices up to 1 FAP in every 5 on support choices and unlimited availability on Line choices.

I was just pulling ideas out of my arse, dude. The classifications and points allowances could be revised until the stars go dim. The suggestion is what counts.

 

[Burger]

If there are only ten Firehawks in the whole Drazi navy, they're not going to risk every example of this rare class in one operation. That would be insane.

Well they might want to get them all blown up, so they could get a better ship

 

[H]

just leave it all as it is, but make it compulsary to shout CHEESE at every opportunity if your opponent takes ten saggis!