Redundancy/Armour - Which Version?

[Triggy]

katadder - Foxmeister and Burger are absolutely correct, if you want to be perfectly fair you do need to take into account of active defences.

As has been suggested, damage scores are the best reflection of this but also aren't the whole story. It would be simple to implement on the basis of PL or damage alone but both would penalise someone.

 

[katadder]

well AF and interceptors are active defences and as foxmeister hasnt taken beams into account against hull he cant against interceptors either.
and these ships are already lower on damage etc because of actie defences and are actually more vulnerable to crits due to being able to lose said defences (where a tikrit has nothing to lose).

 

[eldiablito]

The redundancy idea has GREAT merit!

We should make an easy update for all ships above a specific priority level; although I cannot recall the previous suggestion. If I recall, it was 1 for Battle, 2 for War and 3 for Arm. Now with that said, we could go round and round with what that exact number should be and how we should tweak it to suit some ship or other.

Rather than making exceptions and tweaks BEFORE play-testing; let us try out this initial idea and THEN, make tweaks for Narn ships, Brakiri ships, and even Earth Explorers.

 

[Target]

We base our's off crew score & works extremely well cause crew scores are meant to be balanced cause hits on ships like explorer throw things out.
Having it based on priority lvl just isn't the way to go.
Worked it out it's been about 2 years of having redundancy, we have no where the balance issues you guy's have. Our games are more about tactics than before.
Narn don't just become moving crits/ adrift sorry.

 

[Foxmeister]

well AF and interceptors are active defences and as foxmeister hasnt taken beams into account against hull he cant against interceptors either.

Actually, in my calculations, I set a base level for where active defences count. In the case of Dodge it is 4+ and lower, and for Stealth it is 4+ and higher. In my opinion, AF and interceptors are marginal enough that they fit into the same categories as Dodge 5+ and Stealth 3+, which means they are not good enough to warrant inclusion.

As I've repeatedly stated though, my formula is only supposed to serve as a starting point for redundancy values - not an end product in and of itself, so it doesn't have to be complete.

and these ships are already lower on damage etc because of actie defences and are actually more vulnerable to crits due to being able to lose said defences (where a tikrit has nothing to lose).

Sorry, but just because trait loss can occur doesn't mean they are any less valuable.

In the specific case of the Liati, it has 5 traits, only one of which counts as an active defence in my opinion, so it would have to be very unlucky to lose it on a random roll. The same is true of most Minbari, and the White Star, so you can argue that many of the ships with active defences also have some degree of redundancy to trait loss, since they have many traits they can potentially lose and most of them have nothing to do with their active defence.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Ripple]

Can't believe you don't think dodge 5+ and interceptors matter... or AF, especially as fighters are a big source of early shot crits... shrug

Ripple

 

[katadder]

exactly, try saying interceptors dont matter to a vree/centauri/dilgar fleet when they are trying to get their DD weapons through them. or that AF dont matter to a gaim fleet when their main weapon is fighters.
all defenses have to be included and interceptors stop more of the initial volley of shots than a dodge 4+.
dodge 4+ against 6 shots on average dodges 3.
interceptors 2 against 6 shots on average will stop minimum of 3 in my experience although am sure burger or someone will provide maths to prove me wrong.

 

[Burger]

interceptors 2 against 6 shots on average will stop minimum of 3 in my experience although am sure burger or someone will provide maths to prove me wrong.

I have learned that trying to work out the averages for interceptors is about as simple as volcano scuba diving :lol:

 

[Foxmeister]

Can't believe you don't think dodge 5+ and interceptors matter... or AF, especially as fighters are a big source of early shot crits... shrug

Ripple

Again, I repeat, my formula is only their to serve *as a starting point* to determine reasonable levels of redundancy, not the value of the redundancy trait itself.

If you want redundancy figures to be low, there is insufficient granularity (in my opinion) to reflect lower levels of active defences.

The base I've worked from is:

Raid - Redundancy 1
Battle - Redundancy 2
War - Redundancy 3
Armaggedon - Redundancy 4

The idea being that any formulaic approach to determining redundancy should try to place an average ship, with average defences, at the redundancy levels given above for their PL.

So, both the Hyperion and the Var'Nic get redundancy 1, whereas a WS gets redundancy 0, even though the Hyperion has both AF and Interceptors and the Var'Nic does not because again, *in my opinion*, the level of active defence on the Hyperion (AF and Interceptors) is not as great as that on the WS to warrant the Hyperion having a zero redundancy or the Var'Nic having redundancy 2.

That's not the same as saying they don't matter - just that within the granularity being proposed, they are unlikely to be significant factors.

By all means, come up with an alternative formula that takes everything into consideration, but I contend that unless you want a much higher spread of redundancy values, it won't actually change much.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

dodge 4+ against 6 shots on average dodges 3.
interceptors 2 against 6 shots on average will stop minimum of 3 in my experience although am sure burger or someone will provide maths to prove me wrong.

So?

The difference is that barring trait loss, accurate weapons, and e-mines, Dodge 4+ doesn't degrade at all. You've mentioned 6 shots - what about:

12 shots?
24 shots?
36 shots?

What's the value of Interceptors 2 now compared to Dodge 4+? What if all those shots are from a non-accurate beam?

You are looking for a degree of "accuracy" that simply doesn't exist within the game full stop - the PL system doesn't allow for it because if it did we wouldn't be having discussions as to how overpowered/underpowered certain ships are for their PL.

You can make your calculations as complex as you like, but ultimately all that matters is whether or not the end result comes up with what you consider to be a reasonable degree of redundancy for any given ship.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Burger]

You can make your calculations as complex as you like, but ultimately all that matters is whether or not the end result comes up with what you consider to be a reasonable degree of redundancy for any given ship.

/Signed!

 

[katadder]

dodge 4+ against 6 shots on average dodges 3.
interceptors 2 against 6 shots on average will stop minimum of 3 in my experience although am sure burger or someone will provide maths to prove me wrong.

So?

The difference is that barring trait loss, accurate weapons, and e-mines, Dodge 4+ doesn't degrade at all. You've mentioned 6 shots - what about:

12 shots?
24 shots?
36 shots?

What's the value of Interceptors 2 now compared to Dodge 4+? What if all those shots are from a non-accurate beam?

You are looking for a degree of "accuracy" that simply doesn't exist within the game full stop - the PL system doesn't allow for it because if it did we wouldn't be having discussions as to how overpowered/underpowered certain ships are for their PL.

You can make your calculations as complex as you like, but ultimately all that matters is whether or not the end result comes up with what you consider to be a reasonable degree of redundancy for any given ship.

Regards,

Dave

and you are ignoring a very effective defense against certain fleets ie interceptors.
what if the weapon has accurate, how effective is the dodge then? how many times have people said a 5 shadow scout fleet will hammer a 5 WS fleet. however against hyperions the shadow scout would not get anywhere as many hits.
I mentioned 6 hits, this is actually every AD from a shadow scout hitting which is unlikely. getting more than 6 hits from a single raid on raid is not hugely likely unless getting a massive beam roll up. shadow scout against WS/hyperion is average 4 hits, WS takes all 4 hits on the chin, hyperion will more than likely stop 3 meaning it takes just the one hit. now the WS has already got more hits and you want to say it has less redundancy than a hyperion?
almost same thing can be applied with any vree, dilgar, or centauri ship.

as you cant/wont discount dodge you really cannot discount interceptors either as though maybe not as good a defence as dodge it is and still can be a very effective defence against non beam weapons.

 

[Arcadia]

I had the idea that redundancy was only to help big ships survive a little longer when fighting swarms!!!

Not to balance ship to ship. Is well known to all the “un-balance” between ships. Redundancy should not be use to correct this issue.

Some ships of the same PL (Liati) with redundancy or not will always take less crit’s than others (Tikrit) of the same PL, if it does not lose any traits. That difference or un-balance, if you like to call it, must be preserved if the redundancy is introduced. IMHO.

 

[Foxmeister]

what if the weapon has accurate, how effective is the dodge then?

How many accurate weapon systems are there in the game compared to straight beams? An order of magnitude less I guess. That makes Dodge a far better defence simple because you're less likely to encounter an accurate weapon than you are a beam.

hyperion now the WS has already got more hits and you want to say it has less redundancy than a hyperion?

Yes! An absolute prime example of two ships that deserve different levels of redundancy. That is fundamentally where I am coming from.

as you cant/wont discount dodge you really cannot discount interceptors either as though maybe not as good a defence as dodge it is and still can be a very effective defence against non beam weapons.

I *do* discount Dodge at 5+ - I consider Interceptors, in general, about as useful so I discount them completely because they can be overloaded and as you add interceptors they are a diminishing return.

However, I shan't labour these points any further because you and I disagree at a fundamental level so therefore it is pointless to continue. You think a straight PL based redundancy works and is balanced - I believe that it isn't and that ships with active defences *beyond a certain* level should have less redundancy than those that don't.

Regards,

Dave

 

[katadder]

hyperion now the WS has already got more hits and you want to say it has less redundancy than a hyperion?

Yes! An absolute prime example of two ships that deserve different levels of redundancy. That is fundamentally where I am coming from.

think you misread this one, taking it out of the paragraph it was in. the WS has taken more hits than the hyperion after dodges/intercepts from a shadow scout.

 

[Foxmeister]

hyperion now the WS has already got more hits and you want to say it has less redundancy than a hyperion?

Yes! An absolute prime example of two ships that deserve different levels of redundancy. That is fundamentally where I am coming from.

think you misread this one, taking it out of the paragraph it was in. the WS has taken more hits than the hyperion after dodges/intercepts from a shadow scout.

No, I didn't misread it - what I was referring to had nothing to do with your example and everything to do with your statement that I quoted in that I do want the WS to have less redundancy than a Hyperion.

Regards,

Dave

 

[eldiablito]

...And some people don't really care right now; They just want a way to help bigger ships. We should play-test the priority suggestion now and discuss AFTER some good data has been generated.

Perhaps this is all that is needed, perhaps we find out (not surprisingly) that some raid level ships do not need the same level of support...

 

[Triggy]

Well the original proposal was for Redundancy being at the following levels (if the player can pick which criticals to use it on):

Battle PL = 1
War PL = 2
Armageddon PL = 4

This isn't a fix for all imbalances, it's simply an attempt to get the bigger ships seen more. Raid PL ships don't really need the boost as although they ain't perfectly balanced with Skirmish and Patrol ships, they aren't far off either.

Does anybody actually care to playtest this?

 

[Ripple]

We should have some time this weekend but were looking at doing the WS first... is this a higher priority?

Ripple

 

[sidewinder]

And not only do you get diminishing returns with more interceptor dice, interceptors get less useful as the level of the game goes up.